The Bathrobe Knight (45 page)

“You don’t know? After all the time we spent together you’re just going to tell me you don’t know?” Kass’s voice kept getting louder and louder.

“I don’t know.” Darwin stayed stoic.

“Don’t give me that! Don’t tell me you don’t know! This is your life! You have to know!” Kass practically yelled as she balled up her fist as if she was going to strike Darwin’s chest with it before she finally opened her hand and sighed. “Just . . .  just tell me what happened from the beginning. Can you at least do that?”

“Well, for starters, it didn’t make me like this. It didn’t change anything about me. This is who I am. This is how I look,” Darwin said as he pointed to his own eye.

“You . . . look like that in real life?” Kass asked with slightly wider eyes before poking one of his biceps. “Even the muscles?”

“Even the muscles,” he flexed the best he could without trying to look like it was intentional.

“Well, I look like this in real life too,” she twirled for a moment.

“That’s kind of funny,” Darwin noted, causing Kass’s blush to return.

“What? Are you saying I look funny?” she covered what little cleavage was showing and backed up.

“No, no, no! I just meant that we’re probably the only two people on the entire server who didn’t alter their avatar at all, and we ended up meeting in a pretty weird way,” he explained, throwing both hands up like a robber trying to prove to a police officer he didn’t have a gun.

“Oh, yeah,” she lowered her arms and relaxed. “That is kind of odd. Then again, I figure with me actually being a girl avatar being played by a girl, it’s already odd.”

“Well, you still could be a trap. You say it’s what you look like, but you still might be a forty year old man behind that pretty face,” Darwin laughed. The Internet was known for having more gender benders than a drag race without cars. This wasn’t the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but there was always a good chance one of the girls was a guy.

“So you think I’m pretty?” Kass ignored the rest of his trap accusation.

“I’ve already said it, haven’t I?” Darwin bit his lower lip. “You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”

“Maybe? You seem
pretty
sure about that,” Kass chuckled. “Anyways, you were telling me about your predicament.”

“I was, but you’re going to be disappointed with how few details I have. You see, like I was saying, this is how I looked like when I got here, down to the fact I was wearing a bathrobe,” Darwin began his story, telling her everything from the moment the burglar broke into his home to the moment they met, leaving out no details. By the time he had finished, her face was flatter than untouched pancakes fresh off the frying pan. “What?” He asked in response to her look.

“Just, aren’t you freaking out? How are you so calm right now?” Kass asked, her expressionless face melting into a weak frown. “Why are you not doing everything in your power to figure out how to get back?”

“I don’t know,” Darwin scratched the back of his head. “To be honest, at first, as soon as I was safe and out of the Minotaur land, figuring out what happened was all I could think about. Then the feeling faded. I found myself acting without thinking, doing everything I could for people who followed without hesitation. Before I knew it, I had gone from investigating my situation to just embracing it and rolling with the punch.”

“So, you are just going to stop trying to find out?” she pressed on, her frown growing sterner by the minute. “You’re going to give up?”

“It’s not giving up, Kass,” Darwin started rubbing his forehead with the hand that was scratching the back of his head. “There aren’t any hints to chase. I reached a dead end long ago, and I was left with a choice: mope around about something that won’t change or do the right thing by the people who need you.”

“So you did the right thing . . .” Kass lowered her head and cast her face away from Darwin.

“Yeah, as far as I can tell I did the right thing to the best of my ability,” Darwin reached out and put one hand on each of Kass’s shoulders. “Kass, look at me.” She did. “This isn’t a punishment. Being stuck here isn’t a curse. That message was right. This is a home to me, regardless of how I got here. I have the chance to embrace who I am and be something more than just a pencil pusher in an office who waits for a day off to spend by myself.”

“But, but what if you die here? What if something kills you?” she mumbled, her voice as shaky as her eyes. “What if I lose you . . .”

“I’ll be fine. This is me you’re talking about,” he said with the best forced smile he could muster. “Nothing is going to happen, okay?”

As Darwin did his best to maintain eye contact, he found himself confused by the feelings that the whole ordeal was giving him.
Does she really care about me this much?
He was failing to process her reaction.
This isn’t Sassy Kassy; this isn’t the joking girl that always teases me.
Her quivering lip, her shaking eyes, her stiff body--this isn’t the confident Kass that I’ve spent so much time with.

An awkward silence persisted for a minute, and Darwin found himself even more baffled by what to do, so he finally gave up on thinking about it and went with his gut: he hugged her. He brought her in and wrapped both arms around her, patting her head as it lay against his chest. “I’m sorry I’ve worried you so much,” he said in the gentlest voice he could muster. “I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

“Okay,” Kass said into his chest after a minute, pushing herself free and rubbing her eyes for a second. “Just don’t think this changes anything.”

“I wouldn’t dare.” Darwin smiled as he watched her become collected and composed again. “But, maybe you should take a moment, do what you will and all, and I’ll see you on the boat Alex picks for us. I have something to take care of first.”

“Are you always going to be this mysterious?” she said, grinning. “Will you ever leave us a note or something explaining what you’re up to before it’s happened?”  

“Probably not, no,” Darwin mused, “it would take away all the fun.”

“You’re so weird.” Kass hopped off the Hydra and headed to the fields. Darwin suspected she didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to get more loot than him.

