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Post by musicachick on Jun 22, 2009 16:02:00 GMT -5
Salamander Smith was less drunk than usual. A lot less drunk. Almost sober. He'd even bathed so that he no longer stank of stale alcohol. Instead, he stank of horse. And sweat.
What was the special occasion, you ask? Had some miracle occured to help Sal turn his life around? Had he met a girl he was trying to impress?
No. Of course not.
Salamander was sober-er only because it was forbidden to come to work drunk, and his job at the moment was as a stable boy. He'd already had to muck out a few stalls, which he'd hoped would be the worst of it. He had tried speeding up the job by using fire, but the stench was horrible, and his boss had yelled at him.
He was forbidden to use magic at work ever again.
At the moment, he was busy feeding the horses, which seemed a bit ironic to him, considering what he'd just been doing. He went into the barn. If he were horse food, where would he be?
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Post by Parin d'Aulaire on Jun 22, 2009 16:40:10 GMT -5
Parin d'Aulaire hummed to herself while making horse treats in the yard just opposite the oat larder. She was using a sugary paste, oats and apple pieces to make her own creations: Apple Parins! The horses loved them and the Head Groom -seeing that his charges enjoyed Parin's cooking- allowed her to use the dregs of each bag of oats in her recipes.
The song she hummed was unknown to her, in fact only the elders of Aesir may have remembered the words - if they'd had decent memory of their childhoods. Still the tune was sweet and it made Parin happy to hum it. She rolled the mixture into small bite sized spheres and placed them out to dry on a clean board.
The lesser grooms walked the horses by and they looked eagerly at the board, but Parin shook her head to their handlers to say the Apple Parins weren't ready and they led the horses on assuring them in soft voices they'd be able to have one later. It had taken her many tries but it seemed to Parin she finally found somewhere to belong - even if she wasn't learning magic.
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Post by musicachick on Jun 22, 2009 18:23:56 GMT -5
Sal had just gotten to the barn, and discoved the tack room, but no visible food. One of the other doors was open, and throught the doorway, he could see a scarlet-headed girl...making horse treats.
Girls, he could deal with. He had a plan to have some of those treats for the horses he was taking care of before the girl could even blink twice. Not literally that quick, of course. More like before she realized he was stealing them.
"Hi, sweetheart. Whatcha doin'?"
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Post by Parin d'Aulaire on Jun 22, 2009 18:39:58 GMT -5
"Oh hello," said Parin, pausing to grab some more oats to pour into the next batch of sugar paste, "I am making Apple Parins for the horses! These here are too wet, but I made some this morning that should be dried by now. They are in the oats larder there, in a basket on the first shelf," she said pointing to the larder.
"Just be sure you don't give any horse too many - too much sugar and apple can give them a stomach ache."
She mixed the oats in carefully then poured chopped apple bits in to and began mixing that. once it was thoroughly mixed, she let it sit to allow the paste to dry a little - better for forming the spheres. She looked around at all her boards and saw one was dry enough. With a few hands gestures she floated each treat into the larder and dropped it into the basket she'd just told him about. The line of floating treats looked almost like they were dancing in the air in time to her humming. Once the last one dropped in Parin turned to the odd man and asked:
"So which horse do you care for?"
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Post by musicachick on Jun 22, 2009 22:01:45 GMT -5
Jackpot! Salamander grinned. Not only did she tell him that he could have some of whatever it was she was making, but she'd pointed out where the food was, and he didn't even have to ask. Sal was really begining to like this kid.
"Oh, I guess I care for the horses that eat the most," he said, laughing at his own joke. "Really, I just feed the ones the head groom tells me to feed, and I muck out stalls." He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Right now, I'm s'posed to be getting food for Snowdrop, Khanis, and Daisy." He shrugged, as if to say 'but they can wait a bit.'
"Horses aren't really my favorite animals, but a job's a job, right? Actually, come to think of it, I don't have a favorite animal. Anyway, I'm only doing this to put myself through Magic training." He shrugged again, this time meaning, 'and various other things, some of which you are too young to know about.'
"I'm Sal, by the way, Salamander Smith. I'm from Repear." He shrugged once again, and it meant, 'Are you going to introduce yourself too, or are you going to remain mysterious?' And by this, we can see that Sal was very expressive when he shrugged.
