Once Upon A Ring (Open)

[Sati Beshara]

There was a bird's nest in a bush in the hedgerow of the complex where Sati Beshara lived. It had appeared a few weeks ago, and since then she had passed it every time she goes to the outside entrance of stairs that lead to her apartment floor. Someone who had seen the occupant fluttering around it a few times said that it belonged to a magpie. Sati often glanced in there when she went by it, always in vague hope of seeing eggs. What she usually saw though was just mere shiny trash, but today her eyes were greeted with real treasure. She stopped in her tracks, looking down at it, perhaps a bit afraid to actually put her fingers into the little bowl of twigs because the magpie might come out of nowhere in defenses of its territory, but then plucked it out.

It was a ring, and itt was made of intertwined bands of silver and gold (or looked like it, for all she knew it could be plain metal that was only plated with precious ones), blue stones (she didn't even have a guess what they were, if they were even real stones at all and not glass paste) and...opals. She was sure they were opals, real one. She knew jack all about gemstones, hence her inability to recognize real sapphires when she saw them, but she'd never seen an imitation opal that looked anything close to genuine. Of course, it could be argued that she'd seen lots of convincing fake opals and she just didn't know it because she had thought they were real, but she was adamant at a glance on the authenticity of the ones before her, and would be unless a professional jeweler or jewelry appraiser told her otherwise. Only something true could be so beautiful.

She turned it over and over slowly in her fingers, looking at it from every angle. Tallulah, her roomie, would like it (she was keen on white and blue) and Sati herself found it near-mesmerizing (eep, wasn't that what started off The Hobbit?) but the right thing to do was probably to try to find who it belonged to. Emphasis on 'try'--if the bird had gotten this from, say, the other side of the city, it might never be returned to its owner, but if she didn't even attempt it she'd have to always wonder if it didn't belong to someone right here at the complex, if maybe they'd just taken if off while they went for a dip in the pool or set it on the windowsill to dry after polishing it and the bird had swooped down and plucked it up and it was an heirloom from their favorite grandmother and so on. It just wouldn't be right.

She decided to start with the complex. Her plan was to knock on a few doors and ask if the folks who lived there were either missing it or knew someone who was. Then if there were no leads, she would turn it in to the building management. She'd ask back about it in a few weeks, and if she was told that no one in the building had asked for it, she would take it to police, and, yes, request of the police that, if no one claimed it, maybe she could have it back? Taking the ring with her, she began her quest right there and then, walking up to the nearest door and giving it a knock.

As a note, Sati knew no more about birds than she did about jewels. If she had, perhaps she would have been puzzled due to the fact that magpies do not live in Florida, nor even anywhere near it.

(OOC: You don't have to say your char is behind this door. You can say your char is behind the fifth one that she tries, or that she didn't find the owner at the complex at all and so she had to take it to the police station and your character was there, whatever kind of time/situation change that works for you. )

[Ed Hauser]

He'd just been minding his own business, really. Not doing anything, aside from taking a nap, that is. Oh, it had been nice. Today wasn't one of those ridiculously hot days, which he was quite thankful for, but it had just seemed like one of those lazy ones, and a nap was perfectly acceptable on days like that. Normally, Ed would have been trying to do something at least moderately productive, like...maybe clean the little kitchen in his apartment or something. He never was very good at that, though. So long as it didn't look like the entirety of his kitchen exploded, he was fine with it. He'd started out the day with a few things in mind, and cleaning up a bit was one of them. Needless to say, that hadn't been done at all, and he'd instead taken to the couch with very little regret.

Overall, Ed had been having pleasant dreams. That was part of why this nap was so nice. There also hadn't been any phone calls, which was awesome--it was one of his days off, and getting called in for whatever reason would really ruin his mood. No calls also meant that his mother couldn't harass him over whatever, another thing that Ed was incredibly grateful for. Getting harangued over whether or not he remembered this or that wasn't on his to-do list at any time, especially not when he was trying to sleep.

That all said and done, the knock at his door was entirely unexpected. He half-jolted awake, frowning up at his ceiling and wondering if there had actually been a knock at all. It wouldn't really hurt to check, anyway--at most, he'd just take a look out the peephole and then flop back on the couch if nobody was there. He figured he looked at least sort of presentable, if a bit rumpled. If somebody was there, he'd open the door, see what they wanted, do...whatever, and then wind up face down in a pillow again. Productivity be damned. He sat up, taking a moment to stretch a little as he disentangled himself from the light blanket he'd dragged to the sofa. Ed shuffled on over to the door, rubbing sleep from his eyes and trying to make it look like he was more awake than he actually was; the results were mixed, but he didn't quite register that. It would only be a quick little peek, that's all it would take.

