Solo [Windmount Stables] Mistakes Were Made.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

89th of Winter, 514.

Ever since his punch-up beyond the Rearing Stallion, a lot of things had changed. He'd stopped going out with the other squires on their few evenings out - though he wasn't sure if that counted, since he didn't have a choice. Though he could go out if accompanied by a knight to make sure that he wouldn't get into any more trouble behind Ser Iros' back, he'd rather remain at home. It was easier to forget his mistakes if he didn't have the consequences of them repeatedly being thrust into his face. It was easier to forget that they ever happened at all, in fact. He could sit back in the dorms, if there was time then he could turn his back on the city entirely and venture out beyond the walls with Xarex for company, mulling over his future.

All of that evaporated when he was sent to the other side of his punishment. Cleaning the stables. A cruel punishment to any squire; extraordinarily cruel when one couldn't even handle the tools efficiently. Smaller, Pycon-sized tools could only pick up a fraction of horse droppings, meaning that several trips had to be made for each one, taking off chunks at a time. Cleaning the straw and pulling new bales of hay for the horses was completely impossible, since they weighed far too much for the diminutive squirrel-shaped Pycon to budge with his tiny little paws. It didn't stop him from trying at the very least.

He gripped the thin string that wrapped around the package almost five times as tall as the Pycon and tugged with all his strength, but nothing came from it. He tugged even harder; same result. He even let go, walked all the way around the bale to the opposite side and gave it a sharp push with all the strength he could put into both legs and tail.. though all three gave out from underneath him long before the bale would even push an inch forwards. In frustration from the futility of it all, he even reared back a fist and tried punching it to go forwards, though after that he just felt stupid. Likely Iros did as well. The Akalak was watching everything.. making sure that the squirrel did what he was asked.

It seemed that, in light of the attack, he could no longer be trusted with anything. You two have escaped the last by the skin of your teeth and the mercy of my good graces. It certainly felt like it. Even now, the Pycon felt like he was just hanging there, by the skin of his teeth, barely grabbing at the corners of his life of squire-hood. One more slip up and he'd be gone. Worst of all, though.. he didn't really know where the next slip could come. He'd entered a paranoia that just by breathing, he'd be breaking some rule he'd never heard about before, or some special law he'd forgotten about temporarily. He didn't want to lose everything he'd worked so hard to gather, obviously - who would?

That didn't mean that he wanted to spend the next few years cowering in the corner for fear of losing it all, either. What would he be, if he spent the rest of his life in the Order struggling to just hang on to squire-ship, let alone anything that came along after that? In truth, he didn't even know whether anything would come afterwards any more. Iros was always the one lecturing Archailist about the responsibilities of a knight.. the expectations of a knight. Before he'd never paid any attention to any of it because it either didn't seem that important or the squirrel just felt like he had those qualities already and could display them when the time came for them.

Now he wasn't so sure. Liar. He knew that he didn't have any of those qualities. He didn't have a hope of becoming a knight, not now.. maybe even not before. As for how to change himself so that he may have a better chance in the future, well, that was a struggle that his nexus still couldn't grasp. Partly because he didn't even know how he'd be able to do such a thing, though partly because he wasn't sure whether he wanted to. Sure, he'd gone through more than five years preparing for the days that he would rise to knight-hood.. but if it meant sacrificing so much of himself to do so, was it worthwhile? "The hay isn't moving itself." A reminder from Iros; the Pycon had stopped even attempting to move it and now just stood silent, staring at it.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

He was in no position to argue; that wasn't going to stop him. "Yeah well, it's not moving at all then, is it." He knew how much of a stuck-up little child he sounded like at that moment, but he didn't know how quickly Iros' shadow would abruptly loom overhead with as much malice, if not more, than a horde of rampaging Yukmen. Two heavy arms stretched out, grappled the twine around the bale and hoisted it with as much ease as one would a feather-filled pillow over the gate and into the next stall over. Just reinforcing the total lack of reason for being here. It wasn't even that it smelled terrible, that it was disgusting and dirty menial work.. it was that he wasn't even fit to do that. Why couldn't they put him back to doing what he did best and leave it at that?

"Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Especially after it's saved your skin for the last time. It might just run out of patience." He'd never before seen Iros so mad that he was physically reeling himself back in again. A few times, the Akalak had lost his cool.. though that usually ended in a fit of anger, an unexpected spar, some loud and occasionally even crass words thrown around by Iros, Eyris or even both in tandem. This, obviously, wasn't that. Instead, the emotions just seemed to roll off the thick muscles of the Akalak as he didn't even continue in his rant - instead another bale of hay was lifted and tossed into the stall two down from where they stood. "It's so damn generous, it's doing your own punishment for you."

As if he should be grateful that he was stuck doing this work for the next season because he tried to save someone's life. They were supposed to be knights, weren't they? Helping innocents? Yet the moment he steps in, suddenly, he's the bad guy and ends up getting more punishment than the criminals throwing about knives in crowded streets and taverns! "Yes, thank you for putting me on stable duty, doing jobs I can't even do. Thank you for punishing me, I deserved it when I tried to break up a knife fight." He couldn't help a little bit of scorn worming its way into his tone but it wasn't even aimed at Iros. More at the couple that'd started the whole thing. It didn't matter though - he got it all back in spades.

"Oh yes, I'm sure you are! Because you'd much rather be here, cleaning up after a few horses than facing expulsion from the squirehood or more if you'd taken one more damn step." The knight was spitting, livid, enough that Arch had to take a step back for fears that the next bale of hay would be sent his way. Thank goodness there weren't any stable-hands around at the moment - must have been a break or something. "I tell you, that's exactly what would've happened. You'd be gone. Bye-bye." He even made a little mocking hand-wave. "When I think of all the things I've done for you, how hard I worked to make you a squire.. how easily it could have disappeared in a puff of smoke because you tried your luck and threw yourself into the wrong fight, as usual."

"Uh-huh, what's that supposed to mean?" His fists were tightening but the tension in the air was becoming overwhelming.

Iros drew closer, throwing both arms in the air carelessly. "It's supposed to mean that you always get into these types of trouble. You think you're much more than you actually are and you throw yourself into fights that you either shouldn't be in, or you flat-out can't win. Then, it's me that has to run in and drag you out again." He could remember the Yukmen fights now.. that girl, Katelyn and her stolen cows that he'd tried to take on and nearly ended up stranded or captured. "You get over-excited. Violent to the extreme. It's a bad habit. It's unfitting in a knight."