Worrying… worrying.

Severian, seventeen years old (more or less, he wasn't certain himself; nobody in his family had bothered to note down, let alone tell him his day or year of birth), towelled himself dry and wrapped the towel around his waist. His clothes were useless right now, a pile that smelled of sea water and fish.

He had taken an unintentional bath two hours ago, when Paulemont had flung him into the harbour's cold embrace after his second argument with and later, about that horrible assessor. The man he had silently taken to be his role model a year ago almost, mysterious in his dark and exotic armour and all too well-connected, had proven that he was very much not what Severian's mind had made him to be over the months in which he had watched him. He had scolded his soaked charge right where he had clambered back out of the water, dragged him all the way to his office and… heavens beware! given the lad a spanking that he would not forget anytime soon.

Come to think of that, who ever had done anything like that? Severain couldn't remember his parents doing so - then again, he had a hard time remembering them at all these days, and his siblings - and Ahldwoad, the cook, had never seen reason to beat him, either. The merchants? No, not really.

With a scowl, he ran a hand over his buttocks. They glowed still and protested to the coarse linen of the towel. He took it off and started looking for his other pair of trousers. Maybe… maybe he had really overreacted… That cold and angry glare the older man had had for him while lecturing him was nothing he wanted again - and even less a repetition of the beating he had received. Least of all, however, the humiliation to be told that he might be too dense for anything but being a mouthy little…

"Bugger it," grumbled the lad and hitched up his work trews once he had found them. They chafed just as unpleasantly as the towel had. With a last sullen glare in the direction of where Paulemont had vanished, he sat down at the desk, picked up a random book from the pile on one side, and set to deciphering the many long and complicated words. Chances were that unless he started putting in an effort really quick, he would end up out on the streets, running errands and hauling heavy boxes for the rest of his life. Spanking or not, he had suddenly gotten as close to his dream of becoming an adventurer proper as he could have hoped, and even a pink-furred Miqo'te with the attiutude of a dragon with indigestion would not keep him from pursuing what had only been a dream until a few days back.

When he dropped onto the couch that was to be his bed while learning under the white-haired Northerner, Severian's eyes were puffy from reading in the candlelight, and he fell asleep and dreamt of a dozen floating hands chasing him through the city, seeking to pummel and punch him while he tried to run and read a contract written in wriggling live maggots at the same time.