The Isbjørn

Thirty

After three days in the mountains, the party of three returned with the vague certainly that the Dodvanti lurking over Landers Weir had come alone. Daire's troubles with the race was only just beginning.

When Sri emerged from her room at five the next morning she found Daire exactly where she had left him the previous night. His eyes were focusing in and out on the papers splayed before him on the low table. Nothing looked like it had been moved since Sri had seen it last, but it all looked the same to her. The maps, the writing, everything was written in some archaic language she could not make two ends of.

"Daire?"

His head turned in her direction, but it took his eyes an extra moment to follow. "What's up?"

"Did you ever get to bed?"

"No." His eyes switched upward to the clock slowing counting down the minutes into the next hour. "I kinda lost track of time." His eyes fell back on the pages.

Sri kept careful watch over his eyes. It did not look much like he was reading, his eyes did not sweep over the page like they should have. Instead, his eyes were fixed over one spot where they would dart away after a few long seconds before returning. She saw there was no point in trying to pry him away. Sri pulled up a wooden chair and took a seat across the table from him.

"Well, what do you have so far?"

"Nothing really, at least, nothing beyond what you could tell me about these maps."

Sri had put her map-ster prowess to use upon seeing the hand made relief and contours in the Dodvanti's cave. She had recognized the ports to the far North in the Saeva Empire and identified trails along into Unionem Netat, but nothing more the an amateur map reader could have made out. Symbols were placed along the maps, symbols similar to the ones over the numerous journals that Daire had slaved over for at least nine hours in total.

"Nothing at all?" After nine hours she thought he might have started teaching himself the language somehow, but that would mean admitting it was a language in the first place.

Daire pulled his eyes away from the papers to stare up at the ceiling. The architecture of the hotel was truly something to admire. Aside from the hulking door up front, the building was very sturdy, between the bare-bones rafters over head, to the very couch he sat on. The hotel seemed Isbjørn proof and Daire had never felt so at home.

It was undeniable that his first two days in the town had been rough. The back room of Stone's Row had been an unsettling turn of events and facing off with a Dodvanti certainly was not his idea of a good time. But Daire's idea of home was entirely warped. Home did not necessarily mean safety; Iaran'talamh had been anything but safe. Home was where his kind were and Landers Weir held no shortage of maltecessor. But it was also Sri... and Jane. He had found something that mattered to him, something worth protecting. He was beginning to understand just why beast-folk settled in Landers Weir.

"Hey, Sri?" His eyes remained up at the ceiling. As much as he liked to look at her, he could not stand the way she was gauking at him. Pity, saddness- he did not want her feeling sorry for him.

"Yeah?"

"What's this place called anyway?"

"The hotel?"

"Yeah."

The Elder had named it. Decades ago he'd had a sign made but the ugly thing was deemed unsuitable for the hotel, so he had tossed it in the back with the intention to make one himself. He had never gotten to it and after some time the hotel had simply become The Hotel to the residence of Landers Weir and it's original name became a thing of trivia.