Rocky Road 11 (inn/hotel)
Author: Shadowstar
Story: The Academy
Challenge: Rocky Road 11 (inn/hotel)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,189
Summary: Seven young men waiting to go to the Academy.
Notes: This one sort of took off and took on a life of its own! No idea how, or even if, it will tie in with the previous one I posted.
Kheldan wasn’t quite sure whether it was an accident or not that on the first night they’d all found themselves sitting around a large table in the common room of the inn they’d been brought to. It had happened quite naturally, seven young men who were all destined for the same place and who knew nobody else gravitating towards each other for company and possibly a little reassurance. Three days later it was pretty much a given that no matter whether they’d grouped up or gone their separate ways during the day when dinner time came around they’d all gather around the same table for a few hours.
The Hub served alcohol but they’d found that the innkeeper refused to serve them any. Didn’t matter how old they were he said, they were students of the the Academy and therefore under Academy rules. One of which was apparently no alcohol. Not that that stopped them from getting it of course. Oldar had managed to get hold of a bottle of whisky the second night and the seven of them had gotten fairly well drunk on it. The innkeeper had watched them, shaking his head and muttering to himself. But it seemed that since he hadn’t actually sold them the alcohol that absolved him of any blame in the matter and he left them to it.
Oldar was the youngest of them, just fourteen, and ready to move on and make a new life for himself, away from the rough streets he’d grown up on. He’d lived in an orphanage he said but he didn’t like it and ran away, preferring to take his chances on the streets. Kheldan liked him.
He wasn’t so keen on Dalyn, the oldest of them. Dalyn was nineteen and was of the opinion that that made him the leader. That didn’t sit too well with most of the boys. It wasn’t so much that they objected to someone being leader, just that they objected to Dalyn appointing himself so and trying to boss them around.
All seven of them were orphans it turned out. All picked out in the same way Kheldan himself had been, someone coming to the orphanage and just taking them away. Except Oldar anyway, apparently he’d fought tooth and nail against the two men sent to fetch him. Kheldan had seen one of the men when they’d brought him in, he had a couple of nasty looking scratches down his left cheek and his right eye was swollen shut. He hadn’t been particularly gentle with Oldar, shoving him into the room ahead of him and growling at him to stay put if he knew what was good for him.
Kheldan looked around the table at his new found friends and grinned suddenly.
“What do you say we head out and see what the night life is like around this place? So far we’ve all just sat around this table eating, drinking and talking, I think we should go and see what we can do while we’ve still got the freedom to do it. Who knows what things will be like at this Academy they’re sending us to, we might find ourselves locked away in cells and only let out to go to lessons!”
“I doubt that,” Rodick said. “Anyway, even if it is it can’t be any worse than the bloody orphanage was. But yeah, I’m up for heading out and seeing what’s going on in the area if you guys are. We can always come back here if there proves to be nothing going on after all.”
Dalyn grimaced. “We were told to stay here, you know that. And as the eldest….”
“Oh stop it with the eldest shit!” Oldar told him, rolling his eyes. “We’re all well aware that you’re older than the hills and just as fucking boring. If you don’t want to come then you stay here but I for one am going seeing what life is like beyond these four walls.”
“I never said I didn’t want to go,” Dalyn protested. “I just said we were told to stay here.”
“Well it’s not like we’re leaving the country is it?” Rodick said. “We’re going to stay within walking distance and let’s face it, those blokes found us easily enough when we were spread out all over the place, I doubt they’d find it difficult to find us in a few block radius.”
Kheldan pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “If we’re going, let’s go. Before the night is over and we’ve no say in the matter.”
It was dark outside the inn. And quiet. Oldar looked round and snorted. “Well so much for the night life! At least back home I could watch the whores looking for business and the drunks stumbling home. Doesn’t seem to be either a drunk or a whore anywhere to be found here!”
“You won’t find any drunks or ladies of the night here,” a voice spoke from above them. “That sort of thing is frowned upon you see. Too many minors hanging around with the Academy so close and always recruiting. I take it that’s where you boys are going anyway? You all look about the right age and suitably down at heel. Orphans the lot of you I’m betting. Most Academy students are you know. Oh, I’m sorry, how rude of me. Hang on a sec, I’ll be right down. Just a moment.”
