<div class="floatright">(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/db/e9/cf/dbe9cf5fe0e93ceb0b2c4707e6679664--character-portraits-character-ideas.jpg)</div>This wasn’t the best feeling Sophie had ever experienced. Sitting here on the ground like a reluctantly delivered burlap sack of manure, roasting in the sun and marinating in the fumes of fresh failure all while that bloated horse's ass glowered down at them and…<br/><br/>The pair were enveloped in a flash of light and the battered young woman felt a heated rush wash over her entire body, from toes to face, like a ball of dough being slide into an eagerly waiting oven. In its wake, it left a tingling of pins and needles not too unlike blood returning to a foot that spent too long under one's ass.<br/><br/>“HA!” She bellowed in triumph as Les put words to the feelings the moment had left her with. She had just reached out to throw her arms around her adopted sister when.<br/><br/><em>Thwack!</em><br/><br/>Instantly her hands clasped the top of her sunbaked hair as the swordsman rapped them both on the head with his bony ass knuckles and with them, punctured their moment of victory. She could feel her good mood escaping out through the new crack in the top of her skull.<br/><br/>"Ouch!"<br/><br/>He proceeded to ask them both a series of questions only to continue talking before they got the chance to answer. Somewhere in the pit of her stomach, the familiar bile that fueled her acidic tongue began to bubble. She shouldn’t say what she was thinking… not if they wanted his help. It was becoming a real struggle to keep her mouth shut at this moment and that was when she felt something hit her lap.<br/><br/>He had tossed them each a small pouch which contained, as it turned out,  a piece of hardtack, a bit of meat jerky of some kind and a small round of yellow wax dipped cheese. The excited growling of her stomach felt like a dirty, dirty betrayal as he set into his lecture, pacing back and forth before them.<br/><br/>This was a bit too like all of her lessons for her liking and thankfully the hardtack mixed with the cheese had turned into some sort of glue in her mouth, requiring all of her jaw muscles and spared him from the line up of snide remarks she would normally have offered up. Perhaps this had been his plan the whole time?<br/><br/>But there was no denying that as she managed to eat, she felt some energy returning to her mud-caked limbs. Flecks of muck speckled her face like filthy freckles and littered her usually pristine raven black locks with pine needles and gods only knew what else.<br/><br/>The fact that this was just like her old lessons did not make swallowing the brittle smoked jerky any easier. Nor was the fact that she was forced to sit silently and listen to it. Gone were the days of biting off her tutors heads then running off to Daddy to make up some lie about how they had hit her in order to get rid of them. There was no one left to hide behind and this fact did little to aid her mood.<br/><br/>Her wounded pride made it difficult to listen, but her bruised and battered body made him impossible to ignore. The steps seemed almost overwhelming to her and sounded more like some complicated waltz through the mud than combat. She still didn’t see what the problem with the swords had been, exactly, but she admitted to herself with a grumble, the spells HAD been more effective.<br/><br/><em>“Any questions?”</em><br/><br/>It was all Sophia could do to chew the meat and cheesy paste in her mouth, swallowing hard and nearly choking when it got stuck.<br/><br/>“Yeah… how in the<em>hells</em>are we supposed to remember all of that?” She remarked finally, her words sounding thick and raspy.<br/><br/>“Honestly, I had forgotten I even knew that bloody spell until just a few minutes ago and now you want us to keep track of how many times we cast, where we are standing, where they are going and probably what house Saturn is in on any given Sunday.” she scowled up sarcastically at him.<br/><br/>“You could easily just go down there and kill them for us and then we’d<em>all </em>have silver enough for a month in the inn.” She pointed out, arms folded over a heaving and rapidly rage reddening bosom.<br/><br/>“And when was the last time you got laid? Cause you’re talking about little boys and cocks an awful lot for my liking.”<br/><br/>Weeeelp… so much for keeping her mouth shut. Clearly whatever roll she needed to make diplomacy… she had failed it spectacularly.<br/>