Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Mike and Ralen - Meet Cute

"Soft delicate skin?" Mike laughed, she couldn't let that comment slip by. "Oh, begging your pardon, your ladyship," she teased, "I must have mistaken you for your brother all today and yesterday. I didn't know ladies frequented taverns these days."

Caleb frowned at his brother but didn't tell her off. "About nine years in a few more months. Left the island when I was thirteen," he said to Ralen. The fighter looked down at his snack then over at his brother's. "Could you ...." he asked holding out his bread and cheese to Mike. The wizard rolled her eyes. "Just don't try to throw it at me this time," she said as she reached over and took his food to toast it for him. "There you go, now don't ask for anything else until we make camp, unless it's very important," she instructed her brother.

Ralen grinned, lopsidedly. "Oh well, you obviously haven't been to certain taverns..." he teased, playing along. "Some of them have women. Granted not the ladies you speak of...but alas, I have no sisters. Just brothers. But of the three--two of them," he corrected, "I'm probably the fairest. Darien's already engaged anyway."

He shook his head, not sure why he threw that out there, but oh well. He grinned as Caleb got his bread and cheese toasted as well.

"I think we'll actually have a nice little camping trip," he said, not realizing that he had probably jinxed the entire trip by saying so. "But nine years is quite a while. You should find a place to settle down for a bit--pick up a decent, well paying job."

"You might be surprised at some of the places I've been," Mike said,"I was almost a nun once. True story." She continued to tease the man since he seemed to be enjoying it, "Oh, so you're the prettiest princess in the kingdom then, huh? Bet your soon to be sister-in-law is jealous. Do you wear frilly underthings and fine dresses, a different one every day, your majesty?"

Caleb listened to his brother and Ralen go back and forth with growing disgust. "... Mike, will you stop flirting with our client's son," he blurted out feeling uncomfortable with they were acting. "He's out of your league anyway," the warrior said sharply.

Mike blushed red and stared to Caleb like he was crazy, which in her mind he may as well have been. "Caleb Brightstar! Do you see us setting up camp?!" she thundered at him and raised a hand covered in flames, "I told you to keep your trap shut until we make camp!" Caleb blanched under his older sibling's wrath. He should have waited to talk to Ralen about this issue when Mike wasn't around.

"You were being gross and .... stuff ...." the young man stammered. "And, and I'm going to be a knight," he said innocently, in answer to Ralen's question.

"I was not flirting with him, I was playfully insulting him. There is a difference," Mike shouted at her brother, her voice decreasing in volume. She looked at her hand engulfed in orange flame and her voice lowered to a growl. "There are no words, no words for how I'm feeling toward you right now, Caleb," she stated coldly as she jerked her hand downward and extinguished the flames, a puff of smoke drifted off behind her as the fire went out with a whuf.

"No! A nun? Don't you have to be, well, female for that?" Mike's continuation of the jest just made Ralen laugh.

Until Caleb's comment about flirting interrupted them and Ralen turned just as red as Mike. "Hey, no offense but I'm not into men..." And then he was treated to a...brotherly quarrel the likes of which his own brothers had likely displayed--only he was the odd one out and he knew too that Caleb had no powers. He reined his horse sharply around to cut between Caleb and Mike--dumb as it was.

"Hey, don't you dare fry your brother," Ralen said to Mike. "Granted what he said was inappropriate," he briefly glared over his shoulder at Caleb, "but you should never use magic against one who can't defend himself from it."

The tension between the two was still strong, even though the dispute seemed to have been settled. Ralen let out a sigh of relief when Mike dropped his hand.

"Geeze," Ralen muttered. Then glanced at Mike. "Were you flirting with me?"

"Yes a nun. It didn't work out for a lot of reasons. Seems I'm not the nun type. Though nuns' habits are more comfortable than they look," Mike admitted with a grin.

"I'm not going to fry him. Threaten him a little maybe, but I wouldn't do him any real damage. He's far too useful to me alive, dense though he is," the wizard spat.

She looked Ralen up and down before answering him. "No I was not," she said truthfully. "Now are are you going to move or are we camping here?" she asked him, a hint of a challenge in her tone.

"Even if one of you was a girl it still wouldn't work," Caleb had to say before a glare from Mike shut him up for a long while. "I dunno," Mike said slowly, "He looks more like a girl than I do with his lady soft skin and his featherbeds."

