* The Girl Who Would Be Second Best

*

After an evening of chatting, I learned a bit more about the triop that I was now adventuring with. Mainly, that Rionriv was the only one actually interested in school, which was why Aesandoral went along with it. The sorceress had hoped to learn every magic in the world, which was, frankly, a tall order. But, wanting to remain on her good side, I kept that opinion to myself.

It also wasn’t that Aesandoral hated school, she just preferred a more physical education. This was a result of her very active upbringing, in which her parents had raised her to lean into her more athletic and acrobatic strengths. And, as an unforeseen bonus during this discussion, I learned that Rionriv was her sister. 

While their relationship wasn’t biological, they had been together since they were toddlers. Not much more was said on the topic, but that explained their closeness and the sensitivity around the orphan statement. In fact, suddenly a lot of what I had seen between them made sense, like the regular bickering yet protective relationship they had. When I thought back to the moment when Rionriv punched me, it was definitely warranted, and made me feel like an ass.

As for Sharzin, she was still an enigma. Her responses to questioning were short, deflective, and unhelpful. It also didn’t do me any favours that she disappeared every five minutes to God knows where in the smallest room in the world. But ultimately, it seemed that she was happy just doing what the other two wanted, so she mostly went along with things.

Another thing became clear as I watched most of them fumble horribly and drop many of the strange World Eighty-Two objects in my room. It was an easily recognizable issue that I knew could be problematic in the long run for all of us. This was that those who were dextrous in the party were physically weak, and those without notable reflexes, acrobatics, or otherwise graceful moves were even weaker. And, as all tabletop gamers knew, a weak party was doomed to be defeated by the single most dangerous thing in any fantasy world: doors.

That was why I invited the triop to begin joining me at the gym before classes every day going forward. It was easy to swing, as I carefully worded questions beforehand to ensure their mornings were now free of classes after the recent quest completion. Most of the group was displeased by this new training request, so much so that I feared it would fail before it even began.

But the next day, I was surprised to see everyone present for the training. Unfortunately, the only one who seemed eager and ready to take part was Aesandoral. She bounced and skipped towards me with a smile, while the other two groggily followed behind, still half asleep and grumpy. Though that last one was just Rionriv, and I was informed that it apparently didn’t matter the time of day.

Meeting up at the Rag-Tag Field, I  immediately noticed the three approaching in their non-traditional Esserian gym wear. Unable to control my reaction, I felt as my heart began to thud excitedly. I had expected them to be wearing the usual Al'Magi training clothes, which were nothing more than ill-fitted cotton unitards looking closer to slightly tailored potato sacks than clothing. But instead, they were outfitted in things that were slightly more enjoyable for me and suspiciously World Eighty-Two.

I felt myself struggling to contain my lechery as I began my perverted assessment of Aesandoral, who bounced up to me excitedly. Her lithe body was outfitted in a pair of olive-green runner shorts that rode high up her thigh thanks to the curved hem. Her small bosom was bound tightly to her chest by the wrapped guaze bandeau that drew my eyes to its cream fabric, which matched the contrast piping of her shorts.

Beside her was Rionriv, who wore an equally athletic look but nowhere near as revealing. Her set of matching medium-blue workout clothes did its best to hold back the assets that her stepsister unfortunately lacked. Wearing a long-sleeve crop top and high-waisted leggings, the lack of spandex in this world made the fit a little looser than my lecherous mind would have liked. But, regardless, the outfit still gave me plenty to gawk at.

Finally, Sharzin's exercise look didn't appear much different than her normal attire. Replacing the all-black adventuring leathers and cottons with a pair of all-black sweats and an oversized sweatshirt, she looked roughly the same. With the hood flipped up and the excess sleeves bunched around her wrists, the groundling shielded her pale skin from the sun as she did her best to stick in the shadows cast by her companions.

Damnnn! I thought, taking several seconds to breathe through the feeling that threatened to tighten my Lich House basketball shorts. Oh man, this is not fair. Not. Fair!

"Hiya, Ishara!" Aesandoral said joyfully as she hopped to a stop.

Holding hands behind her back, she gently swayed before me.

"How are you this morning?!"

"I'm good. I mean, really good!" I laughed a little. “Though I thought we were exercising, not showing off new fashions.”

“What are you even talking about?” Rionriv responded as she approached her sister. "Phyllis gave these to us and said we needed to 'look the part' or some nonsense. And what about you? Can't say that look is traditional!"

Phyllis! I internally cursed. Of course you fuggin' would!

"This? This is nothing." I bounced back and looked over my basic shirt and shorts combo. “Where I’m from, I’d be called a slob for wearing these clothes.”

“And where’s that from again?”

Crap! Damn it, Rionriv. God, I need to be careful what I say around her.

“Erm—hey, I'm glad Phyllis gave you new clothes at a discount. They look goon—good! Eherm, good on you all.”

