Read The Errant Apprentice :: Questions and Solutions Part 1

They left Natchez later than they planned due to having to accept another round of thanks and promises to come back and see what everyone would build. They drove until not long before sunset and found a lovely rest area with actual facilities like a full indoor kitchen, dinning room, showers, and a small sitting room with a television bolted to the entertainment center. Terry figured they were along a route knights used as they passed through the state to parts unknown. The Order had an agreement with each state to put these all over but some were definitely better than others. Even with all these luxuries, Terry opted to find one of the fire pits and start a small fire for the night. He didn’t like getting too comfortable. Elton stayed in the rest building for a while using the wi-fi and doing something on his laptop that Terry couldn’t possibly understand. He said he’d handle dinner for them as well.

Delores saw a walking trail, and said she needed to stretch her legs after all the scooter travel. When she asked Terry to join her, he begged off promising he would on another night. She looked a little disappointed as she left but, again, he didn’t want to be comfortable. He sat staring into his small fire. It wasn’t remotely cool at night, but the light would be welcome. He normally wasn’t one to mope. At least, he didn’t think he was, but he was definitely doing so now. This “meeting” as he called it. This could go very poorly. He needed to trust these two and they needed to trust him, but he could very easily ruin the small bridges they were building between each other.
The problem, he realized, was that he’d hit an obstacle he couldn’t fight his way past. He couldn’t hit it, or stab it, or even talk to it. The only thing it responded to was money and that was the one thing he didn’t have enough of to make a difference. Somehow, Elton HAD fixed it. Elton also didn’t want them to know he’d done so. Terry was upset that Elton hadn’t told him he could fix it. Anonymous donors. Miracles didn’t work like this. If they did his parents would still be alive.
No. He decided the problem was Elton moving pieces behind his back. He didn’t know enough to both trust and possibly utilize Elton’s strengths without violating either of their oathes, but he would make the effort tonight. He would reach out and try to strengthen the tiny bridge between them. All three of them. He’d have to lay the first planks though. He sat and thought for a long time until the sun set behind the pines and Delores finally returned from her walk. She sat down on another log and watched him for a time. He could feel her watching him but he didn’t have much to say. He felt pensive.
“You alright?” She finally asked.
“Ask me after dinner.” He said and gave her a weak smile.
Elton finally emerged from the building with his laptop bag, paper plates, and a big smile.
“Well, I think we did good work today so I figured I’d swindle some Hot Pockets from the freezer in there. Eat up!” he said, passing the plates around. Elton sat on his own log and they all ate quietly and drank from canteens filled from a filtered pitcher inside.
After eating, Terry collected everyone’s trash and disposed of it before sitting back down. Elton looked at him.
“You’ve been awful quiet. You ok?” the bard asked.
Terry looked from him to Delores before answering. He’d hoped she’d ask him that question. He already felt more comfortable when D gave him conversational openings, but this was good enough.
“Kinda. I’d like to have a bit of a group talk, Elton.”
“Uh, sure.” He said.
“Great!” Delores responded. “We didn’t screw up something did we?”
“No! Of course not. It’s nothing like that.”
Terry collected himself before beginning.
“I realized today that I know precious little about either of you, and you honestly don’t know anything about me for someone you basically ran away from home to follow.”
He gauged their reactions. Nothing bad yet. He continued.
“I’d like to rectify that. Starting tonight.”
There it was. Delores smiled. Elton had a moment of panic before pulling his phone out.
“Sure!” he said with what seemed like forced excitement. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your previous exploits for the Chronicles.”
Terry gave him a friendly smile.
“Well, when Delores and I first teamed up the other day I said I didn’t want this to begin on a foundation of lies and secrets.”
He looked straight into Elton’s eyes.
“I stand by that statement, Elton.”
The man looked hunted, and he swallowed. Terry continued before he had a chance to spin a yarn or try to bolt.
“Elton, we both know there was no anonymous donor besides you. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but I’m not really angry. You did something really, really good there. You changed lives. It’s exactly why I’m out here doing this. If you want to stay anonymous and keep your philanthropy a secret from people, that’s fine.”
