#goatfriend

[whomst-yall]

eepy skellington and his goatfriend

[pico-digital-studios]

Into, Across and Beyond! Scripting: Burning Too Much Daylight

(This series of events is part of the alternate continuity of @robovoidfrog's Funkinverse, and is again not to be considered canon unless they state otherwise by the release of Beyond the Spider-Verse.)

After Benjamin and BluBuni managed to save Goatfriend from a landslide in an area and overpower Kenji proper, they came to a stop at the far end of Aquatic Ruin.

Benjamin: Geesh, what is with you trying to stop us from doing the right thing?

Kenji: Dude, you seriously CAN'T save everybody yourself. That's a given in life, and I've had to witness that over time.

Benjamin: I mean, you have a point about it being impossible to save everyone, but that doesn't mean we won't try to anyway.

Kenji: ...Is this why you're still on board with Salty's thoughts, even when you've seen him turn you down?

BluBuni: He's still paranoid from when your group tried to stop him from doing what he felt the urge to do. He might cool off if more -friends side with his desire to stop The X.

Goatfriend: So this is why you've tried to enable my death? Out of that desire to maintain a linear plot that doesn't exist?! I knew there was something fishy about you when Ben and his pack first knocked you out, but this just sells you off as a murderer by inaction!

Kenji: Murd-?! I'm not the one actively trying to murder people to uphold the multiverse! I... I don't even want to deliberately murder anyone. Having my family drift apart and my own counterpart of Pico being driven to a murderous insanity hasn't helped my situation at all, nor has having to witness practically everyone around me undergo their own angst periods.

Benjamin sighed, knowing he couldn't yet forgive Kenji for his repeated disruptions to their parole, but sympathised enough with him to let him be.

Benjamin: Okay. It doesn't excuse what you tried to do, but I'm letting you go.

Alt MIX Boyfriend: What?! He tried to stop us from saving Goatie there, man.

Benjamin: I know, but a lot of these guys aren't thinking straight, more so than what is necessary.

Neo Girlfriend: Which makes sense, considering Leo and Soft Pico's Ben are both stuck with the Society.

Kenji: I don't get it, Ben. Why WOULD you spare me after I've tried to stop you? After I tried to stop... t-the alternate Aloe?

Benjamin: Simple; I don't believe in killing people for the greater good, not even other -friends. Me and Gracie's groups are trying to do the true greater good, by rallying up others to help stop The X as soon as possible. It doesn't help, however, that we've been side-tracked constantly by you derailing our bids to help Salty out. I'll let you go, but you gotta promise not to continue interfering with our mission.

Kenji: *sigh* Okay. I promise.

They nodded to each other.

Soft Pico: Before we let you go... We need to know something important.

Neo Girlfriend: What Earth designation is the Society HQ at?

Kenji wasn't sure if it was best to tell them, but knew it couldn't be hidden forever.

Kenji: I'll tell you, though if necessary, get in there, get whoever you need to out and then hurry out, before Cam notices what you're doing. Alright, so the location is Earth 1-2-4-

He was interrupted as he witnessed blood splatter, showing horror from what happened.

Benjamin: Kenji? Is that all there is?

Kenji: H-He... He figured it out...

BluBuni: What do you mean by-?

Blu turned around, and to her horror, Goatfriend had been shot in the back, now kneeling on the floor.

BluBuni: GOATFRIEND!

She kneeled by his side, tears welling from her eyes. Benjamin did the same, equally horrified.

BluBuni: No no no no! P-Please, stay with me.

Benjamin: Hang tight, G. I'll try and get you healed up.

Goatfriend: I- *cough* I don't want you to waste your strength o-or energy, Ben. That X creep needs stopping b-before he destroys the multiverse.

BluBuni: What about you? I can't just leave you to... t-to...

He put his hand on her cheek, trying to calm her down.

Goatfriend: Hey. Look at me, Blu. You've still got a lot to live for. I don't want your happiness to be permanently gone b-because of this. Y-You need to help Ben and the others stop The X, for m-my sake, alright?

BluBuni: A-Alright, G...

Goatfriend: A-And Ben? Y-You've become tight-knit with B-Blu, haven't you? In case I d-don't make it, please... take g-good care of her for me.

Benjamin: I... I promise she'll be safe with me, Goatfriend.

Goatfriend: A-And, er... just remember that s-she doesn't like carrots. I... heh, I l-learned that the hard way m-myself.

Benjamin: Heh, I'll keep that in mind.

BluBuni smiled to Ben, happy he had the right material as one of her best friends.

Benjamin: I'm gonna get you healed anyway, though. Even if it burns out my strength for a bit, it's better than leaving you to die.

He got started on healing the bullet wound right away.

Goatfriend: Y-You really didn't have to do this, you know?

Benjamin: It's the least I can do for a friend, man. Plus, the shot didn't manage to hit any vital organs, so you're alright.

Goatfriend: T-Thanks, Ben. I really appreciate it.

Grace and Pico arrived on the scene.

Pico: Is he alright? We heard the gunshot before.

Benjamin: Thankfully so. If whoever tried to kill him is still in range, he's not safe here. Grace, can you warp him to a safe spot that's still in this dimension?

Grace: I'm right on it.

She was about to do so, but her neck was clasped by a power inhibitor that prevented her from doing so, right before extra lead was shot into Goatfriend, this time successful in killing him.

BluBuni: NO! G!

She rushed to his body, tearing up a lot as Benjamin went next to her and Grace broke the inhibitor.

Grace: O-Oh, no...

BluBuni: P-Please, d-don't die on me... p-please...

When she realised he really was killed this time, she started crying, now having been through TWO events where she had lost a loved one to outside forces. In response, Benjamin hugged her tightly to comfort her.

Benjamin: H-Hey. I'm here, Buni.

BluBuni: W-Why did it have to be him...?

During the hug, Barbara noticed something close by and pointed Benjamin's focus towards it; a pair of glowing pink eyes that were all too familiar to him. He watched the figure he knew was actively trying to stop him from doing the right thing with contempt, as he slipped away into a portal.

Benjamin: ...Cam!

Pico turned to Kenji.

Pico: Okay, dude. Change of plans, get us straight to his HQ. He needs a reality check.

Kenji kept true to his word, generating a portal that got Benjamin's group into the Funkin' Society HQ at Earth-1249, where Softie was at alongside several other -friends.

Soft Pico: There's Softie!

Softie turned back, seeing his boyfriend having come for him.

Soft Benjamin: Pico?

Soft Pico: Boy, am I glad to see you in one piece. They didn't hurt you, did they?

Soft Benjamin: Thankfully not. Though, I'm not sure I can say the same about all these guys that have been through a lot. Oh, er, who's this (EB!Softie) you've got with you?

EB!Softie: Oh! Hey there!

Soft Pico: It's a long story, Ben. I'll tell you later.

Gracie's group entered the area as well.

Gracie: Did you guys make it?

Benjamin: I... I was so close to saving Goatfriend, but... (through gritted teeth) Cam murdered him in cold blood to try and maintain his "canon"!

Gasps of horror, concern, worry and anger were heard around the other present -friends.

Kenji: I witnessed it happen, everyone. I... I'm sorry.

Judith: I never knew he'd... go as far as to defy our morals just to get his way.

Neo Boyfriend/Leo: The point still stands that, if Salty is out there trying to stop The X, and a few of us couldn't apprehend him ourselves, he needs all the help he can get!

Benjamin: Just what I was thinking.

Gracie: We called you guys together not just to save Salty, but to preserve the very fabric of reality itself.

Benjamin: As it stands, the multiverse needs us to keep it safe, and we need to split from a civil war and unite as one to achieve it.

