The Shoes You Wear, The Food You Eat, The Way You Are

Shanna dashed around the house looking for Rondy.

It didn't take her long to find him. He had been in his room, and was in the process of re-ordering basically every book upon the shelves. So much for her boyfriend's very particular order, she thought to herself. He was gaining a new preference this very minute.

"Rondy!" She exclaimed excitedly. "There was a footprint in the storeroom!"
Rondy hadn't seemed to grasp how important this detail was.

Shanna ignored his silence in order to plow ahead. "That shoe print isn't yours!" 

He gazed at her in that strangely melancholic way of his. "That's ridiculous." 
But she shook her head and continued. "It's not your shoe print. I know for certain! I'd bet my life on it!"

The sincere assertion had once again drawn a withered look from Rondy who rebutted with a single word. "Ludicrous."

"It is not!" Shanna snorted. "I've always known everything about you, everything!" Her eyes had undertaken a passionate glint. "Every shoe you've ever bought, worn, hated, loved, were meh about, all of it! Absolutely all of it!"

His face had recoiled into a deeper and deeper grimace the longer she'd gone on.
"What in the world would convince someone to do something as tedious as all that?"

Shanna had thumped her chest proudly. "Love!" 

Rondy gave her another one of those withering looks of his. "Preposterous."

It was Shanna's turn to grimace. "'Preposterous'? When have you ever used such grandiose language…"
"If the shoe fits." 

"Ha-ha." Shanna chortled weakly. "Look, the point is!" She said trying to get back on track. "Is that the shoes in that dust weren't yours! That means someone else was in there with you when the potion explosion went off!"

She started pacing, hand on chin as she pondered and spoke aloud the various possibilities. "That means that someone could've seen what potions you were hit with! And if we can find out who was with you, then we're one stop closer to getting the ingredients for an antidote and getting you back to normal!" She stopped mid pace as another thought popped to mind. "Oh! And now that I'm thinking about it, there was that person who left the store when I arrived." She clicked her finger. "A person with purple lipstick! That's right, they could've been the witness." She said keenly.

"Or the assailant." Rondy said.

It had been so out of left field, it had taken Shanna a second or two to regain her wits.
"What are you talking about?"

He turned to face her, his expression bleak as shivering hands pulled his hood lower. "I-Isn't it obvious?" His eyes wrenched shut. "They were trying to kill me. To remove me from this sorry planet for good."

Shanna craned forward. "Do… Do you remember something before the accident? Did someone threaten you? Was it them? The person in the big cloak??"

Her heart beat feverishly as she awaited his response. His response disappointed her.
"Who wouldn't want to kill me?" He sniffled.

She leaned back.
Geez Louise, Shanna thought looking piteously at the guy. He was so far removed from her Rondy, romantic recollections out performed him. She shook her head.

"I don't think anyone's trying to kill you, Rondy." She said speaking in a soothing tone.
He didn't look convinced.

Seeing the glorious sunshine outside, Shanna came up with a different way to allay his fears.

"Say, why don't we go outside? The fresh air will do you some good."

"Outside?" His face turned green. Shanna nodded unabated.

"My lyre here is able to purify and heal, you know?" She said patting the instrument at her side. "It's how I'm able to travel far and wide, but still gather so many rare ingredients for your potion making, Moonlight."

He tilted his head quizzically. "Potion making?"

"That's right. Before your accident you were a master alchemist for our town. We worked together, earned a living together…?" Her intonation had raised to query toward the end, hoping he would remember his prior life.

He continued to stare at her blankly, however.

"And it seems like some of the latest orders like Brava's haven't been finished and delivered yet." She said with a sigh. Rondy remained as he was, hood low as he slouched in front of the bookcase.

"Well anyway, enough about that. Come, come. Let's go outside. It's lovely outside, and my lyre works best in the sunshine!"

A panicked yelp was the reply back, as he furiously shook his head.
"No way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way no way, no way no way no way, no way no way no way, no way no way no way, no way, no way no way, no way!
It's impossible for me, I'll die…" His eyes had squeezed closed again.

"No one wants to kill you!"

"But you said I was the master alchemist right? Clearly they wanted to kill me for not fulfilling work orders…" He had melted low to the floor and was removing the books he'd ordered from the shelf in order to lay them around him. "What a terrible life I've been born into…" He whimpered.

"No! Stop that! Stop that right now, no more book caves!" Shanna chided. He looked at her as if she'd just denied some pivotal piece of his existence.

"…It's not a book cave…" He muttered dolefully.

Shanna felt this new Rondy was going to send her to an early grave.
"Don't worry about it." Shanna said with a shake of her head. "Just stay there… and be good. Don't make a book cave." She added firmly.

He remained as he was, curled on the floor as Shanna left the room ruffling her head. This new Rondy was putting her through the wringer. She had been so used to talking her thoughts through with him before that this had been quite the wake up call.

As she made her way back down the stairs and towards the store room she couldn't help but continue to speculate over it by herself.
It was a witness, surely.

The idea that someone was trying to kill Rondy… Well, that had come straight from his own ridiculous delusions. As far as she knew, nobody really disliked the pair of them right? And what other motive would there be?

Her pace slowed as her mind racked over that final question. A motive. She had just opened the storeroom door and froze as a new theory popped to mind.

The mess, the chaos, like a fight had broken out. A suspicious footprint in the aftermath, and torn pages in Rondy's recipe book…

She gulped. What had Merridee said about a thief terrorizing the county?

Her heartbeat quickened as she considered it more thoroughly. Were any other books missing? Any potions, ingredients? She bite a fingernail as she closed the door behind her.

This could be a crime-scene!
She needed Merridee right away!