*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

The first few mornings at Retmor Castle, Neil woke up feeling confused, scared, and small. It was the bed: king-sized and soft as a cloud, with more blankets than he knew what to do with. He often woke up in a tangled, sweaty cocoon of bedsheets after a night of tossing and turning.

College had him used to waking up on twin-swiped mattresses, futons, sofas, and—on more than one occasion—the floor.

He almost resented his new bed for the comfort it offered him. His entire room, really, had a princely elegance that Neil felt guilty for disturbing. He didn’t wake up feeling lost and confused anymore, at least. He didn’t have the time to.

Every night, he pushed himself to exhaustion with sword drills, collapsing into his bed fully clothed, more often than not. Too tired for dreams and nightmares, the days came quickly.

The mornings—however—would drag on, if he let them.

*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

He groaned, straining against his sheets, rolling his body to the far side of the bed, and deposited himself upon the floor.

He wasn’t a morning person.

Standing was a struggle made more complicated by the blankets he dragged with him. Still, he managed to shuffle his way to the bedroom door, glancing at his desk mirror as he did so.

His hair was a wild brown mess, his eyes half-lidded. He wasn’t wearing clothes under his sheets. That might have made him uncomfortable— if not for the tugging miasma of sleep, and the deathly heat of a night spent in a room without air conditioning.

Satisfied that he wasn’t at risk of flashing anyone, he opened his door.

No one was there. He stared blankly down an empty stone hall.

He looked down, and blinked.

A brown parcel, wrapped in some kind of paper, and bound by twine, lay on the floor before him. A bone-white note lay on tip, reading in a flowing, cursive script:

…

FOR NEIL

….

He smacked his lips, tiredly regarding the package before him.

Realization struck him with the force of lightning, widening his eyes as he nearly dropped his modesty-preserving cocoon of blankets.

His book was here.

Quickly and carefully, he dragged it inside, shut the door, and heaved it on his bed. It was a surprisingly dense package, containing more than just a book, Neil felt.

First, the note.

…

Neil,

Mysteries of the arcane are not to be delved by the foolish or impatient, yet more dabblers exist than there are stars in the sky. Look upon them, and know that you are greater.

Practice well, practice often, and do not be discouraged when the craft proves elusive. Potential abounds, lad.

—Argus

Neil flipped it over, reading the back.

P.S.

You have now rendered two pairs of plainclothes irreparable, and beyond any possibility of cleaning. Perhaps it’s time for something a little more durable, eh? An outfit worth taking care of.

…

Pursing his lips, he opened the package.

A bundle of clothes stared up at him, which he delicately threw to the other side of the bed.

The book was fairly unassuming. A dull blue color, well worn and hard-bound. It was smaller than most of the books he’d seen recently, like the author hadn’t been desperate to blow out the page count with total nonsense. The title was printed in gold.

“Basic Exercises,” Neil muttered. “You trying to tell me something, Argus?”

He wouldn’t brag about being in the best shape of his life. He very plainly wasn’t. In his senior year of highschool, he had abs. They’d gone by the wayside in college, but with the way he’d been working out recently? They’d be back in a few months, if that. He’d even started doing yoga again, in the mornings.

He opened the book to it’s first page.

…

…

“I think it’s time that we addressed the elephant in the room.” said Jackie, in a serious voice.

The banquet hall was no less empty than normal, though now the Heroes sat at the very middle, surmounted by a horde of empty chairs at either side of the room.

June smirked, putting her hands on her hips. “If you’re talking about these outfits, I’m way ahead of you, dude. We’re hot.”

Hot was a generous word for it, but Neil nodded along just the same. ‘Sweltering’ might have been more accurate. ‘Suffocated,’ even more so. Apparently, in the local style, how good you looked was proportional to your likelihood of getting heat stroke.

And, to June’s point, they looked good.

Every one of the Heroes sported their own outfit. The only commonality between them was the same pair of coarse brown pants and sturdy leather boots.

June herself had a flowing crimson shirt, cuffs bunched and tied up at the elbow, topped with a dark leather vest.

Jackie shook her head. “No. I know we’re all excited to have to have new clothes, but this is serious.”

The tall and sober woman did not, Neil thought, look very excited about the outfits. In fact, she didn’t look much different at all. She wore a simple beige shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the same as the last couple weeks.

“We need to be more serious,” she continued, aiming a pointed look at June, before turning it on Neil. “Jokes are fine, but not when they put us all in danger.”

