Of Fates And Fetters Ch 10

Good afternoon y'all! Hope this is a great day you're having!

It is for me! Cause holy hell, the week was ugh! But I was able to write most of the chapter during the week, then do finishing touches and editing today! So this is a good day.

Here is chapter 10, I hope you enjoy it. Lemme know in a comment if you do, or don't...But it would be great if you did.

But you don't have to.

But totally do.

Anyways, joking aside. Have chapter, hope you like.

=][=

Shana stood on the castle’s balcony, her belly full and the sweet taste of the wine she’d been given still on her tongue, watching the city of Bale as the people bustled through their late afternoon, Dart’s steady presence next to her reassuring her that this was, indeed, real.

The world had stopped making sense. It was almost like she was in one of those romance books that she would never have admitted to owning.

Her home attacked, the secret princess kidnapped, a knight in shining armor cutting his way through an entire army to win back her freedom, Slaying a giant to ensure her safety.

That had been fun to fantasize about, but if given the choice, Shana would happily hoist the fantasy-turned-reality onto someone else that actually wanted it. Shana would have been quite happy to deliver Old Johnathan’s tea, then get on with the rest of her chores for the day before running off to the forest to pick berries and the occasional safe-to-eat mushroom, and if she was lucky, bring back an animal for the evening stew.

Shana would have been happy to enjoy the surprise of the boy, now man, she loved finally coming home, to show him that she could cook so well that she absolutely would satisfy even his fuzzy palate.

Instead, the only home she’d ever known was burnt to the ground, and she’d have to restart her collection of Dart’s shirts that had probably gone up in ashes along with her home. The only silver lining to the situation being that her parents had been traveling the day of the attack.

Shana shook her head, it would do her no good to dwell on that. Dart had said casualties had been light, Seles would recover.

She had to believe that.

And now that Dart had asked for relief to be sent to the village, they would be fine.

“What’s on your mind, boogers?” Dart asked, bumping her lightly with his hip. He grinned at her in that way that always made her belly do funny things. “You’re making a face like you’re doing the Big Think.”

“Don’t call me boogers.” Shana said, she could feel her face contorting into a childish pout, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. “And I’m just…I never thought I’d ever be in a castle.”

Dart snorted, then his huge hand landed on top of her head and rubbed back and forth like when they were kids. “Sorry to be the one to tell you this, Shana, but you still haven’t. My guess is this was some noble’s mansion before the civil war started.”

Shana wanted to tell him off for rubbing her head, but she also liked it when Dart touched her, so she settled for just enjoying the attention. “How can it not be a castle? It’s big and this is where the King lives.”

Dart snorted, taking his hand away. “A Castle is meant to be a defensive fortification, it needs to have walls, battlements, towers, probably a moat. It stands as the last line of defense against an invader. A place from which the king can rally his defenses and sally out. Thanks to having the river at its back, it has the beginnings of a moat, but this is not a castle, it never was. My guess is the castle of Serdio is in Sandoran territory, and the king didn’t bother with the expense of building a whole-ass new castle in the middle of a civil war.”

“You’re not wrong.” Shana jumped at the sound of Lavitz’s voice. She turned around to see the huge knight walking through the door to the balcony.

He was like a completely different man. His skin was devoid of the dust and grime of their travel, his straw-blonde hair shining, and he was dressed in a green tunic with white frills and a red cravat.

“Woah Lavitz, you look like a noble!” Shana’s mouth said without her permission.

Lavitz looked at her confused as she felt her face heating up because she was dumb!

“That’s because I…am one?” He asked.

“Meh, you’re the good kinda noble.” Dart said, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “The ones actually worth the title, willing to wade into the mud along with their men.”

“Noblesse Oblige is something I take very seriously.” Lavitz said with a nod.

“Obligations of nobility.” Dart said before she could ask. “It’s gotta do with the duties he has to the common people in return for his elevated status.”

“I knew that.” Shana lied with a pout. It was pretty close to her first guess which was almost as good as knowing.

Dart snorted and tilted his head to Lavitz. “So, Mister Spick and Span, you sure shower quick!”

