“One Leeoka, Two Leeokas,
Three Leeokas, Four!

Once Leeokas Tasted Food,
Always Come Back For More!”

- Excerpt from a child’s nursery rhyme instructing on the nature of leeokas

Chapter 8: “Tugging Vigorously”

For the young apprentice, Terus Kyreon, and his war trained master, Jysalef Soresh, a few night’s time had since transpired - before their arrival in the not so well off town of Elpsiod - ere either of them had been able to enjoy an adequate meal or a proper bed upon which to lay down. Where as the inn that the pink haired girl Latte had located them at previously – as per her master’s behest - had served as a place where sustenance was at long last achieved for the stomachs of the two vagrants, in thanks for their masterfully punishing the leeokas that now formerly plagued the town’s food reserves; it would not be until they had pushed bitingly against all odds, through a most vile Skrandonese ambush, that it would finally become found a place where actual mattresses would at last again be a partner during the duo’s surrendering to sleep. As was most often the case with people, when sleep was found – such that it was of a higher quality than that which was normally obtainable within the marketplace of their life’s experience – the duration of said slumber tended to run far longer than it did on more normative occasions.

When such night time tranquility could be achieved through little more than passing out upon furniture within a dwelling’s main room, it could not possibly fail to speak great a treatise upon the conditions that were usually considered commonplace in regards to one’s usual sleeping arrangements.

What at long last did rouse the older Jysalef from this rare moment of privileged sleep, far sounder than what he had been accustomed to partaking of in a truly long while, was not something of which one might normally expect to pique the interest of the highly hewn senses of a warrior such as himself. Rather than finding himself coming back to the realm of the alert through the encroaching noise of a threat filled with ill intentions; what caused Jysalef to suddenly wake up - against the desires of his body - was the high octaved sounding of a young child’s voice, accompanied by a tugging sensation felt by his left palm. “Hey, mister, why is it that your clothes are covered all over with red paint?”

Alas, red paint indeed; although Jysalef had relented back at the inn to his apprentice’s insistences that he go along with the establishment’s strong urging that he bathe, nothing had been done at the time to see to it that the blood of the now properly educated leeokas was removed from his travelling attire before it was allowed to form stains of a most probably permanent nature.

Before the still weary Jysalef’s mind could even begin to start assembling an appropriate rejoinder to the inquiry of the young mind that was even now tugging at his hand, so as to more fully have his attention, there came forth a harrumph follow by a most clearly perturbed chastising. The voice itself of the reprimanding party was currently familiar enough to Jysalef, although it presently came forth in a tone of authority with which he was not yet used to hearing it. “Konik, I should think that you would know better by now than to be so rude to our guests like that!”

Immediately the little boy, tugging vigorously - in the name of knowledge’s pursuit - at Jysalef’s hand, let go as he tensed up as if to prepare for a sudden scolding blow, “I’m terribly sorry, Aunt Latte! I won’t ever do it again, I promise!” A short moment later, after at last coming to the realization that there would be no scolding blows coming forth this time, the child quickly ran off as he allowed for something else to quickly take hold of his youthful inquisitive mind.

Rubbing steadily as he eyes so as to expedite the process of awaking, whilst he slowly moved himself upward into a sitting position more properly befitting his current state of returning to cognizance, Jysalef moaned out a question, “Did I hear the wee lad who just ran off declare that you were his aunt?” Although Latte had previously stated – while back at the inn – that she was a Skrandonese orphan that the Master Miran Via had, seeing within himself an all impressive generosity, taken under his wing; she had not at the time made any statement to the effect that she had been discovered along with what one would presume to be an older sibling to whom which this child named Konik would belong.

In a far less authoritative tone than she had previously spoken with Konik in, uneasily scratching the back of her head as she did so, Latte nervously responded to the now sitting Corsinthian Warrior, “Ah, yes… but, you must see, all the little ones here refer to me as such. Especially when it comes to the youngest ones such as Konik, I am probably the closest thing to a mother they have ever known.”

Jysalef would have made more inquiries of Latte about the orphanage establishment that the Master Miran Via was now maintaining, but a precursory glance about the furnishings of the house’s main room revealed a grandfather clock whose hands presently declared that it had some time ago stopped being the more proper hour – as previously spoke of by the establishment’s owner - when one might be expected to rightfully be awake. Aghast that they had kept their most gracious host - whom now had most certainly been awake for a good many hours - waiting already until a time that went most headlong in the afternoon, Jysalef spared not a moment longer in barking a command directed at his presently still slumbering apprentice. “Terus Kyreon, you must arise post haste ere we come to seem even more callous than - at this afternoon hour - we most assuredly already seem guilty of being!”

In response to Jysalef’s loud proclamation, Terus quickly snapped upward from his sleep into a crouching position with his sword drawn into a battle ready stance, “Quickly get thine selves out my presence, you debased thieves, lest I open the necks of every last one of you!” Then, rapidly becoming aware of the reality that he was no longer traipsing gallantly through mindscape of his dreams, Terus blinked confusedly at the present lack of highwaymen foolishly surrounding him with an intent to test his mettle.

The esteemed Master Miran Via had just then, at the exact moment of that most peculiar display from Jysalef’s freshly roused student, entered the main room of his house – for what was surely not the first time that day – to check once more to see if his guests were at last awake. Neither the countenance upon his face, nor the tone which he then spoke, even made the slightest attempt to hide how disgusted he was with all that he presently saw before him. “First seeing to it that an old man is made to wait through half the day by decadently sleeping in well past the rooster’s call; and then later – when at long last rousing - kneeling upon my own sofa while waving haphazardly a sword in the master of the house’s face, as he walks in, while declaring he is a contempt thief to be vanquished?! I really can not at all in the slightest begin to fathom why that Tallus Osmaard thinks you two might actually be so terribly important!!!”

Watching how his words caused the tone of Jysalef’s face to rapidly become a ghostly white with the utmost of haste, the agitated Miran Via growled under his breath as he quickly moved to speak yet again, “No, please, just spare my life the existence of another extended session filled with your formal military apologizing; instead, merely follow me as I now lead the two of you to my study so that I may – free of the ears of the children – at long last have with you those words to which I originally summoned the both of you here for.”

Latte nervously laughed in embarrassment to herself in response to this uneasy exchange, she already knew all too well how great an unwavering proponent of proper conduct the master of the house could at times become when the proper buttons were pushed.