Once he was sure that the two brothers were okay and that neither was going to go up in a plume of smoke, Ralen turned his horse back to lead them on again.

"Well, if you two would quit trying to egg each other on, we might get somewhere," he retorted.

Caleb's comment followed by Mike's retort hit Ralen the wrong way and he didn't even think about what he did next. His hand twitched, which caused two stones to leap up from the ground and smack both Caleb's horse and Mike's mule on the rear. Not hard enough to hurt the horse and mule, but definitely enough to make them spook a little and divert their riders' attentions back to the animals they rode.

"I'm not a girl," Ralen stated flatly. "And I have no interesting in becoming one. Thanks anyway."

"Woah," Mike held onto her mule as it started forward again. That's makes one of us, she thought upon hearing Ralen's last comment. "Not like he would have noticed if I had been flirting with him," she whispered to herself. The wizard said very little until it was time to make camp and Caleb didn't dare talk to his brother without her say so after Ralen had react so harshly to their fight.

As they made progress, Ralen gradually relaxed and reconsidered his methods. He had been kind of harsh on both Mike and Caleb--and they had been doing this longer than he had, so, he should make a point to be nicer to them.

He reined his horse back a little as the sun began to sink towards the horizon.

"Hey, I'm sorry I lost my temper back there. I'll try to be better about it--but, it's just...I've seen too many fights that get out of hand between siblings--and especially for the one not gifted, it usually doesn't turn out so well. Next time, I'll try not to interfere--if you don't want me to."

"Thanks," Mike said quietly as she was setting up her and Caleb's tent. "I've been taking care of him, if you will, since he was thirteen as he said and I was your age. With his dad off fighting so much and his step-mother not being the doting type it seemed like the best thing to do at the time," she explained as she brushed a hand over her short hair and knocked her hood off. "You said you have some brothers. You one of the older ones or younger ones?" she asked him. Caleb was off collecting kindling for a fire. It was still warm but it was good to be prepared. Mike had wanted to give Cae some busy work to get him away from her for a little while, before they had to spend the night in close quarters with each other.

"I'm the second oldest. Darien is the eldest, then me, then...well...Zane, I guess." Ralen looked down but said nothing more about why he had hesitated.

"So you're not exactly brothers then?" Ralen asked. "Just really close friends? I'm still impressed, though. To take on a thirteen year old like that...on your own? You've got determination, I'll give you that."

Ralen was fitting his own tent together as well, and after a few minutes, had his set up. It wasn't very big, maybe a little smaller than Caleb and Mike's tent, just big enough to house him and some of his more weather-sensitive gear.

"The same woman give birth to both of us if that means anything. We weren't raised together. He was from a small city, I was from a very small village. I moved to the city when i got older. My father's idea, he thought it would be good for me to for me to go somewhere I'd be a little less well known. It didn't work as well as he'd hoped but I got through it all alive. That's what matters in the long run," the wizard said. She liked being close to Ralen and being able to talk to him like an equal. Pretending to be a man had it's advantageous more often than disadvantages. "So, just out of curiosity, no being serious or anything," she said. "But if I had been flirting with you, what would you have done?" she asked the rich man.

"I see." Ralen fell quiet for a moment. "I guess that's what happened with my other brother. He and my mother moved out when he failed to develop any magical gift. That was probably eight or ten years ago now."

When Mike brought up the flirting thing again, Ralen became flustered. "It's not the flirting, it's the fact that, well, you're a guy. I flirt all the time with women, to some extent. And if you were a girl...well...it'd make things less...awkward in that regard." Yeah, he was totally flustered. "It's just...ugh, I can't even believe we're discussing this." He paused and then glanced at Mike. "...But if you were flirting with me, does that mean you're attracted to me?"

"As far as I know most people don't flirt with people they aren't attracted to, unless they're trying to con them out of something and I have no reason to do that to you either way," Mike said simply. "If I were a woman, would you treat me differently than you do now?" she asked assuming the answer would be yes. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Caleb coming back with an armful of sticks. ".... here comes the killjoy," she muttered as she glanced over at her brother. "I should get the fire going so we can eat a hot meal before we retire," she said to dismiss herself from Ralen's company so as not to get Caleb upset again.

