Riddle Me This (Winterwatcher)

Awkward

Winter POV

Winter sighed deeply as he finally returned to his apartment, plopped his groceries down on the floor, and sank onto the sofa.

He hadn't expected to see Moon after so long. Maybe he could go say hi the next time he was at Target?

Then again, it would probably be weird for her if Winter just went up and was like, Hi, Moon! Nice to see you again after so long! I still kept the skyfire after so long despite no apparent reason to wear it other than a memento from a friend even though we knew each other for like three days! Sooooo, how's it going?

Ugh, he felt a headache coming along.

Just then, a ding-dong rang through the house.

Probably the landlord, whom he had no intention of interacting with.

He instead switched on the television.

Ding-dong.

"The stock market has not been looking good recently," the news anchor said.

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

Winter turned up the volume a few notches. "Indeed, just as we speak, inflation is on the rise!" the anchor continued.

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.

Winter turned the TV to max volume. "WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE RISING COSTS OF LIVING!" the TV blared.

Dingdongdingdongdingdongdingdongdingdong-

Winter groaned and turned off the television to answer the door.

"Well?" the landlord, a SandWing, snapped as soon as he opened the door. "Where's this month's rent?"

"Fine, fine," he replied, rolling his eyes.

Five minutes later, the landlord was walking away with the money in talon, for once humming happily.

Now that he thought of it, he'd never bothered to know his landlord's name.

Winter sighed and went into his room for a quick shut-eye.

10 minutes later, Winter another ding-dong woke him up.

He crawled out of bed and lurched to the door.

"Just wanted to tell you that we're going to be repainting the entire building tomorrow, so you're going to have to move out tonight and spend a day living elsewhere," the SandWing said.

"And of course you only tell me this like 3 minutes beforehand," Winter muttered.

The landlord sniffed disdainfully. "You're lucky I gave you any warning at all, or you'd get paint all over your oh-so precious belongings tomorrow."

Winter slammed the door and retreated to his bed.

Five minutes later, another ding-dong sounded.

Winter growled in annoyance as he stomped to the door and threw it open.

"What do you want?" he snarled, expecting to see the landlord.

Instead, it was Moon, who looked half terrified and half indignant.

Oops.

"S-sorry," Winter muttered. "I was expecting to see...ugh, anyways, what are you doing here?"

"I'm...here to return this," Moon thrust out a talon.

Winter saw his ID card in her claws.

Oh, I must have dropped that at Target...he thought.