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Prompt 6: There's something on the roof. It has no energy signature, so it can't possibly be a youma or any powered vigilante, but something's on the roof. It sounds like it's clopping around. If you go outside and investigate, there is a deer on the roof. A fully sized deer, staring down at you. The moment you blink, or look away, it's gone; if you investigate further you will find that there are tracks left in the snow atop the roof--but none around the house. It looks like it just showed up there--and just disappeared.
Yawning, Myth cursed herself for deciding to pull a late night going through inventory. But she wanted to be able to close the shop for the holidays. And before she could do that, she absolutely needed to know what all she actually had and how much. Then, she could simply file the count with her insurance and if something happened….
Well, if something happened, she wouldn’t be completely boned.
Stifling another yawn, she finished with the last of the jewelry trays and spent a few moments tapping her tablet. Thank goodness that she didn’t have an insane amount of stock. And that she’d already taken care of the high ticket stuff. If anyone tried to burgle the store, they wouldn’t find anything outrageously valuable to make off with. Small blessings. Not that she really thought anyone would try to break in given the fairly swanky neighborhood, but much better to be safe.
“Annnd that’s done,” she muttered, saving the list she’d compiled. All that was left to count now were the random, little tchotchkes. And once those were tabulated, she was done. She could lock up, go home and spend the next week and a half vegetating in front of a fire.
As she counted, she became aware of odd noises coming from the roof. Of course, it could just be snow, but it didn’t sound entirely right. Then, she heard what could only be described as clopping and froze. It was far too late for work crews. Her shop didn’t need any work that would require roof access. So was it thieves trying to be clever or something worse? She came to a decision and set the tablet down before powering up and calling her weapon to hand. A brief moment of concentration revealed that there… wasn’t anything magical up there. But Nis could still hear clopping. So, thieves then.
Sneaking out the back door, she glanced up at the roof and thought she saw a shadow of movement. Shivering a little in the cold, she took a few more steps and froze. She’d expected to see people up there. Instead, what she saw was…
A deer. A full grown, antlers and all ******** deer.
How was there a god-damned deer on her roof? Why was there a god-damned deer on her roof?!?
Nis knew that she was staring and slack-jawed, but all she could do was watch the deer as it peered nonchalantly back down at her and continued to clop around on the roof.
“No way,” she whispered, taking a moment to blink and rub her eyes. “There is just no damned way.”
When she opened her eyes, the deer was gone. And Nis knew very well that there was absolutely no way for a deer to jump down without making a lot of noise. And possibly breaking it’s god-damned legs in the process. Clambering up on to the roof didn’t give Nis any further enlightenment. There were hoof prints in the otherwise pristine looking snow covering the roof, but the deer was gone. Jumping down, the Cosmos squire examined the snowy ground in front of the shop. No tracks other than her own. And she knew that there had been no deer prints in the back. There wasn’t room enough on either side for a human to walk through much less a massive ungulant.
After a few more moments searching and puzzling, Nis gave it up as a bad job and went back inside to power down. It was as if the deer had just suddenly appeared full form on her roof.
Or it flew in. And frankly, Myth thought, a flying deer wouldn’t be the weirdest thing she’d ever experienced. And maybe she should be thankful that there had only been the one. If she’d seen the full complement of nine, she might have lost her dang mind.
(Word Count: 647)
