Who: Dante Abellard and Mia Wright What: A Niffler is Causing Mischief (What Else is New?) When: Monday, May 20, 2019 | late afternoon Where: Reserve Locker Room Warnings: Mentions of partial nudity, but otherwise mostly SFW
Normally he would have just made do with a couple of cleaning charms and waited to go home for an actual shower, but there were one or two more things he needed to do around the Reserve before he'd get the chance. Really and truly, the fact that he'd stopped long enough to actually get a shower in was in service to his fellow employees. No one needed that kind of olfactory assault. There were probably international agreements against that sort of thing.
It was a brief respite to a busy day, and maybe he lingered a few seconds longer under the pounding spray than was strictly necessary. After all, would anyone really mind if he took three minutes instead of his usual brutally efficient two? Steam was still curling from the stall as he wrapped a towel around his hips and went off in search of his Scourgified pile of clothes--another civilian indulgence that he'd allowed himself--that he'd left out on one of the long benches rather than claiming a locker.
As soon as he saw it, however, he knew something was off. No, not off. Something was missing. He'd laid his dog tags very carefully over the top, but they were decidedly not there. He frowned, felt his brows contract. Maybe they'd fallen anyway, some minute shift in the fabric causing gravity to exert control. He took a step forward, to start looking for them, when a glint of metal and movement caught at his periphery. His head snapped up just in time to see the silver ball link chain disappear around the corner at floor level. He snatched up his wand from the pile and took off after it.
The miraculous thing about Nifflers was their uncanny sense of smell and hearing. They could smell something shiny from miles off, as well as hear the clink of metal as well. So Bonnie had gone from sleeping comfortably perched in her basket while Mia was working to alert and she’d scampered off quickly before Mia could find her. She’d squeezed her way undetected into the locker room and swiped the shining chain and dog tags. With the tag clutched in her little claws, Bonnie had taken off around the corner.
Mia was cursing herself as she was using a locator charm to try to find the her own personal Niffler. Bonnie was supposed to be better behaved, but bad habits died hard. Mia had finally found her way to maintenance buildings which took her to the locker rooms. She didn’t even hesitate going in because there was real paranoia that someone would accuse Mia of trying to steal, so she needed to get Bonnie before anything really bad happened…
She opened the door and ran inside with her wand ready to show her the locating charm. What she hadn’t expected to happen was when Mia turned a corner, she ran into a nearly naked man (well it should have been expected, she was in a locker room!) “SORRY!” Mia said, it coming out as more of a loud squeak. “Um… did you see a Niffler? Sorry!”
Dante staggered back a step as someone bounced off his chest. Really, it was his own fault for not paying more attention when he'd rounded the corner. His hands had come up automatically to the redhead's shoulders to steady her as much as himself. "Your--?" The words were slow to gel in his head. He hadn't had much experience with creatures in the past. His beasts tended to be of the more human variety. It clicked a second later as he drew his hands back, palms open in apology. A wry brow rose on his face, although he wasn't particularly amused right then and there. "Is that what took my tags? It was going this direction just a second ago."
Mia felt strong hands on her shoulders, and had to look up at the stranger she ran into. She had to take a moment to breath and mentally tell herself to calm her shit down. Ignore the fact he was mostly naked. That’s what towels were for. Her wand hand went down and made herself pay attention to the questions.
“Yes, probably. Shiny metal. Sorry, I’ll get them back,” Mia said, assured and probably nodded too much. She kept eye contact to not mentally objectify the muscular stranger. “She might be hiding in a locker, or something. Hopefully still in the locker room. I mean, she’ll come back to me eventually, but she might try to steal more things,” Mia started to ramble.
Although acutely aware of his disrobed state, Dante made no move to rectify the situation. He had other priorities for the moment that didn't include propriety. Some of the humor of the situation was starting to bleed into his initial annoyance, and it crept into the hint of a smile. "Is this a regular habit of your niffler? Sneaking into locker rooms and stealing things?"
Humor was something Mia could deal with. If this guy was going to get annoyed at her then there was going to be a problem. So, this was a good approach. “Stealing is a regular habit of all nifflers. And, well, Bonnie has it easier than the reserve nifflers because she’s mine and is out of the enclosure where the others have to break through wards… which they can do by the way, but the locker room is new,” she said remembering to breathe after that long drawn out explanation.
Mia finally remembered to look down at her wand, and see where the locater charm was directing her to. “Not far, she’s still in here,” she said side stepping around him, and going to the lockers in that general direction. “Going to have to do some lock breaking,” Mia said and made a shushing gesture because she wasn’t really supposed to be doing things like that.
