Tale of Two Sherlocks
Chapter 1
Under the shadow of a red moon, an unusual event took place: A very old lady, dressed in a gypsy style, stood in the middle of a circle of her followers. They were all wearing masks with only their eyes visible, choosing to stay anonymous to each other. It goes without saying that they were all notified In advance who else, aside from them, was to attend the event, but still, a discreet meeting was always a plus, even if it was for protocol uses only.
All of the followers stood in an absolute silence, barely breathing, though from time to time one of them shivered from the cold, or perhaps from fear.
They were in the middle of a deserted field, with wild grass and tall, broad trees - the perfect settings for a perfect hunt. From where they stood they could see movements in the grass, indicating the frantic run of hares. Each of those wild movements was followed by a loud barking, and a huge black dog, running after the poor hare.
The men flinched inwardly to the gruesome sight but the old lady, Mistress Roxane, seemed somewhat oblivious. She watched her hares being hunted down and slaughtered one by one till they were all dead then closed her eyes and concentrated.
"Maybe we shouldn't have come here" one of the men dared to whisper, when Mistress Roxane's' eyeballs turned to the back of her skull and she seemed to be in some sort of a trance. "This is too risky, even in our standards"
"Shut up, you coward, if this goes as planned we'll be rich" another one hushed him.
The so called coward opened his mouth to reply but decided against it the minute a rusty voice started echoing through the field:
"I can see an imminent death followed by a disastrous event. Yes, a young man will die soon, thus leading to a terrible war."
Mistress Roxane's voice died down, and was replaced by nervous whispers then one of the men stepped forward and asked in the name of the others "What shall we do then?"
The mistress thought for a second before saying: "You are to release a box into the ocean, and then set free eleven hares to be torn apart by rabid dogs."
As if to add to the horrifying scenery, a lightning stroked followed by a loud thunder, and the old lady began to laugh maniacally.
Watson's Blog
If you are in a bad mood you are likely to suffer from a lack of patience, interest and manners.
These indicators, unfortunately, don't imply for my friend, Sherlock, to whom these symptoms are just a behavior pattern.
Then how can I tell that he is in a bad mood? I can't! I can only guess that the poor number of new cases is getting to him, making him face his greatest fear: boredom.
That's Sherlock for you; Normal people are relieved when the cover story of the daily newspaper isn't some murder mystery. Sherlock on the other hand, is upset if that's the case, complaining about people not willing to die in order to satisfy his intellectual need.
Today, however, with the daily newspaper, Mrs. Hudson also brought news of her own: "You boys would be happy to hear that I've found a new renter for the vacant apartment".
Sherlock being himself just took a sip of his tea, mumbling "Oh, I'm overjoyed".
I coughed loudly, sending him an angry glare before turning to Mrs. Hudson: "That's great, just when I though this place would be abandon forever"
That's not exactly the truth, in fact, 221C Baker street has became very popular ever since I started writing the blog, but that was exactly the problem: overly enthusiastic fans started lining up for the basement apartment, hoping to get a closer look at the famous Sherlock. 'Surprisingly', Sherlock wasn't fond of the idea, and insisted on renting the apartment only to someone who isn't familiar with the blog, so the sales dropped yet again, and the flat remained empty… till today.
"So who is this guy? Is he cool?" I asked, fearing Sherlock's reaction if our new neighbor would turn out to be some useless blogger; he hated the blog enough as it is…
"Well, it's actually a she, her name is Arya Ashford, and she seems to be very nice" Mrs. Hudson realized that this was not what bothered me and so added "She never even heard Sherlock's name" to that I relaxed and thanked Mrs. Hudson for the paper and the news.
When she walked away I turned to Sherlock, watching him solving a maze in the back of the newspaper. I cleared my throat as a mean of hiding a chuckle.
"Well, since you seem to be awfully busy, maybe you'd want to come with me, to great the new neighbor?" I suggested, the amusement obvious in my tone.
Sherlock looked up from the maze, his eyes regarding me for a second, before replying "Well, as you said, I am awfully busy, so how can I afford myself such an unnecessary errand?" he soon returned to his maze leaving me mentally kicking myself 'I forgot again' I thought.
You see, as sharp-minded as Sherlock is, he chooses to be perfectly blunt when it comes to sarcasm. It saves him the trouble of sorting a witty reply and gives him an easy victory.
"All right," I said, getting up and gathering the dirty dishes "I'll be downstairs if you need me"
He seemed to be all too amazed (see what I just did there) by his occupation to hear what I've just said but I didn't mind at all. I still haven't forgotten how last time I left the flat he ushered me back from the grocery store just so I could fetch him a pen, talk about unnecessary errands. Yep, it was defiantly better if he didn't realize I was gone.
