Bodiccea (Chapter 44)

Template:Bodiccea nav "Ok, here it is." The cafe was small and close, packed between two buildings, but it was clean and the air smelled fresh. The setting sun shone down the street outside, lighting the cafe's patio with a mild warm glow. Khaleel pulled Heather's chair out, and she sat down with a nervous smile. A server dropped off two small black bottles and a basket of bread.

"What's in the bottles?" she asked.

"I think it's beer," Khaleel sat down. "It's a medieval city, the water's not that great."

"Oh," Heather nodded, fidgeting a little.

Khaleel pried the cork out of one bottle and tasted a bit. "Yeah, beer. Kind of weak."

"Yeah. I guess since it's complimentary, huh?" Heather smiled, and tried to get the cork out of her bottle. The edge crumbled, leaving the bottle jammed closed.

"Oh, uh, here, take mine." Khaleel shoved his bottle across the table and tried to take hers. "Maybe I can get that out."

"It's ok," Heather said, digging into the cork with an arrow tip. "I think I can get it." More gouges came out of the cork; it was soon in danger of crumbling completely and falling inside the bottle.

"Um, it's gonna ruin the taste... I know a trick that can get that."

"Oh. What is it?" Heather put the bottle down on the table, and Khaleel took it.

"You shake the bottle a little, so there's pressure inside," he said, demonstrating. "Then you get the point of a knife and pry in from the edge..."

Very shortly, his efforts were rewarded with a fountain of weak beer and cork fragments. After wiping his face, Khaleel flicked one last bit of cork away from the lip of the bottle and grinned in embarrassment. "I guess that got it."

Heather laughed once, then stopped. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah... just a little wet. It's cool."

Grinning a little, but still concerned, she observed, "Your robe looks like silk..."

"Oh! No way," Khaleel shook his head. "Vizjerei robes are supposed to be silk, but I think it's rayon. You can't go tromping through demon guts in silk."

The waiter finally arrived. After glancing disapprovingly at Khaleel, he turned to Heather and asked, "How may I serve you, madam and monsieur?"

"Um..." Heather glanced around, looking for a menu. "Uh..."

"I'll take a double-roast mocha espresso."

"Thank you, sir. And for you, my lady?"

"Uh... coffee, I guess."

The waiter looked nonplused. Khaleel cleared his throat, and said, "Uh, I don't think they have just coffee here. How about an espresso?"

She shook her head. "I don't want to be up all night."

"Oh," he nodded, then smiled a little. "There's always the house wine?"

Heather smiled. "Okay."

"One gold bottle," Khaleel ordered. "And forget the mocha."

"Very good, sir." The waiter quickly left.

Outside on the street, two men came by, an archer and a swordsman. They stopped, and the swordsman turned to peer around behind them; he didn't seem to see anything, and they continued on. Heather peered after them as they left. "What was that about?"

"Nothing," Khaleel shrugged. "They come by every so often."

Heather's gaze, meanwhile, had wandered inside the cafe to a nearby table. She made a small noise of surprise and pointed. Khaleel looked over; it was Varnae. "Hey!"

"Don't mind me, dear boy," he purred, ignoring a dark figure as it flitted into the shadow of a column at the patio's edge "Please resume your clumsy attempt at seduction."

After a pause, the figure slipped away from the cafe, slipping from shadow to shadow behind the two armed men as they entered a nearby mansion. Neither Khaleel nor anyone else noticed. "What the hell are you doing here!?"

"Chaperoning, my boy," Varnae smiled. "We couldn't leave you two little love birds alone now, could we?"

As the waiter left them a golden bottle of wine and two gold goblets, Khaleel snarled, "We do not need a chaperone!"

"Oh, dear!" Varnae sighed, and gazed heavenwards in exasperation. "Whatever am I to do with you? All the effort of raising a mercenary properly, instilling respect for the rules of etiquette which form the foundation of polite society, and in the end, he turns and bites the hand that feeds him. Ah, me..."

"Aw, c'mon," Kasim said from another table he was sharing with Klatu and Amanita. "That chaperone crap went out of style years ago."

"Thank god," Amanita laughed, then leaned over to ask Heather, "You did bring protection, right?"

