A STRONG TOWER

PART SEVEN: THE EYES HAVE IT

No one had a muffin except Darna, a lovely woman with the most amazing eyes Ben had ever seen. As his lips moved over the muffin's surface, nibbling out the mixture of petrified blueberries and small bits of gravel, he sighed almost contentedly for the first time since his appearance in epis. So entranced was he by the moonlight reflected in her ocular orbs that he completely failed to taste the subtle flavor of emu juice she'd worked so carefully into the the batter.

Himself, paying attention to the two newest arrivals, fearing, probably, a continuation of untowardness of some sort, gasped softly when he noted what had so caught Ben's focus. Eyes, female eyes, yes, but eyes that could not have looked more like Ben's had she been Himself himself.

"Who," he whispered to Phyllis as she came up beside him, "is that?"

"That? Oh, Himself, that's just Darna."

"Darna? I remember no Darna."

"You wouldn't."

"And why wouldn't I? She's obviously with us."

Phyllis shrugged. "I guess you haven't been reading your e-mails again, have you, dear?"

"E-mails? There are e-mails out here in the middle of the Nullarbor?"

"There are always e-mails, darling. You should know that by now."

"But...but...she arrived...?"

"By e-mail? Yes, yes, she did. And so did...she."

"She?"

"Over there talking with Bob," Skinner supplied helpfully.

"Who...?"

"Lady Meggie."

"LADY Meggie?"

"You don't think Sir Robert could have anything less than a lady, now do you?" Phyllis explained sensibly.

"E-mail?" he moaned almost inaudibly. Phyllis just patted his arm affectionately.

Max Imel came up, bumping Max Skinner with her elbow lightly. "I don't think this is confusing enough," she smiled, "so I decided the scene needed my presence."

"Hullo, again," Max greeted Max, deliberately leaving off the last names to further the cause.

The longer-haired of the two MaxFolk inclined her head toward the partially-see-through man and the young woman he was talking with. "You're English, Max," she stated, "how come I don't get to be Lady Max since I'm with you?"

Max grinned. "Bob's knighted. Me, I do my stuff in the nights without the help of a 'k'."

"But wouldn't it make a lot of sense if I got to be Lady Max?" she pursued.

"Sense to whom?"

"Sense to the story. I mean, there's only one Meggie and Meggie doesn't sound at all like Bob."

"ROBERT!" Himself snapped.

"You could call me Lord Maximillian," Max suggested.

Max laughed. "She'd never type 'Maximillian'. Too long. Waaay too long. Look what she did to 'eucalyptus'."

"But," Max protested, "how will anyone...ever...know who said either that last sentence...or this one?"

"I'll know if I say it," she smiled wickedly. "I don't get to be Lady Max, they'll just have to live with the confusion."

"Bollocks!" Max sighed, figuring nearly everyone would know who'd said that.

"Sir Robert?" Lady Meggie had whispered softly, her heart beating rapidly as she'd approached the somewhat disconsolate knight.

UnLady Max watched, one eye squinted, as she waited to see if Meggie would burst into 'Hail, Knight of the Woeful Countenance'. But Lady Meggie was not thinking at all about Spain and windmills. Her entire attention was riveted on the newest of the newly-come male characters.

"My Lady," Sir Robert responded, bending his upper body in a neat bow.  His seagreen eyes sparkled at the sight of such a fair maiden out here so far from the New Forest or a greensward of any sort. "If I may be so free, my Lady, might I ask where we...are?"

Meggie looked around her in the Australian night, the looooong Australian night, which had so suddenly and so very unexpectedly become so very much more interesting for her because, well, now there was a knight in the night. "I...I...am not quite...sure," she breathed. "I have, you see, but arrived this very moment myself."  Her fingers moved rather wonderingly on the thin peach-colored veil that wisped down over her extremely long hair.

"She gets a VEIL?" Max grumped into Max's ear.

"You want to...take...the veil?" Max snorked. "You don't look much like the cloistered type to me."

If only there had been a pool. With or without water. Max didn't care.

"Sorry about the gravel," Darna was saying to Ben a few yards away. She spared a few seconds to glare at Joimus. Sorry about the gravel!?! What sort of first line was THAT for her ever to speak in epis? And to BEN!?! Devoutly, very, very devoutly she hoped it was not a portent of dialog to come.

Other than a few loud crunching sounds and a small bit of molar he spat out, Ben was oblivious to the muffin gravel. He'd never seen eyes like the eyes belonging to the woman who had muffined him. Well, except maybe in the mirror...and maybe on every other man he'd met so far. When he'd finished the muffin, had swallowed the last of the blood drops welling up on his tongue from chewing it, without taking his eyes off hers he slowly lifted his hat from his own head and placed it atop hers.  "Well, I'll be damned!" he said.

"I thought you still had your 'get-out-of-hell-free' card," she smiled.

"You know about...that?" Though tired, his lids widened considerably.

"I know about a lot of things," she replied mysteriously. "Ben."

"You have the advantage of me, miss."

"Don't think I don't plan on keeping it."  Her eyes sparkled. "Darna," she added.

"Darna," he repeated as was his wont upon first hearing a woman's name. "That'd be short for somethin'?"

"A combo," she shrugged. "I think I'm stuck with it."

"Don't matter," he continued. "I plan on callin' you 'Eyes' anyway."

She tipped her head down, looking up at him from under his brim. "A bit large, don't you

think?"

His tongue came out, moving slowly along his lower lip. "All of me's damn large," he grinned.

"HOLD IT!" Himself barked, striding up to them. "I'll thank you to remember this is an EPI!"

"I ain't never been in no epi before," Ben growled.

"Well, we have rules of dialog here," Himself huffed. "Requirements of...of...decency!"

Ben threw back his head and laughed heartily, took Darna's elbow and moved off into the darkness.

Himself glared at Joimus, who was beginning to feel she would very, very shortly be in great need of a lot of comforting by the General. "NOW look what you've done!" he bellowed.

"YOU made him!" she snapped back, appalled at how many words had been in all caps of late.

"HELP!" shrieked Buggie wildly, continuing the trend. "HELP! HELP!"

"What now?" Himself groaned pitifully.

"Biebe's STUCK!"

"Stuck? Where?"

"THERE!" she panted, refusing to uncap. "BLOWHOLE!" Finally she gave out. "Biebe...blowhole," she moaned.

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