Solo or RP Format
Counts as 5 RP growth Points
Solo word minimum is 750, RP post minimum is 7

Tis the season for gift giving, a sense of celebration as the year comes to an end. You get all the gifts you expect, and give some out as well. However, a strange, unmarked gift has arrived. You have no idea who sent it, or what it might be. Is it something from an admirer, or possibly a bit more sinister?

[ Your character receives an unexpected gift. Feel free to answer this prompt exploring the thoughts around such thing, the suspicion or confusion, maybe even resolving it with finding out who the gift giver was. Maybe it's someone you know, but it's a surprise. Maybe it's a mistake. The only way to find out is to open the present. ]

Rhonann sat in front of the fireplace with a pensive look on her face as she stared down at the mystery box. It had probably been an hour now since the courier service had delivered it to her hands with zero explanation. It didn’t look like anything special to her eyes. The packaging was some simple yellow paper and a thin line of twine wrapped around it. Clean and secure; but that was it. No note with any explanation. No label outside of her name written in a generic script to tell her who it was from. A rectangle in total about the size of a small loaf of bread. Nothing distinctive at all about it.

It wasn’t likely to be anyone in her family. She loved Kian and the kids, but she would never describe any of them as “subtle”. Plus, why bother making it a secret? She was not fond of surprises, which they knew. They also knew she was likely to throw an anonymous package away on principle alone. Who would do something as childish and risky as send an unmarked package?

So why hadn’t she thrown it out yet? She still just sat there, looking at the mysterious delivery. Her eyes narrowed into a tighter squint while her lips pressed into a line as she debated within herself. She brought her clasped hands up and steepled her fingers to press against the line of her lips. She really should just get rid of it. It could have been anything! Poison. A knife on a spring. A rabies infected spitorog. Anything!

On the flip side though… it could be almost anything. A sweet treat. Some new shoes. A shiny knife with a sheath. A healthy spitorog friend for Mush even!

She cocked her brow and looked over at the old spitorog that she had ended up keeping long ago. The dumb thing had been one of her most faithful companions over the years, ever present and resilient. How was it still alive, anyway? She shook her head and reached over to pop one of the bubbles resting over the oblivious critter’s lips. Those unfocused eyes of his didn’t even blink. Rho sighed with a smirk and plucked up the box to refocus her attention.

It wasn’t a very heavy package. In fact, it didn’t feel like there was anything in there at all.

Well, here goes nothing.

The twine unknotted quite easily, and the plain paper fell to the floor with only a slight rustle. As a precaution, she pointed the top away from herself as she opened the lid. When no devastating daggers of death came flying out from the compartment, she cautiously tipped it back toward herself so that she could look inside.

What was she looking at?

As her brow knit with confusion, she reached into the box and pulled out a bright red felt scarf with narrow tassels on each end. Not a particularly warm material for what was generally winter attire, but it would keep things cozy on a cool day. It was absurdly long; a few inches taller than she was when it was fully stretched out. The embroidery was, how to say it.. less than ideal. It was actually rather shoddy. It looked like it was meant to be graceful vines with wide leaves and delicate flowers. Instead, it was mostly fat lines that snaked around with rounded leaves and flowers that tried their best to look like flowers. This wasn’t even amateur work. Either someone made this without giving a damn about how it turned out, or it was a youngling’s very first project.

Either way, why the heck had it been sent to her? Rho stuck her hand back into the box to search for a note. A poem. A name. Anything! Just like the outside packaging though, there was nothing more to be gleaned from further inspection. Even the scarf was a blank canvas. There was nothing to mark it aside for the lackluster embroidery. Not even a tag to say who had made it.

Surely this wasn’t a youngling’s pet project. If it was for a relative or a friend, any youngling would surely have left an obnoxiously affectionate note boasting on and on about the hard work they had put into the scarf. She couldn’t imagine why she would be sent something half-assed either.

She was absolutely flummoxed, and actually a little disappointed. That had been rather anticlimactic. She looked over at Mush and held the scarf to him. “Do ya like it?” With only a few more spit bubbles in response, Rho nodded with agreement. “Yeah. My thoughts, too.” No way would she wear the thing, but she wasn’t one to waste materials either. She could absolutely cut it up to turn into pads for holding hot pans.

(( word count: 804 ))