Makers

Breakfast

The young traveler left his cozy loft with its oh so comfortable bed and worked his way down the spiral stairway to the inn's common room. After taking a quick look around the big room he took a seat at the lovingly maintained bar. The place was old, but very well cared for and the visitor felt quite welcomed by the ambiance. The place had been quite raucous the night previous and the young man appreciated the different feel of the place without the music and singing and drunken people jostling him about.

He set his treasured Wick on the bar in front of him and activated one of the livelier displays he had discovered. He had stopped carrying it in his new purse, a quite serviceable alternative to his previous ostentatious one. The innkeeper's kindly wife has provided it to him but the children in this city were simply terminally clumsy. He had been required to recover his Wick twice yesterday from panicky children who had thoughtlessly grabbed onto his purse as they fled the screams of market vendors. Out of expediency his serviceable purse now sat on the tiny table in his room above and he carried his Wick inside his tunic when it wasn't out performing for him.

"Cook don't open the kitchen until close to mid-day, son." This came from further down the bar, where its tender vigorously rubbed an imagined stain off of his precious artifact. "Though the bread's baking so I can likely snag a loaf, if you distract Cook for me. Usually there'd be some scrapings left but she's already secured the tun."

With the last statement he pointed a rag-covered hand to the small hearth that centered the inn's common room. A little fire burned cheerily along, awaiting more fuel and a vast tun of water, plus one rock, to start this evening's communal meal. The soup started life each noon with its traditional first ingredients - water and a common rock. Cook would then throw in her garden scraps and greens and others would add to the pot throughout the day as they arrived. The soup would change flavor and heartiness through the night as people added to it and consumed it. The level in the pot would gradually recede through the night until only a bowl's worth remained. That would then be scooped out, along with the rock, and shared across the room.

Once all had had a chance to taste the same stone soup, they would then comment upon the soup of the day, share a hearty toast, and those not staying would depart the inn. The tun in question was indeed missing from the hearth, no doubt at this very moment undergoing a thistle-brush debridement under Cook's none too gentle ministrations.

"I couldn't ask you to risk life and limb for me, good sir" the youth replied. "You have already given largess with last night's supper and that wonderful bed to sleep on."

"To be honest it wasn't simple kindness, son" the man paused his attack against his imagined stainy enemy and looked at the young man. A good enough looking fellow. Perhaps a bit goofy in his features. Certainly younger looking than he acted, and with an impossibly bright outlook that was as refreshing as it was infectious.

He smiled at his new boarder. "Though you're easy enough to do kindnesses for, I'll grant you that." He returned to his polishing as he continued speaking. The brief lull in his assault on the phantom stain being a realignment of his assault and certainly not a cease-fire.

"Your light show brings in custom. Better custom than we've been getting, too. More like the folk we used to get in before this Pellian Inquisition messed with everything. So long as you keep up that show you're more blessing than burden."

"Well then" the youth responded, as he bounded out of his chair and began walking towards the frightening unknown of the kitchen. "That really makes it the best barter it could be. Everybody wins." He had by this time reached the kitchen door, a door solely and exclusively used by Cook and her minions, and grasped its handle.

"Careful, lad" the innkeeper said. "She's in my employ, not under my control. She's stabbed people for filching. Maybe lob a few potatoes at the hanging pots to distract her."

"Oh, don't worry" replied the youth. "I'll just ask her, I'm sure she'll give me something. I really need to eat."

The youth emerged a few minutes later, cold pie in his pocket and hot loaf of bread in his hand. He picked up the Wick from its place at the bar and tucked it carefully into his tunic. If it didn't sit right it jabbed him. He was very excited to be off and had to reposition it after misplacing it in his initial haste. Finally he had it in an unstabby position and strode to the inn's exit.

"Goodbye, sir, and thank you again for the services you have gifted me" he called back.

"Are you not coming back, lad?" the innkeeper asked. "You're quite welcome, as I've said."

"Oh, I fully intend to. That means I probably won't make it back here. It works out that way most times. Please thank your wife again for the purse. I've left it upstairs as I've unfortunately been unable to use it comfortably. Somebody should give the children of this city dancing lessons. It could help greatly with their clumsiness."

The young man turned and sauntered out of the inn with a last wave backwards. He was very excited about his search today. He had remembered something, just maybe, when he was gazing at his Wick late into the night. Something teasing and familiar that might unlock a memory of his betrothed. Now he just had to go to this place he'd thought of that might be familiar and see if it guided him to a lost memory. It shouldn't be difficult to find an Elodite Church either. There were Elodites everywhere these days.