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monstersandmaw · 10 months

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Female knight x lady - part one?

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

I've had this knocking around for ages, and I don't know if I'll continue it, but I fell in love with all the characters anyway and figured someone might enjoy it. It was based on a prompt that I can't find now, but ran along the lines of: "Female knight looking for a Lady to serve. Experienced in monster slaying."

Wordcount: 4149 Contents: Buff, tough, butch knight seeks employment from a local lady, featuring the ugliest horse in all the land, a dog named Muffin, and a brother who just wants his sister to be happy and safe... Fleetingly suggestive moments, but nothing super nsfw.

“Here goes nothing,” she sighed as she drove the nail into the village noticeboard with the pommel of her dagger and stepped back to look at her chicken-scratch writing. “Fuck,” she added as she glowered at it and saw the way her hand had smudged the bottom of it.

“Female knight looking for a Lady to serve. Experienced in monster slaying. Find me at the Bleeding Goat until the day after the Spring Equinox.” At least, if she squinted it still looked like ‘Spring Equinox’. If she didn’t, it looked like ‘Stink Jurybox’ or even ‘String Fairyfox’.

“Fuck,” she said again, and turned away. It would have to do. She didn’t have any more paper anyway.

And with that, she led her enormous war horse down the road towards the Bleeding Goat inn. Maggot was a vile mare by anyone’s estimation, but Vika loved her dearly. Built like a brick shithouse, with a shaggy, yellow-ish white coat, pink eyes, and a propensity for biting anyone who came within a three yard radius of her, the mare wouldn’t have won an equine beauty contest if she was the last horse in the land, but she was loyal to Vika, and could keep up a steady trot for days without breaking a sweat. She made a great windbreak too, if the need called for it, and her hooves were the size of a large buckler shield. Once iron-shod, they were lethal when she reared up or lashed out.

The ostler at The Bleeding Goat almost didn’t take her.

“Size of that beast,” he muttered as Vika led her into the fresh stall. “Looks like it might eat one of my donkeys whole if I turn my back!”

“She won’t trouble the others if they don’t trouble her,” Vika growled down at him.

“If you say so,” he said, giving her the once-over too as he looked back over his shoulder at her.

At six foot three, with broad shoulders, thick, wild, dark brown hair that resisted almost every attempt at combing, a jaw like an anvil and a glare to make a dragon nervous, Vika was only distantly aware of the little man, the way a lion might briefly take note of a mouse in the grass.

“Like horse, like rider,” he muttered as he shut the door on Maggot’s stall. He reeled backwards and tripped over his own heels when Maggot lunged for him, teeth bared, red eyes rolled to show the whites and her lopsided, wolf-bitten ears pulled right back against her matted mane. “Fucking hell,” the ostler yelped as he scrabbled to his feet. “Look after it yourself!”

“Suits me,” she said with a shrug. “You never gave me the chance to offer.”

“Bitch,” he spat as he slunk out of the stable yard, nursing a bruised backside and a wet patch where he’d fallen on the muddy ground.

“That’s ‘Dame’ to you!” Vika yelled after him. When he stopped and lurched back around to goggle openly at her, she offered him a cold, feral grin and tapped the pattern of embroidered lilies and swords on her padded brigandine with her thumb. “Dame Vika of Sharkshoal Point.”

“Right. Sorry, m’lady. Ma’am. Dame…”

She snorted and turned away just as Maggot whickered in a way that meant she was thoroughly amused with her own antics. Vika poked her in the chest and she stepped back from the stable door to let her owner in, and with practised movements that felt almost meditative, she had untacked the horse and rubbed her down with a handful of straw. The bran mash and oats she’d paid for were brought to her by a trembling stable lad who had stared up at her from over the stable door with wide eyes until Maggot had neighed with soft, enquiring interest and he’d practically flung it over the door and bolted for the kitchen door of the inn. Anyone might have thought Maggot was a roaring dragon by the way he’d reacted, but it was a common enough occurrence that neither mare nor knight paid it any mind.

Vika spent three days at the inn.

