here. Maybe I should anyway and see if anyone notices?”
Laughing they both tried it, if nothing else the knocking that first night tapered off greatly, letting him finish his violin practice in peace.
Lyn was the third of the younger kids to get his help on a novel build, the idea she had was dangerous and fascinating at the same time. Probably the most potentially deadly first build Tor had ever heard of, and it wasn't even a weapon. Before they started Tor made her practice the steps needed on little builds, over and over again, until she got each one exactly right. Truly, those were novel builds too, but when she mentioned that he told her they didn't count.
“You see, I know you can do so much more, so only the big ones get counted right off the bat. Still, not bad…” He ruffled her hair a little and got a punch that landed right under his arm, an awkward thing that didn't touch, thanks to his shield. They laughed about it.
Tor also made a note mentally to get her in some kind of self-defense training. The blow wouldn't have done anything much even if it had landed and that wasn't half good enough.
Her build took two days, which was decent considering the work being done, again sitting on the little pad in his room, and being fed by Rolph and Tor when needed. Leading her to the restroom was awkward, but they both figured that if no one was complaining about them keeping a first year girl in their room, people probably weren't going to be worried about them taking advantage of her that way either. Or as Rolph pointed out, they probably were assuming that they were both taking turns with her anyway, so screw them.
“She's legal and here of her own volition, what we do or aren't doing isn't any of their business.” His big friend finished with a grin.
When she had it ready her eyes opened a bit blankly, and as instructed she immediately made ten copies. Hers were in stone, so took longer, the plates bigger and the sigil carved into the surface. The whole thing was solid looking and had a feeling of strength to it. They had to find untanned cow hides to test it, but it worked perfectly, the skins tanning in minutes when exposed, perfectly so in fact. This wasn't just a novelty, this device had retail value, which meant that Sara was at the door with Trice inside an hour of the testing.
“You mean I could make some gold on this?” The girl said innocently as Sara nodded and tried to make a deal on the spot for Debris house, offering ten percent of the final sale to the girl for the use of the template. Tor shook his head though.
“Resale only, not manufacturing. Your people suck at that and the kids here can use the money from the work. Fifty-fifty and Debri handles shipping. Same for any of my new devices that you want to carry for now. We'll make them here. Everyone needs the practice anyway.”
Sara stuck her tongue out at him but agreed. She didn't make money off of it anyway, unless she sold them herself. It did mean though that they needed to hire an accountant to keep the books, Sara pointed out, her hair brushed back from her eyes as she spoke.
“Tor can't do it, and if you try to wing it or not keep records someone’s going to get shorted, which means hard feelings.”
Lyn looked up at Sara, being about the same size as Tor, he noticed. Then she wrinkled her brow a bit and screwed up her mouth. It was very nearly cute.
“What about your friend Rolph Merchant?” She asked seriously. “He’s good with coin and handling my personal investments already. Do you think he’d do it for us?”
Sara smiled, and Tor got it, the idea of hiring the heir to the realm to do your books… Then again, why not? He was an accounting student and had openly said that his parents had cut his budget for the year in half.
“We can ask, worse he can do is say no after all.”
Oddly enough Rolph loved the idea. Tor, he allowed, may be busy as all get out, but as a fourth year accounting student he was just about bored to tears. It just wasn't that hard of a subject really. Plus real world experience never hurt, did it? Even Wensa liked the idea, which given she was in charge of the Prince as far as education went, was saying something.
Then, the Royal Guard weren't afraid of hard work, were they? That meant they weren't overly worried about it for their charges either.
That set up, Tor just started following his schedule, the one posted on the door. The paper was a cream color and sturdy, so the weather hadn't degraded it too much yet. It really did keep people from bugging him overly too. Most people didn't want to set an “official” time for anything. For a while. When he came back from fighting practice two days later he noticed that people had started writing some things in. That evening he had an extra combat practice he noticed, just after violin, and the next day he was supposed to have lunch with someone named Judith Kerry. The name didn't ring a bell at all, but he had to eat anyway, so why not? Maybe she had building questions or something?
The dining room was packed when he got there the next day, and he looked around feeling awkward and shy. Ali had already settled next to a group of girls, so he ambled over and asked if any of them knew where he might find this Judith person. Giggling one of the girls pointed over to the farthest corner of the room, where a plain and lonely looking girl in brown sat alone, no one on either side of her. Wincing Tor got the idea. For some reason she'd been picked to be this year’s social pariah and someone had put her name on his schedule to try and humiliate her.
Jerks.
Why would they do that though? Punishing her by making using him as an insult? What had she done he wondered? Well, one way to find out. He leaned over and kissed Ali on the cheek.
“I have a date with her for lunch, meet me later?” He asked gently.
Ali smiled and leaned into him, “Always have time for you love.”
The girls giggled again. Damn that annoying giggling. He’d have to get with the King and see if they could outlaw it. Prohibit it in public at least.
At the girls side he stopped, not sure what to say. Meeting new people was often hard. How to start? Right. Normally. Just like everyone else did it.
“Hello? Are you Judith Kerry?”
Whatever people had been doing to her, the girl was ready to fight, whipping around with a fist clench and anger in her eyes. She froze when she saw him though and didn't move for a second, her face melting from harsh to blank.
“Yes.”
Not much of an answer, but it would have to do he decided.
“Oh, good! It was written on my schedule that we had a lunch date? Next time we should grab something in town though, it's a bit crowed in here this year.” He sat next to her before she could deny that the date was real. A clutch of girls, not the one with Ali, looked at them and giggled, but it sounded mean and harsh.
Ah, her bullies. Well, at least they weren't much bigger than she was. Superior numbers though, since there seemed to be four of them to her one. That could be fixed.
The girl was about sixteen, maybe older, her clothing was new, first year new, that, or she was growing incredibly fast, some of the royal kids did that.
“Sorry, sar. I'aint norstanding yer fraid.” Her accent was strange and heavy, a little like an extra strong version of the Printer accent. Ah. One of the new scholarship kids. Tor tried to remember what he'd heard there and craft a reply she could get. He sounded a bit stilted, but her eyes lit when he spoke.
“Are you from Printer? The accent sounds familiar. I'm Tor. Someone wrote that we have a lunch date today, so here I am!” He waited to see what she'd say, but the girl ducked her head and mumbled, instead. Finally she glared at the girls, having figured out the likely culprits already, they stopped laughing though, when Tor managed to speak clearly to her.
“Sir… are you the Tor? Countess Printer said that you'd be here and that we all owed very much to you, even if we don't realize it yet. I came to learn history and geography as well as fighting. The Countess said that I should meet with you if I could, only I didn't ever write that we should meet yet. I didn't know you could speak regular or anything. Most people here talk too funny to hardly understand.”
It got easier to communicate with the girl after a bit and Tor found out that she was actually slated to be a combat giant. He hadn't noticed her in the practice square, because she was in the morning section with Rolph. He'd set up lessons for them early on, but hadn't gone to them himself, being busy that early in the day.
“I can't really talk to the instructor though, so I don't know how I'm doing or anything. I miss a lot because of
