Being someplace you called home was so often taken for granted, but Yaric could feel himself truly relax for the first time in days. The familiar walls, the smell of the paddocks as they rode in through a side entrance, and the sound of a Longma calling in the distance. Yaric glanced at Lauren when they were treated to the sight of a griffon appearing in the sky just ahead of them, the griffon dipping low enough for the cloaking spell to dissipate as it swooped down toward the bestiary, its majestic wings gliding through the air without a sound.
Their horses were handed over without any issue, though Sven insisted that the stable hands be informed about what had happened to the horses during the trip, even if they had been stolen for less than a day. Li Na managed to get them carrots and sugar cubes due to their ordeal pulling extra wagons, without mentioning that it had been almost three weeks since they had been rescued.
Lauren then dragged them to see a healer. She made a good argument as well, since a medical report would be needed when they handed the appeal in. Sven’s injury was borderline, and he likely wouldn’t have reported it after being healed, but since they were adding Yaric’s it only made sense to add his as well.
“Come, take a seat young man,” the healer assigned to help them said. No one would mistake him for anything other than a Mage of some sort, and he didn’t look to be over thirty. His air and attitude were slightly more disconcerting than usual, however, giving Yaric the impression that he was far older than Yaric would usually expect from someone with his appearance. The healer had likely stuck very closely to his path over a very long time.
The room he ushered them into wasn’t very large, but it did have a desk, a small coffee table, some chairs, and a small bed set to one side, which the healer was currently ushering Yaric toward.
“Before we begin, I am Healer Nate. I have the details you gave at the front, but tell me, what exactly is the nature of the injury?”
Yaric replied by lifting his shirt and exposing the partially healed wound.
Nate grimaced. The surgery and additional healing had done much to repair the worst of it, but it was still an angry red, with raised welts where the wound had been pulled closed on each side. A brief examination of the damage and scarring within raised even more issues.
“Sorry,” Yaric said. “An unconnected surgeon had to stitch me up, he was all that was available. And the healer who helped later wasn’t specialized.”
“Why are you sorry?” Nate asked, looking confused.
“It’s not very good. I guess you have extra work now.”
“Nonsense. You’re in far better condition than I’d have expected. Far be it from me to ever speak ill of any medical professional who can do their job without magic, they have just a scant few decades to learn and perfect their craft, and they must do everything by eye and by hand. What they accomplish is far greater than what I do when you take my advantages into account. And whoever stitched you up did an exceptional job, all things considered.”
Yaric did feel a pang at Nate’s words, as he truly was very grateful to the surgeon. He’d even tried to refuse payment by arguing that it was his lawful duty to assist anyone on official Academy business, not that they’d allowed him to wave it off. Lauren had also made sure to get him a gift before they’d left.
“Lay on your side here, there we go. I just need to cast a few more diagnostic spells before we begin.”
Every spell Nate cast was strangely visible, which Yaric suspected was to put the patient at ease. Instead of the healer silently casting spells and getting private feedback, the patient could also see that something was being done.
“Have you been feeling stiff?” Nate asked.
“A little. There’s still a lot of bruising.”
“Scar tissue too. This is going to feel uncomfortable to remove, but I’ll go as quickly as I can. Before we begin though, have you felt any other issues? Numbness, dizziness, anything unusual at all?”
“There’s some numbness around where the bolt exited,” Yaric admitted.
“I don’t know how well you all know one another, but have any of you three noticed anything?” Nate asked, looking at Sven, Lauren, and Li Na.
Sven just shook his head, but the other two had each noticed additional issues.
“Yaric isn’t breathing properly,” Lauren. “He breathes okay, but it’s shallow. He’s been pausing to take a breath when he speaks.”
“And he twists funny when he gets on a horse,” Li Na added. “Not just like it hurts, more like he can’t move his arm properly.
Yaric stared at both of them. ‘What?’
