Callie's Heroes

PART VIII: THE ARBORIST OPTION

Winafria walked slowly and carefully, obviously trying to maintain poise and not stumble, to the table where Callie and the others were gathered. Her face was in a daze, obviously rattled at how she had wound up in this predicament. She set her wine cup down, and then reached for the half-full bottle in the middle. It shook slightly in her hand as she started to pour, before she stopped, instead simply raising the bottle to her mouth and drinking deeply.

Around the area, Callie's ears were able to pick up the whispers as word of the showdown between the two Ladies and the resulting wager raced around at the ludicrous speed of gossip. Without fail, eyes turned wide-eyed towards the stunned Winafria, and then to Callie. Before long, a few sidebets started being made, with odds almost universally in favor of Lady Ingris.

"I b-b-blame you!" Pixyl snarled at Halc, an aura of hot anger roiling off her.

"Me? Why me!"

"You brought her over!" Lhawni had actually put a hand firmly on Pixyl's shoulder, as if holding her in place and preventing the Pixie from launching herself towards the now terrified Dwarf.

"She is one of my district's representatives," Halc said defensively. "I just went to introduce myself." He deflated a bit. "Then I mentioned Callie's music, and she demanded I bring her over to meet her." He looked at the glares focused on him. "I didn't know this would happen!" Worriedly, the volcanic stare of Pixyl getting to be a bit much, he excused himself and scampered off as quickly as he could.

"Well, I'm sure you know many songs," Winafria said to Callie, her face trying to stay bright, but now it was almost completely faded. "Surely one of them could tell a story that could bring a tear to the eye of even …" Her voice died, fading into a nothing whisper of worry as the last remnants of brightness and hope disappeared.

"It's not too late," Lord Cessel said. "I can go try and settle this amicably."

Winafria shook her head. Just a tiny bit of a wiggle. "You know she won't back down at this point, Cessel. She has no reason to, yet I can't either."

Callie's head was racing, ignoring everyone while madly flipping through the karaoke catalog in her mind, trying to find any song that might be able to evoke a tearful emotional response. There was nothing there! Nearly everything that came into her head was some loud, silly, or at least fast, song that would very definitely not bring a tear to anyone's eyes. There was absolutely no way she'd be able to sing something that might make a hard-steel bitch like Ingris cry, even if her Inspiring Melody had any hope of working on her.

Then she heard it. Somehow, the Karen-like cackle of Lady Ingris rose above the general chatter enough for Callie to make it out. She was talking to another Dwarf, a male, also of similar age. They seemed to be friendly, comfortable even, and he took her hand. Husband maybe? He was laughing too, holding his belly with his other hand.

"You'll finally be rid of her," the male Dwarf said. "I can't believe you actually managed to bait her into something. What a stupid wager! I thought you just wanted to get her to hit you while you were both here, but this is masterful."

"Even if she tries to wiggle out of it," Ingris smirked, "there are too many witnesses here. Maybe she could find a way to stay in the Assembly, but there's no way she'll be reappointed, now. With her gone, I'll have enough votes to have this waste-of-money camp shut down once and for all. Giving away Advanced worms to recruits? And to commoners on top of that? Preposterous! Xera should have been ejected from the army for even proposing such a thing."

The words seemed to slap Callie on the side of her face as realization hit her. If Winafria lost her position, even if just the one in the Parliament, it seemed that Camp Utora was done for! The Commandant, too. Legate Galin had once said that some in power were proposing just using more and more un-joined soldiers, which would effectively turn them into nothing but fodder. Callie was literally all that stood in the way of possibly thousands ending up dead!

Then, Callie heard some more words. Words that changed everything in her mind.

"As if I'd ever let some disgusting ren's charm affect me," Lady Ingris almost cackled to her husband and she briefly locked eyes with Callie from across the room. She scoffed again at the sight of Callie staring at her gape-mawed, before turning to pick up a fresh mug of ale.

