THOTH & MORVEREN
Unfortunately, Thoth had determined that his off-road skateboard needed to be wider with a higher nose in order to increase stability. Fortunately, the side of his wardrobe would be the perfect piece of wood for the project.
Half an hour later his clothes were littered across the floor, nails and pegs of wood had been dumped hastily on top of his desk and the wardrobe was in pieces at his feet. Thoth selected the piece of wood which had caught his fancy from the mess and was just examining it, trying to work out how to create the nose, when his door shot open and hit the opposing wall with an audible bang. He jumped and whipped around, expecting to see Nimueh, Arthur, a guard, a chambermaid, the housekeeper – anyone who might tell him off for dissecting his wardrobe – but instead found Morveren crouched in the doorway, thrashing her comically long tail from side to side and looking immensely proud of herself. It was easy to see why: gripped between her jaws was an enormous rug.
“Morv!” He cried out in exasperation, “get that thing out of here.”
Morveren, naturally, paid no attention whatsoever to that and proceeded to try and drag the rug into the room, which proved to be near impossible when its dimensions far exceeded the width of the door. How she got it down the corridor which led to Nimueh's suite, Thoth had no idea. He tried to go back to his wood, but the sound of her scuffling and grunting was just too distracting. After only a few minutes he heaved himself to his feet, grumbling, and trudged over to her. The rug looked disconcertingly familiar, which didn't mean much – he must have seen every rug in the damn castle by now. Morveren rolled onto her back and growled excitedly when he approached.
“That's from a posh part of the castle, isn't it?” He demanded to know, eyeing the extraordinary workmanship. Great. He couldn't shake off the sense of familiarity, but nor could he place the room he'd seen the rug in before. “Just leave it where you put all the other - ” Then it hit him. As he'd bent down to try and grab the thing, he noticed the pattern along the outer edge and was hit with a sick realisation of the rug's normal home. How could he have not realised immediately? He'd been in that room often enough – usually to be told off. “Morv, did you get that from Arthur's office?”
The little aqua-fox chirped like a bird, which was a new sound for her. Normally that would have interested Thoth, but right now he was a bit distracted.
“Come on!” He grabbed the edge of the rug and started dragging it, with her on top, back down the corridor. “We've got to get it back before someone notices.”
Despite the close proximity of the rooms, it took about an hour to get the rug back from Thoth's bedroom to Arthur's office. It blew the teenager's mind how his cat-sized familiar had managed to get the damn thing down there in the first place, especially unrolled. Even when he managed to roll it up, it was still too heavy to carry and kept unrolling whenever he dragged it and then catching on the doors.
He got a few odd looks as heaved it up the stairs, mostly from courtiers. Nothing to see here; just a kid trying to drag a huge rug one way while a miniature blue monster tries to pull it back the other way. The castle staff were too used to Thoth and Morveren to spare them a second glance.
The office was unlocked when they reached it, thankfully, which explained how Morv had got in in the first place. Thoth shoved it open with his shoulder and stared in dismay at the damage which had been caused when she'd removed it. Two armchairs and the desk had been upturned, there was paperwork everywhere, and the bottom of the curtains looked as though they'd been given a good chew before Morveren had decided to make off with the rug. Thoth dragged it inside and nudged his familiar back out with his foot, shutting the door on her.
“Keep watch!” He hissed through the keyhole. He wasn't sure she understood, but she did sit obediently outside the door... and started chewing on the rug in the corridor. Close enough.
Thoth turned back to the dismembered office and started trying to drag the rug into the correct position, figuring he could rearrange everything else on top of it after.
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