Rostov watched the last few grains of sand fall through the hourglass. He thought he should feel something.
Elated possibly.
But all he felt was tired.
The stream of tiny granules petered out, stopped.
"Time is up, gentlemen. Put your quills down, if you haven't already done so." A member of the college staff made his way along the rows of tables, collecting the exam papers. For some, they had yet more exams, or resits, but for Rostov, he was done. For Good or bad.
Rostov planned to spend a week, or two, having fun before thinking about heading home. He could always claim that he failed an exam and had to re-sit. His father thought he was an idiot anyway, so it wouldn't be that difficult to pull off.
His paper was removed from the desktop in front, and once they had all been collected, they were allowed to stand and leave the exam room.
Some of his fellow Lords-in-waiting looked positively sick. Generations of family history breathing down their necks. The reality of nights spent in bars and brothels coming painfully home to roost.
"Mr Salsin?" Rostov looked up as his name was called. "You are wanted at the Dean's office."
What foolishness had he failed to get away with? It was quite a list gained over the last four years.
"I shall head there now." The servant nodded and departed to continue whatever duties he had been taken from. Paintings and marble busts lined the hallways. Generations of important men who had once studied here as young students.
Rostov doubted that his likeness would ever be immortalised in the halls. Not even as a warning.
He wouldn't be sorry to see the back of the place.
The Dean's office was protected from the student rabble by a large office with five clerks and a large counter you were supposed to stand behind.
"What do you want, boy?"
"Rostov Salsin. I was informed by a faculty member that the Dean wished to see me?"
"No, he most certainly doesn't, Salsin. You have mail."
"I do?" Rostov asked, genuinely surprised. A letter was slid across the countertop. It was indeed his name at the top, above the college's address.
"You may go now."
"Thank you." Rostov took the letter, not recognising the handwriting. He stepped out of the office and, standing to the side of the corridor so he wasn't obstructing anyone, he opened the letter.
There were only a few lines.
: Rostov, lad, your father is deathly ill. I fear he is not long for this world. If you can, hurry back. Hussin. :
Hussin was the village healer and a long-time friend of his father.
"Shit!" His brain shut down for a moment. He couldn't think, he couldn't act.
"Are you okay lad?" Rostov stirred from his void, looked up at a concerned member of staff.
"No." Rostov said simply. He walked back to the dorm as quickly as protocol allowed. He could hear boisterous laughter as he approached. The loudly proclaimed promises of deeds to be carried out that evening. Rostov pushed open the door and headed to his bed.
"You are coming out with us tonight Ros? Celebrate the end of exams?"
He didn't look up from his packing. "No. I have to go home. My father is dying."
"Wow. Mood killer."
He didn't need his books; he could give them to a junior student. Everything he didn't immediately need, he put in his travel trunk. He saved his sword, his leather breastplate, cloak and a spare set of clothes for his pack to be worn on the journey.
Swearing, he pulled everything back out of the trunk to reach the travel wheels. A simple axle with two wooden wheels and some leather straps to attach the axle to the trunk. He lifted out the mechanism and reloaded the trunk, strapping the axle to the bottom end of the trunk. Rostov looked around for the last time to ensure he had everything he wanted to take.
As happy as he could be in the circumstance, he strapped on his breastplate and sword. The easiest way to carry both.
He dropped his books and unused writing supplies at student services. He knew they would see them given to good homes. He headed back to the dorm, collected his pack and trunk and headed to the nearest shipping company.
As he waited for the clerk to fill out the shipping paperwork, he removed the bound on axle and stored it inside the trunk, locked it, and signed for it to be delivered home. From there, he headed to a nearby outfitters, where he purchased a simple dress with pretty flower detailing. Much to the raised eyebrows of the female staff. He had to guess the size he needed and added to it a little, just in case.
A seamstress in the village could always take it in if it was too large, though he would prefer not to do so, given the questions it would ultimately birth amongst the gossips. Packaged dress securely wrapped for travel, he headed back to the college's stables and collected his horse, Luna.
Rostov walked her through the busy streets and mounted Luna outside the city gates. He didn't immediately push her, as there was a good three-day ride ahead. Possibly less, if he pushed her later. He slipped from Luna's saddle often, choosing to run alongside her for an hour or so at a time in order to keep her burden as low as possible and give her a chance to recover.
