Luke's Diner, Wednesday Morning

[outofherdepths]

Duke hadn't come home yesterday. And while that wasn't exactly not normal, usually he called, if only to tell Larceny where the easy food was and to remind her not to eat the porgs. (Not that she had! In...MONTHS!)

But last night...nothing. And while both the radio and her messages held the answer, she didn't know to (or how to) check them.

"It's gonna be okay," the busboy said, all sympathy, when he came out with her expected noodles and cake - before she'd even had to ask. "It'll all come to nothing. You'll see."

Larceny didn't even get to ask 'what will' before he was scurrying back into the kitchen, wailing something about Duke being the only one who cared enough to know their names.

Humans sure were weird sometimes.

Today's Specials
JUSTICE NOODLES
FREEDOM CAKE
FREE DUKE! FREE DUKE! FREE DUKE!

[No OCD]

Comments

[bookbeltof_love]

Luckily, Nina knew Larceny worked on Wednesdays!

"Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarceny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she said, wandering on in not long after the diner opened. "Are you around, Larceny???????????????????"

Invasion of the punctuation was at hand!

[outofherdepths]

Larceny had no idea what to do with all of that punctuation. Her studies had barely covered punctuation!

Her head came up and she looked at Nina, confused, before raising her hand.

Present?

[bookbeltof_love]

"Oh, good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she said, genuinely relieved. "Like, I left you a message but I wasn't sure you'd get it so I thought I'd come see you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm Nina and, like, Duke asked me to look in on you???????????????????"

[outofherdepths]

"He did not call," Larceny said with a nod. "But I did not eat any porgs."

Because this was the important thing, right?

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina blinked.

"I don't think they'd taste very good anyway," she admitted. "Did you have enough to eat without eating the porgs???????????????????"

[outofherdepths]

Honestly? Porgs weren't half-bad after you spat out the feathers. Compared to her undersea diet, they were pretty middling.

"No, that is why I am here early," Larceny explained. "Because I am hungry and Duke is not on the boat to make waffles."

And she was a little worried about that. Had he begun to remember Sunday somehow?

[bookbeltof_love]

"Waffles are pretty tasty," she admitted, shifting a little before she continued, half-apologetically, "and, yeah, like............. Duke's kind of in jail right now????????????????????"

[outofherdepths]

"JAIL?!" Larceny gasped. "At the station? With the clunky men in white?"

OH NOES.

[bookbeltof_love]

"Yeah, with them," she confirmed. "Like, he got arrested yesterday................."

[outofherdepths]

"But why?" Larceny asked, having no idea that her nice conversation over coffee could possibly be blamed for this.

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina hesitated a bit.

"Like, Danny thinks Duke's doing bad things with you????????????????????" she offered. "Things, like, well................ holding you captive????????????????????"

[outofherdepths]

Larceny looked at Nina and laughed. "Duke could not hold me captive," she said, shaking her head. "I am much stronger than him. He would not be able to do that. Besides. Danny knows he is my friend. I told him so!"

Well. Sorta.

[bookbeltof_love]

Honestly, if Duke tried to hold Nina captive, like, he'd be overpowered by her too.

Unless he was hiding extra-human strength somewhere.

"I know it sounds silly," she agreed, though it was perhaps not silly at all from someone whose world was based entirely on reality. "But, like, that's what's happened???????????????"

[thatwaslucky]

While everyone else went to the trooper station, Rey actually kind of assumed it'd all been taken care of by now, so she went to Luke's when she didn't see Duke at the boat.

"I guess he's still in there," she said, noting the specials board.

[outofherdepths]

"Who is still where?" Larceny asked.

She hadn't bothered reading the Specials Menu. She knew what she wanted.

[thatwaslucky]

Right!

"Duke's still at the station?" Rey said, a little note of apology in her voice.

[outofherdepths]

Larceny looked stricken. "But--but! He cannot be there! Duke has done nothing wrong!"

Yeah, that was going to be a chant in the kitchen before too long.

[thatwaslucky]

"I know." Actually there was a very good chance that Duke had done something Illegal but that probably wasn't what he was arrested for and she wasn't gonna say that. "I'm sure it's being taken care of. I actually thought he'd be here already."

[outofherdepths]

Larceny's grasp on 'legal' was tenuous at best and was mostly limited to 'don't sneak into Lucifer's house and eat food.'

"No," she said, shaking her head. "When they let you out of jail, they send you away."

It Had Happened To Her.

[thatwaslucky]

"That won't happen," Rey assured her. "They'll find out he didn't do anything and then he'll come home. I promise.."

[outofherdepths]

"No," Larceny said. "I have to go find him and help him. Like he did me." She got up.

And then immediately sat back down.

"How do I help someone in jail?"

[thatwaslucky]

"I think you have to pay?" Rey said after a moment. "I don't actually know much about how jail works here."

And she was not going to give "break out" as an option.

[outofherdepths]

Probably for the best. Larceny was already going to have to mind-wipe so many people! Mind-wiping even more because they saw her break the lock with her bare hands would just make it worse.

"Pay?" Larceny asked. "Not a tab?"

[thatwaslucky]

Oh Larceny.

"You don't get a tab for jail, no."

[outofherdepths]

And people still didn't accept the money she tried to give them. Possibly because it was usually just whatever colored paper she had handy.

But she knew something that humans always wanted: her pearls. There were lots of stories about humans and pearls, from the mermaid stories of leaving a pearl behind whenever you took human clothing to other mermaid stories.

Of what happened after humans discovered that the way to get pearls was to make mermaids cry.

"If the police need to get paid to release Duke, I will pay them," Larceny said, standing up. "Duke needs to come home."