Lords above this knot in Danny's back was absolutely killing him. Thank god Alric's family didn't skimp on the medicine. Woke up with nary any stiffness, much less a bruise. The real issue was having to contort himself to both have an ear towards Ms. Joyfield and an eye on Joan. Oh, Joan. He could tell this was the one that was meant to be, she was just so much prettier than her sister. Danny shook himself. Now was not the time for idle thoughts. Danny had a plan to make.
To give the plan its due credit Danny made his way to where all good, wise decisions were made. A pub. Specifically, the old tavern where Mom worked, The Squeaky Hinge. It wasn't really a great place, situated in the… well… slums of Northrend. Which was a mighty impressive feat considering the size of the city, though it barely even qualified for the title. Northrend stood in middle of nowhere along the northern coast of Cyruth, saved only by its port. Whenever the blasted thing decides to open that is. Stays too cold up here for Danny's liking, and the ocean seemed inclined to agree. Freezing over every winter and locking the city dwellers in this Lord forsaken town for three months. Should've been born in the southern Faiwer Sea. Danny heard that place was a warm spring day all year round, but no, his Mom just had to settle down in this blasted pit of irrelevance.
At least it used to be relevant, but that was back before Crossway was established. So, a millennium ago. Way to be with the times Mom. Now it’s used as a pit stop by those few merchants that sell along the equally irrelevant eastern coast of Cyruth.
Danny couldn't really blame her; not like she was ever wealthy or powerful enough to get a ride out of here with Dad in tow. She just rolled up her sleeves and made do with whatever she could. Probably could've gone lighter on the siblings if they knew they'd be without coin, five just seems excessive. Then again, he wouldn't be here if they did, would he?
First, he needed to make sure he walked his sister home from school. Danny was already in deep for not taking her home yesterday. Lords above, not like Jov wasn't old enough to be able to find her way home. She was only three winters younger than Danny after all.
Danny released a frustrated sigh, again he should stop focusing his anger on Mom, he was just as angry at himself for getting swept up in the mood of last night after the fight. Didn't even think about anything beyond Alric and his own safety. Still, Jov didn't have to tattle on him like a child. Even if she was one. Oh, speak of the Poisoner.
There his sister stood, in front of a doorway into her classroom idly shifting from foot to foot, whistling a tune. She was the picture of naive innocence, with hair that did little more than touch the tips of her ears in its short fashion, framing her freckled face and button nose. Danny always hated that Jov insisted on being like her brothers, even down to the hair. At least it was blonde like their mothers, rather than the pitch black of their father Danny had to dye away. Together they shared the family's green eyes that garnered no exception from even his parents for whatever reason. She continued her boyish trend by forgoing the dresses of the other girls her age and instead wore Danny's old tunic and breeches. Well, they were Josh's hand-me-downs to Danny but still.
"Hey Jov, we gotta go," Danny called out, not bothering to slow done or even really approach his bubbling parasite. He had things to do and people to see. Who those people where and what exactly he'd be doing was beyond Danny, but he certainly wasn't going to waste their time by stalling. Danny did make sure to sneak a glance behind him to see if Jov got the message. Turns out she didn’t. Danny already felt the stress build behind his brow, she was nearly as bad as Alric. “Joveta Broom! Mom is going to be mad at us if we’re not home before David sets off for work, so come on and move it!” Oh, that did the trick, though Danny didn’t like how eerily like Mom he sounded.
Jov was still as cheerful as ever, practically skipped in circles around him as they made their way towards the house. It was a slow, meandering process as Jov insisted on greeting every vendor and shopkeeper along the way. Danny didn’t have the heart to tell her that most of those grizzled men that sold her honey rolls were dangerous criminals. He’d leave that one to Josh, they are his men to begin with.
