Indigo frowned and tapped his foot. "You can't take that" he said to the gypsy. The young man looked at Indigo as he hefted the large shell in his hand. "I found this shell here under this fallen tree. I find it hard to believe that you are going to tell me it is not mine. Perhaps you know who it belongs to?" he said with a broad smile.
Indigo looked triumphant, "Yes, Yes I do know who it belongs to. We took it," Indigo paused, "That is Branwyn took it from the dead farmer" Indigo stopped. "Well Scarlet stole it from Branwyn." Indigo paused "But that was after Foriso got in trouble with it." Indigo stopped and thought for a moment. "it is a complicated story I guess" he said looking over at Captain Tikmok and the gypsy. The gypsy smiled gladly at Indigo as he sank to the ground sitting cross legged in a smooth easy motion. "I love complicated stories," he said as he pulled a small leather flask from his pocket. Pulling out the wooden stopper he took a small drink then offered it up to Indigo and Tikmok. "My name is Treble".
Indigo was startled at the name as Tikmok took a quick swallow from the flack. "You are not an otter are you? Indigo said squinting at the gypsy. "Maybe you are a wereotter? I know another otter called Treble." The young man laughed joyfully, "I think you must have some interesting stories to tell master.... " Indigo blushed and shook his head as Tikmok passed him the flask. "I am Indigo and this is Captain Tikmok of the Jistelle Estates, where you are trespassing and stealing things." Treble's face took on a dramatic change of exaggerated pain, "trespassing? stealing? and here I thought you were going to tell me a complicated story."
Captain Tikmok cautiously sat on the ground across from the gypsy, careful to keep his dagger free and his sword visible. Indigo looked at the two of them, "you know Sarengar tells a story much better than me." Treble smiled "oh I doubt that" Indigo sighed and took off his sword belt setting it on the ground and held his hand out for the flask.
Taking a large swallow Indigo smiled in appreciation and handed it back to the gypsy. "So Master Indigo, where did you or your friend, or your other friend take this lovely shell from whom?" Treble said with a smile. Indigo shook his head, "It is not that complicated really. We were investigating the skull church to the west of the Estate." Captain Tikmok looked at Indigo and started to ask but then thought better of interrupting again and going down yet another path. One story at a time he thought.
Indigo looked back and forth from Tikmok to Treble, "Well we were not actually in the church when we found the shell. We were at a farm house near the church. It was messy and the zombies had turned the place into a pig sty, well I think pigs would not want to live there either. I wonder if pigs can become zombies? But we killed them all, the zombies, there were no pigs, and when we were investigating the house, looking for clues, trying to see what had happened there you know." Indigo paused looking at Treble "we were investigating we were not stealing things." Treble simply smiled and let Indigo continue. Indigo felt confident he had made his point. "So we were investigating the house and we found a wedding dress, a doll, some books that Branwyn was interested in and this shell. I thought it was pretty and so I said we should take it with us to give to the owner when we found them. Koorin said that she thought the farmer and his family that lived there were the zombies we had just killed. I did not like that idea at all, I mean I did like the idea of killing zombies but I did not like the idea that it might be the farmers family that we killed. But we cleaned up the house a bit because we needed a place to stay that night and no one else was using it. I don't think they would have used it when the zombies were there and of course no farmers were around because of the zombies, so it was perfectly alright for us to stay there." Treble glanced at Tikmok who gave a twitch of a smile.
Indigo glanced back toward the orchard house. "After we were done in the skull church we came back here. We thought of this as home then, Widow Washburn was a nice lady and always made sure I had fresh bedding. She was a good cook too, not as good as Koorin but she was a pretty good cook. So we were staying here and when everyone was recovered from our battles in the skull church we decided to travel to Loosend to see if someone could help Kristelle and Foriso with learning how to do some new skill they both wanted to learn. Loosend is a huge city you know, there are lots of people there who do lots of different things and we solved a murder for the city council while we were there. Well it was more than one murder but that is not part of this story I suppose. I was saying that we took, I mean we recovered, I guess we brought this shell back here to the orchard house with us from the farm house by the skull church. The next morning when we woke up Foriso wanted to examine the shell. We had him do that sort of thing a lot, he was good at guessing how much something was worth. So Foriso was looking at that shell," Indigo pointed to the shell in Treble's lap, "and he thought, I guess, that he should listen to it. You know how you can hear waves or wind when you listen to a shell sometimes? Well I guess Foriso thought he might hear something like that. But after he listened for a little while he got a strange look on his face. He looked like he was thinking about something really hard. Foriso almost never thought about things hard at all, he was more of a doing kind of person. I think that is why he died when we fought the dragon turtle. But Foriso was listening to the shell and said that he would keep it for the day to try out some other things. I don't know what other things he could do with a shell but I was helping Widow Washburn with bringing in the firewood for the days that we would be gone so I did not think much of it. I guess it was an hour or so later that I saw Scarlett talking with Foriso out near the entrance to the orchard behind the house. Scarlet had the shell in his hands and Foriso was telling him to listen to it. Scarlet said he would in a minute after he was done practicing." Turning to look at Tikmok Indigo said" Maybe that is where Branwyn gets her ideas about her fire tricks? That was a mess last night, I thought we were really going to get in trouble." Tikmok shook his head, not wanting to admit one reason he and Indigo were out here on this patrol was to avoid the repercussions of that little display.
Indigo turned to Treble., "So you see that shell belongs to Scarlett. Well Scarlett is dead he died of the plague a couple of years ago. So it should belong to Foriso I guess." Treble gently offered, "You said that Foriso died from a dragon turtle?" "I am so glad you live such a easy carefree life Master Indigo" he added with only slight irony. Indigo nodded "I know we have adventures but Branwyn always seems to make it through them." Taking another drink from the flask.
Treble took the opportunity to attempt to stem the flood of story. "So if I have this correct. This shell belonged to a farmer, who you took it from, "holding up his hand when Indigo started to interrupt" Yes you were only investigating and if you had found the farmer you would have given it back to him. Then Foriso took this from you, and Scarlett took this from him. Apparently Scarlett left it buried here under a tree for some reason perhaps only he knows." Indigo nodded in agreement quickly, then slowly stopped as he looked at Treble closer. "But Scarlett and Foriso are both dead," Indigo said completing the thought. "And now it is just like when we found it during our investigation. We kept it while we were looking for the farmer and now you want to keep it till you find the owner."
Treble nodded at Indigo, "So Master Indigo you do admit you do not own this, you do agree that I found this just like how you found this shell. I do hope that you will agree that I cannot be stealing this from anyone. I doubt that a dead man would care about who has a shell he buried in an orchard how ever many years ago."
