Not long after that Ryan came walking out of the bathroom, with his satchel in hand. He didn’t stop, but walked past the four shape shifters. Aceso looked at the three of them as she got up to follow her teacher. William, Charles, and Katherine all heaved themselves up to follow their alpha.
“So, what was the problem?” William asked in a light tone as they caught up with Aceso’s teacher.
Ryan glanced back at him and the rest of his pack. He shrugged, “There was a blockage in the sewage pipe. Fortunately, it happened here otherwise there might have been more bathrooms for you pups to clean.” Ryan smiled and turned back around.
“I’m curious to know what tool you were using and why?” Charles asked.
Ryan didn’t even look back this time. “I used a drill.”
“So that’s it, you used a drill?” Katherine asked, not unkindly. “You had to have seen what happened in there. My question is why did it happen?”
Ryan heaved an audible sigh and shook his head. “Ok, story time. My fixing of the sewage line didn’t require you to clean the bathroom.” William’s jaw drop dropped and an agitated gruff escaped his lips. Aceso shot him a look to silence him. Ryan continued, “It had to be done anyway, if you didn’t do it today it would have had to have been done tomorrow. So, look at it this way, you got the crappy job done sooner rather than later, right?” William conceded that he did have a point. “So, I took this camera thing here,” Ryan said as he patted his large satchel with his free hand, “dug into the pipe, used the drill to clean away most of the blockage and then shot some industrial gel stuff, think of it as hyper-drano into the pipe directly onto the residue, lining the pipe that my drill couldn’t get, and flushed clean water through the piping.” He turned around to look at the four of them. “Does that satisfy your curiosity Mr. Mabena?” Charles nodded his head. “Did that answer your question, Miss Ryan?” Katherine nodded her head as well.
Ryan glanced up toward the cavern ceiling, “Well, I have nothing else for you guys.” He glanced back at the pack following him, “You can either follow me back or go off and do your own thing. It doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned.”
The four of them shared looks back and forth. Aceso answered, “We’ll stick with you, till we get back to the Tower. We don’t have any other place to be and we are all going back the same way.” Ryan shrugged his shoulders and continued walking.
They made their way back to the Tower. Stopping outside the monolithic structure they looked around. There was no sign of Nicolas or the Elders, not that that meant much. The Elders didn’t seem to be around ever until they came up behind you and said something. That’s not even true. Of course it wasn’t, he had seen Ansuya in the cafeteria just the other day. Her deep brown eyes focused on him for a long time. Those eyes always made him feel so young and exposed, as if she could see every thought that was going through his head.
Charles nudged him gently, “Where’d you go, Will?”
William scratched at his neck, “Nowhere, I was here the whole time.” He smiled at his friend, “Just wondering what it was that Nicolas had to do today.”
“Whatever it was,” Katherine interrupted, “it had to be better than cleaning up that mess that we got stuck with.”
Aceso shot a harsh look at her sage, “Kat, we do what has to be done. We did our duty for today and Nicolas is doing his.” Katherine nodded her head tiredly, fighting off a yawn.
William nudged Charles in the elbow as he spotted Nicolas approaching out of a side alleyway. The sandy blond, black flecked werewolf looked dead on his feet. He stumbled heavily to one side before he regained his balance. He placed a steadying hand on the side of one of the buildings to keep himself upright. William had never seen Nicolas so beat up, except for that one time. The scout made his way slowly amidst the group; his tail was drooping tiredly behind him. He stopped and heaved a very deep sigh as the rest of the group looked at him waiting for some news. Nicolas looked so weak, a strong wind could push him over.
Stolen story; please report.
Aceso asked with some concern for him, “What happened, Nicolas? Are you all right?”
