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“Fabian, darling,” his mother says, pulling off her fencing mask and shaking out her hair, “there’s a PTA meeting to discuss renovations to the Bloodrush locker rooms in three hours, and if I want to outclass that bitch Contessa Kilgrief again, I’d best be off.”
“Of course, mama,” Fabian says, and accepts the kiss she bestows upon his forehead, the feather-light touch of her lips cool against his sweaty skin. Sparring against his mother is ridiculously unfair, not just because she must have taken the defensive duelist feat at some point in her life: although Fabian is practically dripping sweat in a way that is horrendously unbecoming, she appears utterly unruffled, aside from a slight shake to her fingers that Fabian is steadfastly ignoring, because his mother is the best swordswoman in Solace, no ifs or buts about it. “Kick her ass.”
Hallariel smiles, hand curling around Fabian’s chin and lifting it up. “Of course,” she says imperiously, and sheathes the fencing foil at her side. Fabian suspects she’s not going to bother taking it off for the PTA meeting, which is… apparently about par for Aguefort parents, actually, at least the ones that attended Aguefort themselves. He vaguely remembers Fig saying something about Sandralynn actually shooting someone at a PTA meeting, although it could have been bullshit, and Fabian doesn’t actually care.
His mother has really gotten into the PTA thing, though, even though her dex-based fighting education comes from the upper echelons of elven martial schooling, from some truly ancient academy that Fabian remembers his father scoffing at, when the topic of high school had come up a few years ago. My boy won’t be learning’ his fighter’s levels on the high seas, but he’s no’ goin’ to no pussy-ass Elven academy either , never mind that a ‘pussy-ass Elven academy’ had produced his wife, but that had been that, and Fabian had gone to Aguefort.
Hallariel clears her throat, also imperiously, and Fabian refocuses. “I’m turning you over to Cathilda now. She wants you to practice sparring against that goblin friend of yours, to better your ability to fight against someone not your own size.”
Fabian looks across the deck to where Cathilda is talking to the Ball, giving him an informal lesson on how to use a shortsword against daggers; the Ball looks exceptionally awkward, the ebony sword held with unpracticed hands. Fabian has to remind himself that the Ball used that thing to kill a dragon, because it looks like the Ball couldn’t hit the broad side of a Man O’ War if he tried.
“Okay, mama,” he says. Internally, he’s trying to figure out whether it’s a fair fight. It’s not, right? The Ball is a long-range rogue, not a dex-based fighter like Fabian. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to be learning.
“Don’t let Cathilda say I’m being too hard on you, either,” Hallariel says, and Fabian’s armor class is just enough to prompt him to lean back ever so slightly as Hallariel whips her fencing foil out and holds the tip to Fabian’s neck. “It’ll do you good. Know how your friends fight, and you’ll know better how to fight your enemies.”
“Of course, mama,” Fabian says, the words a little strangled. “Have fun at your, er, at your PTA meeting.”
Hallariel stares at him, eyes hard, and with a flourish puts the foil back at her side. Fabian, somewhere in the back of his mind, desperately hopes it stays there, because while Sandralynn is indubitably a force in and of herself, Hallariel is a terror at close range, and if PTA meetings get as up-close and head-to-head as they seem on the TV shows Cathilda always puts on while she’s in the kitchen, then—
Well. Other peoples’ parents’ competencies are not Fabian’s problem, and Aguefort could do with a little of his mother’s discipline. Fabian quashes the rising horror with relish.
His mother nods, then disappears below deck. Fabian takes a deep, slow breath.
Summer’s swept over Elmville, like a hot, stifling comforter dropped onto a perfectly warm bed even without the additional blanket: with the fall of Sol had come the most ridiculous heatwave. It is wildly unpleasant, humidity high enough to make it seem even hotter than it already is. Fabian’s shirt is sticking to his skin.
A thought occurs to him. “Make sure you push for air conditioning in the locker rooms, mama!” he calls after his mother.
“Only the best, darling!”
“Fabian!” the Ball says, as Fabian approaches, wiping at his face with a cloth Cathilda had left out for him. She is exceptionally thoughtful like that. The Ball, for once, is dressed down, wearing a Elmville PD t-shirt that’s just slightly too large and a pair of Elmville PD branded basketball shorts that don’t cover his slightly knobby knees. “What is up… best… friend?”
“We are—We are not best friends,” Fabian says, with emphasis, even though nobody else would have come to practice sparring on such short notice, probably, if he’d asked. Maybe Ragh would have, but Coach Gorthalax had been insistent on not doing any offseason bloodrush training while it was still so hot out, which meant that Ragh probably wouldn’t have come, and anyways, barbarians aren’t exactly interesting enemies to fight. You just hit them until they go down, and rage is less appealing to try your blade against as soon as you realize that theyʼre just going to hit back even harder.