Gracie: So, our goal is simple. Save our friend, safeguard every universe... and never back down!

Even some of the other defectors, like B3 and Lexi, were present and hearing this.

Galfriend: So how do we go about destroying him if he's pretty much nigh-invincible?

Benjamin: There is a way. Despite him being a distorted demon, his weak spots are going to be where the dark matter in his body hasn't reached. We'll need to make him waste enough of it for us to get good hits in and bring him back down to a vulnerable state.

Leo: Then we shouldn't waste any more time. We're allying as one, and we're staying that way to the end! At this point, no -friend is being left out, no matter what!

Benjamin: And in defiance of defined fates, we'll fix this mess once and for all! Who's with us?

Many -friends in the room raised their fists in their parole to join the cause to stop The X and prove that they're still capable of doing the right thing. However, Cam soon entered the room on a higher level, witnessing what was going on.

Cam: <Everyone, we'll focus on the X after we've stopped Salty's defiance! Get back to your-!>

However, Benjamin spotted him and threw his microphone cord at him, yanking him down by the leg in front of everyone present.

Cam: GAH!

Benjamin: Shut up with your so-called "authority", Blueballs!

Cam: <I'm the good guy here! None of you get it!>

Kenji: He said shut UP!

Kenji speaking up second shocked a lot of the -friends, considering that he had been one Boyfriend the others barely hung around.

Kenji: Everyone, Cam does NOT know what he's doing as a leader, and he's proved that quite well!

Cam: <Traitorous scum! I gave you a simple task, and you botched it on purpose!>

Judith: No! He's right. All of us in here have to atone for our past failures; the loved ones we've lost, the people we couldn't save thanks to your rules... I told you before, Cam. THIS is what we do. We HELP people, even if it affects us badly in the long-run.

Bartholomew/B3: I know it's hard to accept, boss, but THAT is the truth I had been blinded to since you brought me here.

Aloe Mano: In there, you clearly didn't want to hesitate in chasing Salty down the second he got free from your energy cage. And look what things have become now!

Benjamin: It's clear now, isn't it, Cam? Your little society you made under the guise of "protecting the multiverse"? It's nothing but a cult enabling murders by not allowing others to try and save those close to them. Even if you didn't directly kill them, their blood's still on your hands, and on those you and your strike force have prevented from helping those close to them.

The -friends around him were clearly ashamed for enabling the deaths of those close to them.

Benjamin: THAT'S why Salty defied your goals; BECAUSE he isn't going to let his adoptive family meet the same fate as countless others have in your guise of stopping those universes from destabilising! It doesn't help you've been hiring children as young as Lexi into your twisted actions, and I'm sure as hell glad I got to Evan before any of your squad could try and usurp him!

B-Bot: Isn't it obvious from your backstory? It's YOU who's the original anomaly.

Brooke: Make that more of a paradox. You saw the anomalies, attributed them to Salty, and even then, you stood in for a dead counterpart of yourself.

Cam: <That changes nothing. We ARE the good guys, and you all know it. We're still keeping the multiverse safe.>

Softie shook his head.

Soft Benjamin: Not like THIS, we aren't, Cam.

Romantic Boyfriend: Too darn right.

RecD Boyfriend (with accompanying subtitles): Yeah, like, how is this meant to be fair on us when our motive's meant to be doing the right thing?!

Benjamin: In fact, I'll never forgive you for disrupting my attempt to help BluBuni save Goatfriend from his "canon event"! She's been deeply scarred from this second major loss in her life, and his death remains on YOUR hands! AND Kenji's! AND anyone else who deliberately tried to intervene!

Cam growled at Benjamin as other -friends stepped back a little in fear, realising from words alone that the angel was a force to be reckoned with.

Benjamin: THIS is who your leader is, everyone; a deluded and sickening bully who uses force to get his own way! Well, I've made it clear I won't be joining your "alliance", Cam, and neither will any of my pack, end of! We're supposed to be the good guys, and look what you've made hundreds of -friends become!

Cam attempted to lunge at Benjamin before being blocked by BluBuni, who was especially angry at him for what he did.

BluBuni: You're a murderer, and you know it.

Cam: <Get out of the way right now!>

BluBuni: I won't!

Cam: <I will not ask you again, girl! Get the fuck out of MY WAY!>

In response, Bently rushed forward and slashed at Cam's eye again, this time truly damaging it.

Bently: There's a fresh one if you try that again!

Benjamin: ...I guess I should never have bothered trying to redeem you, Malicious.

Toon Boyfriend: You know, you shouldn't even consider yourself a "hero" when you can barely hold a mass group of these guys together!

D-Sides .XML: Like how I don't see myself as a hero. Just shows that you really are a self-mythologizing narcissistic autocrat, ain't ya?

Cam: <This is for the sake of millions of people. Don't ANY of you get it?!>

Gracie stepped forward.

Gracie: What about YOUR Girlfriend, both in this universe AND the one you crossed into? What would she think of you if she could see what you're doing right now?

In response, Cam's stoic expression broke, his look visibly distressed from the thought.

Cam: I-I... Uh...

Gracie: Yeah, that's what I thought.

Benjamin: You CAN still help us if you want, but we're not forgiving you for murdering an innocent just to maintain your flawed philosophy. We're headed for Salty's world all together, with or without you. We're through with wasting time on a wild goose chase and civil war while a monster runs amok!

The others got their watches ready, teleporting away one-by-one with the now-common goal in mind.

Gracie: Farewell, Cam. May you think about your life choices.

Brooke Jr. blew a raspberry at him to make it clear again his opinion on the fallen hero, as he and his father warped away. Even Evan couldn't help but show his contempt to Cam for his unjustifiable actions.

Benjamin: Alright, guys. Let's go do what we should've been focusing on from the start!

The Funkin' Gang and Benjamin's crew warped away, leaving Cam (and Derpina) the only ones left in the HQ.

Derpina: Well... THAT happened, I guess.

Cam: <Not now, Derpina.> *sigh* <Do you have any idea on how we can get rid of The X?>

Derpina: Should all else fail, I've run scans about a nuclear solution. I've run simulations wherein reversing the polarity of the colliders will destabilise Grimbo's being and erase him from the multiverse, as well as all those in Salty's universe.

Cam: <That's an option I don't even want to consider, Derpina! Haven't you got any more feasible options on hand?!>

Derpina: Oh, I'm certain the solution will work should it need to be employed. It has before... in the universe you lived in temporarily.

This realisation hit Cam like a ton of bricks. Everything in his world view fell apart in an instant as he realised that "canon" was not the cause of his failed act to be happy again, and Derpina knew it all along. He fell to his knees and looked around the now-empty building, his face showing genuine sorrow and regret for the first time in a long time.

He slowly made his way back to the control room, looking at his hands, which flashed blood being on them from time-to-time to hammer in the points thrown at him.

Salty: Who decides that? I'm not a kid! Gracie: We're supposed to be the GOOD guys! Judith: Millions of people will be in grave danger if we keep sitting on the wayside. Kenji: Cam does NOT know what he's doing as a leader! B-Bot: It's YOU who's the original anomaly. RecD BF: How is this meant to be fair on us when our motive's meant to be doing the right thing?! BluBuni: You're a murderer, and you know it.

Finally, he rested his hand by the control panel, remembering that one self-destruct command he had installed just in case the silly and quippy natures of his peers annoyed him so much that he'd blow up the entire building with them and himself inside. He also saw his watch very close to running out of power, a look of determination and the urge to actually do the right thing washing over him.

Derpina: So... what's YOUR plan on stopping The X?

Cam (hovering his hand over the switch): <What I should've done before Salty got here to begin with.> I'm going to help the others out and right my own wrongs!

