The cat Penny had let in once had come back again. All well and good while he was supervising its antics (which to be fair had mostly been lazing on a shelf all day) but, even if they had a truce, there was no way Elias was letting it ravage the workshop overnight, so he had had to gingerly put it out again, the stray clinging adamantly to his sleeves all the while. 

Perhaps the cat’s claws had been lingering on his mind once that was over with, and he had swept out the rest of the mess, shaking out the woodshavings from the broom (the sweeping sort this time, not one of his); because as he paced a little ways down the street to stretch his legs, something came crashing through the leafy undergrowth from someone’s garden and saw him leap out almost of his skin.

“Merlin!” He swore, instinctively angling the broomhandle in front of him in case the rustling creature pounced - and promptly dropping it when instead the thing crashing proved herself less of an angry creature and more a girl. Possibly his instinct ought to have been to leap to help her instead of brandishing a broom at her, Elias considered, wincing in apology as he observed the unusual route through - over? - the hedge she had made.

“Sorry,” he said, hastily changing tack. “I thought you were a...” A sparrow the size of an eagle? An overgrown gnome? He wasn’t quite sure what he had expected to be lunging out of the hedge towards him on a Bartonburg street, but a human had not been the top of his list. Still, calling her a gnome did not seem the most polite explanation, so he trailed off, still half trying to settle his heartbeat.

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