Counselor tya-5

by P. S. Power

  “That, in part, is why I'm willing to entrust both my son and daughter to you Tor.” The words were soft, almost too deep to be heard. It was a giant thing, all the men had those deep and booming voices, but when they spoke softly it was hard to really hear them, you felt it more than anything.

  They returned to the party as soon as that was done and Tor walked straight to Karina. He'd done this before with her, so decided to skip the seventeen steps of him fumbling around and simple moved into her with a kiss, she smelled, obviously having gone without a bath for a while. That must have taken some real work, since bathing was practically a sport at the palace and it was suggested to you often, even if you'd already bathed that day.

  “Alright you, you're coming with me and we're ditching this get together. Ali!” Tor called waving her over gently.

  “We're going to our room with Karina.”

  The Princess shrugged.

  “Whatever.” It was dark and moody. Worse than before. By far.

  The walk was in silence, but he touched her the whole time and she didn't throw him off and walked with them without being pulled. They got to the room and Tor, without asking or waiting led her to the bath and tapped her clothing sigil, turning it off. She didn't start, or say anything, just stood, still looking down. Ali ran a bath, the tub a large ceramic thing, tan and long, but not as big as the ones at his house. When the tub was full he asked her to climb in, but she didn't move. Instead of fighting over it, he picked her up and stepped in himself, still clothed, then sat with her on his lap. His hands were tied up so he focused intently on his own clothing device and turned it off too, then started scrubbing the girl clean. His body reacted to the contact, his manhood stiffening, but he ignored it. This wasn't about him, it was about Karina.

  It took time to get her clean, this being about as awkward a way of going about things as possible, if close and cozy, but over the course of about forty minutes they managed it well enough. They drained the tub and let it empty without moving. Karina grew chill, not wearing a temperature equalizer or anything else and didn't bother trying to dress herself for warmth. Great, Tor thought. She was clearly suicidal.

  Oh, it wasn't “give me the cutter so I can end it now”, but for her to go without a shield was still courting death and was something that for her had to be on purpose. She knew better than that. A subtle thing, but serious. Using towels they dried her off and took her to bed, tucking her in naked.

  “Alright silly, Stop this now. Pull yourself out of it and don't make me do something more drastic.” Tor looked at Ali, signaling for her to get her clothes off too. The girls had told him flat out that they'd been lovers, and had since Ali was twelve. Illegal, but then, not really. A Princess could do whatever she wanted and Ali had always looked older, even now at fourteen she looked closer to Karina's seventeen. Plus, back then she'd lied about her age and no one questioned her claim of fifteen. No one blinked at her being married to Tor even, not that nobles would. Naked she actually looked like the older and more developed girl, between the two of them, if shorter still. His wife was shooting up, and would end up nearly as tall as the Princess most likely. Her mom was tall at least. Tor didn't know for certain if Count Derring had been her biological father, but if so, he was pretty tall too. Or had been, before his mysterious death.

  Karina glared.

  “What drastic action? A bath? Some sex? You're just going to leave me again. Everyone always does.”

  Tor kissed her, but she turned her face away, growing surly. He let her do it and kissed her cheek instead then took her chin gently so she'd look him in the eyes.

  “What kind of thing is that to say when I just had a horrendous battle with your parents to get them to allow me to whisk you off to school with us? They were winning too, lots of hammer blows and logical reasons you couldn't go, until my begging and crying won them over. It was a close thing though. I think I won them over when I hammered my head against the floor begging on hands and knees.” Toe shook his head, eyes innocent and face blank, Karina glared at him for a bit, then tilted her head.

  “Really?”

  “Well the part about you coming back with us. I didn't cry though, I was quite manly and no one hit me. They really do want you to be happy you know. Now, you don't have to come if you don't want to, but if you don't, I'll have to come down here every day and tickle you from now on, which will absolutely destroy my grades. Barely passing as it is.” Tor grinned a little and hoped she'd come, since that really would just about end his schooling all together.