She took the time to sharpen all her numerous blades, not just the greatsword she usually kept sheathed on Maggot’s tack, and she even managed to acquire a needle and thread to darn up a few slashes in her padded brigandine. Her needlework wouldn’t have passed muster in the house of a lady, but delicate embroidery wasn’t the goal. She could make two pieces of fabric meet and stay together well enough, and that would have to do. She could also sew up a person if push came to shove, and she bore the scars of her own neat stitching in a number of places about her body as proof.

On the fourth day, while the lively little town was setting up for the Spring Equinox celebrations, a man entered the tavern’s common room and looked around, asking for the ‘female knight’ who’d placed the advert on the board.

She tensed but let the scene play out, watching as the cute serving girl flushed and pointed across the room at her.

The man turned and cocked an eyebrow when he looked Vika up and down, but he thanked Ella and wove his way carefully between the tables. He was wearing the practical garments of a labourer, with a long tunic that covered his hips and a belt around the waist, but the fabric was far finer than any Vika had ever clapped eyes on, and his fur-trimmed cloak looked soft enough to swaddle a baby. His boots were worn to the point of comfort, but not falling apart, and at his hip he carried a slender sword with a silver pommel.

“Forgive the intrusion,” he said with a polite incline of his head and an accent that betrayed him as nobility as surely as the gold stitching on his scabbard. “But are you the knight who placed the advertisement on the noticeboard? You’re looking to serve a lady?”

“I am,” she said, blunt and direct as ever. “Vika,” and she stuck out her hand to him.

He shook it without hesitation and revealed a strong, firm grip. “Lord Roland. Brother of the Lady Elayne Drummond,” he added with a friendly twist of his lips.

He was attractive, for a man, with big, brown, puppy-dog eyes and russet brown hair that fell in easy waves around his ears to brush the fur of his cloak. He had a short beard that was well-maintained, and his skin had the healthy glow of one who had never missed a meal a day in his life and spent much of his time out of doors.

“May I sit?” he asked, eyeing the chair opposite hers across the table.

She glanced down at the throwing knife she’d been in the process of sharpening, and at the black grime that coated her fingertips and around her nails from the oil and the whetstone, and felt a touch of shame beside his immaculate appearance, but she nodded all the same. “Sure. Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink?” she offered.

He smiled at that and nodded. “The ale here is the best in town,” he said, looking over his shoulder and beckoning over the serving girl with dark eyes and curly, black hair.

“M’lord?” Ella chirped and then shot Vika a smile. She’d flashed her the same smile on Vika’s first night, and again when Vika had made it clear in which room she was staying, should the young woman feel like joining her when she’d finished work. Ella had, and she’d fallen apart with the same glorious light in her eyes under Vika’s mouth and with her fingers buried deep inside her. They’d not met since, but they’d been easy in each other’s company ever since.

They ordered their drinks, and Roland turned back to Vika, resting his forearms on the table. “I suppose I should ask the reason you’re placing advertisements on public noticeboards instead of serving with the king, or even the knight who gave you your title to begin with.”

“A fair enough question,” she shrugged. “He died. Of old age, mind you. I served Gwilym of Sevenoaks from the time I was first raised to the order until two years ago. After his death, I decided to travel. Found myself here, and decided it was time to find myself a new place to roost.”

“Your advertisement said you’ve slain monsters…?” he asked just as their tankards arrived.

“Thanks,” Vika murmured to Ella as she slid it across the table to her, and then looked up at Roland and shrugged. “Yeah. But nothing that didn’t deserve it first, you know? There was some sick fuck who was kidnapping maidens to feed to a dragon, so I went to the dragon and found out what was really going on, challenged the fuck to a duel, he ran, I put an axe through his skull before he’d cleared the trees. Then there was a vampire that had gone feral back near Reaver’s Canyon, and she refused to let me chain her up til the bloodlust faded. Went into full shift, came at me, and went for my neck —” she bared the side of her throat to Roland where the skin was puckered. “Near tore me open with her fucking claws, but I staked her and that was that. Cauterised it with my own dagger. Nearly fucked up the temper on it too,” she added as an afterthought.

Roland cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, and she wasn’t sure if he was impressed or uncomfortable. Again, that wasn’t an uncommon reaction for folks to have to her.

