“Love Interest” is her first published fiction piece.
Love Interest
by Ashley Armstrong
I learned how to read from wanted posters. There’s nothing more annoying than chasing down some drunk named Eric the Strange when you were supposed to be going after Eric the Strangler, just because Idiot #2 in the bar misunderstood the paper you had him read you. It’s also generally a good idea to figure out if that bad drawing is supposed to be of you without having to talk to someone else about it.
Right. Me. I should introduce me. My name is Karen, no last name because I’m poor like that. (I think my grandfather’s last name was Whoreson, but who wants to carry on that legacy?) I’m tall for a woman, short for a man. Brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin. I’m a jack of all trades: Mercenary, bounty hunter, you name it. I used to make most of my gold (read: copper) in rigged tournament fights. And I’m not usually as, well, mushy as I’m going to be for the next while. Trust me, you’re gonna see why.
So what do I have to do with Daniel Hunter, the Hero, Savior of All? The bearer of the Prophesied Weapon, the One Blade that can defeat the scourge of our world: the creature? (No, no capitals for the creature. I think people just don’t like it enough to give it a capital letter.)
Well, come on. Every hero, even Sword Guy (one of his titles; long story) needs a rough-and-tumble mercenary sidekick. If we’re female, we get to be the love interest. And yeah, I got sucked into that role, too.
Apart from being a great story cliché, my main reason for knowing Daniel is those rigged tournament fights. He got involved with them, not knowing they were rigged, managed to mess up the whole bloody rigging system (I’m still not clear on how, but I’d bet money it had more to do with his Aura of Hero than any intentions on his part) and, well, my bosses thought we were in cahoots. Ended up on the run and then just stuck around him. Hey, when you’re a part-time bounty hunter and you find someone high-stakes criminals slaver over, you stick with it.
And like I said. The love thing.
Fact is, when I was a little kid I had a huge crush on him. Heard rumors of him all my life, you know how it goes. Took a while to admit it, but he was my major motivator to get myself out of the slums. That didn’t stop me from falling back into them, but that’s not his fault.
As for falling in love, that didn’t start until a couple months back. Just one day out of the blue, I started seeing him in a new way. I didn’t really know why at the time, but for some reason stuff like offering me his sleeping blanket started seeming sweet instead of perverted. His Heroic Acts started seeming noble instead of idiotic.
I got to this point where I confessed my feelings to him. Got them off my chest, tried to see if he wanted to be with me. I was nervous as anything, fingers quivering, palms shaking, and this was his Heroic response:
“Look, I’m not… I don’t think of you that way. Okay?”
He found me an hour later. “Karen, are you crying?”
I shook my head and held my knees to my chest. Of course I wasn’t crying. I never cry. The fact that my face was soaking wet with tears and my body hurt from sobs didn’t change that. Really.
He knelt down and wiped at my tears with his hand, his face uncertain and pained. He leaned forward just enough and I caught his lips with mine, desperate for just one kiss. After that I would leave, or stay with him and pretend I didn’t love him.
He didn’t pull away.
* * *
After that first night we tried to slow things down. We
were still new to seeing each other in a romantic way. Not
only that, but Daniel had this strange reluctance
sometimes. He would touch the side of my face and look deep
into my eyes with this hesitating look.
“You really love me?” he’d ask.
“Yeah,” I’d say. Just simple like that. And he’d kiss me
and I’d kiss him and soon enough we were comfortable again.
It was a nice way to be.
* * *
Two months after my stumbled confession and our first kiss,
I was lying in bed, watching Daniel get ready for the
fight. We had stuck together, and the creature was on its
way. I should be getting ready, too, but I wanted to watch
him. To see the way he moved, the way his muscles rippled
and stretched as he buckled and tied the pieces of his
custom-made armor. It fit him like a second skin, a
shimmering creation of living metal. I’ve never been rich
enough to have armor made of living metal. Neither was he,
but he was the Hero, the prophesied savior of the world.
The specially made armor had been a gift scraped from the
pockets of those who knew the prophecy.
It brought out his eyes. Those passionate grey eyes that
drew me in, that made me want – no, need
–
to be close to him.
I rose from the bed. We kissed, briefly, and I could see
fear in his eyes. Soon the creature would come, and we
might be separated forever. I rested my hand in his for
just a brief moment, knowing he felt my rough fingers
entangled in his own, knowing he could draw reassurance
from that touch.
