Challenge #02164-E335: Gift For the Mage
“One can never have enough socks. Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”
– Professor Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone -- c/- Anon Guest
Lady Anthe smirked in the warm glow of the Candlenights Hearth and said, "You haven't looked hard enough, then."
There are downsides to sharing one's adventures with a Rogue, and not the ones that you might expect. Wraithvine still remembered the terrified creature who they had more or less adopted as a protegé. Begging permission to exist in Wraithvine's general radius. Therefore, they didn't chide the Kobold too harshly about hiding surprise presents.
Rogues. They were always surprising, and in more than the usual ways. Melvin had found all of his presents - most of them edible, and was now in a food coma on the chaise. Wraithvine sipped at their winter cider and thought through everything ze knew about Kobolds in general and this Kobold in particular.
The one rule to trump them all was No cheating. Using Locate Object was definitely cheating.
They knew each other too well, at this point. Graduating through teacher-apprentice and parent-child bonds to cross-species BFF's. Which meant that they both knew entirely too much about how the other one thought. The you-know-I-know-you-know games between them were getting downright Gordian.
Kobolds were natural burrowers, but Anthe wanted to play fair, so it wouldn't be secreted inside any of the thicker walls. However, it could be in any number of hidden stow-holes that were littered throughout their stronghold. Anthe knew that Wraithvine knew that, so they would avoid the hidden storage. Unless Anthe knew that Wraithvine knew that... and so on.
What would be the last possible place I would look? Wraithvine smirked. "It's in my sock drawer, isn't it?"
Anthe laughed and toasted hir. "One year, I'll get one over on you."
"Maybe after your hundredth birthday," Wraithvine allowed. Secretly, they were laying wagers that that sort of thing might happen in less than fifty years.
It would be interesting to watch when it did.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / DenisKa]
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