(btw, the dreaded chapter has been changed to chappy 13 . . . just letting you guys know. . . .)
Blu: Y'know, I'm not really looking forward to writing this chapter . . .
Blue: *pats back encouragingly* Don't worry, Blu. I'm sure you'll get into it, just like with previous chapters.
Blu: Ya'know what I've noticed about me, Blue?
Blue: What is that?
Blu: I really like to plan. Like, plot wise and stuff. I look forward to writing certain parts for who-knows-why, and then I get with writing all the rest of it.
Blue: That makes sense.
Blu: ya . . . wow, that was a pointless-piece-of-information-that-I-don't-feel-like-deleting-from-the-AN-because-I-have-nothing-else-to-put-up-here. ON WITH THE CHAPTER!
. . .
Blu: Yeah people: that was my horrible attempt at comedy.
Chapter 12: The Bishop
"Matthias!"
Mathias looked up, picking his head off his table lazily. Man, had he fallen asleep on it again? Kristian looked at him. "Sir?"
"What?" Mathias groaned, stretching his arms out in front of him, lengthy fingers weaving in the air like a cat's little pink toesez. He back cracked stridently when he got up and bent rearwards.
"Um . . . Letter for you." Kristian said, offering the crooked and twisted envelope to his commander.
Mathias took it with lazy fingers and broke the seal, opening it gingerly. 'Position' it read. The Knight, rolling his blue marbled eyes, picked up a pencil and scribbled back lazily: 'Dormant and waiting'.
He handed it back to Kristian with a great yawn, one that would've been made by a lion. "Now if you'll excuse me, Kristian," Mathias said as his second took the paper, "I am going to catch all the dreams I didn't get last night." And the Knight plopped down on his cot, sleep quickly overtaking his drowsy eyes.
"The luck of the hunters' to you, sir." Kristian said as he curled up the letter and slid it back into the pack on the back of the hawk.
"Thank you Kristian."
"What does he want, noooow?" Mathias complained as he took the letter again.
"I dunno, sir."
"Pfft! 'Explain', it says!"
"What?"
Mathias picked up another pencil with a stubborn "Urg!" and scribbled hastily. 'Because of the Silver Company's stubborn' – Mathias searched for the right work – 'position and firm belief that they shouldn't do anything, we've gotten no land gained, no land lost.'
The response came quicker than expected. "Oh skít."
"What is it, sir?" Kristian asked.
"Gupta wants to skin me alive and boil me down to cream to put into his tea."
"I don't know whether I should laugh or be horrified, sir."
"Well, I'm the victim here, so I'm quite horrified, but you can think whatever you want, n'k Kristian?"
"Thank you sir."
"You're welcome Kristian."
"What does the letter say, anyway?"
Mathias cleared his throat. "'Mathias, you are a dastard' is how it starts out."
"Ooo, tough love, sir."
"Oh – no, pfft, it gets worse Kristian, believe me. 'What do you think this is – a traveling circus?' Heh, of course I do, Gupta!" the Knight said with his most sarcastically sincere face. Kristian gave a large, hearty laugh. "'We are in the middle of a war and I have a Knight at my disposal who clearly does not know how to do his job.' Noo faith in me, Gupta? None whatsoever?"
Kristian chuckled again. This is where Mathias held up a finger, as if to tell Kristian, "This is where it starts going downhill." He cleared his throat again. "'I am going to come and check in on you and your apparent lack-of-status. And if I find that you have not whipped those Silver bastards into shape, I am going to be very disappointed. And by "disappointed" I mean "furious."' Pfft, like he's not already! 'There will be several consequences if I am not impressed with your work. I will demote you to Pawn and give charge of your Knights and the Silver Company over to Berwald. Just to name a few. Good day.'" Mathias crumpled the letter and threw it on his desk.
