His Paladin

by J. P. Oliver

  Sighing heavily, I went back inside Lochmire proper, throwing my jacket on an unoccupied chair. I intended to do a quick walkthrough of the building, just trying to assess where everyone was, but that nearly immediately derailed. The more I saw, the more agitated I became, my swirling anxiety climbing through the roof. I leaned in close to scrutinize everyone’s work as I passed, occasionally shoving people aside to correct some glaring mistakes -- the decorative seal on the shield Kurt was putting together wasn’t perfectly aligned, no matter how good the construction looked, and the weapon type indicator ribbons Kate was tying around the weapon hilts were about half an inch too long. No one could do anything right, unless I stepped in, and there wasn’t time, there wasn’t any time.

  Then I saw what Greg was doing and nearly had a heart attack.

  “Hey Raine!” he greeted me brightly, oblivious to my horrified gasp. He jerked his thumb behind him, towards his utter mutilation of taste and good sense, apparently pleased. “Thought you could use a hand getting the banner ready.”

  The event banner behind him, proudly displaying the name of Lochmire Castle, intended to go up in front of the store, was enormous, realistically weathered to look authentically medieval. After I had painstakingly sketched out each letter, which had taken me the better part of last night, all I needed to do was fill in the letters with a dark black paint to make them stand out better from the road.

  Greg had used a neon, fluorescent green -- too bright to paint over without the glowing green bleeding through.

  “What do you think?” he asked, still cheerfully ignorant of my reaction, adjusting his oversized glasses and looking over his handiwork, like he was somehow proud of it. I noticed a great deal of paint was splattered on Greg as well, making him a hazard just walking near any equipment. “A little garish, maybe, but I think that --”

  I was seething, ready to explode. “What do I think?” I repeated, shrill with rage, and Greg’s smile finally dropped into a confused frown. “I think you’re a --”

  Someone put a heavy, warm hand on my shoulder. “Raine.”

  I whirled around to see Quinn’s face, his mouth drawn with concern. Oh, no. Not another talk. I didn’t have time for that!

  “I’m busy,” I hissed at him, but Quinn didn’t flinch.

  “You need to relax,” he said, his voice soft and gentle. “Take a step back. Breathe, and let some people take over a few things for you.”

  I shook my head. “If I don’t --”

  “You don’t need to,” he said firmly. “You need to trust these people, Raine. They’re your friends, and they’re just as excited about this as you are. They want this to work.”

  “I need this to work!” I snapped, pushing his hand off my shoulder. I was shouting again; I could feel the eyes of everyone around us turning to stare. “This isn’t a game to me like it is to you!”

  Quinn blinked at me for a moment, clearly caught off guard, but then his expression hardened, a cold, squirming feeling snaking inside my gut. “It’s not a game to me. And this is about you. You’re going to run yourself ragged,” he said, raising his voice for the first time since I met him. “You already have! And you’re pushing these people -- your friends -- away, every time you try to take the whole thing on yourself. You can’t, Raine. You can’t do it all by yourself. Let us help you.”

  My anger flared, hot and furious, nearly bursting out of my skin. How dare he tell me what to do. “Really?” I barked at him with acrid sarcasm. “You think I need someone around here who just goes around screwing everything up?” I huffed a mirthless laugh. “I don’t. I don’t need you.”

  That had...been too much.

  The silence that fell after I spoke was unbearable. It didn’t sound like anyone else was even breathing. Quinn stared at me, his expression unreadable. I swallowed uncomfortable, trying to find the right way to apologize, especially after my screw-up last night. Then he gave me a curt, single nod.

  “All right, then,” he said, as if it was simplest thing in the world. “I’m gone.”

  He turned away from me, striding out the door without so much as a backwards glance.

  Oh, no.

  My entire body felt numb, my anger snuffing out instantly, leaving nothing behind but a cold emptiness. I struggled for a couple of minutes just trying to get my legs to work again, and then I sprinted after him, flinging the door open, the weather freezing without my jacket, but I hardly cared.

  “Quinn!” I called, so loudly it made my throat raw. “Wait! Please!”

  Too late. I caught the blue shape of his car for barely a second as he peeled out of the parking lot, already making the turn back onto the main road, already gone, already gone. I sank down to my knees, my emotions roaring inside me like a hurricane, the impossible pressure of the event crushing me. Quinn was gone. Because of me. Like I always knew how it would go.

  No, no, no.

  Everything was going wrong. Quinn, the event, Lochmire -- everything. I was pushing away my best friend, my boyfriend, people I had known for years, trying to make my dream of Lochmire getting the recognition it deserved come true. And now I was going to lose it. Just like how I had lost Quinn.

  I heard someone step behind me; a listless glance revealed that it was Roux, his eyes filled with sympathy. He didn’t say a word, shifting from foot to foot, uncertain and unsure, until I got back up to my feet and followed him back inside of Lochmire. There was only a slight pause until everyone started working again, the air tense and uneasy. Kurt and Kate exchanged glances, but stayed silent. Roux didn’t even look at me, wordlessly going back to the pile of fabric. Greg’s grimacing wince was uncomfortable just to look at, and he quickly finished adjusting his glasses again before turning back to the forever-ruined banner. Even Nicole didn’t come up to me, staring at me from the corner in confused hurt, one arm wrapped around Roux’s leg.

