Lucan, Sorrel and Toothy. What could possibly go wrong?

RP and training provided by the mighty Sophie. Meandering by Stephena

As dawn breaks, Sorrel eases herself off the pile of sacks in the merchant’s cart and stretches briefly, stepping around the battered wooden wheels to slip a handful of silver coins into the old man’s outstretched hands.

“Thank you, sir,” she nods politely. “An hour early.”

The old man looks at her curiously.

“You slept like a baby, my friend,” his voice rattles with age. “Whatever you were doing, it must have been exhausting. These wheels are older than you and the road is more battered than me.”

Sorrel smiles politely. “Perhaps your sacks are more comfortable than you thought. My thanks again.”

As the man checks his money she slips away, making sure he doesn’t see which alley she vanishes into. She doubts he is anything more than the spice trader he claims to be, but old habits die hard.

As she weaves towards Lucan’s shop she pauses now and then to move her stiff limbs through some blade drills, flexing her hands carefully. There is delicate fingerwork ahead and she doesn’t want to disappoint her teacher. She stops within sight of his doorway and checks the street. It looks empty, but she lets her eyes relax into the thousand-yard stare and waits for 300 heartbeats in case she’s missed anything. Finally, she approaches the doorway. She’s early, but Shaleena will be on the morning shift at the inn and Sorrel has always found that the easiest way to deal with confused emotions is avoidance and evasion. So, she pulls the last of her bread and sausage meat from her rucksack and leans up against the doorframe to wait for Lucan.

While waiting she hears the rapid swinging of a door opening nearby, likely in the alleys behind the shop, followed by the interjection of Lucan’s voice. It’s the loudest she’s heard him speak so far and he certainly doesn’t sound pleased.

“Toothy, I won’t tell you again. No animals in the house or shop unless it’s a bloody emergency. Get those chickens out *now* before I open the front doors.”

There’s a series of flustered clucks and the patter of multiple little clawed feet on bare earth that’s coming closer to Sorrel, followed by a very defeated sounding man, “But Dad they said they were cold where they were staying, I couldn’t just leave them outside like that.”

“Then take it up with whoever owns their coop. Now get them back before there’s more feathers everywhere and before we have *another* person banging down the doors looking for their animals.”

The sounds of little claws and clucking gets even closer before eventually rounding the alleyway corner next to Sorrel is a small group of chickens, they briefly all crane their heads up at Sorrel in curiosity before a very well built drow man in a red cable knit jumper also rounds the corner behind them. He’s leaning down and speaking to the chickens themselves, his long white hair decorated with talismans of coloured thread and animal bones blocking his view of Sorrel as he looks down at his feathered companions.

Eventually he straightens up and looks around at the street, looking like he’s trying to remember something, before he spots Sorrel by the door. It takes a moment of apparent confusion before his face lights up, the ursine-like teeth that protrude slightly from his mouth forming into a massive smile.

“OH! Sorrel you’re here! I’ve only spotted you briefly in the shop before but I’m Toothy, Lucan’s son. Ehh...nice to formally meet yah!” He reaches out a hand to Sorrel in an offered handshake, the chickens clustered at his feet also shuffling over slightly to greet her.

Sorrel takes his hand and gravely greets him. She’d felt something unfamiliar stirring as Lucan and Toothy exchanged affectionate banter and as this most unusual drow - a drow in a red cable knit jumper in the name of the saints of the goddess - wrestled with animals he’d clearly fallen for whilst Lucan looked on with affectionate exasperation. She felt jealous. This is a family. An odd family for sure. But a family. She finds herself aching for the feeling of belonging.

She remembers the day she turned six when the tall, narrow eyed stranger arrived and her parents, at his insistence, explained that she had been promised to this man’s organisation in payment of a debt of honour. He knelt awkwardly and gave her an elaborately wrapped gift then told her an old children’s story with a dry, patronising tone. She left the present in her room for days, unwrapped and unwanted, until curiosity got the better of her and she ripped the paper off to find a dagger with a black steel blade and a strange symbol on the pommel. She hid it under her bed and ignored it until…

Toothy’s energetic shaking of her hand tugs her back to the present. Despite her hint of envy, she warms to him immediately. He is so unlike the cold drow assassins of the House, who lived in their own gloomy quarters and whose lessons in evasion and deception were dreaded by every young trainee.

“Toothy, the pleasure is mine,” she finally beams. “I’ve heard so much about you. Are you back from anywhere interesting?”