He pressed the button before using his watch to warp to Earth-405 (Derpina in tow), the building itself blowing up shortly after and leaving only debris and badly-damaged machinery at its former site.

[carlyraejepsans]

wait it didnt say boner ???????????

nah lmao the full thing is actually "bonefriend". just like sans' calls her his goatfriend

[poptartportfolio]

A couple of gremlin pics, Levi belongs to my lovely lil goatfriend <3

[imjustalilboi]

Here's some more tickle HCs for 🫵 all

Super Bad Mario

_______________________________

* On the scale of 1 to 10 on the tickle meter, he's a 10

* As a lee..

* God this tiny boy is squirmy

* He is kind of difficult to catch, his small size making him hard to catch

* He's ticklish almost EVERYWHERE, a simple poke will get him squirming and squealing

* Death spots are his stomach and sides

* As a ler..

* There's no stopping him once he decides to tickle someone and he WILL catch who he wants to wreck

* He'll crawl under his lee's shirt and scribble his little fingers all over their sides and stomach

* He'll occasionally give little raspberries to the stomach, giggling while he's at it

* Favorite lees are Devil Mario, Miles (Starved Eggman universe), Wechidna, and everyone from Snic's universe (A little universe a friend of mine made)

_______________________________

Bunfriend

* "Beep boop skdoop, bitc-"

* As a lee..

* On a scale of 1 to 10 on the tickle meter, he's a 7.9

* He's quick AF and slippery so you might need to pin him

* Ticklish spots are his ribs, underarms, sides, and behind his ears (only Goatfriend knows he's ticklish behind his ears)

* As a ler..

* Oh God, he's merciless

* He'll dash around everywhere just to find out where you're the most ticklish

* He'll sneak a few tases to the ribs just to test if you're ticklish or not

* Favorite lees are Xenophanes, the Souls, Goatfriend, Tails Doll, and Sunky

_______________________________

Cartoon Cat

* God, this mf used to terrify me when I was younger

* As a lee..

* On a scale of 1 to 10 on the tickle meter, he's surprisingly a 10

* Nobody besides Long Horse, Cartoon Dog, Gorefield, Siren Head, and Leovincible Cartoon Cat tickle him due to some of the others being a little afraid of him

* He doesn't run or resist it, evil eying the ler(s), daring them to do something

* Ticklish spots are his midriff, his underarms, sides, and paws

* As a ler..

* Welp, ya dug your own grave here

* He's absolutely RELENTLESS with it

* He'll poke and prod everywhere around your body and look you dead in the eyes, taunting and teasing all the time

* The claws and malleable body doesn't help at all, usually wrapping up his lee(s) in his arms and skittering his claws all over them

* Favorite lees are Luna, Cartoon Dog, TS (Toon Swing) Cartoon Cat and TS Cartoon Dog, Gorefield, and Cryfield

[kieonidk]

Meet Benjamin Walker Baker "Borkfriend" and Gina Ramona Dearest "Goatfriend"

[goatwritesfic]

hey! goat here, i write fic on ao3 as goatfriend, mostly txf with some other stuff thrown into the soup when i feel like! if you’re interested in my poetry (+ other prose sometimes) check out rabbitfeeted! 

[tinyhoovesrescue-blog]

This guy! Rufus, the clown of the sanctuary. Rufus is a senior, he will be 11 this year. He came to Tiny Hooves in November with the rescue of 10 potbelly pigs. Rufus had never met another goat and has struggled trying to fit in with ours. One day he made the choice to join the special care herd, by busting through the fence we were fixing at that moment. Despite our frustration, he seemed so happy, we have let him stay. Rufus and Eddie, our disabled goat, have become fast friends and they make each other young again! I think you can tell by this photo that Rufus is now a happy dude 😍🐐😍 We really love this silly old man! #tinyhoovesrescue #rufus #rescuegoat #friendsnotfood #vegan #veganrescue #goatfriend #allyouneedislove (at Tiny Hooves Rescue)

[eldstunga]

Not to compare your work to another’s, but your new Satyr character reminds me a lot of Qsy’s Bleatkin. Goat GFs maybe??

Qsy is a friend, Bleatkan is friend-shaped. I asked Qsy and she says It must be done. >:3c

[rival-the-rose]

A very belated thank you to @technicolordreamgoat for the headphones off my wish list!! They preserve my sanity every single day and I'm so so grateful for this gift!!!

[serfuzzypushover]

SANSGORIEL FOREVER AAAAAAAAAA

y eS

[pico-digital-studios]

Into, Across and Beyond! Scripting: Locking In

(Funkinverse by @robovoidfrog)

After his failure to bring Bently Forceloyed into the Funkin' Society, Cam/Agent Blueballs returned to the HQ with a very nasty cut at his right eye.

Judith: Cam, what happened to you?

Cam: <Just a side-effect of failing to convince a -friend into our cause. I'll get over it.>

Judith: I really hope so. Lately, you've already been biting off more than you can chew with the later recruit attempts.

Cam: <Was Kenji successfully pulled back out of Earth-923 after his recruitment attempt was disrupted?>

Judith: Yes. He's back in the HQ now. What do you plan on doing about the bigger uprising against us?

Cam: <Wherever Salty's ended up in the multiverse, they'll be trying to track him down before The X reaches his dimension to instigate the canon event. We still need to put a stop to that threat before he spirals even further out of control.>

He approached Kenji sat down at a chair.

Cam: <What's been the more recent updates on the recruits?>

Judith didn't want to bring up how she didn't recruit Bidu (Arrow Funk BF) into the Society, so she just skipped to the worse news for them.

Judith: B3 and Lexi Robin both left the Society today and disconnected their watches, and Leo has been left unsure about what's going to happen next.

Cam: <Kenji?>

Kenji: Yeah, I'm back, after a close encounter against that Goatfriend. Man, I definitely bit off more than I could chew for that scene. I mean, then again, it gave me some more time to think about my past...

Cam: <Could you cool it with the reminiscing right now? We've already had to rescue you after you got in trouble twice; first with Gracie throwing you into a rift without your watch, then your really disgraceful failure in trying to bring BluBuni into our cause.>

Kenji: I know, man. We got sidetracked, but I promise we'll make it work this time.

Cam: <That'd better be the case, Tensei. Now, the kid who knocked you unconscious before is of similar lineage to you. An angel, having a pop star as a family member. However, he refused to ally with us and is actively rebelling against us. While we track down Salty, I want you to track down Ben and his cohorts and stop them from finding this HQ, or worse, disrupting the canon. If Gracie and Ben's groups cross paths, then you will need immediate backup. Got it?>

Kenji: Another angel? ...

Kenji's eyes lit up, recognising this was now serious business he had to treat correctly, especially with an enemy potentially on the same wavelength of power as him.

Kenji: I will not fail you.

Cam: <Good. Search any dimension available for the groups, and do NOT let them fulfil their goals.>

Kenji headed out to track down Benjamin.

Judith: What do we do about Salty when we do uncover what universe he's at?

Cam: <Erasing Salty won't fix the problem; it'll only silence the symptom. If we're going to halt The X's rise to power, we must address the cause.>

He started walking off.

Judith: There's something else I must tell you.

He stopped.

Judith: Earth-1003 experienced a canon disruption, but hasn't collapsed in on itself.

Cam: <It's bound to do so sooner or later. Don't assume it'll get better thanks to one change in that Earth's continuity.>

Judith: ... XML also turned against us, and the watches that both rogue teams are carrying were not made by us.

