Chapter Text
If contentedness was a man then that man was named Mumbo, and not only was he named Mumbo, but he was the Mumbo that lived on the fourth floor of Tubins Apartment complex, building three. Which was located just three blocks from town square, and exactly ten minutes from Energier Headquarter. When traveling by bike, to be precise.
Mumbo had never met another Mumbo before, but he liked to think that if he did, then their personalities would surely be similar. As he had deduced over the years, names regularly had a funny way of doing just that. If you were an Andrew, then you had the personality of an Andrew. If you had the name Michelle, then you had the personality of a Michelle. It was simple, really.
He kept a small unsuspecting list on him at all times, writing down every new and unique name that he happened across during his outings. It was a fun pastime, along with a helpful reminder in case the name was particularly difficult. It had even managed to save him a handful of times during work, when there were new business executives coming through headquarters in search of engineering labor agreements. Mostly, he was relied on to get their coffee orders right.
The dark rich liquid sloshed in his mug this morning, bitter as ever. But aside from the cheap aftertaste, Mumbo had little to complain about. He had a job and a home and a comfortable amount of vacation time each quarter. It wasn’t an extravagant life, but it was a peaceful one. Peace was something he could work with, so taking one last swig, he got back to his work.
“Hey Mumbo. You getting close yet with your project?” a voice almost immediately piped up from above him, carrying over the side of his cubicle wall. Mumbo looked up, his hands falling still at the glowing face of Impulse. The man was smiling, as he always did when he greeted him, and there was a twinkle in his bright green eyes.
Mumbo had to shake his head sadly in response, hands lowering into his lap. “No. I think I’ll just have to wait until next year.”
Impulse tipped his head. His brows drew together in disappointment. “That’s what you said last year. And the year before.”
“I know,” Mumbo shrugged sheepishly, reaching for his cup again. “But it’s hard to find the right… time. If that makes sense? I have to be in the mood for it, and the atmosphere needs to have a certain quality as well.”
His coworker blinked at him before shaking his head woefully. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I don’t. But I trust your method. I just think your talent’s being wasted sitting her. You should be downstairs with us.”
“You and me both,” Mumbo sighed. He drank the last of what was in his cup before rising slowly to his feet. Now he was taller than Impulse, who still smiled faintly as he pushed away from the divider.
“Want me to refill that?” he pointed at the empty mug. Mumbo shook his head, holding the container close.
“No. It’s not a bother.”
“Suit yourself,” Impulse shrugged. His vibrant eyes flicked to the clock on the far wall, before widening suddenly. “Gotta go,” he exclaimed, hurriedly swiping a few items from his own desk. “We’re still on for this weekend, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Mumbo smiled through his jet black mustache. “We can’t leave ourselves on a cliffhanger for too long, can we?”
Impulse laughed jovially as he straightened his papers. “Of course not! Not with the fate of the gangs hanging in the balance.”
Mumbo chuckled too. He waved his friend off before quietly slipping into the walkway. Phones rang, computers clacked, and the printer was being utilized for something that probably could have been done digitally. No matter. It wasn’t his problem to deal with. So Mumbo scurried down the row of cubicles, hopping over a fluffy tail that spilled onto his path. Another employee passed him, moving in the opposite direction, and their shoulders awkwardly brushed one another. Mumbo apologized quietly before hurrying on, eventually popping out at the far end.
He set down his mug at the coffee station, seeing that the morning pot had been finished and no one had bothered to start another. His dainty pale hands made short work of measuring out the coffee grounds, tossing out the old paper filter, and replacing it with a new one. He filled the pot with water from the water jug beside him and then poured it into the top of the machine, before resetting it at the bottom, empty. After hitting the power button, he turned his back on the machine, leaning against the table and watching.
People were fascinating to observe when they weren’t aware of his curious gaze. They did strange things, and had strange habits, and they always cared so much less about what they were doing with themselves. Because the world wasn’t looking at them from inside their tiny cubicles. They were in their own little corners; their own little safe-spaces. It was just them and a computer screen, and the occasional snack or drink.
Mumbo shuffled back into his nook once he’d refilled his cup. And then it was continuing his clacking of the computer, chipping away at numbers and spreadsheets, watching totals rise and fall, and making note of the dates and times at which it happened. An hour later, he made the same trip again, refilling his cup and maneuvering the maze of dividers. Impulse waved once more on his way to the meeting rooms, but didn’t stop to chat. That was okay. Mumbo wanted to get done with this latest file before taking his lunch break anyways.