“Both are to be expected,” Nate said, sounding completely unconcerned. “I think that’s everything I need to know, is there anything you want to ask before we start? And do you want to keep any memento from this injury?”
“No, it’s better to get this over with, but what do you mean by ‘memento’?”
“Well I can heal everything but leave the raised scar on the skin, or shrink it down to be level. I can even replace the scar tissue with healthy skin, but leave out the basal layer. That will leave you with a pale white patch where the scar was without leaving you with an actual scar.”
“People leave scars behind on purpose?” Yaric asked, shocked. He’d been eager to get rid of the welts covering his wound.
“Sometimes people want a reminder of something that hurt them, for many reasons,” Nate said. “I have one myself from a captured soldier in the last war. It reminds me that just because I’m trying to help someone and mean them no harm, that doesn’t mean they feel the same way.”
“The last option sounded interesting,” Lauren said hesitantly, though looking hopeful. Seeing everyone looking at her, Lauren hurriedly continued. “It’s from where… when you jumped…”
Nate had no idea what the big deal was, but he rescued her by adding another detail. “And it won’t be permanent. Well, it will, I mean, it won’t go away, but you can always come back here and have it completely healed at any time. Even a thousand years from now.”
Yaric decided to go with the faint scar in the end, though he wished he could have done something similar with the rest of the scaring. Having the scar tissue removed was not painful at all, but it rather felt like having something crawling inside your ear or wriggling in your nose. Lying still was a real struggle with the unsettling feeling spreading throughout his side.
Nate was impressive as a healer. It took only eight minutes for him to fully heal Yaric, excluding the small marks he promised to leave behind. Sven timed it.
The report they needed took slightly longer, particularly since Nate felt the need to add additional notes with his thoughts on Novice’s facing crossbows. It was the second time someone senior had decided to add additional notes to their reports.
Even then, their responsibilities were far from over. The report was submitted as usual, this time with a red stamp on top to indicate that there was a severe injury suffered. Then they had to hand in the quivers and bow that they had booked out, before finding someone both willing and able to repair the damage to their armor. High-quality armor was difficult to repair, and the higher the quality, the more capable one needed to be.
Only then were they finally able to go back to their rooms, where Yaric could get clean and wash away the accumulated dust from days of travel. Even putting on clean clothes felt like a luxury. Clothes that hadn’t been packed into a bag and repeatedly washed while on the road.
Yaric found he was the last one to leave his room when he was done. With all their responsibilities fulfilled and their things now packed away, there was only one thing left to do. Eat.
“This place feels so weird,” Li Na said, looking around the food hall and speaking in a half-whisper.
The queues and constant drone of conversations were gone, replaced instead by empty seats and curious staff. On the plus side, the queues and noise were gone, and there were plenty of open seats.
They sat down with their plates and Yaric started shoveling stir fry into his mouth as fast as he could. “This is good,” he mumbled.
“And it's not enough,” Lauren pointed out. “Healer Nate said you needed to eat extra to support the healing.”
Yaric nodded in reply as his mouth was too full to speak.
They’d only returned earlier that same morning, but sitting in the food hall on campus grounds made the past few weeks feel like distant memories. It was all so familiar, so comfortable, and the rest of the world felt like it was so far away.
“Novice Miller?” a voice asked from behind him.
Yaric twisted in his seat to find a messenger standing slightly to the side.
“Yes,” he replied, swallowing quickly.
“A message for you.”
The messenger handed over an envelope and quickly left, leaving Yaric to stare after him.
“What is it?” Sven asked.
Yaric continued watching the messenger until he disappeared outside. “I was just wondering how they find us, that’s all. I mean, they can’t be searching through every building. They always ask to confirm who we are, so they can’t even recognize who they’re looking for. How did he know we were here and not in class? How do they know where our classes are?”
“I meant the message,” Sven said in a deadpan voice.
