Friday Fiction: The Pissing Contest.

((Co-written with the player of the unfortunate Jakob Balthasar.))

*****

She slept late, but then, she always slept late when given the chance. In Yva Darrows’ mind, mornings were cruel, what with their chirping birds, bright blue skies, and obnoxiously cheerful sunlight. Afternoons weren’t much better, but at least they were nearer to nighttime.

Yip. Yip Yap. Yip Yap YIIIIIP. BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE ON THE BED. Yip. Yip Yap. Scraaaaatch at the pillows. Yip Yap. IT’S MY MUMMY!

“Unnnnngh.”

Jak HAD gone to work then, as Dog was home and apparently excited that she was awake. Usually, her loving significant other would take his fuzzy comrade with him if he was doing something outside the reaches of the Ebon Hand. The presence of the spastic canine twisting itself into a pretzel on the mattress meant she was dogsitting. Lovely.

Whiiiiiine Yap. Mummy, get up. I’m HUNGRY. STARVING. DYING MUMMY DYING. OH GOD CAN IT BE FOODTIMES NOW? Dig. Dig Dig Scratch. Yip SNOOOOORT.

“Oh dear gods yes I’m coming.”

Yva rolled out of bed, her eyes squinted to tiny slits as she fumbled about the bedroom looking for her robe. It wasn’t in any of its usual places – the peg on the wall was lacking, as well as the back of the overstuffed chair in the corner. After grinding both of her fists into her eyes, she was able to wipe the haze of sleep away, and things began to focus. The robe was definitely not here. She glanced at her desk, hoping it had been tossed there in a fit of . . . something . . . but to no avail. There was, however, something different on the desk, a new piece of parchment, and she stumbled over to give it a glimpse. Dog was spinning in circles on the floor behind her, but she managed to ignore him long enough to pick up the page covered in Jak’s neat scrawl.

She recognized the symbols there. They’d been meticulously inked into her skin not one day ago.

“You actually stayed up all night to catalog . . . oh bloody nether.”

Dog barked his agreement.

By the looks of things, Jakob Balthasar had gotten zero sleep. He’d started copying the runes from her ankle and worked his way up to her knee and then her hip, and finally her lower stomach. The order was precise, the recreation was exact, which must have taken him hours, all night actually, which meant he’d gone to work with . . .

“You enormous idiot,” she spat. “I have the original scroll. You could have just ASKED.”

She was about to get her box, to buzz him and make sure he hadn’t gotten himself stabbed during a training regime, but then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and paused. There was something on her back side, something out of the ordinary that she would have liked to attest to sleep drenched eyes or an errant shadow, but no, she was fairly sure this wasn’t a trick of the light or her imagination. She wasn’t THAT exhausted.

What the . . .

She spun around, glancing over her own shoulder to identify the mysterious blob of dark, but between the tangle of her hair and the curvature of her rear, she couldn’t see anything. She edged towards the mirror, staring at her own reflection. It only took her a moment to figure out what she was seeing, and her eyes went huge.

On the left cheek of her bottom, there was a bruise in the shape of a palm and fingers. It looked like Jakob had dipped his hand in black ink and then applied a stamp to her. At some time during the previous night’s “antics” he’d . . . and she’d . . . well she always bruised easily and . . .

If Yva Darrows could blush, she would have been fuchsia. Or maybe plum colored. Decent girls didn’t let men DO that, and if they did, they were smart enough to not let the damning evidence brand them a harlot.

“Maybe I won’t call him,” she murmured, raking her fingers through her hair. Dog barked his agreement, darting around her legs to make for the kitchen at breakneck speed. Yva shouldered into one of Jak’s shirts and followed, her hand straying to the mark. She poked it and winced – it was still a little tender and likely would be for a few days if the color was any indication. He’d gotten her good, indeed.

“Oh isn’t that just rich.”

*****

Icecrown, The Ebon Hand Barracks

“And so I said to her, I said ‘Mary, if you don’t cease this nagging, I’m leaving.’ Sure enough, she kept right on going, in my face and what have you. What was I supposed to do? Getting recruited took a lot away from me, but it didn’t take my honor. Gave my word, you know? Anyway, I miss her, but for the death of me, I can’t . . . I can tell by your face you think I screwed up.”

