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Rite of Passage


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#1 Laufey

Posted 29 April 2010 - 04:57 PM

Rite of Passage

Would today be the day? The day of final, longexpected and eagerly awaited success? He was patient enough, but the repeated failure was beginning to get very, very tedious indeed. The mirror on the wall beckoned, its siren song promising that maybe, just maybe, today would be different. He closed his eyes and walked towards it, easily finding his way through the room without stumbling. Finally his outstretched finger touched slick glass, and he opened his eyes, eagerly staring at his reflection while trying to ignore the mist of his breath on the mirror.
His eyes scanned the reflection meticulously, ignoring familiar features, searching for one tiny sign that maybe today would be different. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Damn. Nothing today either.

The teenager heaved a deep sigh, and stepped away from the mirror, flung himself back onto his bed and retreated into what could best be described as a sulk. His increasingly gloomy ponderings of his misfortune were interrupted when the door was thrown open and a bouncing miniature tornado of halfling energy whirled inside.

”Hi Dekkie!” The halfling girl chirped, skipping over towards the bed. ”It’s a lovely sunny morning, you oughtta come outside, and there’s pancakes for breakfast, and Master Gorbia’s got a kitty! A white one, really cute, and she’s a purebreed too, he says he’ll use her for petting when he’s meeting with clients so they’ll be nervous and pay through the nose. Why would he want money that’s been in somebody’s nose d’you think? Sounds gross to me.”

The boy crossed his arms across his chest, glowering back at the cheerful halfling. ”I thought I trapped that door.”

”Yep. I used a coathanger to set it off before I came in. Wasn’t one of your best, really. But I liked the itching powder idea, mind if I use it myself?” The halfling gave her friend a penetrating look, and then glanced at the mirror. ”No luck still, huh?”

A slightly bitter snort was the only reply.

”Look, I don’t understand why you’re obsessing so much over it anyway. I mean, what’s the point? You’ll get one eventually anyway.”

”Poppy, as you say, you don’t understand this.” The young Vadrak Dekaras got to his feet, gesticulating as he spoke. ”A beard isn’t merely a random collection of facial hairs. It’s a rite of passage, a sign of maturity if you will. Obvious proof that you’re no longer a child, but somebody to be reckoned with.” He gave the mirror a disgusted look. ”And I’m failing at growing one. Can’t you see why this is important?” The utterly blank face of his best friend looked back at him, and he sighed again. ”No, I guess not. Look, it’s a male thing, alright?”

”Um, if you say so.” Poppy scratched at her curly, brown hair, making the glittering red fake cherries tied into her pigtails bounce. ”I still don’t get it. I mean, you’re only, what, fourteen?”

”Presumably.”

”Right. And you’re growing fast enough to need new clothes once a month. Got to wonder how you can even walk on those new long legs of yours. So what’s the big thing about a beard?” The halfling scratched her head again, and then grinned. ”Oh, I get it. It’s for some girl, isn’t it?”

”Not at all!”

”It is! It so is, you’re even blushing!” Poppy giggled madly at the look on her friend’s face. ”So, who is it? Katrina? Nessa? Wyn? Go on, tell me!”

Dekaras gave her a measuring look. ”You promise not to laugh?”

”Yep, pinky swear. Not me, nope. Tell me tell me tell me!”

”Fine. It’s Shurtyrr.” He glared back at the gaping halfling. ”You promised not to laugh.”

”Uh…nope…not laughing…not me.”

”You’re snorting.”

”Just clearing my throat. Honest. But…Shurtyrr?”

”So?”

”So? So she’s what, fourhundred years old!”

”Threehundredseventysix.”

”Right. Threehundredseventysix. And a Drow assassin in exile, musn’t forget. And you’re fourteen, maybe. You don’t see a problem with this at all?”

”Well, yes, of course I do.”

”Good, was starting to think you’d gone completely off your rocker and…”

”That’s why the beard is so important.” The boy was grinning eagerly, and the gleam in his eyes was beginning to worry Poppy a great deal. ”Once I get one, she’ll know I’m old and mature enough, you see?”

”Um…”

”And frankly I’m sick of waiting, this is taking forever. I’m not about to put up with it any longer.”

Poppy rolled her eyes. ”Look, Dekkie, you’d better think of something else if you’re gonna impress Shurtyrr. It’s not as if you can do anything about it, is there?”

”Aha!” Dekaras said, his back turned to her as he rummaged through the large trunk standing next to the bed. ”Yes, this will do nicely.”

”Is there? Dekkie?”

He didn’t bother to reply, and instead hastily placed a collection of various objects on the table by the window, where the light was best. Various bottles and beakers, containers and a cauldron, mortar and pestle, and a small burner. Then he turned around, smiling triumphantly. ”Oh yes there is. I’m not about to let reluctant follicles get in my way, am I? You know I’m good with alchemy. I’m growing a beard, and I’m growing it right now. Then Shurtyrr is bound to notice me.”

About two hours later, two weary, hot, yet expectant young assassins stood watching a clear bottle. It contained an opalescent, gently fizzing potion smelling faintly of oranges and lilacs. ”That should be it,” Dekaras said, comparing the potion with the instructions in the book on the table before him. ”Guaranteed facial hair in under five minutes. Then we’ll see who’s mature.”

”Are you sure this is a good idea?” Poppy nervously asked. ”Look, I know you’re good with potions and all, but suppose it’s…poison or something? I don’t want you to get yourself killed!”

”Relax Poppy,” Her best friend said, patting her reassuringly on the shoulder. ”It’s a valid potion, I checked it out. Don’t worry, I know exactly what I’m doing.” He held the potion up and eyed the bottle critically. ”One to two sips, it said. They always underestimate the doses for safety reasons. Afraid to get sued and all that. Let’s go with four.”

