Levitha's Blanket, Bed'n'Breakfast – Early Morning
It's a wee bit chilly in the inn, but tolerable as the heat from a newly built fire starts to spread from the hearth. Gibson can be heard banging about in the kitchen, asking for the fifth time if he was supposed to be slicing the potatoes or peeling the potatoes for Anisa's breakfast preparations. A clattering of the nutshells hanging over the front door announces the arrival of the dusty-brown Whitewhisker twin brothers, Spencer and Kurtis, and a lop-earred Lapi girl with gray fur. The latter wears a long green dress with an apron already tied over it, so it's apparent she's quite prepared for the day.

Anisa gets the fire going stronger, using the bellows to stoke it until it lights to a blaze. Wiping her brow, she calls back to Gibson, "Slice them! You don't expect people to eat whole potatoes in the morning, do you?" As she stands, she wipes her paws off on her apron, grimacing at the inn dress she is required to wear, although it's not too bad. As she looks over her shoulder, her ears perk up with a smile to the twins and their sister. "Oh, good morning you three! Glad to see you're up and at it!"

Spencer tramps in, blowing into his paws and rubbing them together as he makes a beeline for the fireplace. "Sure beats staying outside any longer than we have to! Whew, the mornings have some bite to them. I bet we'll get snow in a month."

The other brown Lapi just mutters to himself, fingering the waist belt and plain tunic and breeches that replace his customary red robe.

Janice grins as she heads behind the inn counter. "Kurt'll be along in a moment… he's here in body, but I think some part of him is still at home in bed."

The white Lapi walks over to the bar counter, wiping it down with a damp rag and rearranging various condiments. "I've never seen snow before. I think it'll be nice, even if it's cold out!" She grins at Janice. "Maybe he should try some of Gibson's cooking. That'll wake him up whether he likes it or not!"

"I heard that!" A grinning Gibson emerges from the kitchen, smoothing back the black fur on the top of his head with a paw, and not noticing a shred of potato it leaves behind one of his ears. "I sliced the darn potatoes, so you get to do the rest, Anisa. Wouldn't do to have the town come after us for me poisoning them. Hey, and I've got good news: as of last night, we've got about four hundred shekels and some change saved up! With the purse from the boxing contest Anisa won last week, that should put us up to seven hundred. Plus whatever Royce has been paid at the library, that ought to be enough for tickets and supplies for wherever Jipulu's leads take us!"

Anisa walks over to her older brother, and getting on her tip-toes to reach, plucks the potato shred from his ear. "Really? You mean we already have enough?" She flicks the peel into a nearby rubbish bin, and begins to walk to the kitchen. "And just as I was getting to know this place!" She grins. "I guess you guys can do the rest of the opening, and I'll get breakfast ready. Oh, and Gibson? Can I talk to you for a bit?" She disappears back into the kitchen.

Gibson ruffles his hair to get rid of any more food he might have stashed up there. "Yep, we do! I don't know how that one little Aelfin takes care of the place by herself, butshe's sitting on a gold mine." The black Lapi nods. "Sure, sis!" He follows along while the other rabbits make preparations for the breakfast.

The kitchen is a little more chaotic than how Piksil evidently kept it when she first left the inn in the paws of the Snowshoes, but it's still quite clean and orderly enough to where everything is in reach. A basin of somewhat clumsily sliced potatoes sits on one of the counters, along with other foods just recently brought back from market, and the list Gibson had to fetch them with.

Anisa walks over to the potatoes, giving the meat products a wide berth as she does so. "So, speaking of our little trip after Jipulu, where do we go next?" Grimacing at the clumsy potatoes, she shrugs and starts a fire on the stove. "And who all knows about this anyways? I knew Spencer knew, and Kurt too, but Janice also?" She plops a kettle onto one of the burners and a pot on the other, tossing the potatoes and other vegetables inside. "And when do we leave?"

Gibson begins unloading bundles of carrots, celery, kyootcumber, sacks of flour, and honey from crates stacked near the door. "As for who knows… uh, you, me, Royce, Spencer, Kurt, Wanda… ummm… I don't think Janice knows anything more than who we are, and that we were stranded here. She hasn't asked any questions. I think she and her parents think I just landed here after caravaning went dead, and you came to visit me."

