Unwanted Trouble (Mission RP, CL RP)

        Mari scampered along Eventide’s narrow alleyways, bounding from street to street while the world grew dimmer. Flitting from shadow to shadow, kicking off walls and rattling fire escapes, she followed the long shapes cast by the afternoon sun. As the sky faded into a milky blue, the town only a black silhouette, she climbed up onto the rooftops and watched the last washes of daylight disappear.

        She soon spotted her partner nestled among the branches of a tree near the plaza, fiddling with a little book in his hands. A very Aren place to be. Skidding down the roof tiles, she fell into the leaves. Without a sound, Mari shifted from branch to branch in the dark.

        “Good to see ya!” She plopped down next to him, swinging her legs as she leaned forward to watch the street lamps flicker on and the people walking about down below.

        “Sooo,” she nudged his shoulder, “what’s the plan, my man?”

        Mari studied the map, taking note of each cluster of dots on the page. A few familiar areas caught her eye, the red marks too close to cult operations for her liking. The antiques shop, the pub, the little café down a few streets were all oddly close to denser clusters of dots. In contrast, dots littered the edge of town, towards the hunting end of the woods as well as other distinctly human places. But her gaze snapped back up when Aren asked her to race.

        “You know it!” She tucked the map into the shadows of her cloak as he stood up from his perch, “I’m always up for a run ‘round town.”

        “We can start from the center street and snoop around from there. Meetcha at the church steeple, yea?” Mari saluted, flashing a grin at him. Throwing her head back, she swung upside down, just barely staying in the shade of the tree as she sailed onto another branch and slipped into the dark.

        Mari laughed and hung off the ledge of the belfry, with only an arm and leg hooked on to keep her tethered as she teetered and waved in the air. A night breeze fluttered her cloak, and she looked out over the little town with its soft lamplights spaced slightly too far apart and sharp silhouettes of its buildings against the night sky. Down below, open storefronts provided a little more light as people went about their business.

        “Hm, ya think so?” she asked, eying people walking the streets. She pointed to strangers in her sights, anyone who seemed out of place or suspicious, “What about that guy? Ooh, or—or him! That lady over there?”

        She glanced back at Aren, “Maybe we should actually get down there and check it out, huh?”

        Pulling out the map, she turned back towards him and held it up to his eye level, “There’s a lot goin’ on in this place,” she poked the paper about where she envisioned it in her head, “probably ‘cause of a the bar nearby. And an inn too, I think. If anyone new’s come to town, they should be here.”

        “Whaddaya think? You think we should split up or..?” Her green eyes peeked over the edge of the paper expectantly.

        Throwing the map back into whatever mystical storage space nestled in the shadows of her cloak, she grinned at him cheekily, eyes bright, “Of course. A dingy old tavern’s no place for a sweet, innocent youth.”

        She giggled, doing a half-curtsy with her billowing cloak, then turned on her heel and skipped to leap straight off the edge of the tower—

        Before catching herself. She hung onto a column precariously, looking back at Aren, “It’s like, eight, right? Let’s meet back up ‘round midnight. Four hours, plenty of time. Tick tock,” she chimed, waggling a finger at him, impish smile ever present.

        With a secure tug on her hood, she let go and skidded down the roof tiles and melted into the shadows.

---

        Mari slipped through the alleyways, gliding and flying in the air as she shifted from shadow to shadow. She whizzed past windows and ran along rooftops, disappearing in the dark whenever an Eventide resident so much as glanced her way. Though once in a while, she found it amusing to flash her Cheshire grin in the corner of some unsuspecting passerby’s eye, vanishing when they jumped and turned suspiciously to the alleys.

        Maybe, perhaps she did slip into a little convenience store along the way, to swipe a little something from the snack aisle. A candy bar or two, possibly three. Definitely not four. How could she resist? The trash boy left the back door cracked just slightest bit, and stakeouts did take an awfully long time.

        Almost out the back, she paused as a pair of men passed nearby, talking something of the woods. One man hunched his shoulders, feigning holding a rifle as the other laughed rambunctiously at him, grabbing things from the shelves. She squinted, gears turning in her head. Hunters, huh?

        She scrambled outside, waiting for their exit from up above. They headed in the same direction she was going, towards the inn. Watching intently, out of sight, she followed close behind.

        Mari followed them until they reached the doors of Eventide’s inn, a quaint cozy place where tourists or just people passing through the night could stay. Despite looking a tad rough around the edges with its old yellow lights and creaking floors it, surprisingly enough, still managed to stay in business. Mari chalked it up to the charm of an old Washington town, maybe a witch’s charm, who knows?

        She tailed them past the entrance of the main building, following the side opening to the other part of the inn to the motel-esque half. She’d be lying if she said she’d never snooped around the establishment before, checking out whatever colorful characters stayed behind its thin walls. And tonight, some very interesting people seemed to be meeting up in the inn’s outer rooms, the ones along the back of the building where the lights cast long shadows, and off in the distance the forest lined the horizon.

        The pair stopped in front of a door and casually leaned against the wall, chit-chatting away. Probably waiting for the others, whoever they are. In the meantime—she settled in her own little corner where the lights were too dim to reach, itching to pull out that candy bar—she’d find something to preoccupy herself.

        But across the way, Mari spotted a pickup truck parked all by its lonesome. She glanced at the hunters, who were too engrossed in their conversation to notice a little digging around their car.

        The corners of her mouth couldn't help but turn up in a little scheming smile.