Chapter Eleven
The next couple days were relatively uneventful. Fidelity nearly had a meltdown because Rezzi accidentally burned her favor wooden practice mallet. Genji managed to pull another trick on Nel that nearly resulted in Nel responding with a formal challenge--both men were instructed to clean the common area then finish her paperwork in reprisal--and Raschel accidentally buried her room in an immense amount of sand. Sometimes Dahlia felt like she was managing a family of pre-teens as opposed to a squad of soldiers.
Each barrack tended to create their own personality. As a younger captain with little taste for formal structure, her team seemed a bit freer and had somehow developed a weird sense of humor that showed up at inopportune moments. Genji was the worst but not the only culprit. She was secretly glad Nel had chased after him, at least he was slowly loosening up. Dahlia liked being surrounded by vibrant, dynamic individuals. She would have despised leading a barrack without an original thought in their heads. She’d deliberately taken on diametric members on her theory that there was strength in originality and diversity.
Out of the barracks bordering hers, Borreal’s tended to be less melodramatic than her team and a bit more organized while Ravin’s team was fierce: trained fierce, fought fierce, and were fiercely loyal.
She was reflecting on this, reminding herself how much she loved the barrack she’d created after dealing with Raschel’s sand incident when Kenny walked into her room. This time she threw a cup at his head. He caught it and placed it back on the table for her.
“What now? And haven’t you heard of knocking?”
“Knocking, knocking, let me see…” he pretended to ponder. “Nah, not familiar. I came back for my teapot. Went to make something and couldn’t find it.”
“Oh, right, I’ll get it,” Dahlia went to her pantry, grabbed the teapot and came back. Kenny had seated himself so she plunked it down in front of him.
He seemed content to remain where he was so she picked up the book of meditations she’d been reading and continued.
He was quiet for a few minutes, observing her. She tried to ignore it.
“What are those meditations for?” he asked.
She pretended to continue reading, “They help me balance and focus.”
“Do you feel unbalanced?”
“Sometimes. Don’t we all?”
“Some people say I’m permanently unbalanced.”
Dahlia put her book down. Kenny grinned, pleased at having distracted her. “Do you feel like you are?” she asked.
“Can’t say I think much about it,” he paused. “Duel weapons are pretty unusual,” he said nodding to her axes, “people also say a choice of weapon says a lot about the person.”
Dahlia blinked at the abrupt change of subject, “What does your sword say about you?”
He didn’t even hesitate to take advantage of the opening she’d given him, “I’m long, strong, and hard as steel.”
Dahlia rolled her eyes and picked her book back up. Kenny laughed.
“Can you throw your axes?” he asked her.
She looked up at him again, “Yes but I don’t do it often. You see, they don’t come back.”
He let out another rich laugh, “No, I bet they don’t.” Then he collected the teapot and left. Dahlia returned to her book.
Ten minutes later there was a knock on her door.
“Well I know who that isn’t,” she muttered to herself. “Come in,” she called out, tossing her book down.
Traedon slipped into the room, “How’s it going? I haven’t seen you around the last couple days.”
Dahlia smiled. Traedon always brought a warm, calm feeling to her room. His long hair was bound up in a mane and his simple white shirt set off the color brilliantly.
“Raschel buried her room in sand.”
Traedon laughed, the sound relieving any tension she still had around the incident.
“It is pretty funny,” she admitted.
He came over and sat in the seat next to her.
“I was hoping you’d let me make you dinner tonight.”
“That sounds lovely, I need to get out of my barrack for a bit.”
He stood again, pressed his lips to hers and then left. She returned to her book once more.