Letting Your Fists Do the Talking Really Cuts Down on Villainous Monologues When You’re Short on Time
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“I’m just going to go pee before we have to head back,” Owen said, patting Gavin’s knee.
Gavin gave him a look, but a short one. “Don’t take forever. And bring Grey Rain back with you, I think he got distracted.”
“I don’t think he got distracted,” said Owen, rolling his eyes. “I’m pretty sure he went to the privy hoping someone would have sex with him there. I’ll bring him back. And Greg too.” It was unlike Greg to have gone missing, but he was gone too and had been for a while now.
“There’s some time before we have to go see Gabrielle, but don’t dawdle,” Gavin ordered.
Owen kissed his hand. “I’m not going to be late and ruin the wedding, don’t worry.”
He got up and slipped out of the first church’s nave, inasmuch as it was possible for anyone to slip anywhere with so many people crowded into it. He nodded at the knights and guards watching everyone gather for Gabrielle and Franz’s wedding, went down the hall to find the privies.
There were some Kyainese guards outside them, which meant one of Franz’s guests was in there. Owen went in, and there was his son, getting fucked against the basin by a Kyainese boy who, when he glanced at Owen briefly, Owen recognized as King Giacomo, Franz’s new brother-in-law.
They seemed to be having a good time, so Owen went pee and waited until he was cleaning his hands to wave at Grey Rain, who finally saw him and waved back.
“Did you want a turn?” asked Giacomo, seeing Owen lingering.
“No, I want him back in the church when he’s done. I’m his dad.”
“I know.” Giacomo closed his eyes, moving harder in Grey Rain. “We met earlier, Prince Owen.”
“We did, your Highness,” agreed Owen. He didn’t say anything else, letting Giacomo cum. He fucked Grey Rain through it, reaching around and taking Grey Rain’s twitching dick to get it the rest of the way to cumming too.
They rested for just a second, Grey Rain’s tail wagging between them, before Giacomo pulled a cute dick out of Grey Rain, wiping it on Grey Rain’s ass before tucking it back into his pants.
Hi! said Grey Rain. It’s lucky to have sex at weddings so Iron Hawk was helping me! You should help too so that Cave Watcher and Leopard Queen have a good marriage and lots of puppies!
Owen patted his head and started pulling up his pants, smiling when Grey Rain pouted. Owen even fixed the smallclothes they were making him wear, which he thought was to be mean but was actually so he didn’t get stains on the back of his pants when this inevitably happened. Then he took Grey Rain out of the privy, Giacomo following.
“The last time someone’s dad walked in on me doing that, he got angry,” Giacomo observed as they left the privy.
“Why would I get angry?” Owen asked. “You weren’t hurting him.”
As he said that, there was a loud something that wasn’t a crash from down the hall. Owen, Giacomo, and Giacomo’s guards turned to see it. What? Grey Rain asked. What are we looking at?
Not sure. There was a sound. You guys go back to the wedding, I’ll go see what it was. Aloud he said, “I’ll go see what that was. You guys go sit.”
“Sure,” said Giacomo, following him. Owen rolled his eyes, but at least Giacomo’s guards had seemed to agree with him. They were talking to him in Kyn, and he talked back cheerfully but firmly.
What do you think it was? Grey Rain asked.
Not sure, said Owen. But the passage leading to the demon tunnels was down this way.
You’re lying! The monster tunnel is this way and you’re saying you don’t know so that I get bored and don’t come with you!
Owen smiled. You got me. Just stay behind me until we know what it is, okay?
Okay! Grey rain fell back a step, signing at Giacomo, which of course Giacomo didn’t seem to understand.
They came around to the hallway where the tunnel was. It didn’t look out of the ordinary, except that the guard who’d been watching the door was unconscious and slumped beside it. Grey Rain checked him while Owen went for the door. He’s alive!
Owen nodded, gestured for Grey Rain to move him to the side. The door was rattling just a little. He glanced at Giacomo’s guard. “Keep his Highness back, please.”
“I’ll be fine,” Giacomo insisted.
“Fine, but there’s a demon in this closet and if you get eaten and ruin the wedding I’m going to be really pissed.” Owen was already a bit pissed that this was happening today and trying to ruin the wedding. This wedding mattered a lot to a lot of people, not least the two of them who were getting fucking married.
Giacomo nodded, but didn’t take a step back. Owen wasn’t sure he approved of Grey Rain fucking him, in retrospect.
