Chapter 3 Kookaburra
From what I've heard about Nightingale, she seems like the kind of defender that we need, while we were waiting for her to arrive, I was going through the questions that I was going to be asking, I was so focused with what I was doing that I didn't even hear her walk into the room.
"Hello Nightingale, take a seat." said Ballista.
I looked up, she had a short shaggy-style haircut a dark shade of brown, decorated with black feathers, her outfit was a black leather dress that was longer at the back and feathered at the rim, the front of the dress just came below he knees, she was wearing black leather gloves and thigh high leather boots, all decorated with feathers and across her shoulders she had shoulder pads just like mine except they were black, with black feathers, she was beautiful, as she walked over to the table the bottom of her dress almost seemed to glide along behind her, she sat down right in front of me, and my heart started to beat faster.
"It's nice to meet you Nightingale." said Thorne "I'm Thorne and this is Ballista and Kookaburra."
"Nice to meet you too."
Her voice was so gentle, as she smiled I couldn't help but notice her teeth they were beautifully white, almost unnatural, and straight, like everyone else that we've interviewed we had to shake hands, as she shook my hand I felt a tingle of electricity run up my arm and into my shoulder.
"So what made you want to become a defender of the castle?" Ballista asked.
"Well it just seemed like my kind of job, I can be very determined in what I'm doing and I can be a very protective person."
"So if you were asked to do something, you'd do it?"
"Absolutely."
After Ballista asked her questions it then became my turn, suddenly I'd forgotten every single question that I was going to ask, luckily I had them written down in front of me.
"Kook, don't you have some questions?" Ballista asked me.
The only question going through my mind right now was, "Will you marry me?", keep it together Kook, you're a professional, don't let yourself down, I took a deep breath to relax.
"Yes...erm...so what do you...err...what skills do you have that you think make you...er...makes you right for this job?"
"Well, like I said, I'm determined, I can be very focused on things that I've been asked to do and my vision is pretty good so I could see any attackers coming from a vast distance away."
Good news and bad news, the good news is that I think that she would be perfect for the job and with her good vision that would make her perfect for lookout duty which can mean that I'll no longer be on my own, but the bad news is that with her being on lookout duty with me, that may distract me, because to tell you the truth...I think that I may be in love with her.
I couldn't get to sleep that night, whenever I closed me eyes all I saw was Nightingale's face, her bright smile, those eyes, the way she bites her lip, those lips, oh those lips and her hair, how I wished that I could run my hand through her hair. I must have been thinking about her until midnight, now I was starting to feel sleepy, my eyelids were getting heavier and heavier and my head was now starting to tilt to one side, soon I was fast asleep.
"Kook! Kook, wake up!" I heard Thorne say the next morning.
"Huh?" I replied drowsily.
"Hurry up, we've got the interview call backs in 20 minutes."
"Chute, I forgot all about that."
I jumped up and got myself ready in double quick time, me and Thorne were almost running down the corridor.
"I don't know what's wrong with you these days Kook, you seem sort of distracted." said Thorne.
"Yeah, you could say that."
"What is it?"
"I guess it's just the thought of having some new defenders around the castle."
I didn't want to tell Thorne about my crush on Nightingale, I thought that it wasn't the right time. Everyone was pretty much ready for the second half of the interviews when we arrived, we thought yesterday morning that we should test the applicants on how they cope with some of the duties we often get, the first one was going to test them on guarding the castle, one of us was going to pose as someone trying to get into the castle and the applicants would have to try and catch us out.
The second test was going to test them on their defences, some of us were going to pose as attackers and attempt to attack the castle their role was to protect the castle and stop us from getting too close, then the final test was going to test them on lookout, one of us was going to approach the castle via the woods next door, and their job was to spot us before we got too close and sound the alarm, we had to inform everyone else that if they heard the attack alarm this morning, not to panic as it was all part of the interview.
Nightingale, Vane, Madeva and another defender going by the name of Faetal were the best out of everyone, out of the 10 that we interviewed, we only called back 8 and would pick the 4 best and announce it to them this afternoon. When the tests were over, me, Ballista and Thorne were deciding who out of the eight we were going to chose, so that afternoon we called them in one by one to give them the news, we'd already given the news to 5 of them and out of those 7 we'd picked 3 we'd chosen Vane, Madeva and Faetal, Nightingale was next, I tried my best to stay professional and to stay calm, when she entered the room my heart started to beat faster and my hands started to tremble, I quickly hid them under the table so she wouldn't notice.
