Welcome To My Dark Side

Chapter 2 Childish Pranks

Hilda had not even finished her breakfast when Agatha entered the tavern and came over to her. "Good morning Commander." Agatha said, saluting Hilda as she continued. "You had better come to the armory." She said rather seriously. "Why? What appears to be the problem?" Hilda asked, puzzled. "You had better come and see for yourself Commander." Agatha insisted. Hilda reluctantly stood up to follow Agatha to the armory to see what could have possibly caused Agatha to have to interrupt her meal. As they approached the armory she noticed a group of soldiers standing outside it, all of whom were holding wooden weapons. "Will someone explain what is going on?" She demanded. The soldiers came to attention out of respect for their superiors as Officer Agatha informed Commander Hilda about the current situation. "Someone has swapped out all the weapons with wooden ones." She exclaimed. Hilda was not impressed when she heard this. "I assume it must have been the same person who swapped our helmets yesterday. Everyone could just about see the funny side of it yesterday but this is pushing it too far. Not having the right helmet is one thing but this is a matter of safety. Should we require our weapons to defend the Frostbourne then all we will have is a bunch of useless wooden ones."  She said, crossing her arms.

"What are we going to do about it?" Agatha asked her. "I have had enough of these pranks. I am going to go back to the tavern and find out who has done this." Hilda said firmly. Both herself and Agatha marched back to the tavern to see if they could work out who was to blame. Hilda stormed into the tavern ahead of Agatha. "Does anyone know who is behind yesterday's mix up with the helmets and today's attempt at some kind of joke by swapping all the weapons out for wooden 'toys'?" She barked loudly. Everyone was very much shocked to hear that someone had gone so far as to leave the Frostbourne without any means to defend themselves. Lyria on the other hand started laughing hysterically at the fact that Commander Hilda had referred to the wooden training weapons as toys. All the attention had now turned to Lyria. "Captain Lyria, are you the one behind these supposedly amusing pranks?" Hilda accused her and was now suspecting she had something to do with this.

Lyria immediately stopped laughing and made eye contact with the commander. "Of course not Commander but I do find it funny." She said with a guilty expression. Seeing past Lyria's denial, Hilda once again tried to get her to confess. "Should I find out it was you then you will be in even more serious trouble than you are in now." Lyria looked down at her boots realising that she had blown her cover. "Yes Commander it was me." She admitted sadly. "Where have you hidden the weapons and do you realise how much danger you could have put us in?" Hilda asked the young girl. "I hid them in my room." replied Lyria avoiding the second question. "Officer Agatha, will you take some other soldiers with you and retrieve the weapons out of Capin Lyria's room." Officer Agatha nodded in acknowledgment as Hilda continued. "As for you Captain Lyria, I want you to understand the danger you might have put us in, so you will not be in charge of your squadron for this morning's parade. Instead I want you to think about what you have done and while you do that you can polish my boots in the process." She ordered Lyria in the hope that this correction would prevent her from doing such a thing in the future.

During the parade Lyria had been forced to clean Commander Hilda's boots. Commander Hilda had changed into her spare pair so that Lyria would be able to polish the ones she had been wearing. Lyria was sulking because she wasn't able to take part in the parade as head of her squadron. She scrubbed at the brown leather boots furiously with the brush. 'I hate this. It would be quicker if I could just spray paint them.' She thought. 'Hang on, why don't I do that? It would be quicker and I can get back at Commander Hilda in the process.' Lyria smiled smugly. Leaving the boots where they were, she sprinted off to fetch the required spray paint. When she returned she doubled checked that no was around, although this was unlikely as there were only a few people who were too busy to attend a particular parade and in any case they would have to inform the parade master of their absence beforehand.

