Finding Aredain
an excerpt

Aredain strode over to the counter. “We’d also like the two rooms that I’d requested earlier, please.”
“That will be thirty denari,” the clerk said in a cutesy, high-pitched voice, no doubt happy with the fact that he had not requested one room for the both of us.
He took a wallet out of his trouser pocket and supplied three ten-denari coins.
“Hey!” I shouted, jumping in front of him indignantly. “You’re not paying for me! How many times have I told you that I don’t accept charity? You’re stupid, aren’t you.”
He looked me straight into the eyes. That look almost made my stomach melt inside and explode. Then my intestines would burst through my skin and splatter all over his stainless blue t-shirt. That would make the clerk mad, for sure.
“Alright. I dare you to supply the money to pay for your inn room.”
I stuck both of my hands in various pockets of my cargo pants, hoping, wishing, that I had just even one mark, a single mark, to offer to prove I wasn’t helpless. I turned up with nothing, so I stood there, speechless.
“I’m paying for you,” he said immediately. He pushed the coins onto the counter, which the clerk then took and counted, placing in a drawer underneath her desk.
“What?! You can’t do that!” I said.
“Oh yes I can. I just did.” I could detect a faint hint of playfulness in his voice, and a smile playing on his lips.
He turned back around to face the clerk. “Now, it would be much appreciated if you showed us the location of our rooms,” he said politely.