“Let’s get you into bed,” Atres says lightly, “You’ve probably had a bit more of that than is wise, but the circumstances were exceptional.” Hefting her, he carries her up the stairs and returns a few minutes later to some significant looks from Benger, Kethas, and Ember.
“Oh, please,” Atres shrugs, “Don’t worry, she’s still a candidate for tribute.”
“No one who knows you,” Kethas smirks, “would ever believe it.”
“Hrmph,” Atres grimaces, “No one who truly knows me would believe that things would have ended so… abruptly. It would be a spectacularly poor performance on my part to leave someone so lovely after just a few minutes, if we were to be so… occupied. I am not known for spectacularly poor performances, as you well know. As it happens, she put quite a dent in that bottle. I wasn’t sure how steady she’d be on the stairs, given the events of the day and the amount she consumed.”
Curious, Benger walks over, picks up the bottle, and returns it to the table. Kethas looks at the much-reduced contents of the bottle and sighs.
“I hope you left her a hangover potion on her nightstand,” Kethas says, frowning at Atres, who nods.
“I won’t say I’m happy about this dragon,” Atres says slowly, “but I’m glad that I know what happened to her. Now I can help her start dealing with it. We have to do something about her father, though.”
“Someone,” Kethas says, looking at Atres, “needs to put a boot up his backside. That’s the most asinine…”
“It is,” Atres growls, “If he weren’t stuck in a sword, I’d pound some sense into him.”
Chuckling, Kethas grabs the bottle and pours a bit into the remaining glass.
“Now you’re getting all protective again,” Kethas says, shoving the glass at Atres, “Take a few sips and try to calm down.”
Heaving a big sigh, Atres grabs the glass and sips gingerly.
“It’s not like I can confront him,” Atres grimaces, “and he’s there whispering in her ear constantly. I know that her grandfather said not to trust him, that he might try to sabotage things for her.”
“That’s even worse than I thought,” Ember says, shaking his head, “I think he’s part of the reason our Goddess has been so intent on matching her blades. I think she means to replace that one with something… friendlier. No matter, Nia will have to get along with the one and a stand-in. I’m locking that damn thing in the armory until he stops acting like an ass.”
Suddenly, Atres gasps and goes white, grabbing the tabletop with both hands, grimacing. Kethas’s head spins to look at Atres.
“Gods, no!” Kethas growls, “Don’t do that. Look what that’s done to Atres’s premonition.”
“Alright… Alright…,” Ember shrugs, “I won’t do that, but we need to figure something out.”
Atres sits down hard in the chair, “You have to leave it with her, I think.”
“Then we’ll do that,” Ember agrees, as color starts to return to Atres.
“Well,” Atres breathes, “We know one thing not to do.”
“That was bad,” Atres grimaces and shudders, “unbelievably bad. Worse than dead. I don’t know what that is, but I don’t want her to find out.”
Pursing his lips for a moment, Kethas looks at Atres and then heads back behind the bar. He returns with a key and plops it down in front of Atres.
“Stay here,” Kethas tells him, “You’re in no shape to be going home this late alone after that. It’s far enough away from her room to be proper but close enough to hear if Abato or one of his minions should try anything again.”
Nodding, Atres takes the key and starts to stand up, but staggers for a moment.
Kethas grabs his arm to steady him, “That bad, eh?”
Atres nods and scrubs his face with a hand before turning to head up the stairs.
Ember stares after him for a moment before turning to Kethas. “So, tell me,” Ember says, “how did the two of them meet?”
“A strange set of coincidences,” Kethas shrugs, “that make it seem more like fate than circumstance. Originally, Argonath’s group was to have been Korek and Harcin. They were also supposed to be somewhere further west and not anywhere near that area at all. Atres swapped with Harcin at the last minute because Harcin’s wife went into labor early. Argonath’s route for his recruiting run through all the fairs got changed because Draltas’s group ran across a rogue werecat and got their asses handed to them. Then someone screwed up an order that sent Argonath’s group to that fair. Argonath happened to be hanging around the archery game at the fair when Nia decided to try her hand at it to get away from some boy who was plaguing her. Her skill caught Argonath’s eye, and he pressured her into going hunting with them. She caught Atres’s eye when she leaped from one tree to the next while she was scouting an elk herd.”
