soldier, poet, king || e. pevensie | slow updates

the poet • 20

there will come a poet, whose weapon is his word. he will slay you with his tongue, oh lei-oh lai-oh lord.

Dantus and Pyxia had been dancing around the kiss for weeks. He wanted to kiss her again, but he could never get the chance to talk to her. Their shifts weren't lining up as much anymore, and he couldn't walk her home at night like he used to.

He wasn't sleeping well, either. When he wasn't working, he was writing. In the time since Coralia had left and taken his draft with her, he'd written three short novels and published them all. He was making a lot of money off of them, and he had almost enough to cut down on shifts at the pub. Not that Wicus had enough help to allow him any off time.

Finally, he decided to ask Wicus for a day off. He knew Pyxia wasn't working that day, and he wanted to talk to her. The morning of his day off, he walked to Pyxia's house. She answered, eyes widening when she saw him. "Dantus! Hello, um, come in?"

Dantus stepped over the threshold and leaned against her wall.

"Are you going somewhere?" Pyxia gestured to his packed shoulder bag.

"That's why I'm here. I'm taking a day trip to the next town over and I'm wondering if you'd like to join me."

Pyxia spilled the tea she was pouring, turning pink. "Why would you want me to go with you?"

"Well, I've decided that I'm going to visit as many pubs as I can to see how we can improve our own and I thought that you might want to come along."

Pyxia nodded. "I could use the vacation. I'll pack, when are we leaving?"

"As soon as we can." Dantus said.

Once the female faun was ready to leave, they set off on foot to the next village. It was only a an hour's walk and they made it in time for lunch. Dantus selected the pub he'd heard was the best in town and pushed open the door.

Walking up to the bar counter, he asked for a room for two.

"We've just two singles and one room of four," The bartender said, frowning. "I say take the singles, the fours are much more expensive."

Dantus looked to Pyxia, whose mind was far away from the conversation. He nudged her, whispering, "Separate rooms or the larger one?"

Pyxia paused for a moment and ordered the single rooms. It was significantly less expensive and they would be more comfortable sleeping in separate rooms anyway. They got the keys from the bartender and brought their bags up to the rooms. Pyxia's room was next to the stairs and Dantus's was all the way down the hall, as far away from hers as possible.

They headed back down to get their lunch.

"Shouldn't you be taking note of the menus and such?" Pyxia asked.

"Huh? Oh, no, I'll remember it." Dantus grinned. "Let's explore the town, come on. I saw some shops on our way in."

"You want to go shopping?" Pyxia raised an eyebrow. Dantus grabbed her hand without another word and dragged her out of the pub. They spent the next few hours shopping. Dantus found his own works in the bookstores, which was a shock.

He bought Pyxia whatever she liked. Pyxia was skeptical about the whole situation and had her suspicions on his motives. She had no problems with Dantus paying for her, though.

By dinnertime, Pyxia was loaded down with all the books Dantus had bought her. Her bag was heavy, but Dantus's wallet was much lighter. He thought it was worth it to see her so happy. He'd never thought he'd find himself with a crush. He liked Coralia, but it never entailed the fluttery feeling he'd had for the past few weeks or the desire to keep Pyxia happy no matter what. At work, he had always tried to keep Coralia entertained. With Pyxia, though, he didn't want her to ever be bored or uncomfortable, not if he was around to help.

They had dinner together in the tavern, and Dantus pretended to take note of the menu and the food and the service, but he couldn't find it within himself to actually care. Not with Pyxia sitting in front of him, laughing at his jokes and talking casually with him.

When Dantus woke the next morning, he was exhausted. He immediately felt like he'd overslept, and bolted upright. After taking in his surroundings he realized that he didn't have work, nor was he home. Sleeping in until 8:00 in the morning was so unusual for him that the disruption of his sleep schedule had completely taken away his energy. Clearly it was the same for Pyxia, because she was hard to wake up.

They ate a silent breakfast and started their trek home. Pyxia's bag was many times heavier, but she refused any help Dantus offered. When they finally reached their village, she was about ready to collapse. Dantus dropped her off at her home and headed to his own.

He tossed his bags onto the floor and immediately sat down at his desk. He had the entire rest of the day to write. Coralia still had his manuscript, and he surely wasn't getting it back any time soon. He could either rewrite it, write to her asking for it back — if she hadn't burnt it already, or scrap the whole idea. He put the decision off and tried to focus on a short story. He nearly had enough short stories and poems to publish another collection. It would be his fourth publication, if you didn't count the Book of Incantations.

The old wizard hadn't made another appearance, and Dantus wasn't sure that he ever would. All that time and effort he'd put into it was lost to him. The man had probably keeled over and died already, leaving the book on the side of the road next to his shoe-less body.

He often thought about the Book of Incantations. Where it would be put, who would read it — if it would ever even be read. If he'd be credited for making the entire book, which was unlikely. Maybe another, less crazy man would show up at his doorstep asking him to write him a book. It would solve the trouble he was having with thinking of plots. Once you've written loads of short stories and poems, you run out of ideas. If only he could get that manuscript back.

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dantus updates are always short because i'm bad at writing his life so idc what you say about my lack of dantus content i will continue to only write under 1k words every time. maybe when i edit this in like three years and develop it into ao3-worthy content i'll fix it

also dantus timeline doesn't match up with corey timeline so don't even ask about it