Kristian had paled with the reading of this last part of the letter. He looked despairingly at his commander. "Ber – Berwald, sir?" he gulped, fingering his neck. The Bishop had been known for notorious beheading before he had been granted a place in the Bronze Monarchy; that man – if he was even human to begin with – was able to crack someone's spine with his bare hands. And there were several witnesses to testify with such behavior.
The Bishop was a cruel, cruel man, and everyone knew it.
Mathias nodded. "Bring me Lukas. I need to talk to him."
"Yes sir." Kristian was gone in a flash and back with the Pawn in less than a minute.
"What do you want with me know, eh?" the Pawn complained.
"Have you ever met the Bishop, Lukas?" Mathias asked, leaning on his parchment-and-map-covered desk.
"There's four of them, Hairhead."
"Ours. The Bronze Bishop."
"No."
Mathias screwed his lips into a twist, Kristian rubbed his forehead. "I assume that you've seen him at meetings?"
"I've never paid any attention at those things, I thought you knew that, Hairhead."
Kristian couldn't help but think that they sounded like an old married couple.
"He's not all that hard to notice." Mathias objected.
Lukas rolled his eyes haughtily. "What's he look like?"
"He's that guy who sits next to me on my left, got a perpetually dark shadow on his face, always has his eyes on Tino – the Platinum Bishop."
"Oh, that guy. Heeee's the Bronze Bishop? Ha!" Lukas let out a hearty laugh. When he saw the look on Kristian's face, he silenced himself, face wiping clean of its smirk, and turned back to Mathias. "Why are you asking?"
"Cuz if I can't convince you to do anything around here, then he's gonna come and do it for me."
"That doesn't sound so bad."
It was Kristian's and Matthias's turn to laugh. "You're screwed, with an attitude like that!" Matthias roared.
Lukas was not amused. He grabbed Matthias by the collar of his shirt, beginning to choke the Knight, and pulled him close. "And why is that, exactly?" Lukas growled.
Peter was not happy. That had to have been the fourth, extremely expensive antique Alfred had broken in this entire, half-hour session – and the Squire just knew that later it would be his job to clean it all up. "I don't know why you're so mad, Alfred." Testy Panda was saying, waving his fan haughtily in front of himself like so many of the court ladies did. "We've captured Manatul, thanks to Arthur and his pirates –"
"After what, Yao?" Alfred screamed, turning to the Golden Queen. His blue eyes were ablaze. "What, tell me, after how long?"
Alfred was the only one who had been utterly displeased when the scout came to report to them that Manatul had finally been over-run, despite Feliciano's desperate attempts to secure it.
Yao straightened and looked Alfred straight in the eye. "I think you should take a rest, Alfred." the Queen said, pursing his lips. He looked away from him, shaking his head like a bobble. "You look like a rabid lion."
"How. Long?" the King demanded.
The Queen sighed. "A year." she said, as if she were describing the weather or a walk through the garden.
"Exactly."
Peter was extremely tempted to ask why the time mattered. He piped up, much to the displeasure of his father, "Alfred?"
The King straightened, wiped the "rabid lion" look from his face and asked without looking at the Squire, "What is it, Peter?"
"Why does the time matter?" the Squire asked, albeit a bit timidly.
Alfred sighed, and rubbed his eyes. If he exploded on the kid like he had with everyone else, Arthur would skin him on the spot. Even now, the King noticed, the Knight was regarding him with a wary, furrowed look, ready to jump to the defense of his son if things got too ugly. "Because, Peter," Alfred began, choosing his words carefully, "it's been the only big thing that has happened to far in this war that has been in our favor."
"Wha –" Peter gulped "– what do you mean by 'favor'?"
Alfred sighed inwardly. "Do you remember, Peter, when we went and attacked the Black City?" When he saw the little boy nod out of the corner of his eye, Alfred continued, "And how we didn't win? How the Black City beat us? We lost that battle. We had already lost the first attack on Manatul. And then the Treaty didn't exactly work out as planned."
Peter remembered that day in the hallway, when he'd met Emil for the first time. The Squire was kind of happy that the Treaty hadn't worked out – the two Pawns hadn't been a very good paring.
