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Fig stretched her arms— well, as much as she could inside this piano, her hands actually slammed into the walls and hurt really bad, but she pretended it didn’t. She was exhausted, having stayed up way past the bedtime her mother imposed by hiding in one of the numerous secret corridors with Tracker, a surprising excellent party buddy, while indulging in some of the “cheap stuff” that came from Adaine’s jacket. What a night.
Adaine was only willing to dish out drugs with her daily jacket money if the other two went to bed on time. Well, that just meant that Fig would have to hide her drowsiness, or else she may never get a taste of those weird pills that made her tongue numb again.
To wake herself up, Fig lit a hand-rolled clove, which quickly filled up the inside of the piano with smoke, and she started to cough like a pussy. Ah, that felt good. Nothing like a morning smoke to get her respiratory system into fight-or-flight.
After basking in the smoke for a while, Fig was ready to start her day. She grabbed her crystal. It was almost out of power. Did she forget to charge it overnight? Ah, she must’ve left her crystal charger with Tracker. That crazy beast of a girl. Luckily it had enough power to text Adaine.
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No response. Adaine has probably learned to ignore messages like that. She sent them, what, four times a day? But that’s just because Fig goes through a lot of emergencies!
After much thought, Fig sent a follow-up:
In the piano. Please let me out. xoxo
Fig fought the urge to fall back to sleep while she waited. After a minute or so, she got impatient and just decided to call her.
Her crystal buzzed a few times, the anticipation building until the other side picked up.
“Fig? What is it? Don’t tell me I have to get you out of that damn piano.”
“Yeah! That’s it! Wait, why can’t you? I’m hotboxing myself to death here!”
“Actually, I’m at the Compass Points right now. Ayda needed me to help sort through the collections and ‘retrieve’ any stolen copies. I’m, uh, a little busy.”
“That sounds so fun,” Fig coughed very loudly into the phone. “I wish I could come, but I’ve got stupid school! I wish I could skip like you, but my mom always picks me up from school, and it’s so nice.”
“I’m not skipping! I got special permission from the principal to help his daughter with this task. I would never skip school for no reason.” Adaine pulled away from the phone microphone and seemed to talk to someone else, before pulling back. “And it’s not like I’m neglecting my studies. Fighting these thieves gives me a more practical hold on my abilities. It’s good to get into a real battle every once in a while.”
Fig juggled the options: kicking ass with her cool girlfriend and bestest buddy, or going to school with everybody else and being treated with Basrar’s afterwards with her mom. Well, that last part wasn’t decided, but Sandra Lynn easily folded to a wholesome request from her daughter.
Adaine piped up, having sensed (not in an oracular way) that Fig was considering tagging along. “I’d prefer if you didn’t come. There’s a lot of concentration spells, and there’s nobody I know who breaks concentration quite like you.”
“Gee, what an honor. By the way, my crystal is almost out of power. Please call Jawbone or Ragh or someone to open the piano. I can hardly see my hand in front of me.”
Static blared through Fig’s crystal, causing her to recoil. Blipping through was Adaine’s apathetic voice, saying “Oh no I think we’re losing signal,” before the call disconnected. A moment later, Fig’s crystal died, just like its owner would now that nobody was coming to save her.
Ayda squeezed a book into a small gap in the upper bookshelf, looking down at Adaine, who set her crystal on the table with a satisfied expression.
“Why are your spirits so high, Adaine? It sounded rather cruel to hang up on Fig in her time of distress.”
“Maybe she should’ve called someone else, then. Ragh’s been taking piano lessons, he could’ve played the melody splendidly.”
Ayda flew down from where she was at the top of the bookshelf. She stared intensely at Adaine with a stern expression. “Call Ragh, then.”
“Oh, I forgot! He went on a small trip with his mother! He’s so lucky. I wish my mom didn’t suck.”
“My mom is a bird. Phoenix, actually. I’ve never met her— in fact, I can never meet the version of her that laid my egg, since she has long been reincarnated into a new form. And since she is a bird, she cannot ‘suck’ anything.”
Adaine cupped Ayda’s cheeks, ignoring the burning against her skin, and looked her in the eyes. “Ayda. You are so wonderful in every way. Let’s go kill some pirates and retrieve your books.”
And so the two of them flew off, hunting down scoundrels and beating them senseless. According to a witness by the name of Old Young Benjamin, they were found passed out in a heap in the middle of the city after a long day of hard work, with everybody too scared of them to get near.
Meanwhile, Gorgug crashed the van into Mordred Manor’s iron fence. Getting out to inspect the damage, it banged up his car so badly that he flew into a rage and stormed in the house, where Kristen and Tracker were enjoying a peaceful breakfast. The door being slammed shut startled them.
“Where the hell is Fig!?” Gorgug shouted. They exchanged glances and shrugged.
“I haven’t seen her all morning. I hope she didn’t run off like last time,” said Tracker.
“Yeah, that’d be pretty bad, I think,” agreed Kristen.
Now, Gorgug didn’t hate these two. Far from it! It was just that in this moment, when he was filled with rage and impatience, they were pissing him off. “Did anybody open the piano?”
“That’s Ragh’s job, right?” Kristen leaned back in the chair, taking a deep sip of her cortado. “He would never leave her in there. He’s been taking lessons!”
Tracker’s eyes snapped open, and she turned toward her girlfriend slowly. “Oh. Ohhhh. Kristen, Ragh went on a trip with his mom, remember?”
“What? Oh, yeah. There was no bowl of her homemade chili sitting on the counter. She usually makes some for our breakfast. I guess Fig’s probably still in there, then.”
Kristen’s lack of urgency struck a nerve in Gorgug’s rage-filled brain, and he punched the cortado glass out of her hand so fast that any remains of coffee (or, in her case, tea) immediately dissolved. He shouts, but in his usual tone where he sounds kinda tired, and runs off to Fig’s room.
“My cortado! Man, I would’ve put it down if he asked,” mused Kristen.
“Maybe we should go after him. If Fig’s been in there for a long time, she may need some heals.”
“I could use some ‘heals’, babe.”
Tracker blushed and looked away. “Not right now! We have to help Fig first. But maybe after, we could…”
It took a few minutes for Gorgug to play the melody correctly, with a keen eye on the video that Jawbone made to help. Inside was Fig, surrounded by a cloud of smoke that wafted over the other three standing by the opening of the piano. It was so intense that Kristen pass out immediately.
Legend has it that Fig was alright, but only after a glass of water and a pat on the back. Another legend said she was dead on the scene. I don’t really know what happened, but either way I’m sure everything turned out just fine.