"What?!" Heather gasped.

Paige: "Amy! Heather's not like that."

Mizor: (sitting across three chairs, chewing a piece of honeycomb) "Naaumffrsate." (tries to give Khaleel a thumbs-up)

Kasim looked at Klatu. "So, do you think she's a moaner or a screamer?"

"HEY!" Khaleel stood up. "Get the hell out of here! All of you!"

"It's a public place," Amanita leaned back and put her feet up on the table. "We can stay as long as we want."

The shadowy figure no one saw the first time oozed back around the corner; the wine and goblets went missing from Khaleel's table, again without anyone noticing. "Look! We are just trying to talk! There is nothing going on!"

"So your objection to a chaperone is entirely without cause," Varnae observed smugly. "It is most gratifying to see that my efforts at civilising you were not completely wasted."

Paige: "Come on, pasty. They don't need a chaperone."

"That's true," Kasim grinned. "I mean, this is wiz-boy..."

Klatu laughed. "He can't strike out every time."

Mizor: (frowns) "Rrrarreehepsornoo!"

Paige: (laughs) "You tell 'em, boss."

Kasim frowned, staring at Mizor. "Ok, what'd he say?"

Paige: "That he probably gets more than you."

"No damn way!"

"Deadboy probably just wants to watch," Amanita smirked.

"My dear," Varnae gazed disapprovingly at her. "What one does in one's private time is entirely one's own business. Youth, however, must be guided with a steady hand. Unless the need for discretion in one's affairs is imposed early and often, all manner of unacceptable behaviour will inevitably spill out into polite society, confounding all concerned."

Outside, an arrow with a rope attached to it thudded into a roof beam, and the shadowy figure shimmied up to a second story ledge. Amanita sighed and said to Varnae, "Look, when you've got something to say, can't you just say it?"

"And deny myself one of the few pleasures that remains to me?" Varnae chuckled. "Your expression is simply priceless, to say nothing of those of your table companions."

Klatu leaned over to Kasim. "Did he call us something bad?"

Scratching his head, Kasim muttered, "I'm not sure."

Paige: "He said you look funny."

"And he's right," Amanita smirked. "Shouldn't you have gotten Teddy-boy to chaperone? He's the Paladin and everything."

"I think not," Varnae sniffed. "Even a mercenary should be allowed to wallow in pleasure, when obligations permit."

Paige: "I think that if they're old enough to drink, they should be old enough to make their own decisions."

Somewhere nearby, a goony voice muttered, "Someone makin' noise?" After the crack of a blackjack meeting someone's skull, it was quiet again.

Varnae sighed. "That is entirely beside the issue. The purpose of a chaperone is to teach discretion, and a certain amount of deviousness. If dear Khaleel were allowed to indulge his lower impulses freely, without strong and immediate disapproval, his undeveloped mind might not grasp the importance of keeping his disgusting little dalliances to himself. That, I believe, is something we all could agree on."

"Trust me," Amanita laughed, "no one's gonna tell you anything."

Paige: "Guys, come on. Khaleel's not so bad."

"You were sure pissed off at him before," Kasim said.

Paige: "That's 'cause you were telling him what to do before."

He guffawed. "Yeah, like it's my fault he's a dork."

"Hmm," Varnae mused, looking around. "It seems he and his paramour have taken their lesson in deviousness entirely too well."

Sure enough, Khaleel and Heather were gone, along with the bread and Varnae's bottle of wine. "Huh," Kasim grinned. "Little bastard. Where'd he go?"

It was night, on a strange island under a pure black sky shimmering with alien constellations. Strange buildings crowded onto the small island -- giant gears, a broken clock tower, and a rocket ship that would never fly. Little broke the silence; the sound of waves hummed under the rush of wind in the trees and the gentle clink of wine glasses. "This is beautiful."

"Yeah," Khaleel grinned. "It's Myst. We ran through it once, doing the puzzles. Well... I ran through it. Kasim and Klatu didn't really do a whole lot."

"It's a puzzle game?" Heather asked, sipping a bit of wine.

"Uh huh. One of the best. Not much replay value, you have to stay away from it until you've forgotten everything. Nothing's happened here in... over a year now."