"That's what I mean by 'favor', Peter. This had been the only major thing in the war that has worked out for us so far – after one entire year of losses and failures!" He kicked over another stand, its marble bust collapsing on the floor. Fifth.
"But Alfred," Arthur said, laying his hands on his son's shoulders to steady him, "now we have control of their coast –"
This time he kicked the table over, and it toppled across the marble floors like a brick wall. Sixth.
"Skít."
"Do you understand our dilemma now, Lukas?"
"Now I do." Lukas's words were rather hollow, Mathias noted. The Knight was surprised at how cooperative the Pawn was being. For once. "So what is it you plan on doing?" he asked.
Mathias ran his fingers through his hair. "I need Gupta to see that I could actually get you guys to do something – something that would help us."
"And what would that be, exactly?"
"I dunno. I'm still too amazed with the fact that you're actually agreeing to listen to me." Mathias meant it as a joke.
"You think I didn't notice?" Lukas retorted back, a strain of caution in his voice. "I'm trusting you, too. Remember that."
Mathias nodded. "I know. It's a miracle."
"Cut it with the dry humor and think for a moment, Hairhead."
"Alright."
The two stood, pacing 'round and 'round the tent. Mathias's face brightened for a split moment before he shook his head. "That'll never work. . ." Lukas heard him mumble.
After a while, Lukas plopped down in the chair seated at the desk and picked up a spare piece of parchment and a pencil. Mathias took up residence on his cot and lay there, staring at the ceiling of the tent. The Pawn scribbled something out violently. The Knight groaned, "I'm lost for ideas."
"Me too."
"Are you even thinking of anything?"
"More than you, I bet."
"Touché."
They were still "thinking" well into the night; the camp outside had gotten louder – like it usually did this time of night – and brighter – no doubt the men had put of a fire at the center of camp. Lukas was near the point of screaming and pulling his hair out in frustration when Mathias face-palmed, still lying on the cot. "The only thing I can think of," he said, voice floating up from his fingers, "is you guys smashing rocks."
"That's what people in jail do, Hairhead." Lukas crumpled up another paper and threw it onto the grass.
"You guys practically are in jail." the Knight pointed out.
"Good point, but how would that help the situation?"
"Dunno."
"Ugh!" Lukas screamed and banged his head on the desk. "How long till your Queen shows up?"
"I'd give it a couple days – unless he was in such an extreme hurry to get here."
"Eh . . . Ya'know, your stupid Knights outside are hardly helping my headache."
"I do have to admit, they are pretty loud. . ."
"What're they doing, anyway?"
The Knight shrugged, hands behind his head. "They're men. What do they do at night – besides scream each other's heads off?"
"Find women?"
Mathias shook his head. "No women in this area, I'm sure."
"Could there be a traveling circus?"
"Made up of only women? I doubt it. And even if there was, who's to say the women would be that easy?"
"But they'd be circus women."
"So, what're you saying: all circus women are sluts and whores?"
"Most. That's the stereotype, anyway."
Mathias hung his head backwards over the top of the cot, peering at Lukas with his big blue eyes. "What circuses have you been to?"
"The ones with sluts and whores."
Mathias regarded this for a moment. "I give you that." The tone in his voice betrayed a certain . . . emotion that Mathias wouldn't let out, as if he didn't quite agree but didn't want to cause a fuss. He sat up suddenly and walked over to the tent door.
Lukas joined him in a heartbeat. "Just what are they doing?"
"Hell if I know." The Knight shrugged and pulled aside the tent flap.
Outside, the camp had turned into a madhouse. Tables were set out, seating both Knights and Soldiers; an enormous bonfire in the middle of the camp illuminated everything, casting long shadows over barrels and barrels of ale.
Mathias stood there, blinking for a moment, blue eyes wide and brow furrowed, before he let the flap fall behind them. "Where the hell did they get all the ale?" he asked.