“Ah you’re nice, and I’m sure you’ve heard quite the mix of things from Dad about me then.” He chuckles slightly at that and goes back to glancing up and down the street, “I’m not really back from anything myself, but I *am* off to find these guys’ chicken coop. If I can remember where it was….”

He gives Sorrel a guilty look before he asks the chickens at his feet something in what can only be assumed as Chicken. There’s a few clucks in response before he looks back up to Sorrel.

“Luckily it seems these guys know the area pretty well, looks like I’m being guided by wise chickens this morning!”

Sorrel gapes. “You’re… well, right… I mean… wise chickens indeed…” her eyes search Toothy’s face for signs of mockery but find nothing. She flicks through her knowledge of and readings about drow at a fevered pace. Children of Lolth… creatures of darkness… underdark cities… poison predilection… dark magic… cutthroat politics… she gives up. Literally no mention of chickens at all.

“So, enjoy,” she smiles weakly. “Hopefully see you later?”

He nods enthusiastically before walking off down the road with the group of chickens, occasionally leaning back down to talk to them. Her eyes scan the street behind him, looking desperately for Lucan. She’s unsure how inquisitive she can be about his… she pauses again. His son? Her knowledge of Mendelian genetics is shaky but Toothy looks pretty down the line drow to her. Lucan… not so much. She keeps the smile fixed to her face and waits on her shoe sensei in the hope of some drip-fed information. There is more to this than meets the eye. And when the thing that meets the eye is a drow in a red jumper who talks to chickens, that’s saying something.

Suddenly there’s the clunk of metal locks behind her from the shop, with Lucan’s face peeking out the main door. “Sorrel you're more than on time, that's good. And I see you’ve met Toothy then.” There’s a small sigh as he pulls a chicken feather off his top. “Come inside and let’s get started for today then.”

Sorrel beams and steps inside, breathing in the sharp smell of recently cured leather, the warm haze of freshly cut wood and the soft odour of oil for tools. She finds her workspace with carefully arranged cutting tools, mat, chisel, mallet, awl, needles, hole punches and sketchbook all laid out in accordance with Lucan’s instructions. On the first day, it seemed anal and compulsive. Now it seems reassuring. A place for everything and everything in its place.

And then she hears the echo of the oath taken on the final weekend long ritual at the House academy, where those recruits that had survived the brutal training stood motionless for hours in the last bitter test, chanting the creed from dawn to dawn:

Everything has its purpose.
There is a time to be born, and a time to die.
A time to laugh; a time to dance; a time to love and a time to heal.
A time to weep; a time to mourn; a time to hate and a time to kill.
For those who serve without fear or favour there is a time for war, and a time for peace.
Both these masters serve the same.
To understand this is our duty.
There is a place for everything, and everything has a place.
We serve because we have our place.
And so, we serve until death.

Most of those who stood with her were gone, their names etched in stone in the vast hall of heroes, the words ‘they have served their purpose until death’ carved into the floor with an ancient magic that resists the passing of time and the wear and tear of a thousand passing students.

But perhaps her purpose is not found in oblivion, she thinks. Perhaps the precision of the beveller and the edge burnisher offer the ritual that she needs. Perhaps these boots are her own kind of prayer.

And so, she waits for Lucan, focussed and still, waiting to sow and reap and mend and cure. This will be the first time she has created something not destroyed. It is unfamiliar, but - she smiles - everything has a purpose and, for now, her purpose rests here. Then Lucan enters, and she feels complete.

The days pass in a series of mundane rituals. She learns how to lay out the tools, how to carve the wooden last to resemble her foot as accurately as possible, cutting and stamping the leather, marking the eyelets, stitching the pieces together, fashioning the sole and insole, attaching them with hot glue and nails, and the final stitching of welt and piping. When her training began this was a foreign language to her. As time passes, the words are as familiar to her as the carotid artery, the oberhau slash and the fistmele draw. She can identify the finest pieces of leather as quickly as she can spot a poorly protected patella tendon when aiming to cripple with a sharp downward blow.

In the evenings she leaves late and heads to a dusty practice ground for sword drills, running through the Agrippa defence, Bonetti’s attack, Capo Ferro, the four primary guards and the two secondary, the passing step and the cut to parry and cover. Or she spends a few hours at the target butts, rotating through broadhead, bodkin and barbed head arrows, with quicker and quicker pulls. Sometimes she finds a quiet bar and drinks fast and long, then returns to the practice grounds to ensure she can still deliver a killing blow.