“Best friend,” the Ball repeats, talking over the end of Fabian’s sentence like he didn’t even hear him. “Ready to roll initiative?”
“ Fine, ” Fabian says, and does.
The first few bouts go predictably enough. Fabian wins them, because of course he does. Theyʼre maybe not the resounding victories Fabian expects—fighting the Ball is tricky, because he’s light on his feet in a way that could screw Fabian over if he’s not careful, but luckily the Ball doesnʼt seem to be leaning on his insightful fighting as much, misses opportunities Fabian knows heʼs opening himself up to. It’s everything that his mother has been teaching him in his father’s—absence: how to fight smart, not hard. It doesn’t come as naturally as Fabian would like.
Still, Fabian wins the first round, and the second, and the third. After each round Cathilda takes each of them aside and gives them little tips: she keeps telling Fabian not to cleave straight down all the time, since any smallfolk worth their salt will roll out of the way. Fabian mostly ignores her: thereʼs nothing wrong with it, really, and Fabian is still besting the Ball, so what of it?
Fabian can’t overhear what Cathilda is saying when she crosses to the other side of the deck to talk to the Ball, but she’s making gestures like she’s telling him to go for Fabian’s knees, which is—
Fabian doesn’t like that. He’d rather keep his knees, thanks. Peg legs are cool and all, but Fabian’s already missing an eye.
The fourth round, though, goes differently.
The first few initiative orders are predictable. Fabian hits, the Ball does not, and the Ball disengages and forces Fabian to chase him around the deck, which just gives Fabian the opportunity to jump off of things and get advantage.
There’s a pile of wood on the deck: the explosion that the charm in his father’s coat had kept as much of his body intact as possible while everything else around it exploded had torn a massive hole in the side of the Hangman where Fabian had—Well. It had torn a massive hole in the Hangman. While it was awaiting repairs there was all sorts of equipment lying around while his mother contacted all the best shipbuilders in Solace and beyond, and—
The details don’t really matter; they’re not Fabian’s problem, and he has better things to do than think about how they’re going to fix the hole. What matters is that the Ball tries to hide behind a stack of boards, and Fabian jumps on top of it, then down to stand over the Ball, and swings down.
Riz grins, showing a mouthful of fanged teeth, and—disappears. It’s like the shadows reach out and hug him, and then heʼs gone. Just like that.
Fabian just has enough time to think Shadow sword! and turn around before the Ball reappears again, dropping down from above him. Fabian is just surprised enough that it takes him off guard and he falls, the Sword of the Seacasters clattering to the deck beside him.
By the time Fabian has regained his bearings, flat on his back and staring up at the bright, cloudless blue sky, the Ball is sitting on his chest, the Sword of Shadows at Fabian’s neck.
“Ha,” the Ball says, grinning, and the long bits of hair that hang in front of his ears are plastered with sweat across his freckled cheeks, his upturned nose. “Ha. Gotcha.”
“Your butt,” Fabian says, “is unbelievably bony,” because it is, and the Ball’s knees are pinning Fabian’s shoulders to the deck, which is also very uncomfortable. Despite the fact that Fabian’s athletics bonus is definitely higher than the Ball’s and Fabian could probably break the pin with very little effort on his own part, he doesn’t: it is hot and sticky and the goblin who is definitely not his best friend is sitting on him, but Fabian, suddenly tired in the sort of boneless, giddy way that comes after good, hard exercise, has absolutely no desire to move.
“Not all of us have thick thighs that save lives,” the Ball says.
Internally and externally, Fabian preens a little bit, but instead says, “Quads are an entirely different muscle group than glutes.”
“Why did I know you’d say that,” the Ball says, and sits back a little bit, which only makes his bony butt dig harder into Fabian’s ribs.
Fabian still doesn’t want to move, chest heaving with hard breaths and heart pounding in his chest, in the way you only really notice after you’ve stopped moving, staring up at Riz and that endless blue, blue sky, feeling a smile curl across his face, lazy as the summer heat.
Fabian hears more than feels the Ball’s crystal buzz with an incoming text, and then another, and another.
“Your crystal is blowing up, ” Fabian points out.
The Ball’s breaths are coming fast from physical exertion, too, in-out-in-out-in—but when Fabian points that out, he exhales loudly, takes another inhale just to sigh again, pulls out his crystal, and says “It’s Fig.”
“She’s on about Porter again?”
