***NOTE: This, and its precursor are INTENDED to be funny, but a little more subtly than some things that get posted here. That's why they're out of character/plot/everything.
***ANOTHER NOTE: The Blouse, (that's the previous story) was conceived partially by my good friend Edreya Natalya Irantaskvya.
***YET ANOTHER NOTE: thanks to everyone who reviewed
**General, obligatory note that I don't own any of this stuff.
The Boyfriend
"What is this I hear, Sandrilene?" The duke stalked into the parlor, clearly displeased, as was evident from his voice, which was somewhat sharper than he usually used with his niece.
"Uncle?" Sandry looked up, startled out of her intricate embroidery. The design was complicated enough, and to compound it, she was stitching a charm into every needle-stroke; she had not noticed her visitor. Quickly, she stood up.
"Thisyoung man you have taken up with," her guardian hinted dangerously.
"Oh, you mean Andril? Don't be silly, of course I wouldn't think of marrying him! We're just very good friends," she said, as if that explained everything
"Good friends," Vedris repeated slowly, "Do you realize that in your position your affections cannot be given so freely?
"Uncle!" Sandry exclaimed, "I'm an adult mage, in the Gods' name, I can give my affections to whoever I want!"
"Whomever, and I will not have you wandering around with every man who catches your fancy."
His niece rolled her eyes, "Andril has temporary vows to the temple; he wouldn't break them."
"If he is vowed, then why is he taken up with a women?" He demanded.
"We're friends, Uncle," Sandry insisted, "and colleagues," she added, "he's working on his thesis for Lightsbridge; charting ambient magic. Or trying too at least; it's silly to think that my magic, or Tris's or Briar's or Daja's can be charted" She tossed her head, her two long plaits flipping and twisting before settling against her back once more.
"The rest of your friends from the temple come visit you here," Duke Vedris observed, "why does this Good Friend stay away?"
"I've asked him time and again, Uncle," Sandry said earnestly, eyes innocently wide, "but he doesn't want to. He says that you'd be too intimidating, he imagines."
"Too intimidating," the duke echoed softly. "And why would he find me intimidating, unless he has been taking liberties he knows he should not have!" The last eight words crescendoed to a shout.
"If he had tried anything, Uncle," Sandry assured, "I would have made him pay. You don't need to worry on that score.
"You are too young and innocent," Vedris said kindly, "it is enough that he will not come to you: I forbid you to see him again."
"You've never met him!" She exclaimed, "you can't do that!"
"In my day," he explained, with a slightly harder tone, "a young man would never have dared walk out with a girl to whose father he had not first applied for permission." While Sandry attempted to puzzle out his statement's rather convoluted grammar, he continued, "and with one so far above him in rank? It is intolerable the way morals have deteriorated!"
"But you always say yourself that a man's abilities aren't affected by his rank!" Sandry remonstrated.
"I do not deny that this Andril isable," the duke began tightly, beginning to become visibly irritated,
"Then I don't see what the problem is," Sandry interrupted briskly, "You're simply being stiff and old fashioned, Uncle."
"Since when," he thundered, "is having standards of common decency stiff and old fashioned? And for that matter," he enunciated every word clearly, "For that matter, Young Lady, what has caused You to speak so impudently to your elders."
Sandry backed up a few paces. She had seen her uncle this angry only a few times; never had that anger been directed at herself. "Uncle," she said nervously, "please, tell me what is wrong,"
"What is wrong," he roared, "is your attitude! You have become willful and obstinate! You have no respect for your rank and duty thereto. You seem to seek to turn proper world order on its head! That, Sandrilene, is what is wrong'."
"I'm not any of those things," she said indignantly, "and furthermore, Uncle, I simply want to live a normal life, like anyone else my age."
"At your age, my niece, most common girls are working to earn a living. Noblewomen are preparing for marriage. Mages like you are at a respected University. The only ones who run about like you do are harlots lacking in virtue completely."
"Just because I want to be a little independent," Sandry started,
"Independent!" Her uncle shouted, "that is all that I hear. Independent! Independent! Let me advise you Sandrilene, independence is not a virtue!" He paused, breathing heavily. There was a long silence. Neither of the pair said a word. "Now," the duke began, "I believe I have made myself clear. There is to be no more talk of this Andril–or anyone else, for that matter. We will sit down and converse like civilized people. Am I understood?"
"Quite well," Sandry replied with an indolent smile, turning towards the door, "and I am leaving. I will be back for supper. Andril and I are taking a walk by the Arsenal." She slammed the door behind her, leaving Duke Vedris IV, the Iron-Willed Prince, fuming.