Middle age prompt
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Hardison should have known it was extremely suspicious behavior.
Nate was dressed as a cardinal, Parker was a juggler, Sophie was, of course, a noble woman, and two of them had to decide which one would be a knight, and which one, a minstrel.
Hardison hated, deeply hated the Middle ages. (Science took a flip back and barely recovered in the following centuries – they could have been living on Mars by now) He also hated Nate's idea of Stealing a Middle ages fair – they were pacing the dust, the mud, they were surrounded by filthy people in ugly clothes and everyone was speaking funny. Nate and Sophie were working on the Mark already, Parker was having fun ringing her cap bells, doing tricks and playing with torches and there wasn't anything really important for Eliot and him to do right now… except to decide their roles.
As far as he was concerned, both were stupid. The Middle ages sucked.
"So?" Eliot asked when they went into one tent to see all costumes and choose for themselves. "What do you want to be?"
That was a first warning sign, that polite question, but he was sulking and not paying attention.
"Whatever. Hate it. Maybe a minstrel. You're the heroic type, the knight role would suit you. The Middle ages were a pit of humanity, I don't want to be here."
"A minstrel." Eliot repeated thoughtfully. "Good choice. Knights are boring. All that hacking, and slashing, swords, armor, arrows… it looks almost like that stupid game of yours."
"It's not stupid!"
"Look," Eliot turned around and went to the other side of the tent. "Bastard swords."
Gee, a real bastard sword… it looked almost like Anduril. And it wasn't heavy at all. Hardison took a sword, realizing how many similarities there were between the Middle ages, and Middle Earth, even without the elves, and Gondorian army tents must have looked like this one.
WETA did a great job with their armor, except for the helmets, they were too pointy, but those he observed in the other part of the tent seemed almost like…oh. my. god. He quickly went to see a golden armor. It wasn't similar to the armor of the Last Alliance, but with a cape, and in the sunset he would look like an elf of old.
"I've changed my mind," he quickly said. "You do singing, right? You'll be a perfect minstrel."
"I do a fighting, too. I would be even better knight."
"Sorry, not gonna happen, it's mine. Go. Shoo. Choose your fancy clothes and tights and let the real warriors do real jobs. You don't know anything about Middle Earth."
"Middle ages, Hardison."
"Whatever, it's all the same – I'm going to sign for the knight, that's my final!" he went out, almost feeling sorry for Eliot. His eyes for the moment looked nearly… sad.
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Yep, he should have known something was suspicious. But it was too late now.
He dodged and escaped a brutal blow to the head, but the weight of the armor dragged him to the ground. When he lost his balance a handful of dust went into his helmet and almost chocked him to death but he got onto his feet again. It wasn't anything like fighting the orcs on the screen. The sun was cooking him alive, like a lobster, unknown people were trying to knock him down just for fun, he was swimming in his own sweat, and everything hurt like hell… but what hurt the most, was a gentle song that was coming to him.
That bastard, surrounded with a bunch of flirting girls that were all beyond beautiful, was laying on the comfortable decorated sofa, looking gorgeous in his outfit, resting, and slowly playing the lute. The lute.
But, what was pissing him the most, was the fact Eliot was singing the Pippin's song from the Lord of the Rings, smiling innocently, showing him he knew enough of that matter to lure him into this slaughter.
So Hardison rose his sword again, and hacked his opponent, and started to plan a revenge.
Just like the elves of old.