Poppy moaned quietly, putting her head into her hands.

”So,” Dekaras said, raising the bottle to his lips. ”Here we go then.” He rapidly drunk down four mouthfuls, then put the bottle back on its stand on the table. ”It doesn’t taste bad at all, actually. I’m not feeling any difference, however.” Then he frowned, raising his hands to his cheeks. ”Actually…it’s itching a little. No. It’s itching quite a bit.” His eyes suddenly widened with excitement. ”It’s working! I can feel it, look!”

Poppy looked. At first her best friend’s face looked no different than before. Then, she could see it, a faint shadow creeping across his cheeks and chin, getting darker by the second. ”Wow,” She said. ”It really is! You’re really growing a beard! It even looks pretty good.”

Dekaras was already over by the mirror, examining himself. ”I told you I could do it,” He said, sounding immensely satisfied. He poked at his face and the still growing beard. ”Now I just need to decide on a style. Something to make me look mature and suitably…er…”

”Roguish?”

”I suppose so. How about a goatee?”

”Maybe…as long as it doesn’t make you look like a goat. Or an Evil Overlord.” Poppy looked at her friend’s face in the mirror, and blinked. ”Um, Dekkie? Is it supposed to keep on like that? Any more and you’ll look like Young Elminster.”

Dekaras looked at himself, and grew slightly paler than normal. At least Poppy thought he did. It was beginning to get quite difficult to tell, underneath the rapidly expanding wealth of luxurious black beard that by now was well past his chin and creeping down his chest like poison ivy. Worse than that, it wasn’t just the hair on his chin. His eyebrows were growing as well, and were shaping themselves into long, weedy tufts. ”No…” He said in a very small voice. ”No, it isn’t.”

”Hold on!” Poppy shouted. ”Just stand still, I’ll fix it.” She pulled a sharp dagger out of the sheath at her belt, and started sawing away at the beard. It was quite tough to get through, it was that thick and strong, and worse, it kept growing faster than she could cut it. She kept on, dagger flickering furiously. So did Dekaras, from his side of the beard, and more and more beard fell to the floor. By now there wasn’t much floor left that wasn’t covered with it.

”Poppy,” Dekaras voice said from somewhere underneath the beard. ”When I was reading you the ingredients for the potion and you measured them…”

”Yes?”

”Do you remember if I said three teaspoons of pulverized gorilla heart, or three tablespoons?”

”Tablespoons. Definitely.”

”Oh. I thought…”

”Well you thought wrong!” Poppy looked around in desperation. The beard was nearly past the doorhandle now, and soon she wouldn’t be able to pull the door open anymore. ”We’ve got to get out!” She said. ”We’ll choke otherwise.” She staggered over towards the door, nearly falling as the tendrils of beard snatched for her legs like eager snakes.

”Ow!” Her friend said from inside the jungle of black beard. ”That hurts!”

”Tell your stupid beard to get out of the way then!”

”I cad’t I’b startidg to get it id by bouth and…” There was a pause and for a moment Poppy was worried he’d choked to death. ”Oh do. It’s…it’s growid out of by dose dow! I dod’t wadt to be that bature!”

Finally, finally, Poppy managed to pull the door open. Before she could step aside, she was carried forwards, lifted and swept along by a tidal wave of uncoiling beard, screaming all the way down the stairs and into the training hall of the assassin’s guild. Beard over her, beard under her, beard everywhere around her, and yes, now she was getting it in her mouth as well. Finally, coughing and sputtering, she landed on the floor with a hard thump. As she raised her spinning head from the floor, she looked into a pair of startled red eyes. They belonged to an elegant Drow woman, clad from head to toe in snug leather armor, her white hair neatly braided and hanging down her back. There were tendrils of beard coiling around her legs.

”What,” The woman said, ”Exactly is the meaning of this?”’

”Oh,” Poppy said weakly. ”Hi Shurtyrr. It’s kind of a long story and…”
There was a muffled scream from somewhere inside the beard, followed by what sounded like choked cursing. ”You know what,” Poppy said hastily. ”I think I’ll let Dekkie explain it. If you could just help me find him first…”

An hour later…

”Aw, come on Dekkie,” Poppy said, patting her best friend on the knee. ”It isn’t that bad.”

Stony silence was the only reply.

”All right, so maybe you grew a beard that filled half the guild…and maybe Master Gorbia got really mad and gave you detention for until your own beard comes out…and maybe you made an idiot of yourself in front of Shurtyrr…” Poppy thought about it. ”You know, maybe it is that bad. But at least you’re alive, huh? And at least they could get the beard off, and your eyebrows should grow out in another week or so. That’s good, right?”

More silence.

”But hey, at least it can’t get worse, can it? Dekkie? Say something?”

”I never,” Dekaras said in calm, measured tones, ”In my life intend to speak of this incident to anybody, ever again. And neither will you.”

”Never?”

”No. I also never, ever mean to grow a beard, ever again. Or brew that potion. In fact, I intend to get rid of it, right this moment.” The teen hurriedly walked over to the table, took the bottle and angrily threw it out the window. ”There. That’s the last we’ll ever hear of…”

From outside, there was a tinkling sound, then an angry hiss and a very confused ’Meow?’

”…it…”

”Um…”

Dekaras looked out the window and cleared his throat. ”Ah. Poppy?”

”Yes?”

”I seem to recall you mentioning a purebred white cat. A particular new pet of Master Gorbia’s.”

”Yes.”

”Right. I see.”

Outside, the meowing and hissing was growing louder and more frenetic. Puffs of something white and fluffy drifted past the window. Dekaras sat down on the bed, seemingly deeply absorbed in examining his own feet. ”I have a feeling,” He said, ”That those detentions may consist of pet grooming.”
Rogues do it from behind.




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