Magic of the Marriage Market

Less than a month ago, the now former-Knight Denerim tried to kill her, but Hida was not only still alive but she was once again back to training. Everyone wanted her to take more time off to recover, but since the medic responsible for her admitted she was capable of returning to training despite expectations, Hida chose to return to her cohort.

"Hey Pinky," Bruno came to speak to her first, his huge frame a good disguise for his gentle heart.

"Hey Bruno, what'd I miss while I was away?" she asked as if she'd simply been on vacation.

"Nothing you don't already know how to do; stand in the face of overwhelming force without faltering," this time it was Anto joining her.

"Shield bashes and body checks, it's been riot control training all month," Antonia added both her voice and her presence, the now very obviously pregnant belly she bore still not precluding her from these latest training activities. "It's actually been fun," she had a black eye she seemed unbothered about.

"You just like throwing yourself at us while screaming," Andre argued with her.

"Yes," Antonia agreed, "and you can admit how much you enjoy catching me, and my fist."

"And your belly, or your knew, or your elbow; I think I've caught your shoe once," Baltan added on, and Hida realized her whole cohort was now collected around her.

"Have you ever seen a riot?" Cosmo sounded like he was trying not to shudder at the memory, "it's brutal. Catching Antonia, even when she's scream and flailing and we can't hurt her or the baby, it's far more fun than an actual riot."

"None of us are old enough to have seen a real riot," Adessa pointed out, "the last historical riot occurred under King Fujiwara, and not even Knight Conrad is that old."

"Your confidence is enjoyable," the Knight Instructor addressed them, looking like human leather; old, wrinkles, and permanently tanned. "But I actually am old enough to have started my Knight training when King Fujiwara was still alive."

"You knew historical figures?" Ghannam spoke up finally.

Knight Conrad laughed, voice as weathered as his skin was, all the rough edges had been smoothed out long ago. "Anyone can become a historical figure if they make themselves memorable enough."

"What was King Fujiwara like?" Andre demanded at the same time Hida heard Cosmo ask, "do you know why Queen Ebina abdicated the throne so early?"

Knight Conrad ignored the questions, "time for training, get in line and set yourselves to resist a shoving."

Hida had missed a fair amount of training, and despite her best efforts at home she'd also lost some strength and conditioning while she had to recover. She was already the smallest cadet, as well as being the youngest, and now she'd been off training for a month; Hida expected to be very frustrated by the day's efforts. Knight Conrad was letting each cadet brace themselves before he bodily rammed into them. Given their relative sizes, Anto and Bruno had the easiest times not being sent flying, though Antonia obviously was exempted from actual impact.

"You'll find that the female cadets have an easier time with balance," Knight Conrad was a solidly built man, and he had no issue acting like a battering ram while talking. "That's because a woman's balance is set at her hips, while a man's is up at his navel," despite her small size, early return, and newness to the lesson, Knight Conrad didn't hold back at all when he bashed into Hida.

She hadn't faltered when Denerim's sword shattered against her training blade, and Hida didn't willingly give ground now. Unfortunately though, she was on sand and Hida's form remained solid even as Conrad's momentum pushed her back. She simply wasn't heavy enough to stop it.

And Knight Conrad just continued his lesson, giving them form suggestions and explaining the best ways they could each use their size or skills to handle a full attack head on. "If you can avoid it, do so," the advice wasn't at Hida alone, but she took it to heart, "redirect, try to use your opponent's actions to your benefit, and make their efforts help you." Bruno got a pat on the shoulder when the Knight all but bounced off his defensive stance, "you ma be an ambulatory wall, but the rest of us can't claim your implacableness."

"He's a Gault, he's not even close to fully grown yet," Anto teased loudly.

Where Briggs were blond, mostly, the Gault were large' a familial trait that helped identify the heritage without need of a family colour. It wasn't an absolute rule, Hida's own Pinky designation notwithstanding, but it was a general rule of thumb. And she wondered what the next generation of Briggs would look like, given her siblings were romancing brunettes.

"New rule, if you ever need to withstand a siege, just hide behind him," Knight Conrad teased, "but all joking aside, even with your size it might be the better strategy to redirect the attack. Always conserve your energy, you don't know how long a fight will last after you take the first opponent down. Your jobs aren't to die heroically; I don't want you to die at all. As Knights, be it Royal Guard or City Guard, your duty is to protect. You have to be alive to do that duty."

"So us learning to take on riots and hand to hand fighting isn't just to toughen us up?" Antonia asked pragmatically.

"It'll help toughen you up, but its also so you can start learning to think of your actions instead of just doing them. Even in a riot, your goal is to subdue, not kill and injure. These are still citizens of our Kingdom, and our Queen is not a tyrant." It felt like approval to have their Knight Instructor speak to them like fellow Knights already, instead of just cadets.