  They didn't make love, just held each other all night and talked about things, mainly how lonely she'd been feeling.

  Ali poked her, several times.

  “You were supposed to come visit us! We have a house and everything, so you don't even have to share my little dorm room bed. No excuse. No excuse! If you feel lonely you should have done something about it. If nothing else you could have gone and visited with Box and Debbie, they'd have loved to see you and Box could probably use a little extra attention about now. I know he likes you too.”

  Karina agreed, a mumbled thing that sounded more contented if still sad. Tor nudged her a little.

  “I don't know for sure, but her own dorm bed will probably be just as little and uncomfortable. I suppose we should come up with a nickname for you too, so everyone at school doesn't instantly know who you are. Keep the hair like this, black and short.” It was a real point, Tor knew, especially if he didn't want to wake up one night with the Royal Guard beating him for making their job impossible.

  “What? I'm going to school there?”

  “Right. I said we were keeping you, didn't I? What did you think I meant, a two week stay? Nope, we're stealing you properly. Special school though, with Trice and Sara and their friend Ridley? I don't know what they learn, but even your dad thinks it will be useful for you. I'll try to get Kolb to take you on as fighting instructor. He can help teach you not to suck so bad at it.” Tor was teasing her, not that working with Kolb wouldn't help, but the Princess didn't suck at fighting. Not at all.

  It was dark in the room, so she couldn't see his smile, but she inhaled suddenly, a real sounding thing.

  “Do you think he'll be as hard on me as Rolph says he is on you?” It was half whining, and sounded a little worried.

  Tor snorted.

  “Of course not. He'll probably be two or three times tougher on you, since you have all that natural talent for it. Me, I have to practice running away all the time, more now even. Burks recently showed me how much I suck at it. And at fighting. But yeah, if you want someone to coddle your feelings and pat your fanny when you fall down, we could import someone maybe… but you won't find them at Lairdgren, Princess or not.”

  It wasn't Karina that answered, but Ali who said something shocking.

  “Can I try too, I mean, is it all right? If I learn to fight?”

  Tor nearly said no, since she was his wife and he was supposed to be the one to protect her. Always. But that wasn't real, was it? He went places and left her alone for instance, and what if she ran in trouble when he was just in class or working, and she wasn't? The same was true of everyone else too, wasn't it? All the new kids at school, the builders. He was turning them into a real threat to Austra, making them valuable in their own right, including to some bad people and had left them defenseless, except for their building skills.

  “Yes. In fact I'll see to it as soon as we go back tomorrow. It's mid-term, but it's a good idea, even if it's not a graded class. School isn't about grades, it's about learning. The grades are just there to make sure you keep trying.”

  It rankled that he couldn't be there for her all the time, but it was the truth, wasn't it? Him trying to act the big tough man would leave her vulnerable to attack. That couldn't be allowed. Not at all.

  He half crawled over Karina and kissed Ali deeply.

  “I love you little wife.”

  She told him she loved him too and seemed genuinely happy to he
ar it. Before Karina could sulk about it he kissed her too.

  “I love you too, rather tall Princess.” It wasn't true, but like with Ali, it made her feel better to hear and he could live it, even if it wasn't his true feeling on the matter. It was better to lie and make them happy and secure than telling them the truth, that he really just liked them as friends and lovers, but didn't feel much more for them than that. It hurt to think about. He should love them after all. They were good people and worthy of it, but his feelings were what they were. Tor wouldn't let them down or hurt them, not if he had anything to say about the matter at all.

  Tor nestled into Karina contentedly. A liar he may be, but that didn't mean he couldn't be a good one. A lie lived well enough was the truth, he'd once heard someone say. His mother come to think about it. Back then he didn't realize that she'd been living a lie herself, hiding away in a small village as a poor baker’s wife for decades. It kind of proved the point though, didn't it? Live it well enough and it was made real.