“Yes well.” Lavitz said, running a hand over his tunic. “We have the palace servants to thank for that. I’d prefer to do it myself, but it is among their duties, and it would be impolite of me to refuse. I did remember to inform the King about your desire to avail yourselves of the royal baths. The serving women are expecting the two of you, they do rather exemplary work.”

“Eeeeh…” Dart said looking leery before shrugging. “Guess as the saying goes. When in Deningrad.”

Shana’s mind ground to a halt. The maids would bathe them?

The young, fit, pretty maids.

With their wandering hands.

And their fancy demeanor.

All over her childhood friend.

Helping him bathe. Even washing his big, muscular back.

Running their hands over his clavicle, and his arms.

And his big muscular front.

“Absolutely not!” Shana screeched.

“Whah!?” Dart made a weird noise while flinching back.

“But…I thought you wanted to use the royal baths?” Lavitz asked.

“No!” Shana repeated, putting herself between Lavitz and Dart, holding her arms in front of her in a big ‘X’. “No no no! Absolutely not! We’ll…We’ll use the public bathhouse we rode past!”

“There was a public bathhouse?” Dart asked.

“You were too preoccupied to see it.” Lavitz said.

“Yeah, that sounds like me.” Dart said.

Shana used their interplay to get behind her childhood friend and push him ineffectually. “We, are, leaving!”

“But Lavitz hyped the royal baths up so much!” Dart whined. “It’d be a shame not t—!”

“NEVER!”

“Well…uhh.” Lavitz said awkwardly. “Now is as good a time as any to invite you two to stay at my house? You can also bathe there without spending money for the public bathhouse.”

“We’ll do that!” Shana said, pushing mightily and finally managing to get Dart to take a step.

“Okay okay! Stop pushing me!” Dart said, finally starting to move.

Shana ignored the disappointed sighs of the maids as Lavitz led them out of the building, and the giggles of the serving staff did not affect her at all, thank you very much!

“Stop pushing me!”

“NO!”

=][=

Thankfully, Shana’s weird temper tantrum ended once we left Basil’s Not-Palace. Honestly I was rather thankful, the idea of a group of women helping me bathe was rather alien. I may wish for the occasional pampering, but that sounded excessive.

I had been willing to put up with it for Shana’s sake, but I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Before promptly turning that Thing Of Evil into glue.

“So Lavitz, do you live far from Not-A-Palace?” I asked, stretching my arms straight up with some difficulty thanks to my armor.

“Not too far.” Lavitz said, and while the whole song and dance didn’t happen again, we still made slow going thanks to all the civilians coming up to Lavitz to be glad for his safety.

“Well good, I guess.” I said, and pretended I didn’t hear Shana muttering about treasonous maids. Wonder what the deal with that was.

We did eventually arrive at a mansion. Sure it was on the lower end of mansions, couldn’t have more than…how many rooms does the ‘standard’ mansion have anyways? Point being, it had two floors, it was roughly three stories tall, and it wasn’t huge.

“Mother, I’m home!” Lavitz called out as we stepped through the big double does into a large room with a very high ceiling. The place was surprisingly Spartan, what decorations there were, were there to accentuate or draw the eye to a painting or small sculpture, while most of the walls remained bare.

“Lavitz!” Came the call from deep in the bowels of the big home, and soon my heart gave me a painful twinge as a stout elderly woman who simultaneously burst with vitality came out of one of the corridors.

She was the picture-perfect recreation of…

Putting thoughts of lost family that weren’t even lost in this universe firmly out of mind, I ignored Shana giving me the side eye and studied the woman. Her skin was pale, the top of her head barely reaching my or Lavitz’s upper chest, her features still held traces of beauty fading into elderly elegance, and going by the gray-streaked mop of brown hair in an elegant bun, Lavitz got his blonde tresses from his father.

She was stout, but not overweight, and her nails were painted green. Her dress was a grass-green and she wore a thin gold chain as a necklace.

“Lavitz!” She repeated, throwing herself into her son’s chest and sobbing. “Oh my boy, you came back to me! When I heard you’d been captured I…I—!”

That was the last I understood as she wept in happiness at seeing, and I quote, her “Beautiful baby boy.”

I had to be careful about how I used this new ammunition, because there was a non-zero chance Lavitz would meet my own mother, and if he did, I’d prefer if he wasn’t carrying a grudge.

