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 Posted: Sat May 14, 2016 1:42 pm
Jalase frowned as he watched Len shiver and rub his arms. The rain was cold, even to Jal — who was covered up. “Probably shouldn’t mess with the crates,” he said as he moved over to Len and laid a hand on his shoulder. “They’re large and I’m sure pretty heavy. Plus it’s muddy and wet. Could hurt yourself. C’mon, let’s go find you someplace you can rest and warm up. A pub or inn, maybe?”
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Posted: Sun May 22, 2016 8:46 am
After a moment spent eyeing the boy, Len flicked her gaze downward and away with a shrug. “Ain’t so bad. ‘M stronger than I look, y’know? Anyhow…” Reaching, she scuffed fingers through her damp hair, brow pinching. “Maybe I’ll just…find a spot that ain’t quite so wet ‘n wait there until it dries a bit. Don’ have no coin on me t’ spend on no inn or such, an’ I wouldn’ wanna be wastin’ a, eh…” She lifted a hand out, prodding the boy in the chest, “…captain o’ the guard’s time neither. I’ll be a’right.”
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Posted: Sun May 22, 2016 11:07 am
Jalase snorted out a laugh at Len’s comment and shook his head. “Captain? That’s funny. I’ve a long ways to go before that’s possible. I’m a greenie — new to the guard.” He rolled his shoulders and eyed the younger boy carefully. Even if Len wasn’t telling the truth, Jal couldn’t just leave him out in the cold for the night. “C’mon then, we’ll find a pub or something and I’ll get ya something warm to drink and eat and then I can be on my way, yeah? I don’t think I’d feel right just leavin’ ya on your own.”
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2016 7:02 pm
Len blinked. “Ehhhy…” She shrugged, but her posture was slightly looser than it had been, the corner of her lip twitching. “They all think they’re captains, far as I can tell. You’re the first not…maybe it makes you more special than ya think.”
She was teasing, and expected the conversation to end there, and the two to part ways—her ‘failing’ technically, in her effort to make the planned-for entry, but at least not a failure that involved being carried away by guards. It wasn’t, though, where it ended, and she blinked, squinting a second later after his offer.
“You’d…? Oi, dunno why you wouldn’ feel right…ain’t your call whether it rains or blows cold or not…” She didn’t argue the point further than that, though, and gave a small roll of her shoulders instead, dropping her head to one side and then the other in a way that encouraged several audible cracks in her neck as it stretched. “If it it gives ya a warmer gut, though, don’t suppose you’ll find me complainin’. What made ya wanna be a stiff-coat, then? They pay you good?”
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2016 7:11 pm
Jalase shrugged at the question and pulled his hood back up over his head. “Was always interested in the sword. And the guard seemed like a good idea, I guess. I didn’t really expect to be trudging through the mud and rain as much, though. I want to explore. But also...I don’t know...I want to be able to help the people, yeah?” He rested one of his hands on the hilt of his sword as he reached into the hood and rubbed the back of his neck. “They pay me well enough that I’m not going hungry. But I’m sure there are better paying things out there. Hopefully I can move up in rank — get more important jobs.”
Jal eyed Len out of the corner of his eyes before asking a somewhat similar question. “What about you? Find anything you want to do yet?”
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 12:58 pm
I want to help people, yeah?
Len frowned, but directed the look away, thumbs picking at the hems of her pockets as she did. She didn’t know the boy well, of course — hardly at all, really — and hadn’t seen him in years. The ease with which he spoke and the general comfortable air of his presence, though, was immediately familiar, and she remembered, still, his initial kindnesses to her even at a younger age. She felt oddly assured, despite lack of time with him, that he meant what he said—and meant well, on the whole.
But it wasn’t her experience with guardsmen as a group. It wasn’t her experience with authority. It wasn’t her experience with anyone given power that they would ‘help’ people. Not even her, specifically. She knew she did wrong when she stole, at least from someone’s perspective, even if it was just a bit of food. But she had seen and experienced what people did with power to those without even when there was no wrong being committed at all.
It didn’t seem worth arguing about, though. Not in that moment. So, she let it stick on the back of her tongue and left it there, eyeing him instead as he went on.
“Work enough t’ eat seems a fair business to me,” she said. “And aye…a little here an’ there I suppose. Met some folk who gave me work with them, though it’s a touch spotty. Can’t say it always puts me in the best o’ places, but it’s better’n nothin’, yea?”
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 1:06 pm
Jalase nodded and gave Len a small smile as he glanced at the boy out of the corner of his eyes. “Aye, anything is better than nothing.” Though Jalase had never had to go through having nothing, he couldn’t imagine surviving out on the streets — no one around who cared or wanted him. He rolled his shoulders as she thought about his parents back home. Being away from them, even now, was a bit hard on him at times. He couldn’t imagine never seeing them again. Sighing, Jal came to a stop in front of a small pub and turned to face Len. “I can’t stay,” he said, as he rummaged in a pack at his waist. “Wish I could get out of this cold, wet weather too but I still have a job to do. And I don’t want to slack.” His brows knit together and he shuddered at the thought of disobeying an order. It was definitely something they made it clear you didn’t want to do. “Here,” Jal held out his hand, enough coin in it for Len to get something to eat and drink and maybe even stay in a room for a bit if he needed. “Maybe we’ll see each other again soon, hm?”
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 1:32 pm
For several long moments, Lenila stared. Her silver-gray eyes fixated on the coin in the boy’s palm, their glow a misty white against the dark night rain, and it took longer than it ought to have to process before her focus darted up again to his face, her expression some mix of bewilderment, questioning, and something else—a searching, weighing of this strange character, so out of line with most of her human experience.
She opened her mouth, “You sure…?” lingering a quarter inch from being verbalized. Then, her stomach gave a rumble. A cold drop of the night’s rain plopped to her ear, trailing down the long slope of it and sending a shiver through her. She took the coin, and shifted her weight.
“Aye, ye…mayhaps one o’ these days I can do somethin’ for you. Maybe stick around you more often sos you can have someone remindin’ you not t’ give away all yer money or ya won’t have none left.” She scuffed the back of one hand against the warm skin of one cheek. “Anyhow…you er…likely gotta get on an’ such but…I’ll see you about?”
With that, she took one step back, another, and then turned, dipping inside, and out of sight as her cheeks warmed further. It wasn’t that she was completely unused to kindness. But this still, she thought, was a very particular and peculiar sort.
She would not be forgetting Jalase’s name again any time soon.
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