Player

No sooner than the portal closes up behind Samantha, James comes around a bend in the woods riding on the back of a female Dullahan's horse. The horse was a chestnut brown and the rider had a plain dress of whites and browns. Normally folks in the area wear a hooded robe but being she had no head, that fell off.

"Well fancy meeting you here." James says chipper as ever.

"Oh look, another pervert to get rid of." I comment.

"Hold it!" He says jumping from the back of the horse to walk up to me. "I, am no pervert. A player? I will let you call me that but I am no pervert."

"Says every perv." I say rummaging through my bag for the skull. The body walks the horse toward us and raises the spine whip in it's hand.

"Name one incident of me being a perv." His voice and face is rather serious for once. Then he moves to stand between the dullahan and I.

Then I try to think of those incidents while he parries off attacks from the dullahan. He is dodging and weaving fairly smoothly while the dullahan is aiming for his head. I bring the skull out of my bag and hold onto it awkwardly with my shield hand.

"Well you're awful quiet. Can't think of any can you?" He pipes up while deflecting the whip with his shield. 

"What about that incident in highschool with Cindy Lue?" I ask. Now that I think of it, I don't have any accounts of him being a perv outside of the Cindy Lue incident. All my memories of James are how he is always flirting with a girl. Always.

He freezes at that question. I step infront of him to block the next attack. With a smooth motion I take my already blessed spear and cut the whip from her hand. The dullahan stumbles back and then forward reaching toward me with it's other hand. James steps forward to hold her hand back while I place her skull in the hole between her shoulders.

A warm glow emits from her as her spirit becomes at peace. Her features come back to her face and she is young with big brown eyes and long brunette hair. She smiles at us then floats over to James to kiss his cheek before moving on from this world.

"See player. Not perv." He states.

"You forgot Cindy Lue." I state back.

"T-that can't count!" He holds his finger up at me. "First she asked me to meet her behind the school. It was not my fault she thought that adjusting her clothing back there was a good idea. And then she flung herself onto me before you walked up."

I eyed him skeptically. Now that highschool was years ago and Cindy Lue has close to ten kids now and multiple divorces due to her cheating, maybe James is telling the truth.

"What-ever." I say turning on my heel. I used my only escape portal scroll on Samantha so I need to find the closest waypoint.

"Then you move on? You make a big fuss then what-ever it?" He jogs up beside me.

"Leave me alone perv. I need to make sure my trainee is fine." I inform him.

"At least call me a player and not a perv." He pleads beside me. "Wait I thought your trainee was 18? Why can't they be by themselves?"

"No I got a new one, that you will not taint with your "player" whatever. She is 16 year old highschooler and has very little life experience especially with cooking." I reluctantly say.

"Ah. Now you admit I'm a player?"

I do not indulge in his antics. After a moment of silence he moves on.

"It's been awhile since we were in highschool. Oh! Remember our classes first dullahan field lesson?" He chuckles.

"You mean where that one guy from our class thought if he kissed the dullahan he would be spared?" I cringed at that memory.

"Yea! That head really got him into a trance. If the teacher didn't step in he would have been headless." He keeps walking beside me down the road toward town. "Then there was you, Mrs. Fearless. Always charging in with spears glowing just to need saving by Ms. Heather."

"I wasn't saved that many times."

"That day alone, you were nearly beheaded 5 times." He tilts his head my way. The shade of the trees from the moon light doesn't let me see much else. 

"I don't recall being saved that many times." I pout.

"Well near the end there you were acting like a wild animal and passed out. Ms. Heather had to take us back after that." He shrugs.

I do remember waking up after that lesson in the infirmary. Then Heather scolding me on the way home.

"Remember you trying to make small talk while fending one off? Your face was priceless when Heather told you they can't hear you." I can't help but giggle. "You just stood there in disbelief and nearly lost your head."

"Hey now! How was I supposed to know they couldn't hear me?" He retorts.

"The fact they had no head?" I laugh back at him.

"We fight plenty of monsters, demons and everything else, lots of those don't have ears and can hear." He debates. 

"Most things aren't human to begin with. You have to go with the basic anatomy of the creature, you ding dong." I smirk.

"Hey those are fighting words!" I can hear the playful side of him. He gives that to all the girls so it's heard often.

A golden scroll hits James in the head and then one pops into existence in front of me. I grab it and open it.

Since you two seem to be enjoying dullahan talk. Care to take another one on? This one's a real doosy and will kill hundreds if not stopped, tonight.

I love you all so much, keep up the good work!

XOXO Aba

Why that... Wait. My trainee is pretty capable.

I eye James' escape portal.

Maybe I can ditch him.