Lavitz eventually calmed his mother down enough for her to disengage from his chest.

“And please, let me introduce you to my companions.” Lavitz said, turning to us. “This is—”

His mother gasped dramatically, her eyes settling on Shana with the intensity of targeting lasers. “Lavitz, you brought home a bride!”

The woman had seemingly teleported to Shana, while Lavitz simultaneously withered under my glare and held his head in horror.

“Oh sweet child, please, tell me your name!” Lavitz’s mom said, taking Shana’s hands in her own.

“Erm…Sh-Shana? Shana Seles, ma’am.” Shana said shyly.

“Oh, such a beautiful voice! Oh I look forward to getting to know you my sweet daughter!” The woman said, gently squeezing Shana’s hands. “My son can be a little dense so please be patient with him. Why my child you look famished! Traveling must have been so rough!”

The worst thing was that she was so sweetly earnest, it was very difficult to be mad at her.

But not impossible, as I felt a muscle on my cheek twitching as I fought my face from turning into a snarl.

“Mother! Shana is Dart’s girl!” Lavitz said in desperation.

The older woman blinked, and turned to Shana. “Oh my, is that true?”

Shana’s face turned bright red. “Y-Yes, I’m Dart’s…w-woman.”

Lavitz withstood my glare enough to come over and mutter. “Look just go with it, once my mom gets something into her head, it’s nearly impossible to change her mind. If I don’t tell her Shana is already taken, we won’t hear the end of it.”

“Oh, my apologies, you are one lucky man.” The woman said, turning her infuriatingly gentle and sincere eyes onto me.

“Y-Yes, I…am truly blessed.” I said, barely managing to unclench my teeth to say the words.

“You take good care of this girl.” She said, with a smile as she took my hands and squeezed them gently. “I can tell she is a gentle and noble soul.”

“That.” I took a deep breath. “That is what I do.”

She let go, and I studiously avoided looking at Shana and her big smug grin. I had moved past my plan to pick her up by her ankles and shake her, but I have officially changed my mind!

Lavitz’s Mom turned back to him. “And you! When will you get yourself a nice girl like Shana!? You are not getting any younger mister! It’d be a shame for you to be too old to be able to carry your children!”

Lavitz sighed and spoke with the air of a man having the same argument for the umpteenth time. “I’ve been too busy with my duties and the war, mother.”

“That’s not an excuse! Plenty of Knights and other nobles have made the time to find themselves a good woman and sire some children! Why Grace already has five grandchildren. Five! And here I am without my first to brag about!”

“Yes mother.”

“It’s shameful, shameful I say!”

“Yes mother.”

“And imagine how happy you’ll be to come home to a child who will greet you happily!”

“Of course, mother.”

“Why I—”

I tuned her out as Lavitz continued to attempt to appease her.

I turned to Shana, who was cradling her cheeks and murmuring. “Dart’s woman.” And giggling softly.

Yeah not touching that with my ten foot pole.

I wondered if Lavitz would object to my sitting on the couch, my clothes were dirty enough that I might stain it…

I solved the conundrum by sitting on the ground next to the couch. The floor was nice and cool anyway.

“And furthermore!”

“Yes mother.”

I gave up all pretense, and lay down on the floor, I had a feeling this was going to go on for a while.

=][=

“I still think you should have let me cook.” I grumbled as I followed Lavitz up the stairs.

His scolding had gone on for a while, but after that, Lavitz’s mother had said she and Shana were going to make dinner, and ‘Menfolk should go do menfolk things.’

Which, okay, but goddammit, the vast majority of chefs in two universes I’ve inhabited were men! Cooking is a perfectly manly profession!

“Feel free to argue with my mother sometime.” Lavitz said with a tired sigh. “Just not today, because I need to set up some excuse not to be in the house when you do.”

“And here I thought you’d have my back.” I huffed as we reached the top of the stairs.

“Dart, I have no doubt as to your ability. But I know my mother would object, and I do not want to be forced to choose which of the two of you I would support.” Lavitz said, which, okay fair.

He took me to a surprisingly small room, I could see a painting of a tall broad man that looked like Lavitz, but older, standing beside a thinner, younger version of the woman I’d just met, and a…little brick of a boy.