"Ohhhhh ……" Callie said slowly, drawing the word out. Her face slowly changed from panic to hard anger, eyes narrowing and heat seeming to rise. "She did not just say that!"

Callie knew that culturally, the Dwarves weren't supportive of renadits in this world for some reason, but for the most part there hadn't been much nastiness at the camp. A few of the males had made juvenile comments about her and Pixyl and what they did behind closed doors, but that was just like guys back home. But after only a few days, the surprise and shock seemed to fade and, for the most part, everyone moved on to whatever the next gossip was, including the Dwarves. This, however, was the first time she'd ever heard something so explicitly hateful about being ren from someone, and it just pissed her off, especially when combined with all the other reasons to now despise Ingris, too.

"What did she say?" Winafria asked, startled out of her vague daze by Callie's tone.

"She just called me a 'disgusting ren'!"

Instantly, Pixyl tensed, then tried to wiggle out of Lhawni's grip again. "Let me slice her apart!" she snarled without hesitation.

"You can hear her?" Cessel asked, reaching out to absently put a hand on Pixyl's other shoulder to help hold her in place.

"Oh yeah," Callied growled. "Ohhhh yeah, I can." She looked at Winafria. "She was baiting you. All of that was about getting you worked up. She was actually hoping to get you to hit her at some point while you were both here."

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"She was?" Cessel said. "That would have had Winny at least suspended for a time, and depending how hard, maybe expelled."

"With me suspended, she could call for an emergency funding vote to close this camp. She's been going on about this place for a while." Winafria said, her voice sounding a little hollow. "Without me, she'd have the votes to do it, and I'm sure a good bit of that funding would somehow end up in her personal coffers. She's one of the most corrupt of them all, willing to sell her support to anyone that will pay. She's a disgrace, but apparently too sly for me." She looked at her husband, eyes going sad. "I wanted to do good, Cessel."

"I know, Winny."

"It's not over yet," Callie said. "Somehow, some way …"

"How?" Winafria asked. "She'll never wither to a suggestive charm."

"I don't know," Callie said as she slowly shook her head, still glaring across the room. She clenched her teeth, words dripping from her mouth like white-hot fire. "But I've got two hours to figure out a way, and one way or another, I'm gonna make this bitch cry!"

Callie's mind was racing in several directions at once. She needed to talk to Vanis. She needed to talk to Deduxia and Nekini. She needed to figure out what to sing. She needed to pick up a guitar and somehow use music as a weapon, and if that didn't work, maybe she would simply smash Ingris in her smug face with it. She needed to calm the hell down and focus!

Callie scanned the room, finally spotting Vanis at a standup table with both Lena and Juniper. He was her first stop. "I'm going to talk to Vanis, and then to the band," she said flatly, looking up to Winafria and then back to Pixyl and Lhawni. "Give me fifteen minutes?"

"I think I need to speak with Galin," Lady Winafria said with a sigh, "and probably the General as well. I'm afraid that in my hubris, I may have caused more damage than I thought possible."

"We're not dead yet," Callie said. "Fifteen minutes."

Walking quickly and with purpose, Callie moved towards her cabinmate. She wasn't sure what she wanted to say to him, but he was the first one to teach her anything about Inspiring Melody, and nobility, and in her mind he was the one she needed to consult first. The Bard band was playing now, but they had been for a while, so were likely to take a break between sets shortly, and that would be Callie's next stop. Maybe Deduxia had some kind of amazing Bardass spell that would allow Callie's to be enhanced, or something? Maybe the Gnome could just plain force Ingris to cry? One thing at a time.

Stepping unceremoniously up on to the booster, Callie looked right at Vanis. "We have a problem!"

"Oh, I see, Callie," Vanis said, his face growing worried. He looked at Lena and then Juniper. "I understand you and Lena spoke earlier today about Juniper and …"

"Yeah, yeah, the three of you are fucking. Whatever. That doesn't matter right now. I need your help."

