To Sakon, Kafei is an intruder and a thief, yet also a time bomb.  Kafei’s parents are the Mayor and Lady Aroma; and the Curiosity Shop man’s ability to sell stolen goods rather crucially depends on the Mayor’s good favor.  Lady Aroma is fiercely protective of Kafei.  If she ever learned he’d been killed or even hurt by someone affiliated with the Curiosity Shop, the whole criminal ecosystem would collapse.  He clearly has to be dealt with somehow, but there is a lot at stake in the matter.

At first Sakon thinks the unwelcome child is Kafei and Anju’s; a well-kept secret, an important factor in their decision to marry.  But the child speaks with the eloquence (and foul mouth) of an adult, and the truth soon becomes obvious, though incredible.  Sakon’s first impulse is to take the would-be thief back to Clock Town, to the Curiosity Shop, so he and the storeowner can have a nice chat with Kafei about staying out of their affairs.  The Curiosity Shop man knows the Mayor’s family much better than Sakon does, and is by far the most qualified to come up with a good angle to approach forcing Kafei to drop the matter, hold them blameless, and keep silent about things he saw.  Or, if the Curiosity Shop man knows things Sakon doesn’t, maybe they really will decide to kill him.  Or, hell!  Maybe Sakon will have to give the wedding mask back as a bargaining chip.  He’d rather do that than lose the Curiosity Shop!  He didn’t realize he’d be hunted down personally; everyone in Clock Town knows Kafei’s a scrawny, bookish coward who barely leaves the house.  The trap he set was for anyone the Mayor’s family might have hired, not a high profile politician’s brat.  Slumbering giants, this all should have been much more simple than it’s turned out to be.  As such, it’s more than Sakon knows how to handle by himself.  Sooner or later he’ll have to talk to the Curiosity Shop man.

But he can’t travel to Clock Town just yet.  The moon has been hanging large and horrific in the sky for the past few days now.  It’s coming down; and this mountain bunker may be one of the only feasible places such a landing could be survived.  They will have to stay in the cave and wait for it to fall.  Maybe the mountains will crumble too; maybe there’s no escape.  But if there is one, it can be found in waiting.

Sakon finds a couple of large cages meant for transporting dangerous animals in the depths of the hideout, and, seeing no better solution for keeping Kafei from escaping or wrecking the place (and he looks quietly inclined to do either or both), deposits him into one of them and locks the door.  

Morning comes, and the world still lives.  The morning came yesterday, too; but this time, the moon is gone.  

There is a new problem.  That curse Kafei alluded to, the one making him small, seems to have lifted.  That’s a grown adult in the animal cage, and his rage looks about as feral as the cage’s intended occupant.  Suddenly Sakon doesn’t want to try and escort him back to Clock Town.  Maybe... maybe Kafei could just stay here.  And Sakon could go to Clock Town and talk to the Curiosity Shop man alone.

He’s preparing to leave when, to his horror, he discovers another intruder; more wandering and curious than sneaky and thieving, to be sure, but an intruder nonetheless.  He was positive the hideout was locked up.  How do these people keep getting in??  The young man is subdued, stripped of valuables, and unceremoniously stored in a cage neighboring Kafei’s.  It’s painfully clear that Lady Aroma sent him after Kafei.  He’s well-dressed, which probably makes him some kind of politician or merchant too, so no sense doing him any permanent damage either.  Does the Mayor’s family already know where his hideout is?  Do they suspect him?  Kafei was missing for a long time prior to his sudden, unexpected visit; will Sakon be blamed for the entire disappearance?  What is going on out there?  What even happened last night?  Full of fear, Sakon hurries to Clock Town.  The Curiosity Shop man will know what’s going on, and how to react.

When the moon almost fell and Termina needed a hero brought in from another land, it found one, invited one in through a portal.  Kafei isn’t particularly aware that Termina needs anything brought back from another universe at the moment, and wouldn’t in a million years interpret the mysterious glowing light (portal??) he finds in the cavernous guts of the Clock Tower as an invitation.  But he’s curious enough to get a closer look, and disconnected and suspicious enough to rather investigate it himself than show it to anybody.

A few steps closer... a few more... he doesn’t realize there’s any pit to fall into until he’s falling into it.  When he lands, he doesn’t know where he is, and somehow can’t figure out how to get back to the Clock Tower’s interior; can’t find evidence there should be a way back at all.  What he finds when he starts exploring the area is (Chicago) nothing short of astounding.  He’s so incredulous he momentarily forgets to be afraid.  He does a bit of leisurely exploring on his own, but it’s rapidly becoming clear he’s going to need some allies before something bad happens; like, for instance, not having somewhere to sleep when night falls.  Somehow he’s been able to understand snatches of conversations he’s passed, so he’s reasonably confident he’ll be able to communicate?  He singles out a person to approach.  He’s fairly skilled at presenting personas under a spotlight; he’ll just... charm them into helping him or something.

The ruins of Ikana are notoriously crawling with all manner of unsavory creatures.  This is good for Sakon and bad for Sakon, as a thief.  It means other thieves are hesitant to search the area for plunder (and the plunder to be found around the old castle is CHOICE).  It also means that when he searches the area, he has to contend with critters that could kill him.  