“Right. Well, you clearly know what you’re doing…” he said in his clipped, aristocratic tone. “I do have one more question.”

“Ask away,” she said and drained a third of her tankard in one go. “Ah, fuck me, you’re right. That is good.”

“Right,” he chirped again, shuffling slightly in his seat. “My sister is… Well… She’s… She’s a lady… you understand…”

“Sisters of Lords usually are,” Vika growled. “What’s your point?”

“Quite, but… while your… um… your deeds are certainly impressive — and if you say you served with Sir Gwilym, I can’t argue that he knew good character when he saw it — I must say that your language is… uh…”

“Unbecoming of the knightly order?” she said. “Don’t worry. I can hold my tongue when I have to. I’m just tired and a bit run down. I apologise. I can watch my mouth, if it offends the lady.”

Roland blushed. “You know, it probably wouldn’t offend ‘the lady’, if I’m honest,” he sighed. “It’s just… Well, you understand. Decorum and all that.”

“Yeah, I get it. So is there an opening at the castle or not?”

He nodded. “I think you’ll fit in just fine, but as a formality, I’d like to extend a trial period to you.”

“Oh, Roland,” she grinned over the rim of her tankard. “Never give a knight the challenge of a trial.”

His answering smile went all the way to his big brown eyes, and he raised his own tankard to her. “I look forward to meeting you in the lists, Dame Vika.”

She snorted and drained her ale. “Ready when you are. Just need to grab my horse and my gear.” Roland slid two coppers onto the table and she frowned. “Thought I said I’d pay?”

“I’m the one interviewing,” he shrugged as he stood and made his way past Ella to the door. “You can leave a tip if you like.”

“Oh, I already tipped her,” Vika purred, sliding a silver coin into Ella’s palm while the young woman blushed prettily and tried to hide a smirk behind a dip of her head. “Bring my saddlebags down to the stables, love? They’re all packed up in my room,” she asked before following him towards the stables.

A magnificent black palfrey, still wearing his gleaming tack, stood in the stable next to Maggot’s, staring wide-eyed and stock-still at the mare with a look of abject horror on his face so comical that Vika guffawed when she saw him.

“That’s…your horse?” Roland asked as he saw Vika hang her arms over her mare’s stable door and dangle her hands in a ‘come here’ gesture at the mare.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I know. Before you say it, we’ve heard it all before. But she’s everything to me, alright? Wouldn’t trade her for a high-stepping prancer like that for the world.”

Roland’s horse snorted, offended.

“Fair enough,” he said, and swallowed thickly. “Come on, Lancer.”

Vika rolled her eyes and hefted her own saddle off the rack near the door and slung it over the stable door. She tacked her mare up in silence and led her out into the yard to mount up after Ella brought out her saddlebags and Vika winked at her just to watch her blush again. “Thank you, love,” she said. Damn, but the girl was pretty.

Ella rested her hand boldly on Vika’s thigh as she looked coyly up at her and said, “It’s been a pleasure, m’lady.”

The ride to the castle took twenty minutes, and passed through some of the loveliest countryside Vika had ever seen. Deer scattered from a nearby field into the oak and beech trees on their right, and as they urged their horses into a canter, Maggot threw in a little buck of happiness and Vika laughed, patting her neck as she sat it with familiar ease.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Roland said as they continued to canter, his palfrey slightly in the lead and looking wary about the lumbering beast a pace or two behind him, “But how did you come by a horse like… that?”

Vika looked down at her mare’s boulder neck and shoulders and sallow, flaxen mane, listening to her dragon snorts as she heaved up the hill. It sounded like a hell of a lot of effort, but she could outlast any fancy racer once the quarter mile marker had been passed. She wasn’t fast, but hell, she had endurance.

“Saved her from a slaughterhouse,” Vika called above the wind in their ears. Her own long hair streamed behind her, probably tangling into an even worse bird’s nest, but she couldn't have cared less after days cooped up in the tavern. She’d expected to have her advertisement ignored, and simply to move on while the town celebrated equinox, but this was infinitely more attractive.