He opened the closet door and was hit with a gust of cold air that sounded like it was hot. The closet was a normal closet with brooms and junk in it, but also a hole in the wall behind a shelf that led to a tunnel. That shelf was in pieces on the floor and there was a yellow thing that looked like a worm with legs taking up a lot of space in the closet. “Hey,” Owen said to it. “Today’s not a good day.”
The demon had no face, but it smiled at him. “Today is a wondrous day, worm. It is the day when your world finally returns to the womb of creation and…”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a worm and you call people worm,” Owen said, not interested. “I get it, it’s funny. Go away and come back to destroy the world tomorrow, okay? We’ll fight you then.”
The demon writhed. Owen could hear Grey Rain moving behind him. “You dare to mock the rebirth of your piddling world? You will rue these words.”
The demon jumped at him. Owen rolled his eyes and punched it, and it squished against his hand before slamming into the floor. “I said I don’t want to do this today,” he said, stepping back so the demon’s ooze didn’t get on his clothes. There’d been so many meetings about the clothes.
“You think your trifling violence can inflict any real pain on me?” asked the demon. “I am the herald of your new…”
Naked, Grey Rain darted under Owen’s arm, leapt into the air, and came down on top of the herald of whatever in bestial form, ripping it in half with a growl. The demon screamed soundlessly, and then its body melted into the floor.
Grey Rain transformed back, flicking ooze off his hands. Sorry! he said. I thought that would be faster!
Yeah, said Owen. Thanks. Let’s get your clothes back on. It had been very thoughtful of him to take them off instead of just transforming in them and ripping them.
Grey Rain made a face but nodded, and as Owen was dressing him, Giacomo came into the closet. “What was that all about?”
“Just some asshole trying to end the world,” Owen told him. He waved it away. “Don’t worry about it, it happens.”
“Right. Uh. Is someone…doing something about that, or…”
“Yeah, I’m going to send someone in just a…” There was a small crash and Owen looked over, saw Twig climbing out from the tunnel. “Oh, there you are.”
“Yeah, hi. A demon escaped from the cavern, and…”
“It’s dead. What’s going on down there?”
“Someone tried to open the hell portal but it’s under control.” Twig stood up, brushed his pants off.
“Okay? Who has it under control exactly?”
“Isaac and one of his friends?” Twig shrugged. “Also Leo. There might have also been an angel, it was all a bit confusing. But it seems fine and they’ll probably be back up in a few minutes to explain if you want. Didn’t Greg come find you? He was supposed to.”
Huh. Owen had expected the resolution of the whole hell portal thing to be a bit more climactic. But, well. He’d been involved in a lot of climactic shit and this didn’t have the vibe of something that was over, so much as something that was getting to the point of requiring stabbing.
And as long as it wasn’t going to require stabbing today, that was all that mattered, so he nodded. “Great. I’ll talk to them after the wedding. We really do have to get going.” After the wedding he would also be talking to Greg about the necessity of coming and finding him when there was a fightable crisis.
“Is the wedding really the most important thing happening right now?” Giacomo asked.
Owen looked at him. “Yes? You’re a king, I’m surprised I have to tell you that.”
“You just said the world was ending.”
“And Twig just said people were handling it. It’ll be fine for a few hours, I promise.” Owen trusted Isaac and his friends. He finished doing up Grey Rain’s clothes—they weren’t perfect, but Gavin would fix them once they were back in the church—and stood up. “Come on, we’ve all been waiting for this wedding for too long to let anything ruin it now.”
He gave them no choice but to follow him by heading out of the closet. Twig hung back to wake up the guard, but they all made it back to the nave with time to spare. “Hey,” Owen said, kissing Gavin’s cheek as he sat down.
“Hey.” Gavin scowled, waved Grey Rain over to fix his clothes. “Did he actually convince you that it was lucky to fuck at weddings? That’s the only excuse I plan to accept for how long you took.”
“I’ll explain later,” Owen told him. Greg was there, which meant he’d probably told Gavin what had happened. “But everything’s fine, promise. Promise, Greg.”
“Thank you. I tried to find you, but…”
“It’s okay. It’s all handled.”
“Okay.” Gavin sighed, got Grey Rain to sit next to Greg. “Well, it hasn’t started yet, so…” As he said that, Gabrielle’s squire Noel came to get them to go be with her. He smiled.
Owen did too, and took Gavin’s hand. As they were leaving the nave he saw Isaac coming in with his teacher and another boy, and they all looked fine. Nothing was going to go wrong at this wedding if Owen had anything to say about it, and it turned out he did.
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How Best to Use a Sword 