Master and Mage
By Sam Davidson
Disclaimer: Susan Cooper graced the world with these characters, and we mortals may only pick them up and play with them, putting them back gratefully when we are done.
A/N: I miss writing fanfiction, so I have decided to have another go. Please tell me if it's crap, and I'll stop—otherwise I shall continue. Yes, as others I have written, it will be slash, though probably not for a while. I dedicate this chapter to countessvorkosigan, who wrote me some very nice reviews and convinced me to try writing something again.
Chapter Two: Chickens
Chickens are nasty creatures. Anyone who says otherwise has either spent too little time with them to know their true nature, or too much. Will Stanton did not like chickens. In fact, he did not particularly like most of the animals with whom he shared his rural Buckinghamshire life. He would take a book over an animal any day. A book does not bite you, it does not require you do feed it, it does not require you to clean up after it, and it smells nice. However, at least until he went off to Oxford, his role as official Stanton chicken feeder was not one to be shirked.
Returning from his brief stint as a Welsh road worker, as always when he returned from another place or time, Will made sure to appear out of site of any neighbours, most of whom would be rather put out by seeing the youngest Stanton boy suddenly shimmer into existence in the middle of the road. This accomplished, he walked the last stretch up to the house, but veered away from the front path and headed around the back to get the chicken feeding over with before going inside, so he wouldn't have to come back out again. Ducking into the henhouse, he pulled the lid off the bucket of feed and poured some out. "Here you go, you bloody birds, eat up! Or don't—see if I care. Foul looking stuff anyways."
Feeding accomplished, he trudged back to the house and let himself in the back door, and was met by a wall of heat. It was only September, and had just barely got cold enough to wear a jacket, but Will's mother had always made a practice of getting a head start on winter, "making the house nice and warm before the cold has a chance to settle in," as she put it. Will peeled off his jacket, kicked off his boots, and made his way into the kitchen, where Alice Stanton herself was standing at the sink washing dishes, humming cheerfully to herself.
"Hi, mum," Will said, by way of announcing his presence. Mrs Stanton jumped slightly and put her hand on her heart.
"Will! Why do you have to scare me, always sneaking up like that?" Will resisted the urge to point out that the door had in fact made quite a bit of noise when he closed it, and that perhaps the problem was more with his mother's hearing than with his propensity to move clandestinely about the house.
"Sorry," he replied, "I didn't mean to-"
"Oh, never mind. You got a letter from St. John's in the post today—I left it on the table there for you." Will looked down and saw that, sure enough, there on the table was an envelope decorated with the familiar coat of arms of St. John's College, where he would be studying at Oxford. He tore it open and pulled out the letterhead, scanning the contents quickly.
"What does it say, dear?" his mother asked.
"Oh, nothing important. The dean of the college wishes to welcome me to the St. John's family… college accommodations open the 12th of October… Michaelmas term begins the 14th… All the best…" Will folded up the letter and tossed it along with the envelope into the rubbish. "Bunch of stuff I already know."
As he left the kitchen and headed up to his bedroom, though, he couldn't help feeling a little giddy. It was really happening—he was going to Oxford. The bad mood he had been stuck in since checking in on Bran began to lift. When he got to his room, he automatically checked the quartered-circle talismans hanging in each window and above the door. Everything was as it should be, of course, but as the Watcher, he always had to be on the lookout. Not that the Dark would necessarily come straight to him if it managed to return, but somehow it seemed like the right thing to do. He sighed and lay down on the bed, then rolled over to grab his book, a translation of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, off the bedside table. Removing the leather bookmark, he began to read, not stirring until his mother's voice called up from downstairs announcing supper.