When he finally clocked out, half the building had already left. His stomach growled loudly, unappeased with his choice to wait before satisfying its wants. He tidied his desk, put his empty mug back on its neat little shelf, and biked home amidst the afternoon traffic.
His roomba had turned on by the time he arrived at his floor of the apartment. He could hear its quiet hum from all the way down here. Mumbo released a small groan once he realized what that would mean. His neighbor Pearl would be nearby.
Each footfall was close to silent as he tiptoed across the carpet, but that didn’t stop the door across the hall from opening as soon as he approached. A loud high-pitched voice exclaimed his name as Pearl stepped into the narrow space, a half eaten sandwich in one hand.
“Mumbo! Ma man. How you been today? You haven’t been ignoring me have you?”
Mumbo’s shoulder blades pinched as he cowered in on himself. “Of course not, of course not.”
“Are you sure?” Pearl grinned widely. She had on her mail uniform today, complete with a newspaper pouch at her hip that she had definitely forgotten to take off sooner. “Your ears turn red when you’re lying.”
Scarlet immediately flooded Mumbo’s face. An involuntary hand drifted to his pointy ears as he felt them for heat. “Oh- really? I- I hadn’t noticed.”
Pearl shook her head, brown and tan locks of hair bouncing about. “Nah,” she laughed. “Just kidding. I don’t know what your tell-alls are. I’d need to play a few rounds before I figured that out.”
The conversation stalled as Mumbo grew quiet, cheeks still ripe with color. Eventually, he added an awkward, “Yeah, of course… Same here.”
“You’re finally interested?” Pearl asked eagerly, as if she had known that this conversation would wind up here from the very beginning.
“In sharing my secrets?” Mumbo asked, slightly taken aback.
“No silly. In playing poker!”
“Oh.” Mumbo rummaged in his pants pocket for his keys. “I think I’ll pass, thank you… I don’t gamble.”
“No worries!” Pearl waved her sandwich about. “We don’t play for money. Just for fun.”
Mumbo hummed absently, shoving the tarnished key into his door handle. He fumbled with the knob before finally twisting it the right way to open. “Maybe later, if that’s alright?”
“Perfectly fine by me,” Pearl smiled again, and her entire face was alight like a warm sun. “I’ll tell the boys that you’re interested.”
Mumbo nodded before his brain caught up with her words. He looked up again, his pulse fluttering anxiously. “Oh- that’s not-!”
“They’ll be so happy to have you!” Pearl assured him with a wink before he could explain. She took hold of her door, swinging it mostly closed. “Maybe I can swindle you out of some secrets then.”
The door shut the rest of the way, and Mumbo was left once more in relative silence, with only his roomba humming quietly for company.
The apartment was nothing flashy. It was more-so cozy, if anyone had to describe it. As Mumbo hung his coat on the hanging rack near the entrance, his gaze flitted over the washed out leather seating and mismatched kitchen appliances scattered about. A photograph of a lake sat in a picture frame above his table. The photo dwarfed his wooden furniture, which housed only one chair at each end. He had captured the image during his annual outing a couple years ago. A tiny hand-scrawled signature sat in the corner.
He stepped around the roomba as it quietly made its pattern in the carpet, collecting mostly dust, both in and on top of itself. His black shoes made soft imprints in the carpet before clicking against the stone tiles of the kitchen area. He set about making his usual lunch –a sandwich paired with a salad, made of pre-prepared ingredients. His meal collected, he stored all the excess back in their respective places and planted himself at the small table.
His gaze drifted absently to the picture frame above him again, admiring how clear the image was, and how he had chosen to compose it. There were always so many wonderful names to learn during his trips to other places. And he often discovered them in the most unlikely of ways. It was especially tricky at times when his vacation destination spoke an entirely different language. But it had never deterred him in any way. Like the man that had stood beside him while he took the lake photo. His accent had been incredibly thick, and in the end Mumbo wasn’t sure whether the man was speaking a different language, or he just hadn’t been able to understand him. After several minutes of playing multi-lingual charades, Mumbo had finally picked up that the native’s name was DocM. He had kept mentioning numbers too, but Mumbo couldn’t puzzle that part out.
