#kit 001

Something about spitting on stray dogs made Zym want to rob men blind. Most things made Zym want to rob men, in fact, but the blind part, the robbing until the man was destitute and ashamed of himself, came with his spitting on stray dogs. So, after she watched him commit his crime, she followed the beast (the man not the dog) back to his home. She waited with the patience of the petty until he readied himself and left again. Then Zym did what she did best: stole. He’d had an alarming number of porcelain dog figurines both for a man who spit on the real thing and as a person. 

She’d left a considerable amount behind, and the grand piano would have to wait for another day, perhaps tomorrow, but she had taken enough to leave baffling absences in her wake. Before leaving, as the day had worn into night and she became bored with her task, she doodled a crude and only somewhat recognizable portrait of the dog the man had accosted and left it in his kitchen. Zym then took her flouncy leave to bring food to the herd of strays that congregated in the back alleys of Myrefall. 

The dogs didn’t like her much, but that was fine. They were too used to people spitting on them. 

Satisfied with her day thus far, and discontented with just wandering the main streets of Myrefall, all of which had grown a bit too familiar to Zym to be entirely exciting anymore, she ducked through winding alley ways and narrow passages behind buildings intent on finding something intriguing lurking nearby. She turned a figurine of a poodle over in her fingers as she turned to skip out into a busier street. Immediately she struck the chest of another passerby. With an apology in her throat, she turned her gaze to her victims face only for her mouth to fall open and ice to tumble down her spine. 

“Morgrin,” she choked out as she stumbled a step back into the alley. The dog sculpture fell from her grasp and shattered on the cobblestones. Before her stood Morgrin, one of the most loyal members of the Lurker gang. Abject terror had become a familiar friend of Zym’s in the months since she’d been alone and it’s embrace made her shoulders shake with tension and her hands to fist in the fabric of her skirt and her feet itch to flee. She felt the color leave her face even as her eyes, wide and fearful, remained fixed on the face that had used to smile at her antics. “Please,” she breathed, “Don’t.”

Her horn throbbed in phantom memory of the last meeting she’d had with one of her crew.

It was kind of strange how the people she felt closest to now were her neighbors. Weird how it worked out that way. Even after they'd heard all the arguing and crying with her ex, they all showed her compassion and empathy. Even when she felt like she didn't deserve it, these people—virtually strangers—showed up for her. After everything she'd been through, it was nice to know that there were still good people out there, you know?

Kit, the guy who lived a couple doors down the hall from her, liked to bring her free, sweet treats. The perks of living right next to a baker, huh? Greg was immediately enamored with his Golden Retriever, Waffles, and Neela was immediately enamored by the dog's name. Of course the sweet baker next door named his dog Waffles. It was just so fitting, and so joyful that it gave her that little bit of extra hope for humanity.