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Post by Benjamin Freed on Jun 25, 2009 14:55:01 GMT -5
Taking a deep breath the general took in the smells of the stables. Strangely enough he found the Smell of horse, sweat and dung appealing. He had been on a battle field the only difference between the smell of the stables and the scent of war was that war had the added aroma's of death, smoke and gore. In a way it invigorated him. It was his calling, to fight and a sadistic almost feral part of him enjoyed it all. But that was all inner psyche.
Why was Ben here? Quite simply he was checking on the war horses. He was wearing rather light armor at the moment he didn't have much the fear hear at the stables, so over his tunic he had a long sleeved shirt of Chan mail and over that a breast plate. which had the Avaren seal painted on it. Also, at his side was a longsword he never went anywhere un armed. He walked up to his favorite warhorse, Charlie, This great stallion was a powerful beast and had it not been for this very horse Freed was sure would not have survived during the war with Aesir.
In his hand he held a few Carrots which he had bought at the market for just this occasion. As he fed Charlie he heard voices coming from a few stalls down the way. He stopped and listened to them. He didn't listen long because he heard one word and it was enough to get him grumpy. He patted the horse on the head And walked off in the direction of the disturbance.
He came upon two red heads an young girl and a young man. He saw the horse treats and deduced these two where handlers. But that was no excuse. Especially for the young man. "Did I hear the two of you discussing magic?" He asked, knowing the truth already he had plainly hear the word magic.
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Post by musicachick on Jun 26, 2009 16:41:28 GMT -5
It seemed the girl wouldn't be introducing herself anytime soon, Sal decided. For one thing, she seemed pretty busy with her job. She was absorbed with making the horse treats and keeping them hovering in the air as they dried. For another, a big, slightly scary-looking guy appeared, looking as though he'd caught the two of them spitting on his mother. Magic? He'd come over to scold them over magic?
"I'm sorry," he said, without really knowing why he was apologizing. "I was just telling her that this job is only until I finish my magic training. But don't worry, Boss says no magic near the horses. Wouldn't want them to spook."
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Post by Parin d'Aulaire on Jun 28, 2009 15:11:30 GMT -5
Indeed Parin was concentrating on getting the dried treats iff the boards and into the basket in the oats larder, but soon they were all in she looked up again from her task.
"My name . . ." Began Parin, but stopped quickly when she saw the large scary man start to tromp over to them. She didn't want anyone scary knowing who she was. Too many not so scary people had heard her name and given her trouble about it. This man was so big and scary Parin doubted that she would survive if he gave her trouble.
Still she was very interested in the Magic training. She would have to ask Salamander about where he was getting this training once the big man went away. Unfortunately for her Salamander didn't seem to realize why the man was yelling at them abut magic in the first place! He simply said sorry then totally confirmed the mans suspicion. Parin stopped making the treats and leaned down and took up her back like it was just then next thing she had to do. If the Scary man was a magic hater, the invisibility cloak in her bag would come in very handy.
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Post by Benjamin Freed on Jun 29, 2009 12:32:31 GMT -5
"Hmpf" Well the boy had passed his first test. The girl seemed frightened how ever and was letting the boy do all the talking. Freed gave a wicked grin. "Well I don't much like magic, but I can't put people away for talking about magic. However I can put you away for using magic outside of that academy. I'm General Freed, you two best be on your best behavior you hear?" He said. He was beginning to loose interest now that there was no real confrontation. "How about you give me some of thos treats for the warhorses?"
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Post by Parin d'Aulaire on Jul 3, 2009 20:08:12 GMT -5
Parin wordless got up from her bench and magic-less-ly gathered three of her treats for the scary man. She wished she didn't have to, but the head groom let her use the stables grain at no cost - so in return she had to share anything she made with anyone who asked. Its not that she didn't want his horses to have any treats, but that she didn't like his attitude. Some of the citizens of Astir had been mean like him over her name and now this man was being mean over her very being. His comments were bringing back all the scary times she'd faced in Astir and she wasn't happy about it.
She soon returned from her short errand and lay the three treats before him on one of the empty boards. She hoped he would take the offering and go, but feared he would tell her he was in charge of more horses than that.
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