Neil blinked. “Was I putting us in danger?”

That wasn’t good. He frowned, thinking back. Was she talking about the Jurassic Park thing?

‘Well, dang,” he thought, frown deepening. ‘Maybe I haven’t been taking this seriously enough.’

“No,” said Jackie, rubbing her forehead. “Not yet, anyway. You two aren’t the elephant I was talking about, but I would appreciate a little more professionalism from the both of you.”

Neil exchanged a look with June. They nodded slightly at each other in solidarity and defiance of Jackie.

“Professionalism is the mind killer,” said Neil, conversationally. “The little death that brings total obliteration. I will not be professional.”

Jackie set her jaw, and ignored him. “I’m talking about making a plan, and sticking to it. Being accountable, being responsible, and showing up to the goddamn meetings.”

Jackie did not shout these last few words, but they left her mouth with enough force that Neil was compelled to look away. She wasn’t talking about him at least. Err— hopefully she wasn’t talking about him. He did go awol a couple of days after they got back from Vergandale.

“Are you talking about the elephant in the room, or the elephant not in the room?” June asked, raising an eyebrow.

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Jackie cast a withering glare at the shorter woman, who withstood it smiling, with all the grace of a desert cactus.

The elephant not in the room was Thomas.

“In his defense,” said Neil, raising a hand and already wincing. “He might just be having trouble with his underwear.”

A beat of silence passed before Neil spoke again. “I’m not kidding, either. It took me nearly half an hour to put this thing on.”

Neil’s outfit was a bone-white shirt and a forest green jacket, with exactly two more layers of underclothes than he felt was really appropriate. A t-shirt would have been nice, given the heat.

“Me too,” Pete nodded, tugging at his own deep blue vest and maroon shirt. “The laces aren’t exactly intuitive, are they?”

Jackie’s withering gaze bounced from June to Neil, and landed finally upon Peter, who wilted under it.

“Then again,” he spoke slowly. “It’s already noon, isn’t it? He’s had more than enough time to get here.”

Jackie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We have two days before we go on another mission, and this one will be our longest yet. Am I the only one taking this seriously?”

“You’re doing great, Jackie,” Anne said, reminding Neil of her presence.

“Thank you, Anne,” Jackie shook her head, sounding tired. “Your feedback is always appreciated.”

The muscular woman let her hands fall to the table. “If Thomas isn’t going to show, the only other thing I wanted to talk about was everyone making good use of their time. Everyone working on something?”

Everyone did, and told her so.

Neil was only a few pages deep into Basic Exercises, and he could already tell it was going to be a slog. It was painfully clear on the fact that magic—even the most basic spells—took more than a few days to master. He hadn’t even made it to the part where the actual magic happened before getting pulled into their lunch-meeting

“Right,” said Jackie, hands massaging the back of her neck. “I checked with Argus, and he’s cleared us to take actual weapons from the armory. We’ll pick them up tomorrow. For now, just… keep at it, okay?”

…

…

Neil wasn’t sure when Jackie was elected the leader of their merry little band. It wasn’t an official process, however it happened. A role needed to be filled, and Jackie was the only one willing to fill it.

Not that he was complaining. Not out loud, anyway.

She had a point, and Neil was in no mood to waste time. Argus assured them that there were indeed twenty four hours in a day there, though it felt to Neil like significantly less.

Part of the problem likely had to do with how they scheduled things around the castle. If anyone had a system of time-keeping more advanced than looking up at the sun and guessing, they hadn't told Neil about it.

Regardless, there weren’t enough hours in the day. Which meant Neil had to rely on the tried-and-true, college tested, traditional technique of Simply Not Sleeping.

When June walked in on him eating porridge over an open book, well before the sun had risen, she looked surprised. Then she looked disgusted.

Neil froze, spoon halfway to mouth, feeling as if she’d caught him at an intimate moment.

“What’s up?” He asked, before slowly completing the spoon’s journey into his mouth. He did not break eye contact.

“Dude, what are you doing?” She asked in a tired voice.

Neil looked down at his book, then his food, and back to her. “Eating?” He scraped up more porridge as if to demonstrate.

Apparently, regardless of the time, day or night, there was always someone in the kitchen, ready to be annoyed when someone bumbled in to ask if there were any snacks to be snuck.

Today, that snack was porridge.

It even managed to be good, a quality that Neil doubted porridge could ever possess. Especially after he put what some might call a ‘disgusting’ amount of honey in it.