If the past week had worked out better for him, he wouldn’t even be here.  The man who runs the Curiosity Shop is a real bastard.  He underpays for goods, and he has ties with the Mayor; if he has enough cause to dislike you, your operation mysteriously comes under the scrutiny of the town guards.  He doesn’t threaten as much openly, but.  Sakon’s seen it happen to competitors.  The bastard is so caught up in the joy of scamming that he doesn’t stop to understand...thieves need to eat.  That dish Sakon turned over should have brought in at least twenty rupees.  Sakon sure as hell expended more than twenty rupees of effort to get it.  He got seven.  Haggled up from five.

But what did he do, though?  Cut ties with the Curiosity Shop?  Try to ruin the cheeky jackass’s entire operation, even?  No.  He slunk to one of the most dangerous regions in Termina, to prove to himself he’s still got it, he can still bring back treasures worthy of...someone whose opinion shouldn’t mean a damn thing in the first place.  One of these days, Sakon is going to figure out how to get in contact with the pirates from Great Bay; maybe they’ll understand his worth.  One of these days, that’s going to look easier than finding new ways to keep that false king in Clock Town happy.  One of these days.

But today he’s just shuffling around castle ruins, armed to the teeth and twitching at sudden noises.  Once, many years ago, he (came to possess) a ring with a blue gem that glows in the presence of magic (sometimes).  He doesn’t know where it’s from or what it’s supposed to do (he doesn’t dare put it on), but it’s useful to carry on expeditions such as these.  The mechanism behind dead that walk again isn’t weather conditions.  ...The thing has saved him pain, possibly his life, on more than one occasion.  

He comes to a part of the ruins he’s never been to before and takes a look at the ring.  It’s glowing orange.

Does orange mean turn around and flee like a scared child.  Because... wait, what’s that over there.  He almost turns around and leaves.  He wouldn’t be able to name what prompted him to approach the small, limp form; curiosity?  He’s something of an adrenaline junkie.  The thieving lifestyle is exciting.  For whatever the reason, he slowly approaches what turns out to be an imp about a third of his height, lying next to a strange mirror, breathing shallowly, unconscious.  The ring is screaming orange by the time he brings it next to the creature.  It’s magic, it’s definitely magic, but like no magic Sakon has ever seen.

Naturally, he plonks the poor creature on the Curiosity Shop man’s counter later that night and demands a firm five hundred rupees for it.

Anju’s grandmother remembers a long past Carnival of Time during which pirates arrived in the guise of entertainers and attempted to overtake the city.  The inn was still a restaurant, then.  She’d spent most of the action hiding in the kitchen with her son Tortus and his wife.  They squatted for hours behind vegetable crates, brandishing knives and frying pans and the like.  Tortus’s wife eventually got tired of crouching and got up to boil water; a welcome present in case any pirates did arrive.  It’s a story she likes to tell, and one Kafei finds fascinating (and more than a little alarming; Anju’s mother is a force to be reckoned with).

It was probably only to be expected, that the pirates would come back sometime.  Clock Town is practically the largest source of plunder in all of the known regions of Termina.  The pirates decided to go with a good old-fashioned siege for this round.  Perhaps they were looking to avoid coordination difficulties inherent to disguise and infiltration.  

Kafei’s experience, now that it’s happening to him, is decidedly surreal.  He rarely leaves the safety of the city’s walls anyway; so everything is like normal.  But everything is not like normal, because the Mayor’s residence is full of angry carpenters and guards, each  with their own strong opinions what to do.  And if you look out the gates, in passing... there they are.  The pirates.  Waiting other people who want to kill you.  Everything is like normal.  Except, they all could die in a few months, potentially.  

There’s talk of calling the Giants from the top of the Clock Tower, but not everybody believes they even exist.  Kafei wants to believe in giants.  Gran believes in giants.  She’s seen them, she says.  Kafei doesn’t know if he strictly believes in giants, but he does know that if nobody even tries to call them, there isn’t even a chance they’ll come to the rescue.  And he could die.  He doesn’t want to die.  This death threat thing is creeping him out.  So one night he goes out to the clock tower, thinking to climb it and see about calling the giants, see about not dying.  (He didn’t tell anyone what he was planning; he isn’t really in the habit of trust).  

Just as he’s partway through an experimental upwards foray, the doors below start to creak open.  

Someone or something is coming out from under the Clock Tower.

He’s hidden from a bully down there before, when he was much younger, correctly supposing that the sense of awe and foreboding surrounding the structure would dissuade his pursuer from wanting anything to do with it.  He found himself in a cavern full of large and frightening gears, wet moss and scummy water.  He hid down there for maybe an hour, terrified and trying to convince himself there was nothing to be afraid of.  The memories come rushing back; something was down there, and it’s coming to get him...

Send “everything will be okay” to take care of my injured muse.