A wandering soldier with not the straightest path said, "Neighboring town, sir! Couple miles back the road." He fell, laughing and hiccupping without a care in the world. A nearby crowd of Knights laughed and fell down with him.
"They're all drunk out of their minds." Lukas growled, more than just a little annoyed. But it was when a caravan of Knights and Soldiers alike came by, hollering, hopping, and dancing, each with a giggling girl flung over their shoulders, that Lukas's brow fell. "Told you they found the women."
Kristian was found sitting on a barrel among a crowd of Knights and Soldiers, all of which were piled on top of one another. He was gesturing wilding with his head and hands, long blond hair swinging back and forth; Jens lay at the knight's feet, obviously pretending to be dead, but with all the fermenting ale in his belly, the bubbles had nowhere else to go besides up to his head.
Mathias appeared next to his second's side and grabbed him by the collar, slapping him back and forth. "What the hell is going on here Kristian?" the Knight hollered.
Lukas, who had ditched Mathias to go find something, came back with two buckets of ice-cold water, direct from the waterfall. He tossed one on his own second, who was still giggling in the ale-soaked mud like a madman. The Silver Soldier hopped to his feet the moment the water chilled his bones. "Jens!" Lukas screamed. "What the frikin hell do you think you're doing?"
"Sir!" Jens and Kristian stood straight as boards, facing their furious commanders, and shared a small glance. They weren't getting out of this unscathed. Jens began to shake uncontrollably, but whether it was from the cold or from the giant green fist hovering next to Lukas, they would never know.
"Sir I can explain –" Kristian started.
"You'd better." Mathias said.
Kristian gulped and rubbed the back of his neck, a stupidly nervous smile crossing his face. "Well ya see, sir – um, a scout came in, about an hour ago, and he – he said that – that King Alfred had finally gotten control of Manatul – sir."
"And you thought this was a good thing, did ya Jens?" Lukas asked his own second.
"Well no sir – of course not!" the Soldier exclaimed. "But – but ya see here, a few of the Knights, they went do to this town a bit, down the road, and they brought back all these women and ale and – sir I swear, this ale is spiked with sumfin' right Kristian?"
"Yeahyeah, of course sirs," the knight backed up. "I didn't know a thing from the time I'd drunked it till naoow."
"So why did you drink it in the first place, eh Jens?" Lukas asked, indigo eyes roaring in the light of the bonfire.
"Well, um, I – I – I didn't – sir. Um, they kinda . . . held my head in a barrel till I'd stopped struggling so bad."
"Who?"
Jens looked back up to Kristian, who started. "I don't remember nofin –"
"Cuz you and all your buddies were spiked when ya did it, ya asshole!" the Soldier bawled.
"So Jens," Lukas asked, and his second snapped back to attention, "You're saying that if I went over and dunked your head into one of these buckets right now and then pulled you back out again that you'd be completely stoned?"
The Soldier nodded vigorously. "Yessir, yessir, honest sir, that's the truth –" he hiccupped again, violently.
"Seems one bucket didn't quite get you sober enough." Lukas growled, picking up the second bucket and turning it upside down, plunking it hard on the top of Jens's head. The soldier whimpered inaudibly as the freezing cold water fell across his body again. He gingerly lifted the tip of the bucket up a couple inches, peering directly into Lukas's glowing features. "Sober now?" he screamed.
Jens's jaw quivered and his teeth began to chatter. He gave a small whimper, "Yessir."
Lukas growled, the fist began to tighten. "Good. Now, go around and sober up all of my Soldiers – stick them under the waterfall if you have to –, and then I want you all back in the jail by dawn. Is that clear?"
Jens nodded vigorously. "Yessir."
"Good. Now get to it."
Jens hurried off, his legs just a blur in the shadows, and soon disappeared. Kristian relaxed a bit, letting his shoulders fall, until he turned back to see Mathias still staring at him, his arms crossed. "You too. Everyone in their own tent, the ale on fire, and all the women returned to the village."