Cam: Oh, for...! <I should've known. That lavender scumbag was doing this all under our noses and left at the last minute. Now I've got some explanation for how they're able to travel between dimensions, even though I had cut off Gracie's watch before. Let's just cut right to the chase and only intervene if absolutely necessary. For now, our attention's on disrupting The X's flow of power and stopping Salty from breaking his upcoming canon event. Is there any update on if The X was caught or not?>

Judith: Cam, I... Our focus has been solely implanted on Salty so much that The X has been causing trouble unimpeded. His threat level as it stands could endanger the entire multiverse. Fever and Serial Designation B's group have already been severely injured from the attempt to stop him themselves!

Cam: <Then how many -friends is it going to take to stop him?>

Judith: I-. It might need everything we've got! If we're going to be doing ANY more recruiting, it needs to be for the sole purpose of putting a stop to The X. We need to be willing to do the right thing.

Cam: <We ARE doing the right thing, Judith...>

Judith: By giving a multiversal threat leeway to destroy it all? This is one situation I'm not sitting out on.

Cam: <Judith, we are NOT recruiting that kid from Earth-25219. He's an anomaly in pure nature, like his original version linked to Earth-111723 is.>

Judith: Look, I get your view on anomalies, but millions of people will be in grave danger if we keep sitting on the wayside.

Cam clenched his fist and glared at her, his injured eye in full focus.

Cam: What did I tell you, Judith? Do not question my authority.

She gulped in worry.

Judith: Y-Yes, sir.

Cam: <Now, let's go.>

They departed both to track down Salty and to find a way to stop The X, as Softie watched secretly from a safe distance.

Softie: There's too much at stake right now. I'm gonna go find Romantic and negotiate what we're gonna do about this freak. I just hope Pico's alright back home.

He headed back downstairs.

[bloggingbadasswitch]

I made a new friend 🐐 #instagram #goat #goatfriend #fluffy #soft #babyboi #horns #farm https://www.instagram.com/p/BxHe8QhAc-C/?igshid=nmikfvn0vqe8

[isfjmel-phleg]

A Christmas Chapter

Merry Christmas!

This chapter is from the as-yet very unfinished and not-fully-planned Book 3 (and I reserve the right to change and adjust it as needed in the context of the full story later), but all you need to know is that Tamett, Josiah, and Elystan have all been at school together for a whole term, and now the Christmas holidays are approaching, which means going home and a welcome break from each other’s company.

Or maybe not?

Tamett shook out his stiff writing hand and wished, not for the first time, for a typewriter. It would spare his hand but lacked the stealth necessary for composing a clandestine letter during preparation. Like it or not, he must grind out his letter to Uncle Adrend by hand behind his Latin grammar.

“After these beastly—I mean, unpleasant—examinations,” he wrote, “we go home for the Christmas holidays. Except they call it ‘hols’ here. Christmas in Corege is not like it is at home. No one’s ever heard of Candle Night or the Goatfriend or rice porridge. Instead they—” 

The sentence broke off in a long blot as Elystan jostled Tamett’s elbow and whispered, “Tell him he needs to invest in a copy of Bellwell’s Guide for the Traveller in Corege. All good bookstores have it. Changed my life.”

Tamett put down his pen. “If you’d rather write this for me, you should just say so.”

“Neither of you should be writing to anyone,” said His Royal Highness from Tamett’s other side, not looking up from his composition book. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but this is Preparation. You might have heard of it. It’s the time of the day when we all come together and prepare for the next day’s lessons. I suppose you remember those?”

“Not if I can help it,” muttered Tamett.

“You still have lessons?” Elystan registered shock. “I thought The Great Intellect knew everything already. They should have sent you home a long time ago.”

“I’d much rather be home,” said HRH. “And by this time next week, that’s where I’ll be. With my family, celebrating Christmas properly, and not having to put up with you.”

“Instead,” Tamett resumed his letter, “they celebrate first on Christmas Eve. Dinner and gifts and that sort of thing. Seems like an awfully—I mean, rather—long time to wait.”

“And,” said Elystan, “missing all the theatricals in Loriston. I’ll leave a box of chocolates in the empty chair in the King’s box, in your memory.”

HRH rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of those vulgar entertainments. We will be attending Knopf’s Christmas oratorio, like every year.”

“Perfect. You haven’t been sleeping well, so it’ll be a fine chance to catch up.”

“Elystan,” continued Tamett’s letter, “is going home to his brother the King and their mother. That’s all he can talk about. His Royal Highness doesn’t seem to like hearing about it.”

“König der Könige,” announced HRH, “is a work of genius that captures the essence of the Christmas season in a way no one, not even your Mr. Plackings with his silly ghost stories, has ever been able to surpass. You probably couldn’t even hear it performed in Loriston.”

Elystan yawned. “I wouldn’t want to hear it anyway. I’ll be too busy seeing one of those silly ghost stories as a moving picture. My mother promised to take me. What will you do with your...people?”

Josiah’s pen slowed, but he did not look up. “The streets of Königsstadt,” he said, “will echo with bells as my father takes us home from the concert in the sleigh. Every tree is lit until they look like they fell from the night sky, and each shop window has more mechanical marvels than the last. My father takes us every year. But by all means, enjoy yourself in Loriston with your...people, if you can see anything through the fog.”

Even Tamett understood how much that was meant to sting, but Elystan betrayed no sign of offense. “I have every intention of enjoying myself,” he said, a little too loudly. “My mother always sees to it that I have a splendid Christmas. They write about it in the papers every year. Mother keeps the clippings in a scrapbook I’m not supposed to know about. It takes up a whole society page. All the gifts and the contents of the stocking and the size of the tree. Every child in Corege wants to be me on Christmas.”

“How about the rest of the year?” said HRH. “Besides, I’m not going to be in Corege.”

Elystan gave him a gracious smile. “I’ll see you to the ship myself.” 

“Coregeans are very enthusiastic about Christmas,” wrote Tamett, “but it seems to me there’s not enough of it to bother with, and it’s mostly noise. Are you coming to Aunt Editte’s party this year? I hope you come so I can meet you. I’ll be in Noriber next week. Or you could visit our house. Father and Mother won’t mind. I’ll be there. Unless I’m out sledding or skating with the girls and then you’ll have to wait.”

Nothing more remained to say, but Elystan and HRH continued to quarrel over his head. Since only he was separating them enough to prevent a fight, he couldn’t budge. On another sheet of paper, he wrote, “I am not actually writing anything” in his very best handwriting, over and over.

He could, of course, have practiced Latin vocabulary with the same visual effect, but some occurrences are too miraculous, even for Christmas.

#

The slush sloshed over Tamett’s boots as he trudged through the gate into Oddington’s High Street the next day. By now, a thick coating of crisp, glittery snow would have enveloped his hometown. But Corege couldn’t manage more than this patchy mush mingled with mud. The shops tried to appear festive with greenery over their brown bricks and timbered plaster, but this was as convincing as the bedsheets pinned with paper cutouts that Tamett’s sisters used to hang for theatrical backdrops.

He checked his pocket again for the letter from Emenor that the prefect distributing post had handed him on his way out. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to read it yet. Whatever she’d written, it wouldn’t be the same as the amusing commentary on Oddington that she would have provided if she were with him.

Instead, he had plodded along silently in HRH’s equally silent wake as the Hollingham boys on this half-holiday had walked into town in a cluster.

“Will you require my company, Your Royal Highness?” Tamett asked. HRH glanced over his shoulder and announced that he would not. Before he could change his mind, Tamett dashed off. A mission beckoned.

He had hoarded his pocket money for the past two months—which is to say, he had spent only about two-thirds of it—for gifts for his family. After wandering through half a dozen shops, he found sheet music of popular song for Emenor, a new landhockey ball for Lovisa, a pincushion shaped like a chicken for Cille, and a wind-up tin frog for Zella. Only a few coins were left for his parents’ gifts, besides another coin that wasn’t truly his.