“Woah, you were built like a brick shithouse even when you were a kid?” I asked, leaning forward to study the portrait.

Lavitz huffed a laugh. “As ever, a well for interesting idioms. And yes, I believe I had been a squire for a couple of years when this was painted.”

I leaned back, and looking around, I saw a line of scratches scored into a corner in the room. The tallest of them would be just above Shana’s head. “Height marks?” I asked, pointing at them.

“Yes.” He said. “I think I stopped when I was…thirteen?”

I looked around, considered asking about his porn magazines.

“Cool. What else you got?” I asked instead.

He showed me his parents’, now his mother’s room, as well as his father’s study, his mother keeping the room clean but it hadn’t seen use in years.

However, looking around…” Do you mind if I use the room after dinner?”

Lavit blinked in surprise, he thought for a few seconds then his eyes widened in understanding. “For the…right, yes of course, if there is anything you need, just mention it, I will get it for you.”

“Eh, just paper, charcoal, ink.” I said, digging into my ear with my pinky and wiggling the fingers of my other hand at him vaguely. “You know, the usual.”

“Right. But that can wait until you’ve at least rested for the night.” Lavitz said, pulling me along to the next room. “Here is—”

“Library!” I gasped, bumping past him as I rushed into the room full of books. It was actually larger than his room, a good amount of light came from a huge glass window. The room was tall, shelves lined every wall and they ran all the way to the ceiling, there was a ladder on wheels so the highest books could be accessed. “Shit, I didn’t know you were loaded!”

It had taken me a while to truly comprehend the value of the printing press. You truly never know how good something you have is until it is lost to you.

Lavitz snorted. “My family has some modest wealth, Dart. No, this is the result of several generations of acquisitions. To my shame, the war has not given me the opportunity to read them all, or most for that matter.”

Glancing through the titles, it was an eclectic mix. History, Philosophy, farming, mathematics, mythology, a few fiction books. Three in particular drew my eye, a religious tome ticker than my fist, an abbreviated history of the Dragon Campaign, and an anthology of stories and surviving documents from the Time of Strife.

I would have to see if Lavitz let me borrow those. That said…

“Your sorting leaves a lot to be desired.” I bitched as Lavitz moved the ladder so it rested against the lip of the big window.

“I honestly wouldn’t know.” He said, then started climbing. “Come on, the tour wouldn’t be complete without showing you my treasure.”

I hummed and followed him up, and out of the window. The roof was slightly slanted, but it was child’s play to lean back a little and maintain my balance. Still…

“This roof needs some OSHA.” I muttered as I made my way to sand next to Lavitz, who stood near the edge of the roof, staring in the direction of the Not-A-Palace.

The view was, admittedly, stunning. The streets and buildings of Basil were well maintained, the reds and oranges of the sunset lending the view and idyllic air. The Not-A-Palace shining like gold in the sunset.

Or like it was reflecting the dancing luminescence of a fire.

“Since I was a child, I would come here, look at the Royal Household, and dream of the time when I would be a knight and defend the realm.” Lavitz  said, crossing his arms. “Just like my father.”

I stepped up next to him, keeping a keen awareness of the edge. “It is a noble dream.” I said. “Can’t say I relate. My own dream was to finish my martial arts journey, find a girl, go home, and grow fat and old. Maybe have a few kids running around at some point.”

“Truly?” Lavitz asked.

I shrugged. “The call to adventure never quite worked on me, if I’m being completely honest.”

Lavitz mulled that over before saying. “It is a fine dream.”

I blinked and looked at him. “I kinda expected you to say it would be a waste of my talents, or something.”

He shook his head. “So long as it is not harmful to others, or to the kingdom. Then I have no room to disparage your heart’s desire. Such is the life of most commoners in Serdio, and the Kingdom I swore to protect is built upon the backs of lives just like the one you wish to build for yourself.” He gave me a firm nod. “It is a worthy dream. Dart Feld of Seles.”

Not what I expected to hear, as the whole ‘waste of your talents’ thing had been said by all but one of my previous traveling companions over the years.

I snorted and threw my arm around Lavitz’s massive shoulders. “Well, with a noble like you around, I guess I can say I’m glad to live in Basil.”

“Glad enough to willingly pay your taxes?”

“Not on your life.”