Title: Drabbles 2
Genre: Friendship/Humor
Rating: K+
(Knives)
"I've been meaning to ask you something, Matt."
Matt glanced up at Lance from where he was filling his canteen in the icy stream. "What's up?"
"Your knife belt. What made you pick up knife fighting? And why do you need so many?"
Matt's brows rose and he glanced down at the multiple knives at his waist. "Oh, these? I only use the large one in fights: it's a parrying dagger. Since I didn't have Natz with me for healing, I kinda had to pick up better defense."
Lance frowned as he tilted his head in confusion. "So the other five are just for show?"
"Of course not," Matt chuckled as he straightened up.
He pulled one of the smaller knives from its loop and deftly tossed it to catch by the tip of the blade. With a casual flick of his wrist, the knife went spinning through the air to sink hilt deep in the knot of a nearby tree with a dull thud. He grinned at Lance's look of impressed surprise and moved to retrieve the blade.
"Throwing knives? To make up for no archer or gunman?" Lance mused thoughtfully. He shook his head with a smirk. "Figures you'd find another blade instead of picking up a sensible ranged weapon. I highly doubt those get nearly as much range as even Anna's bows can."
Matt arched a brow at him. "Why would I want range? I prefer up close and personal. A throwing knife can easily take out an archer with a short bow, takes almost no readying, and can be easily replaced. Furthermore, I can flick it in the half second of a spin to kill an unwary assailant."
Lance clapped a hand on the swordsman's shoulder as he walked past and shook his head. "Don't worry, I'm duly impressed by the resourcefulness. Next thing will be you sailing through the air on an oversized sword, flinging blades everywhere."
"Now that would just be silly," Matt laughed as he followed Lance back to the camp.
(Titles)
"Ah, if it isn't Wall-Cleaver!"
Matt glanced over his shoulder, which was the first indication to the other three that the voice had been addressing him. They exchanged looks of confusion as Matt twisted around to accept a handshake with a crooked smile.
"That was, like, seven years ago, Hardel. I'd practically forgotten that one!" Matt laughed.
"Maybe you have, but we here haven't forgotten how you singlehandedly stormed a fortress whose walls bristled with the spearheads of a hundred bandits!" the man, Hardel scoffed.
"There were only twenty, they were half starved, and none of them had spears," Matt snorted through his grin widened.
"It could have been one with a rusty knife, and he still would have bested us!"
Matt rolled his eyes and nudged a chair out beside himself for Hardel to sit in. "I don't suppose any of you layabouts actually took my advice and learned how to swing a club, at the very least."
"Eh, we got a few able bodied boys competent with swords who serve as the town's guards and militia, but between you and me, they don't really got what it takes to fend off someone actually willing and able to kill," Hardel confided with an easy grin. He accepted Matt's mug of ale and took a sip before waving the drink at him. "What brings you back up this way? Nobody here sent for you, I'm sure of that. And you've got some back up, I see."
Matt shrugged with a glance at the others. "Just restocking and passing through on our way back south from an errand. Meet Anna—she's the one with the bow—Natalie, and Lance, my good friends and teammates. Guys, this enthusiastic nut is Hardel. He's in charge of the storehouse here."
"Pleasure to meet you all," Hardel greeted easily with a nod. "Must be exciting to travel with such an accomplished man. I'd envy you, but I like my blood in my body."
"Accomplished, huh? I guess Matt had done quite a lot over the last couple of years—never heard him called Wall-Cleaver, though I bet he could cut a wall down, if he wanted to," Anna mused with a grin at Matt's quiet snort.
"Known each other a long time, then?" Hardel asked cheerfully. "We haven't seen him up this way in quite some time, but you don't forget that hair and sword!"
"A few years now, yeah," Natalie agreed. Her lips twitched in an amused, teasing smile as she added, "We mostly try to keep him out of too bad of trouble, then end up stuck in it with him."
Lance let out a grunt of amusement at that and shook his head as he sipped his own ale. A woman's shout from across the tavern had Hardel jumping and twisting around with a guilty expression. He cursed under his breath and scooted his chair back to stand.
"Ah, the missus has found me. Must be about those rugs she wants beaten out today. Take care of yourself, Wall-Cleaver!"
"It's Matt, and same to you Hardel," Matt replied with a wave. He watched in amusement as the man whispered something to his wife with a wink before she cuffed him upside and ushered him outside, both laughing.