Kristian nodded ashamedly and turned off in the same direction Jens had gone. Mathias turned as well, about to walk back to his tent, when he stopped. "Kristian!" he roared, snapping back to his second.
The knight stopped and asked, "Y – yes sir?"
Mathias sauntered over to him and said slowly, "Where is Genevieve?"
Kristian could not hide the horror in his eyes with his measly shrug. "I – I'm not so sure, sir. You know her," he tried to pass off his worry casually, "she's always running off and what not; that girl could have her own disappearing act –"
Mathias nodded. "Find her."
Kristian hung his head, "Yes sir," and hurried off again.
When Mathias turned again, he noted the furrowed look on the Pawn's face. "What?"
"Who is 'Genevieve'?" Lukas asked, intensely curious.
Mathias rubbed the back of his neck. "Um . . . sh – she's my squire." he walked back to the tent, hurriedly.
"I didn't think you had one." Lukas followed intently. "I've never seen her, have I?
"No, n – not really."
"Do I hear an 'I hope not' somewhere in that?"
"Pfft." Mathias was the one who was trying to be casual now, "Where would you get an idea like that –?"
"MATHIAAAAAASSSSS!" "I FOUND HER!"
The second voice was obviously Kristian, but the first voice was completely new – and completely feminine. "GEN!" Mathias called into the crowd, hands to his mouth.
Out of the throng of drunken men there came a girl, short and fine-figured, with a floppy purple bow tied in her great blond braid. A pair of silver rimmed glasses mounted on her fine nose, she ran straight into Mathias's arms, tears streaming from her big silver-green eyes. Kristian followed close after her, and stopped dead about five feet from his commander. He shrugged lightly, a timid smile on his face. "I found 'er." he repeated.
"Get back to the job I assigned you, Kristian." Mathias growled, directing the girl, who Lukas assumed was Genevieve, into the large tent.
"Yes sir."
Inside of the tent, Mathias sat the sobbing girl on his cot and poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on his side table. "What happened, Gen?" he asked, voice soft, as he kneeled next to her and handed her the hand-crafted cup.
She took it with slight hands and rubbed the rim gently, her bottom lip quivering quietly. The girl looked up, as if she were staring at Lukas's boots, then shook her head and stared into the cup again. Mathias sighed and said, "Alright." He kissed the top of her head gently and pulled a blanket over her shoulders, ushering Lukas out of the tent.
The Pawn obliged and asked Mathias when the tent flaps had been securely closed, "So . . . ?"
Mathias rubbed his fingers through his hair. "That was Genevieve."
"And she is . . . ?"
"My squire."
Lukas raised an eyebrow, lid's dropping.
"What?"
"There's more to your 'relationship' than just Knight and Squire, otherwise you'd treat her like Vash treats Manda."
Mathias sighed. "She's my niece."
Lukas was having none of this. "And?"
"And . . . I'm her uncle?"
"No stupid: why did she just show up out of nowhere?"
"Well, she's been around for a while . . ."
"There's something you're not saying, Hairhead. Spit it out."
"She's another reason Berwald can't come around."
"Now Mathias, what would that be, exactly?"
The Knight and Pawn froze. Mathias's head creaked around on rusted gears and he smiled nervously and the small, intimidating figure behind him. He gulped, "He – hello Gupta."
The South Queen was not in the least bit amused. He turned 90 degrees and took a look at the camp, overlain with Knights and Soldiers, all trying to sober up as quickly as they could. The scent of the spiked ale hung thickly in the air, so thickly that even Lukas was starting to sway a bit.
"Is this what you call 'progress,' Mathias?" the Queen asked. His manner of speaking was impeccably proper.
"Well, the Knights had a little fun without my knowing." Mathias tried his best to make it all seem rather casual. "We just received the news about Manatul's fall a couple hours ago –"
"Do your soldiers think well of this predicament, Lukas?"
"Sir?" Lukas was not the only one surprised by the Queen's use of his name.