Injuries are nothing new; what’s spooking Karren is the concern.  Tem seems very concerned, even though everything is clearly going to be okay, even though Karren’s legs are clearly almost finished reattaching, without complication.  Karren was even able to drag herself comfortably away from the remains of the territorial fucker who bothered them, give herself some space.  (They weren’t hunting, they were going to a fucking movie.  Claiming territory is one thing, but playing king of the sidewalk?  The nerve of some people!  And he’d obviously been getting away with it, because of how strong he was or whatever.)  Everything is fine, Karren won, she’s going to heal… is she missing something?  Is there something very wrong going on that she doesn’t know about??  Tem is probably still shaken up; that’s probably contributing to how flustered she is.  She didn’t start out as a ghoul, she didn’t grow up having to keep herself alive in a lifestyle soaked in blood.  But that’s why Karren fucking charged the guy when he drew his kagune; no need to involve Tem, Karren’s hands are stained enough already.

Karren’s official opinion on Master Shuu is that she wants nothing to do with him.  Her heart is a greedy, angry, wounded creature that neither observes nor understands official opinions, but last time she let let that thing take the reins she ended up jumping off a building.  She is officially done with Shuu.  Her emotions can catch up in their own time.

When she overhears a conversation at :Re with Nathanael, overhears that Kaneki Ken is working for the CCG as a ghoul investigator, she doesn’t know what to think.  Kaneki used to be a great friend of Shuu’s, before that Haise guy showed up and completely stole his attention.  She used to be quite jealous of Kaneki, used to dislike him, but after the whole Haise nightmare she honestly practically forgot he existed.  If she isn’t interested (officially isn’t interested) in Shuu anymore, is she still jealous of Kaneki?  ...If she’s not jealous of Kaneki (officially isn’t jealous), does she have reason to dislike him?  Because if she doesn’t dislike the guy?  She feels sorry for him.  Almost feels like she should maybe try to help him out if an opportunity ever presents itself.  He and Shuu were practically family at one point, right?  She isn’t loyal to Shuu or the Tsukiyamas anymore, of course.  Officially.  But it still seems like... somehow she feels like this is still relevant to her, or could be.  The Tsukiyamas used her, manipulated her into thinking serving them at the expense of everything was some lofty aspiration.  That’s why she isn’t loyal to them.  All Kaneki Ken ever did was make friends with Shuu.  He never hurt Karren.  And he used to fall into the category of people she should protect.

She considers that it would feel darkly satisfying if she ended up becoming esteemed by one Shuu used to idolize; if someone who didn’t seem to like Shuu that much chose her to appreciate....but that decidedly belongs on the list of opinions she shouldn’t officially have.

It’s curious to think about, certainly.  But weeks later, when she’s almost forgotten him again, he appears in front of her.  She and Nathanael are helping a minor ghoul organization pass out some donated books to ghoul families with children.  Doves must have found out about the event somehow because a whole group of them shows up, unexpected and murderous.  Nate tries to tell Karren to scatter with the event organizers; she has a hell of a lot to recover from, there’s no shame in running.  But that’s about the time Karren realizes that helping kids better themselves so they don’t end up getting jobs as servants at mansions owned by people who Do Not CARE is actually pretty damn important to her?  This isn’t an auction selling people for fuck’s sake...how dare these filthy humans?  She hasn’t fought doves in a while.  She tells her brother not to wait for her, tells her dog to shoo, and that’s the last he sees of her for a while.

The most vulnerable of the event attendees are long gone.  She’s pulling her kagune out of a sticky mess that was once a dove.  Her heart is pounding in her ears.  For all her anger, she has a deeply-ingrained fear of her traditional enemies.  She’s already killed a few of the brutes; it doesn’t feel prudent to try her luck for too long.  The simmering rage she feels at the injustice of it all remains unquiet, but she knows Nathanael and Arunolt would be very upset if she died.  She’s already eaten her fill, which is always a convenient development considering how tricky it is for a ghoul to get food.  She’s starting to think about turning and running.

And suddenly, there’s Kaneki, of all people, approaching her.  She looks at him in surprise; curious red eyes through slits of a mask covered in roses.  She makes no move to attack.  She doesn’t even know what to make of this development yet, she’s just surprised to see him.  A casual drop of blood falls to the floor, from her chin.

Send me a ▲ for my muse’s reaction to yours:

8. kissing their neck

Karren has gotten it into her head today, for reasons known only (and not even wholly) to herself, to keep surprising Nathanael by giving the back of his head a quick smooch without warning.  (The first time he asked her what she was doing, bewildered; she said simply, I love you!! and went on her way, satisfied.  He assumed a fluke sporadic show of affection; he assumed wrong)

This has been going on for a while, and Nathanael is starting to get tired of watching Karren for sneak attacks.  He just wants to go about his day.  So far Karren has been waiting for opportunities when he’s not paying attention.  When she points out the window to show him something, he isn’t thinking and looks.  …She kisses the back of his head and runs away laughing.  

This is ridiculous.  

“Goddammit Karren,” he yelps, then closes the door and locks it, so she can’t come back.

Karren!  Loves!!  Attention!!!  She starts laughing hysterically, then plops down by Kayeton where he’s lying on the floor reading, content to just exist next to him for a while.

Kayeton, of course, leans over and gives her a quick peck.