 Spring, 31st, Year 513
The flickering light of the candle was the only moving part in the room. Everything else seemed to be dead still. The candle didn't have much light left as it sputtered and flickered at the end of the wax. Suddenly, another part of the room moved. Ronan groaned as he battled to open his eyes. His arms were stretched out over the desk, one dangling off the edge. His head was resting on top of a large piece of parchment, which covered almost the entire desk, to the side of it were multiple quills and pieces of charcoal lying around. Ronan jerked up, sitting upright in his chair. He blinked and looked around as if he had suddenly appeared here and had no idea where he was. He blinked a few times more before he lifted his hands up to his eyes and rubbed them, groaning slightly. With a yawn, he stretched himself before collapsing on the desk again. "Damn" He mumbled a little to himself, nothing really coherent, and sat up again with a loud sigh.
Reaching for the desk drawer, Ronan pulled out another candle, holding the wick against the last flickering light of the old candle. New light filled the room as Ronan held the candle up. Looking around he found himself in a room with shelves of books and scrolls against the walls. Whatever part of the wall had not been shelved had maps hanging all around him. Ronan replaced the candles, moving the old one to the side and putting the new candle in the holder. Steady light filled the room as Ronan leaned back over the chair, cracking his back and groaning once more. There was another bout of groaning and mumbling as Ronan tried to get his brain to wake up enough to continue. With Ronan not lying on top of the large piece of parchment it revealed the drawings on it. The map was far from finished, but every time someone was here, it was added on to, mapping out more parts of the ice outside of Avanthal's docks.
Ronan groaned and slapped himself, trying to wake up. "Ouch" Ronan sat up straight and rubbed his cheek, leaving a black ink stain on his skin. From the desk he took up a piece of charcoal ending in a thin spike, allowing him to draw thin lines and small details. Resting his head in his free hand, Ronan added ink fingerprints to his forehead. For a moment, Ronan found himself staring at one of his sketches, his mind empty of any and all thought. Then he suddenly jumped up and blinked, looking at the parchment again. Slowly but surely he started to draw, adding the details from the parchment to the big map in front of him. There were pieces of ice all over the right side of the map, drawn by Ronan's predecessors, drawn in different styles and with different levels of detail. Whoever had started the map had drawn the most detailed coastline Ronan had ever seen and none of the others had come close to his level of detail, although most of them were obviously far more skilled than Ronan.
As his mind started to make its way through the cloud of sleep, Ronan started to draw. With a glance at the map he could see he had been working on a piece of ice, already calculated in place but only the bare minimum shape had been drawn, then the picture had suddenly stopped, probably the point where Ronan had fallen asleep. Slowly but surely, Ronan managed to set himself to work again, copying the sketch from his own notes onto the larger piece of parchment. His mouth barely shut itself as he was in a constant state of yawning, trying to air his brain so it would wake up and function properly. The tip of charcoal moved over the parchment. Ronan looked at the map, trying to find the right number to see if there were any notes linked to the chunk of ice he was drawing. He had to read it twice more after he finished in order for his sleepy brain to take in the information. The ice had been quite high but nothing else stood out.
Ronan drew a nice peak to the ice, adding some minor details to it, some shadow behind it. All in all it was a decent addition to the map, although it came nowhere near the drawn details of his predecessors. Ronan groaned and yawned and bent over the map once more, continuing his work. His eyes flicked constantly between his own notes and the final map, making sure everything was up to scale and the distances were correct. The small scale in the bottom right corner was more than helpful. Halfway through the next block of ice, Ronan's eyes closed once more and he had to force himself to stay awake, pulling his eyes open once more. With a sigh, Ronan pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to simply will himself to stay awake and adding two more ink stains to his skin. With another half-asleep mumble, Ronan pushed himself up from his chair, swaying a little on his feet.
With the candle in hand, Ronan stumbled his way through the room, making sure to keep one arm stretched out towards the wall in case his body felt like falling. He felt so tired. It had been a long time since he had done an all nighter, although the few hours of sleep didn't really make it an all nighter. He made his way, quietly, through the hallways of Coolwater hold, his temporary employer. With the darkness and his sleepy mind, Ronan had to turn back multiple times before he finally found the cold outside. And it woke him up in an instant. As Ronan opened the door to the outside, the cold swept right past his clothes and straight into his bones. The door was quickly closed again. The shock of the cold had restored Ronan's mind and he quickly wrapped his cloak around him and pulled his hood up over his head. The candle had gone out. Putting it aside, Ronan opened the door again and began his walk through the snow and wind, using what little light there was around him to find his way back to his room in the Savintar Warrens. |
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by Ronan Dugal on May 30th, 2013, 2:50 am 