A look later, it was pretty clear that he had not been hearing things, and there was indeed someone at his door. He thought he might have seen this woman around before, but right now, he wasn't even going to bother trying to remember. That would take at least twenty more minutes of awake time. He cleared his throat before opening the door, looking down at Sati with a faintly confused expression.

"Uh...can I help you?"

[Sati Beshara]

Oh. Oh wow. He was big. And tall too, a full foot taller than she was. And also big.

Alright then, that was established, now what was she doing again? Ah, yes.

"Hi, my name's Sati, I live here," she started as she had at every other door, like a traveling salesman or Jehovah's Witnesses probably did,

"I found a ring around here recently, and I was wondering if you or anyone you know was missing one?"

The words were so automatic by now, as was neither producing nor describing the ring. She'd done that until one girl she'd asked had told her that this wasn't a good idea, that it was better not to tell people anything about the ring besides just that it was a ring. That way they couldn't just say oh-yes-that's-my-ring even if it wasn't, they'd have to describe it to her, and if they were right then that meant it really was theirs. Sati had taken her advice.

Her setae were...prickling...that was perhaps the best word in the English language she knew for it...she could feel them under her brown knit armwarmers...yes, armwarmers in Florida in the summer, she wore them specifically for the purpose of covering her setae stubs as they grew back from the last time she'd shaved them off just so she wouldn't get weird input like this...or weirder, sensing another shifter really wasn't bad at all...and that was what he was, she was getting, yes. He was big and tall and a shifter. What kind, her setae were not sure yet. They were still too short, probably.

She wondered if he was picking up that she was one too. Smelling it, maybe, or picking it up through some other means like her setae. Some animals had the weirdest ways of interpreting the world around them.

[Ed Hauser]

"Not that I know of. I'm not really a guy for jewelry, myself." he replied with a shrug, soon after covering a yawn with his hand. Unfortunately for him, he managed to stab himself in the cheek with a sucker, which led to a slight twitch as he resisted the knee-jerk reaction of pulling his hand away quickly. Instead, Ed just grit his teeth and casually lowered his hand, glancing to the little table inside in search of his glasses. He knew he'd forgotten something, and it had occurred to him when he'd finally asked himself 'why is she so blurry, I don't think people's faces generally work that way'. Slipping them on as quickly as he could without sustaining any more unwanted pricks, he turned back to the door, now presented with a much better look at his visitor.

Well, the armwarmers were a bit odd, but whatever was comfortable, he guessed. He couldn't really see how that could be in the heat, but maybe miss Sati here had a heat tolerance. When she'd said that she lived here, her familiarity made sense--yeah, he could remember a few times when he'd been doing whatever and had seen her going about her daily routine. Ed wasn't quite sure what was strange about her, but something was--ah well, nothing he could do about that, either. Maybe it was because he had just woken up.

"I'm gonna go ahead and assume you've been at this for a while? Sure sounds like you have." He idly smoothed his shirt, very well aware that this was kind of a bad first impression. "I'm Ed, by the way. If you need any help trying to find out whoever lost it, I'm not really doing anything. It's nice to see that somebody wouldn't just run off with it, too." He offered a small smile, hoping he wasn't coming across as 'that big creepy guy'. She seemed pretty alright; after all, somebody who wasn't a decent person wouldn't have gone through the trouble of going roaming around in search of the owner of a stray piece of jewelry they'd found somewhere. That had to count for something. A lot of people would've just kept it or pawned it, and the fact that some effort was being made to get it back to where it should be was pleasant. Congratulations, Sati, he's known you for two minutes and you already have respect points.

"Where all have you already been...? Kind of narrows down the area a bit." If he was going to be going on an outing, he'd have to duck back inside real quick to fetch some gloves. Nobody wanted to get hurt by a handshake or something, anyway.

[Sati Beshara]

Yeah, lucky for her, her tolerance for heat was pretty impressive, hence how she could even stand the armwarmers at all in the first place. Who would have thought that actually would have come in handy in such an unusual way?

"Yes, you can tell?", she answered when he asked about how long that she had been at this. She had no idea how rehearsed and robotic she had started to come off. Which sort of spoke to how long she'd been at it in itself. Granted, it hadn't been THAT long, but it really didn't take too long when it was this sort of thing, given how tedious that it was. Same words from her, same response from everyone.