Eric “Whistler” Enderman talked far, far too much. On a day when Jakob Balthasar hadn’t had any sleep, Whistler’s words were like needles to his brain, eroding what little patience he had far too swiftly. It didn’t help that Whistler’d gotten his name thanks to his propensity to whistle whenever he made a “sh” sound in his speech, which meant his words were not only plentiful, but they were said in a grating manner. It was a horrid combination.

“I cared about her, maybe I should have . . . ”

“Talk to her, and when she talks back, be quiet and listen,” Jak said through grit teeth. He began tacking up his horse, carefully positioning the leathers over the saddle blankets. The gelding – a stubborn, snappy creature hell bent on biting anyone stupid enough to get near his front end when he was in a mood – stomped his hooves, prancing to the side with an irritable head toss . Jak ran a soothing hand down his withers, a smile threatening to blossom at the notion that his horse’s orneriness matched his own. “Women like to talk.”

“Does yours?”

“Of course.”

Whistler allowed Jak thirty whole seconds of peace before he started in again.

“You think I was too hasty, though, right? I walked too early? My father used to say I should think before I acted. She’s a nice girl, Mary. Prettiest green eyes.”

“I can’t help you with this, Whistler. You need to talk to the wench.”

“She’s not a wench, Lieutenant, she’s . . . ” Jak’s head swiveled slowly on his neck, seemingly of its own accord, and he gave Whistler a flat, bag-eyed stare. “Right, right. Sorry, sir.”

They mounted up and made for the front gates, Jak stifling a yawn behind his hand. He tugged his gauntlet on and looked at the dark skies over the east mountains.

“Rain coming. We’ll want to be quick about this.”

“Quick’s my middle name, Sir.”

“I wouldn’t tell your girl that,” Jak said drily, still looking up at the horizon. Either Whistler didn’t hear him, or he chose to ignore the barb. Whichever the case, the silence was blessed indeed. He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and started out at a trot, leaning back in the saddle as they headed down the sharp incline of the pass. A talon of scourge had been seen near the northern trails of Aldur’thar, far too close to the Shadow Vault for comfort, and Duchess Mynx – a right bitch if there ever was one – had ordered Jak to patrol. She must have been in a less than stellar mood herself, sending Whistler with him for back up. Of course, there was the distinct possibility Whistler’d been stupid enough to try and chatter the duchess’s ear off about his woman woes, in which case he was lucky he was alive. There was something in the Sindorei woman’s eyes that mirrored deep-down cracks in the foundation of her person.

They’d gotten behind the ebon walls, a third of a mile from the barracks when Whistler started in again.

“Flowers, then?”

“Par . . . flowers?”

“For Mary.”

Jak knew the boy would just keep talking, he knew it as he knew he’d draw breath, or that the sun would rise on the morrow. Regardless of looks, warnings, or otherwise, unless he wanted to rip Whistler’s tongue out and wrap it around his neck like a fleshy, pink noose (a thought that actually DID amuse him greatly), there was no way to stop the verbal onslaught. He stifled a groan and turned the reins over in his hand.

“Flowers, I suppose, but they’re…cliche. Not exactly special.” Whistle opened his mouth to reply, and Jak kept talking, saying the first thing that came to mind. “Giving her a good tupping would probably do you better. It’ll keep her happy, and she’ll be far too busy to notice if you say something stupid. Assuming you’re doing it right.”

“A tup . . . oh. OH. You mean a bedding. I . . . well Sir I . . . ” Whistler’s cheeks flushed and he began to laugh. “I’ve not yet had the privelege to visit the garden temple, if you catch my meaning.”

“Garden temple?” Jak stared at him, wondering if he’d ever been so young himself to speak of women with such reverent ignorance. If anyone ever had, at that. “Whistler, a girl doesn’t have a temple between her legs, and she wants a man, not a monk. You are a man, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am! I just wanted to respect my lady. It’s the knightly way.”

Jak pulled the horse to a stop so he could stare at him incredulously. “How long have you been with this we . . . woman?”

“A year and some months now?”

Saint Uther preserve me. “Whistler, there’s nothing…’disrespectful’ about bedding a woman.” Unless she wants there to be, he didn’t add. “The general idea is that she’s enjoying herself as much as you are, and nobody has any fun in a temple.”

“It’s not actually a temple!” the younger knight blurted, apropos of idiocy. Jak resisted the temptation to grab him by the neck and shake him until Darkmoon Faire prizes fell out of his ears.

“Forget the bloody temple,” he said in a quiet voice that spoke danger even to Eric Enderman’s studied obliviousness. “Kill the metaphor and bury it.” He could’ve continued, but the headache throbbing behind his bleary eyes was reaching critical proportions, and Whistler’s rare silences were not to be wasted.

