The Lupine Saga 34

Posted on August 29, 2020 by James Ashman

Three heads looked up. One looked down. The silence that lasted was much shorter than it seemed. Four mouths all opened simultaneously and uttered nothing out of shock.

“Hi, Zeick.” Va’il spoke up first.

“Uh, hi.” A response was all that could be given at the moment. Most of the minds in this small vicinity were so full of thoughts that they were empty of words.

“This is your house?” Va’il asked casually.

“Uh, yes,” Zeick stammered.

“Oh. So… what color?” Va’il asked.

“Huh?” Zeick, Pete, and Kelin all looked at Va’il with a sudden snap of bewilderment. In such a confusing situation, Va’il only added to the problem, or so it seemed.

“Your tail. Do you know what color it’s supposed to be?” Va’il asked.

The silence resumed. The taboo that no one was supposed to know of, to speak of, had been touched upon. Va’il himself knew that he had said something wrong, and couldn’t bring himself to speak up until someone else did. Zeick spoke up, with a surprising revelation.

“Gold. It’s supposed to be gold,” Zeick finally responded. There was pride in his voice.

“Really? That would be something to see, since your hair is black,” Va’il said with a laugh.

“But I’ve never really seen it. I’ve always had it, had it, cut.” The words hurt everyone in the vicinity. Pete thought of the twirl in his own tail. Though no one could see it through his clothes, he still had a sense of pride in the way his tail curled just enough to make a circle. Va’il continued the conversation undeterred.

“Then just stop cutting it,” Va’il said.

“No. No, we can’t do that. A half, everyone would know I’m a half. My mother would be hurt, and that man would, would, I don’t know!” Zeick hit the edge of the window frame with his fist.

“Nothing. That’s what. Nothing,” Va’il said calmly. “Nothing will happen. You’ll be Zeick, still. You’re a half, so what? Nothing will happen if you don’t let it.”

“Oh what dribble,” Kelin said crudely, “you really don’t have a way with words, Va’il. Listen Zeick. You’re a half now. End of story. Do you agree or disagree?”

“What?” Zeick asked.

“I said, do you agree or disagree. Are you a half?” Kelin asked.

“I am, so agree, right?” Zeick said while still questioning his own thoughts. He replied with a touch of indignation.

“Then that’s the end of it. You’re a half. Tonight, tomorrow, and from now on. I won’t let you go back to being a human,” Kelin said.

“Kelin?” Pete asked cautiously. One word was enough.

“Power is sometimes a really, really good thing.” Kelin laughed at himself, and stood up, staring at Zeick.

“He’ll be corrupt long before anyone realizes he had a good side,” Va’il said. The display of outright power that his friend recently showed at the hotel made Va’il really believe that Kelin would do something that would help Zeick, though Va’il wasn’t sure if it was the best method. They spoke with Zeick for a while longer before retiring to their homes for the night.

#

“You’re back later than usual.” Mai’ou was waiting with a stern look on her face.

“That’s because I’ve completed my report!” Va’il spoke very proudly to his fear-inspiring mother.

“Report? Okay, go on, what is this report?”

“My report has determined that you are not allowed to get married.”

Mai’ou’s look changed to one of complete bewilderment. She was used to being bombarded with odd reasoning and strange questions, but this one made her take a step back.

“Marriage? What? Who? Huh?”

“To Mr. Eason.”

“Oh, right, that marriage. My marriage to Eason, correct?” Mai’ou spoke in a sarcastic tone that seemed understanding.

“Yes, him. He is not allowed.”

“Again, what? If I wasn’t so confused… oh. I get it now.” Mai’ou smiled softly when she realized what Va’il meant. “So you remembered that little comment I made a while ago? The one I was only joking around about, but you never responded to.”

“That would be the one,” Va’il said proudly, before realizing the full extent of Mai’ou’s words.

“Then please, definitely do explain why I cannot marry him. This should be amusing.” She spoke the last few works too quietly for Va’il to hear.

