|
“Foreign
places yield more to one who is himself worth meeting.”
Beowulf, Beowulf
Everett
looked down at the open backpack that sat on his bed. Half-filled with
clothes, black and red shown out at him. He sighed, staring at the backpack
as if it was some type of puzzle. He looked around the cluttered room that
he and Armand shared, staring at the small disorder that predominated.
“I’ve never been to Louisville,” he muttered to himself,
going back to his closet, retrieving his black trench coat before he
stuffed it lovingly into his backpack. “I wonder what the weather’s like?”
He smiled. “Of course, I could just go on-line and find out.” He looked
back at the closed door between him and the computer. “Problem is, now I’m
afraid to go on-line any more. He looked in the opposite direction, to the
blinds that covered window. “I wonder where Marilyn is?”
“Ah, being the wife of a knight,” the lovely woman
said as she stood in the doorway. Her presence stopped Edgar cold, his
expression turning into a frightened, deer-in-headlights look on his eyes
as he looked up from suitcase he was packing. “Were you going to tell me,
or just leave me a note on the bed tonight?”
“We leave tomorrow,” Edgar confessed, looking like a
child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Melissa, I was going to tell
you as soon as I…”
“Edgar, save it,” she said with strained
understanding. “I don’t know where you’re going and I don’t want to know.
But I do know that it’s going to have to have your full attention. So go and
know that I love you.” She stepped up to him, hugging him supportively and
kissing his lips. She smiled at him and stepped away. She didn’t even stop
at the doorway. She simply tossed her last thoughts back to him. “And know
that you and I are going to have one hell of a fight when you get back.”
Roland slid his katana down the whetstone slowly,
drawing white stripes over the device as he brought his katana to a razor’s
edge. He looked up at Armand as the two sat on the curb across from Everett’s apartment.
“That’s how,” he said, holding the blade of his katana so Armand could see
the sharpness.
“Aren’t you going to pack or call your parents or
something?” Armand asked randomly, moving his head as he considered the
grain of the blade.
“No point,” Roland shrugged indifferently. “First
thing I learned from Ledger; that’s be ready for stuff like this. I keep a
bag packed at all times in my trunk. That way, if I wake up in some strange
city, next to some strange woman, and I have no idea how I got there, I’ll
be okay. Even if I have to hike back home.”
“That seems a bit strained in the logic department,”
Armand said, giving Roland a longways look of disbelief.
“I don’t think logic has ever been a knight’s strong
point,” Roland chuckled.
“I love being a dame,” Sydney said as she pulled black and red
out of her closet. “It makes packing so much easier.” She turned back from
the suitcase, looking at the closet. “But then again, since I am going to Louisville, and it is the sixteenth largest city in
the US,
I should do something to be prepared to make a good impression.”
She moved to the second closet in the small, white
bedroom and opened it up, the row of dresses and civilian clothes hanging
before her. “Just a couple of changes,” she said, quickly rushing through
the clothes, yanking a small collection of dresses off the hangers.
The door chimed as Ledger stepped into the pawnshop.
Dressed in his bulky jacket, the black knight looked over the assorted
mechanical monstrosities that were for sale by the front door. He looked
up, ignoring the country music that echoed simultaneously off six stereos
around the glass storefront.
Behind the
glass counter, a large-busted woman hummed along to the familiar song, her
blonde curls falling over her aged face. When she looked up from the
self-manicure she was doing and saw the black knight, she smiled. “Hey,
sugah,” she said in the thick, southern accent. “What brings you around?”
“I’m looking
for trouble,” he answered slowly, cautiously walking towards her and the
counter.
“What kind of
trouble?” she asked fondly, still smiling as she filed her nails.
“All types.”
The woman
looked up at him, her smile gone. “Four types?” she asked.
“Solid. Eight.
Twelve. Sixteen,” Ledger responded authoratively, his hands stuffed into
his pockets.
“That’s some
serious trouble, boy,” she said, going back to her nails. “How much you
looking for?”
“Fifty each,”
he said, looking around the pawnshop. He looked at the glass container to
the woman’s right. “I can pick them up tomorrow if you’re out at the
moment.”
“We’ve got them,” she nodded, watching Ledger like a
hawk while still pretending to work on her nails. “But that’s a pretty
penny you’re dropping.”
“My life’s worth it,” he answered back, finally
stepping up to the counter. “When can I pick them up?” he asked, looking
the woman in the eyes for the first time.
“I’ll go get them,” she said with a smile, turning to
saunter off into the back of the pawnshop.
“Will? It’s Morgan.”
“Hey, man. We still on for Monday?”
“’Fraid not, Will. I’ve got to go out of town for a
little while. Something’s come up.”
“Oh, man. I’m sorry. I hope it’s okay.”
“I hope so too. But I’ll give you a call when I get
back into town. I shouldn’t be gone for more than a few days.”
“Is everything alright?”
“I have no idea,” Morgan sighed to himself.
Armand held his brand up to his head, keeping the
blade held steady in front of his vision, the steel mirror staying parallel
to the ground. In his wide-legged stance, he hovered in the grassy field
just beyond his apartment.
With a step forward, he pulled the sword back, only
to swing it forward and slice the long blade through the air, moving to
split the sky. He stepped forward again, repeating the tight swing from the
other side. He moved to repeat the swing again, but at the last second he
stepped forward, lunging the blade forward, to impale his invisible foe.
The honey-skinned knight stepped back immediately,
pulling the blade back over his head to block an imagined rear attack. He
brought the powerful sword around over his head, swinging as he turned to
slice off the head of his rear attacker. Continuing the spin of himself and
his sword, Armand circled completely as he moved nimbly over the grass. He
sliced the air a second time, and then on the third turn, he jumped,
spinning through the air as he brought his sword slicing cleanly through
the crisp nighttime air.
He landed expertly on his feet, his sword back in the
position it had started in, by his eyes, the blade guiding his vision.
Everett
opened the door, keeping his smile down when he saw Marilyn standing before
him. “Hi,” she whispered awkwardly.
“Hi,” He said, just as awkward. The two hovered
strangely in the doorway.
“So, I call you all day and can never get you, then
you call me once and ask me to come over?” she said with a smile. “That
doesn’t seem very fair.”
“Sorry,” he apologized with a smile. “I just wanted
to see you before I left.”
“Left?” she asked, playing ignorant.
“I’m going out of town for a few days,” he said, with
a harmless shrug.
“Really?” Marilyn nodded. “That’s so weird. Because
so am I,” she said, laughing.
Everett’s
heart stopped. “What?” he asked, his
own self-conscious smile growing for reasons he couldn’t figure out. “Is
the Alliance
going on some mission to save the manatees?”
“No, it’s just going to be me going. Everybody else
is either busy or they just don’t want to,” she said, pretending to be
unbothered by the solitude.
“What about Victor?” Everett asked with a strained smile.
“He’s staying. It really is just me,” she answered
coyly.
“I see. Won’t he be mad at you for talking to me?” Everett asked.
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she batted
away.
“I see,” Everett
nodded. “And where is it that you’re heading off to?” he asked with a
casual smile.
Marilyn smiled as well. “Louisville, Kentucky.”
|