But today he didn’t. I tried for an encouraging smile but
it fell short, because I understood his fear. Maybe I’d die
and leave him forever. Or maybe he’d die and leave me
forever. Either option was unbearable. I wanted to nestle
into the curve of his armored body, but I held back.
Something in my touch was making him more afraid. More
afraid of losing me, perhaps? But either way, I didn’t want
to spark any more fear in his gaze. I took my hand from his
and turned away to put on my own equipment.
A leather brigandine for my chest, which I’d actually
bought. Bracers stolen off a dead archer for my arms. I had
some leg guards which fit me poorly, gapping and poking in
all the wrong places. They would reduce my ability to move
easily. They might also save my legs from sudden
amputation. I made myself put them on, but knew I’d regret
it.
I hated having next to nothing for my head, but helmets
were expensive. A reinforced headband was all I’d ever been
able to afford. I put it on with little hope in its
utility.
Sword in sheath, knife in sheath, other knife in sheath,
dagger in sheath, and I made sure not to forget that
unusually large needle I’d picked up somewhere or another.
I once had a bow, also stolen off that dead archer, but I
sold it and its too-fancy arrows for the leg plates. Worst
purchase decision ever. I should have just learned how to
use the bloody thing. Now instead of something reasonably
deadly for distance I had a pouchful of stones and a sling
I could barely use. (I tend to give up on the sling about a
minute into any fight that needs it and just start throwing
the rocks at my opponents barehanded. I’ve gotten very good
at hitting eyes that way, if I get close enough.)
A pair of good boots, which I would have started the
equipping with if I hadn’t been so distracted by worries
about Daniel. Those on and I was ready. Not a moment too
soon.
Our wooden door had begun, ever so subtly, to crack. Daniel
was staring at it already, and I stood beside him,
watching. The material around the cracks turned black, then
grey, crumbling to dust in a spiderweb pattern that spread
out and out until the entire door just disappeared in a
puff of smoke.
The creature behind it looked human, yet not. Its
unnaturalness was subtle. Eyes a little too wide. Pupils a
little too small. Its hair never seemed to be exactly the
color I’d assumed it was at first glance. The fingers were
strangely short, the palms strangely long. I noticed
something watching those hands, waiting for them to go for
a weapon, to grow claws, to try to kill us. It had no
fingernails. It looked like it had never been made to have
fingernails. That little detail put a chill in my stomach.
Pain tightened curling fingers along my rib cage, as if
someone were holding their hands around each and every
bone, pressing against the skin from the inside. I could
feel the flesh bubbling over my ribs and I almost tore off
my brigandine to look. I felt something caress the inside
of my throat and gagged. I felt a slimy finger rub against
the very back of my tongue and almost vomited.
I felt it touch my heart.
Daniel had noticed what was happening to me. But he didn’t
move. I don’t think he could. It’s part of the nature of
the creature.
It didn’t feel right, where that invisible hand squeezed. I
felt a sharp pinch and heard a tear deep inside of me. I
coughed in reflex and tasted metal. Blood. It had torn off
a piece of my lung.
The rules. Remember the rules. I brought myself out of the
agonizing horror of what it was doing to me, made myself
focus despite the invisible fingers snaking through my
body. It was after me because I was in love with Daniel. As
long as I was alive and in love with him, it could and
would only attack me. In exchange, I was the only one who
could attack it.
I cut its head off.
The head smiled at me from the ground, and its nailless
fingers made a clawing motion. I felt it in the lining of
my stomach. I stabbed through its heart this time but it
didn’t do a thing. It just kept smiling. I felt like there
was a hole in my stomach now, like it was squeezing its
fingers through, like…
“Karen, listen to me.” It was Daniel speaking. Maybe his
last words to me. “Listen to me. You drank a potion.”
And that’s when the spell broke.
I collapsed backwards, gasping for air. I coughed again and
again, but while there was blood the first time, after that
there was nothing but phlegm. I felt the urge to throw up
but didn’t. Suddenly my stomach didn’t hurt anymore;
suddenly everything felt fine.
Daniel had said the magic words and killed the effects of
the potion I’d taken two months ago. Getting rid of my
magically induced “love” for him had broken the creature’s
power over me and freed Daniel to kill the creature. Now I
could remember everything I’d forgotten. Including taking
the bloody thing and the truth about my and Daniel’s
lovey-dovey relationship.