The boys gaped as a tall, lean figure landed in front of them.
“Did you just…jump?” Oldar asked. “From up there?”
“I was sitting above the doors,” the stranger replied. “I like it there, can see the comings and goings without the miserable old coot in there telling me to bugger off back where I came from. He says I put off the other customers. But I don’t. More likely his miserable face that does that. I’m betting he hasn’t let you buy any drinks or anything has he? Not alcoholic ones anyway. Stupid rule if you ask me, students would give him bloody good business if he’d only let them. But he won’t. Seems to feel it’s his job to enforce the rules the Academy sets. Personally I think it’s his job to mind his own business and let others mind theirs. That’s probably why he doesn’t like me much though. Don’t like him meddling in my business. Nosey old bat he is. Wants to know the ins and outs of everything and doesn’t like it when you won’t tell him what’s what.”
“Who are you?” Kheldan asked when he could get a word in. “I don’t mean to be rude but…well it’s not exactly normal for a complete stranger to jump down off the roof and….”
“Oh I wasn’t on the roof,” the stranger told him. “There’s a little niche just above the door. I sit there a lot. It’s quite comfortable actually. More comfortable than those awful wooden chairs him inside provides. Give me a numb arse they do! And the looks he gave me when I brought a cushion to sit on!”
“Well whoever he is he sure can talk,” Oldar said quietly to Kheldan. Kheldan laughed.
“Yeah, I often get told I talk too much,” the stranger said. “Apparently it’s a fault of mine. Too much to say. Not that I think I have too much to say, there’s so much of interest in the world and I like to talk about it. But anyway, I’m Lorcan. Probably not the sort of…person you expected to appear on a night like tonight in a quiet area like this but there you go.”
“Actually we expected, and hoped, to meet people” Oldar told him. “But it doesn’t seem like this place has much of a night life really.”
“If it’s night life you’re looking for then you’re in the wrong place.” Lorcan said with a grin that revealed small, sharp teeth. “Nobody hangs around here at night, too boring. It’s all shops and one dull inn with a miserable innkeeper and ugly serving girls. No…the Hub isn’t where you want to be at night, not if you’re looking for fun.”
“So where do we want to be?” Kheldan asked eagerly. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck here for and we’d like to do a bit more than just sit around the common room eating and talking.”
Lorcan laughed softly. “Now that I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Be more than my hide is worth to corrupt young Academy students before they’ve even got started in their training. Sorry lads but you’ll have to hang around here until someone comes to take you to the Academy. I’m not one for enforcing other peoples rules for them but they’ll skin me alive if I take you away from here. And they’d know. I can assure you of that. They’d know.” He shuddered.
“We wouldn’t tell anyone,” Rodick said. “Honest. Come on man, don’t leave us stuck here with nothing to do.”
Lorcan shook his head vehemently. “Not a chance. I made that mistake once and I swore to myself I’d never do it again. Sorry lads, you’re on your own if you want to leave here in search of fun. Don’t mind talking to you but I am not leaving with you. Scary people at the Academy. Some of them anyway. Don’t want to cross them again. Not even me. Pretty sure Nate wouldn’t either and Nate usually doesn’t give a fuck who he crosses.”
“Nate? Is there someone else up there?” Kheldan asked, peering up into the shadows above the inns doors.
That apparently amused Lorcan immensely because he doubled over laughing. “Boy, if Nate ever takes it upon himself to get up above that door then I only hope I’m here to see it. No, there’s nobody else up there. Certainly not Nate. Nate’s a friend of mine. Sort of. But he’s not here. Doesn’t come down here if he can help it, doesn’t see the point. Seems to think it’s dull as ditch water. Where did that saying come from anyway? Is ditch water particularly boring or something? Not that I’ve seen much interesting water of the non ditch variety personally. Water’s a weird thing isn’t it? But then so are lots of other things. Like fire. And air.”