Elton gave a weak grin. Terry didn’t let it last.
“But not from us.”
The grin dropped.
Delores leaned in his direction, her eyes soft and she smiled reassuringly.
“We’re a team. You don’t have to hide things from us.” She said.
Elton wore a pained expression. He looked from Delores to Terry and back.
“I’m not proud of my past.” He said.
Terry smiled at him and spoke softly.
“There’s no judgments here, Elton. Just no secrets either.”
Elton’s head dropped and he finally nodded. Terry slowly exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, “I’ll go first. It’s only fair since I’m asking so much.”
Delores grinned at him and he grinned back. Or he did until Elton held up his phone and Terry realized with a level of horror that the bard was going to record him. Terry looked straight at the lens.
“Now, this isn’t going to be some great epic. This is just a run down of my life story, ok? We’ll pick one night a week and I’ll get into specifics.”
Elton motioned with his hand for Terry to continue so he looked into the fire before he started. He took another breath and let it out slowly. He began.
“I was born twenty one years ago in Raymond, Mississippi to Glen and Marie Lingal." He paused. "Marie died barely a month after my birth to a cancer that had gone undiagnosed. I only recently discovered that my father, Glen, died shortly afterward to a dragon. On purpose. He, uh, he couldn’t deal with the loss of his wife, so he left me. He left me with his brother Ernest and Ernest’s wife Dottie. I don’t remember either of my parents.” That had hurt far more to say than he expected.
Terry looked up to see his companions. Elton watched Terry with pity and Delores suddenly looked on the verge of tears with a hand over her mouth. He snapped his gaze back to the fire instead of meeting their eyes. He tried to speak but only a croak escaped. He cleared his throat and tried again. This time it worked but his voice was lower and huskier than he meant it to be.
“Ernest and Dottie raised me. They tried really hard to give me a good and normal life but as soon as I was old enough to know about my father and the Order, I started asking. They tried to talk me around it but," he gestured at himself, "it obviously didn't work.”
He refused to look from the fire this time, not wanting to see their faces.
“I swore the Peace and Truce of God, the PToG, at five? Maybe six years old.”
“WHAT?!” shouted Elton and Terry looked at him. Better at him than Delores. Elton continued. “There is no way that should have been binding. The youngest they’ll take a squire is eleven or twelve on a case by case basis.”
Terry smiled remembering.
“Yeah. Ernest said that, but Dottie told him it would be better to take it seriously and start my training than to risk alienating me as I got older.”
“You went to school, though, right?” Delores asked. “You told me about the incident with your principal.”
“I did. Ernest insisted I have a shot at a normal life before I got too old. Maybe I'd drop this "foolishness” as he put it. He'd tried to be a knight and washed out late in training. My dad hadn't.”
God. Had Ernest really tried to stop him at some point? The idea seemed insane now. He’d been the biggest source of knowledge and training to a young Terry. Maybe it was because he looked like his father that Ernest had finally relented. He didn't know.
“Anyway, I kept getting in trouble at school. I have a problem with bullies. Every year I’d go for a little while and get suspended for the rest of the year for fighting, and then the next year we’d try it again. I made it all the way to fifth grade.”
Delores smiled. She knew where he was going with this.
“I’d only made two friends and they were in that grade. I got in trouble when a group of bullies wouldn’t leave them alone and I took them all on. The principal told me bullying built character.”
He looked at Delores and actually pulled off a wink. She cackled.
“I beat that man like a circus monkey and got expelled for life.”
Terry took a long pull from his canteen as Elton stared at him. The bard finally found some words he seemed to think fit.
“You are unreal.”
“How old were you then?” Delores asked smiling. He grinned to himself. She was helping him tell the story in tag team.
“Ten. I was ten years old when that happened.” The smile slid from his face as the rest of the story came back to him.
“After that, George and Sean, those were my friends, moved to Jackson. Their families both thought Raymond was too toxic for them. They weren't wrong. I saw them maybe twice a year after that? I remember killing my first dragon at twelve. George and Sean were there for that summer. By then I was old enough to really start my training officially, so I did. I spent every waking hour training, defending the locals from invasive monsters, or ranging through the woods for weeks at a time hunting horrid beasties.”