Once his plate was cleared of food and he had taken it to the sink, he made a stop by his bedroom. The space was dark, accounting for the fact that there were no windows to the outside world. It was colder here than in any other part of the apartment, and it was also the reason why he had about a half a dozen blankets and quilts folded up at the far end of his bed. The mattress was massive for how little room he had in here, but he made things work, being sure not to knock over a tall vase that he had purchased another year during his travels. That item had been hard to keep in one piece, considering the storms they encountered during most of the rafting excursion.
“Just as I left you,” Mumbo nodded in satisfaction at the undisturbed room. He then rolled his eyes at himself for having said that aloud. His feet shuffled back over the carpet to the kitchen where he double-checked the oven just briefly before, satisfied, he closed the door again and turned off the nearby light. Then he hopped over the roomba as it came whirring back the other direction, collected his jacket and helmet from the rack, and slipped back out the door.
He arrived back at work, rechecked in, and made his way upstairs to the accounting department. On his way, he caught a glimpse inside the engineering department, where a group of people –some he knew, some he didn’t– were sitting around at a table laughing and having a good time. In the middle of them, what looked to be a scale model had just partially collapsed. It looked like an easy fix –nothing to really bother the engineering team.
A small pang edged at Mumbo’s heart. He needed to quickly turn away before those feelings got the better of him. Those people had earned their right to be where they were. He was going through the same exact process. It was just taking a little longer than the average employee. But there was nothing wrong with that either. He just needed…to be patient.
His chair creaked as he sat heavily in it. The world seemed a bit sour now after that unfortunate glimpse. Maybe some people would see it as progress. But when Mumbo saw that, all he saw directly afterwards was his own shortcomings.
So he clacked away at his keyboard once more, coffee cup staring down from the shelf above him, until it was time to depart for the day. Impulse came to his desk once or twice within that time, but he didn’t say hi. He only grabbed a packet or a utensil and then zipped back downstairs to be with his respective people. Mumbo only grew sadder.
The ride back home was miserably hot. They were in the heat of the day, and the streets were filled with others making their way home too. Children gathered on street corners and adults trudged into the supermarkets, all of their routes eventually ending where they had started this morning; home. There was nothing better after a long, long day after all.
Mumbo was sure to keep his steps as quiet as possible when he reached his floor again. He remembered and acutely avoided individual places on the carpet that were notorious for making noise. He wouldn’t define this as avoiding Pearl… He just wasn’t all that interested in conversation at this late hour. He was tired, and he only had tomorrow’s stack of spreadsheets to look forward to. So when he found his key and slipped it into his door, it was with deliberate caution.
However, keeping his movements quiet became the absolute least of his concerns when he swung the door open to reveal an absolute mess of his apartment. He gasped before nearly dropping his bike helmet and throwing himself off balance. He stumbled inside as his gaze darted about the room. Fear rendered him sluggish, and he shook his head, as if by doing that he could rid his vision of the catastrophe. But it didn’t work, and he was left with this terrible reality.
“What the..?” he stepped cautiously into the living room, letting the door shut behind him. It was only when the wood had fallen into place with a loud thunk that he flinched, and then stiffened anxiously. Whoever had done this could still be here. Was he in danger? Did he need to call the police? Where was his phone?
Mumbo patted his pockets before finding the device and pulling it out. The buttons were difficult to operate when his hands shook like this. But he managed to maneuver to the dial screen before freezing at the sound of something distinctly inhuman.
A growl carried from the back hall. It was soft and low, with a faint trilling noise underneath it. It was unlike anything he had heard before. And despite himself, it peaked his quiet curiosity.
The sound carried for a long while before dying out again. Mumbo’s first instinct was to believe that it could be a dog. But those weren’t allowed in the apartment complex. So instead, he had to assume that it was some wild animal. But that begged the even more bizarre question of how it had gotten in here.
His framed photo had become crooked, and the roomba was flipped on its back, its light blinking faintly in a sign of distress. There were bits of glass covering the carpet from a broken cupboard door. Mumbo couldn’t help but groan distraughtly.
Another faint huff came from the hallway. Mumbo looked up again, his curiosity only growing within his gut. The dial was still waiting patiently for its number, and decisively, he lowered his phone to his side and crept into the narrow hall. He was startled at the sight of scuff marks along the wall leading to his bedroom. Only then did his pulse think to jump into action, drumming up a wave of adrenaline. As a precaution, he snuck back to the living room and grabbed a pillow for defense. Now properly armed, he returned to the hall and slowly peeked his head around the corner, into his room.
