12 Ash, 121
Torin Kilvin was a trained runesmith, a trained blacksmith, a trained worker with leather. He was not a trained carpenter, nor an apprentice to such. But he was determined, young, and armed with what small training his master had seen fit to give him in the maintenance of old buildings such as the ones he had grown up in.
He was also armed with several buckets, a set of sturdy scrub brushed, a mop, a whole pile of rags he'd torn from his collection of old clothes that were either too small, or too worn out to wear anymore, a goodly amount of soup, and a kerchief to hold back his long blonde hair. Starting in the entrance hall he washed the door, not bothering to polish the knob since he planned to make a new one for it, and moved from there around the walls. Timon's room had been thoroughly cleaned and repaired already, by a professional, as had the kitchen. Both of the chimneys had been seen to by a professional as well, the last thing he wanted was to burn down his new house because of some malfunction in a flue.
Moving through the large living room he made note of floorboards that would need to be nailed back down, and others that needed replacing entirely. He scrubbed the caked-on dust off the windows until they shone with the light of the morning, cleared webs out the corners, and made war on the vast hoards of dust bunnies that had taken up, what they surely believed to be permanent residence wherever space could be found.
The rooms were not beautiful when he was done, but they were Clean. The tall youth was not the cleanest person in the world, not obsessed with every little thing, but he was fastidious and tidy in his habits. The house had been neglected for a long time and he wanted to let it know, in his way, that someone cared about it now. The kitchen had been cleaned some when it was repaired, but he gave it the full treatment as well, ensuring that the countertops were clean enough to eat from, since they likely would be, and the sink was washed out. He had to do so with a bucket from the well, as what he thought had once been running water was not, well, running. He still needed to as Sivan if anything could be done about that by a sprite before he called for a professional, and no doubt expensive, plumber. For now, the well was more than good enough for the two young bachelors.
Timon had refused to sit by idle while Torin worked to begin the restoration of their home, and had been more than willing when his elder sent him out to wash the stones that made up the lower half of the lower story of the house. There were weeds to be pulled from around the foundation and other dirt-filled tasks to be done around the exterior of all three buildings. The young apprentice was approaching puberty, but he was not there yet, and as such, was quite happy to get thoroughly dirty in the name of a good cause.
Moving to the stairs Torin took them one at a time and applied the mixture of oil and soap that would both clean and protect the wooden surfaces that made up the majority of the features of the house. Here too he noted places that would need a hammer's care to ensure they remained sturdy and serviceable. Making his way over the banister and railings, then up into the rooms, he took as much care in even the small storage space as he did with the room that, someday, would be his. The fireplace was scrubbed out, leaving smears of soot on his face and darkening his hair to a dull gray in places. The windows were seen too, a long crack being discovered in one and a hole in another that must have been made by a thrown rock.
He would think about asking Sivan if he knew how to make twice-tough glass yet, as it was something he remembered being part of the Alchemists art. If Torin found someone throwing rocks at his house, it would be stopped, of course, but there was no harm in safeguarding ahead of time.
When all the cleaning was done he hauled his buckets and brushes back down the stairs, setting them outside the front door and fetching a set of tools he'd gathered earlier that day from his forge. They were things that might apply almost as well to house carpentry as to smithing, a couple of small hammers, a chisel, several files, pliers. With them he moved back through the rooms, now dry, in the same order. Hammering down floorboards where they had come loose, pulling out and replacing nails whose heads had snapped off or were too rusty to do their job any longer. The stairs received the same treatment, though he was obliged to remove one of the railing poles entirely as it had taken to dry rot and would fall apart if someone tried to grip it.
There was one part of a wall in the storage room that had come away from the others. Before he could lay new nails to hold it in place he saw something inside the hole. Reaching in, to his elbow, he retrieved it, and received a long splinter for his trouble. The pliers removed the splinter without leaving bits behind, thankfully. What he'd pulled from the wall turned out to be a small book with ink so faded it was hard to make anything out. He took it into the hallway and was able to read enough to realize it was the diary of a young woman, probably a maid who had once served a family who'd lived in the house. Flushing from embarrassment at having read something so private he set it at the top of the stairs and went back to fix the wall.
As he came back down the stairs with the tools, thinking about calling a halt for some well-earned lunch, he heard Timon's voice ring out, calling his name. The lad didn't sound hurt or afraid, but Torin still made his way out the front door quickly.
He found Timon on his knees, clearing out a patch of heavy weeds that were growing up against the side of the house facing the back. He looked a bit silly in Torin's huge smithing gloves, but they would protect him from thorns, nettles and insects, of which there seemed to be an abundance.
"What is it?" He asked, squatting down, ignoring the possible dangers to brush at the ground where Timon was pointing. He felt wood there, old, and crumbling planks of wood and..?
Leaning closer, going down on his knees he brushed a bit more, Timon lending his protected hands to the task as the tried to unearth the piece. There was metal on it too, old iron, long gone to rust, but, eventually, they found a place where a handle had been, because it was a door. A cellar door, set down into the ground, just barely touching the house. Raising his brows Torin looked down at it and then back at Timon.
"I guess we have a cellar." Standing he took hold of the sturdiest looking part of the rotten wood and carefully, slowly, began to heave it open. After a time, to the sound of snapping roots, it gave way and swung open, the old hinges making an awful shriek of protest.
Both young males peered down into the black hole that now showed. Nothing much could be seen, the start to a set of stairs looking even worse off than the doors, and, beyond that, darkness. Torin Caught the back of Timon's shirt when he looked like he was about to step down.
"No, you don't." Timon looked back up at him with half a pout of protest. "I know you found it, but I need you to promise me you won't try to go down there until I can test the stairs. If they fall out from under you, your aunt will never forgive me."
The pout turned into a look of discontent resignation and the small head nodded. Torin trusted Timon to keep his word, so he set him loose. Pushing the hatch door back shut, to keep anything from fall inside while they were away Torin dusted his hands off and stood back up.
"Now then," He said, stretching his long back to get the kinks out, "What do you say to washing up and heading over to the Pig & Whistle for some hard earned lunch?"
This perked the boy right back up and he let out a little whoop as he rushed to the well to begin pulling up water to wash off the considerable mess the morning's work had made of both of them.