Silence, and a long pause as they stumbled across a broken down camp in the crook of the mountainside, the remnants of the campfire still spitting small tendrils of smoke. The smell of char and rotting meat lingered on the air. Jak slid off the horseside to walk about, scanning the trails for evidence of a retreat. The winds had blown strong earlier; most of the tracks were dusted over and faint, but experience told him there had only been three or so of them, maybe a half dozen at most if they were traveling light.

Whistler watched him work from the saddle, shifting his weight from left to right and back again, his tongue slicking over his lips periodically.

” . . . may I ask something?”

How did I know this was a short lived peace?

“You will anyway.”

“How, well, the first time, did you flat out ASK her? There are those moments, I suppose when it wouldn’t be so awkard, but it seems disre – presumptuous to just toss her skirts up about her head. Did you ply her with wine or dinner first? I was thinking maybe poetry, hiring a fiddler for some music.”

“And what, let the fiddle player watch?” Jak smirked, not out of amusement at his own wit, but to let Whistler know that it was a joke.

“Of course not, but, well, how do I get her. . .amenable to the idea?”

“I don’t bloody know. Look, if it’s what you both want and you can behave half-decently and not be a prat about it, things should just progress of their own accord.”

“So you didn’t just ask her outright.”

Jak’s cutting smile loosened slightly, and for a moment the haze over his eyes was recollection rather than exhaustion. “Actually, she asked me.”

“Women DO that?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Jak regretted that question the moment it passed his lips, because Whistler was probably going to actually answer. The art of rhetoric was clearly lost on him.

“Well they’re the gentler sex! Women are . . . they just . . . ” The younger knight searched desperately for an answer. “They’re less vulnerable to the, the lower urges. They’re. You know. Demure!” He seemed proud to have settled on a word.

“Demure.” Jak turned back to stare. “Whistler, do you even know what that word means? Hells, it doesn’t sound like your woman has any trouble speaking her mind. I think this is more your problem than hers.”

“It is not!” Whistler stiffened in his seat, like someone had shoved a rod straight up his arse. “I’m trying to be a gentleman.”

Jak swung himself back onto the gelding right as the black storm clouds above them broke wide, showering ice cold rain all over their heads. The ride to the camp had taken less than an hour, but it’d be longer getting back – they’d be fighting up an incline that was swiftly going to mud. The horses weren’t going to have an easy time of it. “There’s a time to stop being a gentleman, Whistler. I’d say yours was about six months ago. She’s probably nagging you to death because the other option is to sit around reading the Tenets of the Light, and she’ll find no proper joy there.”

“My father used to read that to us actually. He’s a priest at Northshire. Second undercleric to the Abbot himself!”

“Let me guess, he taught you about women?”

“All that he knew! My mother, Light bless her memory, was a paragon of virtue.”

“That explains a lot.”

Whistler rattled on about his lady woes all the way back to the barracks. After a while, the most Jak could muster for conversation was a grunt or a nod. If possible, his mood had gone darker; not only was he exhausted, he was cold, wet, and Whistler’s voice had reverberated through his skull until the throbbing tension in his temples worked its way down his neck. Mud caked over his sabatons and legguards now, the trip up hill far worse than the one down. The storm had hit quick, and it had hit hard. The landscape had turned so slick they didn’t reach camp until the late bells rang, calling the first shift into the mess hall for meal. Fortunately, the Duchess was still in attendance, talking to two of her captains beneath the black arches as she used her dagger to pick her fingernails clean. Jak saluted and waited for acknowledgment. Somewhere behind him, Whistler’s armor clanged as he did the same.

“You’re dripping on my boots, Balthasar.”

“I’ll endeavor to stay drier next time, ma’am.” Jak stepped back, maintaining the salute.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, at ease. What did you find?”

“A camp, as many as a half dozen, though I’d put it less. Likely a scouting party.”

“Just as I thought. Why don’t you . . . ” She stopped herself short, really looking into his haggard face for the first time all day. She snorted and waved the dagger at the door. “Take those bags of yours and pack it home. You look like murloc arse. Whistler, get Pauric and Stonecrush. I want the hills patrolled tonight.”

Under normal circumstances, Jak would have offered to lead the group – insisted even – but Mynx had never been known for her charitable moods. He’d take the overture for the miracle that it was and go home to bathe and rest and maybe, just maybe if he was lucky, get a hot meal out of Yva’s kitchen.