“Then I shall explain. As you know, Eason is a doctor. My investigation has shown that he takes too much food and wastes it, from you even. He is a treacherous and lustful man. There is a strange woman in a little school that he cheats on you with, I saw it myself. He is envious of a noble man’s wealth, and demands more from the noble than is necessary. But he is a lazy person who doesn’t really find any enjoyment in taking care of a patient. He just mournfully moves around the patient’s house doing menial stuff. He gets angry really easily, even with the highest of nobles. And he, well, uh, that’s all.” Va’il finished speaking his very condensed report without mentioning anything about Zeick. He thought it best to leave out.

“So you followed him?” Mai’ou asked calmly.

“We sure did.”

“Oh, of course. You weren’t alone.”

“Um…” Va’il didn’t like the smile on Mai’ou’s face.

“Well, let me tell you a few things. Mr. Eason is one of my best customers. We have a very good relationship. He is married to a schoolteacher, and he only said a silly joke that I wanted to tease you with. He doesn’t waste a thing, I should know. He provides food and wealth to families everywhere, whoever is in need. Something that many other nobles would scoff at upon hearing. They probably deserve to be overcharged, though I doubt he does. That man is fair, but some of his patients are odd in their words and actions. Anything else you want to know?”

“What are you saying?” Va’il asked in a dazed manner.

“Oh, and he isn’t lazy either. If you followed him everywhere, you might have seen him at a certain woman’s house. His first patient. He’s been attending to her for eighty years. I don’t think what you saw was laziness. What I’m saying is that you misunderstood every possible thing you could in the worst possibly way, my silly boy.”

“Oh.” Va’il was sucked of energy. He didn’t know what to think. He wasn’t sure if what he saw previously was really interpreted by him correctly, or if his mother was right. She was smiling. Va’il, still a child, believed that motherly smile more than anything else. The silly boy had misunderstood everything. His mother bent down and hugged him.

She whispered into his ear, saying, “Besides, I’m a lupus. We are devoted to one love our entire life, until one of us dies. I told you before, your father is alive. Therefore, even if I was tempted, I wouldn’t have another husband.”

Va’il, satisfied with the many explanations he had received, decided to put everything swirling in his heart to rest, for the time being.

#

End of Part 1.

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The Lupine Saga 33

Posted on August 22, 2020 by James Ashman

As before, Eason walked as quickly as he could towards his next destination. Scurrying from alley to alley and across each road was the stalking trio. Eason tapped his cane with each step with a kind of fervor they had not yet seen. The string of curses, many of them incomprehensible, had ended. They were replaced by a look of anxiety and worry. The boys, unaware of what could have truly been wrong, could only guess at the cause.

“I say that he blew up in anger because the noble didn’t want to pay as much as he was asking,” said Kelin.

“No, definitely not,” Pete said. “That noble was obviously in the highest of the upper caste. I bet that they have so much money that Eason could have asked for a house twice the size of the one he has now, and it would have been the same as asking for a single coin from the coffers of that noble. I think it’s because they wanted him to do something that he didn’t have the skill for.”

“Like reattach an eye?” Va’il asked. Pete looked at Va’il sideways, with a singular train of thought apparent in his mind.

“Yes… an eye. I hadn’t thought of that! I would have thought a finger. But who’s ever heard of an eye being reattached? And how would it have come out in the first place?” Pete asked. He sounded serious, but the other two knew he was joking.

Kelin laughed at the ridiculous conversation, though the reason he was laughing wasn’t because he thought it was ridiculous; he also was considering the reattachment of an eye.

“Better than an eye, I would guess it’s a foot that he tried to reattach,” Kelin said with a chuckle.

“Backwards!” Va’il howled in laughter at the thought of a bearan with their giant feet reversed.

“Those high-nobles are pretty amazing. I’ve only heard bits and pieces about the knowledge the highest class is privy too. The true workings of the government, the status of foreign relations, amazing secrets, and more,” Kelin said with a touch of longing. Though his own class was rather high, especially when compared to his friends, he was still just a child.