The white rabbit puts a lid on the pot, and fans the flames with the bellows. "Well, I hope if she does know, she doesn't tell anyone. People already think I'm weird enough from the competition." She rubs a couple of bruises as if to emphasize the point. "It's too bad we have to leave so soon. I'm getting to like this place."

"I think your winning that competition was good for business, at least," points out Gibson, smiling. "You're the talk of the town, and I think a lot of fellas have been coming to eat here just hoping to see you." The Lapi chortles, then cuts a few strings on some bundles, and begins piling veggies near what Anisa's already loading into the pots. "Where we go next depends on whether I can find anything more out about what we've got," he muses, after a short while. "We've got enough money. We just need to know where to start searching… I'm hoping whoever was messing with us before hasn't found it first, 'cause I'm stumped."

The front door nutshell clatters.

"I've still got the all the stuff up in my room, if you need to look at it," Anisa says, as she begins to slice more of the produce. "Don't ask me to figure any of it out for you though. It's all Olympian to me." Her ears perk up as she hears the clatter, and after wiping her paws on her apron again, peers out from the kitchen door to see who's arrived.

Out in the common room, Anisa spies the door closing behind an indigo clad Skeek walking toward the counter, looking more pleased with herself than usual. A casual greeting by Spencer and Janice earns them a distracted wave of the paw.

Letting an ear flop, Anisa watches the Skeek enter, and makes her way to the back of the bar. "Well well well, fancy seeing you here!" She gives a smirk, not knowing whether to hug the mouse, or deck her for disappearing so much. "What are you up to today?"

Wanda's odd little smile expands into something that threatens to split her face. "I found it."

The white Lapi blinks, and slowly the smirk fades as realization dawns. "You found… it?" The Lapi looks around warily, seeing if anyone else is listening. "Are you serious?"

Wanda nods smugly, leaning over the bar as if a conspirator. "Well, I finally know around where it is, at least. I'll tell you, those Dagh blasted trees, and rivers, and rocks, and everything else green, stony, or otherwise annoying got in my way, but I finally narrowed down around where it is. I think we can get the book today if we go for it."

"Today?" Anisa looks over her shoulder at Gibson, and frowns as she turns back to the Skeek. "But I have to work," she whispers. "There's no way Gibson'll let me leave!" The rabbit chews on her lower lip, keeping her ears close to Wanda.

"What, has he got a leash on you?" asks the Skeek, reaching over to lightly pinch one of Anisa's eartips. "Is the door locked? Are fresh carrots and celery somehow more important than steel and ancient parchment?"

"Of course not!" the Lapi blurts out, wincing at both the pinch on her sensitive ear, and her own loudness. "But I can't just run out on them like this… " She thinks for a bit. "Let me tell him I'm going to go buy some spices or something. At least that way he won't know."

This earns Anisa a quizzical look from the Skeek. "Doesn't he already know we liberated the book? Didn't you tell me about some lecture he gave you, and you promised to give the book back to Baleforte'?"

"Which I personally think is silly," adds Wanda. "It's not like he's going to do anything with it but hawk it to someone who'll let it molder in a collection for ages."

"Well… yeah… ," the rabbit says with a sigh, "but I'm afraid he won't like us going alone, and'll want to come along, or won't let us go at all." She turns back to the black Lapine, and sighs as she watches him unpack produce. "But then again, I guess I do owe him that much. Fine, I'll just tell him up front." She looks back to the Skeek. "And we are giving it back. I promised."

The Skeek strokes her whiskers thoughtfully. "It's up to you, sugar. You got the thing as much as I did, I guess."

Anisa walks back into the kitchen and starts to untie her apron. "Um, Gibson? I have to leave for a little while." She walks over to a peg in the wall, and hangs the attire up. "I'll be back about the lunch rush."

The black rabbit glances over his shoulder as he works. "Oh, all right. How long does this stew have to cook for? Do I have to stir it or anything? Where you goin'?"

"Cook it for about fifteen minutes, stirring whenever it starts to boil over." The white Lapi reaches up on the pegs and pulls down a thick winter coat. "I'm going out to get the usual. Spices… carrots… beans… artifact books… " This last part she says lightly, already headed for the kitchen door.