Laughing, Benger chimes in, “Nia told me what he said to her after the hunt, and he all but declared for her, on the spot.”
Benger recounts what Nia told him about Argonath’s attempts to continue to recruit her, her continued refusals to be recruited, Atres’s bold flirting, and Nia’s check of his motives.
“That would have been his gift,” Kethas nods, “I knew he said it was fair screaming at him, but that was… audacious, even for Atres. It’s a wonder he didn’t put her right off.”
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“No,” Benger says thoughtfully, “I think it might take that to get her attention. I know that some of the other lads in other cohorts have tried to get her attention, but she’s been oblivious to it.”
“Or ignoring it,” Ember says, “Since she’s still, by her reckoning, a few years too young.”
“That might be,” Benger allows, “Now that I think of it, I’ve seen her start to avoid some of them, so that makes me think she’s noticed and is trying to avoid it.”
Benger yawns largely and takes his key, heading upstairs to sleep, leaving Ember and Kethas to talk.
“Why accept Atres,” Ember asks, “if she’s refused others?”
“She says she can sense a hum of power from him,” Kethas replies, “that’s similar to what she’d sense from one of her people. It seems like she can sense his dragon blood, but Atres said that they’ve yet to test it. She doesn’t seem to have any of it herself, or there’d be a riot already with all the unbonded males in Harito competing for her.”
“And the King’s Guard is chock full of them,” Ember grimaces, “so I suppose that’s a bit of a blessing.”
“A riot of all the unbonded in the King’s Guard,” Kethas chuckles, “I can just imagine the fallout from that.”
“Hush,” Ember grimaces, “With one of my paladins squarely in the center of it. I’ll pass.”
“There are quite a few of us here,” Kethas agrees, “and more due to arrive soon. Atres had me send for his cousins, and I took the liberty of sending for a few of my own kin, as we might be able to identify exactly what this thing is once we’re face-to-face with it. Given our talents, if it’s a beast, we’ll know. If it’s not a beast, we’ll know that too. They should all be here by the end of the tenday or thereabouts, depending on how bad the snowfall up in the Balsevain Mountains is this year and if Grominster’s Pass is blocked yet or not. If it is, and they have to go the long way around, it might take them a bit longer than that to get here. I don’t know if it will help or not, but Atres’s gift keeps sending him into a protective frenzy. I thought maybe having a few more of us around to help steady him a bit might be a good idea.”
“That seems reasonable,” Ember agrees.
“Any idea as to where she’s from?” Kethas asks, “I’ve never heard of someone who could sense dragon-blood without having it themselves.”
“More of an idea of where she’s not from,” Ember replies, “I don’t think she’s from anywhere on Elia. I’ve never even heard rumors or stories of any people like hers. Her language isn’t like anything I’ve ever heard before. When she first got here and got enough skin back for us to tell she was covered with a tattoo, I did a bit of poking around, asking among the traders if they’d ever seen a people who tattooed themselves, and they’d never heard of such a thing either. I was hoping we might be able to find some of her kin. I found out later, after talking to her, that it was a lost cause.”
“Hmm... You think the Goddess pulled her from another world, entirely,” Kethas muses, “I had heard that such things were possible, but I don’t know that I ever quite believed it.”
“There is a line in our oaths,” Ember points out, “that specifically mentions the multiverse. I doubt the Goddess would include something like that unless it were possible.”
Kethas goes quiet and thoughtful at this.
“You realize that her people may be long gone,” Kethas points out, “Who knows how long that…”
“Our Goddess calls him the asshat,” Ember adds with a smirk.
“That asshat held them there like that?” Kethas finishes, “It might have been a few tendays or a few centuries. Based on what she’s said about the Gods’ War, I’m leaning toward it being a few centuries. What a horrible fate. Resurrected and murdered, over and over. While she might not be able to remember it now, I’m betting that at least some, if not all, of that is still stored up in there somewhere. It might be that it’s so traumatic that she can’t remember it. We saw that, with some of the boys who managed to survive being captured by the Pasal during that war, after the way those bastards treated their prisoners. It took them feeling safe for a long time before those memories started to surface.”
Now Ember grows quiet and thoughtful. “Maybe Gethin is right, and it really is much too soon to send her out on anything. He said something about being distracted and walking right into a sword because of it.”
