The rest of the day went by like a blur. I fetched coffee for several more of my co-workers and listened to them chat away about the dynamic trio, vacation spots and the possibility of a royal scandal. I worked on the Golden Week article when I wasn't busy, but my mind was someplace else. Take a wild guess what I was preoccupied with.

I got out of the office around four, just after submitting the article. The guys who worked the newspaper design would take this article, and many more like it, and attempt to fit it into the newspaper. The front-page articles would usually be big news that were expected to catch the attention of the passerby, and tabloid articles would be near the back of the paper.

That was hardly my concern, though. Right now, I just wanted to get home and figure out how to go about the article. So I went into the parking lot, greeted the attendant and hunted my car down. Two minutes later, I found it; an aquamarine blue five-seater that was gifted to me by my dad in my junior year of college. It was old back then, but technology had moved on; in two years, it was already conspicuously showing its age in the face of the newer models that not only went faster, but had significantly more features and just looked better than my car overall. I didn't mind too much, since my car got the job done, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a pang of jealousy and a burning hole in my wallet whenever someone zoomed by in a Shengbo.

Twenty minutes of driving later, I was in front of an apartment complex. Three stories high, it had been around for the better part of a century, and it showed. Despite the numerous renovations the landlord had commissioned, it looked really old, and not in a good way. The bricks of the complex were a rusty red with the mortar breaking off, the building number was fading and the gates that led inside the complex had the black paint of the bars already chipping off. It would never hit the top 100 list of 'Nicest Apartment Complexes To Live In', unfortunately; the only good parts were the cheap rent and close proximity to work.

I locked my car, then went inside. The interior was painted with a mix of red and yellow, with a set of flickering fluorescent lights in the ceiling. I scaled the steps to the second floor, then went all the way to the end of the hall to unlock the door to Apt. #210.

I locked the door behind me and took in my apartment for the billionth time; small bedroom, small living room, small kitchen, small everything. It was a fact that grated lightly on me-while it was not a terrible apartment by any means, and quite comfy in spite of how minuscule it felt, I found myself dreaming of a bigger and way cooler apartment so many times that it was getting old. I suppose that was why upwards mobility was a thing.

Standing around wasn't going to make my apartment magically cooler, though. I unzipped my jacket and left it hanging on my bedroom's doorknob, then put the folder on my bed and made my way to the kitchen for a quick snack. The walls were a drab white, the refrigerator and stove were practically in a romantic relationship with only the garbage can between them to keep it PG, the shelves were above my microwave, the sink and plate racks were sitting in a lonely corner of the kitchen and the floor was covered in plastic brown patterned tiles, with some already starting to discolor. I could've avoided this problem by buying real tiles for the kitchen, but these were expensive compared to the faux tiles I was buying. At least the faux tiles didn't threaten to break my wallet and permanently cripple it for life if I so much as looked at them funny.

I walked over to the refrigerator and opened the bottom door. It was filled with juice, a nearly empty half-gallon jug of milk, cheese and several other things. I groaned as I realized I would need to go to the grocery store sometime this week, as I was running low on stuff to eat. For the time being, though, I just wanted something that took next to zero effort to make.

I took out the milk, then reached for a cereal box-Shang Tu Charms, with a million marshmallows colored to represent the different elements of Metal, Water, Air, Fire and Earth, and some dragon mascot getting chased by a bunch of pandas-gently slammed them on the table, picked up a bowl, cup and spoon from the plate rack, poured the cereal in, then opened the milk and-

Oh for Avalice's sake are you kidding me right now?!

I gagged at the smell of rotten eggs and sour milk. Ugh. The milk was two and a half days past the expiration date. I hurriedly rushed to the sink and dumped the spoiled milk down the drain.

I glared at the bowl of cereal I had just filled up. Lamenting the waste of effort, I tossed the jug in the can, then grudgingly emptied the cereal back into the box and reluctantly placed the bowl and spoon back on the plate rack. A moment of silence passed as I mourned my cereal snack, and then I just fished out two slices of bread with some peanut butter and jelly.

Several minutes later, I dressed out of my jeans and patterned button-down shirt into sweats and a blank white shirt, then hung up my jacket properly and put my clothes in the closet. Then I gathered the notes from the folder and sat down at my desk to read them.

Barry's attention to detail was always surprising to me, considering how laid-back he usually acted. He had a list of people who might know something about this Coral Tea, with some names checked off to indicate who he had already talked to and a date next to the names. Several names were circled in red, presumably as high-priority people to interview: Lilac, Carol, Neera and Spade. These circled names had pictures taken from previous articles.

After that was a list of observations and questions based on who he had already talked to.

-Coral Tea: Died at age 20. Seems to have joined the Red Scarves as early as 10.