"So Nightingale, how do you think you did?" Asked Ballista.
"Well, I think that I could have done a bit better with the guarding, but I thought that the defence and the lookout went quite well."
"And do you think that you may have done well enough to get the job?"
"I don't know, I thought that was down to you."
I sniggered, she's a bit of a joker, that's good, I quite like that.
"Okay, now we all thought that you did best in the lookout and the defence, and we would pretty much like to see how you would do with help and assistance with others."
"Do you mean?"
"Yes, we'd like to offer you the job."
"Oh thank you, thank you so much."
It was obvious that she was happy about this, and so was I, but the rest of the wannabe defenders weren't that happy when we told them that we'd decided to turn them down, now we had our 4 new defenders, things might finally change around here, such as, some of the duties changing or some more jobs may become available now there's more of us, Vane, Faetal, Madeva and Nightingale moved into the castle that very afternoon, the king was going to tell us the changes tomorrow morning, Vane, Faetal, Madeva and Nightingale had already been told about what happens in the mornings when we normally go to see the king for him to give us our morning duties.
The next morning I was one of the first ones there, Ballista, Gildar, Faetal and Nightingale were already there, Gildar and Ballista were giving Faetal and Nightingale some tips on defending.
"Morning." I said.
"Oh morning Kook." Ballista replied.
"Are you two ready for your first duties?" I asked Faetal and Nightingale.
"Yeah, we've been looking forward to it." Nightingale replied.
"Er...great...excellent...well...good luck."
"Are you alright Kook?" Asked Gildar.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
We were waiting a bit longer than usual as Vane and Madeva happened to get lost, but you'd expect that on someone's first day, that happened to me my first couple of days, instead of a map of the castle on the king's table, he had a long list which he was examining as we walked in.
"Your highness." we said.
"Morning everyone, and hello to the newcomers." said the king "Now there are going to be some drastic changes around here, so I think that we should start with the duties, one of those changes is that you're all going to be given a permanent duty from now on, to start with, Gildar, Ballista, Shaiden, Skabb, Crocness, Vane and Faetal you're all going to be on defense, Madeva and Knightriss, you two will be on guard, Thorne and Tinkor, you two are going to be making and repairing the weapons, and Kookaburra and Nightingale, you two will be on lookout."
Great, I was on lookout with Nightingale...oh no! I'm going to be with her all day, I don't know if I'd be able to cope with that...well...I'm not going to be with her all day, i was going to be on lookout for 45 minutes and Gildar, Vane, Knightriss, Tinkor and Shaiden were going to be on duty while Crocness, Skabb, Ballista, Thorne, Madeva and Nightingale were going to have their breakfast break, then after my 45 minutes on duty we would swap over so that we could go on our break, I thought that was pretty reasonable, but I'm still going to be with Nightingale for most of the day.
After me and Nightingale had swapped over and I'd been for my break, it was now down to business, when I got to the top of the lookout tower Nightingale was over to the left, she had her back to me, I tried not to look at her else I was sure that she'd distract me, i was about to turn to the right side of the tower when I heard her voice.
"Hi Kook." she said.
Her voice went straight through me melting my heart, my hands started to tremble and my legs turned to jelly.
"Err...hi." I stuttered.
"The others told me that you get this duty a lot is that right?"
"Yeah, you could say that, everyday I get it."
"So you're a professional then?"
"Pretty much."
I couldn't take in what was happening, she was talking to me, I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I thought that I might do what I do best, joking, maybe break the ice a bit.
"So...err...what do you think of the duty so far?" I asked.
"It's okay, I don't think that could do it on my own though, I'd get bored too easily."
"Yeah, that used to happen to me when I got this duty, but do you know what I used to do to keep me occupied?"
"No what?"
"I used to spy on the others."
"Really? What kind of things did you see?"
"Well, I once saw Gildar kissing his own reflection."
"Yeah he does seem like the kind of guy who'd do that, obsessed with how he looks."
"Yeah, he's even started a fan club for all the people who love him, members: him."
Nightingale laughed. "You're really funny."
"Thanks, they don't call me 'the joker' for nothing you know."
She laughed again, she had the cutest laugh I've ever heard. This was brilliant, finally I had someone to talk to whilst on duty, the time just flew by, as the air started to get cooler and the sky started to go a subtle shade of orange, we could tell that the day was coming to a close, we still had another hour or so until we could retire from our duties and finally go to bed, which I am relieved about as my legs and feet are throbbing like never before from being up there all day, but I couldn't wait until tomorrow when I could come back up here to be with Nightingale.