Eason, for his part, didn’t notice the commotion the boys were not so stealthily making behind him. Each tap of his cane on stone, dirt, or random pebble made a small cracking sound. So did his wrist, a couple of times, though not so loudly that anyone noticed. A few more fangs than usual were showing behind his lupus-sized lips, and the hairs on his tail seemed to be a little straighter than usual. Thus, it was most obvious to any onlooker that this was a very unhappy lupus.

Upon arriving at the door to a moderately large house in the second district, Eason moved his hand a little more forward on his cane, moved his hat an inch back on his head, brushed the sides of his ears twice, then grinned widely once before snapping his face into a serious expression. He looked much more relaxed than he had before. He rapped twice on the door with two knuckles.

“Doctor! Perfectly on time! No, early even. In, in!” A very familiar human man was welcoming Eason into his home. The trio, for their part, was shocked in many, many ways.

“Impossible,” Pete whispered.

“I… I… what?” Va’il muttered.

“I didn’t see this coming,” Kelin said casually after Pete and Va’il had each stumbled over their turns.

“Why is he there? Is this really Zeick’s house?” Va’il asked, stupefied.

“You saw his father there as well. It most definitely is,” Kelin said. Though he was surprised as well, he kept calmer than the other two.

“What could Eason possibly be doing here?” Pete asked with a concerned look on his face.

“I bet it’s his mother. She always looks a little ill,” Va’il said, though he had rarely actually seen her. He was recalling when he had seen her during the return of the king. She hadn’t moved much during the entire procession, now that Va’il thought about it, and she did seem slightly pale even in bright sunlight. Though it was an assumption, the other two boys nodded their heads in agreement.

They decided upon their seemingly favorite spying method yet again, which was looking through windows, a usually safe and effective means of gleaning information from neighbors. Also, it was a method that Pete had no troubles with. They made their way to a window at the side of the house that was covered in overgrowths and shaded, and peered into their schoolmate’s house.

Three bodies falling to the ground could be heard outside the window. Zeick and the others glanced unconsciously towards a window in the dining room, but upon seeing nothing through it, they went back to their dealings at hand. The boys, now sitting and almost limp below the window, could hear the conversation inside.

“Tralfor, sir, though I am usually honored to be a physician, I will have no part in this. You’ll have to find someone else,” Eason said.

“Fifty, no, three times that! There is a great price to be paid for a physician known to be as discreet as you are. For keeping these secrets, it’s only right that you attend to him!” Tralfor, Zeick’s father, spoke commandingly towards the physician. Zeick was at his side, shirtless, and his arm was being held by the tall human. Zeick’s back was to Eason. What was on Zeick’s back was what had shocked three young boys.

“If it keeps growing, let it grow,” Eason said. “I have a certain number of ethics that I abide to, no matter the price, and casually cutting short the tail of a half is something that makes my skin crawl with disgust. Not towards you, poor boy, but towards the people that desire to do this to you. It’s not my right to say anything more. I have my pride; I’m leaving.”

“But–” started Tralfor. He was cut off by Eason.

“And don’t fret, I won’t tell anyone of this boy’s secret. Though I may not approve, and in fact condemn your actions, I gave my word before I arrived. Upon my pride as a faithful physician.” Eason took another look at Zeick’s back, then turned and left as quickly as he could.

Right there on Zeick’s lower back were the beginnings of a tail. The surrounding area was severely scarred and red from repeated trimmings. Zeick, to the surprise of three very young boys, was a half, not a human as they had thought.

Inside, the two parents started squabbling with each other and went off to their room to continue yelling. Though the boys thought it was a two-sided fight, it was mostly Tralfor yelling at Areka, his wife. Though the boys tried not to listen, the yells quickly gave them a picture of the truth. Zeick was not the son of both his human parents. Tralfor was in no way related to his wife’s son. Those thoughts, amplified by the yells in the background, resounded in the heads of four young children, who, at the moment, had no choice but to listen to the screaming.

Zeick put on a shirt, now that he didn’t have to expose himself to the doctor that was supposed to “fix” him, and walked over to a certain window. He considered for a moment not doing what he next did, out of fear that people might hear the yelling of his parents, but something inside made him wish that other people would hear. He opened a window in order to take in a breath of fresh air in both a literal and figurative sense. He stuck his head out and looked down.

