The Simple Life

The simple life

Sebastian is watching from the back of the inn, amber eyes glowing in the darkness of a booth, as I try to talk one of the merchants in to following me in to the alley at the back of the establishment. As I turn away from him I concentrate on sending Sebastian a massage that I want to go back in to the countryside. There we actually have to work for a living but at least I don’t have to wear a dress all the time. Being in the City suffocates me even though I grew up inside her walls. I can almost feel Sebastian smirking at me amused by the fact that I am displaying the immaculate manners which have been trained in to me almost since birth. He doesn’t get to see them much especially when no one else is around.
Finally after another ten minutes of looking inviting and staying clear of groping hands one of the old goats suggests we go out back. I chance a glance in Sebastian’s direction and hope that my ‘suitor’ thinks that I’m looking at my pimp. If my mother saw me she would have a heart failure. How the mighty have fallen! Sometimes I hate my-self for not conforming to the norm. The alley is dark, it reeks and I can hear rats all around. Another reason to get out of the city and stay out: at least in the open country the rats do not congregate. The old goat gets a few gropes in and I feel dirty. Occupied with subtly fending off my ’suitor’ I don’t hear Sebastian approaching and only notice him when the merchant is slammed against the nearby wall. The man tries to scream but the claws digging in to his throat discourage that idea. We clean out his pockets carefully going over every lining in his coat and find every pocket. Gathering up our acquisitions I dig my cloak out of Sebastian’s pack throwing it on and stashing a few coins in my dress leave the alley. At the mouth of it I hear a few squelches which make me slightly nauseous and hurry further. Walking through the dark streets I keep a fast pace only slowing down in front of the tavern we are staying in.
Once I am in my room I start to relax. Sebastian will be staying out all night making sure that whatever he is going to leave in that alley will not be traced back to us. I will get one last night of sleep in a decent bed before we’ll be sleeping on the ground again. I’ve gotten used to sleeping on the ground over the years a very big change from ballrooms and courts. But the ballrooms and courts have been suffocating me since my childhood. When I had come of age at 15 my father had though to placate me by allowing me to leave the house without supervision. For my own security he also got me a pet: a trained werewolf to guard me. Unfortunately for him the werewolf hadn’t been as trained as my father had been led to believe. Sebastian has been a very bad influence on me at a rather confusing age. Two years after my father gave me Sebastian I walked out of my family house accompanied by my guard dog and kept on walking. Sebastian taught me a lot over the years, he is an amoral bastard, I learned to steal, lie, and cheat in a nut shell: he taught me to survive. Remembering the years we’ve spend roaming around I fall asleep only to be woken up by scratching at the door. Half asleep I open the door and a huge beast pushes past me in to the room. Just to make sure I head over to the window to see the full moon shining down on the cathedrals and houses. Sebastian eyes the bed in wolf form he can easily take up the whole space, not that he’s small in human form. I hurry back to the bed before the wolf gets any ideas. With a whine Sebastian settles on the rug wagging his tail. I don’t want to come close because then I will smell the blood on the wolf’s breath. The merchant in the alley was probably only the first kill of the night. If the militia ever gets their hands on Sebastian he will be killed immediately. Yet another reason we leave the city in the countryside he can hunt rabbits and things not humans even thou according to him humans taste better. I my-self don’t see the appeal, my family has lycanthropy in the blood for several generations but in my blood the curse is dormant. That is the reason Sebastian accepts me he can sense the remains of the curse in my blood. Once he said that the curse is strong in me, if I ever have children they will be changelings. Not that I’m planning on bringing anything in to this world…
In the morning I wake up to Sebastian’s growls as he changes back in to human shape. I get up throwing on a robe and heading for his room to get his clothing. When I get back the servant girl is already filling the copper tub with hot water and I know better then to think that it’s for me. When the bath is full I bark at the servant girl to bring us breakfast, throw Sebastian’s things on a chair and get back in to bed. The sun has just come up and I want to sleep for a few more hours.

The road outside the city is dusty in midsummer and one big river of mud in the winter. We are on foot swallowing dust from the carriages that go past. The money to get a carriage is there but normal horses don’t react well to having Sebastian near so we walk.
Being in the country side allows me to relax if only a little. Sebastian has more energy and seems happier. We are heading for a village that is rumoured to consist entirely of werewolves. I have seen villages like that before they are hard to find and even harder to enter. The one time we stumbled over one like that a few years ago it had taken us three weeks to get safe passage in to the village and I was sick at the time. The people in those villages really don’t like outsiders. We’re only looking because there is nothing better to do: harvesting has not yet begun and the rest of the jobs available are just crappy. We have money that will last us a month or so and by that time the first of the harvests will begin. Looking for some village or other is better then sitting around in some inn or robbing fat old goats in the city. At least we are doing something mildly useful. The werewolf community needs to get organized and demand some rights.