Chapter Sixty-Two

Busy day today! Playing IRL Warhammer with someone I discovered lives only 15 mins away! If I go missing, I'm locked up in their basement, forced to paint minis!

I'll see if I have time for more chapters later! I kinda didn't have time for Save yesterday... oops?

Oh, I'll be making a biiiiig kerfuffle about Black Apron going live on RR on Sunday! So... yes, expect that~

Anyway, have some Cricket:

***

Cricket was giving her dearest maidly maid the most stare-like of all stares that was ever stared. 

Rosario, being a most composed sort of lady, barely fidgetted, but she did shift her weight ever so slightly from one foot to another. “Are thou serious?” Cricket asked.

“I am,” Rosario replied. There was no excuse in her voice, simply a proud admission. 

Of course, Cricket planned on needling her about this whole thing at length. This was a good place for it. Rosario had invaded Cricket’s room (now, if only she invaded more than just the room) and Cricket was happy to receive her.

In fact, Cricket was happy to stay in this hotel for the rest of her life. This wasn’t an inn. It was a luxurious palace for the travelling rich. There was a member of staff for each room. Cricket could lounge on the exceptionally fluffy chair in her living space (it was called a chaise, a word which she added to her vocabulary and onto her wishlist) and order food brought to her. 

Now, if only she could order pretty women... wait, could she? The rich did that sort of thing, did they not? Cricket considered it, then disposed of the idea. She rather enjoyed the chasing after pretty ladies more than the idea of having them delivered as though they were pastries. 

“Cricket?” Rosario asked snapping her out of her dreamy thoughts. It was all the chaise’ fault. And the bathrobe she was wearing with nothing beneath... a fact which she intended to tease Rosario with. 

“Hmm, I was merely considering how thou art a most strange lady,” Cricket said.

Rosario sighed. “Meeting her was a fluke. I just went to her shop to satisfy my curiosity.”

“And now we have another lost animal in our troupe?” Cricket asked.

“It’s not a troupe.”

“I’ll have thee know that between us, I am the expert in clownery, and I shall use my expertise to call it what I see it as,” Cricket said. She was particularly proud of herself for that one. Good verbal sparring was soothing for the soul and sharpened the wit.

Rosario shook her head, but conceded the point, or didn’t want to fight it, which was the same. “I was going to leave her to her own devices. She found her own problems. But then Lucky...”

“Lucky?” Cricket asked. “What did our favourite horse do?”

The elf looked away. “She... urgh. She gave me this look.”

“A look?” Cricket asked. “And it affected you? I’ve been trying to give you looks for well over a week now, to no avail!” Cricket shifted on her chaise a little, letting a bit more skin slip from beneath the robe. “I’ve even been giving you things to look at!” She pouted.

Rosario treated her advanced the way a mountain might treat a wayward raincloud. It had no effect... but eventually enough rain might wear away at the surface. 

Cricket tried to work in something about wetness into the analogy she was cooking up in her head, but she was interrupted by Rosario continuing.

“No, not like that. Thank god. She just... expected that a [Swordmaster] would stand up for the little person. Act heroically.”

“Oh my,” Cricket said. “I wonder how she’ll feel once she inevitably discovers that you’re literally in the textbooks next to ‘evil?’”

“I’m not literally in the textbooks next to evil,” Rosario said. Cricket gave her a look and somehow that one went through. Was that a little red on her elf’s pretty cheeks? “Anyway. I decided to help Hailey with her problem, and now we may or may not have a new travelling companion.”

“Is she useful?” Cricket asked.

“Useful? Is that so important a metric?”

“Well, I haven’t seen if she’s pretty enough that her looks alone will carry her through,” Cricket said. “So I’ll have to judge her on her usefulness. You said she was an [Engineer]?” 

“Yes. She’s more of an inventor, honestly, though I don’t think she has the job. She feels weak, but no weaker than most. I’d say average civilian levels of... levels. Ah, her inventions were interesting, however. And as far as crafting abilities go, she might be able to fill a niche that I can’t myself. I have several items that I’d like to have. She might need help crafting on the road, but that’s fine.”

