A Katarina Vacation Arc

"Eh? A squire? Me?" Katarina said over breakfast after another spar that, thankfully, no longer left Matthew feeling slightly resentful of her cousin. "Oh no, I'm not anyone's squire."

"Then how are you so good with a sword?" Matthew said curiously. "The only other people who git that gud are professional duelists or dedicated swordsmen and swordswomen."

"Um, I suppose I'm the latter?" Katarina said. "I've been practicing with a sword since I was eight years-old, after all."

Matthew did not choke on her food, but it would have been appropriate if she had. "Since you were eight?" she said, staring in surprise at her cousin.

"Yup!" Katarina said. "Been practicing with a sword most days since… well, except for those weeks I fell into a coma, but that couldn't be helped. Oh, and I suppose the days we had to ride here, since we had to keep moving to make up for being slowed down by the rain."

"Oh…" Matthew said.

"Pass the fruit bowl please," Adella said.

Matthew picked up the fruit bowl and passed it along to her cousin. "Well, that explains why you're so good, if you've been practicing for that long," she said.

"Why have you been practicing that long, though?" Olga asked. "I mean, you said you weren't a squire, and you don't seem the kind to become a professional duelist, so why bother?"

"Oh, it's in case someone attacks me with a sword and tries to kill me," Katarina said. "Wow, these sausages are great! Mother, try these sausages, they're totally different from the ones we have at home!"

Matthew stared at Katarina, wondering why her cousin kept spouting such violent proclamations so easily. And why did she keep being surprised by them.

"W-why would you even think that!" Olga exclaimed. "In the first place, if you're afraid of being attack, have a bodyguard! In the second, why are you even afraid of someone attacking you with a sword and trying to kill you? That's a really specific scenario!"

Matthew nodded. "Yes, a large club is a much better murder weapon. They can keep hitting you so you fall on the ground and can't get back up."

"Not helping!"

"Because I don't want it to happen to me?" Katarina said. "Really Cousin Olga, I don't get what's so hard to understand about it."

"But… you're a duke's daughter! You're the fiancée of a prince! You're… you!" Olga, making gestures as if trying to encompass all of Katarina. "Who could possibly want to hurt you?"

"People who fall in love are willing to do all sorts of things they wouldn't have before, Cousin Olga," Katarina said with uncharacteristic dark seriousness. "Like attack people totally willing to step aside to let them be happy. Really, people in love are very scary."

"That's… that's…" Olga spluttered.

"Makes sense to me," Aunt Henriette agreed.

"I can see that," Uncle Henry said, nodding.

"Sounds about right," Aunt Leona said cheerfully.

"EH?!"

Olga looked around. Even Aunt Mili was nodding. "Yes, exactly Katarina. People in love or supposedly in love can be capable of quite terrible things. So you should always be careful of people who aren't family who say they love you trying to get you alone, all right?"

"Of course mother!" Katarina agreed as Olga looked back and forth between them. "You raised me to be a good girl, after all!"

"Still, it seems a shame," Matthew said. "You're really good. I think you could be a knight if you wanted to."


It had stopped raining as much over the past few days. With the skies so clear, Marie had invited Katarina to go riding to help her get accustomed to real terrain. Katarina felt she wasn't doing too bad. The horse turned left and right when she asked it to every four out of five times, and when it suddenly stopped dead to munch on grass she could get it started again after a little rein-waggling. And she wasn't too scared if it suddenly started running fast because Marie would be right beside her.

She'd asked if they could go around and look at the farms nearby, and while her cousin had been bemused by the request she'd been willing in indulge Katarina.

"What's the Academy like, Cousin Katarina?" Marie asked.

"Oh, the Academy is great!" Katarina said as they rode. "The food at the dining hall is awesome! And the rooms are really comfy!"

"Do you think Olga will enjoy herself there?" Marie said.

"Oh, definitely!" Katarina said. "Everyone is really nice there!"

"So, no one is bullied or called names?"

"Um… well, that sometimes happens," Katarina had to admit, even as she concentrated on not making her horse turn left and walk into a field off the road. "I used to have a classmate who kept getting bullied because she was a commoner."

She didn't notice the look of alarm on Marie's face. "What happened?"

