Chapter 13: Extra: Knight-Commander Giogi

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Giogi - Right after Stahlia kicked his ass in 1-12.

I picked myself up off the ground after I was sure she had left. Looking around to be doubly sure she had gone, I winced as I bent to pick up my knife. I almost died, I’m sure of it. Stahlia had beaten me thoroughly. I didn’t know what came over me, but I had completely lost my nerve and drawn a blade on her. Rather than turning white and fleeing, Stahlia had instead run straight towards me, easily caught the knife, and nearly broken my arm taking it away from me. At that moment I felt a wave of malice; I was certain her next move would be to stab me.

It would have been justified too. My mother always told me I was a fool whenever I brought up Stahlia at home. I wasn’t sure when it first started, but for as long as I could remember, something was different about her. The way she walked and talked was just so… special, unique. I had been jealous, I think. Jealous of a girl technically three months younger than me. I made it a point to poke at her, to try and break the façade I was sure she was putting up.

That all culminated in today, I had finally made her snap. As it turns out, she was certainly putting up a façade. The real Stahlia was a monster in the body of a little girl. Despite not having a purpose she had outmaneuvered me, a born knife-fighter, armed as I was with my weapon of choice. What’s more, it didn’t even feel like she was trying all that hard.

Who exactly are you? How did you learn to fight like that? I had thought she was just an uppity noble girl wannabe, going about with delusions of her Father’s former title. I didn’t realize that my ill feelings stemmed from jealousy until I pushed her past her breaking point with my taunting.

But that had only answered one question and given me so many more. To put it bluntly, I was confused. Confused and fascinated. Stahlia was a completely mysterious existence, I found myself wanting to know about her, to learn what caused her to adopt such a false persona. Dusting myself off, I resolved myself. “Sark, Diil, are you guys ok?” Sark groaned and sat up.

“Is she gone..?” I nodded in response to Sark and gave Diil a kick.

“Diil, get up.” Opening his eyes he glared at me.

“Giogi, the hell?! Why’d you try ta grab her like that!?” He was rightfully upset with me, I could see that now.

“Oh shut it, how the hell should I have known she was really like that?! We all knew she was weird, but I don’t remember anyone suggesting she could fight like that!” Still, this doesn’t bode well. What if she tells her dad I came at her with a knife?

“Come on, let’s get out of here and wash up… I’ll go over to the mayor’s place tomorrow and apologize. That’s probably all I can do…” Sark nodded and shot Diil a look.

“Yea, me an’ Diil will go with you. We should get all the guys to go together, but no way in hell will they believe us if we tell ‘em what happened.” Diil looked like he wanted nothing more than to refuse outright, but he nodded solemnly.

The next morning found the three of us standing outside Stahlia’s place. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I wrapped the gate frame. I heard Stahlia coming up on the other side of the gate and unlatching it. The moment I saw her face as the gate swung open, I reflexively bowed my head.

Apparently, she was not expecting that. “Huwah?!” Right, after the way I’ve been needling you ever since I can remember, you would hardly expect me to suddenly through myself at your feet huh.

“Stahlia, I’m sorry for my behavior!” I belted out my rehearsed line.

There was a long very awkward pause. I dared not raise my head before she responded, the cold look in her eyes as she flipped my knife around in the air was floating unbidden to the forefront of my thoughts.

“A-ah, u-u-um. Well. A-apology accepted? Yea. Yea, let’s go with that.” Strangely enough, rather than being haughty, she sounded somewhat flustered. Is this good or bad? I need to show her my sincerity somehow before her mood sours. A thought came to my mind and without thinking it through overmuch, I blurted it out.

“Stahlia, please teach me!” After a long pause, I risked a peek at her. Stahlia was standing there looking down at me with wide eyes, her mouth hanging open. I suppose that would be a shock huh… Just as I was debating turning tail and running away, a small head poked out from behind her. The head had eyes and hair that matched Stahlia’s perfectly. I knew she had a little sister, but I don’t remember ever seeing her before… she would be what, two right now?

“Sister, who, is, this?” Her speech was, frankly, adorable. She was taking great pains to pronounce all her words properly. It was clear she was putting a great deal of effort into refined speech. Did Stahlia have to work that hard to get to talking fancy like she does?

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“R-right. Rosial, this is Giogi, Sark, and…” Stahlia trailed off, looking at Diil. Ah, this is my chance to improve her perception of us! I got to my feet and gave a bow; I was imitating what I had seen some of the village men do when greeting Mayor Fynn or Mrs. Rosalie.

Taking great pains to use the proper manners, I introduced the three of us. “Rosial, I am Giogi Sutvenson. These are my friends, Sark Ohbeson, and Diil Grawlson. Sark and I attend lessons at the temple with your sister.” That’s… way harder than it looks. I glanced nervously at the two girls. Rosial was wide-eyed and looking between all of us. Stahlia’s gaze had hardened a bit and she was staring at me intently. Shit! What did I say wrong?! I’m dead for sure!

