Defeated by love. Gisele’s love to meat. Oh, I will tease her about it for the whole journey! Maybe I would take on the duty of picking food for the journey, and I would take ONLY sweets? That would be a perfect punishment for her.

- “E..Excuse me…” Lil Scarlet asked. “… would that be a problem if I would go with you? I have never seen kingdom of dwarves.. not mountains…”

- “I am completely fine with that!” The prince under the Red Mountain responded.

- “But I am not fine at all…” I allowed myself to disturb him. “El, a couple days ago you were dying. I have only removed the root of your disease, but your poor body is literally devastated. Tell me, was it hard for you to get from the guild to king’s carriage?”

- “I.. it wasn’t!” She almost shouted.

- “What did I tell you about lying to me?” I wasn’t angry. Poor little thing just want to travel… or maybe was that because of my company?

- “I… I am sorry.” She lowered her head with sad expression. “I just… I just wanted to… You promised me that with you I would see the world!” Neither she was angry.

- “Did I ever lie to you? Sweetie, mountains and seas, jungles and deserts, in heat and cold – to travel you need strength and stamina. Right now you have problems to walk up the stairs, how do you imagine walking over rocky mountains? It is exhausting even for us… Well, I could carry you if that’s what you want…” I knew what she would answer, and partly I felt bad for using that against her.

- “N..No! It would be pointless if I wouldn’t be the one doing it!... Y…you said that as long as I have motivation I could achieve anything… it was truth, right?”

- “Of course, sweetie, this is why I asked Jericho to take care of you…”

- “ARE YOU NUTS!?” Dragoness yelled with her mouth full of food. “… WALKING OVER THE MOUNTAINS IS LESS EXHAUSTING THAN LESSONS WITH PAPA!”

- “It won’t be training! He will just help her get back to shape! Basic stretching, some cardio, definitely not power ranking up through hierarchy of guild!”

- “Actually… why do you think he would agree on TRAINING somebody else? Someone he didn’t chose by himself?”

Even the king raised his brow. Oh, dozens and dozens were send by nobles and merchant to train under his guidance, yet the living legend Jericho always refused. No matter if he was promised to become a noble himself or getting part of his (also) legendary debt covered, adventurer never changed his mind.

- “It was just a matter of using right arguments.” I said with mysterious smile.

The truth is that:

1) as I said – it wasn’t a real training

2) she was “recommended” by me

3) I am helping him earn money by meditating

4) he still owes me for ALMOST MURDERING ME

5) that old fart has nothing better to do as 99% of his responsibilities are being done by Alesia

- “Kay, it was all nice and dandy here, but I gotta go.” Florian started raising from the table.

We started raising too, yet for one more time dwarf was stopped by the king.

- “Ah, I would be grateful if you would be so kind to deliver this letter to your father…” He pushed the envelope toward him over the table. The prince looked at it with suspiciousness.

- “What is it?”

- “Oh, just a words of friendship and such…”

- “So you mean that it is NOT ally treaty that you want to put in my hands so I would deliver it? It would look really nice from his perspective to have his son recommend a whole kingdom as potential ally, isn’t it?”

- “Of course it’s no!” King made over exaggerated gesture. “That would be at least impolite of me! I want to assure you that those are only my wishes of good health!”

- “Then the letter is not needed. I will just say that some random king from a random country is wishing him a good health. The old man will surely appreciate it!”

- “Bastard.” Arthur whispered.

Ha! Serves you right! You tricky trickster! That is what you get for tricking me! Only I can trick people! You better remember that!

We left the castle and moved toward city.

- “You ok, Elana?” I asked.

- “Sure!” She said still panting.

… Sure? She said [sure]? No: [I am all right, thank you Mister]?

- “Really?”

- “T… told you! I will be able to carry a mountains in day or two! Hahaha…” That awkward laugh.

- “Shame. If you needed to rest we could stop by some cafeteria to have a cake...” I looked at Gisele. “… kind of cafeteria that serves cakes AND cooked fried warthog… But if you aren’t tired we can just head back and…”

- “A..after reconsidering it a little… I.. I could use some res…” Her expression said that she just forgot doing something she wanted to. “… I mean, it would be cool to go there, right?”

The word [cool] that left her mouth sounded so unnaturally, yet cute in same time that I almost melted.

- “S..something wrong?” She looked bit concerned.

- “You are trying to be less formal bit too much.”

