A Tall and Small Collection | S2

Harrowing Heroism

Rey wasn't sure what possessed him to talk to Hero the way he did. He marched along the quiet walls and beams as he made his way to one specific apartment. He wanted his friend back. As naive as Hero had been by going out directly to the humans and introducing himself, Hero now had the experience to keep himself safe.

It was a hard but necessary lesson.

Every Borrower had to learn it at some point or another. It was a fact of life for them.

Rey sighed and leaned against the wall for a moment, closing his eyes and shutting off his hip lamp to dwell in the darkness for a moment. He wondered for a moment if there was something wrong with him that he should be okay so much faster than Hero. After all, he was nearly in the same situation of being captured and had left his friend to endure the human alone, even if it was just for a little while.

He reached up and rubbed his face with his hands.

Looking back, he was extraordinarily calm.

Was that because of his training? Or because he had more experience dodging humans?

The past few weeks at home with his family felt normal to him. Nothing needed to be explained or reiterated. He spent his time inventing and hanging out with Ashlynn, feeling completely at ease with her while also recognizing other humans were dangerous.

Rey wasn't sure. Rey knew the rules and consequences. He also knew was that he was not going to stop Hero's mission just because Hero wasn't there. Even though Rey wanted to spend his time inventing, he could think of no better way to try out certain inventions than in the human world helping out where he could.

Rey even had the perfect person in mind.

When he and Hero were going to help the humans who were moving in, there wasn't a lot that they could do because there were no boxes or furniture pieces there for them to hide under. The human, Theo, was in one of those wheeled chairs and his younger sister, Bella, was definitely rambunctious. Both of them seemed to be close even though it was obvious Theo was much older than Bella. It was also obvious that Theo helped his sister as much as possible, but sometimes had trouble doing so because he was in that chair of his.

Rey knew exactly what he could do to help.

Bella had some toys that had recently broke, though Rey wasn't sure how. The pieces had skidded under the floorboards to where Theo had no chance of getting to them. Also, with the pieces being so small, Rey thought it would be nice if he went ahead and fixed up the pieces.

Would it be conspicuous? Maybe.

Was it going to be nice? Yes.

At the very least, Rey decided to fix it just enough for Theo to be able to snap everything back into place with little to no issue.

It was going to be a simple run.

In and out.

How hard could it be?

Rey pushed himself off of the wall and walked the next few walls in darkness before switching on his hip lamp and following along the path he needed to take in order to make it to the apartment. His feet left little dusty prints behind him. He saw where he and Hero tracked prints before, and he saw where they had deviated their path to lead to the dreaded apartment where Lily abducted Hero.

Rey shuddered involuntarily and pressed forward until he reached the right room. The vibrant pinks and greens in the room screamed that it must be Bella's room. Rey switched off his hip lamp and crawled beneath the floorboards all the way to the furniture piece where the toy parts had fallen. It took some rummaging and Rey had to fight off a couple of dust bunnies, but he retrieved the necessary springs and plastic bits to fix the toy.