Just as Danny was on the verge of collapsing from sheer irritation, they finally made it to the Broom residence. It was a vastly different experience from the Ironforge house, instead of a gravel path beyond an iron gate, it was a series of winding trash filled alleys that wound behind a cobbler who only made his money from the neighborhood. The house itself was adorned with the cracks and peeling paint of a building falling into ruin. Quite frankly looked like a big shack compared to Alric’s mansion. The front door always stuck, so Danny had to throw his meager weight behind it. He always loved that door, made him feel safe.
“David, we’re home!” chimed Jov as she wasted no time squeezing past Danny in the doorway. It was a central room that was a kitchen, a dining room, and a sitting room all at once. David lazed about in the wooden rickety chair, his gambeson serving as the closest thing to a cushion in the house. David was always the responsible one of the family. He was tall and thin, never developing even an ounce of muscle despite all his exercising as part of the Riverfrost guard. Any food he ate seemed to only make him taller. He wore his black hair in the standard disciplined fashion with the emerald green eyes of their family. Upon seeing them David marched right over to them only pausing to straighten his clothes that were never in disorder to begin with.
"About time. I didn't want to be the one to break it to Mom you weren't home in time two days in a row," David said with the warm frustration only an older brother could muster, "Thanks for watching over him Jov, hope he didn't get you into trouble." David said with a smile, even finished his sentence by ruffling her hair. Why did Jov get the friendly David? He practically treated Danny like Josh, and David hated Josh.
David was quickly out of the door and on his way to his shift. He only came by because Mom asked him to confirm that Danny was home. David of course immediately agree because that was just the David-y thing to do. Now, Danny just needed to get rid of Jov, and he'd be free to plan away the afternoon. That meant he needed someone to watch Jov. Lords above, Danny needed to get a favor from Josh.
Jov had already settled down in the chair David vacated, reading some book she brought home from school. Danny headed upstairs to the bedroom he shared with Josh and Ran when he was home. It was pitch black in the tiny room, standing with thick woolen curtains that Josh "acquired" from somewhere, cramped with the three minuscule beds with straw mattresses. On the furthest lumpy bed was an even bigger lump that grumbled at the light leaking in from the hall.
"Josh watch Jov for me and I'll owe you a favor." Danny said quickly before Josh could realize he was angry. It did the trick as almost instantaneously a bleary, messy haired Joshua stood before him. If David was the responsible one, then Josh was the fun one. Josh was graced with a slender demeanor, but rather than growing like a weed, he was just of average height. It seemed like Josh cut every single part of his body not used in fighting away, leaving only wry toughness about him. Matched with his predatory eyes and messy long blonde hair he seemed like an alley cat that had to fight for every scrap he got. Which wasn't far from the truth, considering his line of work in the Icicle Syndicate.
"Deal. Now tell me what happened to you yesterday," Josh said with a smirk. Danny honestly should've expected this, Josh was hounding him last night for why he got back so late.
"Can’t I just pay you a few hills? Ugh, fine. You can't do anything about it anyways. I got into a fight with Bruno and his cronies. Afterwards Alric and I went to his house to patch ourselves up."
Josh stood there frozen for a moment, toying with the copper hill between his knuckles while waiting for his brain to catch up and say something he considered clever. "Wait, you're telling me you got into a fight with that little hooligan? What was her name Danny?"
"Who's name?"
"The girl's name, Danny. What does she look like?"
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Danny was baffled. He felt he should be offended that his brother immediately assumed there was a girl involved. Really, Danny was more just impressed he guessed the truth. Danny was even more irritated by that smug look Josh had plastered on his oh so very punchable face. Why did he agree to tell this knobhead the truth?
With a sigh, Danny realized he wasn't getting out of this now that Josh had him. "Look it was over me writing a poem to Abigail Pine. Bruno used it as an excuse to beat me up just to get back at Alric for some noble nonsense. Don't bother standing up for me, the Demoness is already eager in that front. That good enough? I want to go tell Mom I'm back in time."
"Don't say I never do anything for you Danny. The Demoness you said? I know some let's say associates that could use that little tidbit..." Josh trailed away as he pondered how his bosses could make money out of this. Danny turned to leave and nearly made it to the stairs before a rather unsubtle whistle made him look back towards his brother.
