Teuta Will Come Through

“Serving me or anyone I know isn’t gonna do you any good. Tell you what, if there’s literally no other option I’ll help you out, but I talked a bit to Teuta.” You weren’t sure what to say, because you were not certain. It was just a feeling you had. You spoke from the heart when you added.

“This is just me, but I know Teuta isn’t a bad person. Since I talked to her and… let her know some things she wasn’t aware of, I trust she’ll do the right thing.” You were looking away, off into the side of the storage since it was such a non-answer, but when you looked back you saw Heilan leaning close to you, her cheeks red and her ears up. She grabbed your left hand with both of hers and nodded, Heilan’s tail wagging behind her.

“Mmn! I also think that Dame Teuta’s a good person!”

“Huh?” You leaned away from her and pulled your hand from her grasp with some difficulty. Heilan continued to eye you very intently. Eventually she bent back into an upright position and nodded. You were glad that her demeanour shifted back to being less like a dog that had just been thrown a treat.

“You’re also not a bad person. You’re a good person.” Heilan asserted.

“You don’t know that..”

“Fin’s a good person.” Kara also chimed in.

Your eye twitched. “I say one nice thing and you’re acting like little strays that I left a saucer of milk out for! I’m not a good person. I’m in this for myself. I don’t care about being a Knight. I don’t even really care all that much about helping either of you. We just happened to cross paths. Hope you both understand that.”

Kara and Heilan exchanged a knowing smile. The dog waved and left without another word. The look on her face told you that she didn’t believe a single word you said. When she was finally gone you exhaled and sat down on a crate.

“This is exhausting.” You groaned.

“What is?” Kara asked.

“Caring. Why should I care? All this stuff is just getting in the way of what I want to do. Every hour is another hour my Brother’s stuck in some hell.” You saw that Kara had an expression of wonder on her face. She also didn’t seem to believe you.

“You don’t care? About me and Jeanie and the dog?”

You paused to think. It didn’t take long for you to simply nod and say. “Of course not. We crossed paths. What you guys need doesn’t interfere with anything I need, so it’s easy to bring you along… That’s all there is to it. I’m serious.” When you looked up, you noticed Kara was uncharacteristically serious in the way she was looking at you.

“What?”

“I-” She swallowed hard.

“I really wanna keep you safe.” You let out a little laugh and patted her on the head between her ears. They flattened down as you did and she went from serious to seriously annoyed.

“I’m Serious!”

You paused, noting that she did in fact seem to be keeping a serious tone and expression. You relented and withdrew your hand from her head.

“Got it. Thank you, Kara. Go ahead and keep me safe however you can.” You were doing your best to not sound patronising. You stood up and walked from the room. Kara did not follow you immediately, but after a few seconds she hurried to catch up.

“I’ll tell you when it’s dangerous.” Kara remarked.

“Yeah, thanks. Go ahead.”

As you walked back towards the big circular training ground you walked past one of the city's guards walking up the stairs. A man that was too young to have greying hair stopped and stared at you as you walked past. It was a few more steps before he shouted.

“Fin?” You stopped and turned.

“Yes?”

“My name is Liam. I am a Captain in the City’s Guard Corps and I’m here to let you know there is an order of protection placed on you.”

“Why me?” You stared at the man scrutinisingly. It was an odd assertion so you had a number of ideas already. The first was that one or both of your parents were trying to keep tabs on you, and they were doing so indirectly by flexing their wealth and influence. The other was the most obvious if it involved the Guards. Your involvement with a gang that was trying to get payment from Kara. At this point you would also be owing something, since you had interjected. You waited for his answer, since it would be telling. Because the third idea was much more interesting. The man was a bought and paid for Guard sent to collect in some way, shape or form when you least expect it.

“There’s no need to mention why. You’re in danger and I’m assigned to bring resources to protect you. If you don’t want protection, too bad. You are now an asset of this Kingdom and anything that happens to you reflects on us.”

“Wow.” You rolled your eyes. It was a great answer and told you with some certainty that he was being genuine. The reasoning behind this thought was that anyone trying to get close wouldn’t present themselves as such an unnecessary hindrance. You glanced at kara and mumbled.

“What’s with all these people wanting to protect me all of a sudden.” Liam didn’t answer. He merely lifted a brow at you.

Even the way he acts is perfect. This man obviously wants to be here less than I want him to be here. Alright… I’ll play along. You approached him and presented your left hand to shake.

“Stay out of my way, Liam.”

“Happily.” The Guard took your hand and squeezed it hard as he looked you over appraisingly. He seemed to not be able to help himself as he added.

“I guess this is what Squires are made of nowadays.” Liam punctuated that grizzled statement with a rude scoff. It was clear to you that he was expecting some type of reaction, but not a simple smirk. You released his hand and turned, continuing your walk.

