Max is dueling Eugenie. She used to be better than him, but he\u2019s gotten stronger; it\u2019s rough on him, but winning is possible; and something\u2019s happened to her summon, the lurching, bloody remnants of a gigantic four-armed ape. He drives her to a draw this time; and they\u2019re panting, there, when Sid walks in.<\/p>\n
Eugenie thinks about this for a while. Then she steps aside.<\/p>\n
She gestures broadly towards Max.<\/p>\n
\u201cSid,\u201d says Max. \u201cSid, you shouldn\u2019t be \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
Sid free-summons INTIMATION.<\/p>\n
Max gulps. Then Max frowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait,\u201d he says. \u201cIs that a free-summoning of an intimation that one day you\u2019ll be able to summon really bad-assed things, or an intimation that one day you will be good enough to bad-assedly manage a free summoning?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t fight a summoner,\u201d says Sid, in what he probably thinks is a bad-assed fashion, \u201cif you\u2019re not prepared for some linguistic ambiguity!\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s reached the summoners\u2019 circle. He scrawls a summoning circle in the dirt inside it with his toe.<\/p>\n
He calls out, PUZZLING ENIGMA!<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoa, whoa, whoa!\u201d yells Max. He skips back. He averts his eyes from the enigma. He seizes up his stick and stomps it to call up SNOWSTORM.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019ll find I\u2019m not so easy any longer,\u201d smirks Sid.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve never been easy<\/em>,\u201d says Max.<\/p>\n \u201cYou hugged <\/em>me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou were hurting!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou pushed me away with hand puppets!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was good at hand puppets!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re arguing with me instead of fighting!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a distraction!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Snow covers the puzzling enigma. It drives Sid staggering back. Max\u2019s hand comes forward, articulated into a claw, pulling BAD JUDGE\u2019S CALL out of the air. It bumps Sid lightly.<\/p>\n Eugenie holds up a card in the air. She calls the match for Max!<\/p>\n After a while, they\u2019re sitting there, at the edge of the arena, and Max says, \u201cI was scared for you, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a really bad call by Eugenie,\u201d Sid says. \u201cI had you on the ropes, man.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, well,\u201d says Max. He grins a summoner\u2019s smile. \u201cThat\u2019s how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n He rises. He walks to the door.<\/p>\n He\u2019s got to go. He\u2019s got a hot date! With a prophet! But he hangs out by the door for a moment, looking back at Sid.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so glad,\u201d he says, \u201cthat you\u2019re finally well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Max is dueling Eugenie. She used to be better than him, but he\u2019s gotten stronger; it\u2019s rough on him, but winning is possible; and something\u2019s happened to her summon, the lurching, bloody remnants of a gigantic four-armed ape. He drives her to a draw this time; and they\u2019re panting, there, when Sid walks in. Eugenie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"series":[50],"class_list":["post-5806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vidars-boot-chapter-11","series-vidars-boot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Icon_Space1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5806"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5999,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5806\/revisions\/5999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5806"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}