Chapter Text
there it was again. rustling.
every day, without fail, as she passed by the patch of trees by sam's. always at the same times. in the morning, and as lunch finished.
she never heard it during the evenings, on the days she would go and return from horse riding club practice. until today, that is.
"riddle-senpai! is something wrong?"
sebek. he was so loud. she heard a yowl from the patch of trees.
"you two go to your dorm. i will investigate this."
who knows how malleus draconia would react if they found out riddle got their students injured during something like this. not waiting for sebek and silver to respond, she turned sideways, heading into the patch.
where she found... absolutely nothing. only a faint whiff of smoke and some patches of grass that were laying the wrong way. someone probably spent the afternoon here. she clicked her tongue. next time, then.
the rustling sound continued. yet, she found nothing that could track to it, save for the scent of smoke always lingering in the air there. she was growing more and more irritated with it each day. she couldn't even make out what kind of rustling it was. clothes? paper bag? plastic bag? something else?
"riddle?"
she blinked, surprised. she didn't hear a word of what trey was saying! outrageous!
"apologies, trey. i am.. distracted today. i will make sure it does not repeat."
trey looked at her, lips pressed into a thin line. "are you sure you're okay? you didn't get sick again, did you?"
she shook her head. "it is nothing. my head is elsewhere these days. apologies."
trey continued talking, but their worried gaze didn't leave riddle for a second. there was a rustling sound again. trey paused and looked at her weirdly. cater was staring at her, as well.
"yo, riddle, you sure you're okay? if you wanted some sweets, you could've told me. i wasn't planning on keeping them all to myself anyways."
only then did she realise that she was standing. the rustling sound was from a plastic bag from sam's! cater was hiding a bag of sweets under the table!
"put the bag on the table, cater."
with a sheepish smile, cater did just that. the bag was indeed from sam's shop. she took one of the caramel candies, and sat back down.
"my apologies for interrupting you, trey. please continue."
that, atleast, solved the mystery of the rustling sound.
four months. four months, she has heard that rustling sound, without getting any closer to the actual source of it. it was slowly driving her insane. she could even smell smoke in her nose, how much she was thinking about that. she was in a housewarden meeting, she shouldn't be thinking about this. but her mind kept returning to it.
"riddle-shi?"
she was staring at the ignihyde housewarden. curses.
"apologies. i am not feeling too well, at the moment."
the ignihyde housewarden nodded. she chewed on her lip for a bit, as if she had something else to say. riddle stared at her expectantly.
"uh, riddle-shi- if you want, i could, uh.. send you the, uh, summary of the, um, meeting. you know, cause, uh, y-you're not doing, uh, too well-"
she interrupted her with a nod. "that would be appreciated. i am sorry to bother you like this."
idia shook her head, waving her arms a little. "n-no problem, riddle-shi- i record every meeting anyways, and uh, take, notes, so- um, i could also, uh, print them out, for you, if you-"
"could you really? that would be appreciated."
idia nodded, a small smile curled on her lips. they both turned their attention to kalim, conversation almost entirely forgotten.
during lunch, ortho came up to her. "nee-san told me to give you these! she would give them to you herself, but she wasn't feeling too well, so she had to send them through me. i hope you can understand!"
the notes from the meeting. riddle skimmed through them- they were surprisingly thorough. she never thought of idia shroud as someone this.. detail oriented. she could feel trey and cater peeking over her shoulder to look at the papers in her hand, and she handed them over to trey, shooting a smile towards ortho.
"thank you both. i hope she feels better soon."
ortho waved at her and turned around, returning to where he was previously sitting with a group of first years.
"you got notes from this morning's housewarden meeting? from idia shroud?"
she nodded. "i didn't feel the best this morning, so i didn't pay much attention, but she offered to lend me her notes."
cater looked at the notes again, whistling. "didn't know she's this thorough."
"you'd be surprised. whenever i miss class, i go to her for notes. she's the most thorough in the whole year, probably." trey handed the notes back to riddle, who put them away.
cater snickered, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "is that why your notes seem better when you're missing class?"
trey shot her a flat look. "very funny, cater."
riddle ignored them both, in favour of making herself tea. "are there any sugar cubes in that container?"
there it was again! rustling! it was louder than usual, too- maybe the culprit was being careless today?
whatever the reason, this was riddle's chance to find out who is the source of it. she stalked towards the patch, careful not too make any noise that could alert anyone. leaves rustled behind her, and she turned, pen at the ready, pointing at a-
cat?
a cat. an orange tabby. which looked ready to run away any moment now. she was too shocked to even move, silently watching the cat as it avoided her in a wide circle, trying to get to something behind her.
click.
she turned around, expecting something pointing at her- but all she could see were trees. and.. meowing. and purring. were cats gathering here? no.
combined with the rustle, and the click- someone was feeding them. finally managing to move, she sneaked forwards, following the.. meows. this was ridiculous. what was she even doing here? she had better things to do, she was a housewarden, for goodness' sake. yet, her curiousity wouldn't let her leave until she found out who was it that fed this hoard of cats on the campus. who was even rich enough to afford all that, every day?
she can think of very few people. kingscholar, draconia, and shroud come to mind first. they had hoards of generational wealth backing them up, what's feeding a dozen or two cats every day for atleast four months? but none of them would make sense.
