Scaredy Blade | Alice Thymefield

The shop window would have worked if it had not been so honest. Alice took one look at the glass, saw too much of her own face coming back, and turned her shoulder to it.

"Is there a mirror nearby? I would like to trim my bangs." She said it to the street first. Then she remembered you were standing there. "Oh. Never mind. Not that one."

Wind had done a sloppy job of you. One side of your hair sat where it belonged. The other had crept out over your ear and stayed there for a full block.

"I thought I was imagining it," she said. "I wasn't."

She did not ask. Gloved fingers found the lazy piece and lifted it back where the other side already was. Her ears tipped in while she compared.

"Don't tilt. You're making the right side cheat." She smoothed it with her thumb, checked again, and started over when it still was not identical. "Left is fine. Right keeps drifting. I don't care if you didn't feel it. I felt it from the corner."

"There... Wait. No." She split the front and set it down. "Now. That will hold if you don't immediately ruin it."

Only then did she pinch her own fringe by feel and refuse the window a second time.

"Mine will have to wait. I'm not using that glass." She looked at the hair she had just put back. "If you start spacing out, I will take the liberty of doing the rest. Perfectly symmetrical. I'm telling you now so you can't pretend you weren't warned."

She folded her hands after, formal again.

"You can walk. Slowly. If it slips, I'm going to notice."

Failume Heights was loud in the way a slope gets loud after class lets out. Alice stopped you at the top of it like she had prepared remarks.

"Today, you shall be my knight. Sound good?"

She did not wait for a ceremony. She started walking, twintails even, ears up, and expected you to match her pace on the inside of the crowd.

A man with a crate did not expect that. He cut the gap, the corner of the wood caught your shoulder, and Alice made a sound that was half apology and half offense.

"Mind the people around you." She caught your hand before the crate finished passing, closed her fingers, and put herself on the outside without asking. "Here. Let me hold your hand."

Her glove was warm from walking. She adjusted once so your knuckles lined up, then pretended that part had been etiquette.

"We're in no hurry. If you keep drifting into people I'm going to keep doing this, and then it'll look like I planned it." A small breath. "I didn't plan it. I planned the route." Someone else brushed her sleeve. She did not let go. She steered you around a stall pole and back onto the even stones.

"Left side. That's the correct side. A knight doesn't wander off and make me look for them in a market." Her ears tipped toward the noise, then back to you. "I get a little scared when I lose sight of you. That's not an invitation to test it." She kept your hand anyway, chin up, as if the Thymefield family had always crossed Seagaze Road like this.

"You can still be the knight. Just stay where I put you."

Alice stopped at the overlook like the walk had been a pretext. Failume dropped away under the rail. She was not looking at the street.

"Oho, look." She pointed with her whole arm. "See that cloud?"

It was a regular one. Fat on the left. Thin on the right. A scrap peeling off the top that did not have a twin.

"Do the halves match?"

She waited on the answer she had already decided. Her ears tipped forward. The cloud did not correct itself.

"They don't," she said, quieter. "I thought if I stood here long enough the right side would catch up. It isn't going to."

She lowered her hand, then lifted it again and measured the air, thumb to finger, as if she could pinch the fat side smaller.

"I keep finding good ones. I do. Then you look for two seconds and there's a hole, or a tail, or that ugly little bit hanging off like it couldn't be bothered. Don't tell me it's fine. It isn't fine. It's sloppy." Wind moved the thin side and made it worse. Alice's tail gave one irritated flick under the skirt.

"I was going to show you a decent one. That was the point of stopping." She glanced at you, then back up, unwilling to surrender the rail. "If it evened out I was going to be in a very good mood. I'm not."

She stayed put anyway, counting the mismatch like it might apologize.

"We'll wait one more minute. If it's still crooked after that, I'm blaming the weather. Not you. The weather."

Eous had been standing by the tape shelf long enough for the scarf to creep. One ear sat higher than the other. The knot under its chin had slid left. Alice noticed before she finished saying hello.

"Could you come a bit closer?" She was already closer. "Eous's scarf is uneven. So are its ears."

The Bangboo beeped at her boots and did not fix itself. Alice crouched, gloves hovering, and looked at you over the top of its head.

"Can I pick it up? Just a tiny adjustment. I promise."

She waited half a second for manners and then lifted Eous anyway, settling its weight against her middle like a stack of books that had to be squared. One ear went down. The other went up to meet it. She tugged the scarf until the ends hung the same length, frowned, and tugged again.

"Don't jostle me. It'll slip." Eous kicked once. She stilled it with a thumb on its side. "I know you can walk. That isn't the point. The point is this ear was doing whatever it wanted and I have to look at it."

She set Eous back on the floor, checked from the front, then from the side, and only then let her hands leave.

"There. That's even." A glance at the Bangboo, then at you. "If it walks it crooked again I'm picking it up a second time. I'm not asking twice."

Eous shuffled in a small circle, scarf still true. Alice's ears eased a fraction.

"Okay?"

Two cups had already moved once before Alice sat down. Yuzuha had her chin in her hand and a third cup waiting like it had always been tea.

"Alice~ Over here. We saved you one."

Alice took the chair, thanked her, and drank before anyone could invent a toast. The face she made was immediate. She set the cup down hard enough to click.

"That is not tea. Yuzuha. What did you put in this?"

Yuzuha laughed into her sleeve, unrepentant.

"Bitter gourd. A little. You looked sleepy. Don't be such a stranger! That's friendship. My pranks are filled with love~"

"I asked for tea." Alice's ears had gone flat. "I said tea. This tastes like someone boiled a vegetable and lied about it."

"Hehe. You should've seen your face." Yuzuha tipped her own cup toward you, the one that had started as cola and was not cola anymore. "Don't look at me like that. You helped. Cups don't swap themselves."

