Title: Knowing is Half the Battle

Characters: Tristepin, Ruel.

Notes: For beautybelle300256, because she amused herself with the idea of a sequel to 'Price of Knowledge' in a review. These two are probably my favourite characters and I love heckling them.


Tristepin is used to the fact that everybody seems to know more about what's going on than he does.

They probably do. He's sort of okay with that.

Master Goultard helped him come to terms with the fact that a Iop's role isn't to plan out elabo-ellu—fancy battle plans or use five syllabuh-syllu-long words. They do what they do best, which just happens to punching a lot, or in his case, punching a lot and dying and coming back to life (Tristepin wonders, looking at the newly-back-to-life Grougal setting fire to the fire-prone grass-people of the Sadida Kingdom, if this is going to be some sort of new trend.)

What he is not okay with is this weird look Ruel is giving him - as if Ruel is a prisoner of war and Tristepin is the chopping block where the old fart is finally going to meet up with the God Enutrof. Or, in the words of a skinflint: Ruel's the kama and Tristepin's the unpaid tab at Alibert's inn.

Oh Iop, he could really go for some of that special stew right now. With extra meat and a creamy, spicy broth... yesss...

"Pinpin, stop drooling for a second and sit down. We're going to have A Talk."

"Eh? I wasn't—er, a talk?"

"No: A Talk," Ruel repeats and this time Tristepin notices the Big Letters. Uh oh. Those are never good.

The old man steeples his fingers and sends an eerily serious look his way.

Tristepin doesn't know more than he has to because all he needs to know is how to put an enemy in a headlock and boast about it afterwards. And he's okay with that.

o o o o

"—and for women there is the Time of the Month, or in Evangelyne's case, All the Time—"

This Talk... is pretty much Not Okay.

It's the picture of Not Okay. In fact, it couldn't be farther away from the Land of Okay even if it climbed aboard that ship that Quilby bloke mentioned and shot off into the stars, weird flowery analogies and all.

Ruel has made it so far as to mention something about hair growth in new and disturbing places when the Iop smacks both hands against his ears and his voice takes on a rather unmanly pitch: "I don't want to know this!"

"Well, I don't want to tell you this, so we have that much in common. But does Miss Cra care about this? Oh nooo—"

"Eva put you up to this?"

"Hrm," Ruel nods.

Both men swap a sour look, resigned to their fates. Pinpin because he knows Eva will have his hide if he avoids this and Ruel since, if doesn't, he'll probably end up in the Royal Dungeons. Again.

"So…" Tristepin twiddles his thumbs, trying to push away the very non-Iop urges to flee for his life or throw himself into the ocean and swim into in the opposite direction of Ruel until he goes numb. "… hair growth, eh?"

"Eh," Ruel grunts.

"Will I get big, bushy eyebrows like yours?" Tristepin asks, eyeing the Enutrof mockingly.

Ruel glares. "… how about I tell you about what happens to mouthy snots who don't wait until marriage to do This And That?"

And since, as Ruel says, he doesn't want even more mouthy snots around who will badger him for favours and kamas, Tristepin gets the 'How Mouthy Snots Are Made-Talk: The Full and Gross Explanation (Without Flowery Analogies)'.

Tristepin is a Iop. He's mostly okay with people knowing more than he does. He's also fearless and brave but that only goes for monsters and villains and certainly not details about morning sickness and nappy-changing.

Maybe he should just get up and throw himself off a cliff, end it all before Ruel ends this current rant about— oh god—things... rotting off if one doesn't 'tie the knot'.

Oh yeah. Suicide. That's the ticket.

Then Tristepin sighs in despair: knowing Eva, she'd just bring him back to life and make him sit through this entire Talk again.

The young hero buries his head in his hands, accepting defeat.