The Ballad of Bajardo Part 1

Bajardo the pine marten starts his first day at the Farreval Inn

Day breaks on the Ferreval Inn. A cold wind blows against the walls of the building. The inside of the lobby is kept warm by the stone fire place in the far wall. Liam sits in a large padded chair, one paw resting on his chin, his other holding a large open book. He is sitting in such a way that he is facing the front door.

Bajardo comes tumbling in the door, his eyes still clouded with sleep. His fur is thoroughly mussed up and still slightly dirty, but he seems to have managed to get rid of his rather pungent smell. The coins Liam lent him for clothing have been put to good use, for he is now wearing a clean looking, brown, tunic. His pants, however, havent changed much. He looks dozily up at Liam and says sarcastically, "Oi 'ave arroived, yer majesty."

The Inn Keeper looks over the top of his book and seems to examine his marten counter part. "I guess that will have to do," Liam dog ears a page and snaps his book shut. He gets up, arms folded behind his back the older marten gives a chuckle to Bajardo, "Also, yer majesty is very kind but a bit too formal for my taste. Mr. Grey will do." Liam gestures to the new tunic, "I see you took my advice, well done and welcome to the Ferrevale Inn."

Bajardo rolls his eyes at the 'have to do' bit. He's quite pleased with his appearance and if he's pleased, everyone else will just have to make do. He nods resignedly as he is welcomed, looking around with a slightly sick feeling in his gut. So this is the place hell be spending out his days. He shivers, before redirecting his attention to Liam, "Vary well, mista Grey. Where do Oi start?"

The inn keeper rubs his paws together and gives a low key, evil chuckle. He stares at his new worker like a butcher examining the best way to cut a slab of meet, "That all depends on you Mr. Bajardo. We have penty of openings to put you in. Operating the desk, cleaning rooms, assisting quests by carrying their luggage to their rooms. Fixing any damages to the inn you can find...the list goes on and on of course. But first things first. There is a broom closet down hallway behind the front desk, I want you to grab a mop, some rags, and give the lobby a good scrubbing."

Bajardo gives his employer a wide eyed, slightly fearful, glance at the chuckling. Maybe working here was a bad idea. He groans as the list is recited to him. It all sounds like work! He could work the desk, which sounded like the least amount of work. Unless it involved reading, which Bajardo was less than good at. He gives Liam a look of disbelief, "Whut? Oi didn't cum 'ere ta clean!" Well, he did come here to do a job. Which technically could include cleaning.

The inn keeper wraps his arm around the young martens shoulders and begins leading him to the where the cleaning supplies are, "You know Bajardo...you remind me of myself when I was younger. Not too much younger than you are actually. Back before I became a slave to pay off a debt from my young and stupid days. There is something my master said to me that first day that has stuck with me for the rest of my life, shaping me into the beast you see today." The marten laughs joyously as he continues around the front desk, "He said to me, 'son...you are a lazy good for nothing dolt. Work harder or I'll have the guards lop off your tail and feed it too you." The marten laughs again and then leans closer to Bajardo so that they are practically eye to eye. "I inherited a lot from that old beast...one of those things, was not his patience."

At first Bajardo doesn't take to kindly to having the other martin wrap his arm around him, but he soon stops struggling as Liam continues to speak and shows not obvious signs of letting go. At the part about the tail he gulps, and his shoulders stiffen considerably, as well as his legs, actually, but he doesn't really have a chance to stop walking since the inn keeper has his arm around him. He gulps again as he looks into the others eyes, a rather petrified look shining from his eyes, "Roight yew ar' Mista Grey! Jist show me tha' mop and Oi'll show yew a hard working Martin!" He says this all with a rather noticeable tremor to his voice.

The marten releases his death grip on Bajardo's shoulder with a pleasent smile. "Oh good. I knew I could count on you. Now if you excuse me I need to work on some things here at the front desk while you clean." Liam takes a step away from the marten. The inn keeper turns away to the front desk, he begins to fiddle with something below the desk.

Bajardo smiles feebly with relief as Liam lets go of his shoulders and nods encouragingly, "Yes sir, yew can count on me!" He watches the other martins back as he leaves, trying not to sink to his rather wobbling knees. After a moment he recovers himself and goes to the closet. He opens the door, which creaks slightly, and peers inside. Now which one is a mop....He bites his lip, taking a quick glance over at Liam, before reaching into the closets and grabbing what he hopes is a mop, which actually turns out to be a broom. Close enough! He makes his way over to the door way and starts to swish the broom around.

The marten pulls out a thick looking scroll of parchment. He unrolls it, setting the ink well over on one side to hold it down, He dips a quill pin once into the ink well then begins to right on the paper. Liam is so engrosed in his work at the desk that he doesn't even see the other marten's blunder at first. Liam Grey hums softly to himself as he works.