"Nice guy. Laid back," Lance grunted, drawing Matt's attention back to the table. "Didn't realize you were doing mercenary work so young, but I can't say I'm surprised."
"Wall-Cleaver," Natalie repeated with a grin. "Weird title to get for killing some bandits. Did you really cut a wall down, too?"
Matt laughed and shook his head as he leaned forwards. "Actually, I accidentally knocked out the supports shoring up a wall of the fort, and the damn thing collapsed on top of me and the two guys I was fighting. All the townspeople saw was me coughing—very heroically, I'm sure—as I climbed out of the rubble, and they assumed I had cut the wall in half. It was the dumbest thing, and a complete stroke of luck that it killed the two bandits and not me. I kinda thought they'd have forgotten the mess by now."
"Are you kidding? You killing a bandit band was probably the most exciting thing to happen to this place in three generations," Anna scoffed as she swirled her drink before taking a sip.
(Water)
"If the water's too dirty to drink, then why don't we just add some of our antiseptic stuff and then drink it?"
Natalie stared at Matt like he'd grown a second head. Anna suddenly found something fascinating behind a bush to cough over. Lance studied Matt with a look of near-disbelieving awe.
"Sometimes, I really do wonder what it's like to be so damn stupid. How do you even function?"
Matt scowled at Lance. "What? It was a legitimate question!"
"I worry about you, you know? You bring stupidity to a whole new level," Lance replied dryly.
Anna's coughs broke into howling laughter and she fell back on the ground, tears streaming down her face. Natalie brought a hand up to hide her grin as Matt rolled his eyes with a huff and turned away, muttering to never mind. Finally, the mage took pity on him.
"The antiseptic kills germs, but it's poisonous to eat, Matt."
"Thank you, Natalie," Matt grumbled with a glare at Lance. "See? Why can't you just explain stuff without the insults?"
"You'd be checking for fever if I stopped insulting you," Lance snorted before turning away. "C'mon, let's find some running water before our resident genius thinks up something even more brilliant and tries it without checking."
(Industry)
"I don't get why you think it's smart to keep doing everything by hand," Lance snorted.
Anna arched a brow at Lance's remark, and turned to face him with a steady gaze. "Alright, prove to me that your machines are better than my hands-on skills, right here, right now. We'll make nets like you use for catching fish."
Lance scowled at that. "Don't be stupid. I don't have any machines or supplies on me that can make nets."
Anna gave a dry laugh. "And we already start to see a failing. Industry is convenient, sure, but only if you have it and the supplies to create on hand. And there are so many downsides to it, too. You're forever complaining about something that's broken, or worn out, or needing cleaning. And you need someone to supply the fiber for the thread of a net, and to get that, you need someone who can make that fiber from the right plant. And, ultimately, your machines will drive themselves and you to become obsolete."
"And how do you figure that?" Lance snapped defensively. "Machines can do the tasks of a hundred workers better and more consistently than people can. And it would free up those people to do something else!"
"And to build your machine, you'd need to destroy a lot of natural resources and displace or drive a lot of people from their homes and work," Anna pointed out mildly. She gestured to herself and behind her at Greenwood and went on, "My people's belief is take what you need, and leave as much as you can untouched. And more than that, the adults in the village have practiced one or two skills that they've perfected over a lifetime—and they pass those skills onto their children. They will likely never adopt anything different, and machines would put them out of work. You aren't factoring in costs and culture for your machines."
Lance scoffed, "So a few primitive villages would be impoverished, big deal. Overall, humanity would be on the rise."
"I don't want any part of any world that is willing to trample on the majority so that a few can get ahead, and I will do whatever it takes to impede that kind of world."
(Magic)
"What I don't quite get is why doesn't he use his magic?"
Matt started slightly, glancing over at Natalie. The mage's eyes were fixed on the vegetables she was slicing. Her hands moved confidently and swiftly to slice carrots, wild onions, and a couple of roots he didn't recognize into similarly sized cubes. They were making a stew for dinner that night, and they were in charge of setting it up. Lance was off tracking down some kind of meat to use. The swordsman turned his eyes back to the fire he was building.
"I didn't even realize that Lance has magic," he admitted. "He always uses his gunblade or explosives. Are you sure he has any?"