-Has a sister called Carol, age 12. May have joined the Scarves to follow in big sister's footsteps? Hard to track down; became a celebrity alongside Lilac, age 15, after saving Avalice, but somehow, no one knows where the kids live. May still be affiliated with Scarves?

-Coral had a bounty at the magistrate worth 10,000,000 crystals. Suspected crimes include grand theft auto, bribery of government officials, theft, planting evidence on crime scenes and aggressive jaywalking. Oddly enough, has no murder charges; perhaps worked as a fixer rather than an assassin? Or has no one found the bodies?

-A task force dedicated to finding and apprehending Coral was created roughly six months ago, and Neera was the captain of this task force in its last two months. Was disbanded shortly after unofficial news of her death and a body came to light. No autopsy was performed for reasons unknown, and the body has mysteriously disappeared. Coral was never mentioned by name in the news that did come out.

-Most of the Scarf members won't talk to me, including Spade, but the ones who did know next to nothing about what jobs she worked or how she died. However, the way they answer implies that Coral may be an unofficial patron saint of the Scarves.

-Whoever thought it was a good idea to name two wildcat siblings Carol and Coral is a bloody idiot.

I found myself chuckling at this last note. It had echoed my initial thoughts as well.

The notes were two years old, however. It was a safe bet that the circled names were still alive, if slightly aged.

Based on Barry's notes, I figured the best place to start would be interviewing Carol. Who better to tell the history of Coral Tea than her own sister? Even better, Carol might still be a Red Scarf member, and so would have intimate knowledge of Coral's jobs.

In the meantime, though, it had occurred to me that maybe I should have an internal codename for Coral; the name was already wearing on me and it was too easy to mix it up with Carol. I decided I might just call Coral 'Annie Oakley' for the time being.

–-

I quickly learned the hard way what 'hard to track down' meant in practice. I had went out around five with nothing more than a recorder, a notebook, a picture of Carol, the trusty Blue Beetle (my car) and a half-baked plan that boiled down to 'find out where Carol lives'.

I drove into the Shang Tu city square. The city square was the unofficial meeting point for a good number of Shang Tu's citizens, most notably because of the monolith at the center of the square. I was familiar with a pub there called the Roaring Dragon; Barry frequented that pub and invited me over for special occasions enough times that I knew the location by heart. If anyone knew anything about where to find Carol, I had a feeling I'd find something there.

The Roaring Dragon was filling up with customers around this time. It was somewhat old-timey, with light bulbs that cast an orange-yellow light on the pub, ceiling fans and greyscale picture frames of Shang Tu forty years ago. The owner had just installed several wide-screen TVs that were tuned to various channels; right now, one was playing a sports channel, one the news, and one a show about a detective duo solving crimes. The tables were occupied with twenty and thirty-somethings who had just came from work to eat, drink and talk with friends.

I walked up to the counter and took a seat, then knocked on the wood a few times. The bartender had come around with a smooth, easy smile on his face. He was a rabbit wearing a white apron, a t-shirt and jeans. He had come in six months ago to take over after the old bartender retired, and it hadn't taken very long for the regulars to warm up to him.

"Evening. What can I do you for?"

"I'm looking for information on where to find a girl."

"Everyone's looking for a girl, my friend."

I smiled a bit. "Yeah. But I'm looking for this girl called Carol Tea..." I procured Carol's picture from my notebook and pushed it towards the bartender.

He looked at it for a few seconds, then frowned.

"Don't think I can help you with that. I haven't been here too long, and none of the regulars know much about your girl, aside from the part where she helped
saved the world alongside a dragon, a dog and an alien."

"Oh. Huh."

"Sorry, friend. Can I get you anything else in the meantime?"

"Yeah, actually, can you whip up a bacon cheeseburger? I'll be eating out."

The rabbit smiled. "Sure. Seventy crystals, please."

Ah, yes. Money. That's a thing.

I'm sure you're aware by now that the currency of Avalice is crystals. We switched to that from regular paper currency a while ago because for reasons I don't quite understand, crystals were extremely abundant and self-replicating (albeit needing special techniques to take advantage of that fact), thus eliminating the need for money printing machines. But crystals, as small as they are, were super inconvenient to carry around in bulk, as they just weighed your wallet down and started spilling out as soon as you put in more than twenty crystals. And contrary to popular belief, crystals didn't just float around in the air or on the floor for anyone to pick up willy-nilly. The Magister put a stop to that shortly after the Kingdom Vortex became a thing, sending out teams dedicated to finding every single crystal and offering to buy any claimed crystals from the citizens for a pretty penny. But how to spend money in Avalice without jumping through hoops?