“Oh. Uhhh…” Yaric quickly opened it and unfolded the note. “That was quick. It’s just a notification that we’re to take five days off from all classes, and we’re expected to use that time for ‘leisure activities’. We’re also required to speak to someone about what happened.”
“Who?” Li Na asked.
“For you I guess it would be Healer Bell. Same for me. I don’t know about you two though,” Yaric said, looking at Lauren and Sven.
“I’ll ask at the front desk before your next appointment,” Lauren said, getting a nod from Sven as well.
Yaric’s regular appointments were that same day, so both Sven and Lauren were able to schedule someone before the day was done. Most of the day was spent sleeping, however. The healing Yaric had gone through left him feeling exhausted. He woke up in time for his appointment with Faruk, ate another large meal, then went back to bed.
As tired as he’d been, and although he did sleep in late enough that everyone’s classes had already started, he felt perfectly rested when he got up the next morning. And very nervous.
“Let’s go into the city for breakfast,” Li Na said, already waiting for everyone else.
“Actually, I was kind of hoping to go to that place Arch Wizard Phelps took us to.”
“By the bestiary?”
“That’s the one,” Yaric replied.
“Why there though? I don’t even know what they serve for breakfast, and it’s on campus grounds.”
“It just popped into my head,” Yaric answered awkwardly.
“I guess we can go there.”
“Uh… What I was really hoping, was -.”
“Ohhh! Okay! You two have fun,” Li Na said, grabbing Sven’s arm as he entered and before he could even greet anyone. Li Na dragged him out the door, already talking about where she wanted to go in the city. Yaric stared after her with a feeling like he was the only one who had no idea about what was going on, when in reality it was the other way around.
Lauren came through fifteen minutes later.
“We’re the first ones up?” Lauren asked, smiling brightly as she entered.
“No… Sven and Lina already left to do something in the city.”
“Oh. Okay. Is there anything you want to do?”
“I thought we could go to that place by the bestiary, where Arch Wizard Phelps took us for lunch.”
“I remember that place, we were meant to go back long ago!”
“I know,” Yaric replied. “You said they served proper food and not all that fancy stuff.”
Lauren smiled slightly and stepped up beside Yaric when he turned to leave.
They’d both made the trip to the bestiary so many times by now, but most of the time was spent running between classes. Taking it slow and walking for once was a completely different experience that Yaric had almost forgotten.
The path they followed took them through multiple gardens and several residential areas before they reached their destination, giving them plenty of time to talk. Yaric would have thought that the chill air and icy wind would have made the walk uncomfortable, but he found he preferred huddling together when the wind blew through to the usual stroll. It almost felt like they had the entire campus to themselves, with the roads and paths empty at this time of day, and the parks and gardens silent but for the sound of wind through the trees and their own voices. Even the birds were quiet, having either moved on for the winter, or settled down to wait patiently for summer.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Unfortunately, Yaric wasn’t quite as patient as the birds.
“I haven’t been ignoring you,” Yaric suddenly said, going completely off the topic of which city he most wanted to visit. His original intention had been to ask while they had breakfast, but he simply couldn’t wait any longer.
“Why would I think you’ve been ignoring me?” Lauren asked, laughing in surprise. She looked up at him curiously, waiting for him to continue.
“After that whole thing with the raid on the camp. When I got hit.”
“Oh,” Lauren said, looking away.
Yaric had known the conversation would be awkward. Lauren had been the first person he’d noticed, right on his very first day on the training fields, before he’d even known what class he would be joining or who would be in that class. She’d helped him avoid being targeted by Chris and supported him whenever he’d felt he was too far behind to catch up. Lauren was there when rumors were going around, and she was there when he found out exactly what had happened to his family. Every new spell had been worked on together, with the two of them helping and pushing each other forward. Ever since they'd first become friends, she’d never hesitated or stood anywhere other than right beside him. Her friendship was one of the only absolutes in his life. Meeting someone new was one thing, but years of history just made things exponentially harder. There were well-established routines and expectations, and there was so much more to lose.