“Well, that was, like, cool beans and all. Totes expected waterworks,” Stephanie said, appearing almost instantly where Kass had been.

“I probably shouldn’t agree with you, but I kind of did too.” Darwin’s hand found itself scratching the top of his head this time.

“Like, totes expected you two to kiss too,” she said, stepping right into the space where Kass had just been standing. “That woulda been, like, totes unfair, ya’know? Girl needs’ta learn I, like, already have dibs.”

Darwin looked her up and down for a quick second as she edged her way closer. She was stunning--Michelangelo couldn’t imagine a better figure--but it was a dangerous game he was playing with her, and he knew it. She wasn’t just a little stronger than him: her power was world’s above his current abilities, and she knew it. She may have saved his life, but at any point in time she might get angry and lay everything he had worked so hard for to waste.

“What'cha thinkin’ about? You’re, like, looking at me, like, all intense,” she said, tilting her head from one side to another as she looked at him, the missing bubblegum smacking becoming more noticeable to Darwin.

“Hmm . . . I suppose I was thinking about doing this,” he said, grabbing both sides of her head and pulling her in for his best attempt at a French kiss. It didn’t last long, a few seconds at best, but for Darwin it left a conflicting taste in his mouth. It felt both great because her lips were twice as soft and four times as sweet as he remembered and a little bad because he knew that he was kissing her to kill her jealousy over Kass, a girl he liked just as much as her, in order to keep Stephanie at his side.

“That was . . . that was a surprise,” Stephanie said, her accent completely gone as she touched her lips lightly with one finger. “That was a rather pleasant surprise.”

“I figured after earlier today, my luck’s been pretty good with things involving you,” Darwin slid his hands from the sides of her head to her hands. “Didn’t see any point in not taking a risk, wouldn’t you agree?”

The guilt Darwin had over possibly just using Stephanie and how Kass might react faded rather quickly as she pulled him in for a second round of French kissing, and they were completely gone by the time the two came up for air.

“I have to tell you something: I’ve never kissed a girl before you, so I’m not sure how much of a compliment it is to tell you that that was the best kiss I’ve ever had,” Darwin said, his breath a little short from not realizing he could breathe through his nose during the kiss until the very end.

“Don’t worry. You’re the best by default too,” she smirked, gripping his hands tightly as she leaned back a little.

“I hate asking this, but can we be seen in public without getting stone cold stares?” Darwin snickered a little.

“Well, like, at least you totes won’t have to worry about, like, other guys looking at me,” she said, her original cheerleader speech pattern returning.

“No, and I can say with confidence that you’re so gorgeous you’d leave a room full of men hard with just one look,” Darwin winked.

“Okay, like, that’s enough out of you,” she giggled. “I, like, have to book it anyways for, like, just that reason. Your crew is about to, like, show up, and I’m def thinking you don’t want a new art collection.”

“No, I don’t think I do, but when will I see you again?” Darwin asked, squeezing her hand one more time before letting it go.

“I’ll, like, sneak on your boat for that, like, boring trip to the mainland. When you’re, like, done with all that, like, boring bossing lordy-lord stuff, just head to your Captain’s quarters. I’ll, like, be waiting there,” she said, biting her bottom lip and raising both her eyebrows twice, “so we can, like, pick up where we left off, ya know?”

“Sounds great,” he said, leaning in and sneaking one final kiss before she disappeared. He was just about to feel pleased with himself when it hit him, what he had forgotten to ask her. Darwin’s face paled for a moment. Between the drama that Kass had stirred up and the excitement of his first real romance, the thoughts about why his sister didn’t want him to be saved by her had completely skipped his mind. He wanted to kick himself, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to accomplish that, so he just ended up sighing.
It doesn’t matter, I’ll have several hours to bring the subject up with her on the ride to the mainland,
he reassured himself before focusing on yet another realization:
I’ll have
several hours alone with her . . .

Qasin:

Qasin threw his Sword into the ground, leaving barely a foot and a handle sticking out. It was comforting to watch it slide into the ground just as easily as it had slid into so many bodies before. It was comforting, but painful. It tightened his chest to think that, whether it stood still within the ground or waved about in the scabbard at his side, it would remain unused.

After this war, there would be no coming battles. The Kingdoms were united, the foes were cast off and the peoples were safe to live in peace. His future wars would be wars with boredom, wars with the dullness and tedium waged over fruitless conversations about semantics and politics. The glorious battles that left his blood pumping like it was on fire would simply be a thing of the past.

“I wasn’t able to fulfill your request, Eve,” he glowered. He couldn’t see her, but he could still feel her eyes piercing his back.

“Now, now, don’t tell me that’s why you look so morose, dear King?” Eve said as she stepped out of the shadows. “You may have failed one of my idle requests, but my brother is safe, your battle has been won, and most of your men are still alive to go home to their families. Certainly you should be happy right now, no?”

I should be happy right now. She’s right. As a King, this was an overwhelming victory for me even if it did come with the help of Darwin and that woman,
Qasin couldn’t take his eyes off the hilt of the blade he had cast into the sands. The longer he looked at it, the more he found himself thinking about how the hilt had felt against his hand as he had torn through one White-Wing after another. He had crushed the initial center of the enemy’s line, dancing through the sky on the stepping stone bodies of the White-Wings who had been unfortunate enough to be diving or flying in his vicinity as he carved crimson across the sky.