Meadowlark

Chapter 3

Thane was a lot easier to follow than he thought. Lemoine would quickly walk over to the apothecary around 15 minutes before the time of his first encounter with him, wait there until he paid for his herbs, and trail around 10 feet away from him. It was effective, and he could easily keep track of him because he wasn't too close or far away, but Thane always went somewhere else each time, the most random establishments too, and so, he usually gave up around the 3rd hour. Eloise had been keeping an eye on him for no reason whatsoever, so he usually scrambled back soon after and pretended to dust whatever was closest to him,  with the most innocent and angelic expression on his face. 

After a while, when none of his stalking had made a difference, Lemoine decided to write in a journal to take notes about what he DID know based on the words and visual clues he had  picked up. Sadly, they'd stayed the same despite him studying Thane relentlessly. 

-Extremely tall, green, curly hair.

 -Looks human. 

-Knows my father.

Lemoine had almost broke his pencil as he scrawled a large circle around the third bullet point, the lead residue coating the side of his hand. It wasn't technically significant, there were a lot of people who had business, but it was the only thing driving him forward in grasping the truth. 

He only began finding information one particularly chilly morning, when the wind was too strong for anyone to possibly see straight. It slowed down Thane enough that Lemoine summoned up the courage to talk to directly talk to him as he was strolling down the alleyway on the side of the shop. 

He decided to approach quietly and cautiously so he wouldn't startle him, which proved to have the opposite effect. 

"Hello." Lemoine whispered from behind him, his shoes barely making a sound on the concrete. and sent Thane screaming, and despite being so large, allowed himself to be tossed around by the wind like a feather. His right leg twisted around his left, and he plummeted to the ground.

"Don't kill me!" He blurted out, hands trying to shelter his body in pure fear. His eyes were squeezed shut, as if he knew that his doom was steadily approaching. But, as soon as he realised he was scared by a  fifteen year old boy who was barely scraping 5 foot 4 in height, he cleared his throat and composed himself as though he'd never freaked out at all. "Oh, you."

"Lemoine Beaufoy." Lemoine offered a hand for him to either shake or pull himself off the ground with. Thane instantly flinched away from it, flinging droplets of water every which way. His suspicions were right. Something DID happen between his father and him. 

"I know what you are, and I'm not touching that," Thane almost hissed at it, his own palms getting sweaty. He grunted in annoyance and wiped them on his pants, trying to dry them, but it proved hopeless. "I hate these fucking...meat sticks..." He muttered under his breath and noticed Lemoine staring, which got an awkward chuckle out of him. "I mean, fingers. Sweaty hands. That I always have, because I'm a human man and most human men have them. Not all of them, of course, but I happen to."

Lemoine narrowed his eyes, not believing him one bit. "Riiiiight. I'm going to go out on a limb here, call me crazy, but I think you're not. Given the fact you had to justify that you WERE human, and, well, this pathetic excuse for one." He motioned to Thane's body, with his long hair and proportions as well as his unconventional style choice. "So, I'm going to ask you two questions. You'll answer which one is easiest under the circumstances we're in right now, and then I'll find another way to squeeze the other out of you, like, I don't know..." His face turned grim. "Calling my father."

Thane jumped up, alarmed, waving his hands in surrender. "No! Don't do that! I'll do anything, I promise!" He burst into tears, dropped to his knees, and begged. "He'd kill me! I'm too anxious to die!"