Gibson mumbles to himself, tapping his fingers as he counts. "Stir it after fifteen minutes… er… after which it's supposed to boil? Shoot, I better get one of the hourglasses out of the cupboard." He looks up distractedly. "You're getting what now? Oh, if you're going to the market, bring back some wimmer down. I gotta restuff a bed that's getting a dent in the mattress."

Anisa nods, throwing the oversized black coat around her and tying the belt tight. "Will do! And… just the usual!" She walks quickly out of the kitchen, grinning at the mouse. "C'mon, let's go find that book."

Wanda's mouth quirks in a smile, but she says nothing until the pair get outside. The morning is still very cool, and it nips at noses, but the coat and Anisa's fur keeps her quite warm. It looks as though Wanda's long cobalt duster does about the same for her. "All right, I tracked 'it' down to a marshy area upriver. The local yokels call it the 'Akwavi-kin Mangrove'. I would've gone farther in to look around, but it's pretty wet and nasty there. Once we get there again, we should be able to look around, though we might want a canoe or something."

The white rabbit blows into her paws, and then rubs her ears to keep them warm. "Akwavi-kin Mangrove? Does it have anything to do with those swimming Kavi things?" She frowns at the mention of it being a marsh, since she's still in the dress used during working hours. "How far is it from here?"

"I don't know. Maybe." Wanda ponders this for a moment. "Well, it's a ways off, some miles at least. I don't know if your promise to be around for lunch will be keepable. Maybe dinner. You better run inside and change, and I'll buy something from the market for us to munch on during the trip."

Anisa nods, and does an about face towards the inn. "I'll meet you in the market, get whatever we need, and I'll see what I can scavenge from the room." The Lapi dashes – or tries to at least in this dress – back inside, and makes a bee-line for the stairs.

It's a quick jog through the common room and up the stairs, and the Whitewhiskers setting up for the morning's customers seem well enough used to Anisa dashing around that they barely give her a second glance.

The white Lapi dashes into the room and shuts the door, panting from being hot under all these clothes rather than being tired. She takes off her coat, sets it on the bed, and gets from her dresser a white shirt and black pants. After changing into them, she takes a second to pause and look the room over for anything she might need, or that might come in handy on the trip.

Grabbing a handbag, the rabbit sister grabs a little of thisand that around the room, including a bag of Royce's carrot chips, a small fuzzy paw-warmer just in case, and Gibson's canteen. Remembering something, she feels at her neck, making sure that the necklace known as First Stone is still on her. Tying her coat back on, she gives the room one last glance to make sure she isn't forgetting anything.

It looks like that's about it, really. Out the window, Anisa can see the blue-clad Skeek nearly all the way down the road to the market.

Tightening the belt on her coat, the Lapi grabs the handbag and sprints out the door. She flies down the stairs and towards the door, waving wordlessly to the Whitewhiskers siblings as she does so.

The white rabbit can barely see Spencer out of the corner of her eye, starting to look up as she's going out the door. "'Bye, Ani-" *SLAMclatter* "… -sa."

Wincing, Anisa screeches to a halt out front, and sets her ears back. She gives a longing look down the street to the Skeek, but sighs as she turns around. Opening the door, she peers inside. "You all right?"

"I'm fine! What's your big rush?"

Peering back out the door with anticipation, the Lapi female then looks back inside. "I just have a few errands to run out on the edge of town. I'll be back soon!"

Spencer nods. "Seeya!"

Nodding, Anisa jets back outside, slamming the door behind her. She sprints down the street and after the blue-clad mouse, hoping to catch up with her.

It's an easy matter to catch up. Wanda's barely even started haggling with an apple vendor, holding up a knapsack that she insists she could fill in Rephidim's Bazaar for the price of five apples here. The words "scandalous" and "outrageous" crop up from time to time.

Anisa comes to a halt behind the Skeek, panting and hugging her arms close to her in the oversized coat. "I see things are going well! Got us a boat yet?"

The Skeek laughs, and says, "I'm busy trying to keep us from being robbed!" Before the vendor starts objecting, Wanda continues, "You can ask to borrow one down by the docks."

The white rabbit shrugs and nods. "Okay, I guess I'll go take care of that." She grins as she starts to walk away, "Don't get us broke!" She makes her way to the docks, pulling some loose change from her handbag.