Something was curled up in a ball on his bed. Something huge, with a tail– no, two tails! And wings! It was bigger than most creatures that Mumbo had ever seen. At least, in the city. And it was a light gray, with speckles of color up and down its side. Horns crowned what he could only assume was the head. It was hard to tell though when the creature was half buried under his blankets.
Mumbo squinted in disbelief at what he was seeing. Had that one guy that he met last year in his travels been right? What was his name? Hills? Jeremy Hills? Or something like that. The man had very obviously been running some sort of puppet con for tourists along the side of the road, handing out bad omens and prophesied curses to everyone who walked within a certain radius of his market stall. Mumbo had written the man off as a phony looking for a quick buck in a primed area. But…whatever this was, it didn’t look like a con.
He shook his head. No. There had to be a much more reasonable explanation. Maybe the creature was a part of some exotic circus that had come through and escaped. Or he was a lab experiment gone wrong. He had heard that testing facilities could be cruel.
The hairs on the back of Mumbo’s neck stood up. He gasped as his gaze refocused, realizing that the creature had lifted its head just slightly. Weary gray eyes were blinking in the darkness, reflecting every bit of light that came from the hallway. A flash of teeth shone as it yawned.
“H- hello,” Mumbo spoke awkwardly, continuing to keep the pillow between them for protection. He felt ridiculous, thinking that an animal would talk back to him. But it was all he could do not to freeze where he stood.
The creature didn’t move now. It didn’t make a sound. It only raised its eerily gray gaze to meet his own. There was some sort of connection being shared between the two of them that spooked Mumbo, and hands still shaking, he reraised his phone to dial. Only this time, he had a better idea of who to call.
Scar would have the answers to this. He knew everything there was to know about every creature there was. If this thing that had somehow gotten into his apartment had a name, then he could identify it. And hopefully help get rid of it too.
“This is Scar Goodtimes at the Magic Mountain Rehab Facility. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” A recorded message carried over the line. Mumbo groaned quietly. Of all times for him to be unavailable.
“Scar. Hey. This is Mumbo. I- I have a bit of a situation that I’m in, and I was wondering if you could help me out here. Um, there’s something that-”
The other end of the line clicked again, before the real Scar, along with the sound of running water, came over the line. A second later, Scar spoke. “Hey Mumbo! Sorry about that. You caught me at a bit of a sticky time.”
“Oh..?” Mumbo hummed hesitantly. All the while, he never let his gaze leave the creature.
“Yeah, a few of my critters got into a jar of jelly, and let me tell you.” He paused, panting. There was a small splash followed by the coo of a young-sounding animal. “It is not easy to wash that kind of stuff out of a dragon’s scales.”
“Sure…” Mumbo did his best to empathize, but he was greatly preoccupied with calming his own racing pulse. “Well, when you get the chance, could you come over?”
“What for?” Scar asked. “You’re on speaker by the way. This little girl is an absolute handful to deal with.”
“That’s fine.” Mumbo shook his head absently. “Um. I have this thing that’s in my bedroom. And I have no clue what it is or how I should deal with it.” After a pause, he added, “I figured I should call an expert at that sort of thing?”
“Oh! Trivia!” Scar exclaimed before making a noise of surprise at another splash. “Would you stop doing that? You’re getting my jeans all wet. Yah, I can be over in about an hour? I still have to clean the kitten culprit.” His sentence ended in a chuckle.
Mumbo whined quietly in his throat. He hated the idea of waiting that long. But seeing as he had no other choice, he relented. “That’s fine.”
“Great!” Scar exclaimed. “In the meantime, just try not to get too close to whatever it is, and if possible, just confine it to one room. Unless it’s running all over. And then maybe don’t confine it, okay? Bye!”
“Why would I not-?” Mumbo began, but the phone clicked again before he could get his question out, and he was left once more in silence.
Seeing as there were no more options, and not willing to risk letting the creature out of his sight, Mumbo backed up to the hallway wall, sliding down to sit upon the floor. He sighed again, still hugging the pillow to his chest and trying to process all the body parts that he could discern on the creature. As he had realized, now staring at its form for so long, the thing had not two wings, not four wings, but six whole wings on its back. He had to wonder why any creature would need that many appendages on its body when it was already so large. What would they aid the creature in doing? Hunting? Or keeping itself warm? Those seemed like the most sensible answers. But then again, maybe that Hills guy had been right all along, and this was some sort of amalgamation that Mumbo had conjured up himself. Apparently, that was how omens worked.
