Cranks discussion

Though he'd never admit it, Alyosha had taken to lurking in the oddest of places. Odd in that they were never the same and almost always unrelated, but always within easy reach of his quarters.

He still maintained that it wasn't lurking, no matter what people said. If he was "lurking" he'd be creeping in some obscure corner, perhaps plotting some devious plot, but he wasn't. No, Alyosha was clearly standing in the middle of the room, looking as bereft and lost and confused as he felt.

Alyosha wasn't lurking, it just remained that the building was just so damn huge that he couldn't figure his way around the place. It had gotten to the point where he dared go no farther than a hallway and a half from the commons.

Not that he lingered there longer than necessary. The commons (for all his hopelessness of manoeuvring through the building) was the one place he did not idle.

Too many people for his liking, and far to loud. Never could he have believed that such a small group of people could be so outrageously noisy. It was like walking into a squabble of hens every morning, and if it was one thing he couldn't handle in the morning it was noise.

Maybe he was just getting to old. Not that he would ever admit it, no, but he had most certainly began to feel his age. Probably felt it a little too strongly, if he were being honest, but he'd had a pretty long run already.

Oh well, so what if he were the old man of the group, just meant he had experience where they didn't.

He even remembered how to assemble and disassemble his weapons, for all the months it had been. The parts, freshly cleaned and oiled, glistened darkly upon the white-washed table he'd laid them out upon, cool and deadly at his touch.

Idly, he began to put it back together again, checking for wear and scoring as he did so. It would never do for him to take a defected weapon, and so he carefully checked for anything that could do him wrong before slipping the parts home.