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The Lupine Saga 32

Posted on August 15, 2020 by James Ashman

Eason moved very quickly towards the third district. His path was straight, unlike his casual strolling earlier. The day was nearing its end, and the sun was approaching the horizon. Another hour of daylight was left.

Keeping up with Eason wasn’t nearly as easy as it had been earlier. Eason didn’t just move quickly, but he also took side streets, alleys, and shortcuts. The boys kept following by rooftop, jumping down every so often to follow Eason through an alley. As they moved through the third district they passed many other children playing in the streets and alleys. A few of them bumped into the rushing trio, though that was to be expected.

One of the children bumped into Pete, who apologized quickly before rushing off. Kelin was behind Pete and noticed the child drop something. As they kept running, Kelin turned back once to see the child holding what appeared to be a small, gold-colored pebble.

Eason went back to his casual pace once he was on the street where his next appointment waited. It was the third house on the right, yellow and blue, single story, simply designed, and in the middle-class third district. Eason slowly walked up to the door of the house, removed his hat, and knocked on the door.

One minute passed. Two minutes passed. The door unlatched and opened inwards. Eason walked in through the open door and softly shut the door behind him. His stalkers cautiously walked up to the house and looked for a window. The only one where the curtains were not closed was on the side. They looked through and saw the inside of an empty dining room. There was a small table, two chairs, a stone oven, and an ice chest.

Much to the frustration of the trio, nothing could be heard from inside. Every so often, they would see Eason walk into or past the kitchen, but they never saw the person he was attending. There was only one thing that gave them any conclusions whatsoever. Eason was moving slowly, lazily even. There was no sense of urgency in his movements. It continued like this for an hour, until eventually the boys realized that the loud sound they just heard was the slam of the front door. Eason had taken his leave from this house. The boys begrudgingly followed. Nothing had been overtly gleaned from the final visit of the day.

Eason was obviously going back home, as his pace was quick and his path was straight. The boys, exhausted from the day’s travel, parted their ways. Kelin and Pete went to their homes in the second district, and Va’il headed to his home in the third.

He arrived a few minutes before Mai’ou, which provided him with some relief. Though Mai’ou didn’t mind Va’il running about and playing all day, the secretive and controversial nature of his current daytime activities put a small sense of paranoia in his mind.

Mai’ou walked in the door and collapsed on a small couch in the living room. She smelled of raw meat, as usual. Her left hand was holding a small paper bag; that would be tonight’s dinner.

#

The boys arrived at Eason’s house just as he was leaving. They resumed stalking him as he headed straight for his next appointment. He didn’t take any detours today, much to the relief of the trio.

“I just thought of it,” Va’il said suddenly while hiding in an alleyway.

“Thought of what?” Pete asked.

“What Eason was doing yesterday,” Va’il said. “He was attending to another patient, right?”

“Yes, and?” Pete asked.

“Did you ever see him smile, at all, while there?” Va’il asked while frowning.

“No,” Pete replied. Kelin, though silent, nodded his head in agreement.

“Then I don’t think he wanted to be there. Did he really want to treat that patient?” Va’il asked.

The boys continued discussing what they thought of the actions that they hadn’t actually witnessed. Little did they notice that they had walked into the first district. They only noticed that Eason walked past a couple guards outside a large wooden fence and into an estate. The wooden fence was two-hundred meters in length on each of its four sides. It was the fence of a noble, a special noble, which they realized when the rhinos and bearan guards stopped them from entering. The boys were more than happy to run away from the frightening sight of two angry guardsmen.

The boys resigned to their current fate. They climbed to the top of a nearby house and observed the goings-on of the estate below them. It took the trio a while to climb the nearest house, considering that even a common house in the first district was quite large and had a sloped roof. To avoid falling either forwards of backwards, they lay on their stomachs while holding onto the top of the roof, and observed the estate while peeking over.

