Beleg reached for a long, wrapped bundle that Kre hadn’t noticed before and tugged on the strings holding the wrappings tight. Beleg seemed overly careful as he peeled the cloth away, using just two fingers to do so, until a large, sheathed sword was revealed.
“Grivallt had to listen to me complain about trying to fight with the shorter swords, so he brought me this. Said it was one of the last things left only because the lower tier fighters couldn’t lift it.”
“Does he want those back then?” Kre asked, gesturing to the twin blades that had saved his life.
“Not yet,” Beleg replied. “I still need you to use them to help me work out with this new sword. First though,” he continued hesitantly, “I… uh… need you to do your thing.”
Kre tilted his head and raised an eyebrow, “My thing?”
Beleg paused there and chewed on his lower lip as he nervously gestured at the great sword on the table, “You know… wave your hand over it and tell me if it’s as evil as that thing Barry picked up.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Kre said with a chuckle. “I mean, it’s not like I really know how it works, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that.”
“Still,” Beleg said, waving his hand weakly, “I just…” He reached out as if to slide his hand along the scabbard but held back. “It seems like a good sword,” he added softly, “but so did the one that Barry took for himself.”
Kre nodded in understanding and stepped forward. He sent the thought to the back of his mind where he guessed his hitchhiker resided, ‘Tralagar?’
No response.
He placed his hand over the hilt of the sword, mentally remarking that it could easily fit three of his hands with room to spare. ‘I never said thank you, did I?’
Still no response.
“Thank you,” he whispered. It felt more sincere to say it out loud than it did just to think it.
“What was that?” Beleg asked.
Saying it was nothing would just kill any semblance of genuineness. Plus, he didn’t want to continue talking around what was going on.
“I was thanking the… I have this…” he wanted to share, but he couldn’t seem to form the words. “There’s this… Tral…”
He pressed a hand to his forehead and winced, “I don’t know what…”
‘You are unable to talk about me,’ Tralagar replied simply, as if it were at all a simple answer to the headache Kre was feeling. ‘Before you ask, I do not know why this is. It just is.
‘As well,’ the voice continued in its same superior sounding tone, ‘your appreciation is late, but it is acceptable nonetheless.’
He wasn’t really sure if he needed to respond to that, before he eventually decided against it. Instead, he offered up the query from his original reason for reaching out, ‘Can you tell me anything about that sword?’
‘I can,’ came the same smug voice, but said nothing else.
Kre could tell that Beleg was trying to get his attention, that he was saying something, but he couldn’t focus on him as engrossed as he was in his mental conversation.
‘Will you?’
‘Only if you properly address me and ask me politely,’ came the snobby reply.