…or, Hail The Conquered Hero
Iason’s prediction about who’d be blamed for the skirmish defeat proved spot-on. We failed, but were hailed as conquering heroes anyway. Pala in particular was impressed. The demigiantess gave me such a reception I had to make sure she realized we’d lost.
She did.
She just didn’t care.
If anything, she seemed to think that dying was a great consolation prize.
She tried to make me promise to “die even better” the next time. I had to tell her that there wouldn’t be one. I’d only been an asset in stag form. Committing to the team would mean committing to being Iason’s mount.
Sure, we knew how to remove the magic bracelet. Sure that would happen if I made and kept that promise to Pala. But I already had the wrath of one elf for cheapening the highly spiritual, age-old, and rape-tastic significance of the stag bracelet. That was more than plenty for me.
Our gambit hadn’t even succeeded. Worse, it would never work that well again. We’d had the element of surprise on our side. Not only that, but we’d been the complete opposite of what they’d expected. Their lightning spells had been all but useless against a single fast moving target. They’d only thrown them at us because we’d had their banner. If they’d known they were going to face anything like an elven stag rider, they would have prepared magic to stop that from happening in the first place.
“It could have gone the other way, you know,” Marlot said when yet another random guy gave me a slap on the back while we the two of us ate lunch on Monday. She’d skipped the salad for once and gone for a pair of foot-long hot dogs with loads of mustard instead. She was enjoying them so much that she hadn’t made a single innuendo.
“Maybe if the team’d built their strategy around us,” I said. “But if it had been planned, the other team would have had strategies to counter us. I think it was hopeless from the beginning. But it didn’t hurt to try, and the fringe benefit was nice.”
I rubbed my wrist where the bracelet had been stuck.
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “If blame for the loss hadn’t already been apportioned before you stepped onto the hex, it would probably fall to you. Newcomer barges onto the field, makes a desperate attempt, fails spectacularly, and the game ends soon after? That’s like a recipe for scapegoat.”
“Yeah, but the loss didn’t have anything to do with me,” I said. “BPC would have won anyway. It wouldn’t be fair to blame me. It would just be making an excuse for the way things were already going.”
“I’m glad to see you’ve grasped the concept of ’scapegoat’,” Marlot said.
“Ha,” I said. “It seems to me like blame’s exactly where it should be.”
The seventh squad had taken a lot of heat during the match for their lack of cohesion. The word had gone round afterwards that they had a good reason for this: not only were they missing their star fighter, the other missing team member was a telepath. They’d based their strategy around her ability to coordinate things as much as they had around the infamous ogress.
The kicker? Both fighters were out for the same reason. It seemed the past weekend, the mask of bumbling innocence had fallen off their fellow Harlowite. It seemed a stretch to me that she would have lashed out and happened to take out two members of the Harlowe skirmish squad. Might have been coincidence that they were the two poles holding up the tent. She probably wasn’t privy to their strategy. But there it was. Why had she gone after skirmishers? Jealousy, maybe. Maybe she’d been turned away from the skirmish team because her point value was too high. Maybe she couldn’t stand to see other “monstrous” students making good and enjoying the limelight. There was no way of knowing.
“Or maybe you haven’t,” Marlot said.
“Haven’t what?”
“Grasped the concept of a scapegoat.”
“You don’t think it’s her fault?”
“I don’t know it’s her fault,” Marlot said. “But I do know there were an awful lot of people on that field that aren’t her. None of the ones on our side won the match. None of the ones on the other side lost the match. I think it’s safe to say that the outcome of the match is bigger than a single person. Even if she did something that weakened our side, both sides were fraught with strengths and weaknesses. It’s hard to say any one of them alone made the difference.”
“So she should just get a pass for attacking two people?” I asked.
“No, and that’s maybe what bothers me the most about this,” Marlot said. “Supposedly she attacked two people and yet I haven’t heard a lot of outrage or vitriol about that.”
“What do you mean? The whole student body’s talking about it.”
“They’re talking about how she ‘lost’ the skirmish match. Have you heard anything about the condition of the victims? Or about what’s being done? Have they been healed? Has she been disciplined? Are they still investigating? If our resident half-demon had attacked two humans–two human skirmish players in particular but two humans–I’d expect to be seeing a pitchforks-and-torches club opening on campus.”
“Well, that probably would’ve happened, but the match got everybody’s attention,” I said.
“You really think a skirmish match would have distracted everyone if the victims were human?” Marlot asked.
“What, you’re disappointed that there isn’t a lynch mob?” I asked.
“I’m dismayed by the implications,” Marlot said. “Thoroughly dismayed.”