Bajardo continues to sweep, diligently at first, for fear of his tail, but after a few minutes he starts to regain his cheekiness. He looks around, taking stock of his surroundings and looking for anything valuable. His eyes alight on the desk and he narrows his eyes. Thats probably where hed find anything of value....he starts to slowly sweep towards the desk.

The inn keeper doesn't seem to notice. He reaches down under the desk and produces a wooden utensil with many strings of beeds on it. He begins fiddling with them, occasionally dabbing at the paper with his pen. Occasionally he will pause, rubbing his chin as he works on the parchment, staring at it like he is trying to understand the principles of the universe.

Bajardo continues to sweep, making his way closer and closer to the desk. Come to think of it, he should probably wait to pilfer the desk until Liam isnt present, but who needs logic! He makes it to the side of the desk, but continues a general back and forth motion with the broom. He looks over the desk, not really being very inconspicuous about it.

The inside of the desk is a bizarre mismatch of loose shelves and drawers. It is is filled with dust covered books, parchments, scraps of paper, loose pens, a half filled mug, and a couple of cob webs. Liam sets the pen into the inkwell before reaching into his side pocket and producing a set of keys. He shoves them into the lock of the top drawer and opens it up. The money inside isn't worth bragging about but much more than the money he promised to pay for a day's wage. Not all of it is ferrin either, some coins look very exotic. Liam picks up one, closes the door and locks it in one motion. He sets the coin on the parchment and begins to draw an illustration of it.

Bajardo continues to sweep, not moving from his spot beside the desk and simply watching his employers actions. At the sight of all the money, he nearly drops his cleaning utensil, but he manages to keep a hold of it. He gets a rather greedy glint in his eye, but restrains himself from doing anything rash. He starts to move away from the desk, starting to scheme.

The marten speaks up again, "Ok Bajardo, come here for a moment, I need to..." Liam looks up across the room looking for the marten. He is rather confused that the room doesn't looked touched at all since the marten didn't pick up any of the dirt he sweeped with a...broom. Liam face paws, pulling his paw slowly down over his muzzle.

Bajardo stops sweeping and glances over, raising an eyebrow questioningly and trying not to look guilty, "Whut?"

The pot bellied inn keeper gives his fellow marten a stare for a long moment. So this is how his master felt when Liam came to him for the first time. The ironic justice burns hotter than a cut with a freshly forged sword. Shaking his head Liam decides to let it pass for now, "Come here, I need to teach you how to respond to beasts when behind the front desk."

Bajardo sighs begrudgingly and starts to tramp over, dragging his broom along behind him. The stiff bristles of the broom make a hushed whispering as it gets pulled. He stops at the edge of the desk and props the broom against it, saying glumly, "Oiu 'ard can 'et be? Oi don't need no trainen for talkin' ta beasts."

Liam smiles, "Glad you feel that way. This will go pretty quickly then." The marten coughs once before continuing. "Ok, we charge ten ferrin for a nights stay, we drop the price down to five ferrin a night if they are staying longer than a week. Each room has only two beds so if they try to cram more than four beasts into a room you add another five ferrin for a night stay ontop of their bill. And then we come to different forms of currency. I actually just drew up a chart converting coin value into ferrin. I even drew pictures if you have never seen them before..." The marten then goes on for the next ten minutes about side policies, procedures, and where to find things in the front desk. He moves aside to show that he was blocking the veiw to a loaded bow gun under the desk while showing him where to find a map of the building. Finely Liam claps his paws together. "Ok, did you get all that?"

Bajardo blinks a few times then shakes his head, saying, "Oi dunno, yew lost me a' wif whut tado if they refuse ta leave. Or maybe yew diant touch on tha' subject. Speakin' a which, whut shoold Oi do if they refuse ta leave?" His voice holds a slightly mocking tone to it, and his eyes flash rebelliously

Liam shrugs, "Call the guards and have them deal with it." It's probibly not as exciting as the marten hoped it would be. "If you ever get robbed or in trouble, give them the cash drawer and let them leave with it then get the guards. The bow gun below is only to be used in emergancies." He pats the marten on the shoulder, "Don't worry you'll do fine. You are a lot like I was when I first started out in life. With a little disipline and work, you will be in charge of your own business some day." Liam moves past the counter, heading for the door, "Now if you excuse me I have some quick errends to run, which reminds me. You have two breaks to use each work day. Feel free to run to the tavern and grab some food around lunch, just let me know before you leave." The marten shakes his head as he starts to leave. Lots of work to do with that one. Lots of work.

Bajardo shoulders slump ever so slightly. He /hap/ hoped for something a little more exciting, but he'd have to make do with the guards. He frowns as Liam starts to leave, "Wait, you're leavin?! Oi can't run thus place all by myself! Oi'm only just learnin'!" By the time his protests are out, however, Liam has gone. He sighs resignedly and sits down at the chair behind the desk. At least this gives him a chance to snoop around in the money drawer.