Skritch woke up to the teapot already going at it. The thing sat on the rickety shelf by his window, metal lid rattling as it sang in that scratchy, off-key voice it had picked up somewhere in the Null Zone.
"Kai's fence is crooked again, and his excuses are worse. Fix one, fix the other, or stop pretending."
He groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. The teapot didn't stop. "Mara's tapestry has three new loose ends. She calls them 'character.' I call them sloppy."
Skritch sat up, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the pot. It was the one he'd dragged back from that last trip, the one that used to complain about the weather. Now it complained about people. Specific people. It had started yesterday and hadn't shut up since.
"Alright, enough," he muttered. He grabbed the teapot, marched it out to the Irrelevance Fund shed, and stuffed it behind a stack of broken signs and half-finished projects. The door clicked shut. Peace.