Roland’s horse put on a sudden spurt of speed, nudging from canter to a ground-chewing gallop, but Maggot just ploughed on at the same stubborn canter, pounding her great hooves into the soil until Roland sat back in the saddle and his fancy prancer slowed with a frustrated toss of his head. “A slaughterhouse?” he asked.

“Yeah. They thought she was far too ugly to make a destrier, and too mean to make a carthorse. I took one look at her and bought her. She was a year old at the time, and already built like a siege engine. She could teach mules about being stubborn too.”

“Something I sense you two have in common?” he said, and because he said it not unkindly, Vika laughed.

“You got me there,” she said with another laugh. “So what’s your sister like? And why is she looking for a female knight, specifically?”

He slowed Lancer to a brisk trot, and Vika nudged Maggot up beside him, instinctively tugging the reins to one side when Maggot went to bite the destrier’s glossy, black rump on the way past.

“Ah, none of that,” she barked at the horse, and for once, the mare listened, plodding along like an aged plough horse.

“Elayne is…” Roland began, and then faltered, scrubbing his hand over his face. “She’s beautiful, educated, beloved…” he said, and Vika frowned. When he looked askance at her, he sighed and the weight of it dragged his shoulders down with it. “She’s miserable. Our father… well, he loved her more than anything, but he kept her penned in… like a bird in a cage. She can insult you in about fifteen different languages, but she’s got no experience of any of the places where they speak them. Not even of our own country, really.”

“Sounds lonely,” Vika offered, and not without some sympathy. She’d travelled, and she’d met her fair share of courtly folk before. It wasn’t all it was made out to be.

Roland nodded. “Yes. I think… now that father’s dead, she’d like to see something of the world.”

Vika raised her eyebrows. “And you want someone to go with her?”

“Precisely. We have contacts all across the land,” he said. “She’d never want for a place to stay, but it’s the in-between that worries me. There’s no disguising we’re a wealthy family, and if someone figured out who she is, she could be taken for ransom, or harmed, or… It doesn’t bear thinking about. I can’t go with her because someone would have to run our estates in her absence.”

“She manages that now then?” Vika asked and he nodded.

“Yes. Father taught her everything, and, to my shame, I never had much of a head for it; not the way she does. She’s a natural. I can manage though,” he added, cheeks heating. “It’s not like it’d fall apart completely without her, but… yes. She’s the one who manages the day to day of the castle and the estate finances.”

“I’m surprised she’s not got suitors lining up from the castle gates to Southport,” she snorted.

“Oh, she has,” he laughed.

“None of them good enough?”

Again, Roland barked a laugh. “Seemingly not. Look —” he said, and pointed with his gloved right hand as they rounded a bend in the road and the trees drew back a little way. “That’s Crow’s Nest.”

Vika followed his gesture and spotted the dark castle on the hill easily enough. “Impressive,” she murmured.

“Think your ugly mare can beat my Lancer to the courtyard from here?” he asked.

Maggot was already lurching forwards into a determined canter before Vika had processed the question. “What did I tell you about knights and challenges?” she yelled over her shoulder at him as they took off with an ungainly jolt.

Lancer, of course, was off like a hound after a hare a second later, his silky tail held high as an officer’s plume, but after a mile, he began to slow while Maggot just thundered on like a boulder down a mountain. Vika just sat forward a little in the saddle and gave the mare her head to set her own pace. They overtook Lancer on a corner by an oak on the last stretch and Vika yelled, “I hope they let us in without you, Prancer!”

“You’d just batter down the gates anyway!” he roared back, laughing.

Maggot won by a country mile, though mostly through grim determination and grit than anything else. Her sides heaved by the time she got to the barbican gate, and Vika was forced to sit back and ease her into a trot before the archers on the gate started to shoot at her.

Lancer appeared a few minutes later, his deep, black chest rimed with foam and his nostrils flared wide while Vika was still walking Maggot in a lazy circle just out of bow shot, and Roland shook his head. “Damn,” he laughed. “I’d love to see Maggot race Crocus.”

“Crocus?”

“My sister’s gelding. Don’t ask about the name — something to do with saffron and the fact that he’s probably the most orange horse you’ll ever lay eyes on. Open the gate!” he added in the same breath, and the portcullis rumbled up.

