ryul varus. (ryul) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-03-22 14:27:00 |
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Ryul might put up a fight every time he had physical training on his schedule, but eventually, he always did go. He just liked to drag his feet about it. It was coming back from one training session that he spied Juliette Coulombe in the courtyard, one of his favorite squires - if only because she was so easy to tease. Ryul was not much more than a squire himself in terms of maturity, which was probably why he got along with Pyr and Conan as well as he did. Cressida said it often enough when she was scolding him. As did everybody else when they were scolding him. But hey, sticks and stones. Ryul knew that just because he liked a good prank and avoiding training didn’t mean he was an incapable archer. Just a… lazy one. But he had done his training for the day. His hair stuck to the back of his neck, damp with sweat despite the chill winter air. He had tried to tie it up but several strands had come loose. He was vaguely aware that some women had been watching him when he came back from the training grounds - probably owing to his open shirt as he desperately tried to cool off and the shiny sheen of his chest. But none of them had said anything, so he had given his little wave and continued on. He could hear their laughter in his ears long after he had seen them. “So… what are ya reading there?” he asked, sauntering up to her with as much swagger as one idiot could possess - which was a lot. He was grinning at her already, anticipating that this conversation would be delightful for him. As always. “Looks like you’re pretty into it, huh? What is it…” As he went to sit next to her, he craned his neck to get a good glimpse at the book title. Juliette felt her cheeks going scarlet and pulled the book close to her chest, attempting to use her arms to hide its spine and back cover. She should have known that pulling it out here, even when no one was paying any attention to her, was a terrible mistake! But she’d arrived early for her next session, and the weather was pleasant enough that she hadn’t wanted to duck inside quite yet, the bench was empty, and the book… She had gotten it from the bookshop the day prior -- the cheerful, chatty clerk had nearly bullied her into buying it (smiling all the while) and Juliette had been so embarrassed about having asked about the book at all that she had paid for it just so she could escape the store and the well-meaning questions. She hadn’t actually expected there to be a book about the responsibilities of bridesmaids, let alone a dozen books! And she didn’t know enough to be useful, and she’d wanted so desperately to be of use to Alys… So now here she was, with this book and its silly pink cover, and the only way this could be worse, she thought forlornly, was if she’d been approached by Conan and Pyr in tandem. “It’s... nothing interesting,” she said, trying for a firm tone of voice as she squeezed the book to her chest. “I am only passing the time before training.” Maybe he would need to leave? Though by his appearance, it did seem that the only place he could need to go would be the showers, and that was hardly a tightly scheduled activity. “Looks pretty interesting to me,” Ryul observed. He took this as his opportunity to sidle in next to her, throwing a long arm around her shoulder on purpose because he had the feeling the last thing she would want to do is get close to a sweaty young man. There was a smudge on his face that probably came from handling his weapons. He really did need to take a shower. Eventually. It would happen later, when he had satisfied his need for amusement. “You were practically buried in the thing. Come on, it can’t be that bad. It’s not like it’s a Violet Saint Clair novel, right?” He said this with a touch of goodnatured poking at himself, though Juliette probably had no idea he was a casual fan of the romance novelist. Every man had his own secrets. Still, he really did want to know what she was reading. He tried again, this time leaning his head back and stretching his neck to see if he could read some of the text inside of the book from behind her. Difficult to manage when he was sitting next to her on a bench. Juliette held the book even tighter, her cheeks going from pink to scarlet. “No!” she insisted, rather forcefully. “I would not read… that!” She wouldn’t have known what it was at all had one of her fellow female squires not mentioned it last year; upon her subsequent exploratory visit to the bookshop, she had been horrified. Her nose wrinkled a bit in distaste as she attempted to scoot away without falling off the edge of the bench. She was not a fan of such familiarity from young men in general; add in his sweaty state and awkward line of questioning, and she wanted nothing more than to be halfway across the training yard. His attempts to see her book did not help at all. (She imagined trying to explain it; she could not fathom any way in which this could go well.) “Why not?” he drawled casually, moving his other hand to push his loose hair behind one ear. “They’re pretty good. I’ve read like, one.” More like one dozen, all pilfered from his mother’s stash. But hey, the