“It’s the middle of the night.” she said, almost like it was a question.

“The sun set like an hour ago.” Neil defended.

“It didn’t.” She said pointedly, walking closer.

“And why the hell are you reading—” she snatched the book from under him, eyes widening in mock horror when she saw the cover.

“A Complete Guide of Manners For the Enterprising Young Lady?” She read like it was the long and hyphenated name of some terrible disease.

“Primary source.” he said in a high voice.

“A primary source on how to curtsy?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

Neil smiled widely, flipped several pages backwards, and slid the book over to her.

“Oh, god.”

There, on the page, was a black-and-white diagram of a young girl, dressed all in poofy frills, arms behind her back, half kneeling. At the top of the page, in a swooping font, read; ‘the sweeping quarter bow.’

“There’s literally a whole chapter on curtsying,” Neil said excitedly. “The social rituals these people have are mind boggling. The variations on the curtsying alone—” he gestured at the detailed drawing. “You could basically tell your whole life story based just on what your hands are doing.”

June shook her head. “Go to bed, Neil. We’ve got stuff to do in the morning, and no amount of curtsying is gonna help.”

Neil dragged the book back towards himself.

“I’m not even a little bit tired, thanks.” He lied.

She gave him a hard look. “Is this about the mission? It’s not gonna be that big of a deal, I promise.”

He raised a finger. “Firstly, yes, it is kind of a big deal.”

Four days on the road, two days in some town called Bridgepool, and another two days to get back. They were volunteered as an extraneous guard detail for a caravan headed north. It would be the longest they’d spent away from the castle since they first arrived.

According to Argus, it would be a safe enough journey. The presence of a band of Heroes practically guaranteed it. Monsters stayed off the main roads, and bandits wouldn’t dream of attacking a Hero-guarded caravan.

Neil raised another finger. “Secondly, the only reason I’m reading this—” both fingers dropped to the book, poking the diagram of the girl, “—is because magic is stupid and hard and I needed a break.”

“Ooh, right, your little magic lessons.” She rolled her eyes.

He told her about Basic Exercises at the first opportunity, even before telling the group at their meeting, expecting it to be as earth shattering a revelation for her as it was for him. The reaction he got was little better than a shrug and a pat on the back.

It was frustrating, he would freely admit. Especially when Basic Exercises turned out to be a literal book of basic exercises.

Focusing exercises.

Not even difficult ones. It was more of a children’s puzzle-book than anything, but it just went on and on and on.

He made it as far as the section on meditation before he had enough, and needed a break.

As Neil opened his mouth to defend his ‘little magic lessons’, June went on talking. “Neil, I get that this—” she made a circular gesture vaguely in his direction, including his porridge and book. “—Is your way of coping with this weird, stressful situation, but I promise you, the best thing you can do to prepare for whatever tomorrow brings is to go to your room and sleep. You’re not gonna become a wizard overnight, you’re just gonna be tired and pissy.”

Neil closed his mouth, slowly. “That’s a fair point, but…” he looked down, “I don’t wanna feel like I’m wasting any time, you know?”

June folded her arms, looking down her nose at him. “If you go to bed right now, I’ll give you my crossbow.”

Neil blinked at her. “What?”

Her weight shifted to her back foot and she brought her nails up to her face, examining them. “I’m not your therapist, and I don’t know how to make you feel better, but I know you're feeling weird, so… I’m offering you an incentive. Go to bed, and I’ll give you my crossbow. Or a crossbow. Deal?”

“You just… have a crossbow?” Neil asked, voice high and face incredulous. “The same one you ‘found’ in Vergandale?”

There weren’t any crossbows in Hanson’s armory. There were bows, but they were impossible to pull back, and even harder to aim. He’d still dedicated a little time to practicing, but it was something he was unequivocally bad at.

“Maybe,” She shrugged, “deal or no deal?”

He looked down at his book, his porridge, and back up at her, squinting. “I— um— deal, I guess?”

“Awesome.” She turned, “you’ll get it in the morning, if—” she glanced back, pointing at him, “—you keep up your end.”

Neil sat there, squinting after her, confused expression still on his face.

“I’ll know if you dooon’t,'' echoed a sing-song voice, after she left the room.

Neil shook his head, shrugged, and gathered his things. “Screw it,” He muttered to himself. “I could totally use a crossbow.”

The night was short, but at least he got a little sleep.