Another drabble
Isiere is not the smartest when it comes to affairs of the heart.
...
“You know,” the lesser knight said. What was his name? Nathern. Nat, they called him. I didn’t look up from my work in cleaning the armor but I knew who it was. “They have people here who do that work for you.”
I smiled to myself. “Yes, well. I like to do it myself.”
“You don’t think they do a good enough job?” He was putting his own armor away. He stilled before he set his helmet on the shelf amongst the others, however. Instead, he pulled one leg over the bench and sat, and set the helmet it between his legs so that he could rest his elbows on it.
“I did not say that.”
I could feel him studying me. He did that quite frequently. Stared. Looked. Waited until I looked at him. I was not unaware of it. After all, Kaen had done much of the same when I first met him. “I don’t understand you.”
“What is there to understand?”
“Most of the time when you holy knights come down to drills, its because your holiest knight has sent you there for punishment. Now, I know your captain can be...strict.”
“Disciplined is the word I would use.”
“But I know he didn’t sentence you to drill with us ‘lesser knights’ for three months straight.”
I raised my eyes, now. He didn’t look away. His eyes were grey, like a stormcloud. Keen and narrow, set under bold black brows with thick black hair cut in a short curtain to frame them. Shapely yet slim lips quirked in encouragement. “I enjoy the drills.”
“Nobody enjoys drills,” he grunted. He reached over for a rag and began working on his own helmet. “Just like how nobody enjoys cleaning.”
“You do not have to stay, if you don’t want. From what I understand, there are people here who can do this work for you.”
“I am not staying because I enjoy cleaning.”
I almost hesitated in my work. Almost.
“And why are you staying, Isiere of...wherever you come from?”
“Its not important.”
“Hmm,” he finally focused on his helmet and what he was doing. I’m not sure if he ever cleaned a helmet in his life. He was not doing it right. “Avoiding someone?”
“Where I came from. It is not important.”
“Alright. So why this, when you could be off...praying or whatever it is you do when you aren’t running drills?”
“It reminds me of home.”
“I thought you said where you came from isn’t important?”
“It’s not, but...” I paused. My eyes drifted to the side as I remembered. “I trained with the knights stationed at the temple. Or I tried to, anyway.” I shrugged and returned to my task. “They didn’t have people to clean up after them, or cater to them. Everything in their lives, they did themselves. And they told me that the knights here did not live the same. They told me that...to take care of what you have is an act of thanks. You are grateful for the blessings you have. And when the gods see that you care for what they have given you, they know you can handle more, and will not think twice to gift you once again.”
He had a single brow raised when I looked to him again. Those grey eyes looked me over before he shook his head and pretended to work on his helmet.
“What?”
“Isiere of nowhere important, blesses the gods in thanks of his blessings,” he chuckled. “And I am sure the drills are blessings as well.”
“They are.”
“Working for hours with sweating, stinking men and women, in the cold, early hours of the morning, when you could be in bed, warm and cozy...is a blessing.”
“You do not see it the same way?”
He shrugged his large shoulders. “I don’t see anything the way you do, I think. You are a vessel. I am just a man.”
“That is all any of us are, Nathern.”
“So you know who I am.”
“Of course.”
“How?”
“Same as how you know me?”
“In that I notice every time you are on the green, and every time you are not? In that I notice your ridiculous length of hair, or the shine of your armor on any given day, or how you take your seat upon a saddle?” His hand pulled at the rag upon the helmet. It made a singing noise. “Or perhaps like every moment that I know you look upon me, as if you think I would not notice?”
I blinked. I now knew why he was here. And I should have known. Nathern was a quiet domination during drills and practice. A tall man, taller than even I was, and made of thick muscle and a quick mind. He was quick to go through targets, quick to strategize an exercise, and quick to succeed. Effortless, punishing, and without a care for his opponent’s designs.
Everything was as he wanted.
Why was I so surprised?
I set the armor on its shelf and stood. I could hear him curse under his breath when I moved past him to the door.
“Perhaps I am mistaken. I did not mean to offend.”
My hand was on the doorknob. I let my fingers slip down to the lock, and turned the latch to lock the door. When I turned about, he was watching me from over his shoulder. His head gave a nod, and he abandoned the bench, and his helmet to cross the space between us with that steady but heavy footfall of his. This man could never be stealthy.
Nathern pressed a hand on the door above me, and then drew me in with the other. I opened my mouth for his kiss, and he took me in with his tongue on mine. I felt his breath on my cheek. His hair against my skin. A rough stubble under my fingers.
“You are not expected anywhere, anytime soon?”
“No.”
“Good.”
