The Isbjørn

Fifteen

SRI RETURNED WITH GREY PANTS
littered with patches of miscellaneous color and off-print. The shirt was well worn, short sleeved and coarse to the touch. It looked like she had held up a straw man for all he had. He muttered a thanks and slipped into the clothing.

When he opened the door, he suprised to find himself disappointed that she was not there waiting for him. Daire pulled the door shut behind him with a click and moved down the hall after the only apparent resident in the entire town.

She was not lingering anywhere in the hall and the front room was vacant of any souls. Daire noticed the plate of discarded bones had disappeared from the tall table by the hall entrance. Tenacious grunts drew his attention to the front entrance where Sri was wrestling with the collapsed door.

"Can I help?"

"No," came her quick and lightly defensive reply. "I think I got it."

The entire ordeal was a spectacle of heaving and repositioning as she all but circled around the fallen door in an attempt to find the ideal position and grip and heave it from the ground.

Daire could only bare to watch for so long. "Is there someone around who I can get? A maintenance guy maybe?"

"Nope, just me." She rose, dusting off her hands. The door had not budged despite her efforts. "I've been running this place on my own since The Elder died three years ago."

It was an mysterious title that demanded some type of background story. "The Edler?"

"He was just really old, kinda crotchety." Her eyes ran over the object that defeated her.

Daire found it obnoxious that an inanimate object was finding the attention he desired from the alluring woman by being nothing but hindersome. He stepped down from the doorway and took on the task himself.

In a display of aggressive masculinity, he took to the door. With two large hands around either side, Daire pulled the heavy oak a foot off the ground and leaned it against the hotel wall and went on to play off the action as nothing.

"He didn't mind the nickname?" He wasn't even winded.

She made a point not to look impressed. Sri knew very well what Isbjørn were capable of doing, lifting a big door was not doing to drawn so much of an eyelash flutter from her. "It started as a joke until everyone was in on it. After a while, it just stuck."

So there were others around. Yet, the grounds were no more active than a cemetery. For whatever reason, Sri was the only person around. He thought it best to perhaps pay his dues and head out after a solid night's rest before whatever dark secret came to light— even if Sri was the most beautiful woman he had ever had the pleasure of holding a conversation with.

"So how much do I owe you?"

She broke in a short chortle of sarcastic laughter. "Nobody pays."

"But I have money."

Sri blew a stray strand of hair away from her left eye. Her calloused hands fell in loose fists on her well rounded hips. "Fine, you want to pay?" Her light eye brows tucked into her trying forehead. "It's seventy garring for the night and thirty for the meal."

He knew he had at least that much, but it was the majority of his savings. On his first night alone he would be losing at least a year's worth of earnings.

"I'm not taking your money," Sri pledged with a half smile after catching his hesitation. "But if you insist on payment, how about helping me around the hotel a bit? Getting this door back on for starters."

His eyes switched from her to the door and back again. "You're not reattaching this door."

"You're right." Sri disappeared back into the hotel returning with a tool box that she lugged awkwardly between her two arms like a pendulum at her knees. She dropped it at his feet. "Here's your first job."