The ink in his inkwell had ice in it. Cael Inkfinger stared at the well where it balanced on the edge of his notebook. He should take that as a sign to leave, probably.
In years previous, weather like this had driven him indoors, or further south – closer to the big cities with their Aeromancers keeping things more clement. Now, he simply pulled his silk robe tighter around his shoulders, rubbing at his fingertips and pointedly ignoring the snowflakes melting around the ice crystals.
He sat in the doorway of a deserted inn in an equally-deserted village in a small fiefdom whose name he couldn’t quite be bothered to remember. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing there in the first place. That seemed to be his lot in life the past few years – to drift from disaster to disaster, and to be dragged in to help.
He’d given up fighting it, really, instead just going wherever the wind blew...
And the wind was blowing, streaking the still-damp ink on his parchment in smears. He cursed under his breath when a new gust obliterated an entire line of the letter he was writing, reducing it to a line of black across the page. The following pen-stroke tore through the paper. Oh, bloody…
The following string of curses could have turned any listener’s ears blue – if there had been listeners, that is, and if the temperature hadn’t done that already. He let the notebook fall shut with a snap, wiping the pen off on the hem of his already-stained trousers and sliding it into its pocket in his sleeve.
No use even trying to write here anymore.
It took him a few tries, aided by the handle of the inn’s door, to climb to his feet. His leg was stiff and sore from the temperature, scarred musculature not adapting as well to the change in climate as the rest of him did. It was, simply, yet another sign of his life as something other than a scribe. There had been far better results from his past decisions, but the leg’s scarring was, by far, the most visible.
Cael stood on the stoop for a moment, willing some of the feeling back into his toes, watching the snow drift across the broad, smooth street. The fine layer of white was untouched. No one had traveled the thoroughfare since his arrival – his tracks were already gone from the snow that had begun earlier that morning, and it was likely that no one unexpected would come this way until the snow stopped.
And, in Salvar, who knew how long that would truly be? He let out a silent sigh, tucked his notebook to his side, and opened the inn door.
The inn – the Broken Gryphon, if the sign above the door was to be taken seriously – had once been a popular place, judging by the size of its dining rooms, the thick tapestries on the walls, and the intricate carvings on the bar. The winter had forced it into disuse - a fine layer of dust coated nearly every surface, his leather boots leaving tracks of melting snow behind him, transmuting the gray grit into mud. He ignored the slush, stripping his coat off and throwing it over the bar, setting his notebook down more sedately before he made his limping way to the table next to the fireplace.
He’d cleared the candlesticks and silken cloth off when he’d arrived and found the town utterly deserted - they wouldn't be needed when the only patrons weren't supposed to be there in the first place. In retrospect, he should have taken the odd looks from the few people he had passed on the road here as warnings of the desolation - but how was he to know the whole village had just up and left?
Not that I blamed them, he thought, setting his inkwell on the fireplace mantel. I wouldn't want to wait out winter here if I had a choice.
The village’s location wasn’t the best for most people: a full day's walk from the nearest road (also, helpfully, from the nearest reliable source of firewood), three days longer than that to the next village, and a full week from Knife's Edge. He had been surprised the village even existed when Ludvik had shown it to him, pointing it out on a well-worn map.
It had to have something to do with the nearby river – a tributary from the Western Sea to the lake of Ashkalov, if the map was to be trusted – that was frozen solid now. Perhaps it was merely a summer village, making profits off of the fishing, or something in the clay, or…anything, really; anything that would be affected by the harsh cold.
Not that it mattered. All that truly mattered right now was that it was here, and that it was deserted, and would, therefore, serve his - serve their - purposes. He collapsed into the chair nearest the fire, running a mottled hand through his hair to dislodge the snow caught there, turning his hair dark gold as it melted.
His current project rested upon that table, a parchment stretched tight on the smooth surface, tacked to the wood. It already had a few rows of carefully lettered script, the intricate flowing letters and flowery speech generally found in legal documents. The light was wrong now - the windows letting in only an odd, bluish gloom, beginning to show the darkness outside as the sun set behind the clouds – to finish the calligraphy tonight.
That paper could, in all likelihood, get him killed if the wrong person saw him writing it. But that was all well and good, wasn’t it? It wasn’t as if anyone would catch him making it here. He had a second parchment sticking out of the top flap of his pack, already neatly transformed into a document of the same importance, but for the Church.
He left both parchments be for now, reaching out to take up the half-folded paper crane perched on the edge of the table. It was carefully crafted from a previous attempt at one of the documents, and it only took him a few small folds and creases to complete. He set it down to retrieve his pen, groaning when he realized he’d left his notebook on the bar.
He limped back across the room and retrieved the book, snagging the arm of a chair and dragging it back with him as he did. The fire was going to die down soon enough, and he didn’t want to have to get up again for something as trivial as firewood. He’d pay for it - eventually, of course - but right now he needed it more than the inn’s owner.
He took his pen back out of its pocket, reaching out to dip it in the now-pure-liquid inkwell, and quickly sketched the appropriate double-infinity symbol on one of the crane’s wings. The sign flashed so quickly that he would have missed it if he had blinked. All the writing on the crane faded as if it was being soaked into the paper, and then the paper moved. Shifted, small wings flapping once. A tiny beak opened, and –
“Are you sure this is wise?” The words floated through the air between the halves of the beak, noiselessly. Cael chuffed low in his throat, cleaning the pen off again as an excuse not to look at the familiar.
“Is that your new motto or something?”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t like it. For the record and all.”
It felt nice to speak Salvic again, the words flowing easily and smoothly from his mouth, none of the accent that still plagued his tradespeak.
It still ‘spoke’ in that language, giving him a look that felt like a disapproving stare, despite its lack of eyes. “Didn’t ask if you liked it.”
Cael rolled his eyes, setting the pen down on the table and moving the inkwell onto the table’s far corner. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” He held his hand out. The crane hopped onto his fingertips without further comment, balancing easily as he stood. “Hopefully,” Cael continued, “We’ll only be here a few days.”
Hopefully.
And hopefully, those coming to rescue him from the monotony of the past two days would be people who his brother had passed the paper on to – trustworthy people - and not members of the Church or monarchy looking to remove his head from his shoulders for such insurrection.
He’d spent enough time in Knife’s Edge during his apprenticeship to know that – if they disapproved, and he somehow got the feeling that they would – he’d be lucky if it was that quick.
The paper – the whole famine-and-hunger fighting plan – had seemed such a good idea when it was…well, just that. An idea. Now that the gears were all in motion, he couldn’t help but worry. What if no one came? What if, as he feared all the more, the wrong people came? Had he written the inn name right? The name of the village, the fiefdom, for that matter? There so many things to go wrong…
And he was slowly beginning to wish they’d picked a village closer to civilization.
Closed to those from here. Feel free to poke me about any clarifications/edits you feel need made.
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