“Appreciated, Duchess.”

“It shouldn’t be. I’m only letting you leave because I get to watch your ass as you walk out.”

“I . . . ”

Wait, what?

Whistler giggled behind him, and Jak turned his head to give the private a stare so icy, he retreated a few steps before he could think better of it.

“Dismissed, both of you.”

“Thank you.”

He pulled his gauntlets off and made his way for the double doors, shouldering past Whistler so hard the boy stumbled back. An awful smirk twisted his lips and for a moment, he felt better, but then Mynx’s whistles and cat calls started, and he rolled his eyes to the cavern’s jagged ceilings, wondering what could possibly make the day any more fucking irritating.

*****

“Welcome home, love. There’s a tub waiting for you, but make it quick would you? We’re going to visit Eloim.” The voice – sugary sweet and cajoling – wound its way to him from the kitchen.

He stared daggers at the doorway. His plate helm hit the floor with a thud to send Dog skittering back. The puppy whined and fell to his stomach, tail wagging, chin on the floor while he waited for a proper greeting. Jak extended a hand and he came over to sniff, and then lick, his gauntlets. “I am cleaning myself and lapsing into unconsciousness. Say hello to my uncle for me.”

“Tsk, ignoring familial duty. I did tell him we’d be stopping in soon, you know, and I thought . . . ”

“Yva?” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, concentrating on maintaining the calm in his voice. “I’ve had no sleep, I’ve had rain pissed all over my head, and I was afflicted with Whistler for nearly six hours. Please? Tell him next week?”

She walked out of the kitchen, a white apron wrapped around her neck and waist to protect her from whatever culinary project she’d been involed in. Her arms folded over her chest, her foot began to tap. There were splotches of mystery sauce all over the apron, something yellow and flaked with green herbs. The smell of cooking meat hit him then, all savory and spicy with just a hint of orange, and his stomach began gnawing on itself, screeching a pathetic whine of hunger.

She looked at it, and then at his face.

“I see. I suppose I should feed you then.”

“You are far too good to me.”

“I wouldn’t say that yet. Go get yourself . . . IS THAT MUD ON MY CARPETS?!” She waved a wild hand in his general direction, the harpy lilt sending Dog sprawling for cover behind the couch. Jak looked over his shoulder at the wet, brown footprints already drying in the doorway, and winced. “I’ll get that later, I promise.”

“‘Later’,” she grumbled. “Get in the bloody tub. There’s no way that can stay or it’s going to . . . ” She shoved past him. “Go, go, go. This absolutely serves you right, you know.”

He swallowed something biting and all together unfriendly, placing the pieces of his armor on the rack. They’d need a good polishing tomorrow, but not now, it could wait. Everything could wait while he got this day cleansed off of his skin. The good news was, the tub was filled nearly to the brim with steaming water, as she’d promised. The heat met his bones, the aches fading away far faster than they’d come. He tilted his head back and sighed, enjoying the water, enjoying the first few minutes of peace he’d had all day.

“Jak.”

She’d soundlessly come into the bathroom, he knew she was less than five feet away, but he didn’t want to say a word because she had That Tone that suggested she was displeased with him, and was going to nag. Mercilessly.

“You know, we really ought to see him.”

“Mmm.”

“Eloim’s not doing particularly well and you could raise his spirits.”

He opened a single eye to look at her. “I don’t want to punch anyone in the face tonight.” Well, maybe Whistler. “And I haven’t a firm grasp on my temper right now, dear.”

“Well he’s past that. We’re on good terms, he and I. He’s family now.”

“Yva. Not tonight.”

“Oh FINE. But you know, you’re a bloody idiot.”

“I think you mentioned that.”

“I did not. I said the fatigue serves you right. You’re an idiot because . . . are you listening to me?!”

He opened the second eye. Still in her apron, her arms again folded over her chest, she looked like she was going to beat him to death with a rolling pin; Yva Darrows as Domestic Goddess, wielding hearth wrath as well as her mother before her, and her mother before her. “Yva, my dear, it would be impossible for me not to listen.” Because you’re shrieking like a banshee.

The expression on her face told him immediately that she had caught the subtext. “Good, then you won’t mishear me. See this?”