Elystan hadn’t joined the group heading to Oddington but had asked Tamett to pick him up some sweets. Then he had produced a gilded pocketbook that clinked like chimes as he extracted a shiny gold monarch, worth as much a whole year’s pocket money for Tamett.

“Will this be enough?” Elystan had asked.

And Tamett had said he thought it would be.

Now, as he fingered the raised design of the coin inside his pocket, he couldn’t imagine how many sweets it could buy. Elystan clearly didn’t know either. He might not notice if there were somewhat fewer sweets than a monarch’s worth, and the change—well, surely he wouldn’t mind if Tamett pocketed it? Not as theft, of course, but as a sort of tip for purchase and delivery. Tamett could practically hear Elystan’s voice giving him permission. He withdrew the monarch and clutched it at the ready in his hand.

But curiosity overcame him first, and he stopped outside a shop with his feet in the slush, as pedestrians who refused to step aside bumped into him, and read Emenor’s letter.

Emenor wrote enthusiastically about her upcoming recital, the scarf she was knitting for her music teacher, the Candle Day preparations, and what the cook was baking. She chatted about the younger sisters’ various escapades, an encounter with a neighbor’s cow, and most of all, her upcoming first term at the conservatory in Königsstadt.

“I’m so glad you’ll be here soon,” she wrote, “because I’ll have to leave early to participate in the New Year’s concerts. I’ll have to skip going home at Easter for the same reason, and then in the summer I’ll be working in the city, and you’ll be at home, so this is our one chance before next Christmas. Oh, I have so much planned for you! Everything that’s never the same when you’re not here. Don’t bother about the gifts; there’s nothing any of us really need besides a giant hug from you. And perhaps a holiday at the seaside, but—no, just bring yourself!”

Emenor’s voice in Tamett’s head, louder than the imagined permission from Elystan, asked pointedly where the money for Father’s watch chain and Mother’s brooch had come from. Tamett fingered Elystan’s monarch again and tucked it back deep in his pocket.

On the way to the sweetshop, an enticing smell of tea and cinnamon distracted him. He had forgotten Murroe’s was on this route. He had been to the cafe a few times, and he was tempted now to go in and order something. The dining room, seen through the window, swarmed with Hollingham boys fortifying themselves with hot breads and even hotter drinks. Perhaps an acquaintance would stand him something.

A scan through the faces turned up no one recognizable enough to expect such a favor from—until Tamett’s gaze fell on a table in the back, occupied by a boy in furs: His Royal Highness.

The prince sat alone, his only companions a cup of tea and a half-eaten plate of biscuits. He was absorbed in a stack of letters and did not see the face gawking at him through the window.

Breathing in a last whiff of the unattainable delights, Tamett walked on to the sweetshop.

#

An hour later, panting and achy, Tamett flung open the door of Elystan and HRH’s room. After a two-mile walk and a stampede up the stairs, his crammed satchel had never felt heavier.

Elystan lifted his head from the sofa cushion at the noise and brightened at the sight of his visitor. “Did you get it?” he asked eagerly.

Tamett nodded. “You should have been there.”

“I told you. If I wanted to waste my afternoons tramping all over the countryside, I would have taken up athletics.”

Tamett unwound his scarf. “You know, you really are the laziest chap I’ve ever met.”

“Perhaps, but which one of us spent a monarch without becoming a human icicle?” Elystan flopped back into the cushions. “So where is it?”

Dripping slush across the rug, Tamett approached the sofa and dug a striped paper bag out of his satchel, and another bag, and another, and another...until Elystan was laughing himself speechless at the small mountain lying in his lap.

“You weren’t expecting that much?” said Tamett, rubbing his shoulder.

Elystan shook his head.

“Sweets are two-narry for a quarter pound, and you gave me a monarch. That’s twelve and a half pounds of sweets.”

“Is it?” gasped Elystan.

“You should have seen the look on the shopkeeper’s face.”

Elystan peered into the bags. “Perfect. Exactly what I wanted. Just not these. Or these or these. Or those. You can have them.” He began sorting toffees, humbugs, chocolate limes, acid drops, wine gums, liquorice allsorts, clove rocks, violet lozenges, caramels, and butterscotch into piles and shoving the offenders aside. 

Tamett perched on the other end of the sofa, dodging Elystan’s feet, and took a handful of aniseed balls.

“What else did you do?” asked Elystan. “Unless you spent three hours in the sweetshop?”

Tamett gestured toward his satchel on the floor. “Gifts for my people. Mostly my sisters.” He had settled on toffee for his parents with the last of his coins. That left nothing for Uncle Tamett or any of the other relations he shouldn’t offend, which had bothered him for half a moment before he realized he didn’t really care.

“Oh right, you have those. How many?”

“Four.”

Elystan bit the head off a sugar mouse and pretended to collapse in shock. “And they’re all horrid, I expect?”

Tamett shrugged. “They’re not bad kids. This one’s for the five-year-old.” He brought out Zella’s frog and wound it up. 

Elystan lifted a disdainful nostril but let the friendly creature hop into his lap while he meditatively sucked the last of the sugar mouse.

Tamett’s ears burned. “It’s silly. But it’ll keep her busy while Emenor and Lovisa and I climb the big hill and sled off. This year we’re going all the way to the top.”

Elystan shoved aside the piled sweets, imprisoned the frog between his crossed legs, and wound it again. “You Noriberrians do know how to live. Rolling around the snow. I hope the thrill of it all isn’t too much for you.”

“We like it,” said Tamett, helping himself to a strawberry drop. Elystan, consumed by more pressing concerns, didn’t notice. “And there’s the snowball war too. Me and Lovisa against Emenor and Cille. Lovi and I are getting back our title this year, see if we don’t.”

The frog had sprung straight into Elystan’s hand. He turned it on its back and watched it futilely try to hop away into empty air.

“But I suppose you’ll have a much better Christmas at the palace with your brother.”

Elystan contorted his face into a tight-lipped smile. “Delclis lives for the opportunity to inform the general public of the properties of Dullplantus evergreenica or the genetics of Hollia whocaresa. Highlight of the season. And if I don’t want to hear him, I can always sit with the mater and discuss my pulse.”

“Your people are odd,” said Tamett through a mouthful.

“They’re not so bad. If you like lunatics. I’m probably the only sane one left—oh hullo! Return of the snow beast.”

A mass of fur stalked into the room. It fixed Tamett with a stony glare and extended its arms expectantly.

At that familiar signal, Tamett jumped up to unfasten the fur coat, remove the hat, and untie the scarf as His Royal Highness stood motionless and glowering.

“Some of us, Tamett,” he said, “don’t have all afternoon to waste. You may consider your leisure time over now.”

Tamett assumed a safely blank expression. “What do you require, sir?”

HRH looked at him with incredulous reproach. “My writing desk.”

The table where the portable writing desk was kept contained tidy stacks of papers, books, and inkwells at right angles, but nothing else.

“Where is it, sir?”

“I don’t know! Where it always is? It’s hardly my place to keep track of these things. So fetch it already.”

Tamett, the furs still over his arm, opened the nearest cupboard to rummage.

“What are you doing taking my coat away? I need it.”

The eagerness with which HRH had abandoned the same coat moments before would have fooled anyone, but Tamett handed it back and resumed the search while HRH retrieved his letters from a coat pocket. Finding Tamett too occupied to stand at his elbow and retrieve the coat, he deposited it on the floor and stood with his arms crossed over his middle and his foot tapping.

“What’s eating you?” asked Elystan pleasantly.

