Painting and Pursuit

His ears flattened against his ears, but he didn’t insist.

“I’ll be in our room,” he said, giving her an embrace farewell, before returning to the shack. By the time he returned, dawn had yet to give way to the morning proper. Everyone else should’ve been asleep, but he saw Lin leaving the shack. Her tiny frame struggled beneath the weight of several canvases, and Elias trotted over to help. She straightened up as he approached, as though startled, and dropped the canvases to the ground.

“You okay Lin?” he said, and helped her pick them up.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m moving these to my shed. You can go to sleep.”

“Are you sure?” said Elias. He gestured to the canvases that had fallen. Fortunately they’d fallen on a field of dry flowers, so there’d been no damage to the painting. “If you end up dropping these on some mud or a wet patch, that’d be bad for the painting, right? I could carry some.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Lin’s lips pressed together. She deliberated for a moment, as though Elias’ offer presented a complicated issue. Eventually, however, she nodded. “Fine. Just be careful of where you look.” Elias raised an eyebrow, but followed her through the field of flowers. Eventually they arrived at a small shack at the far end of the meadow, set against a backdrop of trees. Lin produced a key from a pocket and showed him inside.

Every inch of the shack interior was covered in a painting, either big or small. Lin lit a lantern and led the way through the two rooms that comprised the shack.

“Where would be a good place for these,” she murmured to herself, glancing around.

Elias tilted her head.

“This isn’t an art gallery,” he remarked. “It’s not like anyone is going to see these.”

“That’s not the point,” Lin said. “We have to handle these babies with care.”

“Right…” Elias rolled his eyes, and wondered if Marcel felt this way everyday as Lin’s roommate. As the artist muttered to herself about the optimal place to put paintings that would probably never see the light of day, he wandered into the next room and looked around at her many canvases with an idle eye.

Then, tucked away against the far wall and nearly out of sight, a familiar red ensnared his attention. He stepped closer, and his lips parted in surprise as he beheld its details. Serena’s red ponytail and Leon’s long sandy-colored bangs that covered his eyes. They sat on a familiar cliff filled with blue flowers. Their legs dangled over the edge. Serena’s head rested against Leon’s shoulder, and his arm wrapped around her back. They shared a smile, and Serena wore a necklace of glass jewelry in the shape of seashells. Something about the jewelry struck a familiar chord.

“Elias, I found a good spot!” Lin’s voice rang out, and Elias jumped. He turned around and stepped away from the painting. She peeked her head inside. “There you are. Come on. I know where to put those paintings.” She stared at his face for a moment, and squinted. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She let out a thoughtful hum, but walked out without further probing. Elias spared the painting of Serena and Leon one more look before walking out.

“Whatever you saw,” Lin said. “You’re better off not thinking about it.”

“Yeah.” The affirmative tumbled automatically from Elias’ mouth, even as he struggled to connect the dots. But he recalled how familiar Leon seemed with Serena, whereas she didn’t seem to care much for him at all. He’d thought that the man had harassed her, but his mind drifted back to that painting.

He drifted to sleep after returning to the shack, and woke about two hours before noon. There was no sign of Serena. There was no sign that she’d even entered and left again. Elias’ lips pressed together. The rational part of his mind insisted that it was probably nothing to worry about, but a deeper, more intuitive part kept pondering the painting and Kuchisake’s expression from that dawn.

Questioning those in the rooms nearby, including Lin and Marcel, revealed that they hadn’t seen any sign of Serena either.

“Her father probably summoned her,” said Lin. “I wouldn’t get involved. Serena will be back soon, and things will go back to normal.” Her eyes seemed to peer through him, as though she reminisced about something. Elias shuddered.

He turned toward Marcel, but his thoughts must’ve been plain on his face, as the darker-skinned man shook his head.

“If Serena has business with her father, then that’s their business,” he said. “I’m not going to get on the mage’s bad side. He has magic. He could turn me into a newt for all I know.”

“Still…” Elias looked down at the wooden floor tiles. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. No, he couldn’t give up. He still had one option left. That spare boat at the bottom of the cliff that Serena had shown him to. It probably seated two people like the boat that Bill had initially used to bring him to the island. “I’ll be heading out for a bit.”

