Thunderlight

(Cont.) The Curator, in the Library, with the Candlestick

The walk back is quiet and awkward. The curator glares over her shoulder at them every few moments, still sopping wet. With her fur so matted down, she looks like an angry mop. Nevertheless, Lenny tries to start a conversation with her by asking more about her work at the museum. She doesn't deign him with any meaningful responses, keeping her answers short and curt. She seems more irritated by them than anything, almost like she's counting down the seconds until she can get rid of them.

That's fair.

The curator picks up some fallen books on the way back, glaring at them pointedly each time she does. She maintains the harsh stare as she reshelves each book, refusing to break eye contact. Lenny shuffles uncomfortably and Mott rolls his eyes each time. One of the books has a water stain on it, courtesy of yours truly, and Mott gets an extra long scowl for that. But other than that, the walk is rather uneventful.

They pass through the Zekrom tunnel again on their way to her office. Lenny looks at the pictures with somber eyes as they pass by. Nudging him, Mott tilts his head to wordlessly ask what's wrong.

Lenny nudges him back with a shoulder as if to say, 'don't worry about it.' Mott frowns, worrying more.

They're in her office before he can press the matter, though, so he lets it go. Mott's surprised to see the space is warm and well-cleaned, only slightly dim due to the darkness of the outside. The office already has the sconces lit, as well as a heavy looking candlestick on the desk. The room is completely free of dust and cobwebs, almost making Mott forget that it's connected to an unkempt building. There's even a cot tucked into the far corner that looks like it's been getting some use.

This is the same room they heard the spooky wailing noises coming from, Mott realizes. Pulling an annoyed expression, Mott demands, "Why were you making so many creepy noises in here?"

She throws him a deadpan glare. "You mean crying?"

"That's what you were doing?"

She scowls. "Yes, before I was so rudely interrupted."

"Why were you crying?" Lenny wonders, sympathy in his tone.

"Why should I answer any of your questions?" She sniffs, jutting her nose in the air. With a pointed look from Mott, she seems to remember that she brought them here in order to do that very thing. She sighs. "Look. I was upset that I had to close down the museum, so I was crying. Happy?"

That gets Mott rolling on his interrogation. "And why exactly was the museum closed?"

She looks away. "Funding issues."

"Really? You, the museum with the largest collection of Zekrom literature, just so happened to have funding issues around the same time that Zekrom's attacks began? Forgive me if I'm not convinced," he retorts with a twisting frown. "It sounds pretty suspicious."

"Ugh, fine!" She cries, throwing her hands in the air. "Look, I wasn't entirely lying: the museum really does rely on a lot of rich patrons to maintain funding. Around the time of Zekrom's first attacks, a lot of researchers started coming here to try and find a way to stop it. But as soon as they seemed to be getting close to a breakthrough, an anonymous patron pulled all their funds! It was more than eighty percent of my funding! I tried to raise money to make up for it, but nothing worked. I was forced to shut down and I've been living here and trying to research Zekrom on my own ever since, without much luck."

Mott puts a hand to his chin in thought. Why would a patron suddenly pull all their funding? Even more worrying, why pull it when the museum was making progress toward defeating Zekrom? The correlation there makes it seem like the funds were pulled because of the progress.