Fancy a Game? [Story #2]

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Dear Steemians,

If you're just joining us, welcome! You have the chance to choose which story you want continued on this site, and you have three choices: here's choice #1, below is choice #2, and choice #3 will be coming your way some time tomorrow. Have fun reading, and may the best story get an ending.

Yours Truly,
The Owl Hours

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Story #2

He hadn’t really known what to expect, when he’d shown up at the temple. The way the monks decided who was worthy of a pledge was mysterious, and rarely discussed by outsiders.

What he hadn’t expected was to be sitting across from a girl who looked barely older than himself — if she was that — and for her to be glaring at him.

“So,” she said, her tone distinctly unfriendly. “You want a Guardian.”

The fire flickered between them. He willed himself to sit up straight and look her in the eye, willed himself to remember why he had come.

“Yes,” he heard himself say. “I do.”

The girl sighed, her ash-colored braid shifting with the rise and fall of her chest. “And the Fire’s deemed you worthy, who knows why, and stuck me with you. But it’s my decision whether or not to pledge to you, so tell me: why should I? What makes you so worthy that I should protect you, even at the cost of my own life?”

To be perfectly honest, he didn’t know. But looking at this girl, and the harsh, unforgiving planes of her face, he knew that such an answer wasn’t going to cut it. If he told her that he hadn’t the slightest idea why he was worthy of the all-encompassing protection of a Guardian, he would be walking right back out of the Cha-M’betha Temple with only his magic to protect him. And with what he had in mind…

He studied the girl for another moment. She sat across from him with perfect posture, the temple’s robes draped elegantly about her. The soft folds were offset by the many weapons strapped to her, though — the Cha-M’betha warriors had never been the kind to hide their weaponry. There were daggers strapped to her forearms and thighs, a sword and longbow strapped to her back, and glass rings on her fingers that he knew held various poisons and their antidotes. Her braid was threaded with metal wires that had been coated in shards of glass. She was a living weapon, limned with a sense of power and energy that he envied. She was ready for whatever the world could throw at her, he was certain. And if something happened that she didn’t like, she would fight and claw her way to a change.

What was it like? To have trained since you were little, to imagine nothing other than war? He examined her face, trying to imagine what it would have looked like before the color had disappeared. Would she have been beautiful? Would a woman like this have even cared about something as soft, as immaterial as beauty?

He continued to look at her, to wonder what words he could possibly use to sway someone like this. But she didn’t fidget, didn’t cough or prompt him. She simply returned his stare, waiting as if they had all the time in the world.

“Because I want to change the world,” he finally said. He had a feeling that nothing other than the truth would cut it here, so he swallowed his pride. “I want to know what the world was like, before the king took over and all the color left. I want… I want to give that back to people again. And I feel… responsible for the way the world is now.”

She tilted her head. “You want to kill the king.” It wasn’t neither a question, nor an accusation, and for some reason this made him feel better.

“Yes.”

“And you need help?”

“Yes. I’m a sorcerer, but sorcery only goes so far in battle. It’s better for long-range things. If I were caught in a fight…” he trailed off, hoping she’d fill in the gaps.

She looked him over, noting the lack of defined muscle or weapons. “You would die,” she said bluntly. “So you need… a bodyguard?”

And a friend, a comrade, someone who believed in him, someone who he could trust. But a bodyguard was a good start. He would take a bodyguard.

“Yes.”

“And you won’t tell me why you feel responsible for the way the country is now, or why you’ve decided that you need to kill the king, or why you need to do it now?” she asked.

Well, there was no point in lying. “No. At least, not now.”

“Then you won’t get an explanation as to why I’ve decided to pledge to you, either,” she said simply, and he watched in shock as she slit her palm open in a business-like manner, then tossed the knife to him so that he could do the same. He did, wincing a bit, and clasped hands with her over the fire in the ancient ritual. To his surprise, she smiled at him as the flames danced up to entwine their hands.

“My name is Irie, and I am your Guardian. It's nice to meet you.”