And now, after all these years, he wasn’t risking a simple ‘no’ or risking being disappointed, he risked putting up barriers between them that could ruin everything. Not that he’d had much experience either, or any at all since joining the Academy. It had always been Lauren, and she’d always been out of reach.
“I know I was hurt badly… and I know how it must have looked. But was that the only reason, you know…”
Lauren looked up again, meeting Yaric’s eyes. Yaric had been expecting many things, but the complicated expression on her face wasn’t one of them. Somehow Lauren managed to look surprised, incredulous, and frustrated, all at the same time, yet somehow soft and caring as well.
“How do you see so much that no one else can see, but be so blind about anything that has to do with you?” Lauren asked. “We always sit together, share blankets together, set up our…” Lauren said, trailing off when she realized that making an entire list of things wouldn’t help. “I always just thought you weren’t ready for something.”
“But we’ve done those things for a couple of years now,” Yaric protested.
Lauren met his eyes again, her pointed look very clear.
“Wait, you mean it isn’t recent? When -.”
Yaric was cut off when Lauren elbowed him gently. “Lina’s right, you’re an idiot,” Lauren said quietly, with an obvious tone of humor.
His mind worked furiously. The silence was awkward and uncomfortable, though strangely not as bad as it should have been, but he was also struggling with what to say. Both problems only got worse as the seconds ticked by.
“I’ve wanted to say something for even longer,” Yaric began lamely. “Huh, I kind of wanted to say something on my first day, after I saw you beat Chris. I remember your palm strike knocking him off his feet. Not that that’s why!”
Lauren looked up in confusion. “We were already using weapons when you joined us.”
“Not my first day in our class, my first day at the Academy.”
They were silent for a moment, while Lauren stared intently into his eyes as if searching for something, but she quickly looked away.
“I just thought…" Yaric started saying, before trailing off. “I couldn’t keep quiet anymore, not after what happened at that camp.”
“When I kissed you,” Lauren said softly.
“No,” Yaric replied, causing Lauren to look up once again. “When I saw that crossbow aimed at you. You were so far away, and it was pointing right for -.”
Lauren cut him off once more, but this time with a brief touch of her lips on his.
They stood facing each other in silence, motionless in the middle of the path, until Lauren smiled slightly and tugged at Yaric’s elbow, pulling him toward the bestiary.
Yaric let out a deep breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, even as he realized that he’d be feeling far more uncomfortable if he’d been fumbling so badly with anyone other than Lauren. “Why is it so easy to walk up to someone you just met, but finding the words to ask someone out when you’ve known them for so long is impossible?” Yaric asked, almost to himself.
“It’s not.”
“It is,” Yaric replied emphatically.
“No, if you know each other well enough, you don’t need to find any words,” Lauren said, pulling Yaric’s arm to hook it around hers. “Do you remember when you arranged for us to see those griffons?” Lauren asked randomly.
“Yes?”
“Do you think we could see them again after we eat? You still need to have extra helpings, by the way.”
“I guess,” Yaric said, ignoring the not-so-subtle reminder, but still smiling at her concern. And obviously everything she’d said just before her sudden change of subject as well. “We can do whatever you want.”
“I thought that since we’re already planning to be right there, and after the last time, it would make a really good first date.”
An icy breeze blew down the road, causing both of them to shiver. Yaric unhooked his arm from Lauren’s, wrapped it around her waist, and pulled her close.
----------------------------------------
Yaric couldn’t keep his grin off his face. It got worse whenever he noticed the subtle smile constantly teasing the corners of Lauren’s mouth.
It could have been from the visit to see the griffons, but Yaric didn’t care. There had been six of them this time, all lounging within a heated barn. But even more than that, Princess and Slasher were both there. All six griffons had looked up when they entered, but only two had immediately bounded over, rubbing their necks against Lauren and jostling for attention. Slasher was particularly insistent, while Princess kept prodding Lauren with its head, as if to ask if it were her turn yet. They both remembered her after all this time.
