Sentinel of Stone

It took a minute or so before someone appeared and she smiled at him, tall and handsome. She was already pleased she had come- Merry was not a very subtle woman, so the way her eyes lingered on his shoulders should be obvious before she looked at the other’s eyes again and smiled more. “Oh, you are Jason?” she purred as she bowed lightly and then nodded before taking his hand and shaking it. Her skin cool but not cold to the touch.

“Oh, I am sorry- I couldn’t find the opening hours on the website so I closed my shop early to come see. I am Marina Prideaux, but everyone calls me Merry so please do so as well.” there was a warmth to her voice as she spoke- someone who wore their heart on their sleeve.

While Merry was a woman with many secrets she was very open with her emotions when she could be and most people would describe her as a good friend- and her enemies probably as a very spirited adversary.

“I am here for the boxing… training?” she said and was unsure what the advertisement had said exactly- she looked troubled. “I like some kind of self-defence classes.” The last time someone attacked her she had grabbed a kitchen utensil and had to learn how to divide a body with her favourite butcher’s knife. She would rather be less lethal and more lady-like. After all, in Merry’s thoughts, she would prefer to kill with poison or drowning, if she had to kill at all of course.

Gosh, she sure hoped the other was not a mindreader.

Nonetheless, he was more than happy to listen to what she had come from. "That's alright, I actually haven't put up the opening hours sign yet because, well..." He would have lied and said bureaucracy but a liar he was not - not always, at least, not unless it was of utmost importance to avoid or overly decorate the truth. In fact, it was pure laziness on his part.

"Well, I do offer classic self-defense classes, though that would depend who you're defending yourself against." At a place like the village - or the entire Academy grounds - he didn't have to explain what his tone insinuated. Instead, he simply carried on talking, in the same nonchalant tone.

Her behind hit her sofa as she got home and kicked off her heels, landing on the carpet as she let out a sigh and thought about the day. Hancock, her spirit brother, sat in the wooden chair by the window. He liked to look outside- watching and no longer participating in life. She told him he could go out, there were spirits that were out and about after all. Hancock didn’t, he stayed with her or inside the apartment. Usually close to the long coat that Merry still wore or carried with her. The coat he had worn when he died, awfully inconvient to wear a long leather coat underwater but he had never seemed to care.

She sighed as she watched her dead brother and then back to her phone. Frowning at the picture she had taken before. You should do it, it’ll help you protect yourself. Her brother said- and she laughed “But I have you to protect me!”

The unspoken but what if I am not here anymore hung in the air. Silent syllables that stung nonetheless and she decided not to delete the photo just yet. Maybe it was worth checking it out…

There she stood in front of the newly opened training school. A bit uneasy as she walked inside on her heels and long flower dress but carrying a sports bag and smiling. “Hello, I am here about the introductory session? I emailed with… someone called Jason?”

Frustrated, and unaccustomed to damned clumsiness, Jason had been stuck in the back room for a little bit over an hour, fixing the back door. He'd just opened the studio - the preparations of which had nearly claimed his penultimate nerve - and now the door was leaving a teeth-grinding screeching sound every time he opened or closed it.

When the front door opened and he heard somebody coming in and then looking for him specifically, the gargoyle took it as a sign from God. It was a desperate thought, and of course entirely groundless, but he was a drowning master builder and anything would do.

Before stepping out to meet the newcomer, he was diligent enough to clean his hands. And lucky for him because the interested party was...Well, it wouldn't suffice to say he mistook her for some kind of goddess. Gargoyle or not, made from stone or note - Jason was a relatively simple man and whenever he saw a specimen that unusually beautiful, he couldn't help but forget his own name for a nanosecond.