  I was surrounded by everyone I knew, but I had never felt more alone.

  15

  Quinn

  I didn’t even bother to pretend to watch the TV when I got back to my apartment, practically falling onto the couch as soon as I slammed the door shut, staring at the ceiling, trying to get my thoughts and emotions in order. I certainly didn’t regret leaving -- I was more than fed up with Raine’s attitude and the fact he was determined to drive himself right into the ground. But I did regret having such a huge fight in front of everyone like that. Raine’s friends hadn’t deserved that, and I never, ever wanted to embarrass him. But I wasn’t just going to stand there and listen to him ignore me yet again, fighting a losing battle against himself.

  I sighed, long and loud, trying to expel the frustration and chaos of the day with the air in my lungs. Raine had just one week left to get Lochmire ready, and he was still putting all of his efforts into correcting “mistakes” only he could see, shunting people aside. I understood how important the Last Battle event was for him, despite whatever he thought of me, but his perfectionism and his need to overmanage were a deadly combination, especially when they twisted together with this incredible personal pressure he had placed on himself.

  Raine was a shaken soda can and a powder keg wrapped around a stick of dynamite with a short fuse -- ready to explode at any minute from even the tiniest spark, and heedless of the damage that would do to everyone around him...and himself. During those first weeks after Grace had died, I had been much the same way: constantly lashing out at anyone and everyone who attempted to help me, feeling like I didn’t deserve any assistance at all. I had wanted control, any sort of control, over my own life, and making myself miserable was the only reliable way I felt I could have gotten it. Raine was likely feeling something similar...but I didn’t see any way I could tell him any of that without sounding patronizing.

  Maybe I had been thinking about this all wrong. I potentially could’ve gotten through to him better if I had pointed out everything he had already built up, warned him how his stubborn refusal to let people help him was putting it all in danger
. Surely acting this rudely to repeat customers had the potential to hurt his business as well as several of his friendships. But I knew Lochmire meant more to Raine than just the bottom line, and bringing something up as uncouth as money would completely backfire -- the absolute last thing I wanted to do, especially right now.

  I heard the gentle patter of rain on my window, a soft sound that did wonders for my churning emotional state. Lead by the music of the rainfall, my mind drifted back to the memory of Raine showing me the weathered letter when I showed up at Lochmire the day after I had agreed to help him with the Last Battle, the smell of ink and old paper strong even through the usual smells of leather, plastic, and metal that normally filled Lochmire, watching the enormous smile on his face grow larger and larger as he once again read the letter out loud, Nicole jumping up and down in pure elation, dancing excitedly with Roux as they both headed into the back room, starting to count inventory, the first in a long list of preparatory work we needed to do.

  “It’s everything I ever dreamed for Lochmire. Hosting a big event like this,” Raine had told me when we were alone, and then he laughed. “I guess that’s kind of ridiculous, but --”

  “It’s not ridiculous.” I had put my head on his shoulder, breathing in the faint citrus and cinnamon scent of him. “Lochmire’s important to you, I know that. And I want to help you with this, make it the best it can possibly be.”

  He had given me a quick kiss on the cheek, his smile warm when he turned to face me, putting the letter on the counter. “Thanks. Really.”

  “Anytime,” I had said, staring into his eyes. I took his hands in mine, threaded our fingers together. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  It felt like nearly a lifetime ago: in reality, it had barely been a little over a month. Funny how quickly it all moved between us earlier, how shockingly fast and easy it had been for me to start caring for him. But now our relationship had nearly been stopped brutally short -- not by the Last Battle itself, but by Raine’s stubbornness and inability to let me, and others, close enough to help him make the event it deserved to be.

  The Raine from our first date -- sweet and funny and kind -- was the complete opposite of how he was acting now. Honestly, a huge reason I wanted to help him was that I wanted to see a return of the Raine I knew so badly: the one whose idea of a good date was showing up in chainmail and picnicking under the stars., the one who looked at me like his heart was breaking for me when I had told him about Grace, opening up to him like I never had for anyone else before, the Raine who never failed to make me smile, even after I thought I never would again --

  My phone buzzed unexpectedly inside my pocket, startling me out of my thoughts. I pulled it out, frowning at the screen, wondering who it was.

  Raine’s name and face appeared on the caller ID.

  I tapped to answer it, moving the phone close to my face faster than I could think. “Raine?” I blurted, desperately.

  “You have to get back together with my dad!” came a small, determined voice on the other end of the line. Definitely not Raine’s.

  “Uh, what?” I babbled, taken aback. “Nicole?”

  She harrumphed into the phone, loud enough to make me temporarily pull it away from my ear. “Why’d you break up with him?” she pouted. “He’s being super mean right now, but that doesn’t mean you had to break up with him in front of everybody in the whole world! It made him really, really sad!”

  I blanched, trying to work out the best way to handle this. “Nicole, uh, is your dad --”

  “He went back to Lochmire to do more stuff. Roux’s babysitting, but he doesn’t know I have dad’s phone, so promise you won’t tell, okay?”

