Chapter Text
Jaiden started noticing a few new grey hairs here and there soon after Cucurucho started giving her tasks. She chalked them up to stress - she was grieving her son, after all - and tried to forget the shock of white in Cellbit’s bangs. She ignored the fact that they seemed to appear, fully formed, overnight, and further ignored the occasional malformed or miscolored feather growing in because obviously it was the fact that she wasn’t taking the best care grooming them. No other reason.
She was waking up tired and sore more often. She would drag herself back to the Wall to visit people and feel foggy, disconnected. Roier and Cellbit were wrapped up in their own soap opera of a relationship, and she was happy as long as Roier was happy, but she was happiest to play a supporting role. She would make her best effort to be social with the community - and she really did love hanging out with everyone, honest - but it was so emotionally draining. And more often, these days, she was just tired.
And then, one night, she dreams of fire.
–
It takes several days for the residents of the island to realize that Jaiden is missing, and not just being reclusive.
Roier is the first one to get worried when she stops responding to text messages, and he goes from person to person on the island asking who’s seen her the most recently. Everyone has similar answers - saw her like a week ago, messaged with her a day or two after that, then nothing. Nor is she staying in the house they previously shared in front of Bobby Castle.
So, exhausting the search around the Wall, he goes to her house in the red rose fields. Or, what used to be her house in the red rose fields.
He cannot give words to how much pain and dread he feels when see the state of Jaiden’s house, or the burnt out surrounding field that his family had spent such a happy time before. The beautiful home she had spent so much time on, the treehouse lookout at the top of the hill - everything was burnt out and destroyed, extending out a hundred blocks or more.
Whatever fire had been lit here, it had been out for days at this point. Roier swears at his surroundings, and messages his husband.
-
[iRoier msg Cellbit] warp to jaiden house
[iRoier msg Cellbit] rapidamente
The message comes as Cellbit is at Philza’s house atop the Wall. Chayanne is showing off his new kitchen to Richarlyson; Tallulah keeps a running commentary on their antics with her abuelito, and he and Phil are making a deal for a bottle of black nail polish.
He reads the message out under his breath. Phil and Tallulah tilt their heads at him, perfectly in sync. Phil reads the concern in his face immediately. “Everything alright?”
Cellbit meets his eyes. “I’m not sure. Roier wants to meet me at Jaiden’s place.” He shoots off a quick reply.
[Cellbit msg iRoier] Estas bien?
Philza’s enormous wings shuffled uneasily, folded tightly under the slightly low ceiling of the bunker in the Wall. His stance changed from relaxed and easy to tense, ready to take flight at any moment, despite the ceiling and the reinforced double-paned windows. “Can’t be good news, I take it?”
Roier’s reply is a nonsensical string of curses. He doesn’t give any additional information, but it’s enough raw emotion to tell that he’s legitimately distressed and not trying to pull some kind of troll. “I think it’s bad,” he says to Phil, “Can I leave Richas with you for a bit? He might be safer here. I don’t know what I’m walking into.”
Philza says “Of course” at the same time that Richarlyson turns around with the angriest pout Cellbit has seen from him in a while.
“Richas, please, you’ll have so much fun with Chayanne and Tallulah. I shouldn't be gone long.”
Richarlyson continues to pout, but he seems resigned enough to go back to chattering with Chayanne, the two signing at lightning speed in the background. Tallulah, meanwhile, tugs at Cellbit’s sleeve and passes him a note.
‘Please be safe, Tio.’
She looks so concerned. Cellbit kneels down to her level and looks her in the eye. “I’m always careful, Tallulah,” he reassures, “Will you make sure Richas doesn’t run Philza ragged for me?” Tallulah smiles, nods with determination, and throws her arms around Cellbit’s neck in a big hug. Despite not being a hug guy, he returns it earnestly.
Cellbit warps away directly in a puff of purple particulate, and Phil starts sizing up the windows with a furrowed brow, thinking about putting up blinds.
-
Jaiden finds herself in a dark room, made of white quartz. The overall effect reminds her of snow at night. It’s certainly chilly enough. She doesn’t remember how she got here, and there are no doors or windows to provide a clue. In fact, the room is entirely featureless except for one dim, inset light in the ceiling - the only light source.
All of her gear is gone. She’s wearing a white jumpsuit. Her wings are bound, folded and pinned uncomfortably together so she can’t extend them, so that’s an extra layer of trapped that she’s not enjoying.
Good morning.
The voice comes from nowhere, and everywhere, directionless. She whips around, trying to find a corner Cucurucho could be hiding in.
What are you doing.
It’s not a question, so she doesn’t bother answering. She turns around again. Still nobody. She can feel her breath starting to catch. “Where are we?”
We are part of the QSMP Census Bureau.
-
Cellbit picks through the debris carefully and comes up with little, except for a few discarded feathers. They’re clearly Jaiden’s, based on the coloration - he wasn't familiar with any wild animals with deep purple in the color scheme - but one of them looks wrong. He’s not an expert on feathers, but this one looks… malformed, somehow, like it wasn’t allowed to grow properly, and there are spots on it devoid of color.
He frowns. The platinum streak in his own hair is hanging in front of his face. He looks between them, not liking the conclusions he’s drawing. He stands back up in the ruins of the lower house just as Roier glides down from the top of the hill.
“There’s nothing left,” his Guapito says. His eyes are red, but if he has shed any tears, they’re long gone by now. “The whole treehouse is gone. Ashes.” He’s holding the remains of a few small, bright blue flowers that Cellbit remembers were planted by the sunset lookout. “Did you find anything, gatinho?”
He holds up the fucked-up feather next to his face. “Just a few of these.”
Roier stiffens. He’s drawn the same conclusion Cellbit has. “Oh, shit. What the fuck?”
“Did she say anything to you about it?” Cellbit asks. She hadn’t mentioned anything to him, but she was Roier’s partner long before Cellbit had met them.
“No, nada. She’s been keeping to herself for a while.” It’s common knowledge that Jaiden has become more of a recluse since Bobby’s death. She always made the excuse that she was busy, building her own home, and it wasn’t a lie - Roier and Cellbit were both witnesses to the herculean amount of effort and detail she had put into her hideaway, and Cellbit could say for himself that he was genuinely honored when she trusted him enough to visit.
In the whole wreckage, there were no notes left, no ransom to pay, nothing. Not even a real sign of struggle, if he was honest. Any footprints left had been confused by curious animal tracks and the wreckage of burnt timber. No evidence aside from the feathers.
Roier wanders, moving pieces of debris, climbing over what used to be a load-bearing beam. He finds a few shreds of canvas, hundreds and hundreds of dead plants, the remains of an easel. An item frame.
He shoves aside an armor stand and a charred sombrero, looking for clues, when he finds the gun in a pile of things that must have fallen off the wall. He’s not sure where Jaiden got it from, surely it can’t be Bobby’s, they’ve been banned for a while, but suddenly he feels like he’s been given a gift from a higher power.
He clears the weapon, checks it for function. It needs to be cleaned, but by some miracle it’s not damaged. There’s no ammunition with it; the clip is empty, nothing in the chamber, none in the debris when he looks.
He thinks about Cellbit. His discolored streak of hair. Jaiden’s feathers. Cucurucho. The damn bear had to have something to do with this. He mulls over the weapon in his hand, so rare in the hands of the residents now.
The Federation employees had access to them.
“Cellbo,” he calls to his husband, “What do you say we make a bear trap?”