- “B..But King Arthur said that…”

- “I hate formality when it comes to talking with nobles on noble ground…”

- “I am noble too…”

- “In my eyes you are something more. Much more…” I shouldn’t have said that. Not in those words. The girl’s eyes sparkled like little stars. “… I mean, you were raised in noble house and had barely any interaction with kids your age…” She puffed her cheeks when I called her [kid]. “… so I have no problems with your formality. Even more, I got used to it and consider it cute!” Aaaand another word I shouldn’t have used. Thanks the goddesses, Gisele came with rescue.

- “Yeah! Zari is right! You are so sweet that I almost want to eat you whole!” She picked her off the ground and raised in the air. Elana chuckled slightly.

- “I thought you didn’t like sweets.” I noticed narrowing my eyes.

- “For lil El I will make an exception!”

We kept teasing each other for rest of the way to cafeteria, then we tease ourselves in there and on our way back to the guild. I just excused myself on Plaza of Faith, were I quickly visited Aira’s shrine.

- “M..Mister Zariel do you even need to pray? I mean… you can talk with goddesses directly so…”

- “Oh, I am not just praying! I am just paying to the priestesses to keep Luxia and Heira away from me, and taking care of mother’s shrine. It is bit cruel to see how people casted her away. They prefer worshiping day and night, hoping for powerful blessings, while mother is blessing the world all the time. Forests are full of preys, rains are watering the fields and sun lets the plants grow. She was blessing us for so long, that we took it for granted and forgot about it. I hope that she would never run out of her patience.”

I said while I kept decorating little altar.

- “… Mister Zarile is so mature…” Gisele burst in laugh.

- “You don’t agree, Gis? Am I not mature?”

- “Oh, you are! And brave, wise, clever and… I forgot about something?”

- “Handsome?”

- “Oh, yes! So very handsome! Tell me, isn’t your name Narcissus?”

- “What, you got problem with me knowing my own value?”

- “You could be shy, I would then keep spoiling you day and night, pet you, snuggle to you and feed you to boost your morals.”

- “… Yet… lately… I don’t feel as handsome as before? Senses turned bit dull, I think?”

- “Nice try. Not today, Narcissus, not today.”

Damn it.

We returned to the Guild. Pyrox and twins returned from some easy mission with Marika, carrying some baskets with herbs.

- “DAMN YOU PYROX! It was supposed to be BRING the herbs, not BURN the herbs!”

- “…Sorry.”

- “What did you do?”

- “Burn the herbs.”

- “And what do we say about burning herbs?”

- “It’s not… hot. Not hot at all. Pyrox behaved like a burnout. Like a stupid ember.”

- “What will Pyrox do next time seeing pretty flower?”

- “Bring, not burn.”

- “GOOD!”

My my! Pyrox found another person to listen too.

- “Hey, Py, got a second?” I called pyromancer. “How do you like your new home?”

- “Great! Many smokin’ people! Many things to burn!... but there are also things that Pyrox is not supposed to burn… Pyrox confuses what to burn and what not to burn all the time…”

I patted him on shoulder.

- “Ah, think nothing about it! Happens to best of us! You will get better in no time, just belive it buddy. Also, what do you think about Marika?”

- “… At first she was boring, no calm, do nothing, talk nothing. Just listen to flowers and pick them… but then Pyrox accidentally burned a flower, and Marika turned mad… it was so… it was so…”

- “Hot?”

- “More!”

- “Infernal?”

- “YES!”

- “Good for you pal. Just don’t keep turning her mad all the time, will you?”

- “Pyrox will try!”

Everything is going much better than I previously thought. I thought that there would be many spontaneous explosions, Darik and Daria would try making dolls out of every citizen that would walk past them and Jason would be lying most of the time dead-drunk under the table. Right now only the last one was meeting my expectations, but even that without crossing the line of good taste.

- “Have you seen Jericho?” I kicked photomancer that was having problems with staying conscious.

- “That old fart… has a stronger head… than I could ever wish to have… underestimated him… He went… to the… office…”

- “Thanks pal. Don’t die here.”

- “Ha!... I won’t… too many… bottles of whiskey… are yet waiting for me!”

That’s the spirit! The three of us went up the stairs to meet Jericho. I knocked in the door.

- “Jeremy! I am respecting your privacy by knocking, but asserting my authority as man that pays you by coming in anyway!” I kicked the door open “… So, I hope I didn’t disturb you in anything important. No? Lovely.”