Well, wait. There was a new response this time--an offer of help. She looked somewhat surprised, or maybe just woken up from the routine.

"That's very kind of you. You sure it wouldn't be a bother?"

It sounded good to her. Two people could cover more doors in less time than one. Simple logic.

"All the apartments that way and below," she stuck out an arm to indicate the doors to her left.

(OOC: I know it's shaping up to be pretty bland right now--going door to door, what a thrilling plot--but I have plans! I promise!)

[Ed Hauser]

"Yeah, you sound a bit tired. If you want, I could bring you out a glass of water or something before we start going? Or whatever. I don't have a really wide variety of drinks, but you're welcome to something. It's pretty warm out here and all." He almost rubbed the back of his neck, managing to remember not to just before he moved. That was close--though tiny, those suckers did hurt, and it wouldn't have been the first time he wound up getting sliced up due to his own absentmindedness. Where had he put his gloves, anyway...? If he remembered right, they were somewhere in the den area, which was currently pretty much entirely wiped out, thanks to his nap and general disorganized methods. Crap. It just figured, didn't it. "It's no problem, either. Like I said, I'm not doing much, and maybe doing something more worthwhile than sleeping would be a good way to spend sometime. Juuust maybe." Ed gave a short chuckle, sticking his hands in his pockets to prevent any possible mishaps. This also had the added bonus of hiding them from view, which would hopefully prevent any noticing of things that shouldn't be noticed and the awkward questions that would spring from that. Sati both lived nearby and seemed nice, and it would just be bad if he managed to scare her with his shifter status. Not only would it make things really weird if they bumped into each other later, it was also some information Ed would rather not spread around. The less weird things there were to notice, the better.

"There's still time enough to do a sweep of the rest of the complex, and with two people working at it, who knows? Might even wind up finding the owner." That would definitely be nice. Losing things sucked, and what if it had been an important ring? If it was something like an engagement ring, there was no doubt that somebody would want that back. Maybe the owner was out looking for it to, and they'd bump into them? It seemed to be worth a shot. Then again, for all they knew, the owner might not even know it was gone. "How'd you find it, though? Might give a clue or two as to where the owner is." Or it could yield no worthwhile information whatsoever, but you know, optimism was usually a good thing.

[Sati Beshara]

Ed was chatty, but in a friendly and genuine way it seemed rather than the sort who was just indulging a love of his own voice.

"Water would be great," she nodded emphatically. Heat tolerance didn't mean no need for re-hydration! Now, some would say that a woman taking drinks from a strange man was dangerous, and that might be, but it was not Sati's immediate thought. And if it had been, she would have been fine with that, as she had, since she'd stopped hurting herself like she had as a teen, tended towards more passive forms self-harm through simply ignoring that situations were potentially dangerous and then letting whatever happened...happen. She was shockingly lucky so far, to be honest.

Not only was she happy for the offer of water, she was also happy for the offer of help,

"Alright then, if you're sure you're okay with it. Thanks a lot, I really appreciate the help."

She reached into the pocket of her camel-brown velvet shorts and produced the ring so that he could see it.

"I'm not sure, but I think it looks expensive. I haven't been describing it to people though, you know, just in case they decide from the sound that they want it even if it's not theirs, so maybe you'd wanna do that too."

(OOC: Do you mind if, next post, I sort of "fast-forward" to them finding and talking to the ring owner?)

[Ed Hauser]

He leaned forward a bit when the ring was brought out, adjusting his glasses a little to get a better look. After a few seconds of careful inspection, he frowned a little, voicing his opinion. "That sure does look like it was pricey. If it's a fake, then it's a pretty good one." Glancing back up at Sati, he got that same weird vibe again. Just what was it with her that kept doing...something? He couldn't quite put his finger on it. "Somebody's gotta be missing it." Ed straightened up, giving the missing piece of jewelry in question a thoughtful look. "Huh. But yeah, I'm gonna duck back in real quick and get you that water. I'll be back out in like...two minutes, tops."

With that, he turned and went back inside, leaving the door open a bit perhaps out of negligence. It didn't really matter, anyway; it did work to his advantage, being that he could make it clear that he wasn't going to just hole up and ditch out after he'd offered to help. Ed made a stop in the den before heading to the kitchen, rifling around briefly before he found his gloves and slipping them on. They weren't really much, just a dark pair made out of particularly tough fabric that he wasn't quite sure what the name of it was. He hadn't really listened to that part when he'd bought them. That being done, he made his way to the kitchen, retrieving a glass and filling it with cold tap water. Maybe he should fill a water bottle and bring it along, while he was at it? That didn't really seem like such a bad idea, that. With a shrug, he went ahead and brought one of his own down from the cabinet, repeating the process and screwing the cap back on when it was done. Cup in one hand and bottle in the other, Ed went back to the door and pushed it open with his shoulder, offering Sati the cup when he was sure it wasn't going to close on him.