Our new neighbor was, as Mrs. Hudson described her, very nice. She invited me to her not-yet-furnished living room then offered me a soda and some cookies.
She was very pretty, though I'm not sure that this was the right word to define her, I guess "cute" suited her more: although she claimed to be 28 she had the face of an 18 years old: her features were all small and delicate in an exception for her eyes, which looked like huge green gems. For some reason, her straight golden hair was done in high pigtails and blunt bangs, not the regular woman hairstyle if I may say so myself. She was a bit short and her figure was one of a not yet developed teenager.
Her style of dressing didn't help maturing her appearance either: She wore overall jeans with beige, long sleeved shirt underneath and had a red thin scarf tied around her neck. Her shoes were blue all-star converse and I wasn't surprised to see that the shoelaces were loose.
All and all, I started wondering if 221B Baker street have vetoed the regular population.
As I talked to her I couldn't help but screaming in the back of my mind "Please don't be an 18 years old blogger, Sherlock will kill me!"
Suddenly we heard knockings on the door and Sherlock stepped in (speaking of the devil). He looked around the place, eyeing the boxes which were lined against the wall then looked at the girl for a couple of minutes.
"Sherlock! Hi! Glad to see you made it out of the maze. This is our new neighbor, Arya Ashford. Arya, this is Sherlock Holmes, he lives here too"
Arya stepped forward offering a hand and a smile, but Sherlock just held it and examined it before letting go.
"An office worker, a programmer most likely, quite a high rank in your job. You're doing a lot of sport activity, running nope, boxing, your father probably taught you some moves. Speaking of daddy, he is a busy man, a cop probably. Your parents - they don't live together for years now, and last but not least: you're daddy's little girl" he said in one breath then turned around to where another line of boxes stood, apparently to learn more from them. Though I couldn't see his face I knew he must be smiling slyly.
I sighed "There he goes, giving the oh so crucial first impression"
Arya studied him for a second then studied the room herself as if seeing it for the first time before saying:
"I'm very pale, which means I don't get to spend a lot of time in the sun – typical for working in an office. I have a pen in my front pocket which has the word "Intel" engraved on it. The pen itself is very exclusive, not the plastic one that is given to all the workers, but a fountain pen that is given only to the workers that hold key positions. I'm wearing clothes that are most likely for sports activities, my shoes look old, but not as worn-out as they would have been if I were to do long running, my fists are clenched most of the time, can be a reaction to you prying into my business but more likely a habit of a boxer, so boxing it is."
She then stopped, taking a minute to enjoy Sherlock's facial expression, which was as you might guess, no longer a sly smile.
"Shall I continue?" She asked, hands on her hips.
Sherlock only nodded, so she did:
"There's a box over there with the writing "gifts from dad". Only dads that are busy at work feel the need to buy their daughters so many presents. One of the presents, as you can see, is a cup with a sheriff star on it, officers usually use those, make them feel superior or something, I never got it either. Anyway, with my dad being a cop, it is most likely that he knows of this world's dangers and teaches his daughter, how to protect herself."
"There's a picture of me and my parents on the shelve here, and I'm 15 years old in the picture, if we had still been one happy little family I would have probably updated the picture…" She then exhaled a deep breath, as if she just finished the hardest part.
"And as to me being "daddy's little girl" - my bracelet says "Daddy's number 1", what a genius you must be for figuring this one out" She finished with a wink, and then crossed her arms behind her back.
"Touché, I see I underestimated you" Sherlock finally said. I knew that in Sherlock's vocabulary, admitting defeat is equal to an apology and a public humiliation combined, and she probably understood that too, so she simply smiled and explained:
"Don't be upset, it's not that big of a deal, as an old fable says: It's easier to fire your arrows and then draw your target than to draw your target then fire arrows at it. The amount of information you managed to draw out of my unloaded boxes is really impressive. My task was easier, I had the facts that you collected and the settings of the room, all that I had to do was put them together. It's basically what I'm doing for living." She finished with a laugh, a very childish one.
Sherlock's eyebrow was twitching in an obvious irritation, being defeated by a girl combined with a lack of brain activity was probably too much for his self esteem. He turned to leave, not before sending Arya a look that was less of a "goodbye" and more of a "till next time".
I invited Arya to come over whenever she wishes then followed Sherlock up the stairs. He seemed to be annoyed of what just happen, and suddenly I found myself being annoyed too, but for a totally different reason: I can barely take one Sherlock. How am I supposed to handle two Sherlocks?
A/N: in the unedited version, this chapter was longer but then I decided it would be better to split it into two, so lucky for you, next chapter would be uploaded very soon!
Reviews are more than welcome, (be sure to mention if you liked my OC, she is after all going to be the heroine of the story…)
Hope you enjoyed
~ C2