The Once and Future King

Although Jenessa had told El to call her if the boys were still harassing her, El didn’t even though with each passing day El wanted to rip her hair out. Some truce seemed to form between her and the team regarding her classes but afternoon and evening practices were free game. Some nights she didn’t end up getting home until 10/10:30 at night because of something needing to be done at work. Whenever Issy or Serene asked why she was home so late, El always replied that she had been studying at school. It wasn’t a complete lie, some nights she had to do laundry and while she waited she studied for whatever exam or test was approaching.

Although most days she could take whatever they threw at her, whenever she was stressed she was very tempted to cause mayhem for the boys. It didn’t help that on those particular days, her control over herself weakened and things started floating about causing more of a mess than before. Sometimes she found herself so frustrated that a few stray tears would fall. It was one such night when tears threatened to fall that she stormed into the Coaches office like a wet dog.

“How many sticks do we have?” El’s voice as emotionless as her insides felt.

He looked at her startled and replied, “Practice ones we have enough for first and second string plus ten extra. The boys each have their own for game day.”

That was twenty-seven sticks not including the privately owned ones. “I’m going to murder them.” She murmured with venom dripping from her words.

With a sympathetic smile, Coach Kilg asked, “Did they number them wrong?”

“I shouldn’t have fallen for it, but it wasn’t a strange concept that each one had a number for each person. Keeps the sticks straight for when they play, I just didn’t know how many extra we had. I should have since I basically end up doing inventory every other day, but that sheet got lost somewhere.” Probably the trash or in someone’s locker.

“Do you want me to talk to them, El? Hazing is one thing when it’s for a few days, but this has been going on for almost a month and we start games soon.”

“No.” She sighed letting her head drop onto the door frame. Then her head popped up with a frown, “Is Drustan okay?” Coach Kilg looked at her confused. “He seemed really tired and a bit lethargic.”

Coach’s face relaxed as he replied, “He burns through energy really fast and has a hard time replenishing it during practice. He goes through about five bottles of water but it doesn’t help much.”

El snorted, “He only drinks water?” Coach nodded. “That doofus. Thanks for everything, I have a few more things and then I’m heading out.”

“What do you have left?” She listed off three chores she still had, one of which was counting the balls. “Go home, I’ll do it. Just don’t get used to it.”

El’s face lit up, “Thank you! I’ll see you tomorrow.” She dashed off, grabbing her bag, browsed the internet, and heading to the grocery store to pick up a few things.

If El was one thing, it’s that she can be too nice for her own good especially when she sees people as hers. The team may be assholes to her and probably trying to get her to quit, but with how much time she’d been spending with them, they were her annoying lacrosse boys. Thus when morning practice was midway through, she walked over to Drustin who was taking a breather on the side lines.

“Are you allergic to oranges, honey, or lemons?” The lean man looked at her strange, startled that she managed to walk over to him without him knowing.

“No?” His voice held suspicion.

Rolling her eyes, she said, “I’m not going to throw them at you. Here.” She shoved a glass bottle at him that looked like lemonade. “This should help. Drinking only water doesn’t replenish all the electrolytes you’re losing by sweating. The drink will help.” Then she turned and walked away to once again pay attention to the players running around. She was getting good at multitasking on the field, now she just needed to figure out the guy’s next move. She was slowly learning though. Her mother taught her how to read different languages, while her father taught her to read body language. Each was useful in its own right, and right now her father’s teachings were more important. These men gave tells, but to what she was still unsure.

As per the usual, El was the last to leave the field having to make sure everything was cleaned up. By the time she arrived in the team room most of the guys had already changed and were getting ready to head to classes. She watched them as they moved around and talked, trying to take in anything that would give them away. So far nothing. Maybe because it was morning they hadn’t thought of anything to do to her. With a sigh she walked through to begin straightening up. Before long El too was walking to her 8am class.

Basically living with the boys should have made her realize that she wasn’t alone in her classes. After a long lecture on cycles she’d learned about dozens of times, she plopped down in her Arthurian literature class seat that normally her mother would be teaching. She wasn’t down for more than a few seconds when three familiar voices greeted her ears.

“My, my, my look who we have here.” Drustan grinned. “If it isn’t our favorite manager.”

Taking a breath El greeted, “Hello, I didn’t know you were in this class.”

“Same for us.” Lance smirked. “How have you been sneaking in under our radar?”

“Just lucky I guess.”

“Right, I-“

Lance was cut off when Dr. Santini called, “Anything wrong Mr. Strongholm?”

“Not at all, El here asked us a question about the reading.” He grinned charmingly.

“I highly doubt that, but please reframe from further conversation, class has started.” Dr. Santini turned to the board to start writing the day’s lesson. The three boys gave El a strange look but kept quiet while the teacher read a passage from Le Morte d’Arthur. Nearing the end of class the teacher clapped his hands. “I will be pairing you off to do a seven page research paper on what we have been reading. Each group will do a different aspect thus there will be overlap but no repeats. Listen for your name and topic.” The class waited as each person was paired off with one or two other people. El dreaded finding out who she would have. Usually group research ended with her doing all the work and the other person getting the same letter grade. “Lance Strongholm you are with…” Dr. Santini grinned, “Miss El since apparently she had questions for you.” El internally groaned as Lance made a noise of protest. “El, please make sure he does some of the work, I’ll know if you did it all.”

“Yes, sir.” El muttered looking down at her old tattered book.

“You two will be doing… Elaine of Astolat.” Then the teacher moved on to assign the remaining dozen to their partners.

While he continued to assign, El turned to face Lance. “How would you like to do this? We need six sources one of which needs to be a book and we have until next month to do it. I can find three sources, you can find three sources, we take notes, and compare?”

“Fine by me. Just don’t slack, I don’t want a bad grade because you didn’t hold up your end of the project.” Lance looked unimpressed with his partner.

El merely smirked and replied, “I was thinking the same thing. Good luck.” Then she stood with her packed bag and headed across campus to the science buildings. She had a lab before afternoon practice and hoped to finish it early so she had time to sit and breathe before preparing herself for another practice.

To her surprise Drustan meekly walked up to her while she sorted out uniforms for their upcoming scrimmage against Holy Cross University. “Hey um El?” The young manager looked up from the shirts and waited for him to continue. “I was um wondering if you maybe perhaps had some more of the yellow lemonade drink? It actually helped a lot.” He awkwardly shifted in place.

“Hold on.” She placed the half folded uniform down and walked into the coach’s office. A moment later she walked out with a glass bottle similar to the one she’d given him earlier. “I’d appreciate the bottles back.”

His face lit up upon seeing the glass. “No problem! Um thanks for well you know.” He looked over his shoulder to see where his teammates were.

“No problem. Don’t worry I won’t tell the team you said thank you.”

Drustin smirked and playfully quipped, “They wouldn’t believe you even if you told them. See ya outside!” He was gone in a blink not realizing how his playful tease affected her. He was right after all, they wouldn’t have believed her not if he denied it.