The Ball hops off of Fabian, face blank and fingers already flying as he taps out several quick responses to Fig. Fabian levers himself up and collects his sword, sheathes it at his side, and runs a hand through his sweaty hair, flicking the excess moisture to the deck. The Ball grimaces Fabian’s sweat hits the ground near his shoe, but doesn’t move. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Last week he was just going to his, I don’t know, community gym, they do movie nights and community bonding stuff, I saw him going over a catalog for gym gear with one of the other, I don’t know what they’re called, people who go to the gym, but it’s not like he’s doing anything—”
His phone starts ringing, and he lets it go to two rings before picking up, which for the Ball is practically unheard of. Every time Fabian has called him he seems to pick up before it rings even once. “ Yeah, Fig—”
The Ball wipes his sweaty hair out of his eyes. Looks down at his feet, then at his clothes, then up at the sky, at which he rolls his eyes. “ I know , okay, I’m a little busy at the moment—”
He listens for a moment longer and then hangs up. “Gotta go,” he says. “Porter’s apparently at the park with his nieces, or something, watching Fig and Gorgug’s live jam session.”
“You are, like, the opposite of inconspicuous right now,” Fabian points out, because it needs to be said.
The Ball’s spindly green fingers pick at the Elmville PD logo on his t-shirt. “I know,” he says, “so I gotta go.”
Fabian does not point out that the Ball’s usual uniform of a suit vest and slacks isn’t any less conspicuous. The Ball’s stealth bonus is bonkers. He’ll be fine. Not that itʼs any concern of Fabian’s, but heʼll be fine.
The Ball snags his briefcase where it’d been hidden near where Cathilda had been observing them, shoves the Sword of Shadows into it, and turns to thank Cathilda, reaching out to shake her hand.
Fabian definitely does not listen in to their conversation. He is totally, 100% focused on… Stretching. Itʼs an important part of any physical exercise.
Instead of shaking the Ballʼs hand, she grabs his wrist and forces a sandwich into his palm. “Eat before you go skulkin’ around, now, ye hear,” she says.
The Ball makes an expression that could be a smile but could just as easily be a grimace. “Okay,” he says.
“Yer like a twig! No smallfolk should be as skinny as ye are, laddie.”
“I had dragon shoulder burgers last night,” the Ball says. “Plural.”
“Aye, thatʼs a good start. Put more meat on those bones.”
“Okay,” he repeats, and gives Fabian an expression that says I’d stay longer but Fig’s still texting me every three seconds and also I’m afraid of Cathilda , which is ridiculous. Cathilda’s a maid, she’s harmless.
Fabian shrugs and grabs his water bottle. If he’s being honest with himself—
Well. No need to start doing that now. The Ball should go; they’re not really friends anyways, just—members of the same adventuring party who hang out together sometimes, like adventuring parties do. Crew members. They trust each other, but it’s professional. Strictly professional, and gods know the Ball is a bastion of professionalism.
Fabian leans against the rail of the ship and does not watch the Ball as he scurries down the rope ladder and towards the bus stop on the far end of the street and does not think about Riz sitting on his chest, grinning playfully with a sword at Fabian’s neck.
After a moment Cathilda joins him at his side, offering him another bottle of water, which he takes. “He’s goin’ ta grow up ta be a handsome one,” she says, after another long moment. “As long as he puts some more weight on them bones of his, tha’ is.”
Fabian almost crushes the water bottle in his hand as he whips around to stare at Cathilda, deeply betrayed in a way words can’t quite describe. The Ball—what—
“What,” he says, because thinking about Cathilda thinking the Ball has the potential to be attractive whatsoever breaks his brain, a little bit. “Cathilda, you’re a maid, that’s not—” and then sputters to a halt, mouth moving as if he has more words to say, but he legitimately cannot think of a decent response. It is definitely not an invitation for Cathilda to explain herself, but she does, one small hand patting Fabian’s arm.
The Ball is still yelling at Fig over the crystal, something outrageous about disguises, no doubt. Fig tended to skip three steps ahead in that regard.
“A maid isnae a sexless being, my dear Fabian,” Cathilda says, and Fabian has to resist the urge to physically cover his ears, because he cannot listen to this.
“You’re a maid, ” Fabian repeats.
“It’s nae like I went to Mumple and laid only with the first man I saw,” Cathilda says, to Fabian’s growing horror. “Or woman,” which isn’t, like, morally objectionable, given that Fabian’s father was Bill fucking Seacaster , but Fabian had never thought Cathilda thought things like that, and it is actively horrifying. “Actually, I do believe I’ve met that goblin’s mother, and oh, is she ever a fine one.”
“WHAT,” Fabian says. “There is a CODE.”
“Firstly, there isnae a code , my sweet boy. And secondly, my husband is dead and I still have eyes, now don’t I? Go on, I’ll fetch ye some kippers while ye get cleaned up.”
“Ca thil da,” Fabian says, but goes, too dumbstruck to consider doing anything else. And while most of his brain is devoted to flushing any and all knowledge of Cathildaʼs implied exploits from his memory, some tiny part of him thrills at just how wide the sky had been, at the curve of Rizʼs smile when heʼd won, at how the rest of the summer is ripe for the taking, just for them.