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“No, I’m good. But thanks.”
The words echoed into the silence around the brother and sister as they sat near the fire in the Yawning Portal.
“Pyra, this isn’t a choice. You’re going.” Petra, oh, no, Insidious, responded.
“Temerity,” she reminded him before casting about the bar, desperate for a distraction. When none appeared, she smiled tightly. “I can read. Durnan showed me how to keep books. That’s more than half the adventurers that’s come through here can do. And if you think I should know more, there’s a library that’s not too too far from here. I’ll study anything you want there. But I don’t want to go to a school.”
“Good thing you’re not going to be an adventurer, then. You need to be educated in order to be a proper lady.”
Temerity looked up sharply. That Ins-idiot didn’t even have the nerve to look ashamed. Instead, he rubbed that spot between his eyes that always indicated that he thought she was the unreasonable one. Small shake in his hands, too, so he had put off smoking before this conversation, to set a good example. Like she cared...
He didn’t have the relaxed position that indicated a good day at work, though, so it probably wasn’t the best time to point any of that out.
“Pet- Insidious. I’m not a lady.” Sometimes it was better to be straightforward. Not often, but maybe it could work this time.
He rolled his eyes. “Becoming one, whatever, the point is, school will get you there.”
Temerity sat back with a thud. What?
“No, Insidi- no, I can’t, it’s too long and takes forever to say, it’s going to have to be Sid. Sid. I’m not going to be a lady. What fancy lord or high class merchant is going to marry me? I can’t even go in their shops without someone following me around the whole way, and why would I even want to be a part of the society that would do that kind of thing to people just because they look different and then explain it away as justified because of some old magic shit with devils, like any of us asked to be born with our magic or our looks or our places in society, like we are responsible for what our ancestors did, like they think we’re about to rob them blind and whisk them off to the hells at any time, and I don’t see the point in wasting time or money, because gods forbid you be able to learn anything if you’re poor, on pretending that I’ll ever be that or want to be that!”
She sucked in a huge breath, preparing for the onslaught of the fury from her brother and… he was talking to a waitress?
He glanced over. “Oh. That was a long one. So tomorrow. I’ll walk you there. Gonna say hi to Durnan and turn in. Night.”
He stood from the table and headed to the stairs. And Merity… grabbed her deck of cards and furiously shuffled them, then shuffled them again, palming an ace somewhat less clumsily than the last time. Surely she could talk her way out of this before the morning. And until then, the old bard in the corner was always good for a game of cards and would only laugh when her juvenile efforts at cheating came to light.