Neither of his companions said anything so he poked at the fire with a stick and continued.
“That was my entire life for the next eight or nine years. I just kept trying to be better than my father. Trying to live up to the PToG. I saw people when they needed me. Ernest and Dottie tried to be there as much as they could, but I always found a reason to go off and work. Finally, I got the last big kill on my tally to become an Errant Apprentice this past Saturday.”
He wondered at that.
“It feels like a month ago already. It’s only Tuesday.”
He shook himself.
“Anyway, I met Delores on Sunday after eating pickled pig parts and now we’re here.” He finished with a smile and looked at the both of them. They continued to stare. Delores finally said something.
“That may be the saddest series of things I have ever heard you say.” Delores wiped her cheeks as she said it.
“Terry?” Elton asked, “Are you Batman?”
Terry threw a pine cone at him and Elton ducked it. Terry crossed his arms and put his elbows on his knees. He knew he looked sulky and didn’t care.
“Well I’m sure I’m sorry my life didn’t ride like a magical road of gumdrops.”
Elton lowered his head.
“Sorry dude. You said no judgment. It's just, how do you even get YOU out of that?”
Terry just shrugged. He never thought his life was very sad until he'd laid it all out like that. He looked at Delores and she looked back sadly.
“I dunno. Let’s move on. Delores? Do you want to go next?
“Sure.” She said. She wiped her face again and leaned forward, arms on her knees. Terry rested his chin on his arms to listen. Elton had turned his phone to her and she ignored it.
“So, I’m from Bay St. Louis, which is a lovely place. My dad was the Priest of one of the Churches.”
Terry raised his head.
“Really?”
“Is it really that surprising?” She asked.
“I don’t know. I just thought it was interesting. Sorry to interrupt.”
“Anyhoo," Delores continued, "I had an older sister, but she moved north when I was pretty young. We don’t talk much. I was a daddy’s girl, and I stress was. By the time I hit twelve I was sneaking out to the cemetery across the street to play between the crypts with the goth kids.”
“If you need to take breaks, please do.” Terry said into the silence that followed. She smiled and thought for a bit on how to continue.
“I met a boy there. He was older than me. Gideon. He was a magic user and fast tracked for the Circle of the Greenman when he was old enough. We were close.” She emphasized the word. Terry nodded. Not everyone was like him. He knew that. Some people apparently had normal lives.
“He had been teaching me magic, but when I turned 14 he left me. During that time I’d started acting “witchy” at home. My parents were not happy. Well, dad wasn’t. I don’t really know what mom thought.”
She looked up meeting Terry’s eyes.
“Dad never really let mom have an opinion on anything after I turned 13. It was very “trad wife” if you know what I mean.” She looked back at the fire and Terry took his stick and poked at the flames a bit.
“I started running away around the same time. I’d stay at friend’s houses or sleep in the cemetery. Sometimes I’d find an isolated boat out at the dock that had been left alone for a while and break in.” She gave both of them sharp looks. Terry held up his hands.
“No judgments, remember? I didn’t live your life. I’m sure it was the option that seemed best at the time.” That seemed to calm her and she continued.
“Things at home got really bad with dad once I joined the Circle. He made the situation unlivable so when I hit 18 I moved out and went to Biloxi.” She sighed.
“I think I didn’t go far in case everything fell apart. Maybe I could run back home. Just give the whole thing up. Try to fit in.” She looked up at Terry with a grin. “But that isn’t what happened, is it?”
“No. No it’s not.” He said. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. You say you’re weak. I’ve seen nothing but amazing work so far, Delores, and it’s all appreciated.”
The girl tried to hide from the praise behind an arm as she rubbed her hand over the top of her head, but she had such a big smile after that. Terry thought he could look at her all night. Then he remembered himself and turned to Elton.
“Well, Mr. Beasley, we’ve had our turns. Just remember, take the time you need. We’re all friends here.”