"Manatul's fall. It was one of your own cities, correct?" Lukas nodded timidly. Man, for a guy who looked like you could snap him in half with your bare hands, his half-lidded, golden gaze seemed almost venomous. "How do you go about thinking about it? Your soldiers seem as if they had a good time."
"It's been confirmed that the ale was spiked, sir." Lukas said, folding his hands behind his back in an attempt to appear courtlier. "They certainly did not think well of it on their own accord."
"As they should." Gupta said, turning his golden gaze on the Pawn. "No one should rejoice over such a loss."
Lukas gulped, waiting for the moment where that penetrating gaze would lift off of him. When the Queen blinked slowly and turned her head back to the camp, Lukas had to resist looking physically relaxed or even relieved.
"You never answered my question, Mathias." Gupta noted.
As if he were picking up the conversation right from that previous point, Mathias said, "No. I've been thinking about what I could get the Company to do but so far I haven't come up with anything useful."
"How about making a guillotine?"
Both Lukas and Mathias visibly choked. "Sir?" the Knight gulped, fingering his neck.
"Or a set of gallows."
Lukas turned away, absolutely horrified, groping at his neck. What kind of person would openly discuss killing you right in front of your own face, even if it was discreet like that?
"Maybe we could finally put that axe of yours to good use."
Mathias would never look at his favorite weapon with the same eyes ever again. But when Gupta looked at the pair out of the corner of his eye, they both realized that that wild glint on the Queen's eyes was pure amusement. "Heh, hilarious, Gupta, you really had me goin' there," Mathias joked with a nervous smile.
Gupta did not visibly smile, and the glint vanished. "And that was not the question I was referring to, Mathias."
The Knight blinked, the smile and loose stature disappearing. "Wha – what do you mean, sir?"
Gupta faced Mathias head on, looking up at him through that veil of venom again. "Why should I not let Berwald come?" He spoke slowly, each word dropping like a drop of blood from the tip of a dull sword. Mathias looked like he was going to turn blue. "You have no control over your knights – all 400 of them – and you even let the little gray dastards run rampant. What do you think this is, a traveling circus?"
What a coincidence, Lukas thought. Mathias had gone pale, as if his very soul had drifted from his body. The Pawn kicked him in the back of the leg, reviving the Knight instantly, as the Queen began to speak again. "As far as I am concerned, you don't even deserve a position on my Monarchy."
Even Lukas paled at this. To be shunned from your position in the Monarchy – your family – seemed a horrible experience. Now he recalled what they'd done to Lovino, over a year ago. Locked him in a dungeon. A dark, cramped space. With no one to talk to.
When Lukas looked up again, he finally noticed the party that Gupta had arrived with: several soldiers, all dressed in bronze armor and black hooded cloaks. The Queen had mounted a small bronze horse brought to him and now he looked down on the use-to-be Knight. "The Bishop with arrive within the week." he said, voice deathly quiet again. "I suggest you try to clean up your camp by high-noon tomorrow. Clear an area of the forest for him to set up his battalion." And he rode off from the disarray, into the forest, his black-cloaked squad following noiselessly.
Mathias was back in the tent without even the slightest whisper. "You have to go, Gen." he said, kneeling down in front of her and taking her small, pale hands on his.
Genevieve looked up desperately, her eyes beginning to water once more. "Uncle," she said, voice shaking and shoulders quivering, "please, please don't send me away again." she fell from the cot and into his arms, her face buried in his neck. "I don't ever wanna go back to the Palace, please!"
"Shhh, shh, don't worry, Gen. You're not going to go back."
"Then where am I gonna go, huh?" she pulled away and looked into his blue eyes. "Why can't I stay here with you?"
"Gen, please, trust me on this." Mathias's gaze and tone were pleading. Genevieve's lip stopped quivering. "I'm going to give you a letter, alright? You're going to deliver it to someone for me, and then you can stay with them, alright?"
"Where am I going?"
