The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss

Chapter 526: Chapter 520: Gifts in the Dark and Noise in the Day

Skritch rolled out of his cot in the Irrelevance Fund shed a little after midnight. The teapot had finally stopped its usual midnight rattle. He sat up, rubbed his face, and decided the quiet felt wrong. A walk would fix it. He pulled on his boots, grabbed a small lantern, and stepped outside.

Raphael was already leaning against the crooked signpost, arms crossed. "Couldn’t sleep either?" Skritch asked.

"Private nonsense hour ran long," Raphael said. "Figured I’d check the paths. You tagging along?"

"I was going anyway," Skritch grumbled. They started walking without deciding who led. The Zone’s quieter paths wound between buildings and gardens, lit only by scattered lanterns and moonlight. They bickered lightly as they went.

"You’re the one who stays up counting beans from old audits," Skritch said.

"You’re the one who talks to tools," Raphael shot back. "At least my nonsense has rhythm."

They turned a corner and spotted the first item: a single sock stuffed with wildflowers, sitting on a bench like it belonged there. Skritch picked it up. "Inventory," he said.

Raphael snorted. "That’s not inventory. That’s someone leaving junk for someone else. Look." He pointed further down. A tiny crooked ladder leaned against a post. Next to it sat a jar of jam with no label, just a note that read "questionable."

Skritch tucked the sock under his arm. "People leave stuff. Happens."

Raphael grabbed the jar and ladder. "Then we deliver a few. See what happens. Come on, it’ll beat standing here."

They moved on. First stop was Mara’s porch. Raphael set the jam jar right by her door while Skritch kept watch from the shadows.

They hid behind a hedge. Mara came out a few minutes later, yawning, and picked up the jar. She unscrewed the lid, took a small taste with her finger, and blinked.

"Jam in the night, what a sight, makes my words take flight!" she said suddenly, then clapped a hand over her mouth. She tried again.

"Rhymes? Oh, the times! This jam commits crimes!" Mara stared at the jar, shook her head, and went back inside still muttering in rhymes.

Skritch and Raphael ducked lower, shoulders shaking with silent laughs. "Necessary nonsense," Raphael whispered.

"Clutter with side effects," Skritch replied.

Next they carried the sock to the field where Sir Baaington’s sheep grazed at night. They draped it over a fence post. The sheep noticed immediately.

One of them, bigger than the rest, grabbed the sock in its teeth and flipped it onto its head like a hat. The others followed in a loose line, parading around the field in a slow midnight circle. The sock hat bobbed along at the front.

"They’re having a parade," Skritch said.

"They’re improving on the gift," Raphael corrected.

The ladder was harder. They left it near a cluster of porches. Deductible appeared from nowhere, as the chicken often did, and studied the ladder with one beady eye.

Then the bird dragged it to the nearest porch, climbed up, and snatched a single shiny button from a coat hanging there.

Deductible hopped down, prize in beak, and vanished into the dark with the ladder tucked under one wing somehow.

Skritch rubbed his forehead. "That chicken is going to get us blamed."

"Or thanked," Raphael said. "Hard to tell."

They kept going, trading the remaining small finds between them. Each delivery sparked a short debate.

"Clutter," Skritch would say. "Necessary nonsense," Raphael would answer. Their voices stayed low but carried the easy rhythm of old arguments that no longer had stakes.

Eventually they reached the path near Atlas and Elara’s garden. The couple was asleep on their porch under one shared blanket. Atlas had one arm around Elara. Their breathing looked steady and even. Skritch stopped.

He pulled a plain stone from his pocket, one he’d carried for weeks without reason, and set it gently on the step. Raphael added a tiny hourglass where the sand was glued sideways so it never ran.

They stood there a minute, not speaking. The garden smelled of cool dirt and night air. Skritch thought about the old Order days, the tax audits, the endless columns of numbers. Raphael shifted his weight but stayed quiet too.

"Far from all that," Skritch said finally.

"Further every day," Raphael agreed.

They turned back toward the Fund shed as the sky lightened to gray. The last gifts went into a jumbled pile by the door. No labels, no order. They didn’t discuss making it a tradition. It just happened.

"Same time tomorrow?" Skritch asked as they parted.

Raphael gave a short nod. "If the teapot lets you."

The Zone stayed mostly asleep around them, uneven and quiet.

---

The next day started ordinary enough. Sir Baaington sat near the orchards with his notebook, trying to work on a poem. Wind moved through the trees.

Distant hammers rang from someone fixing a roof. His own bleats slipped into the lines as he read them aloud.

"Wind and hammer, bleat and clatter..." he muttered.

Jessa and Kai walked past carrying buckets. Jessa added a low hum that didn’t match anything. Kai stomped his feet in time with the hammers.

Sir Baaington looked up, surprised, then grinned and kept going. The three of them drifted along without planning it, collecting sounds as they moved.

The group passed the Sideways remnants. The old arguing buildings gave off low rumbles like bass notes whenever a breeze hit their loose panels.

Deductible appeared again and added sharp clucks that landed right on the off-beats. Someone’s leaky bucket dripped steadily nearby, filling in the gaps.

"This isn’t music," Kai said, laughing as he tried to wave a crooked stick like a conductor.

"It’s better," Jessa replied, then tripped over a root and landed in a bush. She came up still humming.

They kept the loose parade going, not aiming for anything. Past the Tapestry Wall, the threads vibrated slightly with the noise, adding faint whispers. Near Atlas and Elara’s garden the couple sat on their porch watching. Atlas coughed once.

Elara’s bench creaked as she shifted. Both sounds got pulled into the mess immediately. Sir Baaington nodded at them without stopping.

Skritch and Raphael crossed the path ahead. They saw the group and started trading their usual insults.

"Clutter-brained night walker," Skritch said.

"Bean-counter who can’t sit still," Raphael answered.

The insults got woven in as lyrics. The whole group repeated them back in messy chorus. Everyone collapsed laughing near a patch of grass. Kai rolled on the ground. Deductible pecked at a shoelace in approval.

They took a breather after that. Sir Baaington sat on a stump and spoke plainly for once.

"This noise reminds me how much better failed harmony feels than the perfect silence I used to live in. Back then everything had its place. Nothing ever surprised you."

Jessa wiped dirt from her hands. "I like the mess. Makes the day feel like it belongs to us."

Kai nodded. "No score to keep. Just keep adding whatever fits."

No one turned it into a speech. They simply got up and started again, energy renewed. The mobile chaos continued through more of the Zone, picking up random clangs, voices, and footsteps. It never settled into harmony and no one wanted it to.

As evening came the group wandered off for their usual routines. The sounds faded back into ordinary background life. No one recorded it. No one named it. A few people carried lighter steps into the rest of their day.

Atlas and Elara sat on their porch later, sharing a quiet laugh about the racket. Elara leaned against Atlas’s shoulder. "The Zone sounds like itself today."

Atlas nodded. "Good enough."

At dusk Sir Baaington stood alone with his sheep. He hummed a terrible solo under his breath. The sheep shuffled around him.

Ordinary discord continued all around—doors closing, distant voices, wind in leaves—like a familiar song that needed no fixing.