She finds she is training later, arriving at work earlier, sometimes even sleeping beneath her worktable to avoid the inn. Shaleena is a temptation and a threat, a delight and a disaster. And Sorrel is starting to be recognised there. Her last two jobs kicked off in the main bar. This makes her uneasy. Recognition is always fatal. Perhaps not today but one day soon. She needs to disappear again, to emerge from isolation when she needs the work but spend more time here, in Lucan’s workshop, where her mission truly lies.

And then there is Lucan…

It’s late in her fourth week when she finally lets the thought drift in. There have been barely a handful of men whose approval she has sought. Admittedly, three of those she later killed. But, importantly, using techniques they had taught her. She felt sure they would have approved as they died. And now, she has found another whose praise makes her glow. She recognises this feeling and is both enchanted and revolted by it - it’s that he reminds her of her father, or perhaps he is what her father could have been.

She remembers the last time she saw her real father. It was when They came for Sorrel on her 16th birthday. She had been expecting them. For months she had been working her usual haunts, building up favours from the scum of the docks – dark and dangerous people who appreciated her speed and discretion. The rules of such transactions were always straightforward. A favour had to be repaid. It was perhaps the only rule. If you could not hold up your side of that bargain you would struggle to do business, no matter how much gold you threw around.

The day before her birthday she let it be known that she had been sold, that the deal would be concluded the following day and that accounts would have to be settled before she was taken. And then she vanished.

Her parents barely slept that night – worried about her and terrified for themselves. The House expected Sorrel in payment for a debt of such magnitude that the consequences of her failing to appear were beyond comprehension.

The shades and blades of the countless basement dockside bars also felt uneasy. These were villains of a very particular honour system. They had often relied on Sorrel’s cunning, and they knew her to be ferocious in her demands for payment. They could feel they’d been conned into something – they just couldn’t work out what.

So, at dawn the following day when the House mercenaries rode through the dock streets, they found their natural swagger slowly dissipating as shadows boiled with danger all around them. These were fighting men who knew trouble when it lurked malevolently in the darkness. And they were woefully underprepared. This had seemed a simple courier job. They were below strength and poorly armed, seeing it as little more than a jolly. They’d stopped more than once along the way to enjoy local hospitality. They were sleepy, overfed and sluggish.

The bald-headed man who rode in the dark coach that bore the House’s sable crest on black paint, visible only to those who knew how to look, was furious. Darkfire and her husband had the nerve to resist the House? His mind almost boiled with ideas for the horror he would bring upon them and their neighbours.

And then, when the coach rolled to a stop outside the Darkfire storefront, his anger turned to disbelief. The parents were outside, their faces grey. He had spent enough time with people at the limits of terror to know real fear when he saw it. There was something else afoot here and he was alarmed to find he couldn’t guess what it was.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, Sorrel stepped out of the front door with a small rucksack and a travelling case. Surprise, relief, and anger flickered across her parent’s faces before her mother started weeping. Sorrel paid them no attention, walked towards the coach and stopped a few feet from the door.

She waited.

The streets rustled with anticipation and whispered questions. Finally, the bald man blinked. He opened the door and stepped onto the cobbles.

“I am ready,” Sorrel said. “You are a little late.”

He grinned and gave a mocking bow. Breaking this one would be a pleasure.

“My apologies, m’lady, is there anything I can offer you to compensate for our unseemly delay?”

“Your dagger.”

He stood quickly and searched her face.

“I wasn’t…”

“Your dagger,” she held out her hand. “Quickly or we will be later still.”

Bemused, he pulled a knife from his boot and handed it to her hilt first. She turned away from him and surveyed the roof tops and alleyways, held the dagger high in her left hand then gripped the blade in her right and pulled the dagger down, slicing through her skin.

Blood dripped from her fingers as she clenched her fist, making tiny patterns on the road.

“There are debts outstanding,” she called out. “I will expect them to be repaid at the time and place of my choosing. My blood is token of my contract with every one of you. Do not forget me. I will not forget you.”

She turned and walked to the coach.

“Your parents?” The bald man was puzzled.

She threw her luggage onto the roof and walked the few paces back to where they huddled, looking older and smaller than she had ever seen. She spat on her bloodied palm and held her right hand out.

“My thanks for the food and lodgings,” she gave a tight smile. “The training was useful. I think this leaves us even.”

Her mother moved to hug her, but Sorrel moved faster, and shook her hand politely before turning to her father and clasping his hand in hers.

“Good luck with your next venture. Let’s hope you do better this time.”