Nicolas stood there and blinked twice very slowly. To William he looked as if he was just coming out of a heavy sleep. He looked around at Aceso and Katherine and smiled weakly at the sage, “Hey, Kat. What happened to you? You look like you’ve been cleaning shit all day.” William was pretty sure he meant it as a joke but the thousand yard stare that she gave him seemed to penetrate even his fatigue induced haze. He blinked his eyes once more and cleared his throat turning back to Aceso. “What were you asking, again?”
Their alpha looked back at him, “What happened to you?”
Nicolas smiled at her, “I’m fine. I spent all day looking into the great Black, beyond time, or was it White? I can’t remem…” a huge yawn cracked his face, interrupted his speech, and Nicolas crashed to the floor face first.
It happened so fast William couldn’t help but snicker as a knee jerk reaction. Aceso shot daggers from her eyes and he was silenced immediately. It had been pretty funny though. He rushed forward to help Aceso pick up the exhausted Scout from where he had landed on the street. “Nicolas, are you alright? Can you hear me?” Aceso asked loudly in his face.
The only response she got from him was a lazy smile and a very sleep slurred, “I don’t want to go to school, mommy.” Nicolas rested his head on her shoulder and didn’t make any other sound or motion that signaled consciousness. He had passed out cold.
“We have to get him back to his room.” Aceso said calmly under the dead weight of the blond.
William, being on his other side agreed. “Yeah, a good night’s sleep should do him a world of good.”
The four carried Nicolas up to his room. Aceso and William sat him down on his bed and gently laid him down on his back. Nicolas didn’t even twitch, he was so far gone.
The four met outside Nicolas’s room on the second floor landing. Aceso looked at her tired pack. “Get some food and some rest. You will have to handle food duty tomorrow starting at four o’clock.”
The pack nodded. “What about him?” Charles asked nodding toward Nicolas’s room.
Aceso looked up at Charles, “Nicolas is assigned to be training with the Elders. Until I hear otherwise, he will not be joining us for our assigned duties around the city.”
William glanced over at Aceso and asked casually, “Where are you going to be?”
Aceso turned toward her enforcer, “Are you keeping tabs on me, William?”
William shrugged against the building, “No, I was just curious.” He added solemnly, “I’m sorry, Aceso. I meant no disrespect.”
Aceso looked at William and nodded, “Accepted.” She took in the other two members of her pack. “I have been assigned to take a census of the wildlife in the forest. While you are seeing to the human born’s meals, I will have a head start cataloguing the available wildlife there.” She looked out over the city toward the massive indoor forest that was her responsibility for the coming day. She turned back and refocused on her pack, “If I am unable to finish the job by the time you are finished with the evening meal, the day after tomorrow you will help me finish the census.” The three nodded in understanding. Aceso made a dusting motion with her claws, “Go on, get some food and don’t be late tomorrow morning.” The three nodded and headed down the ramp back toward the street.
Katherine glanced back at Nicolas’s doorway. There was something there that William didn’t quite recognize, or at least it didn’t seem possible to see it from her face in regard to Nicolas. Katherine looked a little sad and introspective, glancing back toward the sleeping scout’s room. “Kat, what’s the matter?”
Katherine shook her head and gave herself a little shake, “Nothing, Will, just a little tired that’s all.”
William glanced back at Nicolas’s room. Aceso had peeled off from the three of them and disappeared down a side street. He looked back at Katherine who was lost to her own thoughts. “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”
Katherine smiled as a small bark of laughter escaped from her, “Worried, no…no of course not, but…”
“But what?” Charles asked from the other side of her.
Katherine suddenly looked really embarrassed and a little uncomfortable. “Look, guys I’m not worried about him, he deserves whatever he gets.” She lowered her eyes and watched the street as she walked, “But I can’t help feel a little bit of sympathy for him. The Elders worked him hard. I don’t think Nicolas has ever been that tired in his whole life.”
Charles nodded, “It is good to push your body to its limits from time to time. It shows you how far you can go.”
Katherine looked up at Charles, “But too much weight breaks the pony’s back.” She shook her head slightly, “I just hope the Elders don’t push him too hard, that’s all.”