Day One-Thirty-Nine: Convo

Sigh. Nobody knows anything about Captain Cedric's writing - though I did learn something ELSE today that's piqued my curiosity, and it has something to do with the captain.

Kinda.

In the most painful way possible.

Because the snow's so bad the builders haven't had much time to work on the enclosure, and they usually have to wait for lulls in the blizzard outside (yeah, shitty weather, eh?) before they can run out and start piling up their little stones. So today we were only out there for about forty-five minutes, and in that time I had a brief chance to talk to Queen Daena. Here's what happened in a nutshell:

Me: "Woof! Quite the day out, eh, your majesty? You warm enough?"

Her: "Oh, hello, Dragomir. Yes, I'm fine, thank you. Quite warm in this coat, and the constant exercise always helps. Did you have a pleasant evening?"

Me: "Sure, sure. Wrote a bit, grabbed a couple bites to eat, guarded the latrines. Not very excitin' by a monarch's standards, you know, but it's a living, you know? Oh, and Libby sends her regards. And this pie!"

Right, forgot to mention: Libby makes pies every now and then. Robert's been teaching her. She wants to expand from makin' things outta wood but I don't think she's quite found her match yet.

Her: "Oh. Well. Thank you. What flavour is it this time?"

Me: "Dunno. I didn't wanna check by stickin' my finger in, she'd beat me. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's awful, like usual."

Queen: "Er. Yes. It's so unfortunate. The poor dear, she never seems to improve…" (She at least had the grace to test the filling through the top hole.) "Egh. I believe that's mashed yams. I'm sorry, Dragomir, but Libby has no sense of taste whatsoever. You really need to convince her to stick with her woodwork, it's far better than this."

Me: "I know. Here, if you want I'll leave it out for some woodland critter to eat. Better that than tryin' to take a bite out of you, eh, your majesty?"

Her: "Quite right! Quite right. I had to kick a polar bear this morning, the poor dear; it's a shame I didn't have this pie then. He could have gone away with at least a small meal."

I've totally gone off track talking about Libby's terrible pies. I'll skip ahead a bit.

Me: "I have a question, your majesty, if you don't mind."

Her: "Be my guest. I am nothing like that dreadful Driscol! I'm sorry for that again, by the way."

Me: "No, no, that's okay, not your fault at all, ma'am, and I'm just a guard…. anyway… do you know Captain Cedric at all?"

Her: "The captain of the guard? YOUR captain? No, I'm afraid not. He usually sends out other guards to watch me. I've heard he's not much of a conversationalist, so I'm glad he does - I like a good chat every now and then."

Me: "Er, yeah. He's… not so good… at the talking. I guess that means you don't know what he writes?"

Her: "He writes? Two guards that write? How delightful! You must share notes with him all the time."

Me: "No, ma'am. That's the… point, sorry to be rude. I wanna know what he writes about. He won't tell anyone. Especially not me, 'cause he hates me guts."

Her: "Oh, surely it's not as bad as all that."

Me: "He threatened to castrate me the other day for nodding off in front of the latrines, your majesty."

Her: "Well. I suppose that is a BIT severe."

Me: "A bit."

Her: "I'm sorry, Dragomir, but I know next to nothing of the man. Perhaps I would see more of him if Driscol's plan went through, however…"

Me: "Plan, majesty?"

Her (wrinkling her nose): "Yes, that infuriating blowhard came out here and proposed that a fortress be built out here to keep me protected. What a waste of materials and time! I rebuffed him, of course, but I think he intends to officially raise the matter in court…"

Me: "You COULD use some more protection, your majesty. You're awful exposed out here."

Her: "Oh, flim-flam. I'm fine. I can slug it out with anything that comes near me, haven't I proved that by now? I'll miss out on so much of the world if I'm cooped up in some posh dungeon. Why, if I hadn't been exposed to the outside world, my son wouldn't have a pet now. He's been so much happier with that hoppy tagalong."

Me: "Wait, you mean the k-"

Bernard: "Dragomir! Y'lazy oaf! Come help, the fellas need liftin' power! We need t'go inside, it's whiter than the queen's butt out here right now! Sorry, your majesty."

Did I mention Bernard's an idiot?

Her (shaking her head): "Please go away. And you, Dragomir, should probably head indoors. That wooden scarf doesn't look as though it keeps out the cold."

The weather WAS getting pretty damn bad, so I said my goodbyes to the queen and scurried away. Always feel bad leaving her out there… though my sympathy never goes out to the royal guard that's forced to stand watch as well. Take that, y'putz.

Still. The conversation left me with three very important questions to answer:

- Is Driscol the Count actually going to petition for a fortress to be built outside the castle? How will this affect the queen?

- How is the queen responsible for Prince Logan getting a pet? Did she CATCH his kangaroo while she was out here by the tree, or something?

- And is the queen's butt actually white? It's stuck in a tree at the moment, which means it's technically THE TREE, so her butt would be brown, but… like, does she still have a human butt INSIDE the tree? 'cause THAT would be… white…

Okay, maybe only the first two questions are important.

Losing track of the whole what-does-Captain-Cedric-write thing,

Dragomir the Guard