The solution was currency sticks, or I guess 'crystal cards', and a baseline exchange rate of 10 crystals equaling $1 in the old paper currency. There were two types of cards; gray cards that had a flat amount of money stamped on them, and a personal card of any color (except gray) that allowed you to spend money directly from your bank account. These sticks had a few security measures to make sure it wasn't easy to simply steal them, but the most obvious and easy to explain measure was fingerprint confirmation whenever one made a transaction. Anything else was a bit more than I could explain in a way that made sense.

I slid a few grey cards towards the bartender. He took them, opened up the cashier and stuck the cards in the cashier, then disappeared into the kitchen. Several minutes later, he came back with my burger.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. Take care, friend."

In the space of ten minutes, I was outside chewing over the disappointing lack of information while chewing on my burger. I figured that something might turn up soon enough; being a naive and unblooded journalist, I figured it should be easy.

Of course, I didn't anticipate how hard it'd be to find a fourteen year-old kid in Shang Tu.

First, I decided to procure the Yellow Pages and search for orphanages. I think I called about fifty different orphanages, and no one on the line had a girl by that name, nor could tell me anything about her whereabouts. It was a good thing that Shang Tu's payphones let you make up to ten calls per quarter, or I'd have spent something like 125 crystals. It may not seem like a lot, but the small things tend to add up.

Then I called the number for Social Services. I was met with a feminine voice.

"Hello. Who is speaking and how may I help you?"

"Hi, this is Samuel Swift, and I'm calling to see if you know the whereabouts of a girl named Carol Tea."

"May I ask what you need that information for, sir?"

"I'm a journalist working for the Avalice Times." Somehow, I got the feeling I wouldn't get results if I said I was a tabloid journalist. "I need to talk to her to set up an interview."

"Ah. What name did you say again?"

"Carol Tea."

"What species?"

"Wildcat."

"Alright. Please hold."

Five minutes later, I was met with a different, more masculine voice.

"I'm sorry, sir, we don't have any records for a girl by that name."

I suppressed a sigh. "Alright. Do you have anything on a dragon called Lilac?"

"Do you have a full name?"

"No, not really."

"I'll look regardless. But I wouldn't get my hopes up."

Fifteen minutes later, the feminine voice from earlier was talking to me.

"We have no records for the name you listed. I'm sorry, sir."

"…..that's all right. Thank you for your time."

"Have a good evening, Mr. Swift."

I reluctantly put the phone back into its receiver. I suppose it was a bit much to hope for; if Carol was a member of the Scarves, it was entirely possible she was off the bureaucratic grid.

Unfortunately, I had just wasted the better part of three hours calling numbers. So I did the next best thing.

I started bothering passerby to ask if they had seen a girl called Carol Tea at all. The responses I got were varied and colorful.

"Sorry, I don't know anyone by that name."

"I know about her, but I don't know where she lives."

"Go away."

"Can you buy me a beer?"

"I don't like cats. Cats are jerks."

"How dare you? You're a sick, sick man and you better get out of here before I report you to the authorities!"

You can judge for yourself if this search was fruitful.

I had set out at five to find a single fourteen year-old kid. It was now nine with a chill setting in, and I had wasted the better part of four hours with absolutely nothing to show for it. I sighed heavily and decided my time would be better served going home.

Not five minutes after I found my car, some jerk on a motorcycle almost crashed into my car trying to park on the sidewalk. He was wearing a helmet, a black shirt, a red scarf and shorts, and seemed a bit young to be riding a bike at nine in the evening. I was in a bit of a foul mood.

"Hey, watch where you're going, man!"

"Sorry!"

I balked. The voice was feminine, totally out of odds with who I thought was riding the bike. And on closer inspection, the person had green fur…

And then the person removed the helmet.

I was in shock for a few seconds. I double-checked the picture against the person's face, then triple-checked.

"Wait a second. Are you Carol Tea?"

"Yeah. Why?"

I blinked. "You're kidding me. I spend four hours looking for you, and you just show up out of nowhere? Unbelievable. Of all the things to happen..."

Carol had a puzzled look and a raised eyebrow on her face. "Uh, mister, what did you need me for?"

Oops. That might not have been the best first impression.

"Er, uh, I mean..." I laughed awkwardly and scratched my head. "I'm sorry, it's just been a long day for me. My name is Samuel Swift and I work for the Avalice Times. If it's not too inconvenient for you, I'd like to do an interview with you?" I smiled lamely.

I watched the slow transformation from puzzlement to excitement.

