Master & Apprentice Page 0061 - 30-03-2017
This time I didn't mess up the numbers…
K.N.
Still flustered I stormed into my room. On the way from downstairs to up here my embarrassment had mostly subsided, but had been replaced by a mixture of confusion and anger. Alcohol always takes me there after trying to think straight. First I don't really know why I am feeling the way I feel, which confuses me and since I am drunk the condusion angers me.
Oh, and I couldn't really 'storm' into my room. It was a small cubic room in one of the Tower's many outgrowths or arms, however you'd call it, accessable from the laboratory level. This side section of the Tower had originally been a storage with an upper bit. I had to go up three floors, navigate between tables and shelves covered in white cloth to the other side of the lab - Master had not used this room in years -, follow the short and narrow corridor, not stumble of any crates in the lower storage bit and climb up a ladder. That's the way to my room. Running there really takes skill and endurance. Since I didn't have that kind of constitution - especially not after drinking - I started walking energetically half way instead of running.
The room itself, by the way, was just big enough to fit a bed and a short desk, the ceiling was so low, Master Zargeth couldn't stand straight in it and there was only a single window right above my bed, that was just big enough for fresh air and some light to fit through.
Seconds later I was already tucked in and ready for sleep to release me from my self-inflicted brain mush.
Though, it wouldn't come for me. A sudden soberness had befallen me and occupied my mind with words and pictures of the day. Faces and laughters of those people I'd met scrolled past my inner eye. Delar's and Nondrean's especially. Until I reached that of Master. He didn't say a word and for some reason I saw it from many angles with that smirk on his wrinkly old-man-face, framed by his thinning grey beard. That smirk. It didn't feel very honest, now that I've had a close look at it.
I turned, hoping to change the repeating image to something else. It didn't really work, only added audio.
"Sounds like you've had a lot of fun today." He said again. Just like before.
Could it be… that he was actually… envious? Would he have prefered to come along? Just to have fun with other people and regretting it by the next morning only to repeat it again next time?
I turned again, now actively trying to spawn a certain picture before me. I tried to remember what he'd looked like in my dreamworld, where he couldn't diguise his form. The younger version of him, I think I saw it now. The long and thick brown hair, the more saturated dark blue skin and the sharp face. His eyes were the same piercing red rubies, but rather warm, his movements, too, crude but accurate, and one raised eyebrow.
I beheld that image of him for a while. This man was living under the pretense of being old. Very old, considering the qualities of his people. They age about half as fast as the Winds, my people. So in reality he might even just be a young adult or something. It must be hard to go and skip all of those years, centuries even! I can't imangine he'd done that out of his own free will.
Maybe… I should ask about it anyways.