"I'm just gonna go ahead and lock up, and then we can head on out." After a moment's awkward patting around on the little table by the door, Ed located his keys, fixing them with a pointed look before shaking his head and exiting the apartment, closing and locking the door behind him. He slipped the keys into his pocket, patting them once to make sure they weren't going anywhere.

"Alright. Where to now?"


[Go right on ahead! I've got no problems with that.]

[Sati Beshara]

Sati remembered then to say where she had found the ring like he had asked her,

"Oh, and, um, I pulled it out of a bird nest in the hedgerows here. Really. So I guess it--the bird--could have picked it up anywhere in the city, but I thought I'd start with here, since this is where it lives."

She didn't know what the range of birds was. It probably varied from breed to breed, and she didn't know squat about any of them, be they seagulls or sparrows or snipes or sand pipers or Sumatran trogons. She did step into the apartment, but only one step, when he came back with the water, which she thanked him for before downing. Whoa, she'd need that more than she'd realized!

Sati observed that he was wearing gloves now, and though she didn't ask about them she had hunch (just from her own experiences) that it was due to his shifter status, as was the case with her and her armwarmers. Or he had a bad rash, either one. Both were really too personal for her to just ask a stranger off the bat, but the longer they were around each other, the more likely she would bring it up. If he had sensory issues like she did because of her setae and other shifter stuff, then maybe he had other suggestions on coping with that. Beyond gloves, that is, gloves she had figured out.

"How about I take the rest of this floor while you take the one above it, and I'll get the one above that, and so on?", she suggested. The idea was followed through on, and when they'd each hit five doors, she finally got a result. The old woman who answered her fifth was not missing a ring, but did mention having sent one in the post not long ago. Just in case, Sati asked her what it looked like, and what do you know, it sure sounded familiar! Sure enough, when Sati pulled out the one in her pocket, the old lady was shocked to admit that this was indeed the one she'd put in the mail!

"I found it in a bird's nest right here at the complex," Sati explained, and the old woman shook her head and muttered something about damn magpies and how they'd do anything for something shiny.

"I don't trust putting it back in the mail now," the woman, who introduced herself as Esther James, looking worriedly down at the ring in her withered hands,

"It's for my daughter. She's getting married soon, and it's a family tradition to pass this on to each new bride."

In retrospect, Sati wouldn't be able to remember if the old woman had asked her first, or if Sati had offered, but she'd wound up agreeing to deliver the ring to Esther's daughter, Jodi. When she left Esther, she trotted up to the next floor to find Ed. When she did, she told him about the situation.

"Jodi's place is less than twenty minutes away by bus," she explained,

"It's far enough in town to stop by where I work though, and I get a discount there, so...if you want to come with, I'd like to buy you lunch for helping out."

[Ed Hauser]

When the plan was set up, he nodded, going ahead and mentally mapping out which doors he would hit first. He knew his way around the complex enough to manage this just fine, and he had been doing pretty well at going door-to door, though the results were uniformly failures. If he was a more prideful man, Ed might have attributed the lack of false confirmations to the fact that he was huge; as it was, he just chalked it up to being lucky and thought no more of it. He idly wondered if Sati was having the same luck as he went, repeating the process and mentally crossing his fingers that the owner even lived in this complex. If not, this would all have sort of been done in vain, being that they didn't really have any other locations to go on and no clues to follow. Ed was definitely not Sherlock Holmes, either; he wasn't about to go cracking the mystery of 'Where in Miami is This Ring's Owner'.

Ed had just been wrapping up another fruitless inquiry when Sati reappeared, bringing good news and an offer of lunch. Well, that was certainly a good thing. "I can come along, but I--" Oh, wait. He'd forgotten his wallet. Crap. "--Iiii am going to be paying you back. Just a heads-up." Okay, he really could've managed that one better, but a least he'd managed to not think out loud. That invariably ended badly. "So where are we heading to?" he asked, taking a quick sip out of the bottle. See, it had totally been a good idea. He could do things right every once in a while! Though he could also just be a blind squirrel, but that wasn't the point. Ed was pretty glad that the owner of the ring had been found; add one more to the scoreboard for decent people. Judging by what Sati had said as well, it was really a good thing--heirloom ring that had been passed from bride to bride for who knows how long? Yeah, that was really something you didn't want to lose. Not that he had any experience with losing any heirloom bridal jewelry (and he really hoped he wouldn't be getting any, either), but he could imagine it wasn't exactly a pleasant thing. Losing stuff with sentimental value just sucked, and if it was important as well, that just made it worse.