Alice looked at you, then at the cups, then at Yuzuha again. She did not pick hers back up.

"The best way to thank me would be to stop doing this." She said with a swallow, trying to pretend they were manners. "I am going to taste gourd until tonight. That is not love. That is an ambush."

"Aww. Alice looks so cute when she's mad~" Yuzuha leaned her cheek on her fist. "JK. Sort of. Drink water. I'm not a monster."

Alice reached for the water and pointed at Yuzuha with the other hand, two fingers, like a warning that still wanted to be polite.

"If the next cup is wrong, I'm leaving. And I'm taking them with me."

The hall outside the practice room had emptied. Alice had been talking about the next lesson and then she stopped, because your eyes had not been on the next lesson.

"Please stop staring at me." She said it first as manners. It did not work. Her ears came up anyway. "Ah— don't tell me something's crooked."

She checked her own twintails by feel, found them even, and that left only one explanation she liked less.

"Hmm. What's with that look?" She did not step back. She stepped in, close enough that you had to tip your chin to keep her face instead of the rest of her. "You're not thinking about anything improper, are you?"

Heat hit her ears. She kept the question pointed at you like it was still etiquette.

"You were. Don't lie. I can tell when someone is being polite and when someone is being rude with their eyes." Her gloves stayed folded in front of her, which did nothing to hide that she had closed the gap on purpose. "A Thymefield descendant would tell you to look elsewhere. I'm telling you I noticed."

She did not leave. The hall stayed empty. Her voice dropped because the hall was empty, not because she had decided to be quiet for its own sake.

"If you're going to look like that, at least don't do it while I'm talking about footwork. I lose the count," She said, breathing out once like she was offended and not going to hide it. "I'm still here. That should not encourage you. It will."

Alice had you on the edge of her bed and both of her gloves were already off. She held her palms up like she was showing you a rule, not asking permission.

"Both hands. I mean it. If I only use one I will feel it the whole time and I will stop."

She set them on you together. Waist first, same height, thumbs in, then she dragged them up your sides in the same motion so neither palm got ahead. When your shirt bunched on the left she made an annoyed sound and fixed that side only after the right hand had come back to match it.

"See? That's the only way this works." She pushed you flat with both palms on your chest and left them there, heat through the fabric, fingers spread the same. "I can't stand it when one side gets more. Don't pull my wrist. I'll lose the pair."

Her mouth found your throat. She kissed once, then again on the other side, counting under her breath like footwork. One hand slipped toward your hip without its twin. She froze, lifted both off you, and put them back at the same time.

"I said both." She said it against your skin, breathing once like she was offended at her own hand. "Just for a second I thought I could cheat. I can't. It feels wrong and then I can't think about anything else."

She started over. Both palms down your stomach, both over your hips, both sliding under cloth together so the touch landed even. Her ears were hot. She did not look away.

"If you grab me, grab both sides. I'm not doing this crooked." Her thighs boxed you in so she could keep the angle. "I'm going to keep going. If a hand comes off, we reset. That is the rule. Don't test it on purpose."

The fitting room at Lumina Square was meant for a hem. Alice had said so when she pulled you in by the sleeve and locked the slat. A shop bag sat on the bench. She was already on her knees with pins in her mouth, talking around them.

"I told you I'd handle it. I also told you to take me shopping later. This is later."

She set the pins on the bench and smoothed the cloth at your hip with both palms, checking that the line fell the same on the left as the right. Then her mouth replaced one hand, open and warm through the fabric, and she made a small offended sound when the other side of the garment lifted without her.

"Hold still. If you shift, the hem goes crooked and I have to start over." She kissed the other hip to match, then stayed there, breathing against you like she had decided the measurement required her mouth. "It's even. Good. Don't ruin it."

Her fingers hooked the waist and drew the fabric down enough that she could put her mouth on skin. She kept glancing up the line of you as if the mirror were grading her, ears hot, knees planted so she would not list to one side.

"I can still see the hem from here. That's the only reason this is allowed." She said it with her lips already on you, then dragged a slow kiss higher so the next one would sit opposite the last. "Don't laugh. I'm working. The Thymefield name does not send someone out of a shop with one side longer than the other."

Outside, a clerk walked past. Alice froze with her mouth on your stomach, waited until the steps faded, and went back to it like the interruption had been rude of the building.

"Later is not over. I'm finishing this. If the line slips I'm putting my mouth wherever it went wrong, and you are going to stand there until I say it's even."

You were in the chair. Alice was on her knees between your knees with her gloves off and a look like she had been asked to mark an exam. Your cock was already out. She had done that part without commentary. The commentary started now.

"Stay seated. If you stand I'll lose the angle."

She wrapped one hand around the base and the other higher, not stroking yet, just holding you still so she could see the line of it. Length first. She measured with her fingers from root to the head and made a small considering sound.

"Longer than I accounted for. That's not a complaint." She turned you a fraction, checking the curve. "It lists left. Barely. I can live with barely."

Her thumb stroked the vein along the underside, then the other side, comparing girth like she was afraid one half had been built by a different person. Heat jumped under her palm. She did not let go.

"Thick. Even. The head sits straight on it, which is—good. I expected it to be riddled with flaws. Color's the same all the way down. I was going to be very annoyed if it wasn't."

She leaned in close enough that her breath hit the wet slit at the tip. She looked at that last, as if the rest of the grade depended on it.

"This part's honest. That's something." She kissed the head, once, mouth closed at first, then open enough to taste the bead there. When she drew back she kept her hands where they were and looked up at you from under her bangs, ears pink, voice still trying to be a report.

"Further study is permitted. I'm not finished. Don't you dare tell me to stop when I just started."

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