Josh somehow managed to look even more intimidating than usual, leaning against the open bedroom doorway. He was bathed in the shadows of the room, with the occasional glimmer of light peering through the inky film, leaving only two malevolent green orbs. However, all that was lost on Danny who was staring at the roughly bound parchment journal. Lords above he would knock Josh right onto his arse if he had the chance right now. A man just doesn't look through another's scheme journal.
Silently and with reddened cheeks, Danny snatched the journal from Josh's hands, sent him the dirtiest look he could muster. That only encouraged the rotter he shared parents with. Crafting all manner of horrendous insults in his head, Danny dashed down the stairs and out the door, trying futilely to outrun the embarrassment.
At least Danny's feet knew the way to the tavern on their own. The Squeaky Hinge was much like its name implied, a dull rusted affair that was exactly as worn down as every other place in the slums. Over the loose cobble and rotten boards was a half-hearted attempt at painting over the damage with vanity, like those "sisters" Josh brought back home occasionally, before kicking Danny out of their room. Annoyingly, the door never squeaked when opened, the owner had gotten so fed up with the pub's namesake over the years that he made sure it was well greased.
"You better start explaining why you're here Daniel and not at home watching your sister before I get the spoon and give you a reason to stay home." Ah, how good it feels to be loved. The commanding voice was somehow tensed every part of Danny's body and relaxed his heart at the same time. His mother was as tough and grizzled as the bar around him. That wasn't to say Mom was a physically strong woman, just that she had a gaze that could break even the deadliest of thugs into a cold sweat at a hundred yards. Especially the thug Danny shared a room with. Mom was almost identical to Jov, but where his sister was youthful and boyish, she held her blonde hair down her shoulders, with a loose braid keeping it out of her face. Her clothes were a soot stained apron over a neat but worn dress, marking her as a barkeep like in so many of those stories Alric just went on and on about.
The tavern floor was mostly empty, with the noticeable lump of Dad on one end of the bar, already half-awake through the veil of inebriation. Danny just never understood what Mom saw in him, but he did know she took this job just so they wouldn't have to pay Dad's tab. That would probably bankrupt half of Northrend. Mr. Copper was nowhere to be seen, probably having a nap in one of the rooms that were never occupied upstairs. The floorboards proved an interesting pattern of various colored stains accumulating over the years covering the original yellow of pine. The clatter of a cupboard opening alerted him back to the present.
Danny knew the woman wasn't joking around. He was just enjoying not being covered with uncomfortable welts. The words rushed out of his mouth with the force of a gale, "Mom, I wouldn't dare leave Jov alone, I got Josh to watch her so I could have a bite here. Honest"
A snort signaled the stop to potential doom. Mom looked at Danny from the cabinet was previously arming herself with, "So you told Josh about your little scuffle. Would've expected you to ask David for help before going to him when he refused. Lords above, why couldn't I have had sensible children? Fine, I'll get you some meat and beans."
Danny really felt like he should get used to having his head scatter in the wind with how often it happened lately but right now he was terrified that his mother could read thoughts like Lord Discovery, and he was scared she could read all his thoughts. Danny paled further.
"Wa-wait! How did you know?" Danny whimpered.
"Erin told me you dimwit," salvation called from the kitchen.
He would need to pray doubly hard for retribution against the Demoness this Fatesday or pray at all for that matter. Freeing himself clear of his leaden thoughts, Danny took a seat at a table in the commons floor. Now was not the time to plot revenge, but to plot for the future instead. Taking out his worn parchment notebook, Danny flipped open to a mostly empty page and began to write out what he knew. Ms. Joyfield explained that all elevated achieved their strength by having internalized the essence of something. To internalize an essence, one must first be in repeated contact with the energy to begin with, familiarizing themselves with the ins and out in various insights. Once you instinctively know enough disparate insights into an essence they all crystallize into an instinct in one moment called internalization. Finally to achieve a transformation essence, one must repeatedly try and temper that instinct, bringing it into the conscious mind.
