Billard and Bubbard’s Damsel Distress

Another day at the east barracks guard post, another day of ear-picking, throat-clearing, and a few threads of banter short of a full string for the undynamic duo of Billard and Bubbard.

That is, of course, until the grating squeals of noisy, mischievous children was suddenly silenced and replaced with the faintly familiar sound of a dressing-down for foolish behavior. The voice certainly that of any run-of-the-mill guard, for theirs lacked the distinct-but-firm feminine timbre that the two bumbling babblers caught between the crowd’s clatter.

Bending like a pair of cornstalks in the wind, the two guards waited for a clear line of sight while the castle townsfolk went about their business. Neither could have guessed their curiosity and patience would be rewarded with a mid-row view of the exploits of the legendary Captain Aisha Wolfhund, the one and only “Navy Knight” and leader of the Royal Knights!

With her natural tallness and shimmering, oceanic blue armor, she loomed over the tart-turned-timid street urchins like a war-ready fortress might loom over a handful of mice. Her presence was indubitably suffocating, if not outright mortifying, to anyone with an ounce of grime on their souls, but the greenhorn guards understood that beneath the façade of imposing-yet-regal metal plating was a different and wholly natural sort of brilliance.

They had naught but the depictions of artists and poets to go by, yet they recalled it as easy as a cherished memory: a porcelain, freckle-speckled countenance, a pair of hazel eyes that could pierce siege-proof walls with a furrowed brow, and frizzled, doll-like red hair that could make envious even the most stunning sunrise.

Like two lungs in the same chest, Billard and Bubbard loosed a pair of bellowing sighs.

“Man oh man,” Billard said, his rosy cheeks visible through his helmet. “Just… what a gal, y’know?”

Bubbard nodded through his infatuated trance, watching the poor kids cower as the knight stomped her foot. “Strong, confident, beautiful, good with kids… y’know, a girl like the Royal Cap’n’s a once-per-century phenomenon.”

“Can’t forget whip-smart and dependable,” Bill added with a pointed finger. “Let me tell ya, Bub, if I can find a bride so much as half- the stuff as the Capn’n, it’d be happily ever after for me.”

“Oh, I get what you mean, Bill. Just imagine…” Bubbard raised his free hand forward as though painting his fantasy in the air for his friend, “Coming home after a long, exhausting day of standing around for guard duty, and being met at the door by a dashing beauty ready to greet you and sweep you off your feet.”

Billard briefly disembarked from his delusions of romantic splendor as Bubbard’s comment caught him off-guard. Well, it didn’t bother him too much. Maybe he was just a little confused in the wake of witnessing such a charming lady.

“Then she lets you sit in her lap as she dotes on you…”

Another bizarre mix-up… or perhaps Billard was the confused one.

“And then she squeezes you nice and tight until you’re out cold and—”

“B-Bubbard?” Billard asked concerningly, watching his friend turn red as a jar of strawberry jam.

“…Yeah?” Bubbard replied.

“What the heck are you talking about?”

“…Women, right?”

“That’s what I thought, but…” Billard scratched the back of his neck out of awkwardness, “you’re describing something that sounds a lot more like wrestling, y’know?”

“Wrestling, huh?” Bubbard scratched the tip of his chin in contemplation. “Y’know, I guess we could.”

“…Could what?”

“Wrestle.”

“With who?”

“My dream gal, of course.” Bubbard answered with a shrug. “C’mon, what else could I be talkin’ about?”

Billard looked at Bubbard blankly, trying to piece everything together. Comprehension eventually struck and brought him to a subtle, modest gasp.

“Ohhhh...”

“Oh?”

“Now I get it,” Billard said with an enlightened, if disillusioned, look in his eye. “You’re one of THOSE sorts…”

Now Bubbard was the confused one. “Whaddya mean ‘THOSE’ sorts?”

“The sort of fellow who likes to be, er…” Billard’s face lit with mild perturbation. “…handled.”

“Well, yeah,” Bubbard replied innocently. “Isn’t that the whole point of going after a woman like Miss Mighty Knighty over there?”

Billard chuckled at his friends silly question. “I hate to break it to ya, Bub, but women like Aisha? They’re not interested in playing momma to any lazy louse. They’re lookin’ for a real strong type. Someone they can look, sigh in relief and adoration, and say ‘I can count on that one.’”

