Page 30 of The Lost Art of Finding Where You Belong

After a moment, Perian shook his head, his mind beginning to feel a little sharper. “No, no, I don’t want to be a Warrior. I mean, you’re all very hot, but I don’t think it’s for me.”

The man smirked and carefully tugged Perian back into motion.

“There we go,” he said. “I was a little concerned about the lack of ogling.”

Perian let out a groan and asked with what was only partly exaggerated horror, “Oh, no, am I known as theogler?”

The man winked at him. “Only in the most flattering of ways.”

Perian snorted. “How isthatflattering?”

“Are you saying you aren’t looking at us with appreciation?”

“So much appreciation,” Perian breathed.

“So it’s definitely flattering,” the man returned.

Perian… could not immediately refute that logic. “You all have lots of muscles, and you’re very pretty to watch.”

“And you have fewer visible muscles but you’realsopretty to watch.”

“To watch be incompetent?” Perian questioned doubtfully.

The man shrugged. “Well, to be honest, I think you’re pretty to watch no matter what you’re doing, even if you’re doing it incompetently.”

This made him laugh. “Thanks for that. That’s… really super reassuring.”

Flashing him a wide grin, the Warrior said, “I aim to please.”

Perian’s arm was really starting to hurt now, a deep, hotthrob. He was pretty sure this meant the shock was wearing off. And while the lack of pain had been nice, the numbness had actually been pretty weird.

“I’m Perian by the way,” he said. “If we got introduced at some point, I don’t remember your name.”

“Too busy staring at my muscles,” the man said cheerfully.

Perian rolled his eyes, but then shrugged and admitted, “Probably.”

“I’m Bennan.”

“Nice to meet you. Or you know, know your actual name after we’ve been spending days in proximity to one another. But, you know, in separate areas because you’re in the actually competent section.”

“I’m a full Warrior,” Bennanpointed out.

Perian made a face. “I didn’t mean that as an insult. Actually competent is, like, top of the line for me.”

Bennan laughed. “No, I just mean I was there because not only do Warriors have to keep up their skills, Onadal always has Warriors watching over the novices. Things can always go wrong.” His expression hardened. “Admittedly, more often because of accident than spite, but if you have that many people with that many weapons all together, it makes sense to keep an eye on everything.”

Perian nodded. Now that he thought about it, it actually explained the Mage Warrior who’d been present. There hadn’t been any joint training this morning, but they’d still been there, and they’d flattened Fomadin pretty quickly.

“I’m glad,” Perian said.

He’d still been hurt, but who was to say what might have happened if no one had been present to ensure it stopped there.

Bennan pointed out, “There are… obvious exceptions, occasionally, but most people in the castle want the health and safety of everyone else who’s here. Or, you know, they’re going about in their own little world and not actually thinking much about everyone else, but certainly not wishing them ill.”

“So… the fact that I wound up here because I was attacked and have been attacked twice since I’ve been here…?” Perian asked.

“… Really bad luck?” Bennan suggested with a commiserating glance.

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