“I’m sure the boys aren’t here to discuss the elements with you Lorcan,” another voice came out of the shadows behind them. “Why don’t you just flit off to where you belong instead of hanging around here? Your type aren’t welcome in places like this and you know it well.”
“Angmar,” Lorcan cried in apparent delight. “My old friend! How long has it been?”
“Not nearly long enough,” the other man replied stepping out of the shadows. “If I never saw you again it would be too soon. What are you doing here?”
“Ah come on Angy, don’t be like that,” Lorcan said. “Pretending you can’t stand the sight of me, you know you love me really man! As for what I’m doing here, well I’m just chatting to these nice young men about how deadly boring it is around here at night. Nothing wrong with that is there? It’s a public place after all.”
“One where you are not welcome,” Angmar said. “You know that Lorcan. Now why don’t you go back to where you belong and leave our newest students alone? Go on, off with you. I’ve come to take them to the Academy now so there’s no point you hanging around any longer. And if I see you around here again I’ll be having certain words in certain ears and you’ll find yourself wishing you’d taken my advice and gotten as far away from decent folks as possible while you had the chance.”
Lorcans eyes narrowed and he glared at the other man or a moment. “Off to the Academy at this time of night? Why so late? It’s not normal for the Academy to take in new students after dark.”
“What the Academy does is not for the likes of you to question. Now be off with you. Go on, before I lose my temper and do something we’ll all regret.”
Lorcan scowled at him a moment longer then turned on his heel and disappeared into the night.
Angmar eyed the seven boys. “You want to be careful what sort of company you keep, hanging around with the likes of that one won’t do you any favours.”
“We weren’t hanging around with him,” Kheldan protested. “We just came out for some fresh air and he jumped down from above the door and started talking to us.”
“More like talking at us,” Oldar put in. “Could hardly get a word in he talked so much and so fast!”
“Well that’s Lorcan for you,” Angmar said with a grimace. “Never knows when to keep his mouth shut. But enough of that, go and get your belongings and be back here in ten minutes. I spoke the truth when I said I was here to take you to the Academy tonight. Go on, chop chop!”
Story: The Academy
Challenge: Rocky Road 11 (inn/hotel)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,189
Summary: Seven young men waiting to go to the Academy.
Notes: This one sort of took off and took on a life of its own! No idea how, or even if, it will tie in with the previous one I posted.
Kheldan wasn’t quite sure whether it was an accident or not that on the first night they’d all found themselves sitting around a large table in the common room of the inn they’d been brought to. It had happened quite naturally, seven young men who were all destined for the same place and who knew nobody else gravitating towards each other for company and possibly a little reassurance. Three days later it was pretty much a given that no matter whether they’d grouped up or gone their separate ways during the day when dinner time came around they’d all gather around the same table for a few hours.
The Hub served alcohol but they’d found that the innkeeper refused to serve them any. Didn’t matter how old they were he said, they were students of the the Academy and therefore under Academy rules. One of which was apparently no alcohol. Not that that stopped them from getting it of course. Oldar had managed to get hold of a bottle of whisky the second night and the seven of them had gotten fairly well drunk on it. The innkeeper had watched them, shaking his head and muttering to himself. But it seemed that since he hadn’t actually sold them the alcohol that absolved him of any blame in the matter and he left them to it.
Oldar was the youngest of them, just fourteen, and ready to move on and make a new life for himself, away from the rough streets he’d grown up on. He’d lived in an orphanage he said but he didn’t like it and ran away, preferring to take his chances on the streets. Kheldan liked him.
He wasn’t so keen on Dalyn, the oldest of them. Dalyn was nineteen and was of the opinion that that made him the leader. That didn’t sit too well with most of the boys. It wasn’t so much that they objected to someone being leader, just that they objected to Dalyn appointing himself so and trying to boss them around.
All seven of them were orphans it turned out. All picked out in the same way Kheldan himself had been, someone coming to the orphanage and just taking them away. Except Oldar anyway, apparently he’d fought tooth and nail against the two men sent to fetch him. Kheldan had seen one of the men when they’d brought him in, he had a couple of nasty looking scratches down his left cheek and his right eye was swollen shut. He hadn’t been particularly gentle with Oldar, shoving him into the room ahead of him and growling at him to stay put if he knew what was good for him.
