Chapter 285: A Room for Three
Chapter 285: A Room for Three
They stopped for the night at Redgate, a fortified waystation with a watchtower, two loading bays, and a smell Jin decided not to investigate.
The convoy passed through the outer doors one vehicle at a time. While the escort detail checked the perimeter, the handlers began unloading. Beasts that had spent the afternoon lying quietly in their compartments suddenly found plenty to say about one another.
Glitch waited at the top of the ramp until Jin moved aside, then came down carefully. His foreleg had settled during the journey. Jin still watched the first few steps before allowing himself to stop worrying about it.
Their assigned stall needed a wider entrance. A handler checked the measurement on his sheet, sighed, and helped Jin move the partition.
"Use your left hand," he said when he noticed the wrap.
Jin had already reached with his right. He changed hands without arguing.
Once Glitch was comfortable, he measured out the feed and sat on an upturned crate while Flicker ate from a small dish beside him. She had handled the road better than he had. Most of the afternoon, she had stood watching through the viewing strip while he tried to find a position that didn’t make his back ache.
The waystation bunks were in a room beside the beast wing. Jin checked both companions before sleeping and woke once when something nearby began scratching its stall wall. Glitch’s slow breathing continued on the other side of the partition.
Jin listened until the scratching stopped, then went back to sleep.
Highmarch appeared beyond the morning haze, and he forgot about the bunk.
Three wall lines enclosed the shelter. A rail spur approached from the east, and the gate complex had separate lanes for cargo, passenger traffic, and beast transports. Their convoy joined a queue behind a vehicle carrying something tall enough to require an open-topped restraint frame.
Jin leaned toward the viewing strip, trying to see its head.
A handler lowered a canvas screen before he managed it.
The entry checks included the delegation roster, contract verification, and a veterinary inspection. The officer who examined Glitch studied his file, checked the identifying markings, and asked Jin whether he had any current care restrictions.
Jin handed over Doyen’s sheet.
The officer read it and returned it with the approved manifest. No questions about how an animal like Glitch had come from a Grey Rock Lizard egg. Jin found himself liking Highmarch already.
Beyond the gate, the road rose over a freight yard and descended into a district full of beasts.
They were working, sleeping, waiting outside shops. A woman led a six-legged shelled creature with supply crates secured across its back. Two students ate beside a pair of wolf-like beasts lying beneath their table. Nobody crossed the street to avoid them.
"Tallwalk," said a fourth-year across the aisle. "Most visiting teams stay around here."
Jin looked at the raised pedestrian strip beside a broad, rough-surfaced lane.
"Is that for vehicles?"
"Beasts. Better grip for claws." The student pointed through the window. "And those lower signs are for the handlers. You can get a heavy beast down that street, but not the next one."
There were double entrances on several shops, one human-sized and one much larger. A public feeding station had scales built into the approach. A porter waited while a long-tailed animal backed through a doorway with somebody’s luggage.
Jin watched the porter guide the tail past a display without touching it.
At home, Glitch’s size was something he planned around. Here, someone had already measured the doors.
The Longstable occupied a corner beside a covered care yard. Its lower floors housed beasts, while the guest rooms above connected to assigned stalls through short internal stairways.
The quartermaster handed Jin a room key and a printed layout.
"Three-eleven. East side. You have the heavy stall underneath. Meals in the ground hall, bookings for the practice floor at reception. Orientation leaves from the lobby at eleven."
Jin checked the time. Enough to settle the beasts, wash, and find something to eat.
Room 311 contained a bed, desk, wardrobe, and narrow window. The corner door opened onto a stair that descended into Glitch’s stall. Jin went down before unpacking anything.
The floor was bedded, the gate opened into the covered yard, and the water trough had an automatic refill valve. He pressed the float down to make sure it worked, then checked the two-stage latch on the gate.
Glitch arrived from the unloading yard with a handler. He walked the stall’s perimeter, drank, and lay down in the middle of the floor.
Jin stood beside him for a moment, pleased with the arrangement. He could hear the room door closing upstairs. Glitch would be close enough to check without dressing and walking through half the hotel.
Flicker’s carrier went on the desk. Once the room was secure, he opened it and let her investigate. She tried the window ledge, peered behind the curtain, and finally landed on top of the wardrobe.
"You can have that," Jin told her. "Just come down when I ask."
She turned her back on him.
He unpacked the feed, checked the meal times on the information sheet, and discovered that the stall’s feed hatch was too small for Glitch’s full ration tray. Taking it down himself was easy enough, but he needed to arrange that with whoever delivered the meals.
He went to the care station before the orientation departure.
There was a queue. At the end of it, a girl sat on a low bench working something from a jar into a lynx’s raised forepaw.
Jin recognized the hooked claws first.
Wren.
He had watched that paw strike across an arena often enough to know what followed. In person, the lynx was pressing her head into the girl’s shoulder and objecting to having her pads touched.
"She hates this," the girl said, catching Jin looking. "Every time."
"What is it?"
"Pad conditioner. The surfaces here are rougher than ours." She shifted the paw and freed one hand. "Emery. Cassel Ridge."
"Jin. Meridian."
"You brought the big lizard." Her interest was straightforward. "I saw him coming off the transport. What is he?"
"A Grey Rock Lizard. The draconic variant on his registration surprised the academy too."
Emery glanced toward the yard. "I’d never have guessed."
Wren tried to pull her paw away.
"Almost done," Emery told her. "You stood through an entire check yesterday. You can manage this."
Jin sat on the far end of the bench. The queue wasn’t moving, and he could see the lynx relaxing as Emery rubbed the last of the conditioner into the pad.
"First time here?" he asked.
"First time with the delegation. I kept checking my registration on the road in case somebody changed their mind." She looked at his care folder. "You?"
"First time. I’m still working out where everything is."
They compared room layouts and discovered that the feed hatches had inconvenienced both of them. Emery came from a smaller shelter east of Highmarch. Her coach had given her three different packing lists, none of which agreed on how much spare bedding she needed.
"Mine gave us one list," Jin said. "Then asked whether we’d actually read it."
"Had you?"
"Most of it."
Emery smiled. Wren lowered her newly treated paw and pushed her head under her tamer’s hand.
Jin knew her from moments when she was fast and dangerous. It was oddly pleasant to sit beside her while she demanded a scratch behind the ear.
Neither academy had its group yet. They would learn the draw at the complex that afternoon.
"See you there, probably," Emery said when her turn at the counter came.
Jin waved her ahead. He kept the scouting file to himself.
His phone chimed as he returned upstairs.
[Meridian Academy — Novice Delegation]
[Today: venue orientation, Highmarch Coliseum. Depart lobby 11:00.]
[Group draw and schedule: 14:00.]
[Team briefing: Longstable ground hall, 19:30.]
Jin set an alarm, checked that Flicker had come down from the wardrobe, and washed the road dust off his face.
The room already looked occupied. His bag was open beside the bed, the care folder lay on the desk, and Glitch was snoring faintly below.
He took a picture to send home before heading to the lobby.
[Author: Thank you @aaran for yesterday’s gift and all the support; there will be a bonus Chapter today.]