For today, I’ve decided to combine two scenes, including one that wasn’t originally published on Patreon, because I feel like the Patron scene works better when it has the context provided by the earlier scene.
You’re welcome. Never ask me for anything again.
That was a joke. And, incidentally, Sakurai never actually said that.
© J.B. Norman — Published by Emona Literary Services™
The two guards of the one road leading to Nearfields stand at the town gate, keeping a watchful eye on the road. As the town’s only line of defence other than Old Man Fitzburton’s infamously ornery chickens, this is a serious task that they take very seriously.
On the other hand, it is a very boring. On any given day, only a few travellers come along the road from Porthaven and even fewer of them are in any way noteworthy, or bad or good.
“Smells like rain,” the first guard notes.
The second raises his eyes upwards and finds a sky devoid of cloud coverage. He takes a sceptical sniff of the air.
“Smells more like Cow, I reckon.”
The first guard shrugs. “I ain’t much on reckonin’, I reckon.”
And so it goes. At least until a group of travellers on horses — five of them on a horse of their own and a small green girl sharing a particularly well-built horse with a towering woman wearing a bear.
“These ’uns gonna be trouble, you reckon?” the second guard asks his companion.
The first guard shrugs. “I ain’t much on reckonin’, I reckon.”
Nolan urges his horse forward to address the guards. “Hey, we’re the Lyte Brigade, we’re here to meet with Egeria Valda, do you know her?”
“Lyte Brigade?” the second guard mutters. He turns to his partner. “That some kinda book club, you reckon?”
The first guard shrugs. “I ain’t much on reckonin’, I reckon.” He points to where Pela is mounted on Falcata’s horse. “I’m more afeard that they’re kidnapping that there small green child.”
“I’m not a kid!” Pela cries. “I’m just short!”
The guard nods and thoughtfully runs his hand over his beard. “Now, I’m afeard that they’re kidnapping that there small green woman.”
“You reckon we oughta fight them off?” the first guard asks. “You hold ’em off, I’ll make a run for Old Man Fitzburton’s chickens for help.”
Before they can react to the prospect of being fought off, the Lyte Brigade watches as a dark-haired Elf girl comes running towards the gate.
“Don’t you dare!” she cries to the guards. “These ones ain’t for fightin’!”
“Hello, Cousin Egeria,” Amara mutters.
“Y’all oughta be ashamed o’ yerselves!” Egeria cries, chastising the two guards with light taps from her umbrella. “Treatin’ my very own guests like common thugs! Now, git!”
The two guards slink away.
Five jaws drop to the dirt as Amara heaves a heavy sigh.
“Did she just say y’all?” Matilda exclaims. “Are we sure she’s related to Amara?”
Overhearing this, Amara sighs again and does that nose-wiggling. thing she does when she’s embarrassed.
“I can assure you that we are, indeed, related,” Amara mutters. “We have the patents of nobility to prove it.”
“Cousin Amy!” Egeria exclaims giddily as she sees her cousin, who is doing her utmost to keep herself hidden by Nolan. “Git outta there and come gimme a big ol’ hug!”
Amara yelps as Egeria all but wrestles her from her horse and pulls her into a crushing embrace.
“So, tell me, Cousin Amy,” Egeria says. “Which one of ’em is that Nolan boy you been writin’ about.”
Her gaze shifts between Nolan and Tancred and she leans in close to study their faces.
“Golly, it’s gotta be this ’un,” she notes, pointing to Nolan. “Wow, Cousin Amy. He does have pretty eyes.”
“T-thank you?” Nolan stammers.
“Mother says I have pretty eyes,” Tancred mutters.
“I don’t mean nothin’ by it,” Egeria assures the offended knight. “But have you seen this fella’s eyes, like really peered long and deep into ’em? Golly, I could just lose myself in there forever.”
“It is frankly uncanny,” Tancred concedes.
“Seriously?” Nolan cries.
“I ain’t never seen you ‘round here before,” the barmaid at the Nearfields inn says as she approaches the Lyte Brigade’s table. “My name’s Sophie, and I’ll be serving y’all tonight.”
She frowns.
“And, uh, everyone else, too. Also, every night. I’m the only barmaid that works here. But, uh, anyway, what can I get y’all? I recommend the meat pies.”
“We’ll have six of those,” Nolan says.
Falcata stares thoughtfully at the young barmaid. “Better make it twelve,” the towering, muscular Amazon declares.
“I’ll get those right out to you,” Sophie says.
She disappears into the kitchen and returns a little later with twelve meat pies and a clear talent for balancing foodstuffs.
“So, what’s your story, strangers?” Sophie asks as she sets the meat pies on the table. “Oh, lemme guess!”
Her gaze falls on Nolan and Matilda first. The young barmaid thoughtfully touches her finger to her chin.
“Now,” she says, staring and thinking and making Nolan and Matilda really uncomfortable. “I’m thinking newlyweds. Honeymoon, right?”
“No!” the horrified Lyte siblings cry.
Nolan wants the earth to open up and swallow him. Matilda wants to throw up. Amara feels oddly jealous.
And then Matilda is yelling ‘He’s my brother!’ and the very same time Nolan is stammering ‘She’s my sister!’
Pela thinks her meat pie has too much salt.
“Golly,” Sophie says contritely. “Tell you what. To make up for that, next round o’ meat pies on the house.”
She turns to Falcata next. “Well, y’all are obviously an Amazon. We don’t get too many Amazons ‘round here, but they go come by every now an’ then, and I ain’t never anyone quite as muscly as an Amazon.”
The young barmaid turns to Pela next. She stares at Pela and Pela stares right back.
“I swear,” the Half-Goblin warns her. “If you think I’m a kid…”
“’Course you’re not a kid,” Sophie says. “You’re a full-grown adult Goblin woman — and, may I say, quite the perfectly respectable height for an adult. And even if I thought otherwise, I wouldn’t go an’ shove my foot in my mouth and say somethin’ rude about thinkin’ you’re a lost kid or something.”
“Thank you!” Pela says happily.
“You thought we were married!” Nolan and Matilda cry as one.
“And, you,” she says, turning to Tancred. “You just gotta be the scion o’ the noble von Ivanhoe-Hauteburg family. And that’s the Porthaven von Ivanhoe-Hauteburgs, not the Greengrove ones.”
“You’d be amazed at how often people get that wrong,” Tancred replies.
“Y’all gotta be good at readin’ people in this job,” Sophie anwers.
“You thought we were married!” Nolan and Matilda cry as one.
Sophie shrugs. “Well,” the young barmaid offers. “Five – or, uh, four, I s’pose – outta six ain’t bad.”
Meanwhile, despite their shift at the gate being finished for the day, the two watchmen keep a cautious eye on the Lyte Brigade from their table in the corner of the inn.
“I still reckon we oughta keep an eye on ‘em,” the one watchman is telling is companion. “Could be trouble, I reckon.”
The other watchman shrugs. “I ain’t much on reckonin’, I reckon.”
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