  I rubbed at my forehead, closing my eyes. “Nicole, you know girls your age should not be calling their dads’ boyfriends about this stuff.”

  “‘Boyfriends,’” she noted. “So you didn’t break up with him?” The clear hope in her voice made me smile, despite myself.

  “Of course I didn’t. I just didn’t want to keep watching your dad burn himself out like this being mean to everyone.” I paused, suddenly worried. “Does your dad think that I broke up with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Nicole answered sadly. “He didn’t really talk a lot today.”

  Her words gutted me. I pressed my lips together, swallowing hard. “Well, we’re not broken up, okay, Nicole? You can tell him that when you see him again.”

  “Okay.” She sounded immensely relieved. There was a series of shuffling noises, the sounds of someone moving cloth around, and I realized Nicole was likely having this conversation underneath her blanket.

  “Are you excited about the Last Battle?” I asked, trying to change the subject a bit. Nicole sighed heavily on the other end of the line, instantly dashing any hope of that line of conversation helping the situation.

  “I guess,” she replied listlessly, “but not when it makes Dad so sad and mean all the time. I don’t even want to kill all the enemy boys anymore,” she added, much to my confusion.

  “I’m, uh, sorry to hear that.” I was never any good with kids, let alone one as precocious and determined as Nicole. “Are you going to wear anything special?”

  “My blue dress,” she informed me proudly. “Under my leather armor.”

  “Oh.” I guess it really shouldn’t have surprised me that Nicole would be participating in the combat portion of the event. “I didn’t know you could wear dresses under armor.” She giggled at that.

  “It has to be a short one,” she explained, “so you don’t trip when you run around, because you have to chase everyone down to whack them.”

  I pictured her running around, princess dress flowing behind her as she shrieked a battle cry. It was fitting. “What weapon do you use?”

  “A sword. That’s the best one.” It was hard to disagree, even from my limited experience. “What are you going to wear?” she asked.

  I wasn’t even sure if I was still going, but I wasn’t about to worry her with that. “Plate armor,” I told her, “Your dad’s going to let me borrow some. With a tall shield.”

  “Those are really heavy!” Nicole exclaimed, sounding impressed. “And a sword, too?”

  “Sword, too. That’s the best one.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “You’re a Paladin, then,” she said slowly, apparently putting the pieces together. “That’s really cool.”

  “Yeah. Your dad came up with that idea.” I had done a lot of reading about the class since then. Righteous warriors, swearing a sacred oath to defend the weak and uphold order, bastions of good and truth. Raine’s suggestion had been a sweet compliment all along, and I was more than a little embarrassed how long it took me to realize it.

  “There’s not a lot of Paladins,” she pointed out. “Not a lot of people want to be them because they think it’s hard to be good all the time.”

  I chuckled. “Well, hopefully it won’t be too hard for me.”

  Nicole went quiet again. Then, with sudden urgency, she asked, “Pretty please will you still help my dad?”

  Before I could even formulate a reply, she rapidly continued, the words pouring from her in an unstoppable rush, “You’re really, really nice, Quinn, and you were right -- my dad just doesn’t like to share stuff and he’s really sad and mean right now and he thinks everyone’s gonna mess up even though they’re working really hard, and he super needs a lot of help to get it all done, otherwise it’s going to be --” Her voice lowered into a hushed whisper -- “shitty.”

  I bit down on a bark of laughter. “That’s a bad word, Nicole,” I told her sternly, fighting to keep my voice as even as possible.

  “I know it is,” she replied and I could clearly picture her scowl. “And I’ll put my quarters in the swear jar.” Clearly, in her mind, desperate times called for sacrifices, even if that came at the cost of quarters. “But that’s what it’s gonna be if you’re not here to help my dad!”

  I sighed. “I want to help, Nicole. I really do. But I can’
t help your dad if he doesn’t want any. He’ll just keep pushing me away, and that’ll make everything worse.”

  Silence. Then, to my utter horror, I heard the unmistakable sound of a small sniffle.

  “You’re no-not gonna help?” she said between huge, hiccuping sobs, “Not e-even a little?”

  “Nicole, I never said I wasn’t going to try,” I told her quickly and more than a little desperately. Making a six-year-old girl cry was something I absolutely never wanted to do. “I promise I’ll try to help him out, okay?”

  “O-okay,” she sniveled, and my heart lurched. “As long as you promise.”

  “I promise,” I said, and I meant it. “I just need a little time.” Time to think, and time to collect myself. Time to let Raine know I was serious about him starting to realize he was hurting himself by refusing everyone’s help.

  There was another set of rustling noises and scampering feet, a long pause, then the faint sound of Nicole blowing her nose before she returned to the phone. “Not too long though, okay?” she said, her voice still wavering, and I smiled.

  “Not too long. I’ll be back soon. And I’ll help your dad as much as I can.”

  “Pinky swear?” She shifted, the phone mic brushing against the blanket. “You have to do the sign.”

  “Pinky swear,” I promised, and even though she couldn’t see it, I obeyed, making the motion in the air, holding up my left hand in a fist, my pinky extended out towards Nicole’s, several miles away.