[Flashback] A Day In The Life (Lucas)

[Casper]

31st of Winter, 510 AV Even deep within the Stormhold citadel, the chilly morning air seeped through every crack and pore it could find, and every draft that passed through Casper's clothes was followed by a shiver through his spine. Covered as he was, his cloak shielding him best it could, his natural body heat had a way of escaping without any regard for his personal well being. As Casper made his way deeper into the second tier of the castle, the ratio of knights to civilians was regularly increasing, much to his distaste. After his arrest, he had grown to hate the Syliran Knights more than his usual rebellious defiance to authority, and it took effort not to glare when he made eye contact with those passing by. Still, he walked on with a satisfied air of recently having gotten paid, mizas clinking together in his pockets. After countless dull weeks of boring construction and trying to keep off the Knights' radar, Casper wanted to have fun, and what better way to do that than treat a friend to lunch? It was an unlikely friendship he had formed with the squire, whose scheming personality Casper had grown increasingly fond of over the years. Even though the boy was considerably younger than him, he found him to be much better company than the ignorant fools that actually were his age. Those people couldn't even see past the fact that Casper was a mongrel, the blood of hideous snakes running through his veins. He had just arrived outside the Squires dormitories, and stood next to the doorway as though wondering whether to walk through. He didn't have it in him to risk trying to sneak past those pesky chaperons. Instead, he stopped the first boy he saw walking out of there, a child who seemed to be drowning in his armor. " Hey kid, can you do me a favor? I need you to go back into thosse dorms of yourss," as he spoke, he dropped a few mizas in the now attentive boy's hand. "You know that ginger kid, Lucass? Wake him up for me and tell him to get his arsse down here." The child grinned sheepishly as he closed his hands over the coins and ran back into the dorm, his armor clanking after him loudly. With that done, Casper leaned against the wall and waited, fiddling with with a coin to pass the time.

[Lucas Arias]

Normally Lucas was up as soon as the sun had risen to play pranks on his fellow squires or sneak into the Rearing Stallion for a mug of ale that would hopefully make the dull life in Syliras a little easier to bear. But with snow falling and the cold seeping through every crack in the ancient walls the red haired squire had decided to stay in bed instead. He’d even managed to convince the chaperones who weren’t exactly his greatest fans to give him another blanket. His bed was nice and soft and warm, and he had pulled the blankets up so far that his head was hardly visible.

He wasn’t particularly happy as he heard how the door was being opened. „Lucas?“ he heard the high pitched voice of one of the younger squires ask. „There is a weird guy outside, asking for you.“ Lucas groaned, tried to hide under his blankets and murmurred, „Lucas isn’t here. I’m just his evil twin. So go away if you don’t want something terribly embarrassing to happen to you at lunch.“ The little boy gulped, glanced at the coins in his hands, looked at the door and finally took up all his courage. „He has white hair and he hisses like a snake, and he wants you to get his arse down!“

Lucas abruptly pulled the blanket down and looked at the boy. „Why didn’t you say so right away? Tell him I’ll be with him in a chime!“ Once the boy had left his room, Lucas dressed as quickly as possible, and a moment later he was already on his way to the half Dhani. Unlike his fellow Sylirans he didn’t have a problem with the strange looking man. On the contrary, he found the fact that one of his parents had been a snake fascinating.

„What’s up?“ he asked as he approached Casper. „That boy said I needed to get my arse down here, but he didn’t tell me why. Did he forget it or did you not tell him?“

[Casper]

"I didn't tell him," Casper replied with a grin as he saw the boy emerge from the dormitory building. He slapped him on the shoulder in greeting and beckoned to walk with him. "I wass thinking about treatin' you to lunch, your pick of the place. Or maybe breakfasst? you look like you jusst woke up," he said with a chuckle. Lucas' hair was even more disheveled today than his usual, and he had the eyes of someone who had not gotten the time to fully open them yet. "Then again..." he said with mock hesitation, a teasing smile playing around his lips, "You did make me wait, sso I think I'll jusst let you watch me eat a delicious ssteak all to mysself." He was feeling much more cheery now that he had successfully dragged his friend out of the rat's den. On his way out of the district, it felt good to see the frequency of armor-clad individuals decreasing rather than the other way around. As they walked down the narrow streets, Casper searched his mind for anything he had been meaning to tell Lucas since he last saw him. He often ranted to the boy but didn't want to burden him with such useless tales of how angry he got at basically everything. He no longer had the opportunity to 'let off steam', as he called it, with the eyes of Syliran Knights constantly on his back. His background plus his recent misbehavior had many wondering why he was still allowed to roam the streets. His situation left him simultaneously hoping and worrying that Lucas might come up with some crazy plan. He worried because it might bring trouble and unneeded attention, and he hoped because he was endlessly bored and needed to have someone egg him on to do something stupid. "Any sstoriess for me today?" He asked, knowing that there were many in Lucas' active pranking schedule.