“I’m perfectly fine,” said HRH. “It’s nothing to me if my manservant can’t keep track of one simple item. That’s a great deal to remember.”

“What does it look like?”

HRH scoffed. “It’s a writing desk. What do you think?”

“Is it bigger than a bread bin? Assuming, of course,” said Elystan, “that one has ever seen a bread bin. And I haven’t.”

“Bigger than a what?”

“Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“Look here, if you can’t make yourself useful—”

“Oh, you want me to be useful! Try your bedside table. Forgot you left it there, didn’t you?”

HRH snatched the desk from Tamett and waved a hand at both boys. “You are dismissed now. I wish to be alone.”

Elystan nestled deeper into the sofa. “You needn’t be alone on our account while you write. You’ll need a couple of experts like us to check your spelling. Join us! We were just splitting a bag of mice.” He held out a bag. “Have some. Never mind those beady little eyes staring into your soul. They don’t really feel a thing. I think.”

HRH wrinkled his nose. “No thank you.”

“Are you sure? You never know how delicious vermin are till you try. These are good ones. Melt in your mouth.”

HRH shuddered. “Are you trying to kill me?” he muttered as he stalked out with his writing desk under his arm.

“I think, Tamett,” said Elystan, watching him go, “that we will sadly be obliged to dispose of these between ourselves.”

#

In moments calling for solitude or relaxation, Tamett sought out his dormitory. Nine other boys shared it with him, but within his cubicle, he had peace he could find nowhere else, for His Royal Highness never followed him into the noisy, crowded, vaguely odorous room. Here, the morning after the excursion to Oddington, Tamett began to pack, as if that could hasten his departure. 

He adopted the efficient, if not orderly, method of dumping his personal effects in large batches into his trunk and shoving down the lid until they fitted. The gifts for his family lay between a sedimentary layer of shirts and a topsoil of bent notebooks full of mathematical problems for Cille. He was about to add a stray hat when the boy in the nest cubicle called his attention to a shocking sight.

HRH had entered the dormitory.

Despite the solid evidence, Tamett couldn’t fathom it. Here he was supposed to be free. Here he could peel off the companion role to be simply Lockridge, a boy among boys. HRH had no imaginable reason to encroach on Tamett’s privacy like this. 

His first instinct was to shoo him out like a dog who had wandered into a church.

“Excuse me, Your Royal Highness, have you taken a wrong turn? Your room is—”

“I know where my room is, Tamett. I came here to find you since no one in this establishment would fetch you for me.”

That should not have surprised him; even the youngest Hollingham boys knew they didn’t have to run messages for their elders.

Tamett stood at attention beside his open trunk as HRH entered the cubicle. The unmade bed and cluttered bureau top would surely provoke comment worse than that of an inspecting prefect. But only the trunk attracted HRH’s attention.

“You’re wasting your time,” he said, in Liennese. 

Since coming to Corege, HRH had resorted to their native tongue only when especially exasperated. Tamett steeled himself.

“You do not need to pack. We are not returning to Lienne for the Christmas holidays.”

“But, sir,” said Tamett, “we are. You’ve been talking about it for weeks. Everyone else is going home—well, almost everyone. Why wouldn’t we go?”

HRH bent to survey the trunk with disdain. “Certain opportunities for further studies have presented themselves, and I have taken them. They require that I remain here.”

“I don’t have any arrangements like that, sir. So I can still go home, can’t I?”

“My father engaged you as my companion and manservant during the time I am at Hollingham. I will be at Hollingham over Christmas. Ergo, you will be also.”

Heart pounding, Tamett stepped between HRH and the trunk, as if to protect it.

“What if I choose not to?” he said before he could stop himself.

“Yes, sir” was the correct response, the one he ordinarily would have given. But this time those words wouldn’t come.

HRH stiffened to his full height. His voice was dangerously calm. “Would you like to write to my father and tell him so?”

Death would have been preferable to direct communication with the King, but Tamett wouldn’t have admitted it to that smug face. “But sir, I am promised certain holidays in this position. Christmas has always been one of them.”

“Consider it the start of a new tradition. And you will, of course, be compensated accordingly.”

“You couldn’t compensate me enough not to go. My family is already expecting me. I have to be there. Do you remember my sister Emenor?”

HRH inspected an audacious speck on his shoe. “The little violinistin? Oh yes. What about her?”

“She’s off to the conservatory before the new year, and she’ll stay in Königsstadt over the summer. It’ll be my last chance to see her before next Christmas. And—not that I’m in any hurry,” he lied, “but she really wants to see me. You know how sisters are.”

Judging from his expressionless face, Josiah’s sisters must have never been in a hurry to see him. “Write to her,” he said. “And tell her she will have to wait. It will do her good. Disappointment builds character.”

“Perhaps you should explain that to her.”

“She’s not my sister,” said HRH. “I owe her nothing.”

“Just because you don’t care about seeing your people, it doesn’t mean I do. Perhaps I’ll leave anyway. I don’t need a guard, so Raskvist can stay with you and I can go by myself.”

“How? You really think they’ll let you on a ship alone?”

“Lots of boys do it all the time. Like Böllingfurt.” 

HRH’s expression hardened. “Assuming you could book passage. All the ships leaving next week will be full by now, I should think.”

“How many people in Corege do you think are clamoring to go to Lienne right now? There’s bound to be something. Even third-class if I have to.”

HRH recoiled, as if Tamett had suggested traveling among livestock. “Well, enjoy explaining to your people why you’ve returned crawling with vermin. And even if there were something available, how would you pay for it? I know you spent everything in Oddington.”

“I can...acquire it. Somehow.”

“An honest man need never borrow, Tamett. A loan gained is honor lost. Sooner to sweep the streets than to meet the moneylender. Need I go on?”

“I never said I would borrow!”

“Short of stealing, I don’t know how else you can ‘acquire’ anything. You have no pocket money until next month. I can’t help you. And neither will my father. We will spend Christmas with the other boys who aren’t leaving. Dr. Samwyl entertains them every year at his house.”

“There has to be some way I could—”

“I say we are remaining here, and that is final.”

Tamett recognized that tone, an echo of the King’s, and knew better than to argue. 

“You may send your sister my regrets.” HRH turned on his heel and swept out of the room as abruptly as he had entered it.

The boy in the next cubicle poked his head over, hoping for an explanation of the torrent of Liennese he had overheard. Tamett pretended not to notice. He returned to his bureau, pulled out another armful of possessions, and threw them in the trunk.

#

Tamett pointed to the mound of striped paper bags abandoned on Elystan’s desk. “You said I could have some of these, didn’t you?” The boys had finished one bag between them the day before, until Elystan had grown bored and Tamett became otherwise occupied.

Elystan barely glanced up from his book. “What? Oh. Yes.”

“How much?”

“Take it all. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. It wasn’t even the good sort.”

Tamett recalled no objections yesterday, but as long as the inconsistency profited him, he wouldn’t question it. 

“Going to distribute it among the sisters?” asked Elystan.

Tamett shrugged.

“Oh, did you hear that Our Mutual Burden isn’t leaving for the holiday after all?” 

Tamett said he had heard something about that.

“Can’t say I’m surprised. If I were his people, I wouldn’t want him back either.”

Tamett shook his head. “It was his choice. Something about further studies?”

“Who in their right mind stays at school over the hols to study more? But then, this is The Great Intellect we’re talking about, so…” He rolled his eyes. “Not impossible. Oh well. At least it’ll spare you the agony of having to travel with him, won’t it?”

“Yes,” said Tamett. “Yes, I won’t be traveling with him.” He bundled the bags into his satchel and headed for the junior day-room.

His fellow pupils—the ones with sufficient pocket money, at least—were about to experience a Christmas come early. And, if all worked out, so might Tamett.

