A Smile Remembered (for Galon)

[Tieg]

Tieg awoke feeling well rested. He was smiling as he curled his arms around the furry kitten who had slept the night away on his chest. It purred uproariously and made him want to pet it more but he knew the little thing would need something to eat so he scooped it up and laid it down in the rumpled blankets so that he could dress and then carried it down to breakfast with him cupping it against his chest.

He had a very serene mindset that morning as if his mother was smiling on him. He thought it might be the cat's fault. Little Esani was such a sweet cat.

He wasn't certain Galon had anything in the house for the cats to eat so he wondered if he should let the kitten free out near the barn or if he should hunt around in the kitchen.

He set the kitten down on the countertop and started stirring around in the cupboards. In the meantime the kitten climbed into the middle of a sticky cake in an effort to catch a buzzing fly. Tieg was too busy digging in the pantry to see.

[Galon]

Conner came bounding into the kitchen scaring the little kitten, she hissed at Conner, which made Conner start to bark back, causing a racket in the kitchen.

Galon came in, low riding black pants, a white shirt in his hand and barefooted. He chuckled at the site and then said, “Down Conner, be nice.” The dog turned and looked back at Galon, and wagged her tail, he went to the back door and opened it for Conner to go out.

He leaned on the counter and put his shirt on, “there is some fish scraps in the icebox, I got then yesterday as a treat for the cats in the barn, but you are welcome to use it on your little girlfriend there.” He pushed his head through the shirt and smiled at Tieg, “I take it you slept well?”

[Tieg]

Tieg set down the armful of things he was moving aside to peek into the back of the pantry. Girlfriend?

Why was it Galon always managed to say the wrong thing? His smile wilted. The man didn't have the decency to dress in his room either. He was so common.

He pivoted on his foot and moved to the ice box to peer around in there thankful that the dog was no longer antagonizing the kitten, though, from the looks of things, the cat was going to have a hard time cleaning the sticky cake out of its fur.

He removed a section of the fish scraps leaving the rest for Galon to give the other cats and set it down near the kitten right on the counter.

"Well enough." He said in a tight-lipped way.

A moment later he nearly licked his fingers before realizing that--eww--that was not a good idea. Instead he washed his hands. His thoughts were all over the place.

"What can I eat?" He asked, trying to sound polite but probably coming off as demanding or rude in some other way. "Will Lord Rune be coming for the horses again today?" For some reason that notion didn't bother him quite so poignantly anymore.

[Galon]

Galon looked down and noticed that his shirt, was inside out, so he pulled it off and was turning it back right side out. “There is some bacon in the icebox, and eggs, I could cook then up for us?” He moved over closer to Tieg his shirt still in his hand, and placed an arm around Tieg to look for the eggs.
“As Lord Rune, he should be here sometime this morning for the second breeding.” Galon turned his head toward Tieg, “now why would you be wondering that? I mean I thought you and Lord Rune were not on the best of terms?”
At this point in time a soft voice could be heard, and as Galon turned to look, there stood Marri, a girl that came in to clean and wash a few days a week, and with her was a very well dressed priest from the Temple.
Galon smiled and put his shirt on and walked over to the priest.
Marri just curtsy and left, her job done.
The priest held out an envelope to Galon, and said, “I am to await an answer.”
Galon opened it, read it, and then smiled, “of course we will be glad to welcome Master Morlock, but tell him it might be better if he came here for lunch, so that he may see firsthand how our little Tieg is doing. We will dine around one.”

He handed the note back and the priest bowed to Tieg, and then turned and left. Galon smiled at Tieg seems that the Reverend Mother’s own private scribe will be joining us for lunch.”

[Tieg]

Tieg liked the looks of the messenger. He was dressed properly and had a crisp demeanor. That was the sort of person he preferred to be associating with, not the messy, shirtless orange-haired Galon. So when he heard that they were going to be visited by someone from the temple he nearly jumped up and down with excitement the way that the younger ones tried not to when in Esani's care. Sometimes they had to suppress their excitement so that they could maintain appearances. They still did it sometimes, especially when Esani was not expecting them all to be in a straight line.

He smiled, plainly. If someone from the temple was coming to see him, then that could only be a good thing. It meant he would be on his best behavior.

"Eggs are fine. No bacon." Tieg replied lightly. He scooped up the sticky kitten. "I need to clean up little Esani. She's gotten all messy." And then he would need to comb his hair and wear something that didn't make him look he belonged at the stable. In his mind Galon was already superfluous. The days of struggle and fighting, the screaming and frustration were soon to be over and he would easily chalk it up to a bad few days. It would feel good to be back to his old self again.

