Recruit Trastion Leithor
Outside Barracks
Sometime shortly after Trastion enlisted
The air was chilly tonight. Trastion's fingers felt cold from digging in the mud. He'd been at it for at least half an hour. This was his second time this week, sneaking out at night to search for his missing belongings. It had not been long ago when the Lieutenant had been pushed in the mud in this same area. And had confiscated everything out here in the yard. While Trastion had initially feared that his cherished belongings would end up in the lieutenant's office, he also couldn't quite believe that Brian would have found them, when Trastion could not. That darned dog hadn't had time to bury anything very deep, right?
Yet here he was, with a stick, trying to dig and sift through the dirt and mud in hopes of finding the things he had lost. It had been in this area where he found the ripped up, chewed up leather pouch they'd fallen out of. So, it was reasonable to suspect they should be close to this spot. But, he'd yet to find any trace of a ring, or a medallion, or the little figure Linn had made for him. Hopefully the dog hadn't swallowed any of them...
Sitting back on his heels after a while, Trastion let out a sigh and stared up at the moon, thinking. He couldn't stay out here very long, he knew. And he couldn't make a pattern of these night-time diggings, either. He stood up with another sigh, stamped down as many clods of loosened dirt as he could, and crept back inside to the washroom, where he would wash the mud off of his hands and clothes as much as possible. He'd give it a week or so before he came back out to search, and vary it up as much as he could so that his search attempts would not be predictable to folks such as Brian who would, surely, be irate to see the state of his 'garden patch' in the morning. Maybe another night, he would check the stable yard, where he had wrestled with Hattie before she fled... something could have fallen out of the pouch at that point, he realized.
Recruit Trastion Leithor
Stable yard
Shortly before Midsummer
Poking a stick (or his hands) into gloppy mud had been quite fun when he was a child. It still had a certain level of satisfaction to it, in fact, but the frustration at being unable to find his belongings was really starting to get frustrating. Trastion had 'combed' the whole muddy paddock, using a long-ish stick to probe the depths of mud. If not for the steady rainfall pouring down, there would have been an odd pattern in the muddy circular area, as if it had literally been combed. The rain washed it away, along with the mud on his clothes and hands. Trastion pushed his wet hair back from his forehead, wondering how he would ever find anything even if it was down in there. Deciding he wasn't going to make any progress tonight, he climbed back over the fence and went to get cleaned up and into dry clothes, and get some sleep before morning. He'd try again in a couple of days, maybe, or he might go back to searching the garden behind the barracks...
Recruit Trastion Leithor
General grounds of ranger commons
Mid-July
The moon was full tonight, shining with surprising brightness around the grounds. Trastion moved a cluster of grass apart, positioning himself so that he wouldn't block the light, and peered closely, hoping to find some glint of metal there, or feel the coldness of it. Nothing but grass and dew. He got up and moved to inspect some bushes bordering one of the buildings, hoping for better luck there. There was too many shadows around and under the bushes, unfortunately, and he found it difficult to tell anything by sight, but he felt the ground around them as well as he could. No foreign objects like a ring, or a medallion. Or even the fabric animal figure. He sighed and moved to check around the roots of a tree outside of the headquarters building.
After a while, he realized that the moon had shifted to a different portion of the sky, and that meant a good deal of time had passed. Maybe an hour or two. Still, no luck. He let out a sigh and rubbed his eyes. He was quite tired, and these night-time searches were getting to him. Not only the continued frustration of not being able to find what he sought, but the time it took, in the middle of the night, to conduct the searches, was a cutting into his sleep. Not to mention having to keep his 'schedule' randomized and not easily predictable, so that a certain lieutenant would not be as likely to catch him at it. Still, it was risky... and yet, he also liked to think of it as some unofficial training of sorts. What if he someday had to sneak past an enemy who was just as obsessively watchful as the barrack's master... He grinned to himself at that thought as he crept up the stairs and to his dorm. There was also the matter of not waking his roommate; also 'training' for future events. Right?
Recruit Trastion Leithor
Common Room
Early August
Collapsing on a couch near one of the unlit fireplaces, a quiet groan of exhaustion emerged from Trastion's throat. He couldn't even be bothered to make his way up to the dorm before supper, as he would only have to come back down again if he wanted to eat. And he did want to eat. He was starving, having been training very hard, all day. It had been a mistake to spend even twenty minutes searching through the dirt in the garden, last night. At least it was easier, with Lieutenant Brian still in the houses of healing after the fire, but with Trastion's increased training schedule, he was regretting the time spent
not sleeping during the night.
Up until the day of the fire, Trastion had begun to feel more and more convinced that his belongings were not in the grounds at all. But then, when people brought up buckets full of dirt from Brian's garden to throw on the fire, he had found the little figure his sister had made him, mixed in with that dirt! And while he couldn't exactly ask anyone where that particular bucket of dirt had been dug up from, it vanquished any doubts he had begun to have. His things
were in that patch of dirt. They must be! His father's ring, and his brother's medallion were all that was left to find. And yet, those were the most valuable. Of course.
After the fire, when he'd found himself sharing a room with Unalmis, Trastion had ended up admitting about his secret digging sessions to his new roommate, after learning that some suspicion had been cast onto Nal himself. Apparently, the barracks master had even accused Nal of still hiding a dog in the barracks! And then, when Nal offered to help him search, Trastion had been quite glad for the company. Plus, he figured it was a great time to search, with the lieutenant in the houses of healing, the captain and other lieutenant busy and distracted by the recent destruction to the North wind... and the ground already dug up and everything. He hoped that maybe something new would turn up. But nothing had. Nothing, but a few bones Hattie must have buried long ago, and some worms and bugs that had been disturbed by all the digging. Although, it had been rather fun, he had to admit. Much more fun than searching by himself.
Still, it was feeling more and more like a hopeless attempt. For months now, he had been searching. And for months, his efforts had been fruitless. And, since recently telling Arnyn about the loss of his brother's medallion, her question in return had been slightly alarming. He didn't want her to catch him
red muddy-handed, because then she might have to report him, and he'd get in trouble probably. And she was currently taking Brian's place, running the barracks. So, he also didn't want her to get in any trouble. So, he was beginning to feel as if he had hit a dead end. Not to mention how much more intense his training had become since that talk with Lt. Arnyn at the training grounds, almost a week ago already. He wouldn't have time to keep searching and keep up this intense training schedule, yet he hated to give up the search entirely.
His dilemma was circling around in his head as he lay sprawled on the rather comfortable couch, one arm thrown across his face to block the light out. Maybe he'd get a nap before supper. But, he couldn't seem to get his mind to shut off. Well, at least he could rest his body for a little while, even if his mind didn't want to do the same. His limbs were weary, he was aching all over from various the muscles he was using much more than previously, and from a few bruises from sparring, and a few times he'd fallen off of the devices in the obstacle course. And he was hot and tired, and couldn't seem to get enough water to keep hydrated. And tomorrow, it would start all over again...
