Play of Shadows

3.07: Life Like Spun Sugar

A station away, a group of players were gathered around a cheerful display of plush toys. There were bunnies and tigers and sheep and the occasional mythological creature, all round and soft and glittery.

Vernon shifted uneasily from foot to foot. As the tallest among the bunch and by far the most muscled, he looked decidedly out of place in an aisle filled with colors bright enough to blind a man. If one were to judge the situation by his wary stance alone, they would think the players on the cusp of some terrible encounter.

"Tone it down. You're scaring the kids," Ann hissed.

Vernon turned his wary glare from a row of life-sized dolls to the two small children currently elbows-deep in a pile of plushies. They had faces and spoke in the rolling ramble of ordinary kids, and seemed entirely disinterested in the players lurking in the toy section like creeps straight out of an afterschool special.

"Dolls and little kids. This is a horror flick waiting to happen," Vernon muttered.

"They look familiar," Michael said with a frown.

He glanced at Ann as he spoke. The woman ignored him, as she had been doing since they set foot in the store and were forced in each other's company.

Michael hesitated briefly before pressing on. "Didn't they play Hansel and Gretel in the last instance?"

Ann's eyes flickered his way before focusing back on the children. "Maybe."

Lieutenant Arendse stepped in then, visibly unamused. "Miss Sufort, did they or did they not?"

The pause before Ann responded was nothing short of suspicious.

"They were there. I have - I have seen them in other instances, as well," the woman said.

That got everyone's attention. Ann crossed her arms, her stubborn expression at odds with the nervous flicker in her eyes. The children chattered happily in the background.

"Do you think it means anything?" Frances asked, breaking the weighted silence.

Vernon puffed out a laugh. Frances sent him a confused look, blissfully unaware of the tension in the air. His question was genuine, neither prodding nor accusing.

"I'm not sure," Ann said. She didn't sound as guarded, and seemed to be answering honestly.

The children trotted over then. They had selected a pair of penguins, of all things. One was pink, the other blue, each so large the children struggled to hold them up.

"These ones!" the little boy exclaimed, voice somewhat muffled by the toy's fluff. The little girl nodded shyly. She stood further away and kept peering at the players over the head of her penguin, half-hidden behind her brother.

Ann's expression softened. The smile she offered the children was small but bright, causing not a few looks to be exchanged between her companions. "Alright, follow me, then. Do you want me to carry them for you?"

"Nuh-uh," the little boy said, hugging his toy so tightly the penguin's soulless eyes bulged out of its round head.

"Alright, then. Have you thought of names yet?"

"Yes! Mine's called Spot, because he's got a blue spot under his beak, d'you see it? And Sarah says..."

Ann herded the children over to the cashier, the little boy chattering away. There was quite the line, and an actual person behind the counter. The department store as a whole was a quaint addition to what was otherwise a pretty accurate version of a modern city-center. There were no screens, the products on the shelves were the physical objects rather than codes to be scanned and delivered, and NPC personnel fluttered around to accost hapless shoppers at every corner.