Step by Step

Chapter Five

Into the Unknown

Varian had not been expecting to be woken up by a loud pounding on the door at 5:30 in the morning. Yes, he had been planning to wake up within the next fifteen minutes anyway, but to be awakened so rudely before he was mentally prepared to get up and ready for the day...

He sat up with a groan, stretching his arms high above his head. And then the knock came again.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead," a gruff voice on the other side of the door said, "the king wants you down at Marcus Pfeiffer's place by 6:15. It's a bit of a walk, so you'd better hurry up and get ready for the long day ahead."

Varian was already standing at this point, selecting an outfit from his wardrobe. "Alright, alright! I'm up and getting ready."

He quickly hurried through his morning routine before waking Ruddiger up. Hopefully Marcus was okay with raccoons; Varian couldn't imagine going anywhere without his best friend.

As soon as his animal companion was awake and fed, Varian opened the door. A strange man stood just outside, some guard that Varian had never met before.

"We'll run to the kitchen, grab you something for breakfast," the guard said in a low voice, "it'll have to be something small, so you can eat it as we head to the scientist's place."

Ruddiger climbed onto Varian's shoulders and made a quiet chittering sound. Varian chuckled softly, quickly scratching Ruddiger behind the ears before nodding.

"Okay. Let's do this."

It was exactly 6:15 when the guard knocked on Marcus's door. Almost immediately, an elderly woman opened the door and greeted the two with a crooked-- yet extremely warm-- smile.

"Welcome! You must be Varian."

Varian nodded, studying this woman. "Yeah. That... That's me."

She smiled kindly at him. "I'm Annika. Come in, come in!"

Varian stepped inside and she closed the door behind him.

"Here, take a seat on the couch. Marcus is busy with his morning routine; I can fix some breakfast up for you while you wait."

Her words came in an excited jumble, and yet Varian could understand everything that she said. Before he could respond, she had turned and gone into the kitchen to make him some breakfast.

It was odd. She actually seemed excited to have him there. Seriously, did either of these two know what he had done in the past?!

Ruddiger climbed down onto Varian's lap, gently batting at his boy's nose.

Varian laughed. "Oh, Rud... Things are really starting to look up once more, huh?"

Ruddiger chittered again, causing Varian to grin.

"You're here early," a quiet voice suddenly said, "you do know that you could have slept a little bit longer and then come on down, right?"

Varian looked up to see Marcus standing in the doorway that led back to a separate hallway, smiling kindly at him.

"A guard woke me up at 5:30 and said that the king wanted me here by 6:15. I thought that you two had discussed that...?"

"No!" Marcus exclaimed, "we had agreed on eight o'clock."

Varian raised an eyebrow.

"But... No worry. I can easily just send a note with you to remind him of the actual time."

Before Varian could respond to that, Annika had come back in with everyone's breakfast.

"Eat up, my boy," Marcus said, already digging into his food, "once we're finished with our meal here, it'll be right to work for the two of us."