#

If Tamett thought about it any longer, he would lose his nerve. All he had to do was knock and get the ordeal over with. The door wasn’t intimidating, nothing like the one to the King’s study, but nonetheless he shrank from it as if it were a portal to a torture chamber instead of the last barrier between him and the Rev. Dr. Tamhas Samwyl, headmaster of Corege’s most prestigious school. He had seen the Head before—everyone had, if not in passing, then in church every Sunday—but of course had never dared approach him. Like the King, the Head existed only to exact punishment on wrongdoers.

But Tamett’s conscience was clear. Mostly. He had no choice. He raised a shaking hand and knocked.

Briefly the relief of no reply shot through him, but a flat “Come in” soon followed, and Tamett cracked open the door and entered.

As he had expected, the Head’s office was lined with books and free of clutter. The Head didn’t seem to bother much with personal effects like pictures and objets on his nearly bare desk. But Tamett had not expected a pair of crossed foils to hang over the fireplace, and staring at these as he entered, instead of at the man behind the desk, emboldened him to walk in further.

A crisp voice interrupted his observation. “Mr. Lockridge? Do you have a question for me, or are you contemplating a duel? I warn you I am prepared for either, as long as you can keep it under ten minutes.”

“No, sir. Sorry, sir,” gasped Tamett, turning to face the Head. He had expected the looming surpliced figure that intoned sermons from a lofty height every week. But the gray-haired man seated at eye level with him, raising an eyebrow, seemed strangely human, despite—or perhaps because of—the severity of his manner. It struck Tamett for the first time that the face he had been picturing for the mysterious Uncle Adrend was very like the Head’s.

Tamett took a breath and said quickly, “I don’t want to spend Christmas with you, sir, there’s been a mistake.” 

Those were not the right words. He knew it as he said it.

The Head frowned. “Oh? Something about my hospitality is distasteful to you? The only mistake is an ungrateful attitude, Mr. Lockridge. But you are welcome to spend the day in your dormitory if that is more to your discerning taste.”

“No, sir. I mean, I’m not supposed to stay. I don’t need to. My family is expecting me.”

“I am not aware that an authorized representative of His Majesty has come to fetch you.”

“No, sir, I need to book my passage, and that’s why I’m here.” The Head opened his mouth, but Tamett blazed on. “I can pay for it. I have—” He poured his store of profits onto the desk. “I have nearly one monarch. I know it’s not enough, but I thought perhaps you could take out some from what they gave you for my upkeep and finish it off. My father would pay it back. Or my uncle. I know we would. Please, sir.”

The Head examined the coins. “This can’t be all from your pocket money. I trust you acquired it honestly.”

“Trade, sir,” said Tamett quietly. He was not ashamed, but Hollingham considered that means of wealth common.

“I commend your enterprise, Mr. Lockridge.” The Head handed the coins back. “But I cannot accept this arrangement. Legally, I cannot send you anywhere without express permission from your guardian. You’ll have to suffer through my presence during your holiday. Mrs. Samwyl already has a series of parlor games planned that will no doubt horrify you.”

“Thank you, sir, but I have a letter from my mother, and she makes it awfully—I mean, quite clear that she expects me to come.”

“Express permission, Mr. Lockridge. Not the implications of a personal letter. Everyone’s mother writes that sort of thing; it means nothing. And of course it was not your parents who sent you here. It was the royal household of Lienne. Officially, you are a ward of King Odren, and it is his permission that you need. Has His Majesty been in communication with you?”

“No, sir. But His Royal Highness told me about the arrangement. He said I had to stay too. That can’t be true. I don’t need to. He’s the one staying to study, not me.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, boy; studying has nothing to do with it.”

“His Royal Highness said we’re staying because he’s had ‘opportunities for further studies.’ Some kind of special tutoring, probably.”

“You must have misheard him. Because His Majesty did write to us—” The Head went to a cabinet and fished out a letter from a file. “He was quite clear. ‘Please be informed that I do not wish my son Josiah to return to Lienne for the Christmas holiday. The head of my household will make the arrangements to board him and his companion at Hollingham as usual during that time.’ He said nothing about special studies. And—unless the staff is keeping secrets from me and I need to make a few dismissals—we do not offer such things outside of term time. This is a public school, not a crammer’s.” He laid the letter on the desk for Tamett to see.

Tamett immediately recognized the bold strokes and thick lines of the King’s handwriting. The emphatic words “I do not wish my son Josiah to return” dominated the message, while “his companion” was so crowded it seemed an afterthought.

“I don’t understand,” said Tamett. “Why didn’t he just say the King didn’t want us to come back? It would have made more sense.”

“That’s something you’ll have to ask him yourself. But if you ask me, he’s the sort who would rather stain your carpet than show you the wound.”

What on earth did that mean? “So there’s no hope of getting home at all?” Tamett hazarded.

“I have been in communication with His Majesty on the matter, and unless there is further word from him, no. There is not. I couldn’t say what the man’s purpose is, besides being a—at any rate, he is not receptive to my advice, and the school must abide by his wishes.”

Tamett’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll have to write to my family,” he said quietly. “My sister won’t be happy.”

“She will recover. So will you. Now back to work. You have examinations to study for, and we don’t want your parents to receive another letter of bad news concerning your report.”

Tamett stole one last look at the foils.

“Yes, I still use them,” said the Head, without looking up from his paperwork. “Only occasionally. I make no promises that they will make an appearance at Christmas, but at the very least you may hear a certain fascinating story behind them.”

“Thank you, sir.” He trudged out, trying not to plan out his letter home, not in front of all the older boys he would have to pass on the way back to his day-room. 

#

Elystan’s rumpled head poked out from the bedclothes and scowled. “As a matter of fact, I am not awake and don’t want to be. So if there are no further questions...”

“You said you needed help packing,” said Tamett. He would much rather have been in bed at seven in the morning too, but Elystan had pleaded and cajoled the evening before until Tamett had conceded that extra work would be a welcome distraction. Four days later the bad news still stung.

Elystan growled and rolled over. “Come back tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving tomorrow.” Tamett stormed Elystan’s wardrobe and tossed hanging garments over one shoulder.

“Honestly, what do you Liennese have against the sight of anyone else sleeping?” Elystan propped himself up on one elbow, ignoring Tamett’s automatic insistence that he was not Liennese but Noriberrian. “Between you and Josiah groaning all night—where is he?”

HRH’s bed was empty and neatly made.

“Must have already gone out,” said Tamett. He didn’t much care what HRH did or where he went anymore as long as he didn’t have to see that liar any more than necessary. HRH had at least had the decency to mostly make himself scarce for the last several days.

“Thank goodness for one thing going right today. I’ll be glad not to have to bother with that for a while, won’t you?”

“I wouldn’t know. We’re staying here.” Tamett returned Elystan’s sardonic look with a solemn one of his own.

Elystan raised his eyebrows. “Now, now, Tamett,” he said. “He might stay here, but not you. You’re too clever for that. You’ll find a way home. Have you booked passage for a ship leaving in the dead of the night?”

“No.” Tamett flung a shoe into the trunk with a thud.

“Then you’re stowing away?”

“No.”

“Bribed someone to give you a lift?”

The other shoe missed the trunk and collided with Tamett’s foot. “No!”

“Taking a balloon? Or an aeroplane?”

Tamett reached for the smashed foot and winced. “Look here, I’m not going home. At all. By any means. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Elystan dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Well, who really wants to go home anyhow? All you get is your mother fussing at you and a lot of stupid siblings crowding around. Same old musty ornaments, same old dinner, same old conversations, and only the best parts ever change. Then people give you a lot of stupid gifts and expect you to be grateful for them when the one thing you really want is what they’ll never give you. I think you’re well out of it.”

