P. Power - Knight of the Realm

Tor did a quick inventory of what he had on, device wise, knowing that he clanked a little when he shifted and his shirt bulged in the front. Both hands had devices held in place by leather thongs too, for flight and Not-flyer controls. Shield, of course. Then without speaking to Sara at all, he closed his eyes and dropped into a working state briefly. Not to be mean or even work on some project or another, but so he could examine how her arms worked when she moved.

The field portion of the movements. She wasn't helpful, holding remarkably still for some unknown reason. So eyes still closed he poked at her arm. She'd taken her shield off and so had he, which made her think he was trying to hold her hand apparently. It worked well enough. When they touched he could understand what her brain was doing to process sensory information from her left hand. He stroked it gently, and caught a sense of warm friendliness from the girl. Then, reaching over with his other hand he pinched her lightly. She didn't say anything but stiffened and felt slightly annoyed and bemused at the same time.

After an hour or so of this he opened his eyes and let go of her hand.

“Anyone hungry yet? I have some food, fresh from Debbie's bakery.” Moving to the back he pulled out the small box and offered it to the Royal Guards first, all of whom checked the rolls and pastries with poison detectors. All the food, each of them making certain it was all good, even when the person next to them had just done the same thing. The old fashioned devices he'd made about a year before, small copper rectangles still held solid fields. Then he passed the box to Smythe, who took a peach hand pie and nodded to him, but didn't check it for poison. Probably because he'd been stripped of all devices to keep him from killing Tor. Tor pulled his own, a glowing sigil on natural stone from the beaches of Printer and tested the food for the man. It was clean, so the older man started to eat.

But he gave Tor an incredibly funny look first. As if saying that if anyone in the world were going to try and poison him, he knew who to watch. It was ridiculous of course. Tor didn't know anything about such things at all. Like he’d do that anyway? It seemed really rude, even if the guy did keep making attempts on his life.

Sara took a small roll for herself and Sorlee, happy to be remembered, asked him to feed her bites of hand pie, a savory beef one, because she didn't care for sweets in the morning.

“You know, if we were back in Forest Far, this would mean we were married now.” The girl said it seriously, like she meant it.

Tor almost blushed, but shook his head instead.

“That's not the tradition there. By tradition if I fed you like this, your brothers and father would beat me and try to drive me from the village… If I didn't marry you instantly that is. The same as in Two Bends.” It was true enough, but the girl kept flying and gave him a knowing look.

“I know that, but then after whoring for all these months, I'm pretty much dead to them anyway. I can make up my own traditions now.” Her voice was a bit sharp sounding, but also held something else he didn't quite know how to explain to himself.

Focusing on her field for a moment Tor tried to pick up what she was thinking, it wasn't hard.

The girl was covering for her slip and wondering how long she could keep her game up. She was starting to do it with others, but no one had noticed yet. If she suddenly spoke too well, that could be played off as practice, couldn't it? So far it had worked. The only real danger was Tor. He was sweet, but that was a bigger danger to her than not. Her teasing and flirting deflections would only last so long. Plus she wasn't certain what he knew already.

Tor didn't get it in words, he just knew all this about her. With a wink he moved back to his seat next to Sara, even though there were a lot of other places to sit, enough for forty big people or nearly sixty of him.

Then she wanted to talk, if his morning meditation was over, she said softly, leaning into him warmly. He smiled and nodded. Why not? She could tell him all the things he'd been too stupid to get on his own. What she shared was all about people, some he knew, a lot he'd only heard about. It was all interesting, if in an odd way.

“My brother Kris is finally getting married. I just heard last week. It's a good marriage too, one we've needed as a house for a while. Meredith Sorvee? Kris said she's a little plain looking, and a widow with two children already, but her temper seems gentle enough and her dowry is about as large as any I've ever heard of. Apparently a benefactor delivered a nice chest of gold on her behalf, anonymously in the night. Two thousand gold, just sitting in a chest outside the door with a letter saying it was for her future and that more would come. Isn't that exciting? It's like a fairy tale. Some gallant Knight swooping in, or a rich priest taking care of a woman left in a desperate situation. Of course as a Sorvee, her position can't have been that bad, even if it was just by marriage.” Sara leaned against him again in a more friendly manner, the tale of Meredith obviously making her gooey girlish center all happy for a bit.

“Who do you think it was? That left the gold I mean?” She asked innocently, seeming not to remember that Meredith had asked for his hand once.

Tor shrugged. It was obvious to him, given everything.

“Dorgal Sorvee.” It was said with the matter of fact air of a person that knew a fact, not someone making a guess. Then, he did know, didn’t he? Oh, maybe he had some point in it, but then, by that thinking, so did Rolph. He’d delivered the amulets and devices after all. Clearly making good on Tor’s request.

Sara straightened eyes going wide. When she turned to face him her breath caught.

“The one that always called you names and tried to intimidate you? He… doesn't seem the type, does he? Sorvee’s aren't known for being generous to those in need. Oh, they won't let a distant relative starve and are even honest in their own way, but this…” Skepticism seemed to be going around that day.

Why not Dorgal?

“There's a difference between not liking me personally and being a bad person though, isn't there? Dorgal made some mistakes, but he could have tried to hurt me and gotten away with it back at school, but he never did. He threatened, and made me think he would, but in the end he held his hand if not his tongue. Kids do stupid things sometimes, hanging on to that doesn't help anything.” Tor grabbed a pastry from the box, leaving it half full and passed it to the guards in the back since they were all big enough to be hungry most of the time. Sara grinned and snagged a second one too.

They stopped halfway there so that people could relieve themselves and stretch their legs a bit. The breeze was humid, since they neared the southern coast, though hadn't put down on a beach. There was grass and some trees nearby.

There was no scent to the air, not for him, because his new shield filtered all that out pretty well. Sara picked flowers and got a smile from Smythe, who winked at her and kept walking in a large circle, getting what exercise he could. Tor went through a set of stretching exercises and then he and Sara had a practice match with shields on, so mainly punching and kicking, since throws were useless this way and holds hardly worked at all. You could, at times, bend a shielded limb to your advantage, but joint locks tended to fail with even a little squirming motion. One at a time the different guards came over and tried their hand against them too. They were all better fighters than he was, but Sara held her own, nearly. It was better than sitting at least and they worked with him too, even if he wasn't as much of a challenge, so Tor kept trying to do his best.