Lauren loved it.
Now they were walking through Lekton, looking in all Sven and Li Na’s favorite places.
“I can’t believe you don’t want to tell Lina,” Lauren said, smiling teasingly.
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell them, I don’t want to disturb them.”
“And you call Lina your sister? She would want to know five minutes before it happened.”
“Yes, well, I think they’ve had the same conversation we had this morning.”
Lauren twisted and grabbed Yaric’s arm with both hands, her eyes growing wide. “Is that why they left together this morning? Who is asking who – which of them told you?”
“Uh, no,” Yaric replied hesitantly. “You don’t understand, I think it happened weeks ago.”
Lauren froze, her excited grin shifting to her familiar teasing smile. “Don’t worry, Lina would have told me the moment it happened.”
“Unless one of them had a reason to keep quiet about it.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Yaric said. “But they keep finding reasons to do things alone, and Lina has been getting up early to have breakfast with Sven. And they seem different together.”
Lauren shook her head. “I think Lina has been trying to get us together by ourselves.”
“Maybe. I still think something has happened with those two.”
“Well, if they are a couple, and Lina didn’t tell me,” Lauren said, a devious smile growing on her face, “I’m hiding her mace. Somewhere high, where only Sven can reach it.”
Yaric couldn’t help but notice that Lauren’s impression of an evil villain was very different from most. It made him think of her presenting a friend with a large slab of their favorite chocolate, only to laugh with a muahahaha when the friend unwrapped it and discovered it was actually their second favorite chocolate. He pulled her closer as they made their way down the streets of Lekton.
“And if they are a couple, you realize that you’re in trouble too?” Lauren asked. She raised her eyebrows in accusation, but she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
“What? Why?”
“That would mean that even though you’re blind, you still noticed them!”
“Oh. Uh… I noticed you, all the time. Just not, that.”
Lauren smiled slightly and rested her head on his shoulder while they walked, with Yaric’s cloak pulled around them both.
It took two hours to find them, which was actually more of a miracle than anything else. The city was so large, and with so many places that they could be, that they could search all day and never go to a single place Sven and Li Na had visited. When they did find Sven and Li Na it was in a place they had already checked, but decided to check again as they took a route that crossed back over their original path.
It was a small pub attached to a far larger brewery, which exclusively served drinks that they brewed themselves. Sven always chose to go there when it was his turn to pick a place.
“… on the other side.” Li Na was saying, talking over her shoulder to Sven while she leaned over the fire beside their table and stoked it. “And the glass blower is next door, they always have a lesson in the… oh, look.” Li Na said, straightening up when she saw Yaric and Lauren enter.
“Hi,” Lauren said, waving her hand in a half circle. Sven and Yaric said hello as well, but Li Na just stared at them.
“Aaand?”
Lauren glanced up at Yaric, while Yaric tried to keep his face neutral. “Actually, we have something to tell you guys,” Lauren said, taking a seat while Yaric did the same beside her.
“Finally!” Li Na declared, stepping over the bench to sit close to Sven. Very close.
“See?” Yaric mumbled.
Lauren’s eyes grew wide. “Lina!”
“Yaric already knew,” Sven said quietly, looking down at the top of Li Na’s head.
Li Na had to tilt her head almost comically high to reply. “I told you he would. And I told you he would be too shy to say anything.”
“Hey! I’m not shy.”
“She knows you too well,” Lauren laughed. “But you didn’t tell me!” Lauren said, whirling on Li Na.
“She was afraid it might put pressure on Yaric,” Sven said, coming to Li Na’s defense. “Lina wanted to keep quiet until you two finally got together. She said that Yaric needed time to find his path.”
“Pshh…” Li Na snorted before Yaric could reply. “I didn’t say that.”
“Good, I didn’t need any ‘path’.
