HtH109 – Why Is Pip Orange?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Pip turns orange. Mistrál bamboozles everyone with her Acx Attorney skills.
It was a cry heard around the house.
So loud was the commotion that Minara peeked out of her broom cupboard under the stairs, wondering what was up this late evening!
"That sound... it came from the dining hall, didn't it?"
This was not Minara's normal sleeping hour, parts of the house had gone to sleep already. She tears off the headphones on her head, and flops them onto a makeshift bean-cushion she had been sleeping on. She tiptoes past the kitchen, where the smell of mashed potatoes and gravy waft out from the ajar door, and pops her head into the middle dining room.
There, she sees an incredible scene: Lumi is bent slightly forward at an angle, her eyes both white circles, waving her arm frantically up and down like a broken pump lever. Clearly, the girl was distressed by something.
On the other side is a face more familiar to Minara, her good sister-in-law, Mistrál. The dining room was thick with the scent of something flowery... citrusy even. It wasn’t unpleasant, just… unexpected. Overhead, the soft glow of a chandelier presides over this scene;
(A gentle, slightly hesitant chime)
"This is… unusual. Very unusual. Pip... is not supposed to be this color!"
So declared Lumi, who puts out her other arm, extended to a plush toy sitting on the dining table.
The formerly pink plush fox known as Pip sits perfectly curled up at rest on the dinner table, now coated in a rich sun-drenched orange hue that pulses with quiet energy! It was Pip, and none other of course, but the change was undeniable.
Lumi runs a finger lightly over his flank, tracing the orange. It felt smooth, almost velvety. She tries to process this unexpected change, a little bit of worry creeping in. He’s Lumi's favorite, after all!
"W-what's going on here?" Minara has fully entered the room at this point, inserting herself between the two girls,
"Not to worry, friend Minara!" Her good-sister-in-law is oddly energetic today, an unnamed energy seeping out of her every word. "It appears that our friend here has undergone a seasonal transformation, as all foxes are apt to do."
Minara looks towards the orange plush fox on the table.
Then she shakes her head.
"Hey, no. This... this doesn't make any sense. Plush foxes don't change color for any reason."
(Lumi nods gently, agreeing with Minara's words)
Minara continues, "Besides, why does he smell so... citrusy? Did he get lost in the wash or something?"
“It’s perfectly natural,” Mistrál suddenly declares, waving an open palm before the two girls, her voice perfectly calm and measured. "Pip is preparing for the autumn. The shift in color is a natural adaptation. Think of it – a richer hue to blend in with the falling leaves, a warmer tone to retain heat."
Despite speaking with such scientific authority, Mistrál must have rolled low for logic, for the other two girls don't seem very convinced!
Still, our tinkerer persists, oddly insistent.
"The citrusy smell... it must be a natural adaptation of some sort! A natural repellent for insects, how wonderful!"
(Lumi bends down and brings Pip tight to her chest)
“Mistrál, you’re always so wonderfully logical,” Lumi closes her eyes, tilting her head slightly. “But I still think there’s something more to this. It feels… deliberate. Like he chose to be orange.”
(She gently nuzzles the top of Pip's orange ears with her chin)
“Perhaps,” I added, turning back to Pip, “you have a secret autumn plan, little fox?” I gently nuzzled his orange head. “Tell me, Pip, what are you really up to?”
"Could it be... a supernatural phenomena...?"
All eyes turn to Minara, who has proposed a strangely outlandish thing!
As outlandish as it was, Minara had stumbled upon a half-truth!
If Pip could talk, this would be the time to speak and press the evidence!
Alas, Pip is merely a plush fox.
So he can only bristle his nose at a certain blue-haired scientist's direction unnoticed.
(Thoughtful, inquisitive chime)
"That’s… a rather bold hypothesis, Miss Minara." Lumi glanced at Minara, whose eyes are darting all around the room, as if trying to capture the essence of the impossible. “Do you think… it’s possible?”
This is where Minara goes into an outburst of emotion!
"Possible?! Why, that's not even half of it! This mansion is surely haunted! For a while now, there have been strange sounds coming from the bottom of my room! Not to mention the ghostlights that flicker in the corridor when I walk past! The strange sounds in the ceiling like people are walking between the floor gaps! And... and... the floating furniture!"
While Minara is gesturing wildly, Mistrál seems to have been taking notes, scribbling down every detail on a piece of paper in her palm.
With characteristic confidence, she puts the notes away in her lab jacket, catching the tailwind of an out!
"Friend Minara, you have constructed a most plausible scenario!" Our quick-witted scientist launches into a new hypothesis, disregarding the U-turn in logic, "Lumi, surely you must agree that this is a phenomena that is most extraordinary and supernatural in nature... 'It must be the work of an outside force!', as our dear Piaccta would say!"