“Watch her,” Kethas advises, “and see if any of it starts to leak out. It’s also possible that she genuinely can’t remember because either her old god or her new one wiped it away. I know that if I could wipe something so horrible from someone’s mind, I’d probably do it and consider it a kindness.”
“Her old god,” Ember grimaces, “would have done it for different reasons.”
“Starting fresh every time,” Kethas says darkly, “What a bastard.”
The two men sit in silence for a while, contemplating this.
“How strong is Atres’s gift?” Ember asks.
“As I understand it, one of the strongest that’s been seen in generations,” Kethas replies, “although Atres says that a couple of his cousins are stronger, they never got tested after what happened to Atres. When he first joined the King’s Guard, they sent him to the capital and assigned him to the royal family. Some asshat, probably the princess herself or one of her lackies, tried to use magic to force him to bond with Rikissa, but it didn’t work. Atres says she was an absolute twat, and he couldn’t stand her. When he found out what they’d done, he wasn’t thrilled since they’d have left him bonded to someone he’d never have been allowed to marry. That’s why he left the capital and transferred here. He wanted to get as far away from all that as he could.”
“I can’t blame him for that. That’s a hard use to put anyone to,” Ember frowns, “I can’t imagine that sitting well with any man, regardless of blood.”
“No better than the damn mages that made us in the first place,” Kethas agrees, “to force someone into that. You know that we can sense our mates through the bond. What a horrible life it would be to make someone have to sense another man bedding the woman he’s been bonded to, night after night. Fortunately for all of us, Kashin put an end to that nonsense, and Rikissa isn’t allowed anywhere near any of the dragon-blood any longer. Otherwise, the King’s Guard wouldn’t have any more of the dragon-blood signing up. All of us who were already in the King’s Guard were preparing to muster out over it. No one wanted to be used like that.”
“I imagine that raised a few eyebrows,” Ember nods, “Got the right people asking the right questions.”
“It did, finally, once it came out what the source of all the discontent was about,” Kethas nods, “but it was a touchy situation for a while. Since it involved magic when they tried to force Atres to bond to Rikissa, a lot of the clans don’t want much to do with the King’s Guard anymore, or even any of the big cities. We’re still a bit touchy about mages and magic. A few of the clans will even run the recruiters out of the villages when they come. My clan is one of those. Our Clan Mother says that she won’t see any of us used like that. Kashin is still trying to patch up a lot of the ill feelings over that mess. We weren’t sure until Atres showed up, already bonding to Nia, that he would ever be able to bond to anyone because of what happened. He certainly didn’t show any signs of it, even when his clan’s shaman tried to test it.”
“Gods! How horrible,” Ember grimaces, “This sounds like it might be a blessing for both of them, then.”
“Not a lot of people know that the whole sorry mess involved Atres,” Kethas shrugs, “They know it was one of the Valkis in the King’s Guard, but not that it was Atres. I don’t think he thought he’d ever bond with anyone after that. I think that might explain some of his… prior actions. You might want to pass that on to her cohort before they decide he’s unsuitable.”
Nodding, Ember yawns and stretches.
“It’s quite late, Ember,” Kethas shrugs, “Why don’t I get you a key and you can head home to Amalie in the morning?”
“I told her not to wait up,” Ember agrees, “That this might be complicated and take a while to sort out.”
“Good,” Kethas nods, “These two old men need their rest too.”
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Current Count: 1 "Spectacularly Poor Performance" Avoided.
Observation: Atres spent the evening taking off her boots and rubbing her feet. He then carried her up the stairs like some sort of romantic lead. He claims he was just worried about her being 'steady on the stairs', but I know a move when I see one. I’m docking him points for being too 'gentlemanly.' A real dwarf would have sung a drinking song the whole way up!"
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Boltir’s Plea: "Did you see that? Atres turned white as a sheet because his 'premonitions' went haywire at the thought of Nia being hurt. The man is practically vibrating with protective energy. Toss a coin in the jar, kin! I need to buy a 'Book of Better Distractions' so I can keep him busy while I move in with my lute. Also, leave a review if you think Atres needs to find a hobby that doesn't involve hovering over my future muse!"
Would you take the necromancer's deal? Let me know in the comments.