Wonder was the first one to leave after questioning Fiona so much. She had to admit that the tall girl was quite attractive but that was far from the list of important things on Wonder’s mind at the moment. She had another goal but trying to find out more about it was going to be challenging.
Going out into the main entrance way Wonder chanced across the very person she was looking for. Lamont was walking, or limping rather, towards the staircase. There was a bit of a down look on his face as he approached the stairs and let out a sigh.
Wonder pulled up beside him. “Lamont!”
Lamont smiled down at her. “Why isn’t it our little Wonder. I don’t think I’ve seen you all morning. How are you doing?”
Wonder pouted her lower lip. “Well I was doing just fine until you called me little.”
He laughed. “Oh? My apologies oh Impossible Wonder.”
“That’s better!” Wonder huffed. She glanced toward the front door which had been closed but still needed repairs as it stood looking a little crooked. “I was wondering if it would be okay for us to go to town today?”
Lamont raised an eyebrow. “Us?”
Wonder scowled. “Not you and me, obviously. Ugh even if you were a girl, still gross. I meant me, Lapis, and Rita. Just us girls.”
Lamont scratched at his scruffy chin. “Hmmm it’s a little risky thanks to the possibility of being attacked again, but even if we were attacked so shortly we’d be more or less sitting ducks until reinforcements come. Queen Solaria herself will be arriving soon, she’s concluded her business down in New Haven and should be on the long journey home.”
Wonder groaned. “I just want to have some girl time. Buy some new clothes. Talk to some cute girls. Maybe force my mentor to set up our next training session on a solid date.”
Lamont laughed again. “Well if you three want to go then I won’t stop you. I don’t know if Rita will want to though, she’s likely busy working on some project.”
A devilish grin spread over Wonder’s lips. “Oh I think I can find a way to convince her to join us.”
***
After that conversation with Nightmare, Rita had to do one of the things she did best; research. So she had spent the last hour searching through the books in the library to no avail. There was no more information on Nightmare. Between being out of aether stones, strange dreams, and being attacked by three weirdos, Rita couldn’t possibly get her head around things.
The library proved useless after continuous searching. The only things she could find were a small handful of books with only folk lore mentions of the Lady of Shadows or Mistress of Nightmares. This endeavor had proven to be ultimately useless.
Saturn entered the room, she was wearing her armor and looked exhausted. “Rita, what are you doing in here?”
Rita groaned. “What does it look like?”
Saturn took a look around at the piles of books upon piles of books scattered about the floor and tables. The shelves had large patches of missing books. Notes covered the table in front of Rita placed next to one another in careful order to help sort through all the information she had. At length Saturn returned her look to Rita. “It looks like your making a mess.”
Rita growled and surprised herself. She took a moment to calm herself before saying, “I need to find out what Nightmare’s goal is, and how we can stop her.”
Saturn nodded. “And you stink.”
Rita growled again. “And?”
“And you're stressed.”
Rita threw her head and arms back. “OH MY GODS. YES!”
Lapis’s voice echoed through the hallway. “KINKY!”
Rita slammed her face into the table almost hard enough to do some damage. “Why did I open my dumb mouth?”
Saturn put a hand on one of her hips and a small smile grew over her lips. “I think I know how to cheer you up.”
Rita’s heart pounded for a half second. What could she have in mind?
“Come meet me in the courtyard,” Saturn said as she spun around on her heel and walked away. Her hips swayed as she left and Rita caught herself staring luckily before Saturn noticed.
Rita left her notes and books right where they were, since no one was likely to bother them, and quickly chased after the alluring woman and her promise of cheer. It didn’t take long to reach the courtyard alongside Saturn. They stood in front of a training circle with a couple of different weapon racks staying to the side with wooden weapons. Saturn removed her chest plate and stood in loose gambeson. She grabbed a wooden sword and a wooden shield before nodding toward the rack.
Rita stared dumbfounded for a moment as Saturn entered the circle with the shield in her left hand and the sword in her right. Usually Saturn was left handed in combat, so switching hands had left Rita confused a little. Once Saturn hit the sword against the shield Rita understood instantly what was going on.
“Oh no, not this,” Rita said already imagining the bruises that were going to appear.
Saturn gave her a dominating look that begged Rita to challenge her. “It’ll distract you, besides you could use the practice. I'd heard Fiona healed you, is this correct?”
“Yeah she did.” Feeling reluctant to actually argue with Saturn, Rita grabbed a shield and a sword in hopes that maybe she could quit with minimal injury this time. “I was hoping for something different.”
Once Rita was in the circle and facing Saturn, Saturn stared at her with defiant eyes. “What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know? Maybe a walk through the flowers holding hands?” Rita suggested feeling a little timid.