“Slick.” Rionriv crossed her arms as she spotted my diversion and maybe my parapraxis. “Okay, what are we doing today? What is this place?”

“It’s—wait, have you seriously never been to the gym or Rag-Tag field?”

“No, why would I come here. My strength comes from my magic.”

Glancing from Aesandoral's disappointed look to the other girls' distant stares, I rubbed at my face before a sigh escaped my lips.

Might as well start from the beginning, I guess.

“Well, today, we’re going to learn about the magic of muscles. Eventually, we’ll likely be fighting in magically unstable areas, and I need to be sure we can all march and climb without magic. So, let’s start with some stretches, a light jog, and then move into some upper body training.”

Walking onto the Rag-Tag field, I positioned us off to the side so we wouldn't disrupt the practice. Luckily, there was plenty of room for us to use without being in the way. The space was roughly the size of a high school football field with a running track around the exterior

Personally, I found that the whole site gave me a weird sensation of anxiety, as high school gym classes must have held a special spot in my memory bank of nightmares. I could feel the barrier straining with the stares we received from the athletes, and for some reason, looking at the stands poked at the dam like a radical environmentalist with a stick of dynamite. This was why I typically didn’t do my cardio here. But for a group of four, it was better than running around campus, where there were too many places to lose Sharzin.

Instructing everyone to circle up on the grass, I began doing some simple stretches. I touched my toes, lunged forward, and warmed my arms. It wasn’t until a few minutes into my mobility exercises that I realized my companions hadn’t joined in. Somewhere in the distance, Phyllis screamed for me to reprimand my employees. So, I decided to be better than she would.

“What’s up, you guys—erm, ladies?”

“What are you doing?” Aesandoral asked with a giggle.

“Stretching?”

“Why?”

“It’s a great habit to get into while you’re young. One day, you'll hit your mid-thirties, where doing anything without a good stretch could kill you. ”

“You’re so weird, you know that?” Rionriv added before plopping onto the grass nearby and mimicking my movements.

I watched as the rest of the triop followed, and soon, three beautiful girls were bending and flexing their agile bodies around me.

Oh no...

A beast stirred within me as I stared down at Rionriv stretching her arms back and pushing her chest forward, testing the limits of her top. Aesandoral bend down, wrapping her embrace around the bare calves of her legs and pulling the shorts even tighter against her well-defined glutes. Sharzin's adorable face glowed red as she pouted and huffed exhaustedly in an attempt to hold a position.

Oh fug, I forgot how sexy physical activity could be.

"Are you going to get down here and do it with us already?" Rionriv hissed from her stretch.

"Huh?!" I gasped, my heart racing as I felt my cheeks warm.

"These super important stretches. Stop gawking, pervert, and join us."

"I-I'm not gawking! I'm—I'm studying. Yeah, studying your posture!"

Positioning myself so as not to be tempted by some of the more revealing positions, I took time out of the day’s training to explain in better detail the importance of doing particular stretches. Unfortunately, this was not my area of expertise. Well, I got the feeling that some of it was, but every time I tried to remember, I found myself blocked by one of those big, anxiety-hardened walls. Luckily, I did know a few things about which parts of the body each one worked and could expand on that.

Finally, at the end of it, we stood, freshly limber, and brushing the grass from our clothes. That was when, from the corner of my eye, I watched the three coeds begin patting each other down. Once again, my heart began to race like a fighter jet breaking the soundbarrier. Instantly, my face heated. Something about watching three attractive girls swatting at each other's butts to remove grass clippings did something to my teenage body.

Turning with a start, I looked down at my restless buddy anxiously. There was nothing I could do to stop the not-so-magic feeling welling up inside of me. Middle-aged psychogenic impotence no more, now I was stuck with every little thing fueling the power to boner city. Having teenage hormones again sucked!

No, no. Phyllis, why? Why would you do this to me? I thought as I adjusted my basketball shorts to no avail. First, you tell me no sex. Then you put the misfit models in clothes that you know will get me horny as hell. You truly are EVIL!

“What now?” Aesandoral asked as she approached from behind.

Crap!

“We run!” I yelped, sprinting away with a start. “Let’s say three miles?!”

I began running my laps, expecting that my sudden start would have given me at least a few minutes of space to allow myself a mental cold shower. But I thought wrong.

The first to catch up to me was Rionriv, who ran at my pace for a few moments. She appeared to be barely exerting any energy, but with a clap of thunder, she pulled ahead.

“No magic!” I yelled after her, fiddling with my ringing ears. “Just muscles, Rionriv! Just your legs!”

Your beautifully-toned legs—no! No horny. Bad! Bad!

“Don’t mind her,” Aesandoral said as she caught up with me a moment later. 

Slowing her pace to match mine, she began to run beside me. She glanced at me with a smile, looking me up and down before her eyes stopped at my waist. Her face flushed red, and she immediately looked up and slightly away from me, holding back a bashful smile.