It was good to see the mountains again. Even the air smelled better. Luna, who had been flagging at the pace, seemed to pick up a second wind as though she sensed home and the end of the journey. She probably did.
The weather had held, and he had slept out in the open, only stopping when the encroaching darkness became a danger to his ankles and Luna's legs. As soon as light breached the horizon, he set out for the day's travel. He'd made good time, and he reckoned that he would arrive by lunchtime on what would be the third day.
His father's keep was visible on the mountainside long before the village was.
A solitary figure was walking down the keep's path as he approached.
Hussin stopped waiting for Rostov to join him. "You made good time, son."
Rostov slipped from the saddle. "How is my father?"
Hussin had a guarded look. "He is comfortable. I'll take you to him." The pace was easy which gave Luna and Rostov the time to cool down.
"Rostov, lad?"
"Hmm?"
"Does someone else live in your father's house?"
It was Rostov's turn to be guarded. "No. Why? do you think there is someone else? Has someone moved in, in my absence?"
"No it's just... It felt like I was being watched, and I'm sure I heard someone moving about."
"It's an old keep. It creaks a lot, and it has a lot of vermin. You probably heard rats scurrying about. I always said we should have taken on a cat, but you know my father, he hated all things cat-like..." Rostov petered off.
His mother had been out riding not long after he had been born. She had loved riding, apparently. It was just sheer bad luck that she had spooked a mountain lion. Both the horse and the lion reacted instinctively. The mountain lion had fled, but only after his mother's horse had reared, throwing her from the saddle. It had been a continuation of that bad luck that she had landed badly, striking her head against a partially buried boulder, killing her instantly. His father had been devastated.
They arrived at the keep's aged and solid main door.
Hussin pushed open the wooden wicket door.
Rostov looked up as they walked down the cavernous hallway and spotted Stix immediately, only doing so because he knew where to look. He followed Hussin to his father's bedroom.
His father was still in his bed, and he looked peaceful. And also very, very white.
Hussin rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry son, he passed earlier this morning." Rostov couldn't speak. "I'll give you some time with him and come back later in the afternoon." Rostov said and did nothing, only partly hearing the words. In the distance, the front door boomed shut and the tears started, followed by gut-wrenching sobs.
A clawed hand slipped into his. Squeezed it.
He turned tearful eyes away from his father to look down at Stix. Her pointed ears twitched, and she leaned her head against his bicep. She didn't say anything, as she never spoke. Or at least, never said anything intelligible.
Rostov didn't know where Stix had come from, only that his father refused to say and had made a firm point, backed up by several good thrashings during his younger years, that he was never to talk about her, to anyone.
She didn't exist.
Her non-existence didn't stop them playing together, running around the large empty keep like the demented children they had been.
Rostov laughing. Stix chittering.
His father always treated her like a slave. She had cooked for them, cleaned for them and was a devastatingly good rat catcher. The last couple of years had made Rostov embarrassed as to how they had treated her. He had made the decision to treat her less like a slave and more like a, well, human that she obviously wasn't.
It was just that he had not expected the chance to do so, so soon.
He had tried to use the college's seemingly vast and endless library to learn more about what she was. It had been an unsatisfying search, possibly a result of his own poor search skills. It was not something he could have asked the librarian about, not without attracting unwanted and problematic questions.
From his bumbling attempts at research, it appeared that she was a goblin, though there lacked a consensus as to whether or not they actually existed. Most texts stated that they were simply folklore. A bygone of a bygone era. Others stated that they appeared too often in literature to simply be the figment of someone's drunken imagination. Some of the stories were outlandish and dubious in their veracity, but there was commonality in all the stories that aligned with what he knew of Stix. She was predominantly a carnivore. Her pointed, serrated teeth gave that away immediately. She had scarily good night vision, good hunting skills, and the ability to run on both four and two limbs.
As far as he knew, she didn't change shape on full moons, didn't feed on newborn children, or use them for sustenance . Wasn't seven feet tall. At least, she wasn't yet, and had kept pace with his own growing stature, but at a reduced ratio. Very much like human girls did with boys their own age.