She produced a scroll he hadn’t seen before and proceeded to unroll it. The symbols covered both sides, front to back, wedged into every possible bit of free space on the page. “THESE match . . . wait for it!” Her free hand went to the side of her skirt and she untied the laces, allowing the slit to fall open and expose her leg and flank. “My sigils. Oh look!” She stabbed the first rune above her hip with her thumb, and then waved the paper at him. “It’s like I had all of this written down for someone else to work off of! Which means you stayed up all bloody night and ruined yourself for nothing! Why didn’t you just ask me, Jakob?”

“I didn’t want to wake you. You were sleeping rather soundly, you know.” He tried to focus on the page, and then her leg, but he was so tired everything was blurring together. At first he thought that’s what the big dark mark was – just his vision going funny after thirty eight hours awake time – but he realized after a moment that something wasn’t adding up quite right. He motioned her closer, squinting and sitting up in the tub, and she edged towards him, thinking he wanted to see the original script of the incantation. “What IS that?”

“It’s Narwan. Beginnings, you ought to know. You taught it to me. Are you actually THAT tired? ”

His finger reached out to trace along the edge of her hip.

Where the bruise started.

He craned his head and got a better view of the thing, his mouth splitting into a smug grin as he realized what he was seeing. “That’s not Narwan, dear. That’s not even a beginning. I think it happened somewhere in the middle of things, in fact.”

“I . . . oh damn it, I forgot . . . yes, I . . . STOP LAUGHING, JAK.”

But he couldn’t. He tried to, but either exhaustion had overridden his sense of self preservation, or someone having a hand print on their bottom was just that funny. He couldn’t have sworn in court as to when and under exactly what circumstances Yva had been marked – things had a tendency to run together – but there was no question that it was his handprint. It may as well have had his name on it like a maker’s mark, it was that detailed. Of course, that line of thinking led to the natural concern that he’d harmed her, and he sobered, clearing his throat a few times to keep the mirth at bay.

“You’re all right? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No! Of course you didn’t, you bloody wretch. It’s just humiliating.”

“You’re sure?”

“It hurts a little but it’s . . . ” She fumbled with the laces on her skirt, trying to cover up the source of her embarrassment. “It’s one of those not-bad hurts. Leave well enough alone, will you?”

“Ah. A good hurt.” He tried not to smile and recorded a resounding failure for the ages. “I’m very glad you introduced me to that idea.”

“Oh stop looking so fucking smug, Balthasar.”

She sounded so indignant that he started laughing again, this time enough to send him sinking into the tub, his head tossed back so far nearly drowned in his tub water. She flung the scroll at him, and it bounced off of the wall above his head to fall uselessly onto the floor, which just made it worse. His sides were going to split apart. He went on like that for a few minutes, hearing her stomp out of the bathroom and slam a few doors around the house. It probably shouldn’t give him such sheer joy that she was that pissed, but she had been nagging since he’d walked in, and on a shit day at that. She could deal with his…taking the piss, as her father might’ve said.

Finally, after what seemed like days, he was gasping for air and righted, the laughter no longer churning inside of him. There was still the sounds of angry Yva elsewhere in the house, but he’d fix that later, before bed for certain. He didn’t like to think of her upset when he was trying to sleep. Part of it was affection and a legitimate desire to see her happy, the other part was survival instinct.

He was almost done, just needed to wash his hair, and then he go could go about soothing the tantruming princess, after which he would have a word with the tides and, while he was it, see if he could do something about the next day’s rains. He got to the soaping-up-his-head bit when he heard her coming like a small maelstrom down the hall.

“You were hungry, weren’t you?” There was a sweetness to her tone that telegraphed a great many things to him. None of them were good.

“I am.” Not enough. “And I can always eat your cooking.”

“Oh good!”

She stepped into the bathroom with a heaping pile of food, everything smelling tasty and delicious. His stomach wailed for sustenance, and she smiled all the wider. She had a fork, spoon, and knife in one hand, the plate and napkin in the other.

“Er. I wasn’t expecting…thank you, dear.”

“Of course, my lord. Enjoy!”

“Wait, Yva, don’t – bloody piss!”

The plate – and the cutlery – spilled into the tub. Beef, carrots, and some kind of cheese smothered potatoes were now drenched in bath water. He watched bits of vegetables pop up from the depths and start floating around him, like she’d just made him part of a soup. On one hand, he wanted to weep for the loss of such a beautiful dinner, of course, but on the other . . .

Well the other was an utter shit and found the whole thing riotously funny. It’s likely why he started laughing again.

It was also why he ended up having a sandwich for dinner.

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