>>5843222>>5843116>>5843126>>5843166You had precious little experience with the bureaucracy behind security—with City Guard, let alone the Royal Guard or other aspects of the Holy Order. You had no choice but to tip your hat and turn your back. It wasn’t surrender though—merely tactical retreat, and regrouping, with reinforcements. After all, there was ONE aspect of security with which you had more than a little familiarity, and an obvious in: the Tower Guardians, with their tall blue hats and shield-shaped badge-buckles. One Tower Guardian in particular, broadly-built and fastidiously-mustachioed, sprung to mind.
“JEEZ, Tips,” Logan Pearce groaned, the beer you’d bought him turning it into an unabashed belch. “You ask a lot of favours of a guy, you know that?”
“Please,” you scoffed. “When’s the last time I asked you for anything?”
“Well, there was the Goblin Wastes…”
“YEARS ago!” you retorted.
“Looking after Muffins for the whole weekend,” he added.
“Oh come off it, you love it!”
“Not telling anyone when you sneak in and out of the Tower…”
“That’s not asking you to do something, that’s asking you NOT to do something. It’s LESS work.”
“It puts my position at risk whenever you pull those stunts,” he added , a but more seriously.
You sipped your own drink daintily, regarding your friend over the flagon, and then set it down.
“I appreciate it.”
“THIS puts my position at risk, too,” he said. “Why not go through the Archmage?”
“You KNOW why, Pearce,” you said. “We BOTH know why.”
“She’s still my boss, and your master,” he pointed out.
“So we’re in the same situation if she gets upset.”
“No, we’re NOT,” Pearce replied. “YOU’RE her Mage Apprentice… Her golden child, and in a relationship with her ACTUAL child.”
“Well I’m not sure it’s really a—”
“Tips.”
You coughed, and met his eyes, and looked away. You shrugged, and shifted in your seat under his scrutiny. And yet… This was your in. And you NEEDED to do this. There was more on the line than anyone’s status, or position.
“Logan…” You turned towards him, and met his eyes. “Please?”
The farmboy-turned-magical defender’s face was already flushed from the alcohol, but you knew that wasn’t the reason he went crimson around the ears and nose now. Perhaps it was a little unfair to exploit it, knowing you couldn’t reciprocate the feeling… But you also knew damn well that Logan Pearce could never say no to you, if you spoke his name in that way.
“I’ll give you k-word privileges,” you added, with a smirk.
Pearce burst out laughing at that, and reached across the table to knock your hat off.
“Shut up,” he said, but he was smiling too.