“Bit extreme, isn't it? We’re not exactly at war…” Vika muttered as the ironwood frame ground upwards into the bastion above and Lancer ambled in like he was the lord of the castle, not Roland. Maggot eyed the murder-holes with deep suspicion, and then followed the palfrey inside.

Roland shrugged. “There’s already been one attempt on both my sister’s life and my own since our father’s death,” he said, and all the jollity of the race evaporated from his handsome, boyish features. “Can’t be too careful.”

“Shit,” she hissed. “I can see why you’re not celebrating the Equinox here,” she commented, looking around and finding the castle bailey empty of all the accoutrements of celebration like a mummers’ platform and festive stalls.

“Not this year. We’re funding the festivities in the town though,” he said, “To make up for it. But we’re not hosting anything here. Elayne is devastated,” he added as he sprang lightly down from Lancer’s saddle and loosened the girth while a stable hand strode over to greet them. “And very angry with me.”

“Careful,” Vika advised as a second stable hand approached her. “She’s… not the friendliest.”

“Right…” the young man chirped, faltering. “Uh… you want to lead her in then?”

Vika saw her mare settled and rubbed down, and when the stable hand promised to feed her in an hour’s time, after the strain of the race had faded from her body, Vika relaxed a little. He did know what he was doing after all. “Don’t shut yourself in there with her though,” she advised him while the mare rolled her red eyes at them, and the young man nodded.

She hooked her saddle bags over one arm and strode after Roland to meet him at the castle entrance.

The next few hours passed in a blur, but after she’d bathed and been given a new set of clothes, which not only fitted her but actually suited her, by a tailor who seemed to have magicked them out of thin fucking air, Vika meandered down towards the great hall.

A massive wolfhound lay sprawled across the doorway ahead of her, and just as the sole of her boot touched the marble entrance hall floor at the base of the stairs, a young woman emerged from a doorway on the other side, and the wolfhound looked up. His shaggy, bull whip tail began to wag and he whined and wriggled on the floor like a puppy as the woman approached, unaware of Vika’s presence behind her on the stairs.

“Oh, Muffin!” she giggled, kneeling beside him and playing with his ears and his bearded chin.

Her dress — a silvery, iridescent blue that shifted as Vika stared at it — pooled around her like a cloud on a summer day, and Vika watched as the dog floundered into a sitting position and tried to lick the woman’s face. She leaned back, laughing, and then caught sight of Vika as she turned her face away.

Vika, a woman who rarely found herself without retort or reposte, stood speechless as the young lady looked up at her and parted her lips in a soft ‘oh’ of surprise.

Vika was no stranger to beauty. From milk maids to marquesses, she’d seen it all, but this woman, with her smooth skin and warm, honey-coloured hair coiled up in pearl-studded waves, her flowing silk dress and bright, blue-grey eyes, gave new meaning to the concept of beauty. “Fuck,” she breathed, too quite for the lady to hear.

“Hello,” the lady smiled. The dog had gone still and was staring at Vika as though he was still deciding whether to launch himself at her or let her approach. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” And with that, she rose like a dancer and crossed to her.

Standing in front of her, she was a foot shorter than Vika, but as she looked up into Vika’s face, the urge to kneel, to bow her head and give every shred of her soul to the woman surged so strongly in her chest she almost wept. Swallowing thickly, she managed, “Dame Vika. Of Sharkshoal Point.”

Something cleared in the woman’s face and she smiled so delightedly that Vika felt lightheaded. “You’re the knight my brother found!” she beamed.

Unable to do aught else, Vika bowed her head. “I am, Lady. If you’ll have me.”

“That remains to be seen,” she grinned, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I hear you beat my brother in a race today,” she added and turned towards the great hall behind her. “Perhaps you’d care to spar with him tomorrow?”

“Will you be there to judge us?” Vika asked before she could stop herself.

“I suppose I should be, shouldn’t I?” Elayne said, pausing and looking back over her bare shoulder. “If you’re to be my knight,” she added, and as her dark eyes raked the length of Vika’s body from boot to crown of head, Vika shivered.

“I’ll be your knight, Lady,” she promised.

Elayne smiled brilliantly, and Vika bit her lip.