She used one of her go to unlocking charms she’d picked up from cursebreaking that worked when alohomora usually didn’t, and opened the first couple lockers, but no niffler. The third one though revealed Bonnie curled up in the corner hiding, and Mia was quick to scoop her up. “There you are,” she said holding the niffler in the crook of her arm.
"An adorable thief if ever there was one," he observed dryly, having followed behind her while she hunted for her niffler. Dante crossed his arms and casually leaned against one of the still closed lockers. He tipped his chin to her, and very obviously tried not to laugh. It was in the mutinous tremble of his lips. "Seems like the perfect companion for an apparently very adept lockpick. Your secret life of crime is safe with me." He freed a hand to make a general gesture to the niffler. "Bonnie as in 'and Clyde'? Nice."
Despite the dry tone, Mia smirked because her niffler was adorable. At least… yeah he was definitely talking about Bonnie, not her. Stop projecting. Not everything is about you, Mia.
He was very astute as to Bonnie’s superior talents. “Ah, well… yes she is,” Mia agreed and blushed a bit at how obvious she was, even if Dante meant it as a joking observation. Her niffler had been a good companion for thieving. “Bonnie seemed appropriate at the time. We’re reformed now. Sort of,” she said confessing but not really. Better than making up for a lie later.
Mia looked at the bottom of the locker and couldn’t see a set of dog tags, and Bonnie wasn’t holding anything. “Looks like it’s gone into her pouch already. Just a second,” Mia said carefully rotating Bonnie so she was upside down, but completely supported by her arm. She reached to tickle the niffler on her belly. Bonnie emitted a few squeaks and squirmed in her hold, but things started to tumble out of the ever expanding pouch. Change, shiny candy wrappers, a spoon and then a set of dog-tags. Mia reached down to pick them up (and also to steal a quick read). “Here you are… Dante. Sorry about that. Again.”
He'd been joking, so the mention of being reformed sent his brows skyrocketing. Interesting. Also intriguing was the retrieval process, which he observed with open bemusement, especially when quite a pile of knickknacks amassed at the woman's feet. The relief he felt at seeing his dog tags again brought into sharp focus just how anxious he'd been at the idea of losing them. They'd been through a lot, so losing them in a place like this, to a creature half the size of a mole felt like an insult to his entire military career, especially since it would have largely been his fault for taking them off on the first place. Dante took them back with a smile that was probably entirely too grateful and not nearly as reproachful enough.
"Can't fight nature sometimes." He shrugged and put them back on. Tapping the tags, he shot her another raised brow. "But you've got me at a disadvantage on names, ma'am, since you've got mine already. I'd call that cheating, but I admire the willingness to press an advantage."
The look of surprise on Dante’s face at her reformed comment brought a nervous laugh out of her. But it didn’t lead into anything more than that for now. Mia sighed in annoyance though at the piled up knickknacks. “That better be my change,” she muttered to Bonnie.
“Nifflers are just nature’s finders,” Mia agreed, and was glad to get a smile for the return of his tags instead of a beratting for having a thieving companion. Really, if one stayed at the reserve long enough, you got used to it. She set Bonnie back down so she could reassemble her pile of treasures, and start putting things back into her pouch again.
Mia was going to excuse the ma’am part because this guy had military written all over him (she was not old! Go away 30.) “Yes, let’s go with advantage over cheating. I’m Mia, by the way. Junior Wrangler. Nifflers, obviously, are my jam.”
His hand went out with an offer to shake, but now he really was aware that he was wearing exactly one stitch of terry cloth, which hardly constituted clothing. The hand switched tracks so he could thrust his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his abandoned clothes. "If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go make myself decent." He rounded the corner without waiting for her permission and started pulling his things on again. He called back out to her, however, lest she think he was just leaving her. "It's nice to meet you, by the way, Mia, even if the circumstances are a little off. I'm in the Grounds as well, but more generally. Just a couple of weeks now. It's been a lot to take in."
Dante came back around the corner while his boots were still in the process of tying themselves. He smiled at her. "Thanks for the crash course in nifflers. I've always said it's better to learn by experience. More lasting, at least for me."
Mia didn’t miss the almost handshake too but clearly Dante realized the nakedness of the moment as well. Was she still blushing? Probably. Came with being a redhead. “Oh, yeah, sure,” she said about him making himself decent, but he’d already walked away. And she… awkwardly stood there. Did she stay? Did she go? Mia looked down at Bonnie who could have shrugged at her if she understood the situation. Instead, Bonnie just scurried up her leg so she could go sit on her shoulder.