Lyria had finished spraying the boots and hurriedly stashed the canister inside her jacket as Commander Hilda came in view. When Commander Hilda got close enough she was expecting Lyria to stand up and salute her but she remained seated on the bench. Hilda decided to let this slide because she was probably feeling bad enough already. "How are you getting along with my boots?" Hilda asked softly not wanting to make Lyria feel like she was under pressure. "I've finished them." Lyria replied, handing over Commander Hilda's boots. "That was fast." Hilda said, taking the boots off her while Lyria just shrugged in response. "Thank you for doing that and I hope you have learnt your lesson. Next time you want to do a prank make sure you think it through first." Hilda told the mischievous teenager unaware of Lyria's current prank. She hadn't noticed the lack of shine the boots had because she had a number of more important things on her mind. "I will leave these in my office for now as I don't have time to change my boots again. You are now free to go." Hilda said as she dismissed Lyria.

Now free to do as she pleased, Lyria liked the idea of flying around Dreadfort for a bit of fun until Lunchtime. However she was stopped when Lady Azura came across her. "I'm sorry Lyria but do you think you could complete a few tasks for me.'' Azura asked and handed over a list. "Fine. Why don't you just hand over a list of all the jobs that need doing." Lyria said slightly sarcastically but her mentor had not picked up on it. "Thank you. That's very thoughtful of you. Here is the list with the additional jobs." Azura smiled at what she had wrongly assumed was Lyria trying to be helpful. The complete opposite was true. Before Lyria could refuse, Azura had already walked away as soon as she had handed Lyria the list. She sighed and started to read through the incredibly long list. While repairing weapons and brewing extra potions were part of her regular jobs, the list had a number of other jobs she could redesignate to those of a lower rank. Lyria was pleased with her plan. All she had to do was find some soldiers to do tasks for her, like shoveling snow out of the way or cleaning the castle's hallways.

In the end Lyria's day hadn't been too bad as she had been able to order others to stop what they were doing previously and instead forced them to do the task she wanted them to do. She hadn't managed to avoid her regular jobs but she was in a humorous enough mood to play a little joke when she woke up in the middle of the night. If she was unable to sleep then she might as well wake everyone else up with a little singing.

"We are the formidable Frostbourne
Our hearts as cold stone
The Nether are quaking in their boots
As victory's almost ours
They say I'm a devious troublemaker
While that may be true
At least I'm better than all the rest

It's not like I'm a bossy boots
Who forces us to march for hours
And think she has endless power
Nor am I a person with a terrible aim
Who can't even remember names
He only lives for fame

I don't act like I know it all
And pretend to make up rules
But then again she thinks she's entitled to it all..."

Lyria sang in a horribly high pitched and out of tune voice over the sound of knocking at her door. Some of the other officers which Lyria shared the barrack with, had been woken up by Lyria's terrible singing. At first they had thought there was a problem but soon realised that it was Captain Lyria's singing that had woken them up, however they were unable to make out the lyrics of the song. Seeing as she wasn't going to open the door, Officer Agatha burst open the door. "Captain Lyria, you do realise that some of us are trying to sleep!"  Agatha yelled in order to get her attention. Lyria stopped singing and saw that she had disturbed almost everyone who had been asleep. Lady Azura was about to say something to her apprentice when Commander Hilda stormed into the room. "Will someone tell me what all the comotion is!" Hilda barked as she was annoyed that all this noise had woken her up.

"Just childish singing Commander." Azura said, not taking her glaze off Lyria. "Singing at such an unusual hour?" Inquired Hilda. "Would you like me to start singing it again so that you can hear the lyrics?" Lyria chuckled cheekily. After all, it was quite funny to see everyone gathered in her room standing there in their pajamas in the very early hours of the morning. "No!" Everyone yelled in response to her question. As the most superior officer, Commander Hilda did not know how to react to such bizarre behavior. "Captain Lyria now is not the appropriate time to be singing. Please do not do this again and be more considerate of others even if you are unable to sleep." She said sternly, taking control of the situation. Lyria bowed her head in silence as everyone went back to their rooms to try and fall asleep again.