Kheldan looked around the table at his new found friends and grinned suddenly.
“What do you say we head out and see what the night life is like around this place? So far we’ve all just sat around this table eating, drinking and talking, I think we should go and see what we can do while we’ve still got the freedom to do it. Who knows what things will be like at this Academy they’re sending us to, we might find ourselves locked away in cells and only let out to go to lessons!”
“I doubt that,” Rodick said. “Anyway, even if it is it can’t be any worse than the bloody orphanage was. But yeah, I’m up for heading out and seeing what’s going on in the area if you guys are. We can always come back here if there proves to be nothing going on after all.”
Dalyn grimaced. “We were told to stay here, you know that. And as the eldest….”
“Oh stop it with the eldest shit!” Oldar told him, rolling his eyes. “We’re all well aware that you’re older than the hills and just as fucking boring. If you don’t want to come then you stay here but I for one am going seeing what life is like beyond these four walls.”
“I never said I didn’t want to go,” Dalyn protested. “I just said we were told to stay here.”
“Well it’s not like we’re leaving the country is it?” Rodick said. “We’re going to stay within walking distance and let’s face it, those blokes found us easily enough when we were spread out all over the place, I doubt they’d find it difficult to find us in a few block radius.”
Kheldan pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “If we’re going, let’s go. Before the night is over and we’ve no say in the matter.”
It was dark outside the inn. And quiet. Oldar looked round and snorted. “Well so much for the night life! At least back home I could watch the whores looking for business and the drunks stumbling home. Doesn’t seem to be either a drunk or a whore anywhere to be found here!”
“You won’t find any drunks or ladies of the night here,” a voice spoke from above them. “That sort of thing is frowned upon you see. Too many minors hanging around with the Academy so close and always recruiting. I take it that’s where you boys are going anyway? You all look about the right age and suitably down at heel. Orphans the lot of you I’m betting. Most Academy students are you know. Oh, I’m sorry, how rude of me. Hang on a sec, I’ll be right down. Just a moment.”
The boys gaped as a tall, lean figure landed in front of them.
“Did you just…jump?” Oldar asked. “From up there?”
“I was sitting above the doors,” the stranger replied. “I like it there, can see the comings and goings without the miserable old coot in there telling me to bugger off back where I came from. He says I put off the other customers. But I don’t. More likely his miserable face that does that. I’m betting he hasn’t let you buy any drinks or anything has he? Not alcoholic ones anyway. Stupid rule if you ask me, students would give him bloody good business if he’d only let them. But he won’t. Seems to feel it’s his job to enforce the rules the Academy sets. Personally I think it’s his job to mind his own business and let others mind theirs. That’s probably why he doesn’t like me much though. Don’t like him meddling in my business. Nosey old bat he is. Wants to know the ins and outs of everything and doesn’t like it when you won’t tell him what’s what.”
“Who are you?” Kheldan asked when he could get a word in. “I don’t mean to be rude but…well it’s not exactly normal for a complete stranger to jump down off the roof and….”
“Oh I wasn’t on the roof,” the stranger told him. “There’s a little niche just above the door. I sit there a lot. It’s quite comfortable actually. More comfortable than those awful wooden chairs him inside provides. Give me a numb arse they do! And the looks he gave me when I brought a cushion to sit on!”
“Well whoever he is he sure can talk,” Oldar said quietly to Kheldan. Kheldan laughed.
“Yeah, I often get told I talk too much,” the stranger said. “Apparently it’s a fault of mine. Too much to say. Not that I think I have too much to say, there’s so much of interest in the world and I like to talk about it. But anyway, I’m Lorcan. Probably not the sort of…person you expected to appear on a night like tonight in a quiet area like this but there you go.”
“Actually we expected, and hoped, to meet people” Oldar told him. “But it doesn’t seem like this place has much of a night life really.”