___

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sidhewrites · 4 months

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Chapter 1! Here we meet our main character Zanna and her friends, and see the faire where she works. I'm still debating whether to have a year-round faire or take a more realistic route and have her be a barista the rest of the year. We'll see. Till then, read ye well gentlefriends!

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Zanna was boiling under five layers of hand-sewn fabric, practically melting under the southern California sun. Granted, it was entirely her fault for deciding to make a perfectly accurate costume, rather than the more-breathable pieces most of her coworkers opted for, but it was the principle of the thing, damn it. Even if she was more sweat than woman. Olive, who was dressed as Queen Elizabeth, was similarly miserable, her little hand fan doing hardly anything as they looked down at the jousting ring below.

"Take your thirty after the joust," Zanna whispered, in that elegant, conspiratorial way expected of renaissance noblewomen. "If you don't strip down and jump into the lake, I will."

Olive bit down hard on her tongue, fighting not to break character, and she kicked Zanna as subtly as she could.

Not that anyone was looking at them anyway. But, again, it was the principle of the thing. They were positioned in a box of seats, about fifteen feet above the sandy arena surrounded by benches and pennants. The first two knights and their squires paraded in a circle around the arena, to the cheers and jeers of their guests. It was a normal crowd for a Saturday, with a mix of people in regular clothes and sunscreen, costumed visitors, and two furries. Zanna would have been sure they had dissolved into a puddle of sweat by now, were they not as enthusiastic as the rest of the crowd, if not moreso.

Olive kicked her again as [Name] announced the Blue and Red knights, and out came the biggest, beefiest man Zanna had ever met, and the most beautiful woman she'd ever known. Sir Carter and Lady Ellie had been dating for two years now, but that didn't make Zanna's heart leap any less as she turned her horse to the queen's box and raised her red flag in salute before trotting a ring around the arena, followed by Carter. Zanna wanted so badly to hate him for dating the woman of her dreams, but they were both incredibly -- almost painfully nice -- people, who always made sure there was enough water bottles in the cooler, and Carter offered shoulder massages to anyone who looked like they needed it.

"How are the sword lessons going?" The only reason Olive didn't waggle her eyebrows at Zanna was because she was good at staying at character, but there was enough smarm in her voice that the effect was basically the same.

After making sure her expression didn't move an inch, Zanna leaned over and muttered, "I'll kill you."

"That's treason. I'll send you to the pillory."

"Would you two shut up?" another one of the nobles muttered.

"That's treason," Olive answered.

"Send him to the pillory," Zanna added.

The nobleman groaned.

The joust went on. There were three rounds, and Ellie performed poorly in all of them. In the first, the knights had to hook three hanging rings onto their lances for a certain number of points, and Ellie managed to only get the largest one. In the second, the knights had to pierce a small shield, which she missed entirely. And in the last round where the nights went up against each other in a true joust, Carter unseated her in the first round, earning him enough points that it wasn't worth continuing. She made a show of not minding, waving to the crowd with a smile, but Zanna made a note to check on her as soon as they were done here. She would not be happy with her performance, but everyone had off days.

The crowd applauded, and Olive descended the stairs to the field they called backstage, followed by the rest of the group in the noble's box. Three different trailers held costumes and props, and, most importantly, air conditioning and refrigerated drinks. Musicians and actors dressed as lesser nobility had been enjoying their break, but they clocked back in and prepared for the procession as Olive hopped into her sedan chair. Zanna spared a glance to the stables on the other side of the field, where the knights were tending to their horses.

Ellie sat on a barrel, face in her dirt-covered hands. She'd torn her red hair from her ponytail and it hung over her face. Carter did his best to brush it back, but she shoved him off, and cursed something Zanna couldn't hear from her spot in the procession. They lined up in pairs, and four of their strongest men lifted the queen's sedan, while the caller raised his pennant and the drummer began.

"Make way for the queen!" he shouted. The drummer set their pace, and the procession made a slow trek out from backstage into the main walkway where Faire guests ambled about, spending far too much money on food and convincing themselves they didn't regret buying a turkey leg. Many of the more experienced guests knew to bow as the queen went past, waving and smiling, while the rest either photographed or ignored the procession entirely. Zanna kept her facade for most of the way, keeping a serene smile, but beamed at the sight of two little Black girls dressed as princesses with sparkly plastic tiaras. They couldn't have been more than four, maybe five. Zanna herself was one of only three Black actors in the procession this year, and she wasn't about to pass by without waving. She'd have to go find them after checking on Ellie and give them something special.