To say that it was magnificent would be a coarse understatement. At the back of the estate, occupying a full third of the area within the walls was a domicile that looked like a cross between a mansion and a castle. If there had been a moat, it would have definitely been a castle. Though there was not a moat, there was water. A swimming area was on one side of the estate, and a pond was on the other. The pond itself looked much like a miniature lake, due to the surrounding bushes and the fish that were visible beneath the water. The boys awed at the sight, and thought to themselves that this must be similar to what a bird sees when it flies over Tershi, the lake to the north. Grass and bushes surrounded the water on all sides; however, it didn’t look wild or natural in the least. Every bush was neatly spaced, trimmed, and sized. The gardeners with large clippers in hand were making sure of that.

There were walkways everywhere that led to the various house entrances, the gardens, the pagodas, and to a pink-flowered copse. There was more, however after all that admiration the boys noticed that Eason had left via a majestic front door. He looked like he was walking strangely, though they couldn’t pinpoint how it was strange from a distance.

The climb down was much easier than the climb up. Pete struggled both times, though the hour that passed between each made the trip down much easier than it could have been. “Swine were never meant to climb!” Pete exclaimed as they fell to the neatly trimmed grass below.

The guards parted before Eason could shove them out of the way. The look on his face conveyed that his unspoken threats were real. He was carrying his cane at the midpoint. Kelin held a finger to his mouth, signaling his cohorts to be quiet. As they followed Eason, they heard a string of curses which children were not allowed to repeat. Eason’s wrath, the first time the trio had seen it, was quite evident to any bystander.

Before they went too far in their pursuit, Va’il looked back towards the estate. He had not noticed earlier, but now the sign over the entrance seemed prominent and important. It sat high above the entrance. No doubt, it was made from a previously majestic tree. Its engraving read: House of Melonscone.

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The Lupine Saga 31

Posted on August 8, 2020 by James Ashman

Admiring the scenery took but a moment as the boys rushed towards the direction of the room Eason was in. Beneath them was room number six. Leaning over the edge of the wall, they could see a balcony below them, and could hear voices from inside the room.

“Mr. Inktop, please hold still,” Eason said.

“I can’t help it! That’s cold!” Mr. Inktop said.

“If you keep jumping around, I won’t be able to hear your heartbeat. Now, sit!” Eason, truly a lupus at heart, growled with his last words. A small huff was heard from Mr. Inktop as he sat down.

“How has your wife been doing?” Eason asked casually. The sounds of Eason moving around Mr. Inktop made their way up to the boys.

“She’s been sick with the boy again. Another flu struck him. My poor boy just hasn’t got much defense. And here I am, stuck working all the time.”

“He’s still young though, right? What did the doctor say?”

“That it’s going to make him stronger later on. She said that he hasn’t been getting sick too often to be a real problem. He’s just catching things constantly. She said that later on in life he’d probably get sick much less, but I don’t know. Eason, is it normal?”

“Probably. I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I do always hear from my older patients the complaint that they never got sick when they were younger, and once they hit mid-life things just start hitting them one after another.”

“Oh, so it’s the opposite of my, ah! Cold! Didn’t that warm up already?”

“New one, for your lungs. Breath in deeply.”

The examination went on for a while. The three boys on the rooftop paid attention to every mundane detail of the conversation between the men, to see what they might glean. Unfortunately, the conversation was rather bland and uninteresting. The only exciting parts were when Mr. Inktop made a new sound of surprise each time Eason did a different test.

“Well, I’ll give you a passing grade today,” Eason said. “I want you to keep paying attention to your knees; keep applying this balm daily. And no jumping. But I’m sure you wouldn’t do that anyways.” A deep laugh was heard from Mr. Inktop. Hearing the depth of the laugh impressed upon the boys that Mr. Inktop was probably a large man. He didn’t have an accent of any kind, so it was also difficult to tell what race he was. Of course, that meant that he probably didn’t have fangs like a lupus; the sound of a fanged speaker is just slightly different than the clarity that a human spoke with. Kelin guessed that Mr. Inktop was probably either a human or a swine. It was more likely that he was a swine, because humans rarely had non-human doctors.