Daniel stabbed the creature with his sword. And
since his
sword was the
Holy Sword of the Neverending, it actually did something.
The creature screamed and he chopped and in about five
minutes the job was done. The creature, the last obstacle
to the revival of the world, was dead.
He turned to me and let down a hand to help me up. I
knocked it away and helped myself up. And then I started
yelling.
“You told me you wouldn’t sleep
with me!”
“I told you I wouldn’t kill you to defend myself! You were
perfectly willing!”
“I was under a spell, you slimewort! A spell
you
put
on me!”
“You volunteered!”
“I volunteered with
conditions!”
* * *
Two months ago, Daniel and I had a conversation. It went
like this:
“I’m not in love with you.” That was me talking. The real
me, not that hopelessly besotted idiot I’ve been narrating
for the past while.
“Right.”
“But I need to be, for this mission.” You’re seeing where
this is going, maybe.
“Right.”
I sighed, staring at the potion in my hand. I had accepted
this already, a hundred times in my head. The creature
would go after whoever was in love with Daniel, and I was
the only one who stood a chance of not dying within five
seconds of meeting it. Plus, once Daniel said something to
me about the potion, then it could wear off and
he
could kill the
creature, which meant that I would serve as great bait.
Yeah. You heard me. Bait. I volunteered to be bait. Not the
first time, but definitely the first time with
mind-altering chemicals. The best I could hope was that it
wouldn’t make me a wimp. The love potion did not create
“true” love, but it was close enough.
I wondered at the time if he would have tried slipping it
into my drink if I refused, but I knew better. Or rather, I
knew that he knew better. I was careful about what I ate
and drank – it was half the reason he’d openly asked me to
take the potion in the first place. Hero doesn’t mean “not
sneaky.” Repeat after me.
He could never have managed to get it in me secretly, let’s
put it that way. That, and I would have killed him whenever
he slipped up and told me about it, or it wore off, either
one. Not saying I wouldn’t do it now, considering
that he slept
with me, but still. He
would have had to keep me “in love” with him for the rest
of my life. And besides, even if we weren’t in love, I
would like to think he respected me more than that. Yeah,
what a joke.
I lifted the vial up to the light. It looked like someone
had bottled mud. “If I try to rape you under the influence
of this thing, defend yourself, will you?”
See? I asked nicely! And what does he do? Totally ignore
what I said.
“How do you know I won’t go willingly?” he asked.
“Defend yourself, or I’ll kill you later.”
“Hey, I’m just saying, I’m not going to die to keep from
having sex with you.”
I glared. This was only one of the many, many reasons I had
to take the potion, rather than simply being able to fall
for the guy.
Then I sighed. “For the sake of the world.”
“For the sake of the world.”
“Cheers.” I uncorked the vial, lifted it to the sky, prayed
I wouldn’t do anything I’d regret in the next few months (I
lasted a week. A week.),
and drank it down.
* * *
Saving the world got a lot of applause. Lots of love from
various villagers and city people and government
higher-ups, even for me. After all, I was with The Hero. I
was The Hero’s love interest, right? (Though I still didn’t
get any capitals.)
So I dropped the real tale to some bards I knew. They may
or may not have owed me a little money. Soon enough the
taverns were singing of the great Hero who can only get any
if he’s got a potion on hand. The songs weren’t too kind to
me, but I didn’t give a crap. My work was done. And
sometimes people would pay me to tell it personally, and
that was always a hoot, because I have no qualms about
exaggerating. The looks on their faces when I’m done… Trust
me, it’s worth it.
Daniel isn’t too happy with me, but he also has a very
vague sense of heroic honor (which is usually busy drowning
deep in the depths of his personality). He leaves me alone
and lets me spread my rumors. They make him more famous,
anyway.
Oh, and I’m guessing you want to hear one more thing about
me, right? That big, burning question. Everyone always asks
it when I finish my tale, if they’re not too busy laughing.
And they never believe my answer, because everyone’s a
romantic.
Am I still in love with him? Does some deep inner part of
me remember our relationship, remember how I felt about
him, and still feel that way?
My usual answer is “No.” But I think I’ll extend it a
little bit, so you can get a true sense of my personal
inner feelings.
No. Are you kidding me?
Copyright
2008 by Ashley Armstrong