The Seriousness

"So, my son tells me that you called Evin a wife-chasing scoundrel, a virgin lover, and a disreputable rake, all within the same minute?" The man called George said to her.

Thorn flushed and glanced awkwardly down at her plate of food.

Evin shook his head. "She said that before she knew me."

George raised a sly eyebrow. "I'd say that she knew you too well."

Brecc and Thom laughed.

"That's what you get for climbing up a tree to Thorn's window." Brecc mocked.

"Whatever was wrong with trying the door, like normal people would, Evin?" Miri said with a frown that was too serious for the conversation.

Brecc arranged his face in a way that clearly displayed his belief of Evin ever acting as a 'normal' person would.

"What if you had been hurt?" Miri asked persistantly. "What if you had fallen from the tree?" She asked with concern.

"Even if he had fallen, at least his head wouldn't have been injured. It's too hard for that." Brecc remarked.

"Well, you need a hard head to protect a good brain. Yours on the other hand, Brecc, is soft and unused, so your head doesn't have much to protect--"

Evin ducked as Brecc threw a piece of buttered roll at him, and George laughed when he saw that the bread just missed in getting itself stuck in Evin's blonde hair.

The six of them, including the three riders, Thorn, George, and his eldest son, were seated around the dining room table, eating dinner. Or at least, attempting to do so.

Evin got an evil glint in his eye. "Oh yeah?" He said to Brecc as he eyed the offending piece of buttered roll which was now lying on the floor. He then turned his gaze to his own bread.

"Evin, no!" Miri laughed helplessly as she and Brecc got bombarded with bread. Soon, the war was on, and when the Riders were out of bread, they turned to other pieces of foods on their plates. Thom, too, quickly joined in and started spattering the Riders with his own food.

Thorn sat back in her seat and watched quietly. She didn't know why she had agreed with Evin to come eat dinner with the others. After Thorn's embarrassing episode in her room, Evin had invited her out onto a picnic and she had meekly agreed. Surprisingly enough, the afternoon had been quite pleasant. Eating a light lunch in the courtyard with Evin had turned out to be very relaxing and entertaining. He had even made her laugh several times. He hadn't asked or questioned her past at all. And then when he had asked her to eat dinner with him and the others in the dining room, she had been in a good enough mood to agree. She wasn't quite so sure about it now.

"You are not going to join in?"

Thorn blinked for a moment, and then realized that George was glancing at her curiously. The man was unlike any man she had ever met. But then again, she was doing that a lot lately, meeting people of the likes that she never would have thought existed.

"No. I'd rather keep the food in my stomach than in other people's faces." She said after a moment.

He nodded approvingly. "Sensible of you."

She glanced at him inquisitively. "Aren't you going to ask them to stop?" she asked uncertainly.

George shrugged and grinned. "Doesn't matter. They'll be the ones to clean it up."

His grin was so mischievous that she was thrown a bit off track. If George is like this and he is the Lioness' husband, I wonder what the Lioness will be like, she thought to herself.

Then George grew serious. "You should try to get as much sleep and rest as you can tonight so that you're ready for tomorrow." he said.

She was instantly suspicious. "What happens tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, you will stand up to Tortallan judgment. You will meet with those who will decide your fate." His words seemed a bit too foreboding for someone like George to say.

"Wha-what do you mean?" she stammered. Because she was so suddenly focused on George and his words, she did not hear the abrupt end of the food fight and the utter silence which followed it.

"Tomorrow, it will be decided whether you are a punishable criminal in the country of Tortall."

~~~~~

A.N. - what do you think will happen? Will she be proclaimed a criminal in the next chapter? Or will Thorn somehow find a way out of it?

~Krizsta