Sitting close to the fire, Lojze could still smell -- and taste -- the manure he'd been shoveling and clearing out from the Feeding Pens. Even though he'd gone back to the barracks and washed up and put on fresh, clean clothes, the odor was still there in his nose. With a snort, he took another sip of the mug of klah he'd gotten from the kettle near the hearth. Nope, still there. He wondered how long it'd take for the stink to go away.
And the cold. Despite being a High Reaches Hold native, and despite the heavy labor of shoveling what seemed like tons of herdbeast droppings, Lojze was chilled to the bone. That was one of the reasons he had parked himself near the blazing fire in the dining hall hearth. Even the cleaning up he'd done, with water as hot as he could stand, hadn't completely gotten rid of the chill. The fire definitely helped, and the klah, but it would likely take hours to completely warm up again.
He glanced up and noticed one of his fellow Candidates enter the dining hall -- Kinye, he remembered her name. Lojze waved his hand to catch her attention, then waved her over. "You look positively frozen. It's nice and warm over here." Reflexively he stood up from his seat, out of an abundance of high-born courtesy. "Come on over and warm yourself up."
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