..maybe shroud, but how likely was that? she stuck to her room all the time anyways. barely even attended housewarden meetings. and apparently, she also hated the outdoors. there's no way in hell it was shroud.
maybe it was the ramshackle prefect. but they had their own catlike beast to feed... she was running out of ideas, but luckily, she could make out the person feeding the cats. it was..
"shroud!?"
the person in question whipped her head up, glaring at where riddle's head was just moments ago. that was a close call. no matter. she found out too much. time for her to leave the scene. she had almost crawled away far enough so she would not be spotted if she sprinted, and she would have escaped successfully had it not been for the jarringly deep voice behind her.
"riddle-shi? what the fuck are you doing?"
on instinct, she stood from the ground, careless of what was above her. a fatal blunder, she thought, as the top of her head slammed into a far too low branch. she hissed in pain, and rubbed her head as idia shroud stood a few feet away from her, watching her dumbly. neither of them moved or said a word for what felt like an incredibly awkward eternity.
finally, idia cleared her throat. "so, um, riddle-shi. what are you doing here?"
riddle blinked in surprise. this was the first time idia had spoken such a.. clear? sentence. her voice was... surprisingly nice to listen to. does she usually change her voice somehow?
"what?"
she said that outloud? this may be an appropriate moment to say fuck.
a breezy laugh interrupted her thoughts. she realised idia shroud was laughing at her. the audacity!
"you're funny, riddle-shi. did you lose control over your body for a moment there?"
riddle felt her face burn. how embarrassing. how does she even explain this? i've been hearing rustling from here for months and it's been driving me insane, so i wanted to know what it is.
she would sound insane! she opened her mouth to reply, but the only thing that came out was air. she heard idia laugh again.
"it's okay if you don't wanna answer, riddle-shi. i'll go back to feeding the cats. you can join me, if you want."
she should go to her dorm. she had the rest of the day off, she has duties to attend to- her legs followed idia on their own. she watched silently as idia fed the cats, petting each one and talking to all of them. a lot of them curled up around her, taking a nap in the afternoon sun.
riddle sat down as well, watching the cats carefully. some of them had bad scars but most of them seemed... well groomed? she didn't notice any feral cats, either. nor did the cats scratch themselves a lot.
"i've been taking care of them since i came here. i got trein in on it too. i got all of them vaccinated, and all the older ones spayed. and i make sure they have no fleas, either. and they all have collars that i change every couple of months. they're pretty much the only reason why i stick around."
that is.. more than riddle ever heard her speak. she never noticed idia had an accent.
"...your accent. it's... different."
idia huffed in amusement. "you mean weird, yeah? english isn't my mother language. though people don't usually mention the accent. lots of people here have accents. but mine's weird, and i can tell that they're thinking that. but it's not like they hear me talk, ever, so. it doesn't matter."
"i think it's charming."
what!? why did she say that? charming? who says that about someone's accent? how embarrassing! she anxiously watched idia, just waiting for her to mockingly laugh. instead of that, she watched as the tips of idia's hair turned pink, eyes spreading about as wide as saucers.
"ch-charming? my accent?"
riddle cleared her throat, looking away as her face burned. she couldn't believe she said that. she nodded in response, not trusting her voice currently. she heard idia clear her throat as well, but no other words were spoken until idia has finished feeding all the cats.
by then, the awkwardness that riddle's comment left hanging in the air had dissipated, but neither of them still dared to speak a word, in fear of ruining... whatever this was. only when they rose to leave, had idia spoken again.
"um, riddle-shi. i come around here before classes, mid lunch, and around midnight. just, uh, so you know."
an invitation, but not quite. enough to be interpreted as an invitation, but far too little to be outright rejected. she felt as though idia has been rejected many times.
"see you tonight then, senpai." she flashed a small smile at her, and idia shot a crooked grin back. with a wave, riddle turned and left the patch, just barely hearing idia's footsteps retreat over her heart drumming in her ears.
well, now she knew who was the culprit behind the rustling. that was that mystery solved, and all of her problems and distractions for the year gone.
right?