  For his friends he would do that. No matter the cost.

  Even if it meant his life or sanity. The sanity was the big threat right now, since Tor didn't know how much more of all this he could take. Everything falling in on him constantly, making him struggle to get past it just to glimpse something normal.

  Most days anymore he wasn't even getting close enough to normal to wave hello it seemed.

  Chapter Eight

  “Baker!” The voice was angry, really angry, and not one that he recognized at all. A male voice accompanied by pounding feet and a flash of purple and black Royal Guard livery.

  Thankfully that man wasn't attacking him in the palace hallway, not yet, but it was a close thing. The guy, who looked to be in his mid-thirties, about six foot ten and had to weigh nearly three hundred pounds, all of it lean and hard looking, took a partial fighting stance in front of him. The fellow wasn't someone Tor recognized, but that didn't mean much, not with the guard here, they came out of the walls and sometime, when you least expected it, could go crazy like this.

  “Um… hello?” Tor said, keeping his voice soft. He had a shield and was armed, but short of using a lot of force, he really doubted that he could take this guy. More to the point, he didn't know why he should have too. Had he done something… or insulted the man?

  The man explained as he sidled closer to him. Moving deliberately so that he could attack.

  “Are you trying to get her killed? Is that your plan you little useless pace of shit? Take her off to that school and let the Austrans just have her? Fuck! If you want to do that so bad, why don't you just put her on a ship? Did they turn you somehow over there? Is Austran pussy that good? Or is it your new lover Brown? I should kill you right here and make the world a safer place.” The man didn't clench his fist, and had yet to produce a weapon, so Tor guessed that this wasn't an actual death threat, but just this man’s way of letting off steam.

  His scary, frightening way of letting go of things.

  Tor hoped so anyway and hoped that it didn't really involve too big of a beating for himself in addition, just to help with the venting.

  “Ah, well, I didn't have sex in Austra or the way over or the way back, so rest assured it wasn't their sexual wiles or me being turned somehow. I just… you've seen Karina, right? I mean you know what's been happening with her?” It was a good question, since the guy may be… Tor looked for some way the man could have missed what was going on and none of them fit.

  The huge man stared at him hard for nearly twenty seconds, just when Tor thought he was going to move in for the kill, he spoke, sounding no calmer, but not actually raising his voice.

  “So? Girls get moody! Her friend was killed and she's sad. She's tough, she'll snap out of it on her own in a bit.”

  Ah. Well, Tor didn't think that was the case, but didn't really want to fight about it. Then again, did he have a choice?

  “OK. So… your wrong. She isn’t snapping out of it and she needs her friends, all of which I took off to school with me, or, well you know the rest. So, I don't know, how do we do this? Are we supposed to wrestle for her now or something? Go outside and fight until I'm a puddle of mush? Debate in front of a judge to see who's right?” Tor was trying to be playful and shake the man's anger a bit, but that, obviously, wasn't going to work. Great.

  “Fine,” The huge angry man said through his teeth, short blond hair making his head look nearly bald from Tor’s perspective.

  “We'll meet out back over it.” It felt to Tor like that meant something other than sitting in the shade and having some juice, calmly discussing things. Too bad, he really thought he had a good argument or two on this one.

  Was it a duel? What did he do now? Tor nearly panicked as the man stormed off, wondering if running away would be a valid option. The stone floor was shiny here, well polished and dark. Tor noticed that when he heard the footsteps behind him, there were six of them. All Royal Guards, all looking at him blankly. Great. So the idea was that he fought one of them, or six? Well, that was a fun option. None of these were as big, but the day Tor could beat six men and women, all bigger and stronger than he was, in a fair fight, he'd…

  Tor didn't have anything that he'd do then, it had just never come up as an idea. It would be something though. He just wasn't that good. They took him out back, half leading, half following, probably to prevent escape. There was a hedged area that Tor had barely noticed before and never been into, near the wall around the palace. It stood ten foot high and was paved inside, about a hundred foot square. The Royal Guards practice area? It made sense, they had to have something, right? One of the guards, and older man, came and stood in front of him.