“I’m not a Squire.” You offered with a wave of your wrapped right hand as you had made some distance.

‘I’m just passing through.”

Kara walked up beside you and whispered. “That man smelled like flowers.”

“Flowe-” Your eyes widened.

“Don’t look back. Just keep walking.”

“Yeah.” She nodded.

“I hope Lad’s alright. That guy has enough problems.” You muttered.

“Looks like he got a visit from someone a bit more official. Had to let him in. That strong scent… He’s either with the ones selling or the ones buying and either way that places him in a bad light. He either handled the transaction, was close to it, or he was close enough to the chapel to get that scent of that girls room all over him. It’s bad tidings.”

“But… you don’t care right? Since it’s a distraction?” It sounded like it was said in a slightly different tone. When you turned to look Kara had her same innocent, clueless expression plastered all over her face.

“Shut up…” You made your way into the training grounds, noticing through the grating around the edge of the upper stage that it was getting late.

“The plan is to train extra late. That way I got an excuse to go to the bunks after everyone is asleep. This uniform has an under layer that I can sleep in. It sucks, but it’s temporary and if I don’t take my clothes off I’m sure it’ll keep people away. They’ll just think of me as another stinky guy that doesn’t think about his smell.”

“But…” Kara trailed off. You shot her a look.

“But what?”

“You’re… way more prissy than you act…”

“You little-” You stopped yourself and held back.

“I like to be clean, but I don’t ‘have’ to be.”

“I could change your clothes and give you a tongue bath.” Kara offered.

You immediately came to a stop, then turned on your heel and stared at the innocent-looking girl with narrowed eyes.

“Th-the fuck’d you just offer?”

Kara shrugged. “I lick you between your legs, your armpits, under your breast… All over, basically. Then dry you off. Better than being sweaty, right?” She was still playing clueless while your face was turning red in front of her.

“Y-you!” You pointed.

Kara cocked her head to one side. “Me?”

“You’re doing this on purpose!”

The fox blinked. “Y-yeah? I am. You wanna be clean. I can get you new clothes and lick you clean occasionally.”

“Not even the wildest of beastfolk clean themselves with their tongue all over!” You asserted.

Kara looked up and to the left with her eyes while shrugging. “Well, yeah, but there’s lots of men when I actually was trying to make some Gid that-”

“La la la! I do NOT want to hear it! That is not a common practice, you vixen!” You scolded. Kara’s ears drooped. You caught your breath and relented, saying.

“You’re fine. The answer’s just no…”

You took a meal and started training. You purposefully kept your pace slow and methodical so that it would be believable that you really were just taking as much time as you needed in the training ground. As the light faded not much changed about the training ground. The place was already lit by torchlight, since it was wholly in the shadow of the main stage above it. The only difference was the grates above which were positioned around the edge, and in parts around the centre of the stage itself. Those places that usually let in a circle of natural light were gone, making the place seem unsettlingly subterranean.

As it got later and later more Squires began to leave and turn in for the night. It was not as much as you hoped, because things were looking to go very late. It took an hour after the first group left for the second to all file out. You thought that it would be done and you could turn in after waiting another hour, but the second group left a small number of Squires who were all still training. The candidates were Roy, Heilan and unfortunately Sfen.

“Damn tryhards.” You cursed. Even as slow as you were going, going for so much longer than you expected was actually causing you to break a sweat. You were very aware of the presence of Kara standing a few paces behind you.

“Not good, at this rate-”

“Hey.” It was Sfen. The only voice that was recognisably masculine that was left. You jumped and turned to look at him suspiciously.

“What?”

He chuckled. “Relax. I saw you working hard and I was just wondering if you needed some pointers/”

“From…” Your eye twitched.

“From you?”

Sfen looked around theatrically. “Who else? I like you, so I’d like to help you out.” The man had a smug look about him as he shrugged and added more as a jab than anything.

“It just… seemed like you needed it.”

“Ha ha…” You felt like you were going crazy. You wondered if your right hand was good enough, yet, but all it took was for you to try closing it. You were stuck with your left. But… You felt confident still.

This bastard. I wanna beat the shit out of him left-handed and then see that smug face after I reveal that it’s not even my dominant arm. That- god that would be awesome. But… You tried to calm down.

Relax, girl. Don’t let him get to you. He’s nothing.

“Are you okay, Fin?”

“Huh? Why?” You looked at him with genuine curiosity as he asked. You made the mistake of letting your guard down, which meant you were clueless to what he was doing as he pointed to his forehead and teased.

“You kinda got a vein sticking out here because you’re pissed, or something. But… I know you’re probably that much of a bitch to get mad without doing anything about it, right?”