Hida bent her will and focus to the training, each flicker in the shadows a distraction she couldn't focus on just yet. Whatever future her magic wanted to show her wasn't strong enough the reveal itself, so she had to wait until it was. But this also build the anticipation, she was curious what her magic was trying to present, and why it seemed to be struggling.

It was closer to September than July, and Hida was glad the heat of summer was starting to relent; she really became Pinky in the sun, and it wasn't fun to be burnt while training. And her first day back felt good, just reinforcing for Hida that this was what she should be doing. Her cohort, her friends really, had all missed her and welcomed her back with happy enthusiasm. There was still another two months left before all the families left the Capital for winter, the Marriage Season over, but many of the southern families left earlier to avoid the snow of November, so Hida was looking forwards to these last eight weeks training with her friends.

Her body ached with the efforts she'd endured, and Hida felt satisfied with her healing scar as she already knew what it'd look like in the future. She settled into the bath at home, and intended to soak the soreness out; an idea apparently shared by Edwina because Hida saw her older sister stride in and quickly disrobe, likely unaware that Hida was already silently in the steam filled room.

"Those are finger bruises," Hida couldn't help but say out loud, making Winnie jump and blush red, but Hida was too focused on the hand grip marks on her sister's thighs. They were at the yellow stage, so Hida knew they were several days old, and Winnie's wide eyes but shocked silent reaction told Hida they weren't earned from a grapple, but likely more adult pursuits. "So I guess it's slightly less unrequited now?" Hida didn't assume Winnie would be intimate with just anyone; it had to be her Lord Daro.

"I'm not talking about it," Winnie declared, voice too controlled for Hida to tell if she was just wanting discretion, or if she was upset.

"Then don't let Blair see those bruises, she'll want all the details," Hida warned, actively wanting to remain ignorant herself. She knew about intimacies, in theory, but it all seemed so gross to her still.

"Out of all our siblings, you're the only one who wouldn't demand answers," Winnie sounded grateful, so Hida ignored her affection marked body and tried to relax back into her bath.

"Demand answers to what?" Blair's voice rang out like the crack of Edwina's doom, and Hida saw her sister actually wilt under Blair's inquisitive gaze. Hida said nothing as Blair's eyes found the exact bruises Hida had identified and her eldest sister had all kinds of red covered romances that's warned of how she'd gotten them, "OH! Yes, you're right, Hida, I will be demanding answers."

Winnie shocked them both by cursing before sitting into the bath with sloppy posture, "You know, Pinky, I'm starting to suspect your shadows show you your future, but you're still too good at predicting the worse thing that could happen to me."

"Hey, I take offense to that," Blair objected mildly, "Eddy, don't blame Pinky because you got caught looking well fu-ah, loved," Blair shot Hida a look she didn't have to interpret; she knew the filthy term her sister almost used, but Hida was training with Knights, she'd heard them all.

"Don't call me Eddy!" Edwina complained, "and I don't want to talk about it!"

A chill crawled down Hida's spine, "Winnie, you did want it to happen, yes?" she sat forwards, suddenly needing to know the answer.

"Yes," Winnie sighed, "don't worry about that. I just... this is so embarrassing."

Blair finally stripped down and sloshed into the steaming bath waters, "I'm glad to hear both things, for a moment there I though I'd have to help Pinky hide a body."

"I'd just drop it at the pig farms of Hatsune, they'll even eat the bones," Hida didn't expect her answer to make both sisters stare at her in horror.

"Why do you know that?" Blair sounded fascinated.

"Military hi온라인카지노게임, to prevent pestilence after the slaughter of the southern marauders the original Fidalgo Marquis had to dispose of the corpses and discovered the pragmatism of swine," Hida explained, impressed at the ingenuity.

"And I thought art hi온라인카지노게임 was macabre," Winnie remarked first.

"I still want to know everything, but first, tell me what your Lord Daro was doing leaving those bruises," Blair was as blunt as ever.

"A Lady doesn't kiss and tell," Winnie immediately objected.

"So there was kissing," Blair was relentless, "now I want to know if it was just on the lips or if he also kissed your 'lips'," she repeated with a wink Hida didn't understand but Winnie let out an indigenous squawk, splashing water at Blair to silence her. "Oh come on, I'm still a virgin, let me live vicariously through you."

"You are incorrigible, Blair," Winnie sighed.

"You, Alaric, and Gavin are all the incorrigible ones, I'm still a good and virtuous Lady," Blair sounded teasingly smug.

"He said it should never have happened, that he was too drunk to resist but he'd do the right thing by me," Edwina sounded angry. "So I told him no to bother, I'd keep this dirty little secret."

For some reason Hida's shadows present a vision of the future, making it impossible for Hida to focus on her sisters despite her wanting to.