“I said Yaric is a lost mountain puppy, and he’ll probably need a long time to find his way.”
“Yaric basically asked if his getting shot sparked things,” Lauren said, glancing sideways at Yaric.
Li Na choked on her drink. “Yeah,” she spluttered, “see?”
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,” Lauren said, throwing Li Na a mock glare. Li Na froze with her glass at her mouth, like a hare caught in the open. “When did this happen? How?”
Li Na’s exuberance dropped a little, but she still looked fairly cheerful. “I told you guys about some of the things that happened when I was little,” Li Na started saying, her tone more serious now.
Yaric saw her go from bouncing around to staring at her drink, even if she was still smiling, and he wasn’t happy about it. “You’re still little,” he teased, earning himself a kick under the table that frankly surprised him. He hadn’t thought she’d be able to reach him. But she did at least smirk in reply, and some of her previous excitement returned.
“It was the anniversary of the fire,” she continued. “You guys already knew what happened, so I didn’t want to just make a toast to him in my room again like previous years,” Li Na said, making Lauren’s face fall in dismay. No one had any idea that Li Na had been doing that each year, but the way Sven put his arm around her shoulder let them know that he’d at least found out already.
“You guys were at your archery lesson, so I told Sven, and he brought out his whiskey collection in his room. Your collection is getting a bit crazy by the way,” Li Na said, twisting around to look up at Sven again.
“They’re my father’s only idea of a gift,” Sven replied helplessly. “I have so many left because I never drink them.”
“Pshh. Anyway, we were drinking in his room, and I was telling him more stories, and I don’t remember what happened after. One minute I was drinking with Sven, and the next I was waking up alone in his bed, very late at night. I was still a bit drunk, but I went to look for him, and I found him sleeping in the common room. He’d put me in his bed and taken spare blankets to sleep outside. There was even a glass of water next to his bed that I’d missed.”
“Awww. And then you asked him out, just like that?”
“No, I gave him one of those big chocolates from next to the theater,” Li Na replied brightly.
Yaric struggled to keep his face straight, but Li Na noticed anyway and narrowed her eyes. Unfortunately there was no way that Yaric would be able to explain his previous thoughts about Lauren gifting someone chocolate as ‘revenge’. Not unless they were alone, anyway.
“She gave me most of one of those big chocolates,” Sven said, his voice deadpan.
“I told you, there’s always small bits missing.”
“Nope, you’re right here,” Sven said, pulling her closer. Li Na glared up at him but snuggled closer while she did. “And she made me this,” Sven added, pulling a leather necklace out from under his shirt. Yaric thought Li Na might have turned a bit red.
It was made from several different shades of leather and had obviously been put together during her leatherworking class. Some pieces were pierced in decorative patterns, some were stitched, and several had been artfully burned to create beautiful pyrography, including the largest piece hanging from the front.
“That looks like a horse and lance,” Yaric observed, looking closely at the central piece from across the table.
“It’s my family crest,” Sven replied. “Someone decided to sneak out and look it up in the library.”
Li Na gave a very fake shudder. “Don’t remind me.”
“And that’s when Sven finally -?”
“Nope,” Li Na said, cutting Lauren off. “Then we went for breakfast together and started doing it more often. And we have our leatherworking class together, and things just happened. Or rehappened, whatever.”
“Wait, what?”
“You tell her,” Li Na said, bumping her head back gently into Sven’s shoulder.
“I was planning to do something long ago, but then things got complicated.”
“That’s not an answer,” Lauren pointed out.
“Everything started this time when Lina told me about the anniversary of the fire, but it was the other way around last time. I was planning something when we got that appeal in the Lower Docks, and afterward, it just felt wrong. Too much had happened, there were too many emotions, and it wouldn’t have been right.”
“Yeah it would have,” Li Na said, though she didn’t sound like she really believed herself. “Oh, three weeks before we went on that picnic. That’s when he asked me.”
