ye'll pull the bloom from off the broom

[withoutleave]

Janet had never been a great reader, not only because she had never been encouraged to be but because anything of interest or importance could so much better be told. But, when no one she knew knew what she wanted to know, it had been time to try the books

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[saikamai]

"Janet," Cuthbert said, and hunkered down beside her, his eyes on the sand sifting through her fingers. "How's thee?" He cocked his head and squinted from the flare of the sun winking off the white-capped surf.

[withoutleave]

"The better for thy presence." Janet's smile broadened and quirked as Cuthbert drew nearer, following her mood from idly pleased with the day in general to contemplation of something more immediately pleasurable. "And how thee?"

[saikamai]

"Very well. If you don't mind me asking, what's thee doing? Making a sand-castle, or burying the last heart you stole?"

Cuthbert grinned, and shifted from his hunker so that he was sitting indian-style on the sand across from her, the small pile betwixt them.

[withoutleave]

That was truly bad, and Janet's laugh was half a groan. "I should hope to have more care than that, and dry sand makes a poor castle," she replied, carefully dusting off a petal with one finger, to be seen. A little more seriously, she explained "I heard that the life that is in it might be kept so."

[saikamai]

Cuthbert rolled his eyes, nodding, as if to say: aye, aye, that was terrible, but he nonetheless seemed pleased with himself.

"More likely for a castle to stand without mortar than for a pretty girl to have care with a heart," he teased. Then, as she brushed the sand off the blossom, he leaned in, curious. "Why do you want to preserve it? I mean, if it can't be seen?"

[withoutleave]

Janet flushed slightly; it was far from the highest compliment she'd ever been paid, but it had reached her. "It needn't stay in the sand forever. Once what makes it wilt is drawn out I shall unbury it." Assuming it worked, of course; she was far from sure of it.

[saikamai]

"Clever," Cuthbert said with real appreciation, deciding to play soft on the flirtation. With girls like Janet, he found it difficult to resist flirting- pretty but eminently practical, flirtations were registered but flicked off as easily as water off a duck's back. Cuthbert was a joyfully persistent creature, but even he knew she likely needed a bit of space to get accustomed to things, without an irritating suitor buzzing about. It made his ears burn, anyway, to think of how Alain and Roland would repremand him for being so nonchalant with a female.

"How have you gotten settled? I hope this hasn't been too much of a hardship for you. There are days when I wake up and feel miserable, if you want to know the truth, but there are other days when I don't know if I'd go home if a magic door were to appear." He shrugged.

[withoutleave]

Janet herself didn't especially want to be serious. Serious, here, meant considering yourself trapped; to consider yourself on a journey, you had to keep focus on the lighter. "All those I've met seem determined to ease my way, and with that madman caught this place is almost without hardship," she informed him. "And there are the stories of a hundred worlds, so that I might never tire of them. I did not like to press thee ere I knew what was courtesy here," she added, "but I've an interest in the stories of thy Gilead as well." So entertain me, said her smile.

[saikamai]

Cuthbert grinned. "Stories of Gilead? Well, what would you know? I have tales of derring-do and mischief, tales of dark intrigue, and-- well, that's pretty much all I seem to have. Mischief or intrigue, your pick."

[withoutleave]

"I have never been averse to intrigues," said Janet, smiling slyly, "yet I think thy mischief hath more appeal to me."

[saikamai]

"All right, well," he mused, standing up and extending a hand to her. "Let's see." Cuthbert pulled her up off the sand and offered his arm.

"So, every year in Gilead we have a fair-day called Glowing Day. It's a bit before midsummer, and it's celebrated with flavored ice and fireworks and a dance called the springle-ring," Cuthbert said, curbing a smile as he watched her face. "Each year, Cort-- that was my instructor-- sends his ka-tel out into the parade. Oh, a ka-tel is a class of gunslingers

[withoutleave]

"Hold a moment," said Janet, not wanting to break in while Cuthbert was shining so brightly that she couldn't help smiling with the then and the now, but needing some clarification. "Bourbon is a liquor, of course. I'm told the gun is the weapon of other worlds?"

[saikamai]

Bert nodded: yup. Then, he gave her a quick double-take. "You didn't have guns in your where?"

[withoutleave]

"No," said Janet simply. "We didn't. Knights fought with sword and lance, and bowmen with, well, bows. I don't know what's a gunslinger."

[saikamai]

Cuthbert threw his arms up theatrically, planting his bare heels in the sand. "You don't know what's a gunslinger," he said, and hearing her phrase from his own mouth made him laugh a little, and so he repeated himself. "You don't know what's a gunslinger?"

He sighed, feigning exasperation and clucked his tongue at her.

"Gunslingers," he said, drawing his own gun out of the holster and twirling in prettily before her, "are knights of Gilead, descendant from the knights of Arthur Eld, sworn protectors of justice bound to serve the White." Cuthbert flicked his finger and stopped the gun's rotation, palming it and holding it out for her to see. "Gunslingers serve as the protectors and noblemen of the city. Some are lawmakers and only play at court, others stay within the walls and protect the citizens, and others, lady, are knights-errant, sent beyond the kingdom and out into the world, into many worlds, to preserve light, love, truth and justice."

All right, say true; he'd made up the bit about many worlds, but it was true now, wasn'

[withoutleave]

Janet was more than suitably impressed by this, and reached out as if to touch the strange device, though her fingers stopped short of its surface. "And this is your weapon. I never saw the like," she breathed. But no amount of awe could drown out the amusement at Cuthbert's theatrics, and it was followed by a chuckle.