“Rosial, go inside please, I need to have words, alone with them for a moment.” Her voice was cold, and her gaze didn’t leave me for a second. Rosial looked at her sister with big, saucer eyes and dashed into the house. Right, I suppose you wouldn’t want your sister to witness an execution. I sent a mental apology to Sark and Diil.

“Giogi, what are you after?” Her voice was still cold, but I could see a hint of curiosity in her eyes. Maybe we still have a chance! I need to make sure I don’t mess up again. Putting even more care into my speech, I announced my intentions.

“After what happened yesterday… Well, I guess I just realized how much you’ve been holding back. I was being a real ass to you all this time, and you put up with it for so long…” Hopefully, she accepts that… I really don’t want to die here…

I felt sweat trickling down my neck; Stahlia’s gaze had hardened, and her jaw was now tightly clenched. Out of the corner of my vision I noticed her fists ball up, I tried my best not to look at them. This is how it ends…

“Alright already! Just… stop talking like that! It’s creepy.” With that exclamation, the tension drained out of her, and as a result out of us. I didn’t know what had happened but, somehow, we were saved.

Of course, the other three guys didn’t take kindly to the new arrangement, but they weren’t Stahlia. It only took me one or two scraps with them to establish the new order. In class, I found that things were going much better after Stahlia took me on as a student; she really was exceptional in her studies. Our teacher was really bad at explaining stuff, but it only took one or two conversations with Lady Stahlia for me to wrap my head around all the things I had been struggling with. Sana was something else too, it was hard to believe, but I think she might be even better than Lady Stahlia when it comes to history and letters.

After I witnessed Lady Stahlia privately asking Sana for help with our history lessons, I resolved to start treating her like my teacher too. “The master of my master” and all that. It took another couple of scraps with the other boys but, by the time I was done, Lady Sana no longer had to worry about any of the other village children calling her names or stealing her school supplies.

True to her promise, Lady Stahlia started teaching me proper knife fighting. As it turns out, she was even better with a blade than she was with her hands! Apparently, the techniques she was teaching me were called “Shadow Fighting Style” she made me swear an oath of secrecy to never ever disclose the name of my style or tell how I learned it. I thought she was joking when she said “If you talk about this, an assassin who I could never beat will make sure it’s the last thing you say.” My laughter trailed off when I noticed her expression; she was being completely serious.

Since I was learning a secret style, our training sessions were limited; she would approach me during class and tell me when and where the next one would be. She always picked out of the way spots like alleys or abandoned buildings. At first, I thought she was planning for me to disappear, but eventually, I figured out she was just being really serious about protecting the secrecy of the fighting style. Apparently, not even her parents knew about it.

Over time, more of the boys started coming to lessons with me; they had obviously noticed how much stronger I was getting when we would play knights and monsters. Before long, my entire circle of friends was learning how to fight from Lady Stahlia. She was a good teacher too. Each time someone new showed up, she put her hand on their forehead like she was checking for a fever. From whatever she was doing she would figure out if they would be better suited with a blade or a fist then teach them appropriately.

After about a month of learning proper fighting, Sark called all of us together in our old hideout. Once everyone was there, he informed us he had an announcement.

“I hereby begin the first meeting of Stahlia’s Knights. Knight-Commander Giogi, do you have any words to mark the occasion?” I stared at him blankly.

“Sark, what the hell are you on about?” He looked at me confused.

“Commander Giogi, weren’t you saying the other day how Lady Stahlia is like a warrior princess?” I did say that… but why would you go and tell everyone?! I could feel my cheeks turning red.

“I-i-I Mean y-yea, I m-might ha-have said that? But wh-what gave you the i-idea to go and do this?! And why am I the commander when it’s your idea?!” Sark grinned at me conspiratorially.

“Well, every princess needs an order of knights to protect her, right? I can’t be a knight commander when my purpose is to be a scribe, don’t worry commander Giogi, I’ll use my talents to support you in the day-to-day.” Still red, I looked around the room. To my surprise, none of the guys here seemed opposed to the idea.

“Sark, you know damn well Lady Stahlia doesn’t need us to protect her! Hell, if anything were to actually happen, she would likely be the one protectin’ us.” Besides, aren’t we a little old to be playing knights? Sark’s grin got even wider.

“Oh come now Giogi, I thought you would love the idea. After all in all the stories, it’s always the Knight-Commander who marries the princess at the end right? We all know how you feel about Lady Stahlia don’t we guys?” That comment caused all the guys in the room with us to start laughing uproariously. I could feel my face getting even redder, I probably looked like I had spent a week out in the fields.

“S-SHAHT UP!!”

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