An Ode to Lazy Days

It was the standard punishment for cursing like…well, a sailor. What infuriated him more than the gangly four-legged beasts called horses was the sheer volume and scent of their excresence, and as Akadias moodily glared down a long row of horses’ stalls, he heaved a sigh, and uttered the choicest fruits of his Atha’an Miere upbringing.  “Flaming bloody spavined shore-lapping sons of the Father of Storms,” he muttered, and shouldered his shovel.  His lips pinched tight – tasting the stench was so much worse than merely smelling it – he grimly attacked straw-covered dung, hacking layers out of stalls he knew he’d cleaned out just the week before.  Over his shoulder, a stallion watched, occasionally nudging his solid bulk aside in the attempt to get at the freshly circulating water, and when Akadias realized he had no broom, the beast took up happy residence in the stall while he went to fetch one.  And empty the bucket, of course.

Stomping back, he noticed something, shook his head, and glowered.  Of course the women were allowed to work in pairs!  But he, being male (and twice their age, by the looks of some of them) had to work alone.  White-capped waves forbid he corrupt a precious Novice!  Yes, because his twenty-eight years meant he couldn’t be trusted to keep a girl half his age from going ankles-up in a pile of foul, stinking hay.  Or was it them they didn’t trust?  Lustfully hanging over the Training Yard fences (Akadias would admit he’d admired a few of the future Gaidar himself, straining in the sunshine, lovely and lithe), chattering about boys all the time, creeping into one another’s rooms after lights went out (he had heard of pillow-friends and if there was a merciful Creator, he hoped to see the truth of that accusation.) Grumbling to himself, he finished the mucking job – the stableboys watched, and if it was done wrong, they reported you, and you had to not only learn how to muck out a stall again, you were invited to practice this new skill several dozen more times!

Horse by horse, his travail continued, but when their supervising stablehand stalked through, announcing that lunch would be served shortly but any team - team! Akadias growled – not yet finished with their aisle would be staying afterwards, the man found him feverishly working – but only two-thirds done.  “Where’s your partner?” the man asked, turning away as if some other man would magically materialize before his eyes.  “I don’t have one,” Akadias snapped back, too tired, sweaty, and bitten by horseflies to care to be polite, no matter the consequences – another week of this, every day.  The stablehand scowled at him, reconsidered as Akadias unfolded to his true, prodigious height, and flourished a sheet of paper.  “Of course you do,” the man returned smartly.

“You’re which Novice?”  Akadias answered with his name, and the man consulted a sheet of pairings.  “Akadias.”  He flipped the page, reading the back.  “Here it is. Your partner is…”

“Eluanna…Brynoch.”

The man smiled, but as he looked around, no such creature came to his expectant eyes.  “Have you seen her at all?” the man answered, a pencil poised over the page.  Akadias shook his head no, wielding his broom savagely around a prize Tairen mare’s ankles, making her dance a bit from side to side.  “Don’t take it out on Snowblossom,” the stablehand said, absently, clucking to the mare, who brushed Akadias aside in her excitement.  “Learn to handle a horse,” the man said, disapproval heavy in his tone as he soothed the grey mare.  Akadias scowled, and before he could reconsider, shot out, “Learn to handle a ship.”

“Not much use for those on dry land,” the stablehand countered easily.

“Not much use for you on a ship,” Akadias tossed out, acerbically.

“Look.  Because you did so much without a partner, I’m going to finish the rest.  You go to supper,” the man suggested, taking Akadias’ broom.  “And.” he added, as Akadias turned to flee.

“If you ever want to learn to handle a horse, I’m sure Snowblossom will forgive you,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.  “You’d have to ride a flaming Dhurran, pardon my tongue, but you could learn to ride.”  Akadias lifted an eyebrow.  Novices didn’t receive any lessons of that sort, and he knew that well enough.  Sword had been denied him, even to own and practice, and he couldn’t imagine Candance saying yes to horsemanship…even if he did want to ride one of the buck-toothed, surging bags of bone and fur.  And shorelappers thought they were beautiful and composed poetry to them!

He would never understand the shorebound!

“Thank you,” he stammered to the stablehand, scrambling to escape before the man could change his mind.  And while supper did sound good, if you could ignore the stench of horse that clung to his clothes, what sounded better was best served cold.

Eluanna Brynoch, I’m looking for you, he thought, images of buckets of dung and hay filling his mind.