THOTH & MORVEREN
His head was on something hard. That was nothing new; Thoth rarely slept in a real bed with a real pillow.
With a grunt, he cracked his eyes open and peeked out, recognising the view almost instantly. He'd drifted off sitting at his desk again, and his head was slumped over an open hardback. Yawning, Thoth sat up properly, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and checked the water clock on his mantelpiece: it was about quarter to ten in the morning, and the sun was streaming in through the open window, along with an autumn chill. He got up, shut the window, and glanced around to try and find Morveren. She was nowhere to be seen, but the door which led to the rest of Nimueh's wing – which was always shut – was now ajar. With some sense of trepidation, Thoth crossed the room, pushed it open fully and stepped out into the kitchen.
It was empty, save for Morveren, who was visible only by her tail and rear end: the rest of her was buried in Nim's cookie jar, which someone had foolishly left out on the work surface. Delighted squeals interspersed the crunching sound. Thoth poked her in the bum a couple of times to get her attention and, while he waited for her to wriggle out backwards, surveyed the table with a glum expression. There were two cards, this year: he recognised Eselda's homemade crayon drawings on the front of one and guessed that his sister must have signed it too, since the other one looked more like Nimueh's style. Behind the cards was a blue-frosted cake sporting an icing sailing boat with the words 15 Today! on the sails. It had been protected with the only Morv-proof see-through cake tin Nim owned.
The little vaporeon, who had successfully (if not very gracefully) pulled off her reverse manoeuvre out of the cookie jar, now eyed the cake tin sadly.
“C'mon,” Thoth muttered to her, leading the way out into the corridor. She followed dutifully, shooting the cake a few mournful glances over her shoulder.
Castle life was as busy as ever. Servants and courtiers bustled down the corridors, most of them ignoring him. One girl a year younger than him did hiss beakface as he passed, but other than that no one paid him any attention. Most of the kids who had harassed him in the past were several years older than he was, and were now reaching the age where other responsibilities were eating up their time. The majority of the bullies now just pretended he didn't exist, which suited him just fine. Much better than spending another week in hospital with a broken wrist, in any case.
He took a shortcut to the stables, steering clear of the main path with Morv trotting along behind like an obedient puppy. When he got there, it was blissfully empty. Without the stable boys around distracting him by poking each other in the ribs and laughing whenever he did anything, he tacked up Junebell in his quickest ever time, stuck his familiar into the saddle bag and led the pony out. She snorted and nosed his ear affectionately, nibbling at his hair.
So far, the coast was still clear. Thoth mounted Junebell and spurred her into a canter, heading for the forest beyond the castle boundaries.
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