“If it’s night life you’re looking for then you’re in the wrong place.” Lorcan said with a grin that revealed small, sharp teeth. “Nobody hangs around here at night, too boring. It’s all shops and one dull inn with a miserable innkeeper and ugly serving girls. No…the Hub isn’t where you want to be at night, not if you’re looking for fun.”
“So where do we want to be?” Kheldan asked eagerly. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck here for and we’d like to do a bit more than just sit around the common room eating and talking.”
Lorcan laughed softly. “Now that I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Be more than my hide is worth to corrupt young Academy students before they’ve even got started in their training. Sorry lads but you’ll have to hang around here until someone comes to take you to the Academy. I’m not one for enforcing other peoples rules for them but they’ll skin me alive if I take you away from here. And they’d know. I can assure you of that. They’d know.” He shuddered.
“We wouldn’t tell anyone,” Rodick said. “Honest. Come on man, don’t leave us stuck here with nothing to do.”
Lorcan shook his head vehemently. “Not a chance. I made that mistake once and I swore to myself I’d never do it again. Sorry lads, you’re on your own if you want to leave here in search of fun. Don’t mind talking to you but I am not leaving with you. Scary people at the Academy. Some of them anyway. Don’t want to cross them again. Not even me. Pretty sure Nate wouldn’t either and Nate usually doesn’t give a fuck who he crosses.”
“Nate? Is there someone else up there?” Kheldan asked, peering up into the shadows above the inns doors.
That apparently amused Lorcan immensely because he doubled over laughing. “Boy, if Nate ever takes it upon himself to get up above that door then I only hope I’m here to see it. No, there’s nobody else up there. Certainly not Nate. Nate’s a friend of mine. Sort of. But he’s not here. Doesn’t come down here if he can help it, doesn’t see the point. Seems to think it’s dull as ditch water. Where did that saying come from anyway? Is ditch water particularly boring or something? Not that I’ve seen much interesting water of the non ditch variety personally. Water’s a weird thing isn’t it? But then so are lots of other things. Like fire. And air.”
“I’m sure the boys aren’t here to discuss the elements with you Lorcan,” another voice came out of the shadows behind them. “Why don’t you just flit off to where you belong instead of hanging around here? Your type aren’t welcome in places like this and you know it well.”
“Angmar,” Lorcan cried in apparent delight. “My old friend! How long has it been?”
“Not nearly long enough,” the other man replied stepping out of the shadows. “If I never saw you again it would be too soon. What are you doing here?”
“Ah come on Angy, don’t be like that,” Lorcan said. “Pretending you can’t stand the sight of me, you know you love me really man! As for what I’m doing here, well I’m just chatting to these nice young men about how deadly boring it is around here at night. Nothing wrong with that is there? It’s a public place after all.”
“One where you are not welcome,” Angmar said. “You know that Lorcan. Now why don’t you go back to where you belong and leave our newest students alone? Go on, off with you. I’ve come to take them to the Academy now so there’s no point you hanging around any longer. And if I see you around here again I’ll be having certain words in certain ears and you’ll find yourself wishing you’d taken my advice and gotten as far away from decent folks as possible while you had the chance.”
Lorcans eyes narrowed and he glared at the other man or a moment. “Off to the Academy at this time of night? Why so late? It’s not normal for the Academy to take in new students after dark.”
“What the Academy does is not for the likes of you to question. Now be off with you. Go on, before I lose my temper and do something we’ll all regret.”
Lorcan scowled at him a moment longer then turned on his heel and disappeared into the night.
Angmar eyed the seven boys. “You want to be careful what sort of company you keep, hanging around with the likes of that one won’t do you any favours.”
“We weren’t hanging around with him,” Kheldan protested. “We just came out for some fresh air and he jumped down from above the door and started talking to us.”
“More like talking at us,” Oldar put in. “Could hardly get a word in he talked so much and so fast!”
“Well that’s Lorcan for you,” Angmar said with a grimace. “Never knows when to keep his mouth shut. But enough of that, go and get your belongings and be back here in ten minutes. I spoke the truth when I said I was here to take you to the Academy tonight. Go on, chop chop!”