“Oh, yeah. Nice to meet you too. Except the stealing part. And thank you for being understanding,” she said. Mia actually did meet a lot of people that way. They weren’t all so nice about it though. “Yeah, the Reserve is a lot. You been liking it so far?” she asked.
When he came back fully dressed, it didn’t really diminish the fact that Mia had seen him naked (and he wasn’t any less attractive while dressed either, duh) but this was much easier. There were more places to look now without being creepy. “You’re welcome. I can’t promise it won’t happen again though, unfortunately. And there are more of them.”
"So far so good if the only incident I've had are some pilfered dog tags and a blow to my dignity. I've had some jobs that have gone positively pear-shaped within a couple of hours, so I'm still going to count this as a win." Dante smiled at her, and then patted his chest. "I'll make sure to keep a better watch, then. I think you'll find you can only burn me once."
With a slight incline of his head, he indicated the locker room exit. "I was actually headed back out to check on some things near a couple of the enclosures. May I walk you out?"
Sometimes that Deep South upbringing reared its head. His mama would be proud.
“Yes, it could certainly be a lot worse than encountering an adorable thief,” Mia said smiling, because he was smiling. It was all good. “You’ve have a warning now, so you’ll do better next time,” she pointed out. If you didn’t know there were little nifflers sneaking around, you can’t keep your stuff safe.
Mia perked at the mention of being walked out. Well, that was charming. “Absolutely, thank you.” She was not opposed to accepting a gentleman’s offer. And well… Mia probably needed to get out of the locker room anyway.
Something in his smile went a little sharp, like a shadow that passes under a fast moving cloud, there and gone again and leaving you wondering if you ever saw anything in the first place. Kind of a perfect allegory for so much of what he'd done in his first life. "A warning is all it takes, ma'am. Anything else is just the price of doing business." He shrugged, unconcerned. "Is it wrong that I'm still having to use direction spells to find my way around here? I generally pride myself on my direction sense, but something about this place just throws me off. I wonder if it has something to do with the bio-spatial needs of such a diverse population."
He gave her a slightly embarrassed grin. "I probably need to ask someone a lot smarter than myself rather than relying on my own assumptions. You know what they say about assumptions. They can make your ass dead. Sorry, excuse my language."
To Mia, it was merely just a twitch of a smile and she hadn’t noticed or thought anything about Dante’s expression change. She even laughed at the question about not finding his way. “Don’t worry about it. I haven’t even been here for a full four years yet, and sometimes I still get lost without direction spells,” she admitted. Those employees who lived in Snowcap their whole lives… show offs. “But yeah, the changing environments for the different creatures’ habitats can make it more difficult to get around. It’s just cheating. But most people around here are helpful and they can direct you. Or at least remember where the signs are.”
"Y'know, it doesn't instill me with a great deal of confidence to learn that even someone who's been here for nearly four years still has trouble." He grinned over at her, following her direction, since it happened to be in the same general direction that he'd been heading anyway. "I go between envying people who feel content in staying in one place all their lives, and wondering why on earth anyone would want to do something so-- well, I hate to say boring, because that just sounds judgemental… I don't think I'm explaining myself well. I guess I've never really found a place that was like that. Where I wanted to put down roots. There's too much world to see, in my opinion. Which you didn't ask for. Sorry."
“Sorry about it,” Mia laughed at the fact she didn’t give him confidence about directions. But for now, she did know where she was going because she was heading back to the Niffler enclosure. She waved off his apology about implying what they did was boring and sound like he was judging. “Don’t worry about it. I know exactly what you mean,” Mia assured him when he apologised. “This wasn’t what I saw myself doing at all. Me getting here was a matter of circumstance. I did get to travel before and I did get to see much of the world. I was living my Tomb Raider fantasy,” she explained with a laugh.
That was the second allusion to a checkered past, and Dante found himself a little more intrigued by this woman. And they had far more in common than he would have expected from anyone on the Reserve outside of the ones with unusual bloodlines. "Looks like we've got a similar backstory: lots of traveling, winding up here at the whim of fate." He winced. "That makes it sound way more romantic than it actually was. For me, it was more like I needed the job while I was in the area, and I'm a good fit. Just kind of worked out."
Suddenly curious, he nodded at the niffler still in her arms. "Was Bonnie a Reserve find, or was she an accessory to your Lara Croft days?"
