RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC42: Mercury's Home Insurance (Mercury & Co.)-4

Closer to Argus, their scrolls worked better, less patchy.

And Cinder got a call that she wasn't expecting.

So did Shine.

"Hello, Ms. Fay. What is it?" Cinder answered. "Was there something you want me to pick up?"

"No, I'm afraid that's not it." Fay sounded a little stressed. "Miss Scon, I don't think you should return to Eurus just at this time."

It was like a cold wave crashed over Cinder's head.

"Are you...letting me go?" she asked.

"What? No, it's not that," Fay said. "Though I'm not sure what to do about that. Listen, something happened today that was concerning..."

* * *

Fay had been covering her dress shop, as she was down one worker and it was a slow day at her other office.

Jacqueline had been working at the counter when some strange woman came in.

She looked rough and unfriendly to them, and they knew she didn't live in the town. They knew everyone.

The woman glanced around the shop's interior in a manner like she was sizing it up, then she asked Jacqueline if she knew a woman named Scarlet Scon.

"She's the manager," Jacqueline said, before Fay could stop her. "She's not in today."

The woman had looked surprised, but then masked it.

"I've heard of her skills," she said, with a sugary smile. "I was hoping to a place and order for shoes. Glass, aren't they?" Pointing to the ones in the display case.

"She's quite talented with glasswork." Jacqueline didn't know about Cinder's Semblance.

How anyone thought she made that stuff when she only worked at the shop was a mystery. Maybe they thought she had a glass oven hidden in the woods.

But then there were no glass workers in this town. It was possible they didn't know how you made it at all.

[I didn't before I saw it at a fair.]

"When will she be in?" the woman asked.

"We don't know just yet." Fay had rushed to take over before Jacqueline could say anything. "She's out on break. Perhaps I can take a message. who shall I say was asking for her?"

"Oh, don't bother. I'll just come back another time," the woman had said at once.

She'd left then.

"How odd," Jacqueline has said. "Didn't even bother to ask for our website."

"If she comes back," Fay said, "don't tell her anything about Scarlet. That was not a normal conversation at all."

"It wasn't?" Jacqueline said, frightened now.

"Perhaps it was nothing, but it sounded like trouble to me," Fay said.

After which they discovered that some of their display items had been stolen. The woman must have slipped them into her bag.

* * *

"So, I'm not sure it's safe," Fay said. "I think you have enemies we do not know about."

Cinder was silent for a moment.

"What did she look like?" she asked.

"A tall woman, dark hair--short though, almost like a man's. Very broad shoulders, but...well, you could tell she was a woman, even though her clothes had no taste at all. Dark eyes also, I think."