Saturn narrowed her eyes. “Oh really? You think that would be better?”
Rita opened her mouth but stopped short as Saturn lunged forward swinging the wooden sword. It took all she had to merely readjust the shield to put it between her and her opponent. Saturn took another step forward, bracing her own shield against Rita and shoved. It was like getting hit by a bulldozer, and Rita was sent flying back off of her feet, onto her butt, and then her back.
“You're too small to face your target with your strength alone,” Saturn said as she swung the sword around before resting it on her shoulder blade.
The only part of Rita’s body that was still in the ring was her foot, meaning she lost and lost hard. Pulling herself up lit a small fire in Rita’s chest. “I’m not that small.”
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you from down there shorty.” Saturn retorted.
That did it. Flames raged in Rita’s chest and she jumped up to her feet and got back into the ring. If Saturn really wanted to do this then she was going down. Rita swung the stick at Saturn, though the thing was a lot heavier then she recalled and put awkward strain on her still sensitive arm. Saturn easily deflected the blow with her own stick and returned the favor with another swing of her own. This was far from the first time Rita had been in this situation, she threw her body to the side and missed the blow by mere inches.
Rita moved on her feet circling her opponent and hoping to make an opportunity, but Saturn did good to keep her front facing Rita's preventing any openings from appearing. With a shield in front of her Rita was hard target to hit directly. The shield easily covered most of Rita as she was tiny, but that also meant it was harder for her to carry it. Or maybe that was thanks to Rita not using wooden shields usually.
There was no way that Saturn was going to leave an opening for Rita so she would have to create one. Rita flung herself forward, forcing her shield against Saturn's. Rita threw her stick in towards Saturn's side, but Saturn moved more like a dancer than anything else spinning herself out of Rita’s shield bash and around to Rita’s side. Like lightning Saturn’s stick came flying down and slammed hard into Rita’s shoulder.
Rita dropped the shield as she yelped and jumped away. Her arm felt like lightning had struck her. Saturn stared her down, shield in front, sword in her right hand being held against the top of her shoulder.
“You got me!” Rita cried.
“No, you just lost an arm. You're not dead yet.”
“How about from bloodloss?”
“How about from back injury!” Saturn cried as she jumped forward once more.
Without the shield blocking most of Rita’s view she was able to see the attack coming in slower than she’d expected. Rita easily maneuvered underneath it and slid to a place behind Saturn. She jabbed out with the stick, but Saturn deflected the blow with her own blade. One of Saturn’s legs came up and hit Rita square in the chest sending the little girl flying back into a rolling ball through the dirt.
When Rita stopped rolling she was clear out of the ring once more, and her head was spinning like mad. “You cheater!”
“There is no cheating in a real fight.”
Rita glared at her. “That’s not fair, I thought this was a practice bout, you can’t use your leg to kick me!”
Saturn laughed. “But I just did.”
Rita growled as she rose once more. “Why should I stay here and fight you then!”
“Good question?” Saturn said. “Why are you still here fighting me?”
Rita forsook the idea of getting a new shield and instead went straight for another small sword. Once she had one she turned back towards Saturn and entered the ring. She didn’t know why she was still fighting, surely she could have said no and left before starting, or left after losing the first time, yet here she was, ready to challenge Saturn once more with no clear reward or reason.
A wide grin had spread over Saturn’s lips. “Now you're taking this seriously eh?”
Rita slowly circled her opponent, making sure to keep her feet squared. In a real fight footing, although important, easily got lost as magic was flung left and right. Yet in a small ring like this footing was absolutely everything. This time Rita waited for Saturn to make the first move.
Saturn swung forward, and Rita hit her stick with one of her own redirecting the course of it over her head. With her free hand Rita swung at Saturn’s shield. Saturn’s defense was strong as ever. Saturn moved in for a shield bash and Rita had no choice but to move around Saturn’s right side, keeping her sticks in between her and her opponent. Once on Saturn’s side Rita swung down at Saturn’s leg.
Just as the stick was about to make contact Saturn jumped up into the air. Her wings flapped once and she easily cleared some space between the two of them with a wing propelled jump landing with good space between them. “You forget that your opponent can fly!”
Rita growled and charged forward. “I didn’t forget, I was just going easy on you!”
Saturn readied her stance. “Don’t patronize me! Give me your all!”
When approaching Saturn once more, Rita took note of Saturn swinging her blade. Rita took advantage of how much taller Saturn was and hit the ground sliding forward and under Saturn. Rita’s sticks lashed out at Saturn’s legs but the woman jumped up just in time. Of course as she jumped into the air, her wings were spread out and Rita rolled onto her side trying to spin her body to give herself the momentum needed to put real weight behind it as she threw her sword into the air at Saturn’s left wing.