[Galon]

Galon just smiled at how Tieg was acting, “I am surprised you are not jumping up and down for joy, and it is a pity you left your new robes on the beach.” He chuckled.
Taking the eggs from the icebox, “if you like you may skip the horse breeding and Lord Rune and go to the market place to buy you something to wear, that is if you like?”
Galon felt he could get the breeding done, talk to Rune, and then take a bath, clean up and put on his good clothes.
He pulled a pan out of the cupboard and got the lard out, and put them on the stove. “But you will need to hurry if you want a bath before this Master Morlock shows up.” He cracked the eggs with ease.
Galon was trying to be nice, he knew how important this was to Tieg, and he also knew he would no doubt be crying by the day’s end when he was resigned to remain with Galon once more.

[Tieg]

Tieg brightened? "Could I? That sounds like a good idea, but I would be fast. I think I could be back in time to help." He might have been acting optimistic about his ability to move across town but he seemed to genuinely believe it. "I do need to give Esani a bath though. I'll do that first."

He barely finished his sentence before he was disappearing to carry it out. Galon might not have even heard him say it. He hoped that there would be breakfast soon though. By the time he had the cat clean he would be ready to eat and then he would want to leave right away.

He took the cat outside, found an old pail which he filled with water and using an old sponge, cleaned the little cat off just like a mother cat would. She was still a little damp but she shook herself dry and didn't seem to mind the entire procedure all that much. He dried her off a bit more before curling her against him. By now her little claws had dug tiny marks into his shoulder but he didn't care.

He went back to his room to get what remained of his meager savings to buy something from the cloth market after breakfast. He could already smell the eggs cooking. He may as well have been wearing the kitten when he strode back down into the kitchen. He had a small bag with his money in it and the cat lazing about his shoulders looking a bit poofy after having been cleaned up.

He helped himself to some eggs off a plate that Galon had prepared and promptly dug in. "You are a marvelous cook." He observed after a few bites.

[Galon]

Galon flopped down and scooped some eggs up as well, and put them on his plate.
“I had to learn to cook in self defense or at least that is what my grandmother told me, since she said my sister’s cooking would kill a roach.” He laughed at the memory of being in the kitchen with his grandmother, learning out to cook using just the right herbs and such. Also he was joking about Cat’s cooking, but since she seemed to always be busy, he ended up cooking for everyone it seemed.

“Before I forget,” he got up and went to the cupboard and came back and tossed a small leather pouch at Tieg. “Your wages for the month, I thought you might need them.”
He started to eat once more, pausing to pour himself and Tieg some hot tea, which he put about eight teaspoons of sugar into.

“So… I was thinking about lunch as I will need to buy something, I could get some peanut butter spread and bread… some pickles… “ he was of course teasing, “unless you can think of what a scribe of the temple might like?”

[Tieg]

Tieg brightened, tucking the money away with the rest of what he had. He was fairly certain he had enough to buy something passable. It wouldn't be the sort of fanciness that Esani favored but it would make him respectable, at least in his own mind.

He made a face when Galon started talking about peanut butter. "Tea, less sugar, simple foods are fine but father Esani used to go all out depending on who was coming to visit. If it was someone important he would have rare eggs, marinated fish and complicated pastries. I've been living in the temple for more than a year now though and I've never even tasted some of those things. I'm certain as long as it is not some sort of forbidden food you could feed him almost anything."

He shrugged, quite happy that he was not involved in the food preparation. It was one thing Galon would have to fuss over at the last minute unless he had one of his minions attend to it. Tieg hadn't seen any of them in the kitchen though so it seemed like lunch was all on the orange haired stable owner.

Tieg had not really thought about what they would eat for lunch. He was fairly certain Galon's cooking would do. It wasn't as if the scribe was anticipating dining in luxury or anything. It was better to let the place be true to what it was than to pretend it was something it was not. There was irony in that notion since Esani had so often gone out of his way to pretend that things were not what they really were.

[Galon]

Galon looked at Tieg for a moment and set his fork down.
“All right then, I will have Marlon and Trygust take care of the breeding today, and I will open the dining room, break out the good crystal and go to the market and find something special for your guest, I mean we do want to impress him do we not? I mean he should see how nice a place you are staying, right?”

He took a sip of his tea, and thought to himself that there was no way he was cutting back on the sugar in his tea.
“I will even take out my black suit, that should impress him, and we will have Marri serve as well.”
Galon was sure this would make Tieg happy, having the place fixed up for this guest special guest.
He took another sip of his tea, and could not resist, “so what kind of person is this Trans Morlock, and do you think I might have a chance….”