#azekah

Mizzah’s horse snorted beneath him. “Aw, wazza matter Jenna? You hungry too?” he reached down to stroke her neck. Jenna went with him everywhere. That was Mizzah’s job: to go everywhere. If there was a message to be delivered, Mizzah was the one to go. For the most part he was a likable guy, but his ability to read people was what made him so valuable. Often the content of a message was secondary only to the way it was delivered. Mizzah thought this way subconsciously, and was as such very good at it. His horse, named Jenna, was a horse in her prime, light tan in color with a white tail and mane. She was fast but not hard to handle, and Mizzah greatly enjoyed her company on his various journeys.

As they got closer and closer to the gates, Mizzah realized how truly odd it was. He had never been to Solace, but he’d been to more than a few other cities. Very few kept their gates closed or even closed them at all. For the longest time, he was convinced that kingdom gates were merely for show. But here he was, about to step before a set of closed gates.

The nearer they got, Mizzah could also see guards through the gates. He really wondered if they would let him in at all, despite the letter to King Maverick. The last few steps toward the gate, he hopped off of Jenna and led her behind him.

“Good mornin’!” Mizzah shouted at the iron gates. The doors themselves were a thick, dark gray metal formed somewhat like a grid. At points where squares formed on the grid, there were tiny, square holes: just enough to see a little bit through, or perhaps pass small parcels through.

“You from Grant, are ya?!” came a gruff voice from the other side.

“Yessir,” Mizzah bowed his head in humility. “A single messenger from the honorable King Maverick Sahir to the presence of the honorable King Rovan Salvatore. ...As requested," he added, trying to make it evident that this was no random visit.

Mizzah heard snickering from the other side. “Sure ya’ are. You’re not just some bandit come here to pillage our town and corrupt our children.”

Mizzah raised an eyebrow, but merely retrieved a hand-written message from King Maverick, as well as the original letter received from Rovan's attendant, and his own formal identification, just for good measure. He held them before himself. “My papers,” he said, trying hard to keep annoyance or nervousness from tinting his tone.

“Hmm…” another voice spoke up. Mizzah could see a few pairs of eyes peering and him through the gate and kept his composure.

“Why don’t chu go on and hand that here,” came one voice, indicating a hole.

Mizzah was no fool. He stood in the same position, waiting for some real response.

“Ey’, that might be true,” one said softly. “Best go get the captain for this.”

Mizzah heard commotion. He waited a few moments, then heard a sharp order. “Open the gate ya’ bloody asses!” Mizzah held tight to his paper as the gate slowly swung inward with a grinding metal sound.

Then, a man with a more professional air then he had received thus far approached him from the city. The man was clad in armor that was red in color and looked clean and kept. “Might I see that, sir?” he held out a hand.

Mizzah sensed no maliciousness and complied. The man read over the two notes and flipped through the remaining papers, handing them back to him sternly. “You are permitted to travel to the castle of our king. There, your paper will be examined further. I should warn you sir, should it be a fake, you will be severely punished.”

Mizzah smiled a little. “Then I have nothin’ ta worry about,” he said, replacing the papers in his sachel.

“You should go straight to the castle without delay,” the man honestly advised.

Just then, Mizzah’s stomach growled again. “Oh, well, can I stop fer somethin’ ta eat first?” Mizzah asked, a little embarrassed.

“Why, don’t they feed ja out there?!” one of the guards called. A few others broke into unbridled laughter. “SILENCE!” the captain called out sternly. All the men hushed. “If you must, there is a little restaurant right here near the gate. You may eat there, within our sight, and then I fully expect you to be on your way.”

“Understood,” Mizzah nodded honestly. “I thank ya,” Mizzah bowed. Then man nodded and led him and Jenna through the gates. Once through the gates, Mizzah saw the restaurant in question and felt even hungrier. He headed that way as he heard the gates close back behind him.

___________________

Azekah stared at a wall. She was tired. No one came into Patches this early in the morning. The night was when Patches was busy. The other waitress was talking with the cooks in the kitchen. Azekah tried to find something else to clean, but she had swept the floor, cleaned the tables, filled all the napkin holders, and even dusted all the paraphernalia on the walls. She looked at the clock on the wall. Only twenty past the hour. Could this day get any slower?

Just then, the door opened and a man walked through, looking around. This man appeared to be a traveler. His clothes were definitely those of someone with an active nature and they were covered in dust. His brunette hair was slicked back, and his eyes seemed wide and inquisitive. Azekah stared... The other workers stuck their heads up over the counter and seeing that it was only one person, disappeared back into the kitchen.

Seeing Azekah, the man lifted a hand in greeting. “Good morning!” he said with a smile. “Do I jus’ sit wherever?” he asked her, still looking around.

“Oh yeah,” she smiled back, her demeanor totally changing. She may not have been a happy person, but she could fake it to keep her job. The man sat at a small table close to the door against the wall.