“Great. Well, thank you, as always, Eason. It has been a real pleasure, as always,” Mr. Inktop said with a hint of sarcasm.

“Yes. I do look forward to our next prodding,” Eason replied.

“Thank you so much. I’ll try to lose those few pounds.”

“Yes, you do that. It’ll make my job easier.”

“Well, goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

There was a silence. Neither person seemed to be moving inside the room. No door opened. Nothing shut behind Eason as he left. He had not left.

“Are we forgetting anything?” Mr. Inktop asked cautiously.

“My payment.”

“Oh dear, yes, I seemed to have overlooked that, right,” Mr. Inktop said sadly. His attempt to get a free appointment with Eason had failed. It seemed to the boys that this was a common occurrence between these two; that was part of their chemistry. “Here it is. I hope you enjoy them. I added a few oddities from my private collection. The worth should be correct. But really, do you need such a high payment? I’m sure you make good money from your usual business?”

“You underestimate me,” Eason said with a pleasant tone. He didn’t explain any further.

“You’re a greedy doctor. Trustworthy, but I’ll sooner lose an arm before you save one!” Mr. Inktop spoke firmly, but he didn’t sound angry in the least.

“I’m sure your confidence in me will be repaid in full, one day. After all, I doubt you could trust anyone else. As such, a payment of my choosing is all too reasonable. Now if you’ll just excuse me for a moment. I’ll just place this here while I clean up in the washroom.”

A hand stretched out into the balcony. It was holding a wicker basket filled with items. Golden necklaces, polished stones, blocks of fine cheese, small toys, and many other items filled the basket. Some appeared very valuable, and others looked ridiculously worthless. They were all neatly arranged in the basket. Eason could be heard packing up his supplies and walking out of the room. The door shut behind him. Mr. Inktop walked into another room, and slammed the door shut behind him.

“Va’il, your bag,” Kelin said. As instructed, Va’il handed the bag he was carrying over to Kelin. Kelin pulled out three items that soon became one.

The hook of the fishing rod soon caught something in the basket below. A wide grin appeared on Kelin’s face. Pete and Va’il stood back quietly; though they objected to what Kelin was doing, they didn’t have the courage to stop him. Nor did they have the ability.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Va’il asked.

“It’ll be fine,” Kelin replied.

“But, you’re stealing from him,” Pete said.

“He stole from us first,” Kelin said with anger in his voice.

Va’il decided not to object to Kelin’s reasoning. Mai’ou was still Va’il’s; nothing had changed. But the risk of her being taken by this strange and despicable man wasn’t one he wanted to take. Therefore, he could at least go along with Kelin’s fervent desires. Kelin had finished pulling up the line.

“What’s that?” Va’il asked.

“A flute of some kind.” Pete said while crossing his eyes at the strange object.

“Why isn’t it straight?” Va’il asked.

“It’s because nobles are like that. They make strange objects and call them art,” Kelin said. Pete and Va’il, who were now over their moral objections due to the strange nature of the bent flute in front of them, awed in unison at the object. No matter how they looked at it, the idea that something so bent and twisted was really a flute was fantastic. Kelin tossed the object into his own bag. He handed back Va’il’s bag, into which Va’il placed the disassembled fishing rod. Va’il sighed lightly as the only bounty the rod had ever caught was a strange flute.

The opening and closing of a door was heard. The boys went back to looking down at the balcony. Eason arrived again, picked up the basket, and then walked out of the room again. Judging by the sounds below, it did not appear that Eason was bothered by the missing contents, nor even noticed. Mr. Inktop was still in the other room; no one would tell Eason what valuable treasure had just been plundered from him.

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The Lupine Saga 30

Posted on August 1, 2020 by James Ashman

Eason walked past a shop filled with inventions and toys that Va’il had never seen before. Eason had business in the shopping center that occupied the second district. Va’il had to keep his mind on track while all the distractions in the shops beside him made their silent appeals. There was one thing in particular that made Va’il stop and stare. It was a spinning weather vane. The amazing part about the weather vane was that it was inside a glass ball; no wind was making it turn. By all counts, it looked like something that could only be spun by hand or wind, which made it even more confusing to the uneducated child.