Tamett deposited another armful of Elystan’s belongings into the trunk with a crash. “That is the most inaccurate description of anything I’ve ever heard.”

“My poor child,” said Elystan, “there’s so much in life you don’t understand.”

Tamett slammed the trunk lid. “I understand I want to see my people. Everyone does. I think you do, even if you won’t say so. So does His Royal Highness. But his father doesn’t want to see him, so we’re both stuck here, so shut up about how miserable you’ll be at home.”

Elystan shrank back. “His father doesn’t want to—really?”

“Saw the letter myself.”

Elystan shook his head. “His own father…” He laughed abruptly. “Well, I was right, wasn’t I? But his father can’t have said anything about you. You can too do something about it.”

“No. That’s just the way things are.”

“Why would you let a little thing like that stop you? People change their minds all the time. All they need is a little nudge in the right direction. Talk to the Head about it. Make him see that having you around all through the hols is the last thing he wants.”

Tamett plucked shirts from their hangers at a pace dangerous to the fabric. “Must be nice to be a King’s brother. To demand things from grown-ups and expect to get them. Companions don’t have that privilege. It’s my place to accept whatever my king requires and…” He wadded a shirt and tossed it in the reopened trunk. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Like a good, dutiful servant,” mimicked Elystan. “Oh, Tamett, I thought you were better than that. I thought we had decided you weren’t going to listen to him anymore if you didn’t want to.”

“You decided that. Not me.”

“You’re welcome! Somebody has to look out for you, if you won’t yourself.”

“What are you going to do? Write to the King and order him to bring me home?”

For this Elystan had no answer.

Tamett crumpled up a brocade dressing gown with an intricate ivy pattern, crammed it in a corner of the trunk, and did not pursue the conversation further.

#

As boys left Hollingham, one by one, bound for carriages and trains and ships, they never noticed, while they waved goodbyes to friends whose good fortune was still en route, that they left school with pieces of greenery on their hats or shoulders. If they had bothered to look up, they would have seen a face peering between the balusters and expertly flicking pieces of the evergreens decorating the bannister at them like resentful confetti. 

Tamett didn’t mind being overlooked. At moments like this he preferred his anonymity. Even the boys of his form and dormitory had forgotten him in their excitement. Some of them sat on a bench, swinging their legs and earnestly discussing what they were going to eat first when they got home. There was room on the bench, but Tamett didn’t sit there. Another lot stood in a clump by the fire, comparing sizes of their perhaps nonexistent sleds. Tamett had nothing to contribute to this. Neither did he run out to join the snowball fight outside the front door. 

Sitting on the stairs and perfecting his aim on unwitting victims suited his present requirements far better. Böllingfurt was sailing out bestowing his parting greetings with a gracious wave toward his countless warm friends. Tamett had just pitched a pine cone at that peerless creature’s bowler without his turning around, when His Royal Highness trudged down the stairs. 

He stopped beside Tamett, who prepared himself to tune out a lecture on the ungentlemanliness of sitting on stairs. But HRH only said, “May I sit with you?”

Unsure what to make of this civil question, Tamett shrugged. HRH lowered himself onto the step beside him and stared fixedly at the book he clutched to his chest.

“Tamett?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Is your house on the telephone?”

“Yes, sir,” said Tamett proudly. The Lockridges would not have had a telephone without his earnings.

“I’m going to send a wire home this afternoon. If you have anything to say to your sister, my sisters can ring her up and tell her.”

Tamett knew exactly the uproar that would ensue in the Lockridge household if the palace telephoned them long-distance and how Emenor would write describing it and thanking him.

“Thank you,” he said simply, keeping his face between the balusters.

HRH did not reply. The step creaked as he shifted in his seat.

“You know,” he said, “the conservatory students perform at Königshaus every summer. I look forward to it every year. Sometimes we bring guests.”

“Oh?” said Tamett. What did that have to do with anything?

“You of course will not be otherwise occupied all summer.”

As Josiah’s meaning sank in, Tamett caught his eye. He wanted to say something appropriately grateful, but nothing would come. If Josiah knew what Tamett was thinking, his face didn’t betray it, so the boys sat in silence, watching more of their schoolmates leave.

Tamett spoke up first. “Going to wire your people on Christmas too?”

“No, I’ll be too busy studying and…”

Tamett unplastered his face from the balusters. “You don’t have to pretend. I know.”

To his surprise, Josiah didn’t seem angry. His rigid posture slackened a little as he mumbled, “Who told you?”

“The Head.”

Josiah’s stiff, expressionless self returned. “My father probably wishes me to further immerse myself in Coregean culture and customs. Which I could hardly do if I were home. I’m not really missing anything. It’s not as if I were Mikaiah and waiting for the Christmas Angel or something.”

“Or the Goatfriend, like my sisters.”

The corner of Josiah’s mouth twitched. “The what?” he said in a strangled voice.

“The Goatfriend. You know, ‘The Goatfriend comes at Christmas Eve; if you’ve been good, fine gifts he’ll leave’?”

“You Noriberrian idiots,” said Josiah from behind his hand, shoulders shaking. If he hadn’t been HRH, Tamett would have suspected him of laughing.

Before such an indignity could occur, the boys were interrupted by a slight figure in a red coat with black fur stampeding up the steps toward them.

“Well,” gasped Elystan, “aren’t you coming?”

“Coming where?” asked Tamett.

Elystan eyed them both bemusedly. “To Rhosemore. With me. Where else would I be going? We’re leaving now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Josiah. “I never said I’d go anywhere with you.”

“You never said you wouldn’t either. So are you coming or would you rather stay here under the Head’s nose all through the hols?”

“And how exactly is spending it with you any better?”

“An old companion like me? Why not? It’s not as if you have anyone else to go home with. And that motorcar isn’t going to wait forever.”

Josiah hesitated, but Tamett said, “We’re coming. Thanks awfully.”

“But—” said Josiah. Tamett grabbed his sleeve and dragged him, still clutching his book, down the stairs after Elystan. “We haven’t packed for this! We don’t even have our coats! We’ll freeze.”

“Oh, you’re practically a polar seal already,” said Elystan. “You’ll be fine.”

 Josiah stopped halfway down and refused to budge. “If you really wanted us to come along, you at least could have mentioned it sooner.”

“I didn’t want to bring you home then,” said Elystan airily. 

“But why now?”

“If I have to put up with my mother and Delclis for the whole holiday, so should you. And you’ll be staying at Rhosemore. Everyone wants to go to Rhosemore, and here’s your chance to get a little further than picture postcards. That’s where you’d be anyway if you were here as a guest instead of a pupil. Wouldn’t your father rather you hang around the Coregean court than this mausoleum?”

Tamett could have fetched his coat and hat and packed a small bag in the time it took Josiah to reply. “Very well,” he said at last. “But only because it would not be diplomatic to decline your brother’s hospitality.”

And that was how Tamett found himself in a closed motorcar moments later, speeding away toward the station while Elystan assured him and HRH that they could send for their belongings later. Which, it struck Tamett, would also alert the school that they had left the premises without express permission of a guardian.

But that was another problem for another time.

[withapinchofyellowasafoetida]

Joyful the third: Brown paper packages tied up with string

I’ve got parcels coming in the mail (yay!)

[allie-ascending]

Today a goat and I fell in love. 😍 She laid her head in my lap, came to me when I asked her to, and tried to follow me out when I had to leave. My heart broke just a bit but I know I'll be back to see her soon! 🐏💕 #goat #goatfriend #goatsofinstagram #lakewoodequestriancenter (at Lakewood Equestrian Center)