"What can I get for you?” Azekah asked with a smile, pulling a notepad and pen from her apron.

The man looked down at the menu that doubled as a placemat. “Um…Toast ‘n eggs sounds wonderful.”

“Small or large portions?” she asked, jotting down the order.

“Small please. I have tha appetite of a sparrow,” the man smiled.

"And to drink?”

“Water would be heavenly!”

“You got it!” she chirped, hopping off to place the order.

“Oh! And can I have a few orders of jus’ bread?”

Azekah turned around, annoyed, but the smile still plastered on her face. “Just bread? Like just plain bread?”

The man nodded with a smile. Azekah wrote it down and delivered the paper to the distracted cooks. She glared at them as she handed it to them. She went to get a glass of water and went ahead to the kitchen, maneuvering past her fellows, got a plate and put about four pieces of bread on it. She then brought it out to the man, curious to see what he would do with it.

“Oh thank you,” he smiled, putting the bread on a napkin off to the side and taking a drink of water. Since his order was so simple and since the cooks were eager to get back to talking, the man’s order came quickly. One cook rang the bell to signal an order was up. That wouldn’t have been anything special except for the fact that Azekah had been standing right at the window.

She snatched the plate angrily and took it to the man. She placed it before him with a smile. “Enjoy your meal!” she chirped.

The man glanced at his meal, then up at her. Azekah was afraid he was going to say that there was something wrong with it. “You really don’t have ta sound so happy if ya ain’t, ya know.”

Azekah’s whole demeanor fell. She suddenly just felt like crying. She tried so hard to keep up the façade of a happy worker, but she had failed. Now he wouldn’t tip her! She sat down on the other booth at the small table, sighing in dismay. She covered her eyes with one hand. Hearing a clank sound, she glanced up to see the man calmly eating.

He noticed that she was looking at him, and he waved his fork at her. “I’ll still tip ya’ if that’s what you're worried about.” He smiled.

Azekah looked at him, her face honestly covered in confusion. What an odd person... she found herself oddly intrigued by this man, in a way she felt a bit disconnected from... An odd feeling, Azekah could at least admit to herself.

She relaxed a bit in the booth seat, after making sure no other customers had presented themselves and that her co-workers were occupied enough to ignore her taking a bit of a break.

"This doesn’t really seem like a fun place ta work I suppose,” the man commented, his mouth half full. “It’s kinda small.”

“Yeah,” Azekah slouched down in the seat. She tried not to think about how much her life sucked. She worked so hard and was still barely able to pay rent for her small house. No one respected her, and the only job she could find had her prancing around in clothes she despised. She hated her life, and she found herself fairly constantly stamping down crazy ideas, that would never work, to break the cycle...

She looked up at the odd man as he continued eating. “Are you a traveler?” She really wanted to know. That kind of thing seemed so great to her. She wished she could just pack up and leave, see the world.

“Um…” the man swallowed a mouthful. “I guess ya could say that.”

“What are you doing on this side of town?” Azekah asked, knowing that most travelers came from the other side of town where the main gate was. She assumed he was visiting family on this side of town or sightseeing…whatever was on this side of town worth seeing...

Without even looking up, the man began a sentence. “Oh, cause I came in this way from Gr-…I…”

Azekah’s gaze shot up and she sat erect, eyeing him nervously.

The man was obviously uncomfortable. His head was bowed, his eyes were squeezed shut, and his teeth were gritted. He had just about said something he hadn’t meant to.

“You’re not from there,” Azekah said quietly, as much to calm herself as to change the subject.

The man looked up, saw doubt in her eyes and continued eating in silence. After a few moments, he looked up again. “Is it hard to find a job here?”

“Why do you ask?” Azekah inquired, still not fully recovered.

The man shrugged. “Seems like you hate this one. I was just wondering if ya haf ta stay here cause there's no where else that’s hiring.”

“Well, yeah.” Azekah didn’t even have to think about it. She despised this job. But it was either this or starve in the street.

“Well, I know it don’t help,” the man said, laying his fork down on the now empty plate. “But I really hope things work out for ya. Keep yer chin up- you never know when change is coming.”

Azekah felt the man smiling, but she just looked at the table. Change wasn't usually a good thing for her... but she understood he was trying to encourage her.

“Ya got my bill?”

“Oh yeah,” she reached in her pocket and retrieved it.

The man took a look at it and handed her about three copper shells. “The change is yours,” he smiled. “Plus,” he reached his hand into his pocket, retrieved something and held it out. Instinctively, Azekah reached out to take it. The man dropped a shell in her hand and stood up with the pieces of bread in his hand.

“Appreciate the food and company Miss...”

“Azekah,” she finished before she realized what she was doing.

“Miss Azekah,” he finished. “My name’s Mizzah,” he smiled with a bow. “I hope you have a good day,” he said before turning to leave the restaurant.