Mia definitely had more substance behind that superficial exterior she had these days and awkward backstory. She looked to Dante on his observation and saw him wince as well. “For me? Not so romantic either. I came here for one reason, and stayed because it worked out for other reasons,” she also admitted. Probation had been a lucky deal for Mia.
She looked back to Bonnie, who was now quite comfortable in the crook of Mia’s arms again, as she was carried back the same distance she’d ran quite easily earlier. “I’ve had Bonnie since she was a baby. She was assigned to me during my cursebreaker training. We’ve been inseparable ever since- well… except for one time, but I fixed that,” Mia explained.
More surprises from her corner. He looked at her, truly hooked on where this mystery might lead. "How does a cursebreaker wind up working with nifflers on a reserve in the middle of nowhere?" And then Dante checked himself for asking too much. With a dismissive laugh, he held up his hand and shook his head. "Sorry. You don't have to answer that, of course. Sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me."
Mia laughed, partly nervously and partly because yes the situation did sound utterly ridiculous. Dante did apologize though before she could explain anything. “It’s alright,” she nodded and didn’t mind the probing question. “To put it simply… I was sent to prison. Bonnie was sent here for retirement. I got to come here as part of my probation. And I stayed because I enjoy niffler wrangling.”
The smile he gave was completely devoid of judgment. If anything, it was almost delighted. "A checkered past. Interesting. Was it at least for something decently scandalous? I'd be sad if you and Bonnie got put away for something pedestrian like unpaid parking tickets or jaywalking."
That smile was a relief. It was always a hit or miss with Mia admitted that she was a convict. She had to laugh though about his question if it was scandalous. “I’m a trained cursebreaker who can break through wards, and my sidekick is a creature who can smell out precious metals, with an expandable pouch to hide it all in,” she explained. “I was convicted of burglary. One year in prison, restitution and then probation.” Mia let out a sigh.
"The hard stuff, gotcha." Dante gave her an appraising look, but it was far more like sizing up an ally as opposed to a criminal. He lifted a shoulder and let it drop again as he continued down the hallway with her. "It wasn't a year, but I did a stint in a Russian gulag in Siberia a while back, so I can sympathize. Not that I can give you anymore than that. Sorry. Sometimes I'm a bit of a tease."
Mia didn’t know how to feel about someone being impressed with her criminal record, but in this case it seemed appropriate. She wasn’t just a tiny cute 20s something. She had a ‘checkered past’, as he’d put it. Mia was more surprised about Dante giving her his backstory. “Wow. You win,” she said not that it seemed like a game worth winning. “Bridewell was pretty awful, but I wouldn’t call it a gulag,” she explained. Mia nodded though that he didn’t want to tell her why. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know why. But damn curiosity… “That’s still a pretty big tease,” Mia observed with a laugh. “But no apologies needed. We don’t all ramble.” Like she did, apparently, in front of attractive tall dark strangers.
"I wouldn't exactly call it a competition. And rambling usually provides the best intel." He laughed, but there was nothing mean about it. Dante wasn't making fun at all. Besides, as far as he knew, burglary--even that requiring a prison sentence--would never hold a candle to half the shit he'd seen and been a part of. As far as he knew, there wasn't actually a prison that was bad enough for the things he'd done personally. Hell would actually be like house arrest or more like a vacation destination. "And I also happen to like rambling. Takes the burden of small talk off of me."
They were approaching a branching hallway, and Dante started down one direction only to realize it was the opposite way from the office he'd remembered her mentioning. He had the layout down far better than he'd been letting on, but it was just one more secret he'd come here to keep. "I guess this is me. Thanks for the crash course in nifflers, Mia. It was nice to meet you. And Bonnie."
“That’s fine. It’s the worst idea of a competition,” she said but then laughed at the comment of intel. Just another reminder that yes her mouth could get her in trouble, but Dante didn’t need to know that. Especially when he was being so nice and appreciating her rambling. “Thank you. I try my best.”
Mia stopped when he did and realized that was their time to part ways. Was that disappointment she was feeling? Don’t be ridiculous. Stop acting like a teenager. “It was nice to meet you too, Dante. I’ll see you around?” That was a hopefully maybe question. But she gave Dante a confident smile and heading off on her way with her arms comfortably wrapped around Bonnie as she carried her.
"I look forward to it," he said more to himself than anything else. Dante smirked to himself as he left the office area. A thin white, curling line of what could have been smoke--but clearly it was just the cold air!--trailed behind him as he went back outside.