A shiver ran the length of Mumbo’s spine. He grimaced. What if Pearl caught wind of all this? Would she no longer want him to join in on poker? Or would she poke and prod at every opportunity she got to discover how he had managed to create such a beast in his mind. Or worse still, was he the only one who could see the creature?
Mumbo squinted at the thing.
It looked real.
He hated to think that Scar might drive all the way into the city just for a hallucination. Scar didn't like the city.
Roughly an hour later, Mumbo’s chin rocketed off the pillow at a shrill series of knocks. He had to raise himself slowly from his pretzeled position before hastily darting to the front door. The roomba was still on its back. The light had long since dimmed to nothing, out of power.
“Thank you for coming so quickly.” Mumbo greeted his friend, taking Scar’s jacket from his arm. His skin crawled unnaturally with every second that he didn’t have a keen eye locked on the creature. It unnerved him greatly to think what the huge beast might do when his back was turned. Though it still hadn’t moved an inch within the hour.
“Of course, of course,” Scar nodded eagerly, his eyes sparkling with both eagerness and concern. He had a small bag in one hand. “Where is it?”
“Shh!” Mumbo hushed him, his eyes darting up and down the apartment hallway before closing the door. He lowered his voice to only a whisper. “It’s in my bedroom.”
Scar took off immediately, ignoring what mess was still strewn about the living room. He disappeared into the entryway, bag still held tight in his grasp.
“Were you able to– wow!”
Mumbo hastily hung Scar’s jacket before scurrying after him. His heart pounded, nervous that the creature may have moved in his absence, but when he turned the corner, it was still lying on the comforter, arms and wings folded close to its body. The gray half-lidded eyes blinked drowsily at them.
Scar had frozen in the doorway, his pupils now wider than saucer plates. “Wow,” he breathed again before shaking his head. “I- I don’t, just, like, it’s… big.”
A lump grew in Mumbo’s throat. Drats. Scar didn’t know what it was either. His worries couldn’t be put to rest yet after all.
“N- no matter,” Scar swallowed, studying every visible inch of the creature before getting any closer. “I got this.”
“If we should call someone else, it’s okay,” Mumbo piped up as Scar set down his bag, crouching so that he was lower to the ground. He waved Mumbo off, stepping lightly into the room. He avoided broken pieces of vase, making a wide arc around the interior. His eyes never left the creature.
It still didn’t move. It hardly seemed to care. The eyes followed Scar just as warily, but there was no sense of urgency in them. There was no fight.
Mumbo hugged his pillow to his chest, stepping tentatively forward. “I… I was afraid that someone had broken in to steal things. Like my oven.”
Scar raised his head inquisitively. “Your oven?” he confirmed.
“Yes,” Mumbo nodded in sincerity.
“Well, I hate to break it to ya Mumbo, but he’s not gonna steal your oven.” Scar turned back to the creature, inching his way closer. His confidence had grown, and with a small inhale, he reached out his upturned palms, taking the claw-like hands into his own.
"He's blind."
“Oh.” Mumbo stared blankly at the two of them. He was shocked with how quickly Scar had seemed to make friends with the creature, holding hands as if the beast was nothing more than a human baby.
Scar squinted in concentration, looking the creature over. “He seems dehydrated too. Could you get him some water?”
“Sure..?” Mumbo backed slowly out of the room again. He dropped his pillow off at the couch before flipping on the kitchen light. The oven looked undisturbed, but for his own sake, he opened it once more. Just to check.
“I didn’t know whether to grab a cup, or a bowl…” Mumbo came back into the room, stepping carefully around the remains of his vase. Scar quickly took the bowl, guiding the creature’s hands around its sides.
“It’s water,” Scar murmured softly. The creature blinked as Scar proceeded to tip the bowl upwards, allowing easier access to the liquid. It raised its head ever so slightly, taking a sip.
“There you go,” Scar coaxed it warmly. “That’s a good… thing.”
“You have no idea what it is then?” Mumbo crouched down beside his friend, still maintaining a safe distance. Scar shook his head.
“Absolutely none. I can’t even begin to narrow it down either. Besides maybe a mammal. But I’m not even sure about that.”
Mumbo groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Great…”
“It does seem intelligent though. And it’s not scared, so it doesn’t think of us as a threat, unless I’m not reading it right. In which case…”
“What?” Mumbo asked.
