Olive woke up feeling like someone hot and sweaty was sitting on her, but then she remembered she fell asleep in a second floor room with no air conditioner while wearing a twenty pound dress and far too many layers of underwear.

She sat up and groaned, looking around the room. Her companion was missing and the window showed that it was dark out now.

The bedroom door burst inward and she jumped, startled. Mathis strode in with a tray, kicking the door shut behind behind him. He noticed she was up and his eyebrows shot up in pleasant surprise.

"You're awake! I tried to rouse you when the dinner bell rang, but you were asleep as a stone."

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, stretching. "We have a saying like that too. 'Slept like a rock.'"

"Rocks sleep deeply in all places, it seems," he joked, chuckling.

Olive smiled, craning her neck toward the tray in his hands. "What's that?"

"Oh," he set the tray beside her on the bed, revealing a wooden bowl of hot stew and a huge chunk of bread, "your dinner. I figured I'd bring it up and set it aside in case there weren't any leftovers by the time you woke up."

She looked up at him. "You didn't have to do that. Thank you, Mathis."

"What, and let you starve? I can't let my one and only witch faint from hunger."

She lifted the bowl, realizing there was no spoon. Well, she was fine with that. "Am I a witch or a fairy?" She slurped loudly. "Holy shit, what's in this?"

"A fairy witch? Uh, potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage and… goat, I think. Do you not like it?"

"Are you kidding, it's great! I've never had goat before."

"It's great? It's just common stew," he said, laughing.

"Stew is underrated. My dad used to make it all the time when I was growing up, only he would use beef roast. He would make so much we would live off of it for the next four days. He didn't put cabbage in it, and this tastes really different, but it's still kinda homey feeling and I like it." Another loud slurp. She reached for the bread.

Mathis sighed. "I'm sorry you are so far away from home."

"It's not your fault," she said, lowering the bowl. "But if it's anybody's fault, and I find out whose it is, I'm going to find them and make them wish they were dead."

He blinked at her, mouth falling open in shock. "Are you sure you're not a witch?" he asked.

She dunked her bread in her stew. "Not a witch. Totally vindictive bitch set on revenge? Absolutely. Still thinking if ways to get back at my ex boyfriend for cheating on me." She popped the soggy morsel into her mouth and spoke around it. "My therapist told me I should meditate, but I really think ruining his life would help me feel a lot better and heal faster. You know?"

"I'm not sure what a therapist is, and we probably have different definitions of the word 'meditate,' but please enlighten me on the term 'ex boyfriend.'"

"Oh! He used to be my lover."

"Ah. And what did he do that was so disagreeable?"

"He tried to force himself on my best friend."

"Holy shit!" He cleared his throat. "Pardon my language."

"His name is Jeremy. I should have known he was no good. Never met a Jeremy I liked."

"Is your friend okay?"

"Oh yeah, they were in my kitchen and she found the nearest pan and hit him right over the head with it. Didn't knock him out but made him really dizzy. I had been asleep, and I woke up to all the nose and she was screaming my name." She stopped, looking sad. "It's disgusting when you find out someone you loved is a horrible person like that. I feel like I should have known or had some sort of gut feeling." She sighed. "Anyway, we pressed charges but they didn't go anywhere. Something about how I had let him in my house and Natalie didn't have any proof. It's all bullshit. So now I just want to hurt him."

"I'm gathering that 'pressing charges' means going to the authorities?"

"Yeah. Assholes." She picked up her bowl again and tossed back the rest of the broth in her stew.

"I'm sorry, Olive. That's awful."

She picked at a carrot and popped it into her mouth. "It is awful! But thanks." She sighed and looked around the room. "When are we heading out? You haven't slept yet, have you?"

He leaned back in the chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. "We leave bright and early in the morning." He looked at her. "You know, you don't have to sleep with your dress on. Your chemise works as a nightgown just fine."

She got to her feet. "Oh thank god." She ripped her laces apart and started working her way out if her dress.

Mathis looked toward the ceiling. Olive only noticed when she was halfway out of her dress.

"Oh you can't see anything," she said, laughing and hauling her dress up to spread it across the foot of the bed. She looked over it, sighing. "But you're really nice. Even if I'm not really a lady, you insist on treating me like one. That's new." She moved around the side of the bed and crawled beneath the linens. "Okay, I'm beneath the covers. You may let your eyes wander freely once more."

Mathis looked back to her. "You are a lady, though. You don't have gentlemen hold the door for you where you come from?"

"My daddy does."

"And pull out your seat?"

"My daddy does that too."

"Help you with your stole?"

"I think my father is the only gentleman we have left, now that I think about it." She frowned. "But I mean, I don't think I did anything to deserve random men doing nice things for me just because I'm a woman. If I can hold the door open for them, I will. It should be about mutual respect, shouldn't it?"

"That's an interesting thought. I suppose since women are considered the weaker sex, it's supposedly up to the men to take care of them here? That's why we do it?"

Olive snorted. "So chivalry isn't dead, it's just sexist?"

He straightened. "Do you have a code of chivalry where you are from?"

She shrugged. "We used to. It's been gone for a long time now, since we don't have knights like you anymore."

He rubbed his chin. "I'm sure there's some other reason behind chivalry besides knightly honor protecting supposedly weak ladies. We are supposed to be representatives of our lords, so I imagine making them look good has something to do with it." He yawned. "I haven't ever really thought about it before."

Olive leaned against her pillow and peered at him curiously. "Why did you become a knight?"