WHO: Michael Elder WHAT: Unpacking, and discoveries WHERE: Michael's apartment WHEN: Three in the morning RATING: G STATUS: complete
After Michael biked home from the Payday--oh my god, cold--he set to work unpacking boxes and pulling apart crates and moving furniture around. He didn't stay cold for long, not even when he'd stop to take broken-down boxes and pieces of crating out to the dumpster in back. Around ten in the evening he started getting shaky then realized it had been almost two days since he'd eaten, and Jesus, with the stress and the work, was it any wonder his blood sugar had taken a nosedive? He wanted to smack himself in the forehead but instead did the sensible thing by eating a sandwich, drinking some tea, and having some fruit. As he peeled an orange, he thought of Taliese Avonaco and her bright eyes and kind nature, and smiled. It would be nice to meet her again sometime, perhaps meet her family and pack. "Pack" suggested wolf, though he knew he couldn't really make that assumption. She must love her husband very much to give up her nature as a witch, and he admired her for that; he was fairly certain that he could not do something so selfless.
By three in the morning, he'd mostly conquered the mess. He knew he didn't have to work so hard, that he could've left most of it for tomorrow, because really, what else did he have to do? It wasn't as if he had a job to go to or people to see, after all. But he was an innately neat and orderly man, and it would've eaten at him if he hadn't, so best to get as much done as possible. He dragged the last bit of flattened boxes out to the dumpster, then declared himself done for the moment. Tomorrow would be soon enough to reshelve the boxes of books he had, and he'd have to put the remaining crates of furniture into storage--the apartment was simply too small for everything in spite of how much he'd left behind with his family.
The thought of his family caused a little pang of loneliness somewhere behind his breastbone, and he resolutely shoved it away. No time for that; it was best not to dwell on it. Instead, he took a shower, cursing loudly and foully when the water turned lukewarm halfway through it. Shivering, he dressed in a long-sleeved tee shirt and sweatpants, then crawled beneath the covers of his bed, propping himself up on pillows against the headboard, and pulling his laptop onto his legs.
When it booted up, he blinked. Most of the folders he had on his desktop were gone. He clicked through directories and subdirectories, then clicked through files he'd hidden away--nothing. Everything he had relating to his craft, years of collected spells and rites and ritual, was simply gone. What was left was only the most innocuous of folders, family pictures, music, some movies and tv shows he'd not yet had time to watch--that sort of thing.
He leaned back against the pillows, and rubbed at his mouth, scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Oh, you bastards," he said aloud. "You took everything, didn't you?" They'd probably wiped it so clean that not even a techno-mage could recover it. He knew when they'd done it--they'd held him in detention for a few hours, left him sitting at a table in an interrogation room, facing a mirror he knew was two-way. That would've given them plenty of time. Truthfully, he wasn't at all surprised.
With a sigh, he closed down his laptop and shut off his bedside lamp, burrowing under the covers. He was angry, yes, but it was more at the trespass than the loss. It was years of work, but everything in the files was still in his head, and what wasn't in his head was in his books. When they'd come for him, they'd confiscated boxes of books on magic along with supplies he used. But those books and supplies had merely been sacrifices, because he knew they'd be expecting to find something. His real books, his most valued supplies, were hidden away.
Though he was a healer by nature, he was an artificer by trade, a maker of magical objects. He'd crafted several objects of holding for himself--the blanket chest at the foot of his bed, a couple of backpacks, his desk drawer, a bookcase or two. Objects of holding had undetectable pockets of transdimensional space in which he could hide things and retrieve them with a word. Like a Tardis, they were bigger on the inside than on the outside, though they looked and felt like utterly normal things. In those pockets he'd tucked away everything of real value. The laptop had merely been convenience; he still had his real library with him, undetected.
I might be down, and you might kick me while I'm there, but you won't defeat me, he thought, then rolled over and let himself drift off to sleep.