"Um, she broke their arms and they stopped bothering her," Katarina said, making Marie blink and do a double take. "Then she stared wearing pants and suddenly people were getting crushes on her and trying to work up the courage to ask her out. Except they couldn't because she once broke their arms for bullying her, so she started dating the Student Council president."

"I… really? That happened at the Academy?" Marie said, sounding stunned.

"Yeah. Ah, but she's really nice when you don't bully her, and she makes the best sweets and muffins and cakes and cookies!" Katarina said. Her stomach suddenly rumbled, alarming her horse. "Ah, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!"

She blinked, then turned to Marie with a smile. "Ah, don't worry, Olga's going to be just fine. I'll visit her every day to make sure she doesn't get lonely. I mean, it's not like I have anything else to do besides going to visit cafes and trying out the latest sweets and cakes."


Olga stuck her head out the door, looking both ways and finding no one. Gently, she closed the door, locked it, then took a lump of wax and covered up the keyhole, to prevent people from looking or listening in.

Then she picked up the trident her cousin had given her.

"Tremble, brief mortals!" she proclaimed as she brandished it at the mirror. "I am Olga, Lord of the Seas, Ruler of the Age of Deep!"

She posed dramatically. Ah, that felt good… totally worth the dress.

Maybe she should ask her sister to teach her how to use this. No point owning it just to look pretty.


"– meaning that YOU are the Dancehall Strangler!" Sheryl declared.

The person she accused looked at her stoically as the other accused suspects gasped and tried to back away from him. "You have no proof, your ladyship."

"As a matter of fact, I do," Sheryl declared. "Sir knight, if you would kindly remove that man's boots."

Reluctantly the accused parted from his boots, which the knights placed before Lady Sheryl.

"I have here some clay," she said. "By pressing these boots like so, we now have an imprint of the marks upon them. And this imprint matches EXACTLY with THESE plaster casts we took of tracks from where the previous victims were discovered! During which YOU claimed to still be in the dance halls! How, then, were your bootprints to be found around them?"

Sheryl pointed at the man triumphantly.

"I suppose there's no fooling you, Lady Adeth," the man said. "Yes, it was me! I did it! And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling lady and your fuzzy-faced son!"

"Please keep my mustache out of this," Watson said with as much dignity as he could.

"Sir knights! Take him away!" Sheryl declared.

"Well done, your ladyship," the Knight-Captain of the Darkmoon chapter house said. "You've done it again!"

"Only doing my noble duty, Sir Wadsworth," Sheryl said. "Come on son, if we hurry we can have the paperwork filled out for this so we can leave in time for dinner!"


"Look," Saloman Romani said patiently, "I keep telling you, I'm a human doctor. If you're sick, you need to go see the veterinarian."

The talking cat in his office sighed. "He has cold hands," she said, but nevertheless left the practice.

"Next," Adella called as Iosefka finished sterilizing where the cat had been sitting.

There was a click of bones, and a tall, fleshless being made of bleached bone entered the room.

"Mr. Pleasant, I keep telling you, I can't help you," Saloman said tiredly. "If you still had some functioning organs, then maybe, but unless you want me to find you a replacement bone, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do."

The skeleton held up a piece of paper, on which was written: 'But my teeth hurt!'

"Then that's a job for a dentist sir, not a doctor," Salomon said patiently.

There was disappointed clicking as the skeleton slumped, before turning to leave.

"Next," Adella said as Iosefka finished sweeping away the grave dirt.

A man came in, cradling his decapitated head.

"Ah, hello Garl," Doctor Saloman said, relieved to find someone to help. "What seems to be the trouble today?"

"Well, my body woke up this morning with a terrible stomach ache," the head said as the body sat down gingerly, hunching over and rubbing its stomach…


"Why did I agree to this?" Mili sighed as she climbed the ridiculously tall ladder behind her sister.

"Look, getting golden pine resin is an important job, and we can't just hand it over to anyone else," Leona said cheerfully. "Come on, only thirty more feet to go!"

"Couldn't you have built an elevator to get there by now? It's been years! Build an elevator already!"

"But my ladder is still good! Olga and I just gave it maintained it not that long ago!"

"JUST BECAUSE IT LASTED THIS LONG DOESN'T MEAN A HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOOT LONG LADDER WASN'T A BAD IDEA!"