"sometimes it's for the money, often it's for the fun"

Hell yes! Along with a bit of homework -- Old English all -- I wrote a whole bunch today. Over 2000 words, hurrah. That actually makes up for my deficit for two days. If I can do about 1300-1400 tomorrow, I'll have made up all the work I've missed, save Sunday (moving in day) where I figured I wouldn't do anything. Even if I don't make it up, that's okay, I'm just pleased I'm still capable of doing more than a few hundred words while here in Richmond. I liked some of what I did today quite well, so I'm gonna post some here for you. First, the word counter, and such:

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16,100 / 80,000 : 20.1%

And, some writin':

Derik gave Danielle a ruby, and the promise to meet her in the evening, then slouched off to his favorite flophouse, hidden as it was on the outskirts of Whitesteel Priory. The owner, a heavy man whose folds had grown over his massive oak chair, greeted Derik with his usual "H'llo, Darren." Derik tossed two bent copper coins onto the counter – it was a pocked, cracked thing, with three deep gouges that curved along fractured parabolas – and a key flew over the edge of the owner's yellowed libel sheet. Derik caught this and fumbled his way up a staircase so close musty that stepping onto the first stair was a bit like stepping into the ocean: that is, a new atmosphere hits you all at once, and you're not sure if you'll ever make it out the other end.

The room number was scratched on the key, which wasn't so good, as the hallway at stairs' end had a single, guttering oil lamp in the far, shifting black distance. Derik rubbed his thumb over the key, like he did whenever he came here, sighed, and banged on the second door on his left – the first was always occupied by some fellow with a large beard who didn't enjoy knocking, or people, really. No one answered, so Derik picked the flimsy lock and dropped the key on the tiny table near the bed. The room was just slightly bigger than the bed, with enough room to drop your shoes and close the door. Derik did just that, then collapsed onto the bed, bopping it with one fist to crush the worst of the lumps.

A smell of dead insects and rotting cloth filled the air when Derik struck the bed. Derik coughed and swallowed past the tainted air and spit in the back of his throat, threatening a little vomit. He pulled the velvet package from one pocket, and the lace handkerchief from the other, and balanced both on the table. "Lucky old Gerhold's next door," Derik said, fluffing the natty pillow. This was the only public place Derik would ever leave his stolen goods, as no one ever wanted to risk breaking into the wrong room and getting the tip of Gerhold's stumpy spear leveled at their face.

The man was a little shorter than Derik, which made him quite short indeed, and had a bulky beard capable of hiding hams – Gerhold usually smelt as though he were hiding hams, actually, and he wore thick cotton shirts and half-cloaks no matter the weather. He took a different room every night, and then crept out and took his usual, first on the left with the busted lock and the mass of homey quilts wadded under the bed. No one aside from Derik knew, and that was because he'd flattened himself on the stairs, a black cap he'd been fond of at the time concealing his forehead, and watched the whole process. It was odd, watching a man as stocky as Gerhold sneak along a creaky, water-eaten corridor with spear in hand, but he'd done it.

There was a small window in Derik's room, frozen in place by too many expansions of the cheap wood. A vague, half-remembered light shuffled through it, and this stuttered in a slow, deliberate manner. Derik sat up, brain stuffed with the vision-blurring wool of almost-sleep, and blinked. It didn't happen again, but the light never wavered either – he hunched over himself for quite a while, the tiny hours of the morning beginning to sneak by, but finally he slumped backwards and slept.

~~~

The next morning was as fine and promising as the previous day had been. A muffled sort of blue showed up through Derik's window, a small synecdoche of the wide bright sky cracking the winter kinks from its back and straightening up above Floren. People were up already, going about their madness and deviltry. Derik had planned to sleep until his body protested the lack of food or urine storage, but a loud, crackly cry woke him. He lay on the bed, thin cover stretched underneath him, and stared at the ceiling, covered in the dusty remnants of webs and the gentle fuzz that rises out of unfinished wood. Another cry pierced the thin walls, and Gerhold – Derik recognized the voice – said, "What the shit do you want, you hell-roasted wax-fucker?"

Derik laughed at that, as he usually laughed at Gerhold's proclivity for strange and byzantine cursing. He stopped laughing, however, when the walls rattled, a high, anus-clenching voice said something Derik couldn't understand, and the tip of Gerhold's spear appeared through the wall, accompanied by a thin laugh and a gusty "shit!"