43rd

Ezner was exhausted. 

He was slumping along the stone streets of Rharne's Earth District, barely able to lift his feet from the ground. He hadn't had a good night's sleep since he'd been released from the safe house as a freeman. He thought sleep would come easy, it always came easy when he was a slave. But every night he was visited by terrors. He'd wake up in his house that was far too big, far too empty, drenched in sweat with a scream echoing back at him from the walls.

The house and his freedom, both gifts from Faith. But he was struggling to deal with both of them. Faith, in her extreme generosity, had given him a property fit for someone well above his station, and the station above that. And it was all... somehow... his? Ezner didn't know what to do with such a large property. 

He had begun forming a habit, several habits.

Each morning, after he'd been woken by his own screams and sweat, he would get out of bed. He would remove his sheets, carrying them out of the open door of his bedroom. He'd walk down the hall, glad that the coldest trials of winter were gone, and the wooden floorboards weren't quite so biting. Ezner certainly didn't love the cold, doubly so when walking through this giant house naked. He'd walked past the other rooms to the only staircase, and down them he descended. He'd walked out through the common room, hung the sheets on a line in the back yard to dry, then returned to the common room to work out.

After that came a breakfast cooked in a kitchen far too big for him, at a table meant for at least eight and not one. At some point, Ezner would slam down his fork into his plate if only to break up the deafening silence. He cleaned his dishes, cleaned all the surfaces, then returned to his bedroom to get dressed. Once dressed, he was out the door to greet the rising sun. 

He walked down the road of the Earth Quarter to his job. He had been given a job at a local smithy, not as an apprentice but an entry level position. Most of his duties involved shoveling coal and charcoal, as well as hauling heavy loads of raw copper, zinc, tin, and iron all through the workshop. It was a long, exhausting trial, and now as Ezner's feet carried him home through the dark evening, his body was on the verge of completely collapsing. 

Still, it was better than having to fight and hurt others. It was an honest trial's labor and it helped to strengthen his body. Maybe he could get promoted to apprentice one trial, if he worked hard enough. It was still crisp out, but no longer cold. Ezner wrapped his cloak tighter around his shoulders as the wind shuddered past him. He just wanted to get home, eat some bread and cheese, bathe, and go to bed. And do it all again tomorrow.

Up ahead, he saw a light on someone's porch. People were beginning to spend the evenings outside as the weather improved. It wasn't for Ezner, but still, part of him liked to see people like this. They were happy. It was good that someone could be. He found himself wondering if he was unhappy as a slave. Less happy than he was now? He still wasn't even sure what happy meant.

He had very few good memories to his name. Being freed by Faith, the time his mother gave him an extra apple, meeting... His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets and his tired feet stopped him dead in his tracks. He saw the raven hair, the pale skin, the deep cerulean eyes, reading by lantern light.

[b]"Elisabeth?"[/b]