Yay! Back to the stolen head plot line.

Celty Sturluson

8:27pm

The city could embrace you like a lost child and guide you home. The city could take you in, beat you up, and leave you abandoned by yourself. The city was fickle with chosing its loved ones, victims, and everyone in between. There was hardly any pattern to grasp onto nor consistency in the people suffering on the city's streets. Ikebukuro was cruel in a way that, half the time, lacked any meanness whatsoever.

Just as the city was indecisive, so was Celty. Hers was different, though, in that no one suffered directly from her actions unnecessarily. Even considering the blatant difference, her sort of fickleness seemed one with the city's, as though when Ikebukuro was in a good mood, so was she. She could ride her horse down the streets, one after another, over and over again. It was a wild sort of freedom. Even though the rolling hills of Ireland were forever her home, the heartbeat of the asphalt, concrete, and metal resonanced with hers as her wheels pounded into the streets, allowed her to feel the foot steps of every citizen that she had come to love. It was as exhilarating wildness that the streets pumped through her blood. There, she needed nothing - not a head nor humanity - to be one of the citizens who, no matter how human they were, could be much stranger than even she.

There were times when she, along with the city, was reined in to a tame consistency or, more often, tamed into being something even more wild. Yet, when it came down to the bare bone of their essence, she and city were equal, in that neither was truly ruled by anyone. They were free whenever they needed to be.

Except Celty did feel like a slave sometimes, only to herself, though, and to her own emotions. She was, as the city never could be, in love. She had risen past the point of immature denial and accepted it as the one area in which she was both weaker than and superior the streets she called home.

In its own way, though, Ikebukuro could be said to be in love - with its citizens, with its buildings, with every step that echoes from the soles of shoe to its concrete sidewalks. Its love was both pure and raw, more so than hers.

Her emotions ran as fickle as the city's, too. Some days were days for chancing her luck as the Headless Rider on the busy streets. Others were days for staying home, relaxing like any normal person, and sometimes (God forbid) cuddling with fiance.

As it happened, the day she reencountered her head was neither such days.

It had started out plain - a shower, mild sexual harassment from Shinra - and it continued to develop that way. Izaya had no missions for his courier throughout the day, and it seemed terribly boring, as she neither wanted to sit at home, nor did she yearn to carry out a job for the informant. She had fumbled around her apartment for a while, doing odd jobs as she truly accomplished nothing.

The outside world was decidedly boring to the point of challenged the mundane aura within her home. The sun was out, yes, but barely a wind touched a rooftop or a cloud taint the blue sky. It wasn't hot. It wasn't cold. The weather was as pointedly neutral as her own feelings, and it was killing her. A siren scarcely touched an ear drum for the entirety of the day, making it out to be possibly the most average day ever. Who would've known that life as a dullahan could be so, so dull.

As the evening enclosed upon her, she forced herself to go out and do something for the love of God before the clock reached a full revolution. Celty refused to let the drab day affect her to the point of emprisoning her indoors for 24 hours.

She left the apartment without so much as a word - or a text or any message of any sort, excluding blatant body language - to Shinra. She passively left, not bothering to lock the door. It wasn't particularly purposeful, she just didn't bother. Perhaps her subconsious knew that at least a burgulary would be exciting.

Leaving the stylish building, she hesitated before continuing to walk out onto the streets, helmet on her head, though she didn't take her horse. She hadn't wandered the streets slowly in a long while, not alone at least. It left so much time for thinking and smelling the roses of the city (which, in this case, smelled a lot like cigarettes and sewers). Her thoughts were limited to only the time since her head had been stolen from her, but it didn't bother her. Being alone in the city left her plenty of time for her mind to explore as deep as her memories went and discover all sorts of new bursts of understanding. While the past of her brain was limited, the future spread ahead, further and further, to wherever she wanted to go. Hence why she had let go of the past to embrace her future.

She winced at her own cliche thoughts as they surged through her mind.

Even without her loud, mysterious bike, she brought attention to her self. Among the crowds bussled with weirdos and wackos of all types, she still managed to stand out, her clothing darker than black and hypnotizing for anyone who glanced upon it. The helmet bearing cat ears that she wore despite her mode of transportation being her own feet also failed to assist her in blending in.

As she walked on, trying her best to ignore the blatant staring she received, she felt a strong vibration against her leg from inside her tight pant pocket. She pulled her phone out roughly from her hip, glancing down to inspect the screen.

[Izaya Orihara]

She sighed, or at least, she sighed as much as she could without a mouth. It continued to puzzle why people - namely the bothersome informant - insisted on calling her on a phone when they know for a fact that she cannot talk back into the speaker. Normally, she'd ignore it until it stopped vibrating, but today was boring and the least that a call from Izaya could do was add some excitement into the day.

She waited another few second before flipping it open with another exaggerated (and mute) sigh. She held the phone to where her ear would be, and it looked more natural than usual, for she had the helmet on.

Izaya began speaking a beat afer noticing the stop in the ringing. "Why hello," he said, most annoyingly, as though she were the one who had called him. "How are you?" His whole purpose in this line of conversation was merely to aggravate her, so, instead of giving him what he wanted, she brought the phone down, positioning her fingers to flip the screen shut.

"Wait!" called the voice, duller from the distance away from her "ear". His tone wasn't urgent - Izaya was never panicked - but it was sharp and, dare it be true, serious. Orihara being serious?

She lifted it back up, briefly pondering how he had known her actions if she couldn't speak, before deciding that it was useless to try to understand the insane informant. The second the cell phone was back up, he spoke again, continuing in a much lighter tone.

"Well, I have good news and bad news! Which do you want first?"

Celty's shoulders slumped and, had she a head, her face would've deadpanned. How on earth did he expect her to answer?

"Fine, I'll start with good! It's the chronological order, anyway," his voice teased. She prayed that he would shut up and get to the point. Or just shut up.

"I found your head!" he cried, as though he were actually happy for her, which he was not even capable of. He paused for a breath, acting like he were waiting for her excited response. It never came, either because she couldn't speak or because she wasn't excited. The only thing she felt was more annoyance at the man, for she could just tell that he hadn't found it recently. If he had it, he was only telling her at this moment for some strategic reason, not because he cared one way or the other.

"Bad news, now! Ready for it?" he prompted, and his voice drove Celty to wish she could punch him through the phone line. "Someone stole it!"

And then the line went dead.

The ending sounds like a bad line from a horror story.