Information

Honeylocust
Legacy Name: Honeylocust

The

Sweetheart Hipottu
Owner:

Mackenzi

Age: 15 years, 4 months

Born: December 20th, 2008

Adopted: 7 years, 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Adopted: May 27th, 2016

Statistics

Level: 3
Strength: 11
Defense: 10
Speed: 10
Health: 17
HP: 17/17
Intelligence: 0
Books Read: 0
Food Eaten: 0
Job: Unemployed

You enter the decrepit building still seeing red, still confused about the will and terribly sad about being short changed. They'd left you nothing. Your parents and siblings inherited property, valuables, money, the company itself, and you, the oldest, have received nothing. You always thought you'd been the most trustworthy, most loyal and caring of all your siblings, and shown the most potential and eagerness for following in your grandparent's footsteps. What had it gotten you? A parcel of land barely ten acres, all useless undeveloped woods, on the edge of a nationally protected park so you couldn't even build anything on it.

This was your first foray onto the property itself and it stoked the bitter flames in you at almost no provocation. The path from the spot you could park your car to the main building was longer than you'd expected, the sun was going down faster than you wanted, and you hated getting your clothes sweaty. You'd have to dry clean the pants again, and you'd only gotten one day out of them. By the time you reached the dilapidated porch of what looked like a huge cottage, you would have lit a match and set it aflame right then and there, if you'd had any matches on you. All you did have was a flashlight, and though there was still enough light to see you flicked it on just to have something to do. You imagine the light smoking and sparking as you drag the beam across the walls, as if it was a huge magnifying glass focusing the sun and your anger at the walls of the building and punishing the broken down property for existing in the first place.

After a few minutes you start to cool down, and as your brain settles down from the imagined arguments and harsh words you wished you could have with your dead grandparents, you start to breathe a little more normally. Your brain processes what your eyes have been looking at and you see the building you've entered for the first time. The front door led to an open first floor, a huge cylindrical column rising up from the center and meeting the roof two stories above. The bottom floor was mostly open, dusty, with broken sliding doors and shuttered windows, and a staircase to one side leading upwards to the second floor. The landing on the second floor wrapped around in a circle, with the center open around the huge wooden column. Slatted windows above let in what was left of the evening light, long orange rays illuminating the dust you kicked up. You imagined your grandparents looking down over the edge of the railing, laughing at how they tricked you into so many years of loyalty.

Taking a deep breath you tell yourself to calm down again. This dwelling on anger was going to give you an eczema flare up. You closed your eyes and let your hands drop to your sides, holding the flashlight loosely as you could without dropping it, willing your tense body to loosen and ease. Chill out for a moment, you think-whisper to yourself. Let the anger fall off of you as your heart and breathing slow. It is not important or useful to stay angry, you remind yourself. That feeling might be satisfying in the moment, but only ever leaves you regretting your behavior.

You open your eyes and there is a body kneeling on the opposite side of the room. For a second your mind is jarred trying to focus on the blurry, indistinct shape of it. You take a step back as you get a jolt of adrenaline, but the slight change in perspective rights you again. You'd though the figure had been across the room, and as big as a human, but it was actually closer and much smaller. Also, made of wood. Your eyes must have adjusted to the dim light after keeping them closed for a bit. You can see the little statue more clearly now, a couple feet tall, kind of human-y shaped, in an odd position on its hands and knees, face close to the floor like it had been licking something off the ground. You don't like it, and you imagine a young preteen version of yourself kicking it across the room, but you keep your impulses under control. There are a couple bronze-looking dishes, smaller than the palm of your hand, laying on the floor around it, some of them flecked with bits of who knows what. Now that you're looking closely at the floor you realize there are small dishes all over the first story, in groups bellow the shuttered windows, the central pillar, and haphazardly skewed everywhere. Some of them where still full- maybe with food? You bend down to get a closer look, and while most of them seem to contain unknown goo, a couple appear to have citrus peels.

Great, you think. Someone was squatting here, and left a bunch of garbage. Irritation flicks at the back of your brain, but another sense taps you on the shoulder and reminds you to be sensible. If someone was living there you didn't want to be alone here if they where still around. There had to be a better way to shoo them and clean the place up than just you.

There is a soft groaning squeak behind you and you turn around to see the door easing itself back open.