Food.
That’s what was on his mind. He’d spoken with Hendrik about it at the pub last night, and he was surprised to hear that even in the Watch, people bought all their meals. The only exception being Ilda and Emery, who’d only bring in food they’d made if they didn’t have an early shift.
Yan had grown up, well not poor exactly, but steadily floating with his head above the breadline. By all accounts anyone else in his position would be accustomed to buying all their food from food stalls and shops – who had the time and money to cook?
What Caiwal had soon realised though, was that you reached a certain point where it became well worth the time and effort it took to cook at home. Somewhere between the seventh and eighth mouth one had to feed, he’d surmised.
Thus, Yan Orukan had something hardly any young man in the city had; the ability to cook. He was by no means a [Chef], or even the same as a [Cook], but Yan had always found making food for himself somewhat cathartic. Or he would find it cathartic if he knew what the word meant.
What had started as helping his foster family out in their duties had become an act of exploration and a way to avoid eating the same thing for a week straight. He’d done that once when he was young and Caiwal and the elder lads were too busy to focus on cooking. Never again, he’d vowed.
While the suppa and pasty this morning had been a change from his new norm, Yan missed cooking. So he was set on finding a place to cook again. He’d seen the state of his room, and even the Square Room next door to him, and assumed he would find somewhere he could cook. The whole building had an air of.. wasted potential about it, he thought.
He walked downstairs and back out into the yard. In the light of day, it looked a lot smaller than it had last evening. The looming darkness had hidden the walls of the yard quite well. To his right were a few worn benches and a table, along with what his drunken mind had mistaken for a passable place to sleep. At the far end of the yard some archery targets rested against the wall, the rings of each in dire need of fresh paint.
The wrought-iron gate at the front of the Watch House opened up to a track, which ran along the side of the building and ended at a very small stable on the left of the yard. One of the stalls was clean and had the air of regular use, while the one closer to the Watch House looked like it was used for throwing things that someone would probably use at some point; buckets, round wooden shields, and a few rusted [Farrier] tools were strewn across the small stall.
He tilted his head, and in his mind’s eye, Yan pictured what he could do with the stall. Years of living with a [Blacksmith] proved hard to forget; the first thing that came to mind was somehow making a smaller version of Caiwal’s forge, complete with bucket of coal on the floor next to it.
Yan shook the thought from his mind and scolded himself. All he needed was somewhere to cook, and before that he needed to make somewhere he could cook, and before that he needed somewhere he could make somewhere he could cook. It made sense to him, at least.
He double-checked the first stall for any signs of use before he did anything. Better safe than losing a job you’ve only had for a few days and very sorry, he thought. A swipe of his finger at the gate to the stall assuaged any worries he might have had though; a thick layer of dust told him all he needed to know.
Yan rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and got to work.
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It was just past the noon bells, which were ringing a lot closer to him than he had been used to, when Yan finished moving out all the junk from his self-declared cooking area. He groaned as he stretched the muscles in his back, twisting at his waist to crack his spine and huffing out as he touched his toes.
It wasn’t as though he had cleaned up, however. All he’d done was shift the stuff all the way into the back left corner of the yard, simply adding to the pile of stuff that had already been there.
Yan spotted a broom in the maintained stall next to his. He grabbed it and was about to start brushing all the leftover unidentifiable stuff from his stall when he heard the Watch gate squeal open.
He stood, brow furrowed in confusion, as Viktor led in a dapple-grey horse.
“Uh, morning Viktor.” He managed.
“Ah Yan. I hate to be that kind of person, but it is afternoon now,” said Viktor. He spoke primly, his words so perfectly enunciated that they sounded a little off. “I mean no offence, but honestly? You look terrible. I did tell the Sergeant to make sure Hendrik didn’t overdo it with you, but I guess that advice fell on deaf ears.”
“Huh?” questioned Yan before realising how dirty he must be looking. “Ohh, not really. Well, I mean you’re right, we definitely had too much to drink last night, but I’ve just been clearing out the other stall.”
Yan stood out of the way as Viktor passed him, leading his horse into the other stall and removing the saddle from its back.
“Proactivity? [Sergeant] Emery would be swooning if he could hear you right now.”
“Uh yeah, that’s it.” Yan was in his thoughts, telling himself it was okay to tell some white lies until he told the Captain about his plan to make a cooking area first. “I thought I’d get the Yard a little more usable. Especially since I’ll be having all my training out here.”
“Hm?” said Viktor over his shoulder as he attached a feed bag to his horse, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news Yan, but I’d rather we have our lessons inside. You know, out of the cold.”
“Um. We have lessons?”
“Didn’t Hendrik tell you?” Asked Viktor, finally turning away from his horse and dusting his hands off. “Emery told him to take care of your physical training, and he told me to get you up to speed on all of the city laws, Watch codes, that kind of thing.”
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The seed of excitement that had been growing in Yan at making something had fallen down the gnawing pit of depression that Viktor had opened inside him.
“There’s no chance of this being a joke, is there? Maybe you’re all hazing the new guy?” he asked hopefully.
“Yan. I’m an abstinent Vampire. My sense of humour is dry , not sadistic.”
Yan hung his head in silent defeat and followed Viktor. When the pair got inside, they were greeted by a full Watch House. Every member shuffling about in a zombified state, like the gears of a machine that was being wound into action for the first time in centuries.
