Scherezade deWinter
The Blood Hound
. : Taris : .
The first fountain turned pink just before midday.
It wasn't the soft kind of pink you'd find in a baby blanket or a flower shop. This was aggressively fluorescent pink, the kind that buzzed in your vision and made your retinas want to file a formal complaint. Worse? It glittered. Not poetically. Literally. Big, chunky flecks of suspended sparkle tumbled through the water like they owned the place.
Local enforcers assumed it was a prank.
Then a second fountain lit up. Different plaza. Different part of the Upper City. Same unnervingly enthusiastic pink. Same glitter. Still not acid. Still not poison. But still deeply, unsettlingly... intentional.
By the third fountain, security started to twitch.
By the fourth, the HoloNet had opinions.
And that was before the messages appeared.
People were now taking to the bets, trying to gamble on where the fifth fountain would turn pink.
There was no signature. Not really.
But somewhere in the Upper City, probably much too close, someone was watching. Waiting. Laughing their ass off. And maybe buying boots. Or knives. Or skewered meat sticks.
Because whatever this was…
It wasn't a trap.
Probably.