A day with friends

The week passed by faster than Mary thought was possible. There were so many new things to learn that she didn’t know how to manage it in three years. The library had fast become her favourite place in the sanctum. The books contained so much knowledge that she wanted to read them all.

It was Saturday morning and Mary, Firlea and Hinat had come back from breakfast and were preparing to head out to meet up with the riders.

“You think Jontak will be there?” Firlea asked, trying to sound as she didn’t care.

Mary and Hinat looked at each other and smiled. It was the third time Firlea had asked that question.

“I don’t know, he might have gotten stuck on some assignment,” Mary said.

“Oh, yeah, okay” Firlea said. Mary and Hinat burst out laughing as they got into the boat.

“Come on Firlea, admit you like him,” Hinat teased her.

“Well, he’s nice” Firlea said.

“I remember you saying he was cute,” Mary interjected.

“Ooooh” Hinat said, wiggling her eyebrows, making Mary laugh even harder.

“Come on, stop teasing me. So, what if I like him?” Firlea said.

“Sorry Fi, we didn’t mean to make you upset” Mary smiled at her and helped her out of the boat.

“It’s okay, I’m not upset. I’m just a bit nervous,” she admitted to Mary.

“Don’t be. He must be stupid if he isn’t interested in you,” Hinat said as the three of them linked arms and headed towards the market.

Mary and Tenac had decided to meet up at the usual entrance.

“Just so you know. If you have any weapons, we need to check them in before we go in,” Mary told Firlea, that had never been to the marketplace.

“Why would I have a weapon?” Firlea asked.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Mary retorted, getting into line to hand in her knife.

“You carry a knife when you are going into the city?” Hinat asked.

“I always carry it,” Mary said, taking the little wood marker as she handed in her knife. “It was a gift from my dad,” she said.

“That explains it” Firlea nodded.

“There, I see Tenac” Mary said, waving as she saw Tenac looked in their direction.

“That’s Tenac?” Hinat whispered.

“Told you she knows all the handsome riders,” Firlea answered.

“Mary, hi” Tenac smiled at her. Mary smiled back.

“Hi, is everyone here?” she asked.

“Yes, over here, I will introduce you,” Tenac said, indicating a spot to the right of the entrance where a group of riders stood.

They all walked over to the group and Mary realized she knew all of them, but two of them she had just seen in passing. One of them was the rider that had talked to her outside the restaurant the first day she had been out with Bettina and Kopa. The other was a rider she recognized from the journey from Domne.

“So, this is Jontak, Sinhera, Roan and Picip,” Tenac said, pointing out the different riders.

“For you that doesn’t know, this is Mary Teeran, sir Teeran’s daughter, and her two friends,” he continued. He stared a bit at Roan and Picip, Mary thought.

“Hi, this is Firlea, and this is Hinat,” Mary said. She saw that Roan looked at her, and he looked terrified. That meant he remembered Kopa’s little speech, Mary guessed.

As everyone got equated, Sinhera walked up to Mary.

“Do you want to tell me why Roan looks like he thinks you are going to stab him?” She asked Mary with an entertained smile.

“I met him and two of his friends when I was new in the city. He talked to me, and dad didn’t really like it. He talked to him,” Mary said. Sinhera laughed.

“I’m going to interpret that as Roan tried to flirt with you, got caught by sir Terran and got threatened never to go near you or he would regret it,” Sinhera laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Tenac asked. He had, as usual, kept close to Mary even as everyone tried to get to know each other. Sinhera told him, and he looked at Roan and chuckled.

“Don’t you make fun of him,” Mary said, trying to look stern, and failing. “You should know how it feels to be on the receiving end of one of dad’s talks.”

At that reminder, the smile vanished from Tenac’s face, making Sinhera laugh even harder. She had to lean against Mary as she grabbed her stomach.

“You are so much fun to have around Mary,” she said when she could talk. Everyone was now looking at them.

“Okay, let’s get things over with,” Mary said. “Please don’t be afraid to talk to me or be around me because of my dad. His bark is worse than his bite,” she said and was met with seven faces that clearly didn’t believe her.

“Look, Tenac has been hanging out with me for months, so have Sinhera and Jontak. They are all in one piece,” Mary said.

“That is true,” Tenac said. “Shall we get going? What do you want to do first?” he then asked everyone.

After some discussion, they decided to head to the perfumery, then to the weapons stalls, and then to the part where most of the foreign traders had stalls. The four women clumped together as they started walking. Tenac stayed close to Mary and the other men just orbited around the women.

They talked about the week as they walked, and Mary was happy that everyone seemed to get along. As they got to the perfumery, Mary turned towards Firlea.

“Didn’t you need new ink? There are some good stalls for that one row from here. Tenac showed me when we were here,” Mary said to her.

“Yes, thank you for reminding me. Can you come with me?” Firlea asked.

“Oh, I need Mary to help me with choosing a ting for Tenac,” Sinhera said. “Jontak, could you take Firlea to get some ink?” she shouted over to Jontak that was standing in the opening to the shop.

“Sure, happy to help,” he said, smiling.

Firlea looked at Mary, slightly panicked. Mary smiled at her.

“Thanks, Jontak,” Mary said.

She and Sinhera looked as Jontak and Firlea left the shop.

“Not the smoothest hint, but I think that will do,” Sinhera smiled.

“It’s a good start at least,” Mary nodded.

“What are you two plotting?” Tenac asked as he walked up to them. “And where are Jontak and your friend?”

“Firlea needed ink. Jontak escorted her there as it’s her first time to the market,” Mary smiled at him.

“You two are scaring me. Please don’t help me like that, ever,” he said. Both Mary and Sinhera laughed.

They waited for the two to return before heading towards the weapons stalls. There were a lot of different weapons. Some Mary didn’t even know the names of and couldn’t figure out how to use.

“Do you want to look at a new knife, Mary?” Jontak asked her.

“No thank you, I’m happy with the one I have,” she told him.

“Do you even know how to use it?” Tenac asked her.

“Well, it’s a knife. You hold the end that isn’t sharp, point the other end at what you want to poke and then you poke,” Mary said, closing her hand into a fist and pretended to do the motion.

Tenac, Jontak and Sinhera looked at her like she was mad.

“Okay, so maybe it isn’t called poking, but you know. You…” Mary illustrated the motion again “...poke” she said.

“It’s called stabbing Mary. You don’t poke with a knife, you stab,” Tenac explained with a great deal of patience.

“Sure, okay, call it what you want, the principle is the same,” Mary said.

Jontak and Sinhera started laughing.

“We’ll add basic weapon training to your schedule,” Tenac simply said.

“You don’t have to do that, Tenac. I won’t need it,” Mary objected

“Mary, I can’t have you go around… poking things with a knife,” Tenac sighed, causing Sinhera and Jontak to dissolve into two puddles of laughter.

“I already take riding lessons on my days off. When are we going to fit in weapons’ training?” Mary asked, trying to ignore her two laughing friends.

“We’ll do every other, so one week riding, one week weapons,” he said.

“Don’t forget swimming,” Sinhera wheezed.

“Yes, so maybe we can take one evening per week for weapons training,” Tenac said.

“Just for your information, I don’t go around poking things. I have never used my knife,” Mary clarified.

“That’s good at least. Let’s keep it that way, but it’s good to be prepared,” Tenac said with determination.

“Do you two need help?” he then asked his two friends that was squatting down, laughing as tears rolled down their faces.

“Just. Stop. Talking” Jontak squeezed out in-between fits of laughter.