Does Poorly With Crowds

Lavender felt the anxiety hit her half an hour before she saw it.

Other caravans of Guild members escorting nobles coming in off other roads as the morning drew on. The excitement in the air on their faces. The din of the crowds just over the next hill. It was all prelude to what came next.

And there it was. Tents and stalls as far as the eye could see, all surrounding a large fenced arena where knights were in the middle of a jousting tournament. The cheers of the crowd when one of the knights was knocked clean off their mount was electric.

If Lavender wasn’t on horseback her legs would have given out at the sight. She had never seen such activity before. In Westeron, she could concentrate on a single street at a time. Here she saw the full scale of the tournament and its periphery. And it was terrifying.

Lavender was pulled off her horse by Robert when they finally arrived. She remained perfectly still as the other members of the party discussed what they were going to do. Hazel and Balerifon looked to be quietly arguing with each other before Hazel barked out a command. Balerifon immediately took a knee without another word, only a nasty look on his face.

At last, Hazel came over to her sister. “We’re going to split up to cover more ground,” she said. “I’m going to lead Robert around to some of the smaller competitions while I sign up for mystery magic tournaments and the like. Balerifon will stay with you and help keep you centered. And just as importantly,” stressed Hazel, “not try to take you back.”

Balerifon rolled his eyes.

Lavender felt Hazel put their hand on her shoulder. “I know all of this is a lot.” She gestured at the endless tournament before them. “But it’s only for today. And we need to win as much money as we can if we’re going to set ourselves up for our real adventure.”

That was right. She had almost lost sight of that between the cat woman sneaking around and Balerifon reappearing in her life. At least one of those was going to be out of her hair now. Dora would be off doing noblewoman things.

----

Lavender did find her curiosity piqued by the variety of carnival games available.

Around every corner was a new kind of game to try. Bobbing for apples, games of go, ring tossing, all of those and more.

The games themselves were not difficult and helped her stay calm. Occasionally she would find one of them was imbalanced somehow. The one where she had to knock down bottles by throwing a ball for example, that one she figured out quickly the bottles were made of metal or even glued down to their position. A game of darts she found their points were blunt and the balloons she was trying to pop were inflated barely enough to look like targets.

But while Lavender was winning prizes like a kazoo and a stuffed animal, none of them were worth their weight in gold coin. The real fun was going up against the ‘old man’ who appeared impressed.

“And here I thought you were a fool,” said Balerifon. “Most of your kind would fall prey to such chicanery. But I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised given your escape, whelp.” He grabbed a leg of turkey from a nearby vendor and took a big bite. “What is your focus?”

Lavender held up her gauntlet-covered hands. “Don’t need one.”

Balerifon paused mid-chew. “How?”

“You never should’ve taught me that you can understand foreign languages with magic,” tut-tutted Lavender. “That was your first mistake, old man. Led me to the martial arts scrolls.”

“Which made you made me teach you.” Balerifon took another chunk out of his leg. “But I checked those scrolls. None of the martial arts masters knew how to cast magic with their own body. I even told you that it was impossible.”

Lavender reached out her hand. The turkey leg in Balerifon’s hand yanked itself into Lavender’s, who took her own mouthful of meat. “Just makes you wrong. Dragons don’t use a focus.”

Balerifon flinched. “…What exactly are you saying, whelp?”

“You’re proof someone doesn’t have to have a focus.” Lavender continued scarfing down Balerifon’s turkey leg. “It’s not impossible for a human to do it. Just insanely difficult. Took me three years to figure it out once we started.” There was starting to be more bone in her hand than meat on the bone. “Once I could do it, I kept that a secret from you.”

Lavender did not expect him to be relieved by that deception. She would have expected a quiet fury. It was his style. That spell was one of the few wonder spells she could cast. Once she could cast it, she had free reign of his library. Lavender could sneak out books to her bedroom and read into the early hours in the morning. She must have read every tome, every book, and every scroll in his library.

It confused her for the longest time why the romance section was empty. Or why there was one to begin with.

“Show me again,” said Balerifon.

-----

The two stopped in front of a man sitting before three cups and a ball. It was a game Balerifon knew all too well: the shell game.

“Step right up,” the man told them. “Winner gets one of these beautiful gems.” He held up his hand to reveal a rainbow of jewels.

Balerifon recognized the first trick being played. Most of the jewels in his hand were clever forgeries. A few were precious stones like tiger’s eye, precious stone that fooled the unobservant. But the one he expected to be fake turned out to be real.

He picked the clear jewel the size of the man’s thumbnail. “She’ll play for this one.” Balerifon knew it was a diamond, and knew the man knew it was a diamond as well. He was counting on the man to employ his sleights of hand.

The corner of the man’s mouth twitched. “Alright, miss. Step right up. Both of you, hands on the table. I see any focus come out, that’s cheating.”

Balerifon put his hands onto the table and waited for the whelp to do the same. Once Lavender’s hands joined his, the man began shuffling around the cups.

Finding the ball was not an issue for Balerifon. Dragons had keen eyesight. Never anyone mind that he had seen every slight of hand imaginable, his eyes were naturally immune to magical means of deception. Tracking the ball in the cup was a trivial matter for him. But he wasn’t the one who had to find the diamond. And he knew Lavender had problems casting almost any kind of wonder spell.

He saw it on the edge of his vision. The tapping of Lavender’s boot. The way her eyes were closed. He could sense the spell Lavender had cast. A desire spell to limit and focus her hearing on the three cups. The rattling of the ball inside. Even he wouldn’t have though to try and replicate the hearing of a bat.

“Alright, miss! Pick your cup, win the prize!”

Lavender opened her eyes and tapped her foot one last time. She picked up the cup on her left and smiled when she saw the red ball beneath. The man, clearly displeased, picked up the ball and reluctantly handed over the diamond.

“Well, old man,” beamed Lavender, “Every little bit counts for our adventure.”