Sophie's Selection (Kotlc)

Tourney Games

Keefe strutted out towards the tourney field at nine o'clock sharp. He felt refreshed after the shower he'd taken that morning. His hair was styled, and his stomach was full. Even better, he hadn't had any interactions with that Tam guy!

He saw a group of selected forming on the side of the field, so he walked over. The first friendly face he came across was Fitz, who was standing slightly to the side.

"Hey," he said as he walked up beside Fitz.

"Good morning. You excited for the games?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Fitz nodded, "Their supposed to provide an opportunity for the guys to use some of the pent up energy left over from yesterdays traveling."

"They don't just want us to rest?"

"No, because they don't want any extra aggression when you meet the royal family for the first time."

"I suppose that makes sense." Keefe replied.

"Yeah, oh here we go, lets line up."

The selected all lined up in front of an approaching Sir Conley. 

"Hello gentlemen. I trust you slept well, and thank you for arriving on time this morning. Today we'll be partaking in a series of events. The first of these is Base Quest. It's a simple game. You'll be separated into two teams. One team will guard their base, while the other team launches a raid. If at least one of the the questers makes it to the base without getting tagged, their team wins. 

Get it? Got it? Good. I'll post the papers with your teams on the gates. We'll start in ten, so gather up at your bases once you find your teammates. Good luck and have fun!"

Slowly, Keefe sauntered behind the crowd of men heading towards the listings. In the front, he could her hoots and hollers of names being called out.

By the time he got to the post, many guys had cleared out. Keefe scanned Team A, recognizing Fitz, Botros, and Lur's names. When he didn't see his, Keefe moved on to the Team B sheet. Halfway down the page, Keefe's name was printed next to Dex Diznee. Conner was a little further down with Cadfeal. The most unfortunate however, were Tam Song and Ruy Ingis. Keefe rolled his eyes and finished reading. As far as he could tell, the teams were pretty evenly matched.

He turned towards the group forming with the guys on Team B, but before he took a step forward he saw a flutter of movement in the corner of his eye. In the observers sector, a single woman surveyed the group of them. She wore the simple maid uniform, a brown dress and white apron. Her hair was covered by a bandanna, with only a single blond strand poking out. From this angle her face was obscured, and Keefe curiously wondered what she was doing. He watched as she ducked her head and scurried out when a group of nobles approached. How strange. With no more time to doddle, Keefe walked towards his team.

"I'm so ready for this." Dex grinned as he joined Keefe.

"Why?" Keefe snorted.

"I just can't wait to knock Wonderboy down a peg or two, hes already got tons of advantages any way."

"Wonderboy?" Keefe questioned, confused.

"That rich prick Fitz." 

Keefe burst out laughing, "You don't like him?"

"He called me Deck."

Dex looked so disgruntled that Keefe couldn't help but continue cracking up.

"It's not funny." 

"It's hysterical!"

"Gee, thanks for the support."

Keefe grinned and slapped Dex on the back.

"You go get him then."

"Oh, I plan too."

He didn't.

Team B got destroyed by Team A. Botros was like a live wrecking ball and tore through their defenses like it was nothing. Even Cadfeal couldn't stop him when it came down to it. After that, Team A basically marched right to the base. Dex was right, Fitz preened like a peacock in the attention. However, Keefe grinned good naturally when he congratulated the guys. He spent a large portion of the rest time being entertained by Dex's sulking.

It was only the first event, and throughout the day they played several more games. Each team won a fair amount, and there were no more catastrophic losses. Ruy did absolutely nothing though, so that was super annoying.

By the time, Keefe got back to his room, he stank like a pig. Even Sior couldn't hide his nose scrunch and quickly left to give Keefe privacy in the shower.

After he sufficiently clean, and didn't smell gross, Keefe sat down with Sior and Krikor to laugh about the games. The attendants listened carefully, commenting on the predictability of behavior. It was apparently very obvious that Lur would participate by listening to the whispers of the trees, how Botros would risk anything to win, that Ruy would do absolutely nothing but take credit for a victory.

"How do you guys know so much about them already? We've only been here a day and a half." Keefe asked, curious about how they got their information.

"We talk with the other attendants. Dare I say, we gossip like girls about what you guys are like." Sior chuckled.

"Oh. Great. We're the hot topic." 

"Well, you are great compared to what I hear some of the others are like!" Krikor squeaked, his face turning red immediately.

"At least I don't have a horrible reputation yet!" Keefe grinned.

Krikor gave him a small smile, "Yeah." 

"And on that note, you only have an hour left if you want to go explore. We'll find you and bring you to the Selected Room at four."

"Alright, see you guys in a little while."

"Goodbye sir." Keefe gave Sior a look. 

"Keefe."

Keefe smiled, "Don't work to hard!" 

With that, he opened the door and walked out into the hall.