He stepped out, and checked each of the remaining shacks till he learned about the one that Leon stayed in. Elias knocked on the door to Leon’s room, and found that he shared a room with the rounder crony with thinning hair.

“What do you want, Serena’s cat?” Leon sneered at him. “And don’t worry, I learned my lesson. I won’t be stomping on your tail or anything like that.”

“I want to ask about Serena,” said Elias. “She’s gone. And I don’t know where she is. Lin said that she’s probably gone to her father to talk about something.”

“Is that right?” Leon smiled at him. “Then why don’t you be a good little kitty and wait for her to come back?” A bitter edge coated his words. “I’m sure she’ll be back as good as new.”

“Something doesn’t feel right,” said Elias. “But nobody is willing to help me.”

“And you think I want to help a thieving cat like you?” Leon laughed.

Elias’ ears flattened against his head as he scowled.

“I don’t know why you call me that,” he said. “I don’t know you. And it doesn’t sound like Serena knew you that well. She barely mentions you.” As he spoke, he remembered the painting in Lin’s shack, but didn’t mention it for the time being.

Leon twitched. He let out a shuddering breath. He turned toward his round crony.

“Get out of here for a second,” he said.

“Sure thing boss.” The man departed from the room, carefully stepping around Elias’ tail with a look of trepidation. Only when Elias’ tail was no longer within range of his feet did he breathe a sigh of relief and depart up the hall.

“Shut the door,” said Leon, and Elias obeyed.

He sat on his bed for a while, looking down at his lap.

“I don’t know what happened to Serena,” he muttered. “One day she loves me, and after she goes to her father, she’s suddenly different. She looks the same. Same red hair, same blue eyes, same figure, but she’s different.” His jaw set. “Not the Serena I knew.” His eyes closed. His chest rose as he breathed in. “Bill and Kuchisake said that I mistreated her, but she didn’t have the heart to tell me. In the end, it grew too much for her, and she just wanted to forget me. So her father made it happen. But Serena…my Serena trusted me enough to show me her special spot on the island. I stood by her even when I learned her secrets. I helped keep her urges at bay.” His nostrils flared as he glared at Elias. “But then when I go to our special spot to think, she brings you there like it’s nothing.” Leon’s voice trembled. “Like we meant nothing. Like she replaced me with you.” A hard edge crept into his voice as he raised his head to meet Elias’ gaze. “So you tell me. How can I not see you as a thieving cat after all that?”

The man had stomped on his tail and been a bully during their first meeting, but now there was a painful air about him. Elias’ eyes couldn’t help but soften.

“I’ll go talk to Serena,” said Elias. “We can figure this out. I just need help getting to Merloine’s tower.”

“And if I help you, what then?” said Leon. “I get to see you two have your happy ending while I suffer in silence? I have to sit there and smile as you two kiss and do everything else that lovers do?” His fists clenched at his sides. “What about the Serena that I knew?”

Elias sat beside the taller man.

“You said it yourself that this isn’t the Serena that you knew,” he said. “Don’t you think it’s worth asking her father about it? Maybe he can help us make this all make sense.” Elias bodily turned to face Leon. “If you care about Serena at all, don’t you want to make sure that she’s okay?”

Leon’s nose wrinkled.

Elias sighed. “I’m really worried about her, Leon. I want to be there for her, but I don’t know how. And now it sounds like she’s dealing with some very serious things. She could get hurt.” Elias’ voice threatened to break. “Doesn’t that matter to you at all?”

Leon massaged his temples as grumbles of frustration slipped out. Trails of steam unfurled from his skin, and Elias moved along the bed to keep away from it.

“Fine,” the man relented. “We’re leaving tonight.”

“Tonight?” Elias’ eyes widened at the suddenness. “Don’t we need to prepare more?”

“What’s there to prepare if we’re just asking questions?” said Leon. “The island isn’t too far besides, I don’t think.” Leon shrugged. “I’ve never been there myself, but that’s what I’ve gathered from how Bill and Kuchisake talk about it.”

Elias vaguely remembered visiting Merloine’s tower, though he couldn’t recall the finer details. He at least remembered its general direction.

“All right, we’re leaving tonight, I guess.”