Bubbard gave a sarcastic smile. “Someone like you, Bill?" Y’know, you never struck me as a narcissist."

“Well, I’m not saying I’m that kind of fellow now, but… it could happen someday, y’know?” Billard said, softly pounding his fist against his breastplate. “I just gotta build a little more muscle. And eat a little healthier. And clean my bunk at the barracks. And fix my hygiene. And THEN I could probably do it.”

“Yuh-huh. Feel free to let me know when you get onto that.”

Billard turned his whole body to Bubbard, clanking the butt of his spear against the rocky path they guarded. “I’m tellin’ ya, Bub: strong women need strong men! They need some who can do right by them! They don’t wanna do the sweeping—they want someone who can sweep THEM!”

Bubbard returned Billard’s resolute stance with nearly identical posture. “Bill, buddy, how about I tell YOU that girls like that aren’t weepin’ for a sweepin’ in the first place! They don’t turn into the strong, stoic types just to be taken care of! Besides, is it not the dream of the weary soldier to have the maiden of his dreams hold him after a day of trials and tribulation?”

“Well, sure, Bub, but… getting squeezed ‘till you’re out cold?”

“…I’ll admit that one’s a bit more of a personal upside.”

“Oh, Bub…” Billard said with a facepalm. “Folks like you are the reason The Parable of the War Maiden ought to be required reading for any guild or training academy worth its salt.”

Bub: “Oh, come off it, Bill. I’m a hard enough worker to be put in charge of the same post as you. You’re the one who needs to realize he’s certainly no Jean-Jame!”

Billard harrumphed away from Bubbard in near-perfect synchrony with his friend, but the two had little time for brooding, for ready to greet them in the aftermath of their distractedness was none other than the object of their admiration.

“C-C-C-Captain Wolfhund!” They both shouted.

The Royal Captain did not greet them immediately. Instead, she took time to soak in their panic with a visage cold as stone. A few seconds later, however, she finally decided to humor herself.

“What are you two gawking about?”

The two guffawing guards attempted desperately to pull themselves together, but whether it was the sheer radiance of the woman as her features finally became visible through her harrowing set of armor or that famed, suffocating aura finally grabbing them by the throats, they were reduced to gibbering puddles. Only after a generous allotment of seconds did Bubbard finally manage to eek out anything close to comprehendible.

“Uh… uh… don’t, uh, don’t worry about us! We weren’t, y’know, uh… we weren’t, uh… um…”

“S-slacking?” Billard muttered.

“Nope! Not us!” Bubbard said, riding the momentum of his friend’s interjection. “Not at all talking about our tastes in wo-wo-wo-wo—”

“Wheats! Y’know, for bread! He prefers Westerfield-grown, I’m more of a Norderlands-type—”

“But we WEREN’T talking about that.”

“Right! Right right right! Just doing our sworn duty as usual! Y-y’know?”

Aisha took her time looking back and forth between the Billard and Bubbard. It was unknown whether she was judging them, toying with them, or simply deciding which part of them would be the most ideal place to jam her blade into. Eventually, she shook her head and groaned in mercy.

“Just get your heads out of the gutter and do your job,” she commanded. “An urchin in your street is your mess to clean. I assume I’ve made myself clear enough that I don’t need to address your conduct with your commanding officer?”

Rather than trying to test their tangled tongues, the two subordinates simply saluted in unison.

Aisha nodded. “Very well then. Proceed.”

And just as quickly as she was upon them, Aisha turned and continued with her own patrol. Just before she was able to fully disappear into the afternoon traffic, another groan parted from her lips, followed by a softer exhalation that betrayed perhaps a pinch of entertainment.

Billard and Bubbard would spend the next several minutes still as statues, so paralyzed by the encounter that they couldn’t even think. When their minds did eventually thaw and their thoughts flowed once more, however, each one looked at the other, having clearly separate takeaways from the event.

“Y’know, Bill,” Bubbard said, paler and clammier than he had ever been in his fleeting years of being, “I think I… I think I get what you were trying to say earlier.”

While Bubbard found himself a wink away from pulpy tears dripping down his face, Billard was overtaken by a blush that could melt the snow off tundra.

“Y-yeah,” Billard replied. “S-same to you…”