The next day, Quint decided to do a bit more running. His calves ached a bit but he felt like he could still manage a brief run. Nothing too substantial as there were other things he wanted to do. Not that he had the greatest time-management skills in the world-- he was always bells and chimes later than he should be for stuff-- but still, he had plans, regardless of the number of times he failed at following through at them, and so he decided it was best to get the exercise and running out of the way as soon as possible.
And so he said good bye to his grandfather, a man who used to work at the Mint before he retired, and he headed out and on his way.
He hadn't really thought much about his grandfather so he decided to do so, simply because he had been thinking about his family recently. He still knew very little about his father-- that was a conversation his grandfather refused to have about him, though it was clearly more because it simply hurt the old man to think about his son (and it truly did seem to pain him very much) more so than anything to do with Quint. That is to say that Quint did not get the impression that his grandfather was holding anything back from him or hiding anything from him; it was more a general impression that his grandfather now regretted whatever rift had happened between the man and Quint's father. He clearly regretted it very much and appeared to completely blame himself. At least he did now, though from what little Quint had heard about it from his mother twenty years ago, his grandfather had originally blamed Quint's father for something.
Maybe even for something that Quint's father had not done. Quint himself did not know: nobody was telling him anything about it. Though it was clear it was not some deep dark secret on anyone's behalf, it was simply a painful experience all around. Quint's family had been proud members of Syliras for generations, and many of there were minters or priests or squires and knights. All were pure human, with not a drop of any of the other races or even any of the other human cultures mixed in with them.
Quint had a tremendously large family in Syliras, but except for his father, none of them had ever really accepted him. He never felt connected to any of them or part of any of them. There were whispers that he was not a 'true' Caravel and would only bring shame and dishonor on the family, that he was not worthy of being a knight or even a squire and would only end up in jail one day, an infamous assassin or rogue.
He had been abused and beaten up by half-siblings and cousins, he had had Mizas taken from him, girlfriends stolen from him, and ... well, he could honestly say that while many in Syliras found it a wonderful city of law and order, he himself found it a place where people hid their condescending and patronizing attitudes towards him behind a veneer of civility and politeness. People hid insults inside of compliments; when he did succeed at something, it was always met with "Oh, you can do a bit of acting, can you? Who knew? Huh! Wow, that's suprising!" and never with applause and compliments.
Even his grandfather saw him as some sort of mongrel mistake that his son had made, but the old man was such a bastion of civility and hospitality that he was willing to take Quint in when, as a boy, Quint had nowhere to go.
Quint thought it was paternal love at the time, but looking back he realized the fellow simply had a soft spot for lost pets and orphans. Since Quint's grandmother had died, the man volunteered much of his time helping people find missing dogs and cats or reuniting children with relatives they did not know they had. Mizahar could be a cold and cruel place, even in and around Stormhold Castle, but old Bernie Caravel was a genuinely decent fellow.
And in time, he really did seem to care for his grand son. Quint wasn't quite sure that the two of them actually liked each other, or even that the man would have any more or less emotion for him depending on whether they were related or not, but he objectively found 'Grandpa Bernie' to be a decent enough fellow.
It made him wonder how he would have turned out if he had been born and raised in Syliras to a woman from one of the families here, as he knew his father had once been engaged to a woman named Lenaya Brock before his own mother came along. Quint had dark impulses in him, desires that would be considered indecent in Syliras, and a desire for fame and fortune totally out of character for his grandfather's family, many of whom were from good Syliras familes, and had lived there for generations.
He had spent time with his mother's family, and while he did not agree with her Pod on some basic ideas such as 'bartering' instead of using Mizas, he nevertheless realized that many of them might be considered rogues and brigands and pirates by Syliras standards. Which explained both his own impulses and why so many of his grandfather's cousins and nieces and nephews insisted on seeing him as a bad apple just waiting to spoil.
Thinking about all this, he continued to run. He found that he was able to go a bit longer today but he was actually going a bit slower: for long periods of time he had to rotate running with walking. For example, he would run ten paces then walk another ten, or he'd run twenty and then walk for five minutes. His lungs, heart, and leg muscles simply had not yet adapted to his new regimen, and there was nothing he could do about it. Out of necessity he found himself doing as much walking as running, and even then it was rather the human equivalent of a canter instead of a gallop. But still he tried. He kept going, legs pumping under him and arms windmilling at his sides.
(To Quint's eternal embarrassment, he would look back on these days later on and realize that he had not yet figured out how to pump his arms correctly and so they flailed around like a little girl. It was a bit natural looking, but might draw some howls of laughter from some of the more muscular athletes on his path.)
Still, he kept pace with what he did yesterday, subtracting out the walking he counted 1130 paces had actually ran (run?), so he was proud of that.