“That was so long ago now!”
“Yeah well, not our fault you’re so slow.”
“Don’t look at me!”
Everyone turned to look at Yaric, including Lauren. “What?”
Seeing that things weren’t going to go his way, Yaric offered to get everyone a round of drinks. Only Sven and Li Na had any drinks to begin with, and they were almost empty.
Yaric had just ordered when something blonde bounced next to him below his shoulder.
“So you finally did it,” Li Na said.
“Finally nothing. Yesterday I decided to talk with her, and today I did it.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been wanting to do that for years now.”
“Which would only cause problems for everyone when Lauren isn’t interested,” Yaric replied, making a large square with his finger as he pointed to Lauren and Sven at the table and then himself and Li Na in turn.
“She’s been interested for as long as you, dummy. Didn’t she tell you?”
Yaric turned back to the bar to collect their drinks, but he could feel the smirk on Li Na’s face when he didn’t reply.
"It's Lauren. How could I know she would - ow! What was that for?" Yaric asked. Li Na had just kicked him weakly in the shin again, which Yaric pretended had hurt.
"You were going to say something stupid, which would have made me kick you harder, so you should really be thanking me right now. I saved you."
"I was just going to -."
"Careful," Li Na warned, "if you're going to ask something stupid like why Lauren would be interested in my brother, you're going to get hurt."
Yaric twisted back to face the bar without replying.
“When did you figure out what was happening with me and Sven?” Li Na asked.
“At the picnic,” Yaric said, carefully threading his fingers through each handle.
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“You know I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
“You could have. We were keeping quiet so you didn’t feel any pressure.”
“Maybe, but little sisters aren’t allowed to be in any kind of relationship with anyone. It’s the law,” Yaric said, bumping Li Na with his hip.
“And what happens when they break the law?” Li Na smirked.
“Their boyfriends get beat up. Which I suspect is half the reason why you are with Sven. You picked the only person I'm certain I couldn’t beat up, just to screw me over.”
Li Na grinned. “Don’t worry, I’d still root for you when you two fight.”
Yaric picked up the tankards slowly, making sure he didn’t spill a drop. “Really?” he asked, raising his eyebrows but still keeping his eyes on the drinks as he slowly turned around.
“Yeah. That’s the only way I know you’ll tell me in advance, so I can watch him kick your ass.”
“Wow,” Yaric said, faking shock. “My little sister would help set me up so her boyfriend could embarrass me in front of everybody.”
“Them's the rules.”
"Hmmm... I wonder if you've told Sven about the princess doll you wrapped in leather pieces to turn into a knight..." Yaric mused.
"Huh? No!"
"And her unicorn steed. I'm sure he'd be very interested in that."
"No he wouldn't! He's talking to Lauren about glassblowing, don't you ruin that for him."
Yaric smirked. "I thought you came here to ask what happened this morning."
"Pshh, no. You'll just say you were at some place and you asked her out."
Yaric looked at her in confusion and tried to shrug while making his way back with four large tankards in his hands. "But that would be the answer," he replied, speaking slowly.
"Give me those," Li Na said, reaching up to take two of the tankards from one hand and allowing Yaric to split the other two. "And no, that's not what happened, and that's why I'm going to ask Lauren. She'll give me a proper answer. I still don't even know who asked her."
"What?! That makes no sense."
"Yeah it does. Was it the lost mountain puppy, or the dragon puppy?"
"That makes even less sense."
"Don't worry, Lauren will understand. We're going to be up late tonight swapping stories." Li Na smirked teasingly. "Then I'll know everything."
Yaric nodded toward Sven. "Looks like I'll be up late as well, drinking whisky."
"Good luck. Maybe you can help him shrink his collection for once."
"I doubt it. We have too many stories to trade."
"Like what? Which of you took the longest?"
"No. Like stories about Melissa."
"Melissa? No!"
"Melissa, the warrior Wizard Princess!"