Senitus I

A new chapter involving an entirely new character, and for the first time, someone who isn't a noble.  Before I came up with an actual name for him, his placeholder name was "street scum with a heart of gold."  Oh, and I got a lot of hits on my last entry.  I wonder if it was because it was I used a picture, or because I said that it had sex.  A mystery I'll never learn the answer to, I fear.

He didn't know when he had awoken, only now that he was. It yet remained a mystery as to how a bed could be so uncomfortable when one made effort to go to sleep, yet as soon as they had ended their slumber and needed to get up, one’s bed was more comfortable than anything else. Senitus rolled over to face away from the open window in the hopes of going back to sleep, only to have the sudden realization that he had missed his morning levy. Again. Every morning it was his duty to go to the home of his patron at sunrise and see if there was anything that he needed to do for him, notably in terms of voting in his patron’s interests. In exchange, his patron would lend him aid in times of need, letting him borrow money or gainful employment.

Senitus growled in frustration. How could I be so damn stupid? Again? He slowly sat upright in his bed, the uneasy feeling from a heavy night of drinking coming to him all the sudden. His head didn't feel right. It wasn't quite a headache, just this surreal feeling where the entire world felt different. He didn't sleep well and his shoulder muscles were all kinds of sore. It was going to be one of those days, one that felt all too familiar.

He lived in an insula, an island amidst the other buildings, an apartment building housing hundreds of people in the middle of the city, sharing a small single room apartment with his grandfather, having only two beds and precious little else in the room with them. His parents had died both when he was younger, leaving him to be forced to live with his grandfather, his only other surviving relative. His grandfather by this point had become quite old and feeble, and unable to take care of himself. He once had served in the army and thus naturally had a small amount of natural wealth to him, but in fighting those bastards to the south, he had lost a leg, making most work impossible. It was up to Senitus to care for him.

This did not mean that either of them approved of the situation, but family is family; blood is blood. “Finally awake, I see, you drunken lout. Missed your levy, I see.” He paused for but a moment before adding his coup de grace, “Again.” The rest of his words would have had lessened effect if for not this last one, biting deep into his own insecurities on the issue. With age, his grandfather’s voice had become quite coarse, which only worsened the bite to his words.