[Lucas Arias]

Lucas returned the grin. His mood instantly brightened at hearing Casper’s words. He was always hungry, and he was usually twice as hungry if he didn’t have to pay.

„Breakfast is more like it“, he remarked. „And a free meal would be awesome, but I’ll pay for the drinks. I managed to make a little money recently.“

He said the last sentence proudly.

As a squire you did of course not earn anything, but Lucas sometimes snuck out in his free time, tried to sell his drawings, gambled, told stories or tried to impress people with his non existant skills with the lute. Usually they insulted him and threw rotten things at him, but sometimes it also paid off.

„And it wasn’t my fault that you had to wait“, he pointed out. „That boy you sent was slow and stupid. Anyway, if you eat that delicious steak alone, I won’t tell you what the chaperones are up to when they think we are all asleep and what that knight that teaches us to use a shield keeps in the chest in his bedroom.“

By the time they had moved out of the district, Lucas was fully awake and alert and in an even better mood than before. Like Casper he couldn’t stand the presence of all those knights for long – although he would likely become a knight himself one day. They were just too noble and honorable for his taste, and they didn’t have any sense of humor.

Casper on the other hand definitely did.

„You know that stuck up blonde squire who always calls me an Inarta bastard even though I’m definitely not? I put a whoopee cushion on her chair, and then, at lunch, in front of dozens of squires … I’m sure you can picture it. One of the chaperones found a spider in her clothes, and one of those mean bullies got a shower. I also found out that two of the knights are having an affair.“

„Those are all small things though. Sometimes I wish I could do a prank that would affect all of them – even though they would likely throw me out afterwards.“

„Anyway, what have you been up to?“

[Casper]

He grinned at Lucas' remark. "Good man," he said with a heavy pat on his back, all too happy that his friend knew how to return the favor. While Lucas rambled on, Casper found a decent food stall selling mostly grilled food, and sat them down at a small table inside. He didn't interrupt the talk and listened attentively as Lucas listed his past exploits. "Gettin' thrown out issn't that big a consequence," he said mockingly, knowing full well he wouldn't be the one to convince him to quit the order, but trying all the same with taunting comments. He stopped his chuckling when Lucas redirected the conversation back to him. "Not much, just sstaying out of trouble," Casper said vaguely, scratching his head. He didn't like to mention the topic of his arrest, which proved to be a feat as his lifestyle had changed drastically since. Casper had not breathed a word about it, but Lucas was able to pick off details from rumors around the city. No matter how comfortable he was with Lucas, he didn't want to talk to him about nearly killing a man; he was just a kid, after all. The cuts on his knuckles and bruises about his body were healing, slowly but surely, and soon it would all be behind him. "I'm thinking about ssaving up ssome money and leaving Ssylirass for a bit, might take a few sseassonss." He looked over at the ginger from the corner of his eye, curious to see his reaction to the random thought.

[Lucas Arias]

As they approached the food stall, Lucas‘ mouth began to water. The grilled meat that they sold here looked so much more delicious than what he usually got in the fortress. He could swear that they sometimes served the squires dead rats, roadkill and other disgusting things!

„It is“, he disagreed with Casper as his friend informed him that getting thrown out wasn’t that big of a consequence. „At least for my parents. They’d probably have a heart attack if I suddenly weren’t a squire anymore. They are both knights. Personally, I’m half tempted to risk it though. I’d just go to Zeltiva and study at the university afterwards.“

He sat up a little straighter, put on a really strange look and loudly wondered, „Do you think I’d make a good university student – or even a professor?“ He laughed as he asked this, but in truth he was much too worried about his parents to quit the order. He didn’t want to be responsible for their deaths, besides they were the only family he had. He didn’t have any siblings, uncles, aunts or cousins, and his grandparents had died years ago.

„Out of which trouble?“ he wanted to know. He knew about some of the things that Casper had been up to, but he wasn’t sure what the halfblood meant this time. As his friend wondered about leaving Syliras, the squire frowned. He didn’t like that. Interesting people were hard to come by in this city full of overly noble, honorable hypocrites.

„Where would you go?“ he asked.