The Threadbinders Ch. 05

"You made that decision for us, did you, husband?" Yasha teased.

"No, but I let the princess make it for herself," he countered. "I insisted we would not bring her along unless it was the sort of thing she would agree to, and while she did parrot some of the same things as her mother about honor and duty and whatnot, she also had a rather interested tone to her speech, and said she would do her best to be the best assistant, should her mother's champion lose."

"So now all that's left is the fighting," Sophia said, folding her legs back one at a time to bring her foot to rest on her ass. She was limber, far more limber than Arkady had expected when they first met, and he had seen her practicing with her knives enough that he knew this would be over in second if she wanted it.

The pixie champion had magically scaled himself up to be about Sophia's size, and he looked like the kid who was always itching for a fight. He couldn't sit still, fidgeting, hopping between one foot and the other, his skin an ashy gray, his eyes red like rubies, his hair short and green with a swath of it hanging over his right eye, as if he thought it made him look cool. He wore a green tunic and black breeches, his feet uncovered, a dagger in each hand, one held pointing up, one held pointing down. He had a couple of visible scars across his arms, and he grinned maliciously at Sophia. "You're gonna be bleeding before you know it, human," he taunted.

"Mmm," she replied, unphased. "Where do you want your next scar?" She was continually stretching, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"That's not up to you."

"Say that it is. Let's say you could decide where you want your next scar to be."

"Fine, since you're so confident, let's see you leave a matching one to this across my cheek," he said, gesturing a thumb at his face.

She shrugged with a casual smile. "Your call. Let's go."

While the pixies might not have been able to tell, to Arkady and Yasha's eyes, it was clear she was toying with them, her dance steps keeping her always a few moves ahead of whatever the pixie had planned, a wondrous and mystical grace to how the human seemed to anticipate the soldier's strikes. True to her word, she made the entire fight last a few minutes, although mostly it seemed like she wasn't taking any strikes, merely dodging and weaving into the spaces he was leaving for her, before finally a choice opportunity presented itself and her left arm thrust out, dragging the tip of her blade across the pixie's cheek, in fact giving him a matching scar to parallel the one he already had. The cut was deep enough to cut through the skin, but not so deep that it would split the cheek entirely open.

Arkady almost wondered if Sophia had gone at him too well, but the pixies seemed to have a grand old time watching the chaos, and when their champion had his blood drawn, they all erupted into a mass of cheers, as the champion scowled, looking down at the ground.

He was about to charge Sophia, his daggers drawn, when Yasha's fingers snapped to, and a series of blue mystical ropes appeared to hold the pixie champion back, preventing him from swiping at Sophia's back, as the queen shouted at him. "Champion! Drop your weapons now, or I shall let the mages have at you with their worst."

The champion released his blades and let them clamor down onto the dirt below, sighing as the fight died down in him. "I yield," he grumbled. "Although it might have been better if you had just killed me, human, for I shall never live down this shame."

"You were outclassed, warrior," Yasha said to him as she brought the ropes down, letting the pixie loose once more. "There is no shame in losing to a greater opponent."

"Time shall tell, m'lady," the champion said picking up his daggers, walking away from the room.

"The princess shall gather her things and meet you at the human village at dawn, mages," the queen said to them. "If the humans will obey the terms of the compact once more, so shall we. Just... tell them to keep their children on leashes if need be. They're troublemakers."

"And this is coming from a pixie," he teased.

She laughed heartily, waving a hand at him. "Begone, mages, before I change my mind."

The trio made their way away from the pixie village, heading back towards the town, although Sophia still seemed a little worried about having another person joining their little traveling party. "I just don't know what I'm going to do with a servant."

"Then don't think of her as such. Think of her as a friend, or a student," Yasha said. "And you will be better off for it."

"I'll try," Sophia said with a heavy sigh.

"That's all anyone can ask," Arkady consoled.

After explaining the terms to the villagers (who, while a little irked at first, eventually came around and agreed to do better keeping an eye on their cattle and their children), they mounted up on Quiesh and moved to wait outside of the village gates. The pixies and the villagers were still on uneasy terms and bringing one to the other, even for a brief moment, might have strained that more than they would have liked.

In the evening, a single ball of golden light began to float towards them, a peppy little song whistling through the air as it did. Yasha was atop Quiesh and in their quarters, already fast asleep, as she would be navigating the griffon throughout the night, making up for lost time in their day spent solving this particular mess. Sophia and Arkady had been sitting and discussing Arkady's time in training as the ball drifted their direction.

Within the center of it was a single female figure, resembling a miniature human woman in her mid twenties, busty but not uncomfortably so, dressed in a billowy peasant's blouse with bindings around the wrist, neck and waist to keep it from flying loose and leather pants, as well as rather fashionable leather boots which went up past the pixie's knees. Her skin was a slate gray, with hair a shade of lustrous silver that shimmered from the firelight. Her wings glittered like rainbows, thin and diaphanous, but flitting powerfully enough to keep her aloft. Dangling from one hand was a single suitcase, all the clothes she had brought with her. She was definitely gorgeous, although there was also a sort of deviousness to her smile, as if she might even be especially mischievous for a pixie. "Are you Lady Sophia Burngrave?" the pixie asked. "I am Princess Moonweave Doubledawn, reporting to join you in your travels." She offered a deep bow, a rakish grin upon her lips.

"I am Sophia, although if you call me m'lady, I may vomit," Sophia laughed. "This is one of my two partners, Lord Arkady Gormansson, Threadbinder of the eighth rank. His wife, my other partner, Lady Yasha Summervale, Threatbinder of the twelfth rank. If you are in my service, you are in theirs as well. But we should be on our way, unless you have other things to attend to?"

"Nay, m'l- Nay, Sophia," Moonweave said, catching herself. "Let us be off!" She zipped past them and onto the cabin on top of Quiesh's back.

"One of us may come to regret this, lover," Sophia laughed at him.

"Just one of us?" Arkady laughed back. "I'll consider that a win..."