Author's Notes

Ok, I've been away from FictionPress for a long time but I have decided to get back to doing what I love most, writing. So I've decided to start by revamping 'Just For A While' as I love this story and was really sad to have to stop writing as I had a full plan of where this story was going and had written new chapters for it. So I'm quickly going to edit and improve on my previous chapters before adding the new ones. Hope this is better than the original and that you enjoy reading. Thanks!

Just For A While

By E. K. Brown

Prologue

It was raining, the biting cold flooding through Shay more effectively than a poison. The shoes on his feet, little more than leather rags, did nothing to keep out the rain or the thick mud he traipsed through.

The road before him was long and twisting and grey, sheets of inconsistent rain clouding his vision so he couldn't tell whether he was a few feet from safety or twenty miles. He prayed silently that it was the former, for he feared that if he didn't find shelter and rest soon he would surely crumple and die right there on the old beaten track.

He drew the cloak tighter around himself, pulling the cowl lower over the unkempt hair, matted and grimy with mud and blood and grown out long past his shoulders. The cloak was thin and ragged, the same as the rest of his clothing and gave him no protection from the onslaught of the rain.

At least the pain in his body had subsided now, he thought. He'd not felt his feet in hours, had even stopped shivering too. The rain's relentless and unforgiving nature had robbed him of most of his feeling and left him numb and leaden.

Shay coughed suddenly; a wet hacking sound lost in the shrill wailing of the storm, and once he'd started he found he couldn't stop. He coughed and coughed until he could barely breathe. His throat hurt so badly, his chest even more so. It felt like there was ice crystallising in his lungs whenever he tried to draw breath and shattered, tearing at his vulnerable insides whenever he coughed. The coughing racked his body so hard he stumbled and fell to his knees drenching himself in freezing mud. With a great effort Shay staggered to his feet and continued on.

If I pause I will never take another step. He told himself. I'll try and catch my breath and never find it again, try and rest my muscles and find them weaker and more brittle than they are even now. If I stop now this storm will kill me.

So despite the ache, the racking cough, the exhaustion that filled every part of himself and the endlessly numbing cold, he kept walking slowly on with the deliberate and monotonous pace of one who has no destination and yet has every need to keep heading toward it.

So Shay just kept walking. All he wanted in the world right then was to get out of the rain and into someplace dry. He did not care for a bed –he had never slept in one before- nor did he care for the company of others. He'd never liked the way people stared at him. But right now he was desperate and was even willing to sit in a room of staring men so long as he could eat and rest.

He coughed again and this time tasted something metallic. He bit it back, swallowing hard and feeling as though a stone had lodged itself in his gullet. He breathing came hard and laboured. His feet trooping through the inches of mud felt like pounds of lead.

Then he saw it, looming out of the greyness; a dark two-story building with flickering lights in the windows, like lighthouses through the sheets of shadow and rain. Across the door, flapping wildly in the wind was a sign, dark and dulled with age but still Shay could make out the image of a coin cut into two right down the middle of the king's face.

An Inn. It was an inn, and at that moment it looked like heaven to Shay. Heading towards it with all the speed he could muster Shay took the handle in his hands. Cold iron had never felt so good as he turned and pulled.

The door did not move. He was weak but still, he should be able to open a door. He pulled again and again but still the door did not budge.

Shay stopped pulling and let his forehead hit the solid oak of the door. The door was barred, the inn closed. The lights were dim and only in two of the upstairs windows. It was late, dark, the house and its occupants asleep or near so, with no heed to the boy on the front steps.

For a second Shay thought he heard a barking laugh, a cruel voice of someone mocking him, though it was more than likely just sound of the wind in the trees. Shay felt tears sting his eyes as he realised the world had once again denied him the most basic comforts.

He'd seen the sign and hoped. But it was foolish to hope. Shay knew that better than most.

He momentarily considered knocking of banging on the door for all he was worth, of yelling, begging for help, but dismissed the idea forlornly. No one would come, and even if they did what could he offer them in payment?

Shay clutched tighter at the purse in his free hand. It was the only thing he owned; a purse of leather worn thin with age, no bigger then a child's fist but which held everything he valued. In it, among other things, he had exactly seven copper coins; not enough to buy a real meal let alone a bed or a space by the hearth.

His stomach clenched and ground against his innards. When had he last eaten, he wondered suddenly? Yesterday? Two days past? Three? Four? He couldn't remember and that wasn't a good sign. He needed food and the smell of something that had been cooking from inside the Inn was enough to make his mouth water and his eyes grow wide with need. Shay wished that smelling something as wonderful as that was enough to nourish him, but he was no fool or simpleton.

With a great effort Shay pulled himself away from the door and rubbed at his watering eyes, though this only did to smear dirt into them. They stung profusely but it didn't matter.

Ever so slowly Shay made to move off down the road.

I have to keep walking.

But as he passed the corner of the inn he happened to spot the stables, coops, small sheds and fences at the back of the in that defined it as a small farm too.

Shay paused, thinking hard.

To enter another person's property without permission was a crime in the city state of Scarba, to which these lands were tributary. If he were caught he could be sent before a Justice. And if he were recognised, if someone reported to the Justice exactly who and what he was…

Shay felt his hands begin to tremble, but from fear instead of cold.

It was a risk, a terrible risk, but what choice did he have? Who know how far the next town was, how long he would have to walk until he found another shelter, that was if he survived that long. If he continued on much longer as he was he would die, Shay knew that deep in his bones.

No, he had no choice.

And if I am away early enough, they'll never know I was here.

Very carefully he crept around the side of the inn. He coughed again deep in his throat, and again tasted metal. He pushed it down. Glancing around to make sure there was no one to see he ducked through a fence and scurried into the stable, praying the storm would be enough to hide him from any prying eyes watching from inside the inn.

The stable held the smell of horses tight around its air but was gloriously dry. The two horses that stabled in adjacent stalls brayed indignantly at the intruder but Shay took no notice. All he wanted to do was sleep and maybe find something to eat. He was in luck, there was a few dry oats left at the bottom of one of the horse's feeders.

He took what he'd found over to an empty stall and pressed himself into a corner. He ate slowly, partly so he wouldn't make himself sick by eating too fast, but mostly because he wanted to make what he had last.

Either way it was little more than two mouthfuls and by the end Shay was hungrier than when he'd begun. Once he'd eaten every scrap he stripped off his cloak and pants and shirt and laid them out to dry as much as they could. Then he removed his shoes and tried to rub some warmth back into his feet. They were dark and bruised and blistered from the days of walking. His shoes he considered abandoning. They were as good as useless anyway and tomorrow they would be sopping wet before he'd even taken three steps.

He decided to leave the decision until the dawn. Instead he curled up into a ball the way a cat does in the depths of the warm hay and closed his eyes.

He felt the familiar tears sleep brought fill his eyes but didn't bother to wipe them away. He let them fall into the hay with a soft 'pat, pat' and lull him into an uneasy and painful sleep.

It was the best night Shay'd had in a long time.