"Whoawhoawhoa wait, you want to do an interview with me?! Ohmigosh, I've been waiting for this moment forever!" Her eyes had gone starry, and I think there was a universe inside her eyeballs at that exact moment. "Juust you wait, Avalice! Your new star is here to tell you how she saved the world from a big stupid shrimp-looking alien called Brevon with her kung fu! And then think...they'll make movies out of me, every kid will want to be like me, and people will be telling my story for millions of billions of years to come!"

I chuckled uncomfortably. For someone who had helped saved the world, she was so unbelievably...teenage. And she was in her own world right now. I wasn't entirely sure if she was going to save that world, but I needed her in my world right now.

"...so are we on for the interview?"

I could swear I heard a snap as I broke Carol out of her reverie.

"Huh what? Oh. Yeah. Sure, why not? I can take you to the treehouse where me and Lilac live. And then you can ask me whatever you want." Her grin was all teeth.

"That sounds nice. I can't just leave my car here, though."

Carol scratched her head. "Oh. Then I can follow you to your house or something, then you can ride on my bike."

I wasn't all that keen on the idea, in truth. But I valued this interview more than I did my privacy in this moment.

I shrugged slowly. "Why not..."

–-

A hour and a half later, I had parked my car in front of the apartment complex, then I had taken a ride in Carol's bike. Let's just say that riding in a motorcycle was an entirely new experience, especially when the driver had no regard whatsoever for speed limits, and had no qualms about driving on the rooftops.

We had stopped just outside Shang Tu's city limits and were a few miles short from officially entering Dragon Valley. There was an honest to god treehouse just up ahead of us-I thought it was a joke then, but these kids were really living in a treehouse. It was hard to believe. How were they surviving on their own?

Carol opened up the kick stand for the bike and dismounted. I slowly got off the bike, trying not to puke.

"Well, this is it. You can take as long as you need to get started, Mr….wait, what was your name again?"

I grimaced. "Samuel Swift. You can just call me Sam."

"Whoa, Sam, you don't look so good. Why didn't you tell me this was your first time riding a bike?"

"I didn't realize I was taking a ride from a madwoman..."

She didn't seem to take offense. "Well, it's okay. Just lemme know when you're ready to go up."

Two minutes later, the sick feeling had subsided and I was climbing the ladder to the treehouse, just behind Carol. Carol opened the door, and I went inside.

The treehouse was much more furnished than I thought it would be on first glance. There was a TV set, a landline, a chair and a couch, several shelves that had a sundry of random objects on them, and a poster of a dragon with the sunrise behind it. It looked to be a two-room house, but it felt much bigger than my own apartment despite that.

"Looks pretty nice, huh, Sam? Hey, Lilac, Milla, we got a visitor!"

A few seconds had passed. Lilac had come out of the second room, yawning loudly and stretching. She had purple skin and long hair with two strands running down her face and gemstones in her hair, and was wearing a blue shirt with sweats. Milla followed, comparatively looking much more awake. She was wearing baggy green pants and a shirt that was several sizes too big for her.

"Ugh, Carol, you don't have to yell, I'm right here...and you came home really late...and.."

Her eyes focused on me.

"Wait, who's the guy, Carol?"

I grinned sheepishly. "Hi, my name is Samuel Swift, journalist for the Avalice Times. You can just call me Sam. I'm here to interview Carol...and I guess you as well?"

Milla sat on the ground. "You work for the newspaper? That's so cool!"

Lilac, on the other hand, seemed to have a moment of recognition.

"Your name is Samuel Swift, right? I think I recall that name from somewhere..."

"Yeah?"

And then Lilac's eyes flashed. "Now I remember. Aren't you a tabloid journalist?"

Carol was looking at me in shock, as if I had betrayed her somehow. Milla just tilted her head. And Lilac was looking at me with a darkness I really did not like.

"...yeah, actually, I am?"

"Ah, I see. So you're the kind of person who writes trashy rumor articles with totally made-up dialogue from people you haven't actually talked to, speculating about who's hooking up with who. I see how it is."

"Wait, no, I don't write these kinds of articles. Where are you getting this from?"

"That's even worse, then. You're not a real journalist, are you? You're just a paparazzi, here to take scandalous pictures for trashy magazines, then?"

"I..what?!"

Lilac was shaking her head. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just boot you from the treehouse. I've had bad experiences with both hack journalists and paparazzo, and I'm not letting you come back with anything the trash mags can use!"

"Whoa, you're getting the wrong idea! I just came here to ask about a person called Coral Tea!"

The tension had been so thick you could cut it with a knife. But as soon as I said the words, several things happened.

Carol flinched and walked away to Lilac's side with a pained look on her face. Milla blinked. And Lilac had a hand to her mouth in shock. And I, a twenty-three year-old eagle with a stroke of luck, was dumbstruck at the reactions to Coral's name.

I wondered if Barry had ever had anything like this happen to him.