Varus household wasn’t big on classical literature. Those books were the making of him in a way. Still, he hadn’t managed to get a hold of the book yet. With a quick movement, he reached over Juliette to wrench it from her grasp - not violently, but firmly. It didn’t matter that Ryul had just come from practice - he was older, bigger, and stronger. He could feel Juliette instinctively try to tug it back but he pulled back, stronger, and the book flew out of her hands and onto the ground about three feet away. As did Juliette, who tumbled from the bench from the force, and Ryul, who thought she was diving for the book and scrambled over to grab it. It was the fall that was her undoing; she squawked rather indignantly as she tumbled, and although she knew how to fall without injuring herself, that took precious moments away from her reaction time. By the time she dove for the book, he practically had it in hand. The idea of trying to wrestle it out of his grasp almost appealed, if she weren’t certain he’d just overpower her again and embarrass her further. Instead she stood, brushing at her pants, and said, as firmly as she could, “I would like that back, please.” “No way.” Ryul stood up, not even bothering to dust himself off. He was going to go take a shower eventually anyways. There was a smudge of dirt on his arm and dust sticking to his face. He turned away from Juliette, book held up high so that she would have trouble reaching it and immediately began to read out loud. About halfway through the first paragraph, he stopped to turn around abruptly. “Faram, is this a book on weddings?” Ryul asked incredulously, somewhat torn between laughing or patting Juliette affectionately on the head. A teenage girl reading a book on weddings! Even Coulombe had a romantic streak! “Don’t you think you’re a little too young for this?” “It isn’t -- I’m not --” She cut off because in fact she felt too young, even if on paper she was more than old enough, so in a way he was right. “It’s for bridesmaids!” she exclaimed finally, deciding that was the best (if paltry) defense she could offer. She thought of trying to reach for the book, but he was holding it too high. Should she tackle him? Maybe if she took him by surprise… But the damage was already done, as now they were being looked at by several of the guild members lounging about the practice yards, taking advantage of the weather. She blushed harder. “I have no interest in weddings,” she insisted, perhaps a bit too hotly (one of those who had paused was a young man of noble lineage who had invited her to dance more than once; this she did not need). “It is for --” she almost blurted out ‘my sister,’ realized that her family circumstance was probably not something she needed to get into here, and altered it to -- “someone else’s wedding.” If Ryul had any idea about their new audience, he clearly didn’t show it on his face. In fact, he took this opportunity to stroll around Juliette, flipping through the pages of the book with a look of fascination. “Bridesmaids, huh?” he said. “You’re gonna be a bridesmaid in a wedding? You got a book about it? Don’t you just gotta, I don’t know…” He made a vague hand gesture towards his body. “Like, wear a dress and shit?” “I don’t think that’s all,” she said. The book was rather thick. And some of the duties it listed had been surprising to even her -- she could only be helplessly grateful that Alys’ friend Ari had taken the lead in the wedding party. She knew next to nothing to planning an outing for a bride-to-be, and was certain she would be abysmal at it, truth be told. Hopefully -- hopefully -- someone would just tell Juliette what to do and where to stand, but… “If you would like to borrow it,” she said a bit helplessly (he seemed utterly engrossed), “please feel free to do so.” She could get herself another copy, if he really wanted hers so badly. Ryul broke into laughter. “What would I do with this?” he asked, waving the book in her face. He shut it closed and handed it back to her. “It’s all yours, squire,” he continued, his voice a drawl. His hands were shoved back into his pockets. He shifted his weight from one side to the other, chin held up and tilted back, even as he looked down at her. Juliette was tall; he was taller, by convenience of age and sex. “Should take notes for when it’s your turn,” he added, teasing. But he was already beginning to disengage from their encounter, having exhausted his necessary amusement and looking forward to that shower. She bit her lip before she could blurt out, I hope no time soon -- or never, taking the book back and hugging it once again to her chest. “I do not think I will be a bridesmaid again,” she said instead. It was doubtful anyone she wasn’t related to would ever ask, and she only had one sister. Still, she could not deny the relief she felt at having the book returned; it seemed he was bored of taunting her. Thank Faram for small mercies. “If you’ll excuse me?” she said, the politesse almost perfunctory as she ducked into the building behind them. That would teach her to bring extracurricular reading to the guildhall. Suddenly, the weight room seemed a much better use of her time. She hoped that she was imagining the laughter she thought she heard behind her. |