It was only now that Yan recognised the barest smell of suppa in the air, and he noticed how everyone was going into the canteen one after the other. He vowed to never drink the stuff again lest he too join the ranks of stamina potion addicts he’d found himself amongst. It seemed that only he and Viktor were the only souls free from the taint of suppa.
“Ready to start?” asked Viktor.
“What, right now?” despaired Yan. “Let me just, um,. Let me just go and get changed first? I haven’t even had—wait. Please tell me you have a proper bathroom in here?”
“If you want to freshen up, you’ll have to wait until everyone’s done with the heatstone in the canteen so you can run a bath.”
“Uh… What’s a heatstone?” asked Yan dumbly.
“Magic boulder for riding dragon,” deadpanned an eavesdropping Terry. “It’s rock for heating up stuff. Don’t ask dumb question. Too early.”
Terry’s modest manner had somehow attracted the attention of everyone in their vicinity.
“Seriously, Yan? How do you not know what a heatstone is?” grumbled Sel as she held her mug of suppa in a two-handed death grip.
“Wait so you’re telling me I don’t need a fire or anything to make food?” Yan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; it seemed to him that he’d spent the last few hours sweating his proverbials off for no good reason. “Why don’t [Blacksmiths] or [Bakers] use them then?”
“Well actually they can. I know that at least one [Baker] has one up in The Eyries. Her pastries are honestly to die for,” he said, looking off into the middle distance and wetting his lips a little before shaking himself back to the present. “Anyway, the problem is that it gets exponentially harder to enchant magestones the bigger they are. And you need big heatstones for things like ovens, even more so for a forge. You see it’s a matter of—”
Yan sidled over to Sel while politely smiling and nodding at Viktor.
“What does exponenshully mean?” He muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
“It’s just, like really hard is what he’s trying to say.”
“Right.”
“—so while the one we have is actually quite good, you know, it holds its enchantment for a fair while and it lets us heat pots of water, the average person is better off just relying on basic fires for food preparation.”
Yan had learned his lesson and directed his next question to Terry instead.
“Hey Terry,” he said, “what’s with the schedules?”
“What?”
“I know I’ve only been here for like ten minutes, but what kind of schedule are we supposed to—”
“Ask Viktor. He in charge of teaching you.”
Sel recognised an impending lesson about the history of the Watch and a long list of times that it had been responsible for heroic acts, and she patted Yan’s back as if apologising for leaving him stranded and retreated to her desk.
“Come on then,” said Viktor, “let’s try and get you up to speed. Emery did tell me to just give you the basics, but I’ve seen enough jumped up [Guards] with too much bravado and not enough knowledge to swindle you of that. Plus, it’ll be the first time I get to implement the training programme I’ve been working on.”
Yan saw the excitement in Viktor’s eyes and didn’t have the heart to suggest listening to Emery instead. It was very disconcerting to talk to Viktor if you remembered that he was probably old enough to remember the Sentinel himself but looked young enough to be a ‘fun uncle’ kind of person.
He followed Viktor into the interrogation room, where it looked like a small diorama of a street had been set up, complete with a miniature cart of hay and populated with small painted figurines of [Drunks], [Thieves], and [Merchants].
“Uh, Viktor,” enquired Yan as Viktor sat down on one side of the table, “when did you do all of this?”
“Ah,” said Viktor, looking a little abashed, “well I’ve been speaking with Emery and the Captain for a while about their onboarding methods. Actually, I had all of this ready when Terry joined us. However, he’s very much a more learn-by doing-not learn-by-learning kind of person.”
Yan couldn’t help but agree with Viktor about Terry, although for some reason he imagined it was equally likely that Viktor just didn’t want something he’d so painstakingly worked on to be anywhere near Terry’s cartwheel-sized hands. He sat in one of the chairs opposite Viktor and felt more intrigued than apprehensive.
Surprisingly, the next hour flew by. It was as if Viktor adopted another personality entirely, keeping on topic and never over-explaining. He made very good use of the small figurines to highlight how an Officer of the Watch should act in various situations. Yan had assumed that Viktor would go over the regulations of the Watch in minute detail, but instead Viktor sprinkled morsels of key information throughout his lesson, which Yan found helped a lot in remembering the information and not simply hearing it and forgetting it.
Viktor was in the middle of explaining how to de-escalate a situation with an agitated and dangerous suspect, who in this case was being represented by a drunk troll [Soldier] wielding a halberd like Yan would hold an arrow, when the Captain burst into the room.
“Vik! Hendrik had a [Message] sent; reports of a golem down in the Meadows. Follow me!”
Without another word, Viktor calmly got up and strode after the Captain, leaving Yan a little stunned. He got up and left the interrogation room, making to go after Viktor and the Captain when Emery and Debby burst out of the armoury. The pair of them had their cuirasses and helmets on, wands holstered at one side of their waists and truncheons bounching along on the other side. Emery shouted out to Yan over his shoulder as they sprinted after Viktor and the Captain.
“Stay put, Yan! We’ll talk about it after!”
“Check your room,” said Debby, hesitating at the look on Yan’s face, “The Captain paid you your first month upfront, so maybe go with Sel to the bank? Sorry about this.”
Just like that, Yan was left standing there in the wake of whirlwind that had just passed through the Watch House. He looked over to Sel, who had a look of apologetic sympathy on her face, and sighed.
“So… Bank?”
“Sure.”