  “The tradition is that no shields, armor or weapons of any kind are used.” George told him softly.

  Darn. They had an actual tradition that basically said he had to have his butt beaten by this giant? That was hardly fair. Why couldn't they have a traditional bake off instead, like at a country fair? That would be better for him personally. Pie making contest? Or a foot race, he was tempted to make the counter offer, but the second that he took his shield off, still looking for a way out, the larger man danced across the room and hit him with a back fist.

  After that, for nearly four minutes, Tor just fought, trying to remember what he'd learned over the years, what Burks had him practice. That he was making contact with the man was apparent, his hands and feet stung from the blows, but they didn't seem to do much. Tor finally found himself picked up by the face and slammed into the stone below him. Thankfully it was smooth. He lost consciousness for a bit, but managed to poke the large man in the eye it his right index finger somehow, going out or not. When he cleared enough to see again he was running around in a circle, keeping just out of the giants grasp. Almost at least.

  Tor rolled and kicked out at a knee, which made something shift, the feeling of it ran down his leg, but that was all, the giant didn't do more than shift his weight back.

  Tor finally got enough of his sense of self back to try and go after the man smoothly and actually try to target the weak points as more than an afterthought. Then he did better. Not well, but the harshness of the beating he was taking damped down a bit. And it was a beating. For all the he was hitting the guard twice for every once he was hit himself, he could barely stand and the other man still looked fresh and ready to continue. Even after two good solid strikes to the groin the man stood relaxed and poised, moving on him again.

  Finally Tor had to just do what he could to survive, biting, kicking and scratching, advanced techniques and dirty tricks. At about ten minutes something happened, a blow to the back of the head, and everything went dark.

  Tor woke looking at the sky, no one touching him at all. Well, at least the guy hadn't kept beating him while he was out. Standing on shaking legs, wondering if defensive wetting was still a good option, Tor faced the man again and raised his hands to continue. The man sneered at him. At least Tor thought it was a sneer. It might have been something
else, based on what the guy did next, which didn't involve killing Tor at all.

  “Alright, I'll cede the issue to you, but if you get her killed, I will come for you. Oath or not. Bet on it.”

  Then without pause he stomped off again. Limped off. Tor decided not to follow him this time. Standing up straight he rubbed his jaw. Three teeth had been knocked out in the front, which hurt, and his right eye was swollen closed. With his left he angled slowly, hoping he didn't have to fight anyone else under their really painful tradition. George the Royal Guard handed him back the amulet with his shield on it.

  Oh, right. He had amulets for stuff.

  Yay.

  He hit the healing one and most of his body stung for about half a minute, his mouth stung for almost five as the teeth regrew. The device couldn't regrow a hand, but it regrew teeth just fine. Tor had no clue why that was, but it worked for everyone that way. Even teeth that had been missing for years. When he felt better, he looked down at his shirt, and changed it so the bright blood and scrapes weren't there anymore.

  “So…” He said to the remaining six guards. “Um, I don't exactly have the book on this particular tradition. Why exactly am I alive again?”

  There was a low chuckle from the group as if he'd said something funny instead of pointing out an obvious truth. The other guy could have simply killed him.

  “Heh, yeah. Well, it's like this Tor,” one of the younger guards, a guy of about twenty told him a small smile on his face. “When two of us get in a fight, or have a disagreement, we can't really just go at it like normal people. Then one or both of us would end up dead each time. We're people too though and things come up.

  “So Veren and you fought, but you didn't give up even when beaten, showing you were willing to die to back up whatever your part in this was. He wasn't willing to kill you over it, so he ceded the match to you. We kind of have to do it that way, I mean otherwise the best fighters would always win and they're not always right. It was a battle of wills, not fists, and you won.”