Chapter 3 #3
“Oh well,” she said, standing up. “I have other things to clean, myself. Such as the small matter of your room, my esteemed guest. Shall I have a go at sorting any clothes that may have been damaged by travel? The nearby burn will wash them nicely, and Bren is a dab hand with a needle and thread.”
She did not wait for his reply before she skipped lightly down the steps, humming a bright tune all the way.
Despite another simple offering, breakfast the next day was something Ainsworth savored and lingered over.
For as soon as it was over, the dreaded attic awaited.
Another grueling day loomed over him, full of disintegrating scrolls, broken shelf brackets sending all manner of bric-a-brac tumbling everywhere, and yes, the remains of what Ainsworth presumed was once a scampering, paper-nibbling quikrol.
Bren, upon inspecting the unnervingly clean skull, had confirmed it.
“Haven’t seen one of these in a long time.
We used to have a cat that kept them at bay.
” The quikrol skull now sat nestled among the amber bottles atop the bar, a testament to Ainsworth’s failure.
But he was well and truly here now, having already spent weeks traveling in pursuit of this project.
He was not long-lived like the elven scholars, the dwarves, who had the luxury of a prolonged existence to make their significant findings and discoveries.
The minuscule gift from Ainsworth’s binneach grandmother might extend his life a decade or so beyond the average human’s, but it still was not much.
He did not have the luxury of wasting time by letting his disdain for the inn and its staff push him away from the project.
He must distinguish himself as an academic as soon as possible, so that his legacy kept him alive for as long as his almost immortal peers.
He tried to envision the day he’d walk back through the Skarrow Library doors, triumphant, his trunk full of papers ready to be compiled into his new manuscript.
He’d be welcomed back with awe and glee, he told himself, lauded to have found something so original to document in just his twenty-sixth year.
“You truly found nothing of use yesterday?” Honey asked as she buttered some bread, a slight lilt to her voice. Ainsworth gathered she wasn’t the kind of person to have a lot of smugness about her, but whatever emotion she radiated as she nibbled her breakfast, eyes wide and knowing, was close.
“You warned me as much, I know,” he said, hands in the air.
“Today I’ll keep inspecting what might be salvageable before I try and organize it into any sort of order.
I need to clear some space, too, so that when I do investigate the boxes and bound scripts, I might have somewhere to put them once I have finished. ”
The bottom of his porridge bowl was sadly approaching.
Quiddle had offered a selection of foraged brambles and a syrup tapped from the odd sweetfiodh trees in the nearby forest. It was unlike him, Ainsworth realized, to so thoroughly relish the simple sweetness offered by the dish.
Enach would have bemoaned the lack of pastries, the lack of savory options, the absence of meat and fruit beyond what was gathered locally.
But in that moment, Ainsworth could not relate to such feelings.
He leaned back in his seat, a rare beam of sunlight setting the table aglow in all its laden glory, and felt almost relaxed.
As he, Honey, Quiddle, and Bren made idle chitchat over their meal, Ainsworth assumed the delicate bell announcing the front door’s opening was Ashe, finally come to join them for breakfast. In the two days he had been here, he had not seen her eat or rest.
But unfamiliar voices startled him instead.
“Hello, innkeeper?” called a deep, rhythmic voice.
A tall figure strode into the room as though he owned it.
Golden fur adorned the hands, neck, and face that peeked out from beneath his light, silky cloak.
Cat ears flicked irritably as the hanging ivy reached gently for them, and a tail swished under the folds of his cloak.
The smile that lit the catlike face was brighter than any day Ainsworth had experienced in this dreary mountain range. “Oh good, you do breakfast here!”
Honey promptly rose to her feet. “Good day, traveler! Have you need of a room?”
The feline figure nodded. “Indeed, and so does my sister. She is stabling the horses along with your guard. We require an arrangement to care for them, if you offer such services, but only a night’s stay,” he announced grandly, scanning each of the faces around the breakfast table as though they were a rapt audience.
In a way, they were. Ainsworth could barely contain his glee.
Dare he hope? Despite all Honey’s warnings, had fortune favored him with his first adventurer?
“Tomorrow,” the traveler continued, “we take on Mount Vengeance! Now, good innkeeper, how much for a night’s stay?”
Ainsworth quickly turned back to his porridge.
The sooner he finished it, the sooner he could get started.