She was in the coach before they had recovered their shock and rubbed the blood and spittle on their bedclothes. The bald man stepped in after her and sat watching her gaze out of the window as the driver whipped the horses and the mercenaries closed ranks around them, their mail and spurs jingling in the echoing streets like the horsemen of the apocalypse.

Eventually he broke the silence.

“Most recruits are more reluctant to leave their parents,” he began.

“You do this often then?” She half turned, then something caught her eye, and she returned her gaze to the window. “You are on the child collecting detail. That is an enviable posting, I’m sure. But you are mistaken. I have no parents.”

He was not in control of the situation and felt stupid, so stood and stepped forward until he towered over her.

“You would do well to treat me with more respect, Sorrel Darkfire,” he hissed. “I am your tutor, and you live and die by my word.”

Sorrel flickered and suddenly she was on the seat behind him, holding a blade to his throat.

“I am very much looking forward to learning all I can from you Sashak,” Sorrel whispered. He panicked. How did she know his name? No-one was supposed to know… “But perhaps we could begin with me teaching you something. You should always know where all your weapons are before you start threatening people. Having your throat slit by a child is even more embarrassing when it’s with your own dagger.”

She let the knife drop between his feet, the handle quivering as the blade sank into the wooden floor. He kept his eyes on her and by the time he had pulled it free she was back in her seat watching the streets roll by. He stuffed the weapon back in his boot hurriedly then cried out in pain as something bit his skin.

Sorrel turned sadly. “Do you not know your own blade?” she sighed, offering him the hilt of his dagger. “This will fit your sheath. The other is longer and heavier. Your… colleague gave it to me ten years ago. It has come in handy. You didn’t notice?”

He grabbed the knife and retreated to the furthest corner of the coach, staring furiously at this tiny demon that had taken barely an hour to destroy his morning and his pride.

Eventually he shook his head and laughed. “Sorrel Darkfire, I think you will do very well for yourself at the House,” he said. “Or you will be dead within a week.”

In the end it was the bald tutor who had died first - alone, many miles from any help when the Shadowfell gate had opened. By then Sorrel had learned to admire and even like him and she was glad he died bravely.

She shakes the thought free. The past is dead. Today is all. And today it is becoming ridiculous to keep travelling back to the Dragon when her time is needed here. She will ask Lucan to rent her a room. It is as simple as that. Something so straightforward - a simple business deal. What could be more normal?

“You alright there Sorrel?”

Lucan has noticed the strange far away looks that Sorrel has been giving more and more over the week or so of apprenticing here. A look she is certainly giving now when she’s meant to be inspecting the rounding of the leather around the toe and heel. Lucan can’t help the minute furrow of concern on his usually expressionless brow.

“Yes sir,” Sorrel instantly returns to her work. “It’s nothing. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

She sighs inwardly. This was literally the opening you were hoping for, and you bottle up as usual. Nice work Darkfire. OK, let’s do this. You’re going to have a conversation and you’re going to remember these basic rules: 1) it is not weak to ask for something. 2) it is not going to help you in the long term if you lie now. 3) this is not your father. 4) don’t kill anyone. 

“Actually, sir, I do have a bit of a… thing… that I need to sort out and I wondered if I could ask you something that, it’s not a favour, it’s a business thing, so you would end up better off at the end of the day although clearly some inconvenience but it would mean more work so that would be good and you’d never notice a thing although I imagine you might not even be able to anyway and why would you care after all because no, stupid of me, forget I asked, sorry, I’ll get on with the pattern cutting.”

There’s an awkward silence as Sorrel tries to get back to work, Lucan still standing there giving her a concerned look, “Sorrel. It’s obviously something big enough to distract you from work that I know you enjoy doing. So please, ask me what it is you actually want to ask of me.”

Sorrel gives up, turns towards Lucan and the words tumble out of her like a waterfall in spring when the ice finally thaws. “I would like to rent a room from you, Lucan, so that I can work harder and learn more. And so that I can leave the Dragon. I am… becoming known there. I prefer not to be known. In the past, it has not been good for me or for those I care for. I will pay whatever you decide is fair, I will keep my room spotless, and you will not hear me. If the room is in your house and you eat meat, I will cook for you whenever you want. All I ask is to learn from you and to train harder in everything. I must be better.” She paused. “But I should say that I enjoy your company and your concern. I am not very good at people. I am clumsy with words, and I often disappear - sometimes for work and sometimes because I need to be alone. I am… happy by myself. Some people find that odd. But I am a hard worker and if I am your friend, I will be your friend until I die.” She looked up and met his kindly eyes. “And if I am your friend there is nothing, I will not do for you, if it is within my power.”

