Knuxouge - Clipped Wings

The Section With a Lovely Picnic

Rouge woke up around noon the next day. She sat up, recognizing her own room and smiling. Everything was exactly how she'd left it before she got hurt, and just how she liked it. Though the flowers on her bedside table were new.

There on the small white table was a brilliant bouquet of purple hyacinth, pink peonies, and blue hydrangea. At least the color choices matched her interior decorating. Rouge inspected the bouquet and surrounding area, but there was no note or even a simple name tag that could tell her who had left them. A bashful admirer, perhaps? She did have many admirers.

A thought struck her. She had been so exhausted the night before that she may not be able to remember correctly, but... had these flowers been there before she fell asleep? Or did somebody place them there afterwards? The notion sent a shiver down her spine. Either way somebody had gotten into her house without her noticing. It was lucky this admirer didn't seem to have any ill intentions. She would have to double check her security soon, because whether she agreed out loud or not, Knuckles was right; she couldn't fight with her wings broken and her legs weakened.

Rouge left the bouquet where it was and got ready for whatever was left of the day. She pulled a simple turquoise shift dress on, made a stop in the bathroom, then started heating up some leftovers for lunch. In every room she went through she checked the locks, and they worked just fine. While her lunch heated up she thought about how an intruder could have gotten in. All of the locks on the outside of her house were pick-proof, since Rouge was a master thief herself she knew what criminals could do and beefed up security, though apparently it hadn't been enough. Only she and Amy had keys. Could the mystery giver be Amy? No, that was ridiculous; if Amy wanted to give Rouge flowers, she could have just handed them to her the night before. It probably wasn't one of her friends borrowing Amy's key either.

Rouge's house had many high-up windows. She loved to open them at night to let moonlight and fresh air in. But they were too high up for anyone to reach. The ones that were large enough for a person to fit through had locks. Only an agile, flexible child capable of acute flight would be able to get into the house without breaking something.

The smell of burning food forced Rouge to snap out of her paranoia. Her lunch! She rushed over to the stove and pulled her meal off of it, but the damage had been done. Her leftovers were in the saddest state they'd ever been, burnt to blackness with an acrid smell wafting off of them. She had to put the poor food out of its misery and throw it away.

A sigh escaped her. This was her first day back on her feet; it should have been good. So far it had only been disappointing and unnerving. Clearly her mind was somewhere else, so she decided to go outside and check her security before trying to cook something else.

All of her door and window locks were just fine. There was no indication of forced entry or tampering. Rouge almost wished there was just to end this mystery. Of course she couldn't check the high up and second floor entry points. She missed her flight already. Her surroundings popped out at her; there were plenty of tall trees close by. Maybe if she could climb one, she would be able to investigate further.

That was the plan, but the execution would be much more difficult. She didn't have much experience climbing trees since she could just fly to the top. Usually. It should be simple enough. Just find footholds and go, like scaling a cliff. So she tried— and slid back down to the ground after going about one foot.

"Okaaay, you wanna be difficult? Geez," she grumbled to herself as she got up to retry.

Rouge heard a stick crack somewhere, but assumed it was from the tree she was having issues with.

"What are you doing, batgirl?" Okay, that voice definitely didn't come from the tree. Rouge whirled around to see Knuckles staring at her, a look of bewilderment on his face. Great. Just what she needed today, to embarrass herself in front of her.. in front of Knuckles.