“So you’d rather there had been a lynch mob.”
“I didn’t say that.”
I felt a twitch–a lurch, really–in my cock and a quick impression of the color purple, warning me that Violet was coming to join us.
“He knows what you mean,” she announced, sitting down at the table with a little container of rice and nuts. “He’s just not comfortable agreeing that nobody gives half a shit what the Harlots do to each other.”
“I’m not comfortable condemning the entire campus of a specific act of racism when there’s no way of knowing that’s what’s going on,” I said.
“Oh, what happened to your salad?” Violet asked, frowning at Marlot’s lunch.
“Eaten by cows,” Marlot said, taking a big bite of hot dog and smiling at her. “It’s okay, I caught the bastards who did it.”
“Marlot’s been craving hot dogs since the skirmish match,” I explained.
“The key with hot dogs is to make sure you’re getting all-beef,” Marlot said. “Because if it’s not all-beef, it could be anything else.”
“If you really cared about what you put into your body, you wouldn’t eat meat,” Violet said.
“Right, because flesh is the last thing that a body wants,” Marlot said. “Anyway, don’t worry. I left the cows alive.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked Violet. “Not that you’re not welcome. It’s just surprising, since you don’t eat fast food.”
“Oh, I just thought Pala might be here,” she said.
“I’ve never seen her in the food court,” I said.
“Maybe you just haven’t looked hard enough,” Marlot said. “She does tend to blend in.”
“I thought maybe she’d be eating with you,” Violet said. “Barley said she went to the match with you, and you made quite an impression on her.”
“Yeah, I died real nice,” I said.
“Also, she saw your pee-pee,” Marlot said. “She asked why it was so small. I told her it was because you were so far away.”
“So, why are you looking for Pala?” I asked Violet, giving Marlot all the attention she deserved.
“Because she’s a trip,” Violet said. “Also, I think you should bone her.”
“Here,” Marlot said, lifting up the untouched hot dog. “You’re going to need this.”
“You’re so funny,” I said. “Anyway,” I said to Violet, “I am not teaching a girl twice my size and half my intelligence about the birds and the bees, much less giving her an interactive lesson.”
“Well, you need to give someone an interactive lesson,” Violet said. “A whole day playing suck-and-fuck with Iason? Anything’s fine in moderation, but the sausage fest gets old after a while.”
“Speak for yourself,” Marlot said, starting on the second hot dog.
“Aren’t you straight?” I asked Violet.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s why I like a guy and a girl in my sexings.”
“They aren’t your sexings,” I said. “They’re my sexings. And who says ’sexings’, anyway?”
“You three times,” Marlot said. “Her only once. Hypocrite.”
“Look, I don’t mind you ‘dropping in’,” I said. “But it’s like you said: it’s fine in moderation. There’s got to be some limits.”
I felt a squeeze between my legs, not too hard. Or maybe just too hard enough.
“Oh, you ‘don’t mind’ it?” Violet said, and she pulled, mentally and physically. I bit my lip, biting back a groan.
“If you’re giving him a mindjob under the table—” Marlot said.
“I wasn’t going to, but what would you do if I did?” Violet asked quietly, and I felt pressure slowly sliding up and down my quickly hardening shaft. “Make a big scene? Leave in a huff?”
“Actually, I’d just sit here and finish my hot dogs,” Marlot said. “And then, I don’t know. Knit.”
“Oh,” Violet said, and her attention fell away.
“Uh, so how’s Barley doing?” I asked. I shifted a little in my seat. Marlot might have prevented something a little inappropriate, but at the price of something really uncomfortable.
“Oh, she’s, well, she’s very touchy,” Violet said. “I woke up Saturday night and she was mopping my brow.”
“Damn, those nymphs are scandalous,” Marlot said.
“I don’t like being touched,” Violet said. “Especially when I’m all sweaty.” She shivered. Everything on the table shook. “I don’t like it.”
“Do you still really think you can get her to get over you by hanging out?” I asked.
“Maybe she should spend a whole day getting it on with her,” Marlot said. “Oh, wait. That’s how you show somebody you’re not sure about committing to them. Right, Jamie?”
“Hey, having sex with each other is the one thing we’re both agreed on,” I said. “I don’t see any reason to make that any more complicated than that. Really, it’s the kind of arrangement I’m more familiar with. Hot guy thinks I’m hot. Why not?”
“Because he’s just biding his time until he can sweet-talk you into being his ‘mount’ again?” Marlot suggested.
“Considering how he sweet-talks? He’s going to be biding his time for a good long while,” I said.
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