The Games begin

A somewhat flustered Lord Minos leaves to bring your demands to the leaders of the United Armies. You catch Galeon giving him a look of apology before following turning his attention to you.

"My King, I don't know who I would rather negotiate with less, you or Alexia." He chuckles, "it might be easier to go to Hades and back than deal with the two of you."

"Galeon, come now," you laugh. "You know that she and I are only helping others to see the whole picture." He raises his eyebrow and you conceded just a little, "while still holding back just enough to move three steps ahead. But it's not like we're forcing them to obey our demands, it just works out they usually come around to our way of thinking." You shrug innocently and smile at the giant of a man as he shakes his head.

"Now, let's leave Minos to his boring politics and get the twins along with Alexia and enjoy the games." You do feel bad about leaving Lord Minos to deal with this, but it's better him than you. In spite of what you just claimed, you are not a great diplomat; after all he is able to deal with all the fake smiles, flattery, and insults without spilling blood.

The giggling from inside your tent leads you to believe that your new guests are not as scared as they were when they were first handed over to you. You salute the guards and enter the tent to find Alexia still talking with Lady Sara and Lady Mara, apparently boasting about your childhood exploits.

"-ember when I was six. Bruce saved me from a pack of wolves when I ran to the forest after an argument with my father." Alexia has told this story more than once and it seems grow a little more heroic with each telling. "He just calmly walked up to the alpha and stared into his eyes and after a minute the pack walked off." What Alexia never found out was that you knew that pack of wolves from when your stepfather decide you have to live off the land for half a year with only a knife and small canvass tarp. In the year prior to her encounter with the wolves, you had joined in their hunts and shared kills with them; even after your wilderness training, you would slip off to meet them on moonlit nights. In some ways the pack was like family to you. You decide to tease your spymaster a little.

"I just told him there was a better meal a few miles deeper in the forest, and that as skinny as you were, that you would of have barely made a snack for him and his pack." Alexia, as always, refuses to let you make fun of her and slaps you loudly to shut you up. The giggling from the back of the tent is replaced by a sudden silence and you see the sisters' eyes drop nervously.

The pair really are quite pretty, you note even as Alexia continues chastising you without missing a beat.

"Stop playing around Bruce, you did it because I treated you just like a regular person and was one of the few real friends you had." You give her a mock look of anger before breaking out in laughter.

"Alright Pest, you're right, I admit it." The nervous sisters breath out together in relief as they realize you and Alexia are playing. "Now please, the archery contest is about to start, and we need Alexia to fill in for Lyra since I sent her back to Kalion."

"Do I have to?" Alexia, you remember, prefers to keep out of the public eye, but it is important for both the men of Athenapolis and the United Armies to be humbled, and being defeated by a teenaged girl might be just the thing to bring them down a notch or two.

"Well, it would be unfair for me to enter as I don't ever miss." You counter, "plus its boring shooting at a stationary targets 50 paces to 150 paces away."

"Wait, you really have never missed," Mara stares at you in disbelief, "not even once?" You smile, glad they're no longer nervous around you.

"Not yet." And then you qualify your answer a little, "Well, not since I was younger than you two, and not at that range." The normally shy Sara steps from behind her sister and shakes her head in wonder.

"How far away do targets have to be before you do start missing shots?"

"Anything moving over 200 paces is pretty safe, stationary targets get difficult at 300." They look at you in shock, even glancing at Alexia to make sure you were serious. When she nods a confirmation, they turn to you again.

"You were a great shot when you were younger than us? Your commanders must have been impressed?" You try to hide your discomfort of how difficult it had been to have had your skills but been too young to be taken seriously by the veteran warriors no matter how hard you had tried to impress them.

"Yes, one of the best since I was given my very first bow, but I'm afraid the commanding officers saw me as more of a nuisance than a champion especially as I was a prince, and an annoying one at that." Once again you see Alexia nodding in confirmation, but this time the girls were watching you, so her nod was for your benefit, not theirs.

"Let's forget that for now and go watch the Games."