When he arrived at Stardin he quickly headed straight for the forge. Inside he saw Mr Sandler and Maleakhi going about their daily lives. For a moment he stood there, wondering if he really should do what he was about to do. In the end he took a deep breath and swallowed his pride.
"knock, knock." he said slowly.
Both Sandler's stopped and looked at him. Mr Sandler's face remained neutral but Maleakhi's instantly frowned.
"Oh look, if it isn't the egotistic egg. Did you come here to rub your wealth in our face your majesty?" he spat.
Sachio didn't respond instead he pulled out the pouch of coins from his backpack "I'm here to pay my forfeit." he said simply.
Maleakhi clicked his tongue before reaching out to grab it. But Sachio pulled away when his hand was centimeteres away from the pouch.
"Hey what gives? Hand it over!" he demanded.
"I need your help."
" You sure you want help from a peasant like me? I might get dirt on that outfit of yours." he said sarcastically while still trying to reach for the pouch.
Sachio ignored him and instead walked over to Maleakhi's dad who stared at him with an intimidating look. He stepped up and held the pouch in front of him. "You can take the money now, but if you help me, I'll double the amount I give back."
Mr Sandler remained silent for a while before eventually telling him that he needs a few moments to go over it with his son. "You can stay the night here if you want." he offered.
Maleakhi looked at his dad with a look of disbelieve but he kept his mouth shut. Sachio decided to accept his offer, but even though Mr Sandler had offered him to stay the night, he seemed as reluctant to have him around as much as Maleakhi was. Every time Sachio tried to help them around the forge like he used to he would always tell him that they were fine on their own and that he should go back inside and get some rest.
As the day went on Sachio grew extremely bored. Seriously, he was used to being alone in afternoons but usually he had a library and a piano to keep himself busy. When he couldn't stand it anymore he got up and decided to ask permission to walk around town or do some of Maleakhi's homework. Anything besides just sitting there really. When he reached the kitchen he heard voices in the middle of the sound of clanging metal.
"You can't be serious dad! He's an egg! You really want to help him? What have eggs ever done to us? A whole lot of dragon dung!."
Maleakhi's voice. Sachio inched closer to the doorway. At least this is something to do, he thought. It was a little hard to hear, sometimes the voices were cut by the sound of metal clanging. Luckily Maleakhi had a loud voice and he seemed to be yelling so that was a big plus. Unfortunately his dad wasn't yelling and that made his voice a little harder to make out.
"Mal, just because *CLANG* shunned us before *CLANG* mean we should *CLANG* them too."
Maleakhi let out one of those really long 'uuuugggghhh' groans before continuing "We don't even know what he wants. For all I know he's just looking for more people to boss around."
There was a loud 'fsssshhhh' indicating that whatever it was they were making had been dipped in the cooling pool which also means that the clanging had stopped.
" Which is why we'll question him at dinner tonight. If he really is only looking for more servants then we'll send him on his way. I'll even let you slap him again. But if he really does need our help then we'll help to the best of our abilities."
Sachio didn't stick around to hear the rest of the conversation. He quickly returned to the living room and pretended to be looking at the painting of a mountain that hung on the wall. He was right to do so because a few minutes later Maleakhi walked into the room.