Ralen just blinked at Mike's ethics right there. Con people by flirting with them? Oh he knew the type, alright, but he'd never done it himself. Or, well, he guessed he had had others do it to him. "I guess you're right..." He was trying to work out whether Mike was giving him a compliment or not, and failed to come to a decision.

As for whether he'd treat Mike any different if he was a girl, Ralen had to grin. "Well, yes and no..." he admitted.

Then Caleb was returning and he had a split second to make a rash decision. He grabbed Mike's arm, spinning him around to face him, and stepped forward, closing the distance between them abruptly.

"If you were a girl," he said softly, raising his other hand to Mike's chin, "I would kiss you. Like this." It was a soft, sweet kiss that was surprisingly gentle, before he pulled away.

Mike's first impulse was to pull away, but Ralen didn't give her any time to. She blushed as he touched her face, her chin, her stupid ugly chin was in his hand. And he was kissing her! Mike wasn't sure what to think. She felt something fluttering around inside her chest. The air between them grew warm. Mike made a soft noise of protest when Ralen pulled away. He didn't know she was a woman, as far as she knew. Maybe he had guessed?

"Do that again. Please?" the words tumbled out of Mike's mouth before she could think them over.

Caleb dropped the kindling by the circle of stones he'd laid out for the fire pit. "Mike," he called over in exasperation, "Do you have to try and make every guy you like turn gay?" Caleb hadn't caught on to who had kissed who, only that his brother and Ralen had been kissing.

He was surprised when Mike didn't resist, but vastly more surprised when Mike asked for another kiss, and Ralen felt his cheeks heat up a little.

His voice was a little deeper when he replied: "If you tell me one thing first--are you really...a guy?" He searched Mike's eyes, trying to read in them what--who--exactly Mike was. Although by now he was having serious suspicions about Mike's assumed gender. And poor Caleb's comment went by unheeded for the moment.

Mike swallowed hard. Here was her chance to explain. Sure Caleb would be confused and not understand it, but that was normal. Her eyes pleaded with the man to not pry and just go with it what he was feeling. The wizard looked down at the ground as she thought hard about what to say. A voice in her head shouted at her, reminding her that she'd only met this guy a day ago and didn't really know him all that well. Should she really risk outing herself just for a kiss which might not lead anywhere. He was rich and offering them work. "I - can't answer that right now," she told him flatly, "and I have things to do before we turn in tonight." she tried to pull away from him so she could go start a fire for their dinner. Caleb just watch while trying not to stare too much. Over head storm clouds were forming.

Ralen didn't understand Mike's confusion. To him it was cut and dry, but maybe there was something he was missing. He let her pull away, the look on his face showing he was still confused. He glanced over at Caleb, now, and cleared his throat.

"Caleb, did you get the firewood? You better put it in a dry place--looks like it might storm tonight." It was a pain to light damp wood.

He grabbed a couple of pots from his packs then. "I'll get some water for us." And he headed towards the nearby stream, which wasn't so close as to flood them if they did get a rainstorm.

"What the heck am I doing?" he muttered to himself, as he filled the pans with water.

Caleb put a hand on Mike's shoulder as she got near and pushed her down to sit by the fire pit. "You're lucky he didn't punch you," he scolded her, "I've told you to be careful. I don't care who you date or whatever, but not all guys are okay with that sort of thing," he reminded her. Mike nodded mutely as she picked up a small handful of sticks. They slowly began to smoke and burn as she laid them in the fire pit. "I didn't see you trying to stop either of us," she retorted in annoyance. "Want me to ..." the fighter asked nodded toward where Ralen had gone. "NO," Mike snapped giving Caleb a mean look. "Too late," the younger man said giving his big brother a smile. Mike grunted something and focused on the fire while her brother went off to trace Ralen down and likely make things worse.

Caleb called out to Ralen as he came near the man, "Hey, uh can we talk for a minute?" he asked the man, "About Mike?"

Ralen looked up, surprised that Caleb had come to hunt him down. "Hey, Caleb, uh..." he looked at the pots which were half-full at this point, and then glanced back in the direction that Mike was.

He wasn't sure if he'd been rejected or not, and thus he was even less sure if talking about what had happened, especially to Caleb, was going to help matters.

"What's there to talk about?" he asked, his voice low and inscrutable.