The stick flew true and slammed into Saturn’s wing with audible smack. Saturn landed in front of her and spun around taking another swing down at Rita. Rita rolled over and swung her stick up at the small opening at Saturn’s neck. Saturn jumped back and her feet landed right next to Rita’s discarded sword.
Saturn looked down at the spare sword and kicked it out of the ring. “Once you sacrifice one of your tools, you can’t generally get them back for a battle.”
Rita rose to her feet and tested the weight of her sword. It still hurt her arm to hold it a little but she was getting used to it again. “It’s been far too long since I last did any combat training like this.”
“I noticed you were out of practice. You're usually a lot faster, and quicker to think.”
Rita growled, feeling the flames in her heart rise ever higher. “If you think you're going to win, then you're wrong.”
Saturn’s grin grew even larger still. “Then let’s make this interesting! If you win, I’ll take you out to dinner! But if I win, you will have to practice with me six days a week for a month!”
Rita’s heart skipped a beat. “A date?”
Saturn raised an eyebrow. “What, are you too scared now to challenge me?”
Fire soared through Rita’s chest as she imagined getting to go on a date with Saturn. It was all she’d ever hoped of, but never thought possible. Now here she was giving her a chance to date her. So of course Rita was going to take it.
Rita charged forward, holding herself lower to the ground. If Saturn wanted to hit her again she’d have to work for it. Saturn charged forward with her shield out front and Rita rolled to the side and swung her stick in an upwards diagonally. Saturn had shifted her feet and moved her leg out of the way just in time to avoid being struck. Meanwhile she also was swinging her stick at Rita’s face.
Rita rolled backwards and stopped just next to the line. An inch farther and she would have rolled out of the ring. Saturn already had her footing regained and was charging forward. Rita didn’t have much in the way of movement options. So she charged forward as well.
Saturn swung down at Rita, and Rita swung upwards at Saturn. The two sticks clacked against each other loud enough to send an echoing sound through the bailey. For a brief moment Rita thought she might have enough strength to hold Saturn off, but then felt it as a truck's worth of strength slammed down onto her stick snapping it out of her hand and onto the hard earth where it bounced out of the ring.
Saturn shifted her weight to move the stick in for another blow against Rita’s face. Rita’s instinct kicked in and she jumped up into the air. She easily cleared the ground with enough space to be above Saturn’s head. Saturn had her shield raised to put it between her and Rita. Rita’s feet landed on the shield and she used it to bounce up into the air even higher, a good twelve feet into the air.
Once Rita started coming down she brought with her, all the momentum carried through her leg. The leg came down upon Saturn’s shield with just enough strength to force the woman to buckle down onto one knee. Yet what she hadn’t expected was for Saturn to roll forward with the movement throwing Rita off of her. Rita hit the earth mere moments later and rolled a couple times.
It took a moment of struggling just to get breathe back into her lungs, but that was when Rita realized that she had rolled halfway out of bounds. “Crap.”
Saturn stood there, staring down at her shield arm with a proud smile. “After all the years you spent in training courses, you finally managed to become a half decent fighter after all.”
Rita groaned. “I lost…”
“And you pushed me further then even Lamont was able to.”
Rita looked up at her. “But I lost?”
Saturn smiled. “That means we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other. Every day in fact. At six in the morning.”
Rita blinked. She was right, even if Rita had lost, they’d be spending quality time together. Maybe there was still a chance to win the giant’s heart after all?
Wonder’s voice boomed into existence from behind Rita. “You two fight like demons.”
Rita looked up at her. “W-what?”
Wonder beamed. “Can you walk after that? If you can’t we’ll just have to carry you then. I’ll let Lapis pick what side she wants to hold you by.”
Rita jumped up. “I can walk! I can walk!”
“Good.” Wonder said as she turned around swinging her hip out. She looked over her shoulder at Rita. “Then let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“It’s time for us to go out and get all girly over the town.”
Rita groaned. “Not another clothes shopping trip.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll stop by some rock store or something for you too.” She winked. “I wouldn’t leave you completely out of the fun, now would I?”
Saturn butted in saying in a flat tone, “Rita should probably take a shower first.”
Wonder's nose twitched and she looked away. “That'll give me time to get me and Lapis all dressed up. Go on then, hurry up and shower.”
Rita groaned and made her way to the castle. She didn't like the thought of going out, especially when she was about to start bruising pretty bad from that fight. Yet Wonder had earned at least a little fun time after the valiant sacrifice she'd made for during the invasion. Rita moaned as she left, “Alright, fine. Have it your way. But before we leave I'm getting some of my gear.”