Scar shook his head dismissively. “We’re fine. It’s gonna need some electrolytes and probably something to eat. I’d need to see inside its mouth to know the general diet.”
“That’s lovely and all, Scar.” Mumbo butted in quickly. He avoided looking for too long at the creature as it continued taking sips of water. “But it can’t stay here. The apartment has a policy about animals, and not to mention Pearl-”
“What about Pearl?” Scar gave him another questioning look.
“She gets into everything,” Mumbo hissed. “It’s not like she’s a- a bad person or anything, but I like having my privacy-”
A sharp screech erupted from the creature as the bowl that Scar was carrying tipped a bit too far, splashing water into its face. The pairs of wings flared up, stretching as wide as the small room would allow them. There was a growl deep in the creature’s throat before it rose on six limbs, backing away slowly. It threw its head violently from side to side, and its lip was pulled back in a shallow snarl.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Scar apologized in a voice people often used to talk to their pets. Mumbo couldn’t envision himself being able to adapt so quickly, but he followed Scar’s lead as best he could, hunching low to the ground, presumably to lessen the implication that they were any threat.
“If this thing kills us, I will not be happy Scar.”
“Shh,” Scar pushed air through his teeth. He was studying carefully what the creature was doing, and deciding how to act accordingly. Mumbo wasn’t quite sure whether the hush was directed at himself or the creature. He rolled his eyes regardless before returning to the thing, which had gathered itself at the far end of the bed, both tails sweeping across the floor. It turned its head just slightly when the bushy ends found parts of the broken vase. It made a small trilling noise, tossing its head. The fright had seemed to evaporate from its form, replaced by its own distant contemplation.
“You’re doing better now?” Scar smiled at the creature. He slowly rose again. “Are you ready to go?”
The creature tried taking another step back, but its foot slid from the mattress into the space between it and the bed frame. It froze now, pupils retracting as it processed that it was stuck. The wings were still unfolded, bent where they reached the walls and ceiling. Mumbo felt small from where he was, on the floor. The huge feathers loomed over his head, and he had a suspicion that it would hurt if he got hit by one of those wings.
Scar made his own little trilling sound– a result of his dove hybrid ancestry. He rose no higher, now in an awkward position of half-standing, half-crouching. “I just want to help you, okay?” He continued to smile at the creature, never losing his gentle, low voice. Now he stole his gaze away from its face to examine the rest of the body and limbs. He took an especially long time with the wings, before turning back to Mumbo.
“It’s a male. And I believe it’s using its wings to feel around it.”
Mumbo frowned deeply, his pulse leaping again as the creature huffed and sniffed the air. “So it’s especially aggressive, and knows exactly where we are?”
“Not exactly. Or, not necessarily,” Scar replied. “But I can tell you that it’s not where it belongs.”
Mumbo shot Scar a non-hostile glare. “I could have told you that. He’s in my bedroom.”
“I wonder how he got here,” Scar mused as he sat back down. The creature seemed to decide that it was no longer scared again, and proceeded to work out how to free its foot, ducking its head.
“I wonder how we’ll get it out,” Mumbo sighed. “I could get fined for this, you know? I’m already gonna have to pay for new cabinet doors.”
“At least he didn’t steal your oven,” Scar chuckled. Mumbo huffed.
“Is it new or something?”
“What?”
“The oven.”
“Nevermind my oven. What about him?” Mumbo pointed a slender finger at the creature. “How do I get rid of him?”
Scar hummed thoughtfully. “I dunno. Maybe he chose you.” When Mumbo didn’t respond, he chuckled again. “He definitely won’t fit in my car though, so taking him home with me won’t be an option.”
Mumbo whined again unhappily. “I called you so I didn’t have to deal with this. Are you sure?”
“Positive.” Scar set the bowl of water down on the bed, noticing that the creature had managed to pull itself free. “…I don’t like to think what animal control would do about it either.”
A sinking feeling settled in Mumbo’s gut. “Please don’t ask me-“
“Could you keep it..?” Scar asked shyly. “Only for a day or two! I could rent a horse trailer or something. You’d never have to think about any of this again. Just a day. Or… three.”
Mumbo mustered up what patience he could manage, shaking his head decidedly. “I can’t do that. We don’t know what it would do if it was left alone and I have work tomorrow.”
Scar frowned, his eyes widened pleadingly. “Pleaaase?”
Mumbo’s mind was already set on the matter though.
“No.”