After sitting for the last nearly three hours, baking in the gentle heat that the walls of the manor retained, the smell in the cafeteria was enough to make a few of the orphans gag as they entered. Shoulders slumped as nearly a hundred pairs of eyes surveyed the scene once more where lunch had had a battle befitting the most brutal of wars. The mess looked far worse than a lot of them remembered.
	It was going to be a long evening.
	A few of the boys, much like Aurelian, had chosen to work with their shirts off. Many grumbled complaints filled the air as the orphans worked together, but none dared utter them in above a whisper. Though nearly all the windows on the main level had been opened, including those few on the outside-facing walls of the dining hall, the gentle breeze of the storm blowing in was outmatched by the number of sweaty bodies working hard. Had anyone bothered to pause and gaze out one of the windows, they would have been greeted with the fresh, crisp scent of rain as it began to fall, first only a drizzle then slowly intensifying into a downpour, the feel of electricity in the air and the dark, ominous clouds that prematurely blocked out the sun warned of far worse to come.
	Even with some of the staff pitching in, by the time a long break was issued and dinner served, a quarter of the gut-wrenching lunch-purée still remained. It clung to the wood of the floors and walls defiantly, and quickly found its way into the hair and under scales of many of those cleaning. The glow of lanterns lit around the room cast their warm golden glow over the entire scene, the flames flickering their encouragement... or perhaps mockery at the situation the children had put themselves in.
	At long last, as seven in the evening rolled around, the dining hall looked nearly as spotless as it had that morning.
	Thayva, who had labored among those cleaning between doing rounds to be sure the children were all working between breaks, came to stand at the front of the room.
	“Can I have your attention!” she shouted above the clatter of metal buckets and mops, and chatter of orphans and staff alike. When a quiet settled and most eyes turned to her, she continued. “You’ve all worked hard to clean up your mess. For that, I congratulate you. But let it be a lesson. If anything like this ever happens again, the consequences will be far direr than spending the night cleaning.” She looked over the weary faces of everyone in the room. “Your usual evening chores are to be halved tonight, consisting of only the necessities, to allot more time for bathing. Which, I’m sure you will all agree, is something every one of us here needs.” She looked them over once more. “You are all dismissed.”