Chapter Text
The tiny little bed in the tiny little room in the tiny little shack was as uncomfortable as it had been every day of every year since he’d been brought here — but, today, it was even more ill-suited to reading than usual. Why the new kids had decided to make his part of the yard their favorite place to play was entirely unfathomable to Rolan; there was nothing here, in the depressing corner of the world that housed him. It was just crumbling piles of stone that had once been the back garden wall and his little ramshackle hut, darkened and dampened by the heavy shadows of all the sprawling trees and shrubs no one considered important enough to keep well-groomed.
And yet those damn kids had decided that this, of all places, was where they were going to run around and scream, day in and day out.
Rolan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to call on the meager amount of patience he’d been gifted with. He couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of Miss Holly again, not so soon after the last time. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up on his ass out on the street a full year ahead of schedule.
A sudden silence outside his door made up for his lacking ability to calm himself — perhaps the day had finally come that some deity took pity on him. It was about time. He opened his eyes, trained them back on the paragraph he’d been reading… and was once again distracted by an obnoxious shriek right outside his door.
“That’s it!” he yelled, pushing himself to his feet and taking the two steps necessary to get from his bed to the door in a single stride. It slammed into the wall of the hut as he shoved it open, not even bothering with his usual pretense of turning the ineffective, broken knob. “Shut up! I’m trying to read in here!”
Two pairs of wide, unblinking eyes stared back at him, and it was almost enough to make him regret his outburst — almost.
“W-we’re sorry,” the little boy stammered. “We… we didn’t know there was anyone in there. M-miss Holly d-didn’t say.”
“Well, there is,” he growled. “And he’s trying to concentrate, so piss off.”
“He said it was an accident!” The girl crossed her arms over her chest. “And he apologized! You’re supposed to say it’s okay.”
“Says who — your mother?”
An achingly familiar shadow passed over the girl’s defiant face, and the little boy’s lip quivered.
“Oh.” Rolan paused. “I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
Leave it to him to forget he wasn’t the only orphan in the orphanage.
The girl narrowed her eyes. “You should be sorry. That was mean.”
“I know. I am — sorry, that is.”
“And also mean.”
“Um… I guess so?”
“Good.” The girl nodded decisively. “You’re honest. I like you.”
“Lia, I think we should g—”
“You have books?” The girl — Lia, apparently — cut her brother off.
“I…” Rolan blinked. “Yes. I mean, I have ‘book’ — singular.”
“That’s fine, ‘book, singular’ works too! To make up for shouting at us, you’re going to read to us. I like it when adults read to me.”
With that, Lia marched right past him and into the shack.
Her brother grimaced. “I’m sorry, sir—”
“No, I’m not… I mean, I’m not a sir. And I’m not an adult. I’m just… Rolan. I’m one of the kids here, too.”
“Oh.” The boy looked him up and down, and his brow furrowed — but, unlike his sister, he seemed able to hold his tongue. That was good — Rolan didn’t particularly want to hash out the details of why, exactly, it was that he was nearing the dawn of his adulthood and still living at the orphanage. It was never a good time to get into the nitty-gritty of just how unloved and unwanted he was.
“You! Adult!” came the demanding call from behind him. “Come read! Now!”
Rolan sighed — but, try as he might, he could only see one way out of the situation. He turned to Lia’s brother and raised a brow. “And your name was?”
“Cal.”
“Well, Cal — I don’t know how interesting either of you will find a book on the Weave, but it’s all I have, so it’ll have to do. How about it?”
Little by little, Cal’s guarded expression melted into a small smile. “Thank you, Rolan. It… it hasn’t been easy for her, lately. A distraction could do her some good — both of us, really.”
Relatable. “Don’t mention it. We should probably follow, then — she seems like she might bring the entire shack down around our heads if we don’t.”
“You have no idea.” Cal rolled his eyes and grinned, and, despite everything, Rolan found himself smiling back at him.
Side by side, they turned to head inside — and it wasn’t long until, for the first time in years, laughter could be heard from the little shack in the corner of the garden.