They crossed the entirety of the fairgrounds, past the food court and the line of shops, the various stages and performers, the fairy garden, the petting zoo, and the small dirt-paved street that was lined with games, both on-theme and bought secondhand from an amusement park that shut down a few years back. Finally, they arrived at the Queen's Tea Garden, a lavishly decorated outside salon with benches and tea and flower garlands. Park goers payed extra for the honor of being allowed to dine with the queen, enjoying finger sandwiches and iced drinks, and where Zanna shone.

Four times throughout the day, Zanna provided etiquette lessons to the guests, offering a mix of humor and accuracy and giving a shallow overview of Renaissance clothing, manners, theater, and miscellanea. She also had two less historically accurate shows where she tried her best to provide lectures, but the Washing Wenches* would always hop in and ruin her serious, boring lecture with bawdy jokes and songs. At some point they usually wound up sitting on the laps of burly men in the first few rows, while Zanna obliged their demands with a few raunchy tales of history as well.

But first, break. The procession passed the Queen's Tea Garden. Olive was released from her sedan, and Zanna made a beeline over to take her arm, and force her to clock out for her thirty. "Drink water, okay?"

"Okay, mom. Thank you. Love you."

"I love you, too. Be good or I'll put you in timeout." Olive blew her a kiss, hiked up her skirts, and made a mad dash around the back to the stables to check on Ellie. A new layer of sweat painted her face, and a few of her microbraids had fallen out of her updo. Still, she managed to make it there alive, and slowed to a walk as she finally neared the stables.

As sexy as Ellie looked riding around on Squidney, or in her tank top and jeans brushing the horse down, Zanna had no interest in getting near an animal that big and that easy to scare. She stood ten feet away and put on a terrible western accent to say, "Howdy."

Ellie looked up with a tired grin. "Hey. You look wet."

"Oh. I..." Don't think about it like that, Zanna forced herself to say, gesticulating uselessly to her face. She's straight, don't you dare. "I ran over here, and it's April, so..."

"Gross. Get some water."

"I will. I just wanted to check on you first."

"Check on me? Why?" She huffed a breath out, blowing loose horse fur out from her nose.

"You're having a seriously off day. You doing okay?"

"Eh."

"Eh?"

"Eh."

"You want to elaborate, or...?" She gestured uselessly again.

"No, I just... I dunno. I didn't sleep last night. Neighbors kept setting off fireworks."

There was more to it than that. There had to be more to it than that, but Zanna didn't want to push too hard when Ellie was still in a bad mood. They'd been friends ever since Ellie joined, fresh from her stunt woman job and ready for literally anything else that didn't require her dealing with actors or wigs for the rest of her life. This was close enough. So instead, Zanna got as close as she dared to Squidney and tried to reach out and pet her nose. She was a beautiful brown horse with a white stripe down her face. She also was probably eight hundred pounds and could bite Zanna's fingers off.

"Stop it," Ellie said without looking up.

"What?"

"Stop it. You hate horses. Stop trying to be nice to her. She doesn't care."

"Sure she does. We're best friends. Squidney loves me."

"She has the object permanence of a toddler, and she only cares about you if you have food. You don't have to be friends."

"But we love each other. It's a forbidden romance. But we can never be together because our parents are kings of warring countries and they'd never approve."

Squidney sorted. So did Ellie. "God, you're so weird." She finally stepped away from the mare's side to stick out a foot. It was too hot and Ellie was covered in too much dirt for a proper hug, but Zanna returned the gesture, tapping their sneakers together. "What the hell are those?"

"My shoes." Zanna pouted.

"Ew. Why?"

"Let me live." The shoes were necessary, much to her eternal chagrin. She had flat feet and her knees never stopped hurting after that last growth spurt in high school, and the special inserts she'd gotten only fit in specific shoes meant for old people.

"Literally never."