This close, he could smell her very distinctive aroma. He was rather surprised that he had forgotten it over the last few years. Her head shot up, and she looked to the door. Slipping from his grip, she darted from the room. In the distance, he heard, just, the wicket door open and close.
The sound of voices.
Rostov walked out of his father's bedroom and looked out over the landing bannister. Hussin was back, along with a further two men. One he recognised as Balsar, the village mortician.
The second man, much younger and carrying a stretcher, had enough similarity to Balsar to imply a familial link. Hussin looked up, spotted Rostov looking down and nodded in greeting.
"Afternoon already?" Rostov called down, surprised.
Hussin nodded again. "Have you been with him all that time?"
Rostov nodded as the three men climbed the stairs. "It seems just like five minutes since you left."
"Time is a funny thing during grief." Hussin stood next to him as Balsar and his son entered his father's room. "He is with your mother now, lad. Together at peace."
For Rostov, it felt as though he was watching through someone else's eyes as his father was gently moved onto the stretcher.
"I don't know what to do. About the funeral..." he admitted to Hussin.
"It's okay, son, that's all in hand. It will be in a few days. I'll let you know all the arrangements before time."
Rostov turned to Hussin. "I...Thank you."
"It comes to us all, son. I know it didn't always look like it, but he loved you deeply. It's just that his grief got the better of him. Grieve, but don't let it rule and control your life."
"That's easier said than done."
"Aye, it is indeed. Are you going to be alright here on your own? You can come back with us, stay in the inn."
"I'm not sure I want to be with people at this moment."
Hussin squeezed his shoulder. "Don't be a stranger to people." Rostov just nodded, not trusting his voice. They walked down the stairs, watched as his father was compassionately loaded onto the cart and covered with a sombre blanket.
The wicket door closed with a finality on the distant figures and cart that made the tears start anew. Stix's hand slipped into his. He wiped his eyes. "Just us now, Stix."
The keep felt so empty. Like a part of it had gone, was missing. It just didn't seem right. He moved through the lower floor. Stix following alongside. He collected some buckets from the kitchen and headed out into the courtyard and the well in the middle. Releasing the brake on the shaft. He let the ancient bucket descend into the darkness below. A faint splash rising up the shaft. He turned the handle, raising the bucket.
"Rouse the fire in the kitchen for a bath." Stix hesitated for a moment, her strange face unreadable, before she scampered off.
A full bucket in either hand, he headed back into the kitchen, hooking the old, large cauldron on the hook above the stirred coals. He poured the contents of the buckets into the aged iron and went back out for more water.
It would take half an hour for the water to heat. He retrieved some ham and bread as Stix added fresh coal to the fire. He watched her, wondering now why he had never asked his father where the coal had come from. Now that he thought about it. He had never seen any delivered. Yet another thing he would have to figure out. Why had he never paid more attention to the running of the keep? Even as he asked himself that, he knew the answer. He had always thought that he would have had more time.
Luna!
He had forgotten all about her. He headed to the stable, only to find her already brushed down, saddle hanging up and fresh food put out for her. He entered the stall and gently stroked her head.
"Sorry, Luna. I forgot all about you. You don't deserve that." she snorted and jerked her head, gently butting him in the face. "I know." Rostov lifted his baggage from where it had been placed next to the outer stable wall and walked back across the courtyard.
His courtyard now.
Placing his luggage on the large kitchen table, he picked up a pail, dipping it in the water. He carried it through to the granite bath and, ensuring the stone plug was secure, tipped the contents of his pail into it. It took several trips, including more water from the outside well.
Rostov removed his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He nodded towards the bath as he looked at Stix. "Get in." Stix looked at the bath nervously and shook her head. "Get in!" It came out a lot harsher than he had intended. It had been a stressful day. Still, no need to take it out on Stix, who hesitantly climbed over the low granite wall to step into the water. She sank down. She had watched Rostov bathe and be bathed often enough over the years. Her body trembled in the water.
"I meant for you to take off… Acht, never mind. Arms up!" Rostov reached into the water and took hold of her grotty, tattered sack dress. He pulled it over her head, her long, loose hair floating outwards. The water turned black quickly. He removed as much of the ingrained dirt as he could from her skin before he took her outside, where he unceremoniously threw a bucket of water over her.
She chittered angrily at him, and he just shrugged, handing her a towel.