"I, uh … don't know if I'd put it so crass but … What's wrong?"

Apparently the speed of gossip hadn't reached this far, so he hadn't heard yet. Callie took a deep breath, and then blabbered out everything that had happened, from when Halc brought Ingris up to meet them, to the Dwarf's nasty comment.

"The bet is that you have to get her to cry?" Lena asked. "That's the dumbest wager I've ever heard!"

"Lady Winafria didn't realize Inspiring Melody is suggestive, which is why she thought it was an easy win. She apparently assumed I would just play some magic notes and get the waterworks flowing."

"Stars!" Vanis said, glancing towards Winafria, who was now in heated discussion with the Legate.

"We need to find a way to take Ingris down, Vanis," Callie said. "Apparently she's super corrupt. Winafria seems to know more about it, so talk to her. But even that aside, Ingris can get them to take away funding from the camp, and then simply replace the joined Advanced soldiers with just a whole lot of unjoined basic ones, because it's cheaper."

"The casualties would be tremendous, in that case," Vanis gasped. "And the Conscription numbers would have to increase at least threefold, probably, if not twice that."

"Would you like me to make a tree open and swallow the evil Dwarf?" Juniper asked, apparently trying to be helpful. "No one would ever see her again." She raised her hand, as if about to cast something. "It would be quite simple."

"No!" Callie, Vanis and Lena all exclaimed simultaneously, Lena pulling the Dryad's hand down. For the briefest of moments, Callie actually considered the idea, but that wasn't a realistic option. Then she considered again, wondering if it might become one later.

Vanis roughly rubbed the top of his head a bit in frustrated thought, and then realized it would be mussed up, and tried to smooth it out again. "Higher tiers of Inspiring Melody become increasingly able to affect unwilling listeners, but it's still a very, very subtle spell, even at those tiers. You're nowhere near that. Your use of it has been very good, but … not that good."

"I know. The first thing I did was query the skill and from what I see there's no way it could get through to Ingris," Callie said. "Do you have any ideas? I'll go talk to the band next, but I wanted to start with you."

"Short of one of Juniper's trees eating Lady Ingris, nothing comes to mind, Callie."

Juniper perked up at that statement, which led to Lena giving her another firm 'no!' to immediately dissuade it.

"What about sad songs? Do you know some?" Lena asked.

"Not really," Callie said. "I mean, maybe a couple? I know a lot of songs, but most of them are fast and loud. I could play Over the Rainbow again as one of them, I suppose. It did get a few tears flowing the first time."

"We have a little under two hours. Maybe we can teach her a couple things?" Lena suggested. "Twilight's Last Dance, for example? That one has choked me up a little in the past."

"Even if we could teach her well enough to sing and play it, the spell amplifies the emotion of the player," Vanis said. "Unless Callie has some connection to the song, I don't think it would be very effective."

"Do you think Deduxia or Nekini can help?" Callie asked. "Maybe they have something that would crank up my spell's power?"

"It's possible," Vanis said. "You'd still have no connection to something you just learned, and they don't know your music intimately. I'm not familiar enough with the skills at their levels, though, so … " His voice trailed off, sounding a little helpless as he gave a weak shrug.

Callie roughly pulled her pigtails with each hand, her mind racing as it tried to find any scenario that might have a reasonable chance. "Maybe you can talk Ingris into calling off the bet?"

Vanis considered that, before sighing. "Given what you overheard, she has really no reason to. I could try, I suppose, but I have little to offer beyond a royal 'thank you'. If I was in her place in this circumstance, I wouldn't call off the wager."

"I still have many hungry trees," Juniper eagerly suggested again. She really was trying to be helpful, but had a limited repertoire of options available to her.

"No!" Lena and Vanis both echoed again, Vanis adding a firm, "That is regrettably not an option."

Juniper nodded glumly. She understood, but did pout about it a bit.