"Mmhmm," Natalie hummed in confirmation as she brushed the vegetables into a wooden bowl and moved to dig through their small spice supply. "It's pretty strong, too. I thought he might use it sooner or later, but he's been fighting beside us for a few months now and I haven't seen a single spell or magically enhanced attack of any kind. It's really weird."
"Why haven't you asked him about it, then?" Matt asked curiously as he pressed the supports for the rod their pot would hang from into the dirt.
"I figured he'd open up about it by now. It's not really that big of a deal; his gadgets and doohickeys make it so that he does well enough without magic."
Matt nodded as he bent to pick up their folding bucket. "True," he agreed as he headed for the stream to get some water.
It was right when he was coming back that Lance returned with a few hares in hand. Each one had been taken out by a bullet through the head, though he'd sliced those parts off and skinned them already. It had quickly become apparent to him that Natalie had issues with the killing and skinning of fuzzy animals—issues that got worse the smaller and fuzzier the animal being skinned was. He relinquished one of the hares to Matt to joint, and settled down to swiftly gut his pair, tossing the bones into the pot the swordsman had set over the fire to use as stock.
Several minutes of dedicated silence later, and Natalie was rolling the pieces of meat in the spices and seared them in a shallow pan before dropping them in the now-boiling water. She tossed in the vegetables a few minutes after that, then covered the pot to let it cook. She wiped her hands on a towel with a satisfied smile, and glanced at the sun to mark when the food would be done.
"I'd give it a half hour to cook," she informed the men as she sat down on a rock.
"Can't wait," Matt grinned with a look of hungry anticipation.
Lance grunted an agreement before drawing out a cloth to clean his rifle with. Matt and Natalie soon followed suit with their own weapons, and everything was peaceful and silent, until Matt broke it.
"Why don't you use magic, Lance?"
Lance started slightly and looked up at Matt in confusion. "Why the heck would I use magic?"
"Why not use magic?" Matt countered.
"Uh, isn't magic one of those things you need to be trained to use? And never mind needing the inherent ability."
Natalie glanced up in surprise. "You have the inherent ability, Lance. I can sense it."
Lance blinked twice before frowning. "Are you sure? Wouldn't it have manifested itself at some point by now, then?"
"Huh, and here I thought you just didn't like magic, not that you didn't know you have it," Natalie mused, studying Lance with a calculating eye. "To answer your questions, yes, you definitely have it, and yes, it normally manifests long before adulthood. You've never accidentally fried something with electricity or fire, or frozen a drink in your hand?"
"Or flooded the basement?" Matt chipped in with a wry grin.
Lance looked a little awkward as he shook his head. "Not that I know of, no."
Natalie frowned, "Weird. Mana, especially some as strong as you have, is usually hard to control. It reacts to emotions pretty readily, after all."
"Maybe that's it, then," Matt joked. "Lance killed his emotions in his effort to take over the world, so the mana stayed chill."
Lance snorted out a laugh at that, and rolled his eyes. Natalie, however, looked thoughtful.
"Actually, you might be on to something with that, Matt. Lance, when's the last time you got mad about something? And I mean really mad—like trembling with rage, not thinking clearly, and spitting mad."
"Why the heck would anyone let themselves get so worked up that they don't think clearly?" Lance asked in a baffled voice.
"And there's your answer, Natz," Matt laughed. "His cold logic has killed his fire."
"It doesn't matter," Lance said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Magic seems a little overrated, anyway."
Natalie arched a brow, "You're aware that I can fry you to a crisp with just a thought, right?"
"Sure, sure."
The mage huffed at his dismissal, and just to prove her point, set a patch of grass between his boots on fire. The gunner let out a surprised shout that quickly died as she drew her magic back, smothering the flames. She raised both her brows against the glare Lance shot at her, and turned her attention back to the cleaning of her staff.
A/N: So here us another collection of drabbl-y things I've had floating around my iPad. A couple were just expounding on the characters' views/skills. Not as funny as Battle Cat from the last bunch, but hopefully entertaining nonetheless. :3
I haven't put a lot of effort into editing these, and sime are a couple of years old, so please point out any errors you find!
Responses to guest reviews:
Miles or Arrow:
I'm glad you liked it! It'd been awhile since I'd written a battle scene, and I was a little rusty, so I was worried about that. :P
Anonymous:
Lance is a man of science who doesn't believe is silly things like karma, and it definitely is everyone else's fault BS keeps coming his way... or so he would probably believe. xD Karma has a hand in this for sure, but Matt probably isnt helping. XD
