The Ratfolk Elder snorted and let Olmedo Just Right circle the Quarry again and again.
Annan wasn't sure whether Rus had seen him. He wanted to stand on a rock and shout, "Everyone, look at me!" But if he kept wandering around, the Ratfolk Elder really would grow suspicious.
"Don't try anything. I'm watching you on behalf of the Succubus Queen, who rages against her enemies like a volcano but keeps her own people warm!"
With that, Annan headed out of the Quarry.
At the edge of the Quarry, Brownfur Rats sat resting in twos and threes. One Ratfolk sat alone beside a pile of stone, holding two figurines. One was Annan as he had appeared in Five Hundred Years of Terror; the other was a lump of soil shaped into something that might have been a Ratfolk or a Demon.
The Ratfolk knocked the two figures together, making "whoosh," "boom," and "smack" noises as he played to his heart's content.
Annan glanced over and looked away, but just as he was about to leave the Quarry, he stopped.
He remembered that when Rus left Free City, he had entrusted all his belongings to Evelyn and taken only a figurine of Annan.
Figurines of Annan were common enough, but... why would an ordinary Brownfur Rat have one?
To the Ratfolk Elder's confusion, Annan turned back and approached the Brownfur Rat, who was still crouched there playing.
The clay monster had already been defeated by "Annan" and lay beneath his foot.
"Rus?"
The Brownfur Rat shuddered. Annan, crouching before him, was reflected in his cloudy eyes.
Was it really him?
Annan couldn't tell whether he had found Rus, whether this Ratfolk merely knew Rus, or whether he had just happened to shiver.
"Is this your figurine?"
Annan pointed at "himself." The