"Oh," she nodded.

He nodded, grinning nervously. "Yeah... I doubt anybody else remembers it's here."

"That's a shame, it's so pretty." She looked down -- her glass was empty.

"Oops! Uh, mine's empty too."

She smiled. "You pour."

"Okay," he grabbed what was left of the bottle. "There's lots of beautiful things here."

Heather blinked a bit, then turned away, blushing fiercely. "Oh..."

"Naw, I mean it," Khaleel smiled, trying to refill their glasses without spilling.

"It's the wine," she said. "It's good."

"Yeah. Pasty knows how to pick wine."

He grinned, and they both laughed. "Yeah," she said, draining half of her glass. "Nothing's happened here in a year?"

"Uh... no, I don't think so."

"Oh." Flushed with wine and weaving slightly where she sat, Heather finally broke into a smile and said, "Maybe we can change that."

The sun was just breaking away from the horizon when Heather quietly opened the door to the house she and Bodiccea had commandeered. One pile of furs near the back of the room was breathing, so she tip-toed over to the other. She was just putting her bow down when a snort announced that Bodiccea had woken. "Hi, Miss B."

"Wooza," Bodiccea looked around blearily. "Oh, it's you. Where you been?"

"I just went out for a while. How's things here?"

"Lousy," Bodiccea sat up, shivering as the air hit her. "Reg and I spent the whole night talking feminism with Qual-Kehk and the testosterone horde. Gawd, I hate feminism."

Heather slowly nodded. "You know, somehow, I kind of knew that."

"Ha. You a feminist, Heather?"

"Um... I guess. I mean, equal rights and equal pay and things like that are good."

"Oh, yeah, sure, that's all good. What I don't like is all the shrieking and theorizing and a bunch of big ugly bull-dykes in serious clothes. It's boring."

"Huh," Heather thought for a minute. "I know everybody talks about women like that, but I don't think I've ever actually seen one."

"There are some," Bodiccea grumbled, reaching for her armor. "Hey..."

"What?"

Bodiccea sniffed the air. "I smell booze."

"Oh, uh, yeah..." Heather picked her bow up again. "We kind of had something to drink, when I went out just now."

"We?"

After taking a deep breath, Heather nodded defiantly. "Yeah. I was out with someone."

Bodiccea stared at her. "All night?"

" ... Yes. All night."

She stared a few seconds more... then jumped out of bed and gave Heather a hug. "WOO HOO! Yowp, cold floor! You stopped being boring! Congrats!"

"Oof!" Heather coughed, then protested, "What do you mean, boring?"

"Heather! You're always the one who hangs around in the back going 'that isn't a good idea, Miss B' or 'I don't like you dressing like that, Miss B' or 'maybe we should do something else, Miss B' and crap like that. It's been like going around with my mom."

"Oh," Heather said, not sure how she should respond to that.

"Wow, you do smell," Bodiccea said, letting go to go get her stuff. "You must have put away a lot. Did you get any sleep at all?"

"Uh... no, I didn't."

Bodiccea laughed. "Oh, man, you're gonna be wasted today. We're going to the Arreat Plateau, then the ice caves. There's gonna be Frenzy-taurs in there."

"Oh," Heather blinked blearily. "Good."

"And another mini-hell, maybe some in there. Keep in back of me and Reg, ok?"

"I always try, Miss B. Um... can I ask you for something?"

"Sure," Bodiccea looked concerned. "What is it?"

"I'm glad you're not mad about me leaving for the night... but could you not, um... like, go around telling other people about it? I know you probably think it's no big deal..."

"Aw, Heather," Bodiccea shook her head. "I wasn't going to anyway."

Heather sighed with relief. "Thank you."

"No, not for you, for me," Bodiccea grumped. "I mean, look at me. I'm wearing sensible clothes, stay up all night talking feminism, and my valk and my merc are getting more action than me. Word gets out, people'll start thinking I've gone soft and I'll have to do something really stupid like take on Baal's minions naked or something."

Heather laughed. "There's guys who'd pay money to see that."

"Don't encourage me, Heather. Now, get your drunken butt in gear: it's time to find Anya."