[Sati Beshara]

"Oh, no, I meant I wanted to treat you. For helping me out. It's at Mimir's Haunt, is that ok? It's just a little cafe bookstore so it's mostly sandwiches and pastries and coffee, but it's got a really nice atmosphere."

An atmosphere that, granted, often included a homicidal ballerina/eagle owl, but Odile mostly only went after the stupid and troublesome. But it really was a nice quiet (usually quiet) place, and Sati was caught between not wanting to undersell it but also making sure that Ed didn't think it was a fancy steakhouse or something, in case that was what he was hoping for. She couldn't afford that, and it would be totally disproportionate to the help that had been given anyway. Sati valued the virtue of gratitude greatly, as was evident by her making this offer in the first place, but she wasn't a saint and/or insane. She'd said so herself, she got a discount at Mimir's because she worked there.

"It's in the Omni neighborhood, downtown," she explained as she began to take the stairs down to get out of the complex, expecting that Ed would come with,

"Just a ride on the Metromover--hooray for free mass transit!"

(OOC: I have no idea how far it actually is from Flagami, where the complex is, and the Omni neighborhood, and Google didn't help, so I'm just completely fudging this ahaha)

[Ed Hauser]

"Never been. I'm up for it." Ed still made a mental note to remember what his meal would cost. Treat or not, he'd still feel kinda bad just taking it; five seconds later, he snapped out of thinking due to the fact that Sati was bouncing on down the stairs, and he was still standing up there mentally arguing with himself as to whether or not it'd be right to return the lunch gesture sometime later. He wasted no more time in heading down the stairs after her, the momentary scramble avoided with a few steps taken in pairs. There were advantages to being a tall person, and they did occasionally outweigh the headaches from misjudging heights and banging his head into things. Occasionally. It was debatable sometimes.

"Public transport can be a pretty nice thing. Just gotta hope that there aren't any unsavory types aboard." He distinctly remembered one time when a particularly drunk man had deemed it fit to sit next to him and then pass out on his shoulder. That had been the most uncomfortable twenty minute trip of his life. "So, you work there?" he asked, referencing the Haunt. "What's it like?" Ed was asking mostly out of curiosity, but the added bonus of preventing awkward silences was an additional bonus here.

[Sati Beshara]

"People bother you?" Sati turned her head back to him, an expression of surprise on her face. She wouldn't have thought that anyone, no matter how 'unsavory' that they might be, would wish to risk annoying somebody who was the size of Ed. Then again, some people on mass transit weren't all there in the head, so they might.

As for how it was down at Mimir's Haunt, she gave a small smile and one-shoulder mini-shrug as she stepped down the last stair on the complex staircase,

"Good hours. Decent wages. And it's a nice mix of quiet but also always having something going on."

Always having 'something going on' was quite a polite way to put it; as mentioned, Odile was a menacing presence in human or eagle owl form. Sati had never in fact suffered her wrath herself, as she had the sense to stay out of her way, and sense in general. Odile tended to let people be if they weren't (by Odile's standards) stupid. As for Sati, she just did her job and didn't engage, thus never putting herself at risk for being in the line of ballerina fire. Basil being a Fjord horse once in awhile was a non-issue since he, having a human mind, did not consider the store floor to be a bathroom, though the sight of him in that form guaranteed a lot of noisy excitement from any children who might be in the place at that moment. Most of the time though, it was very pleasantly quiet, as enforced by both the aforementioned other shifters. She was quite grateful for her job, all in all. As she said, it had good hours and decent wages and it was mostly-quiet and there was definitely not much trouble from any customers. It was certainly much better than when she had been a janitor. She supposed it wasn't what she wanted to do for the rest of her life, but then, she didn't know what that would be.

"What about you, what do you do for a living?", she asked as she began the walkway that led out of the complex area, pausing a moment to make sure that she wasn't leaving him too far behind. She hoped that the question wasn't too personal and that he wasn't out of work or the like. You had to take risks like that in conversation sometimes if you wanted to make them happen.