“The metal is coated with slipstone. You’re probably too young to realize what this is. Did you want to get one as a present for your mother, boy? It will never stop spinning, for eternity.” The shop owner, a very old bearan, smiled happily at the young patron.

“Slipstone? Oh, um, no, I have to go right now. Bye.” Va’il stopped starting at the perpetually spinning device and ran off.

Eason had gotten a ways away from the boys, but he was still quite slow compared to an energetic child. Eason walked leisurely with a cane; time didn’t seem to matter to him. That was something the trio learned very quickly, as the travel time between each place Eason went to was extremely long. The second district was smaller than the third and fourth districts, but it was still too large to casually stroll through. Rising was a very large city where one could spend many hours or even days running or walking across.

Eason turned off the street into the estate of a majestic building. The boys had to look up to see the top; The October Hotel was one of the rare multiple-story buildings. It was five stories high and almost as wide as any top noble’s mansion. Marble pillars supported the roof of the entryway.

The boys followed after Eason as the heavy doors closed behind them. The lobby of the hotel was filled with art and couches. A few patrons were admiring a painting on the left. An old swine in an expensive suit was laid out on a couch to the right. Ahead was the reception desk. Two avian women with large smiles were behind the desk. At their left and right were two guards, human men with gruff expressions that matched their black suits. To the left and right of them were the stairs leading to the second level. Eason had ascended the stairs on the right and out of the vision of the boys.

“Hello, how can I help you?” The receptionist on the left smiled as the one on the right spoke.

“Which room did that man head to?” Va’il asked.

“Oh dear, who might you be, to be asking that?” the right receptionist said.

“Well, no one. But it’s important,” Va’il replied.

“Where are your parents?” the receptionist on the right asked, ignoring Va’il’s question. Kelin replied to the woman.

“I’m quite sure my father is deciding whether he should visit this cheap establishment tonight or not.” Kelin held his head high and refused to look either woman in the eye. The two guards, upon hearing his comment, walked up to the desk.

“What seems to be the problem, Gladis?” the guard on the right said.

Without letting the receptionist respond, Kelin quickly said, “No problem. Nothing at all, apparently. I’ll let my father know how rude the staff is here if they won’t even answer simple questions.”

“And just how could a bunch of kids covered in dirt,” the man on the left said, “and so obviously from the third or fourth district, know anyone of importance here in the largest, most expensive, and most luxurious of hotels in all the second district? In fact, why am I even bothering? Leave now. I’ll even help you out.” The man on the left grabbed Kelin’s left arm.

“Doufer, son of. Kelin. Did you not recognize the son of one of your officials?” Kelin spoke with an indifferent tone, and continued looking forward as he spoke. The man let go.

“Re… red? Sir! Sorry sir!” The two men bowed in unison. Their faces turned redder than Kelin’s hair once they realized who Kelin was.

“Oh dear! So you’re that child! I should have known,” the receptionist on the right said nervously; the one on the left continued smiling. “How can we make it up to you?”

“My friend asked a question earlier. It needs to be answered. Now,” Kelin said.

“Room six on the top level. The man is visiting a patron. Shall we announce your arrival?” the receptionist on the right asked.

“No. Roof access instead, and no escort. My father has business you do not need to know of, and must especially not speak of,” Kelin said.

The staff obliged very willingly. Each of the three boys was given pin with a golden ribbon to attach to their clothes. The avian woman told the boys how to reach the room, and watched cautiously as they boys ascended the stairs.

“Just how powerful is your father, Kelin?” Va’il asked.

“He is special. We are. Anyways, the October Hotel is closer to work than home. He is here often,” Kelin replied indifferently. Va’il and Pete decided to not ask further.

The roof of the hotel was flat. The boys walked to the edge and looked over the walls that kept them from falling. From there they could see most of Rising. The king’s castle, the huge estates that littered the first district, the markets of the third district, and the small houses that made up the majority of the fourth district were all visible. The sun was directly overhead and the sky was clear. Outside the city walls, farms and roads were visible for miles around.

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