“I-yuh—she," Aesandoral stammered awkwardly. "R-Rionriv just likes to be first, which is fine. Second place always appealed more to me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, doing my best to ignore the fact that she just clocked Mister Soldier standing at attention.

"You see, Ri—"

"No," I cut her off. "You. What about you, Aesandoral? Why only second place? Why not first?"

She jogged alongside me as I nearly pushed myself into a sprint. Looking her way, I watched her internally struggling to find the right thing to say. Finally, after completing a full lap, she found the words.

"You see, Mama is a Gilded Lady," She spoke softly at first, as though embarrassed to admit her noble lineage. "Sh-she wants me to take over...being her only blood daughter, after all."

But then she turned to me with a start. Her eyes flared with passionate disapproval.

"But I don't want that! And she...she won't listen to me. It's always your responsibility this, and your duty that. Noble lineage and guaranteeing sanctity of the blah, blah, blah. I hate it! It's too much pressure. I just...I just want to run through the woods and shoot my bow and...and—"

She looked over at me, blushing for a moment before looking away. Another half lap passed before she continued.

"So, I figured if I wasn't that impressive, then, well, then she wouldn't force me to be the First Daughter of her line. Maybe she'd be disappointed and just, you know, let me disappear. So I began to strive for second place. She wanted me to be first, so I made sure I was always second. Running. Second. Archery. Second. School—"

Aesandoral hissed at this, looking down at the ground as she ran.

"I hate school. I actually kind of wish I could be better at school. N-Not for me! But for Rionriv. I just—it's so...boring! I hate it. I can't focus. But—But everything else I did. I just aimed to be a little bit worse than everyone else. And, well, it became fun. Being second is a lot more fun than first. First, you only have to win. But in the second place, you have to lose to one person and beat everyone else. It's a lot more challenging. And I like that!"

Damn. I thought to myself as I listened to her go on. I get it. I get this girl. Like, hit the nail on the head kind of got her.

I listened to her talk until we entered our second mile. And while I wasn’t yet exhausted, it was tiring watching how easily Aesandoral ran and spoke. After all, I had been moving as fast as I could without clocking in at a full sprint, yet she was still casually jogging.

“I understand,” I said, attempting to relate to her struggles of wanting to pass on royal duty.

Hell, I understood, or at least I thought I did. Unfortunately, the more I pushed my mind into the subject, the more I found myself butting up against that dam. I knew something was locked in there, and just from the dreams I already had around my own tiger mom, I felt I had enough information to relate to. 

But I didn't feel like divulging that stuff yet. Unlike Aesandoral, I had a mental breakdown protocol in place, so if I wanted to relate, I needed something else to talk about.

“It’s like where I was from—” Beginning to explain between heavy gasps. “I was always told to be number one at everything I did. So, I strived for that, even in noncompetitive play. Heh—there was this game I played with my friends, with these little plumbers, princesses, and dinosaurs racing in go-karts. I was pretty good and always got first, but after a while, no one wanted to play with me because of it. So, instead, I learned how to position my friends in a winning place. I called it ‘protect the president,’ and you’re right—it’s much harder to remain in second place than to take first and run with it.”

Aesandoral’s eyes locked on me as I told the story, and I could see my words reaching her. She was getting it, or at least I hoped. Maybe if I could teach one person something about my past life, and their world became better because of it, maybe there'd be hope for me. Also, if we were going to survive the coming war, I needed everyone to be at the top of their game. No second-bests on this team!

“It wasn’t until several years later,” I continued. “When I went to race against actual competitors, I had to learn once again to fight for first. But I failed, time and again, because I had done a disservice to myself all those years. You do no favours hindering yourself for others. Believe in yourself, Aesandoral. If you can be number one, then do it!”

“I’m sorry,” She apologized, shaking her head. “I’m still on the plumber and princess part. And what’s a goat-art?”

Right, video games aren’t a thing here…and she’s kinda dumb—no, not dumb. I honestly think she just has the ye olde ADHD.

“Forget about that stuff." I waved my hand. "What I’m trying to say is that you’re not doing yourself any favours by not striving to overachieve in the things you naturally excel at. Trust me. Put the effort in, push past your limits, and be authentically you. Today, you’re young. One day, you’ll thank yourself for these years when you truly learned who you are. Don't be a bike fail meme, be a success kid, you know?”

“Bike fail...meme?”

Right, there also aren’t memes here. Crap, how am I going to get these kids to stand and deliver if I can’t connect with them?

“Passing through,” Rionriv shouted as she sprinted past us. “Come on, lazies. Stop flirting and put in some effort!”

“What? I’m just—” Aesandoral huffed, glancing at me with flushed cheeks before rushing away. “Rionriv, you get back here!”

And off they went at a speed I had no chance of catching.