Lucan nods slowly, taking in her words and considering them carefully, his expression not giving much away. “So, it really wasn’t nothing after all eh.” He cracks a tiny smile at that. “But Sorrel, to rent a room from me you don’t need to try and convince me of your character, as you said yourself, I would consider us friends. So, I would want you to treat this place as home, not somewhere you are only tolerated and must leave no trace. Yes, it would be good if you helped keep the place tidy, but I have no doubt you will considering how tidy you are when you work. But I'm certainly not expecting you to clean up after myself and Toothy."

He thinks deeply now, hand on chin as he looks up to the ceiling briefly like he can see the living space above him. "As for actual space, we do have a spare room which we've only been storing odd bits and old weapons in, but not much, we didn't have an excessive amount of stuff when we moved here. Wouldn't be too hard to move it elsewhere, in fact it would be a good excuse to put it all away properly."

Lucan looks to Sorrel, where she's standing in the middle of his shop, where she psyched herself up to ask him this. "If you need space, you'll get space, we're all adults here who understand. Though I will say Toothy is going to be extremely excited if you move in, he thinks you're very cool. So, a fair warning on getting questions from him."

"Talking of questions. Do you have any?"

Sorrel’s shoulders sag as Lucan inevitably refuses… wait, what? She looks up sharply and into his eyes. She sees the smile dancing in their depths and listens to his words properly. He is saying yes! she hears her own distant soul yelling in delight. Her mouth, she realises, is gaping open so she snaps it shut and briefly tries to play it cool.

“Thank you, no, thank you… I…” and then she rushes forward impulsively and throws her arms around him, briefly burying her head in his shoulder. She realises, in a flash, that this is the first time she has hugged someone outside the hurly burly of the lover’s bed since she was a child. She can feel the musty scent of leather and hard work all around her and rests her cheek on half elf’s wiry deltoid, without even a thought as to the best angle to slice into the anterior fibres when permanently disabling an opponent. For a fraction of a second, she feels she could stay there forever. But she jumps back awkwardly.

“Sorry Lucan, I’m just… it’s such good news. I’m more excited than Toothy. And yes, I know what I’m measuring myself against. Trust me. The only question I have is when? I will pay what you tell me, and I will empty the room myself and I think I could, well, would I want to have a work desk there in case an idea came to me in the night? Or perhaps just a simple mattress? Or is it best to stay flexible, maybe with a hammock…”

She stops and blushes. “The thing is, I have never had a room of my own before,” she explains awkwardly. “All I know is barracks and dorms and inns and canvas. I don’t know what people put in them.” Then she beams. “But I don’t care. I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ve done it before.”

She thrusts out her hand and puts on her business voice. “Thank you, that will be most satisfactory.”

She pumps Lucan’s hand and runs out of the workshop into the storeroom where she throws her head back as if to howl in rage, joy, pain or the thrill of the hunt. But no sound comes out, and she slowly sinks down onto a pile of hides, still sour with the smell of the tanner, and stares back into the past, trying to shut out the voices of the lost and betrayed. Can she not be allowed a few moments of exultation before the guilt comes flooding back?

Lucan is still standing in the main workshop, slightly frozen to the spot from where Sorrel hugged him and then ran off. He certainly looks stunned when Toothy and Gilda then walk in with supplies from the market, he turns to them both and says “We’ve got a new housemate, Sorrel, she’ll be staying with us in the spare room. I….” There’s a whoop from Toothy as he pumps his fist into the air with excitement, almost dropping his groceries bag on Gilda much to her annoyance. “She hugged me while saying she’s never had her own room before. I think we can all agree we’re giving her the best room we can manage right?”

Gilda and Toothy give each other serious looks, before Gilda dumps her shopping into Toothy’s arms, “I’m heading straight back to the shops then, that room is too bare bones.” Her departure met with a nod and an appreciative look from Lucan. Toothy proceeds to put all the shopping on a side counter and walks up to his dad and gives him a hug himself “I think you’ve got a knack for this, taking in lost and lonely people. But does this mean Sorrel’s okay with hugs? I never wanted to push it and invade her space, but like I’ve always wanted to give her a hug.”

Lucan chuckles softly, “Ask her yourself, she’s still in the back room. Oh, and tell her she can start staying whenever she wants to.” And Toothy does just that, leaving Lucan alone once again in the workshop. Quietly, so that only he can hear, he says to the air around him, “Lost and lonely huh, I’m just glad that’s not the case anymore.”