- “… say what you want and do it faaaa…” After me Gis entered the room. “… ah, sunshine! What could the two of you possibly want?” Elana came in last.

- “We have three things to tell. One – to remind you that you should start bringing Elana back to shape, as you promised, Two – that me and Gis will go with a visit to dwarven king in Red Mountains, fret not, we have an invitation.”

- “And 3rd thing?”

- “Oh, there is none. I said it to keep you focused on everything but thing number two.”

- “I refuse, of course.” He said completely without any excitement.

- “What da ya mean by [I refuse]? I mean, as we are freelancers, you can’t say I agree or not when it comes to things not concerning missions.”

- “I refuse as a father! There is no way I would let my… little.. fragile… daughter… into such dangerous places!”

Your what and who? Come on, Jeremy, we all know the true reason behind your refusal.

- “So, it’s not because two of your best adventurers would take vacation and this wouldn’t earn you any coin for few weeks?”

- “… Don’t be ridiculous…”

I started playing with gold coin in my fingers. His eyes were following every movement that it made.

- “Oh, snap!” I said with theatrical voice and letting the coin to fall right under Jericho. His foot quickly covered the coin “Oh, Jeremy, I am pretty sure I lose coin somewhere around here…”

- “R…really?”

- “Yeah. I am pretty sure it must me here… mind moving your foot?”

- “I am an old man… I can’t move as much as I used to…”

- “Unfortunately, you don’t want to let us go. If we would have to start preparing for tomorrow, we would needed to move to our rooms to prepare equipments and such. But, as we are NOT ALLOWED TO, then I can as well just keep looking…”

- “On the other hand… Some fresh, mountain air would make you feel better…”

- “So, can we go?”

- “Sure, you are young, go see the world before you would turn as old as myself!”

- “I see, very well. In that case I think I would never find this coin again.”

His foot moved back, then he bowed down and picked a gold piece.

- “Look! It must be my lucky day! I found a gold coin!”

- Good to be you, Jericho, I envy your fortune.”

Gis and me left the room, Elana stayed as she was suppose to get her training in a minute or two.

- “Sometimes, you scare me.” The dragoness said. “I was pretty sure he would chain me to the guild again.”

- “Gis, my love, life is a battle, a war. Every person you meet is your enemy. You need to know their strong and weak spots to know what to avoid or where to attack. Jericho has only two weak points. Money and you.”

- “Hm? You see everyone as enemy?”

- “A-ha. Friends are nothing more than desirable enemies.”

- “Me too?”

- “Yes. Love is also a war, and you, Gis, are my favorite enemy.”

- “Then what are my weak points? Hm!?”

- “The scale under your left shoulder blade.”

- “…That’s dirty. You are playing dirty, Zari.”

- “In war and love any means necessary… Gis, we can pack ourselves later, before going to bed.”

- “And what would you do till then?”

- “I would kept looking for more of your weak points.” I said teasingly as I approached her and pull her to myself capturing her in my embrace.

She partly closed her eyes with blissful expression as I put my hand under her shirt and dig my fingers under the already mentioned scale.

- “Amusing. These scales were supposed to keep you safe, to defend you, yet this very one is making you completely defenseless.”

- “It is just… because… you are… teasing it.” She gasped.

Then, out of nowhere, a dagger was send in our direction. We needed to jump away letting it to fly past us hitting the wall. We looked in direction of where it came from.

It was furious Loki, right now standing near the stairs.

- “Stop showing your affection in public places!” He yelled with sad voice. “Go be happy somewhere else!” He moved down to the inn.

- “The hell is wrong with him?” I asked tilting my head.

- “His girl broke up with him.”

- “Hm? His dagger wasn’t sharp enough?”

- “You are simply cruel and mean! No, he was meeting with daughter of lesser merchant. He didn’t like the fact that his daughter was going out with adventurer. You know, a job filled with risk and well, our guild don’t have a good name when it comes to… stability of relationships.”

What else could you expect from people moving from town to town earning coin by jumping into greatest dirt fighting with monster people are afraid to face?

- “Still, we love with greatest passion, right? Riiight?” I asked purring in her ear.

She inhaled and exhaled loudly.

- “You asked for it.” She said with serious expression.

- “My room or yours?”

- “Yours. It is closer.”

As she said it she pushed me on the wall kissing my neck. Damn. Did I mention how much I missed her?