Okay, Danny could work with this. There were a few problems though. One, after someone internalized the first essence they are bathed in the energy of the world, making it impossible to practice any other domain. Two, many don't achieve the level of insight required to trigger that first internalization, which is why some ancient emperor centuries ago decided to use a concoction on all people attending a Nameday ceremony to forcibly trigger an internalization for the essence they were most familiar with, thus Broom for his father who was working part time as a shop keep assistant before his Nameday. So, if Danny wanted to avoid this pitfall he needed to spend every second of every day practicing one thing to increase his chances of a good essence, just like Alric always complained of doing. Danny also needed to ensure he chose something that would solve their status problem, as Danny refused to be the dead weight when he and Alric went off to the army, as was required by the Ironforge family to maintain their knight-ship. That was his ticket out of this Lord-forsaken place. What to do... what to do?
Danny couldn't help but scratch the back of his head as he stared down at the now filled page, unable to arrive at a solution of what could possibly be able to make him prestigious to the nobility but also accessible to his Hill-less pockets? "Oh, really tied the rope around your neck huh boy" wafted the putrid stench first to his nose then to his ears; which may or may not have made Danny jump and squeal just a tad. Turns out there was another drunk in this pub besides his dad, the peculiar man was dressed in an assortment of colorful rags with shaggy salt and pepper hair that made it seem like he hadn't bothered to trim it in weeks. He was surprisingly spry looking for a drunk with no pudgy gut in sight. His nose was bent like a hawk’s, accompanied by a smile that held several metal false teeth. Wonder where he got the money for that sort of thing?
"Um, I'm sorry I don't seem to know your name?" Danny smiled awkwardly. Having to be polite to even the unruliest of drunks was something Mom's spoon had long since shown him.
"Nonsense, I'm new to this fine establishment," spoke the man while gesturing grandly around him. seemingly having slipped into the role of storyteller. "Morcar at your service, so what do you say lad? Want to be my apprentice?"
"What?" Danny couldn't believe himself and practically shouted at the man only inches from him. Blast it all he could hear the angry hiss of Mom, better smooth things over. "Pardon, but I'm afraid I am at a loss as to what you do sir. Why would you ever be interested in a hoodlum like me?" Danny tried to make himself sound as unappetizing as he dared.
A slam of the kitchen door signaled the return of Mom's reign of terror. She whipped her head around searching for Danny. Danny for his part did his best to look as small as possible, trying to futilely hide behind Morcar. However, against all odds she didn’t pounce for him, instead Mom relaxed and strode over before briskly putting the plate down in front of Danny rather than force it down his throat. “Morcar, don’t mess with my boy too much. He’s too much of a dolt to get it,” turning to Danny Mom continued, “Daniel, meet the Squeaky Hinge’s new… entertainer.”
Danny could only stare blankly at the man beside him. He was casually perusing a book at this point and gestured to a corner of the tavern. Only now did Danny realize it was a slightly raised wooden stage, judging by the lute sitting on top of a rickety tool. Mr. Copper was never one to spend money, on... well... anything, much less secure a performer. Wait a moment… that was his book! Snatching his scheme journal back, he couldn’t help but wonder, “Why are you even here, much less why would you want me?”
Morcar shrugged, “Boss offered free drinks and with you as an apprentice I’d have an excuse not to perform at all. Seems like you need some way to impress the fancy folk, as well as help with essences. Seems like a win-win to me.”
Wait, the drunk made some sense. Danny realized that the lute would make him valuable if he created and preformed songs for nobility, making himself the hot commodity. His poems would work as songs if he just put them to a tune and he would definitely impress the noble women with his angelic voice. He could see it now, seducing Ladies of the high court with a great love ballad, before making them weep at his feet as he sang a song of mourning. This could work, this could work indeed.