“Hmm,” Cricket said. “Is this something that your mistress will approve of?”

“I’ve yet to meet her,” Rosario said. “You know as much. But... maybe? I think you’d have to be a fool to refuse the help of a talented inventor and engineer. That does imply that she grows stronger on the way.”

It actually implied no such thing, Cricket noted. But Rosario was special in the head. She spent too much time thinking about how to be stronger. 

“We’re meeting her at the train station tomorrow afternoon.”

“Not first thing in the morning?” Cricket asked, surprised.

“The train to Wearville only leaves around noon,” Rosario said. “We could take an earlier one to Hazelfort and then change trains, but I’d rather take a direct route. There’s no train from Wearville to Duskton. Apparently that line has been under construction for over a decade and it will be a couple more before it’s done.”

Cricket shrugged. She couldn’t care less about Aerie’s infrastructure. “Noon works for me. I get to sleep in!”

Rosario shook her head. “Figures.”

“You know, for as nice as this room is, it’s a little chilly.”

“YOu’re also wearing nothing but a bathrobe,” Rosario said.

Cricket grinned. She’d noticed! “Yes, terrible. If only I had a tall warm maid to keep me warm?”

Rosario rolled her eyes, but Cricket was almost certain she felt just a little pinch of reluctance there. Ah, maybe it was less a lonely raincloud fighting a mountain and more of a storm fighting a particularly tall sand dune? There was a chance! 

“We could start by holding hands?” Cricket suggested. She showed off her pretty fingers by wiggling them about.

Cricket knew that elves were a little weird about such things. It amused her greatly to tease, of course! 

“You’re never going to stop flirting, will you?” Rosario asked.

“If you’ll allow it, I will write letters to be delivered from beyond the grave,” Cricket said.

“Terrifying,” Rosario said. “And... scary.”

“Scary?”

“Because one day I might find myself weak enough to give in,” Rosario muttered.

Cricket felt her smile fade. “No. That’s not what I want. I want you because you’re pretty, and smart, and oddly kind, but also because you’re strong. Let it never be said the Cricket the Magnificient does not aim for the heavens themselves! It will never be because you gave in, but because my incredible persistence won through!”

Rosario laughed. “Cricket, you’re... ah, you’re very you. I’ve got to go. I promised Lucky that I’d show her some new moves. She has a black eye and broke her nose, and one hand.”

“What?” Cricket asked as she jumped up. Her bathrobe opened, and she was pleased--even if her focus was elsewhere--to see Rosario’s eyes dip.

“In the fight, with the loan shark and his cronies. She’s fine, I gave her a potion, but it does prove that there’s room to grow.”

“Potions have side effects,” Cricket warned. “You can’t have her use them all the time. It’ll hurt her in the long run.”

Rosario blinked. “They do?”

Cricket stared back. This was like telling someone that water was wet and then learning that they didn’t know. “Yes! You should talk to an apothecary. The Adventurer’s Guild warns against it.”

“Huh... I will look into it,” Rosario said. “I’m trying to make Lucky stronger, not have her harm herself. Strange. I must have used ten thousand potions over the years and I never thought about it.”

Cricket rubbed her face. This woman. Urgh! If she wasn’t so interesting, and powerful, and pretty, and had such nice legs! And even a personality of some form or another! 

“Give Lucky a break. If she wants to train, then have her do... meditation or something. Sword Sages do that, right?”

“I suppose,” Rosario said. 

“Lucky is a good girl. But she’s an idiot. She’ll hurt herself if you let her, and especially if you push her. So don’t,” Cricket said. “Now... let the nice staff know that I want a platter full of grapes. And I want them peeled. But I want the peels too, because throwing them away would be wasteful!”

Rosario rolled her pretty eyes. “I’ll tell them to send you a fruit. If you get what you deserve it’ll be delivered at terminal velocity.”

Cricket laughed until Rosario was gone, then she allowed herself to lounge back in her plush seat. No pretty elf ladies tonight. Goodness, life was so unfair.

And yet... maybe she was getting somewhere. That was nice!

***