Her future self was fighting. Not in training, not for fun; her sword streaked carmine and Hida the Knight expertly dispatched her enemies. She tasted copper and sweat, feeling the acidic burn of exhaustion in her muscles as well as the more immediate agony of freshly bleeding wounds. Her opponents had the deep, ritualized scarring and tattoos of the Yang Republic, and fought like their very souls depended on them slaying her and Prince Levi whom she protected.

But despite her small stature, and their nearly overwhelming numbers, Hida was able to fell them to a man before she grabbed a bloodied Prince and threw him on a horse, trying to provide meagre cover as she mounted up behind him. "Run!" Hida's yell wasn't at the man all but prostrate before her but the horse bearing them, and the large steed bolted.

Hida of the now didn't recognize the landscape her future self rode through, but her familiarity with both horse and terrain warned they would become well known at some point. Her future self clung to the back of the Prince in front of her, the shield of a Knight covering her spine as a crossbow bolt whizzed after them and shattered against Taroton steel. Her vision skipped how long their flight to safety was, simply showing the Hida of now that her future self found a dilapidated water wheel in the forest, the remains of a town abandoned so long ago the trees growing through the buildings were ancient.

"I need to check your wound," Knight Hida was trained to handle field dressings, a skill her current self still lacked. She couldn't help but watch the vision in fascination as Prince Levi stripped off his bloodied tunic, revealing the crossbow bolt snapped short in his shoulder. Blood streaked down skin and chest hair alike, "we'll need to pull the bolt out and stitch you closed; if they were waiting for us here I have to assume there are more ambush sites the closer to home we get."

Prince Levi was pale with pain and blood loss, but still he smiled at her future self, "I like hearing you call it home, Pinky; it makes me feel like we'll survive this."

"I'm surprisingly hard to kill for someone that looks this adorable," Hida realized her future self was far more like Blair than she realized.

She witnessed the easy humour and friendly comfort between her future self and the Prince she'd be tasked with Guarding. Farran's research had told Hida that Prince Royal Levi of Cador was nine years older than she was, and if she had to guess this vision seemed to be at least six years or so in the future, so she as probably twenty one or so, and the Prince would be thirty. But it was her body that showed experience; in battle and survival, the map of scars her future self revealed was telling. While Prince Levi had taken an assassin's bolt to the shoulder, she'd taken the assault of several skilled sabre men; she had multiple lacerations and abrasions.

"I don't want you to die for me, Knight Hida," he admitted, sounding far more serious than current Hida suspected he pretended to be.

Her future self looked at him in those startlingly bright green eyes, knowing she couldn't lie to him but she also never had, " I don't intend to die for you Levi, I intend to live and keep you living too. It's not my job as a Knight to die heroically for you, it's my duty to protect you for as long as I can."

"You are truly formidable, and I am forever grateful you're my Knight, Hida Briggs," Prince Levi complimented and the vision shattered apart.

Hida was suddenly back in the Briggs Capital Estate bath, Blair and Winnie also soaking and talking and oblivious to the fact that Hida's shadows had once again shown her the future.

"Post-nut clarity," Blair's statement made no sense to Hida whatsoever, and she was trying desperately to catch up to what her sisters were talking about.

"It was humiliating enough without you being crude about it Blair," Winnie sounded annoyed.

"Eddy...Winnie... my darling Edwina," Blair's dramatics warned she was being deadly serious, "a man as controlled as your Daro, able to 'resist your torment' for however long he's been afflicted by it, finally snaps and gives you a railing against a railing on the last night he believes he has you... Every single one of those red books I gave you explains it! He is yours, 100%, but he is deep in his feelings about it because you're way too amazing and he's the human equivalent of porridge."

Hida's vision had clearly made her miss out on some rather pertinent details. And neither Blair nor Winnie seemed to realize she'd had another vision, so Hida had to just quietly wait and try to piece it all together. Why did she See those bits of the future? What spurred her visions and was there anyway to control it, or deliberately guide it?

"I thought it was something special, and chaotically beautiful, only for him to say it should never have happened but he'd do right by me?" Winnie could sing, but right now her tone was more screeching than melodic.

"I can still hide a body," Hida offered, not knowing what else to say.

"Not today Pinky, right now Eddy needs a little of my magic," Blair handed Edwina a ladle full of wine, "only one sip though, if you're like Gavin we can't risk the next generation of Briggs;."

"Blair!" Winnie objected her words, but still drank the sip.

"Eddy, please," Blair sounded unusually serious, "do you think he doesn't actually want to marry you, or that he feels guilty that he couldn't resist giving you a first time that isn't all romance?"

"Winnie, I can hide a dead body," Hida insisted to Edwina one last time and finally her sister laughed.

"I think I want him to beg me to marry him now," Edwina declared, wiping at tear-filled eyes.

"So we'll get him to beg," Blair promised, starting to wash Edwina's hair while Hida found the oils needed to treat it instead of plotting homicide.