Azekah stared after him for a few moments. She felt her hand clenched and looked down into it. There, the man had given her a silver shell. Her heart skipped a beat.

For the rest of her shift that day, the mystery of Mizzah was swimming around in her head. Was he really from Grant? If he was from Grant, then that silver shell was probably stolen. But then if he was from Grant how would he have gotten past the guards? She wondered who he was really. She knew the chances of her ever seeing him again were slim, so she tried to get it out of her head and just chalk it up as some much needed good luck.

____________

Mizzah walked through the streets of Solace with wonder. Jenna licked her lips, trying to get every bread crumb from her snout. Mizzah petted her mane from atop his saddle, all the while looking around in awe at the various dwellings about. Never before had he seen such an assortment of tents, wooden houses, brick buildings, and sandstone dwellings. The city reminded him of a patchwork quilt - mismatched, but beautiful in its collectivity.

As horse and man traveled down the road, Mizzah now looked up to see where they were going. A large flag pole declared where the king’s castle was. However, given that very few buildings even had a second floor, the king’s three story dwelling was easily identifiable, even more so by the fact that the main road led right there. The day was still young, and the sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon. The roads were mostly empty, but the few people out and about paid him little heed.

Not much time passed until horse and rider arrived at the outer gates of the king’s castle. There, a few guards, all in red armor, stood at attention. Mizzah jumped down from Jenna’s back again, waiting for someone to notice him. To his surprise, one man ran out from the castle, exited through two sets of gates and came right up to Mizzah. Apparently someone from the main gate of the city had alerted the castle to his presence.

“Excuse me, sir,” the rather nervous man addressed Mizzah with a bow of his head, obviously a royal attendant. Mizzah wondered if it was he who had penned the note that had been delivered to King Maverick. “If you will kindly come with me to a holding area, I’ll have your papers verified, and we can get you an audience with our King.”

Mizzah nodded and followed the man through the first set of gates, and a man approached to take Jenna’s reigns. Mizzah became nervous for his horse. “Don’t hurt ‘er,” he blurted as they led her away. This job was making him too nervous. Rarely did anything come out of his mouth he had not thought through.

“Why we would never injure your horse," the attendant said sweetly. "How else would you get back home?”

The comment was innocent enough, but something about the way the man said it put Mizzah really out of ease.

He was then led through a second pair of gates into the main castle. There, the man led him down a hallway and into a large room with a whole bunch of benches inside it. “If you’ll just wait here, I’ll take your papers and have them authenticated. If they are real, I’ll make an appointment with the king for you.”

He wasn't sure how, but the attendant had made this request sound like a threat. Mizzah silently handed over his papers to the man. “Thank you,” the man bowed again before leaving the room and locking the door behind him.

Mizzah stared after the man and looked around the room which was completely empty but for the aforementioned benches. After a few minutes, he picked a bench by a wall and sat, nervously tapping his foot as he waited.

______________

Azekah’s shift was finally over. If she had felt better, she would have felt like celebrating, but as always, she felt like crap. A few hours after midday, her shift ended for the day, and she retrieved her bag from her locker. She then went into the bathroom and quickly stripped off the demeaning “uniform” to change into a loose pair of trousers, a long tunic, and a sturdy pair of boots. Then, in front of a mirror, she removed the tie holding back her hair and jerked out all the painful clips. Her thick black hair feathered out around her shoulders, and Azekah ran her hand through it to make sure it fully covered half her face, including her right eye. She struck a rather ragged sight, but she liked it that way. With that, she started home.

Azekah lived a ways away from Patches. She had to walk nearly across the whole town. On her way to and from work, she did lots of thinking about this and that. Today, her thoughts still dwelled on Mizzah, but also on the silver note he had given her. He must have been rich to have been able to afford to just give it away, but she had felt sympathy coming from him when he had given it to her. She briefly wondered if she should be insulted, but realized quickly that she didn't have enough dignity to be mad about free money.

Her thoughts wandered to what she should spend so much money on. She could pay rent for a good while with that, and that meant she could afford to treat herself for the first time in quite awhile. She wondered if she should buy a dessert like ice cream, or a pretty dress, or maybe even both! She smiled a little at the ideas.

Azekah arrived at her tiny house, which was tucked away in an alley near a few bigger houses and apartment buildings. The outside wall was covered in wood shingles, but inside, cheap plaster covered the walls. Azekah unlocked the door to her house and threw her bag in the corner. She then went into her tiny kitchen to eat what was left of the canned serving of green beans she had started eating the night before. The silence bothered her, so she flicked on the radio that was standard for all citizens of Solace.

“-vises all residents and businesses who desire to see the display to be within view of the main street by four o’clock pm today. Authorities advise that no one from the populous should get involved in any way or risk punishment of the highest degree. This demonstration is dangerous and must be treated as such.”