- Chapter 4: The Men -
"The men here," Dawn announced as she took a place at the dinner table with Jane and Vyra, "...are pigs. And by 'the men here', I mean Eric."
"What's he done now?" Vyra asked, popping a piece of steak into her mouth. Though they ate in a mess hall, once every week or so the Prince's personal chef felt the pang of his master's absence and fixed one of His Majesty's favorite dishes for the troops. There wasn't enough for everyone, of course, but the ones who finished their duties for the day early always got a share of the special treat.
"Would you believe," Dawn said slowly, "...that he lifted a dwarf up by his pants and was pretending to use him as a shield?"
The two girls considered. "No," Vyra said. "It seems a bit low, even for him."
"Well, he was."
"So, did you whack him upside the head again?" Jane asked.
"I couldn't. He had the dwarf, remember?"
"You mean he was using the dwarf as a real shield?" Vyra said, aghast.
"He was. I stopped just short of hitting the poor fellow. When I realized what Eric was doing, I pointed out to him that he was being a spineless coward and an insignificant clown. He responded by citing his bloodline."
"'Pig' is too flattering a term for him, I think."
"You have a - Hey, there's Natasha." Dawn waved to her.
Natasha brought her plate over. The table they were eating at was built to centaur height, of course, since Dawn and Vyra couldn't eat comfortably at the tables designed for humans. As centaurs eat standing up, this meant that it came up to the chin level of a typical human, and even higher than that if the said human was sitting. However, the centaur tables were each equipped with two or three extra tall stools so that human and centaur could eat together if they so chose. Natasha lifted her plate of food above her head, slid it onto the table, and climbed onto one of the stools.
"You missed the Royal Special," Vyra remarked, noting Natasha's plate of bread and chopped vegetables.
"I... had something I needed to talk to General Mayfair about."
"That's our leader. Always on top of things. Here," Jane said, cutting off a fair-sized piece of her steak and setting it on Natasha's plate. "Tribute for the chief."
"Tribute," Dawn and Vyra agreed, offering up their own shares.
"Thank you," Natasha said with a smile. "I'm touched."
"Well, go on, Dawn," Jane said with interest. "How did you get Eric to let go of the dwarf?"
"Oh. Well, while he was busy ranting at me, Theo came up behind him and jumped on his back. And he said to Eric... darn, can't remember what his exact words were. But I think what he said was, 'Ordinarily I'd consider this maneuver an insult to your race, but in this case I think it suits the target perfectly.'"
Jane and Vyra burst into a fit of giggles.
"What?"
"Those aren't words Theo would use," Vyra pointed out between lingering chuckles. "You just can't resist putting all your favorite quotes into lofty language."
"Well, that's more or less what he said," Dawn said with an amused sigh. "Anyway, he told Eric that he'd give him a thrashing if he didn't put the dwarf down nicely and apologize."
"I'll bet Eric took him up on that."
"Yes, he did. Stupid pig doesn't know when to quit. Theo used his staff to whack him on the back of the neck, where Eric couldn't use the dwarf to shield himself. It left quite a lump, and I suspect it's only going to get bigger."
"That Theo," Jane commented. "He's really an incredible guy."
"Yes, but it's Eric who concerns me. When I first met him I figured he'd at least learn some basic manners after a few weeks. Instead, he just keeps getting worse."
"Maybe we should try teaching him a lesson."
"I don't know. If the lesson he got today doesn't sink in, I don't know if anything will."
"Personally, I think maybe we can get a bit more subtle than that with him," Vyra said. "Perhaps our fearless leader can come up with something? Natasha? ...Natasha?" She gave her a poke.
Natasha, having taken only a couple of bites of steak, was resting her chin in her hand and staring at her food. "Hmmm?"
"She's daydreaming about His Majesty again," Dawn groaned.
"What if I was?" she snapped back.
"There's no call to be aggressive," Vyra said. "We're your friends."
"Then it shouldn't matter to you who I'm in love with."
"We don't want you to get hurt. You haven't got a chance with him, Natasha," Jane protested. "He's almost ten years older than you, and he's your sovereign."
"Stranger things have happened."
"I don't see why you can't go for someone within your reach," Dawn said. "What about the men in our squads?"
"Are you joking?" Natasha said with a bitter laugh. "Who did you have in mind? Luke? That clown almost makes Eric look dignified. Binuto? I know it's because his parents were killed during Woldol's coup, but a dragon has warmer blood than him. Theo's nice enough, but he honestly needs to wear a sack over his head."
"Hey!" Jane said, reaching across the table to sock her in the arm.
"Besides, Jane's already got first dibs on him," she added.
"Darn right!" Jane said, folding her arms. "I'm mature enough to realize that you don't need good looks to be a total hunk."
"Well, what about the new guy? Deanna?" Dawn asked.
"Deanna?" Natasha echoed, a mystified expression upon her face. "You know, I never even really thought about him as a guy. He's cute, I suppose, but..." She bit her lip, searching for what she wanted to say. "...He just makes me feel bad for him. He seems so meek, and incapable. He's not a hero like Prince Nick." She sighed dreamily.
"You're just saying that about Deanna because he's so quiet."
She shook her head definitively. "No, I'm really not! But that's another thing. Even when he does talk, he's so strange. I was just meeting him for the first time this afternoon, and after talking to him for like five seconds he said that as soon as he recovered he wanted me to walk with him out through the main gate. When I asked him why me, he said, 'All the other people here my age are jerks.' Who still talks like that after they hit 13?"
Jane shook her head. "Weird."
"Don't get me wrong, though; he's not a bad guy. Turns out he actually knows the Egress spell, and he agreed to meet up with me in the library later to teach it to me."
The others immediately stopped eating and stared at her.
She fidgeted. "What? He'll be out of bed in a day or two."
Vyra cleared her throat. "All that protest about Deanna being a viable love interest, and you already have a date with him?"
"It's not a date," Natasha said darkly. "I want to learn Egress. It's a very useful spell. Have you forgotten that even Prince Nick had to use it once?"
"Okay, okay; I've put it badly. Let's just say that there's a good chance that something more than studying is going to occur in the library between now and when you've mastered Egress."
Natasha gasped. "What kind of woman do you think I am?"
"Not kissing, silly! Get your mind out of the mud pit! I mean you're bound to get to know each other better."
"My thoughts exactly," Dawn said. "It'll take you hours at least to learn Egress. You can't possibly talk about nothing but magic for that long."
Natasha was silent a moment in thought. The others watched her, waiting for her to acknowledge that they were right. At last she said, "Would you like to back that statement with money, Dawn?"
"What?"
"I'll bet ten gold coins that I can learn Egress from Deanna without even one off-topic sentence passing my lips in that library. Heck, let's make it twenty gold coins!" She slapped her money purse on the table.
A moment of silence passed. Vyra looked at Dawn, emphatically shaking her head No.
Dawn said, "Ten gold coins. Let's keep it friendly, okay?"
"Okay. Okay." She relaxed back onto the stool with a slight laugh. "Woah. Sorry; I got a little giddy there. Y'know what, this is silly. Forget the bet."
"I don't know," Jane put in. "As long as we're keeping it friendly, this could be interesting. But why don't we split the bet; make it me and Natasha versus Vyra and Dawn?"
"You want to split with me? I thought you agreed with them."
"I do. But this is just for fun."
"Very well," Vyra said. "We're each in for five gold coins, then? Let's shake on it."
Linking their hands in a circle by hooking each thumb with its neighbor's pinkie, the women solidified their entertainment for the coming week.