Snowy Ground: Chapter 2 Part 2

The rest of the first day Samythiel settled in with his belongings and spent time with the other initiates. Before he knew it, morning had come again and a knock upon the door roused him from his slumber. He met the surprised gaze of a frocked maid of long white hair and two, small, yellowed teeth protruding from her bottom jaw.
“Ohh good morning, er, you” she held a book over her mouth as she stammered along. “I forgot that you were taking this room and Lavia was going somewhere else.” She peered around the little room that Samythiel had been afforded by the Abbess, out of the way, and quiet in a tower where he could look out over the city if he wanted. Samythiel smiles at the woman and waves his hand.
“Nae nae there’s no problem here. Maybe I can help in her stead. What do ye need?” Samythiel stretched the sleep from his torso as the maid continued to hide behind her book. She didn’t emerge until he had put on a shirt and combed his hair.
“ah, My Lady also wished to speak with you, sir” she pulled the book away and offered a hand to guide him through the priory. As they walked the other maids and gentlefolk went about morning chores of washing stained glass windows and sweeping the leaves from the floors. There was a resounding percussion echoing throughout the halls as the population seemed to have an Eynnilfolk majority. Samythiel took up his pencil upon entering the library once again to meet the warm golden gaze of the Abbess Y’luunara.
“Ah, yes, Xirril. Thank you. And did you find our little…elementalist?” she asked, scanning the area around them and finding no one. Xirril shook her head and excused herself to go find the elementalist right away. The cloth of her frock whapping in the wind that she left behind as she scuttled through the door.
“Please, excuse her.” Y’luunara said, offering Samythiel a cup of tea as she looked to the great canvas. “They mean well, sometimes you just have to mold them to walk the correct way before they can be of any use to the Weilvog”
She sits back in a chair and looks at the blank canvas, as Samythiel takes some tea before starting to make vague sketching lines on the linen. Feigning hard work as the Abbess’ eyes crawled over his shoulders and seemed to watch him the way he watched a piece of meat turning on a spit.
“Yer Xirril said tha ye wanted tae see me?” he shuddered, almost too afraid to turn and face the woman.
“Of course. I wanted to make sure I knew where you were. Tell me” she started, dropping an ever precious cube of sugar into her tea only to watch what was worth an entire silver chip dissolve into the liquid. “I had a question for you, of course I ask anyone who comes to our order. Your heartwish, a concept that we follow in our order, the thing you would give everything for is something that we tell one another. What sort of thing lies in your heart would you seek out? What is your greatest wish, Sam?”
Samythiel thought a moment. Surely better paints wouldn’t be enough to spend one’s life on like money. The scratching lines seemed to soothe the scratching itch inside his head as what felt like a worm seemed to slither along in there.
“Kind of a loaded question, eh lass?” he said “That’s an immeasurable thing. Tae spend yer life on one thing.”
“Would you have a multitude of things then?” She retorted sipping tea.
“Nae I don’t think so. I just can’t be expected tae give an answer tae such a big question after knowing ye nice folk one night” he turned to her. “How about ye let me think about it eh?”
“I suppose that would be acceptable,” she says “I had better let you get to your work, you look busy,” she says getting up and patting him on the shoulder. A current of energy raced down Samythiel’s arm and made his pencil skip a moment.
As soon as he was left alone he was approached by yet another Eynnil as another highlands Dwarfish lass returns books and pays no mind to anyone else in the room. A meek smile hung in the air as she clambered behind some curtains, her long tail being the last thing to wriggle between the wall and the curtain. Soon enough a clatter came of a great knight, the maid from earlier, Xirril, as well as two frogfolk with braids down their shoulders, came into the library. Samythiel couldn’t help but to put his head into his hand, would every day be like this?
What more could one do but hang their head and continue to sketch out the roughest shape of the Weilvog, the Anghniel nestled inside and pretend to be working hard as he peered out a window at the blue skies. Surprise filled him and he nearly saluted a little robin bird that soared past and beckoned him further outdoors. But what to do as the four intruders invaded his space.
“Have you seen a little obligate by chance? She has yet to finish her chores and we need her to get back to her duties” The big knight said, removing his helmet and putting it at his hip. The long tail hanging off the top nearly touched the floor as he came to relax against a bookshelf.
Samythiel shook his head “No lad, lasses, I haven’t seen anyone come this way. Now if ye’ll excuse me I’m going tae get tae my duty.”
He nearly hurt his wrist with how hard he had to wave to make the four go away. Unconcerned with frogfolk they would have to go and wet themselves soon enough anyhow he was more interested in dismissing the two, far larger, people of their four-person band. Not so easy at the moment but as soon as he opened up paint pots and sloshed them about, letting the pigments fall to the floor as he smooshed greys and greens and yellows and browns onto the canvas with his broad fingers. To the untrained novice, he has ruined any chance of this linen producing any quality painting yet Samythiel continued until all four of the intruders of the library had made their exits.
Samythiel continued to mottle the colors into the canvas, keeping a wandering eye on the curtains until, of course, the obligate emerged and took up a chair next to him. She was full of gratitude, thanking him in the eynnil language which he could never hope to understand.
“Can ye hand me that pot over there? Says ‘Ilvenmourn Bleu’ on it” he points with browned fingers at his bag on the shelf. The obligate was quick to hand it to him, her hand sported a ration of bandages that hung from her fingers like ribbons.
“I’m a-guessin’ that yer Lavia” Samythiel said, stepping back with his paint and crossing his arms to look at the colors of his canvas now. Per the norm he puts his free hand on his beard and smooths it down getting stray pigment into his hair as he postured to ponder and consider what to do.
“Er..Yessir. I’m called Lavia, scribe to the Abbess.” She folds her hands in front of her and gives a shallow bow. Before sinking to her knees and sitting against the wall next to his canvas. Like this, she was now a bit shorter than he. How tall did she stand? Surely at least two meters. “Oh please don’t tell them where I am,”
The sting of a person in hiding caused Samythiel’s shoulders to move up and down. He could’ve sworn that she had the same face as a young painter man he’d met when he was a wee boy. A ponytailed lad nestled up next to fledgling griffons under the wing of a gentle mother who didn’t seem to care much for the intrusion. Samythiel wasn’t terribly old when he came upon the vagrant lad. His sister wasn’t too far behind, she’d just gotten engaged then and she looked between the painter and her younger brother.
“Don’t tell them where I am” he had said as he pulled from his rucksack a paintbrush and cast it at the youngin’s feet. “please, it’s the most valuable thing I have. It’s yours if you don’t tell anyone that I’m here”
The poor brush was frayed and smashed from years of use. Samythiel wondered to himself if he still had it somewhere at home.
Lavia looked up at him “are you going to tell?” she mutters under her breath as he puts his fingers in the cerulean paint and puts washes on the canvas.
Samythiel shook his head, the politics inside of the temple walls were none of his business. After all. He was just a humble painter here to create a mural.