"Have you had any water yet, or have you just been brushing your baby and brooding?"

Ellie shrugged.

"I'll get you some from the break room. Snacks?"

"Apple please."

"I mean snacks for you,"

Ellie scoffed, indignant. "It is for me! I want an apple!"

Zanna made a face, and waved her away, turning towards the break room trailer. "Okay, but if you give Squid even one bite before you're done eating it--"

"I only did that once! And I was done eating it!"

Zanna waved without looking back, which she thought looked extremely cool.

She found Carter in the break room, downing a sandwich like he'd never eaten before, and he looked up with a grin. He'd swapped out his chainmail and tunic for nothing at all, and sat in his shorts directly in front of the fan. Ever the ray of sunshine, Carter tried to open his mouth and say something nice, but managed nothing more than a houmf, and flushed.

"Indeed, Sir Carter. The day is as lovely as your biceps." She rooted around the fridge while he finished his bite.

When he could talk again, he said, "Sorry. I wasn't expecting you. You see Ellie? She's having a seriously off day."

"Yeah. Apparently the neighbors were setting off firecrackers or something?"

"Honestly. You know it's illegal here, right?"

Zanna scoffed, and stood up, examining her treasures. Two apples, and four bottles of water, one of which she tossed to Carter.

He caught it effortlessly, and made a face. "It's like you want everybody to pee so much."

"I fainted from dehydration once. I'm not letting anyone else get heatstroke on my watch."

He blew a raspberry. Zanna returned the favor, and stopped before leaving the trailer. "We still on for sword fighting lessons after work?"

"Always."

"Awesome. See you then."

She skipped back to the stables once more, and hoped she'd burnt enough calories with all that running to justify not going to the gym ever again. She handed one apple to Ellie, and then stared Squidney down with a set jaw.

Ellie, perched once more on a barrel, downed half the bottle of water and sighed. "Literally stop. You literally suck."

"We're best friends."

"Hold your hand flat or she'll eat your fingers."

Zanna did so, holding out the apple in the middle of her palm, standing as still as she possibly could. Squidney sniffed at it, flicked her tail, and picked up the whole apple at once. Her lips were gross and weird and slightly fuzzy against Zanna's skin, and she fought the urge to rub it against her skirt to get the feeling off. Squidney managed to get one bite in before the apple fell to the grass and rolled just far enough away that she couldn't reach it. She nickered in complaint, and Zanna stepped back, unwilling to deal with that again.

Ellie tilted her head, one brow raised. "You are the pinnacle of animal handling."

"I think I'm going to die."

"She barely touched you."

"Goodbye. This is my death."

"Stop."

Zanna did stop, but only because her phone buzzed in her pocket -- the only other historical inaccuracy she allowed herself. The shift manager wanted to know where she was, probably because there was some tiny issue he didn't want to deal with himself, and Zanna was willing to do almost anything if they asked her nicely enough.

"Your lord summons you, Lady Suzanna."

"Until tonight, Lady Ellie."

She frowned before remembering: "Oh shit, sword lessons are tonight? Text me what kind of burrito you want, I'll get you something."

"I would die for you."

"I'd kill you." Ellie grinned, and they tapped shoes once more before Zanna made her way back to the other side of the park, where Olive had dropped her wig in the dirt. Zanna, being Zanna, had a full costume maintenance kit, and set to brushing it without disturbing the elaborate heart-shaped updo or the countless pearls and jewels sewn in to complement the removable crown. As thanks, Olive slipped into plainclothes to sneak out and get her a smoothie from one of the food kiosks.

Zanna put up a small fight about it, but not too hard, because, smoothie. But it was what she did. Nobody worked at a living museum/theme park because it paid well -- it didn't -- or because they liked standing around in hot clothes in ninety degree weather. They were all here because they loved what they did, and Zanna wouldn't let any of that be compromised because of a bit of mud or a stain on a skirt or one of the countless spilled beers from a careless guest.

By the time her break ended, the Queen Elizabeth wig was looking brand new, and Zanna had downed half an acai-blueberry smoothie. She'd take care of the rest of it and eat her lunch later. For now, though, she fixed her hair, and put on a smile to face the public.

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