Lumi took Mistrál’s suggestion at face value, a small, genuine smile gracing her lips. “It… does give me something to consider,” she admitted, her gaze drifting around the room. The house did have a certain… weight to it. The echoes were frequent, a constant murmur of unseen footsteps. The ghostlights, those fleeting flickers of luminescence that danced in the corners of the room, were a regular occurrence. And, as Mistrál had pointed out, there were moments when it felt as though people – or something – moved about in the ceiling.
"I-in fact, that cabinet right there, it was moving by itself when you girls were away during the New Years!" [HtH70]
Minara points at a sideboard in the corner of a room. A completely inconspicuous, perfectly normal Rococoean wood drawer that does its job as furniture with absolute stillness.
Immediately, Mistrál starts pawing at every corner of the drawer with energetic inquisitiveness. Patting the top of drawer here, knocking on wood with a drawer handle there...
The girl is very enthused to be handling the evidence, it seems!
(A delicate, slightly frantic chime)
“Pip?” Lumi asked, her voice soft and pleading, directing the question directly at the orange plush fox. “Pip, do you… do you feel anything? Do you sense anything about this drawer, about the ghostlights, about… anything?”
Pip remains completely silent.
The fox is just a plush toy, unable to offer clues.
His closed eyes and fixed foxy smile offered no clues, no flicker of recognition, no indication of the fantastical events unfolding around him.
"Aha! What's this!" Mistrál makes an intense show of fishing her hand around in the top drawer, fishing out something white and rectangular for all:
A letter envelope!
Embroidered in gold leaf at the sides!
Why, it even had the theatre house's seal on the side that faces Mistrál!
"What? Where did that come from?" Minara's immediate suspicion is doused by her curiosity, and the three girls huddle close, Mistrál opening up the sealed envelope and placed the letter within atop the house seal where everyone cannot see; the letter was written in Olden, a language Lumi had not encountered before. Mistrál carefully smooths over the brittle paper, and begins to read out loud,
“My Dearest Pip,
I find myself in a most peculiar predicament, having stumbled upon a nexus of considerable magical energy. This ‘land’ – as they call it – is a swirling vortex of color and sensation, a place where the laws of physics bend to the whims of imagination. I have been engaged in a series of… adventures, involving sentient teacups and mischievous sprites. Fear not, my friend, your fur will grow back soon, and I shall return with tales to tell. Do not worry, for I am protected by the wards of the Elder Fox.
Yours in perpetual enchantment,
Professor Sallas Biggwood (formerly of the Continental Society of Anomalous Phenomena)”
(A delighted, shimmering chime)
“Sallas Biggwood,” Lumi repeated, a slow smile spreading across her face. “It’s… extraordinary.” She carefully folds the letter, and Mistrál is careful to slide it back into the envelope for her.
"Who could this person be?"
"A Continental Society… a magical land… a letter written to a plush fox…" Minara reels back in disbelief, looking to her good sister-in-law for a more rational explanation, but our local tinkerer seems to have been taken in by this letter!
"A most possible explanation is that our friend Pip has gone on a magickal wash... adventure with this person. Indeed, I have met this aforementioned character in person!" Mistrál declares, despite the impossibility!
"Where would you have seen someone like that, good sister-in-law?!"
"On one of our Reading Days [HtH104], of course!" The girl spreads out her arms, feeling the her alibi solidify into an impenetrable wall; "Why, so many people go in and out of the house on those days, it is impossible to meet them all." Mistrál pauses, considering her next words. “She said she specializes in ‘interdimensional textile anomalies’ – essentially, she studies objects that have somehow crossed over from other realities.”
Lumi felt a surge of excitement mixed with a healthy dose of bewilderment. “So… Pip has been traveling to other realities?”
“It’s entirely possible,” Mistrál replied, discussion now shifting into her unchallenged realm, "The mathematics support at least three possible fox-related realities."
The room falls silent.
The ticking of the grandfather clock in the background their only companion, something magical happens---
--- the girls begin to believe.
“We need to investigate this drawer,” Lumi declared, her voice firm with determination. “We need to find out how it’s connected to Sallas Biggwood, and to this… magical land.”
"I'm sure we will have plenty of time for that, Lumi." Mistrál shoots a knowing look at the smiling, inert, Pip, whose whiskers might have twitched a hair.
"I... I wonder if this Biggwood character is connected to the furniture m..."
"Come now, friend Minara, tis' a mystery for another day! For now, we rest, for the road of discovery is long and arduous!"
And so, the mystery deepened, the possibilities expanded, and the fate of Pip, the orange plush fox, hung precariously in the balance.
Recall
[HtH70] - The girls go off to Nangmen on the invitation of their senior, Yukino and leave Minara home alone!
[HtH104] - Lumi and her genmates remodeled the drawing room to become the Echoes Chamber, a place which hosts a reading session once a week!
We are trying something different! This is a simul-posting at the same time as the Scribblehub release! Go check out the entire series at this link!