Mathias whispered something in her ear, and she threw a fit, whispering harshly, "I can't just ride right across the border, Uncle!" she insisted. "I'll get caught! What if they think I'm a spy?"
"You won't get caught, Gen." Mathias persisted, just as quietly. "You're too damn good at making sure you're unnoticeable." He stood and grabbed his cloak from the rack on which it hung. Mathias stood in front of her and began to rib the embroidered hem off the bottom of the article.
"Uncle, what're you doing?" Genevieve asked clearly puzzled by her Uncle's actions. Lukas watched quizzically from the corner of the tent.
Mathias ignored his niece's question and tossed the torn-off hem onto his desk, handing the actual cloak to Lukas. "Rub some dirt across the shoulders for me, will ya?" the Knight said as he ran back to his desk.
"Um . . . sure." Lukas knelt and dug around under the grass, pulling up nail-fulls of dried dirt and rubbed them vigorously across the cloak's "shoulders."
Mathias paused for a moment in his writing, mumbled something inaudibly to himself, and scribbled what looked to be a PS before folding it and sealing it with melted wax. He handed it directly to Genevieve who looked at it for a moment before fingering the top button of her shirt and turning away.
Mathias came back with a spare horse and his own Snowflake, both dark as night. Lukas helped Genevieve mount the spare as Mathias whispered to him, "Make sure we're not missed. I don't want anyone to figure out I've left for any reason whatsoever."
Lukas nodded, but when Mathias turned away to mount Snowflake, Lukas pulled him back. "Just what are you doing?" the Pawn demanded.
Mathias smiled slyly. "Hey, it's ok. Don't miss me." He kissed Lukas's cheek and clamored silently atop his horse before the Pawn had a chance to say anything. The two rode off into the forest, Genevieve holding the battered cloak around her shoulders to make extra assurance that it wouldn't fall off.
Lukas stomped his foot and slapped a hand over his cherry cheek. "Pervert." he insisted with a whisper, shaking his head as if to rid his face of the slight tingling sensation. "Damn it!"
Blue: naws ^.^ 15 pages later it get's cute ;) hey, was I the only one at the end of the chapter screaming "the LIPS! KISS HIM ON THE LIPS – OR . . . or . . . OR THE FANGIRLS WILL COME FOR YOU!" honestly, Blu, one of these days, I want you to write a chapter of pure fluff, like, no joke –
Blu: *so not listening to his buddy's "moment"* Gosh, I feel like I'm such a fail with parts of this DenNor side story! WHY CAN'T IT ALL BE FLUFF (jk, people, jk)?
Blue: Don't worry Blu, if you were writing it bad, people would tell us . . . Right?
Blu: I don't think I've ever told you guys that constructive criticism (but no flaming) is welcome. It makes me feel as if I'm writing this story for NO ONE when I don't hear from anybody.
Blue: People, we (read: I) do not want a re-run of a couple chapters ago. PULL IT TOGETHER! BLU NEEDS LOVE! ALL WRITERS DO!
. . .
Blu: yeah, and I know the Monaco thing was totally random, but I wanted her in here somewhere, and I needed another dilemma. . . . . . . Oh, and for those of you who think of foreshadowing while you're reading, NO, Monaco is NOT the secret pairing mentioned a couple chapters ago. She wasn't even in my plot map until, like, just now.
Blue: Btw Blu, nice discreet cameo for me.
Blu: People wouldn't even notice if you hadn't pointed it out. . . .
Blue: Touché
Blu: Plus, if I wrote a chapter/one-shot of all fluff, I'd probably be so engrossed in the fluffiness of it all that it wouldn't even be halfway decent.
Blue: Shoot
Blu: OK *shoots 4th wall with bazooka*
Blue: Blu. Blu, what the FrUKing frik. I just. Painted. The fourth wall!
Blu: ;) later peeps! *runs away, whimsically*
Blue: *pulls out matching bazooka* GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE!
Battalion: 300 – 1,300
