Benji personally thought that the sight of Lars screamed Take me to bed and suck my dick, but he suspected that wasn’t something he should share with the frosty-faced chancellor—councillor? courtier?—in front of them. Instead, he nodded along with Calarian as sincerely as he could.
Lars was obviously smarter than Benji had given him credit for, because he plopped himself in the not-throne like he belonged there, gave the councillor a judgemental glare that Benji was frankly jealous of, and put an end to the argument before it even started.
Benji was honestly starting to rethink a lot of his ideas about inciting humans to overthrow their despotic masters because, honestly, these people were about as passionate and exciting as cottage cheese. They didn’t seem like the revolutionary sort at all. Too well-fed and rosy-cheeked. They were obviously too happy and docile to realise how oppressed they were, like the fat dairy cows that Lars was now somehow talking about.
“I just came to see if anyone could help me find Maisy,” he said earnestly. His leather shorts creaked enticingly as he leaned forward in his seat. “I don’t actually know how to solve a dispute between you and your apprentice, Master Baker.” He cast his blue, guileless gaze around the room. “Does anyone have any cow-related problems?”
Benji rolled his eyes and wondered where Calarian’s strategic wisdom was now. He leaned over towards him and lowered his voice. “Listen, if we’re going to overthrow the government, then–”
“What?” Calarian’s eyes widened in alarm. “That’s—that’s not what we’re going to do, Benji!”
“Are you sure?” Benji asked. “Because I feel like that’s the next logical step after putting an incompetent puppet on the throne. Or the dining chair, in this case.”
“No, we’re here to help the duke with his mountain troll problem,” Calarian hissed.
Oh, the mountain troll problem. To be fair, Benji had forgotten about that—but then, he hadn’t actually really cared in the first place. Calarian was weirdly obsessed with quests, which Benji thought was stupid, and honestly, if Calarian’s dick hadn’t been so nice Benji probably would have ditched him weeks ago. Because it was very nice, and it also happened that Calarian knew exactly what to do with it.
Benji raised his eyebrows. “Do you want to go and fuck?”
“Is that all you think about?”
“I also think about overthrowing tyranny,” Benji said. “But it’s about fifty fifty. And I can't overthrow tyranny in an afternoon, but I can throw your legs over my shoulders in five minutes flat, and I'm working with a limited time frame.”
“We’re doing a quest,” Calarian whispered fiercely.
“And we could be doing the dirty alchemist,” Benji said, and waggled his brows.
Benji could tell just by looking at Calarian that he wanted to be annoyed, but he also wanted Benji to fuck him into next week. It was almost endearing, how predictable Calarian was—and maybe that was also partly why Benji hung around him. He counted down in his head as Calarian’s brows pulled together. Three, two…
“Fine,” Calarian grumbled. “We’ll fuck. After we advise the new duke. It’s his first day, after all. He’s not even wearing robes.”
He wasn’t, either. Just those leather shorts and braces over a fitted linen shirt, a combination that could have been much sexier if the shorts had been a few inches shorter, instead of skimming the tops of Lars's ridiculously attractive knees. Whenever he looked at them, Benji thought longingly of razor-sharp shears. Even without short shorts though, Lars was definitely Benji's type. (And no, his type wasn’t anything with a pulse, fuck you very much, Loth.) Benji was attracted to pretty people—it was his elvish nature. He’d grown up surrounded by ethereal beauty, it was only natural that that’s where his interests lay. Speaking of lay, he wondered idly if Lars might be interested in learning the alchemist.
“Stop ogling the duke,” Calarian whispered sharply, a pointy elbow digging into Benji’s ribs.
“He’s technically a cow farmer,” Benji said. “Or something to do with cows, anyway. And I’ll ogle who I want. Besides,” he added, “I’m not the one practically salivating over Mr. Leather Shorts there.”
Calarian glared, but he didn’t disagree. How could he? Benji had a point.
“I mean,” Benji continued, “I’m opposed to leather, of course, because leather is murder, but I’m totally going to make an exception in his case.”
“You’re opposed to leather because leather is murder?” Calarian arched a brow. “But you’re not actually opposed to murder though, are you?”
“I’m complicated and contain multitudes,” Benji agreed.
There was something oddly endearing about the quirk of Calarian’s quick smile, and Benji wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he looked away instead and studied the humans in the hall. Lars was doing a terrible job at solving their problems, so the queue hadn’t actually gotten any smaller in the hour they’d been here. Also, that one old councillor was still looking mightily annoyed. He didn’t look happy and docile at all, and Benji immediately marked him down in the “maybe” column of potential dissidents, revolutionaries and anarchists. If he was cottage cheese like the rest of these people, he’d clearly curdled.
The councillor cleared his throat, and Benji heard him whisper, “Perhaps I could take over, Your Grace?” He choked slightly on the title.
Lars opened his mouth to agree, but Benji forestalled him. “No need, Calarian and I are here to offer our expert royal counsel.”
“I hardly think you’re experts,” the man sniffed, doing his best to look down his nose at them. He didn’t quite pull it off, with both Calarian and Benji being a good three inches taller than him, but he gave it his best shot. “What do you know about ruling?”
Definite possible anarchist, Benji decided, or at least potential rebel. He crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Well for starters, I was the undisputed ruler of my own territory for several years.” A territory consisting solely of a poisonous swamp populated mostly by mosquitoes and leeches, but that wasn’t relevant. “Calarian has years of strategic planning and quests under his belt. Plus, we've been working closely with their majesties, King Tarquin and King Loth. So, you know, we have their authority. Their kingly authority. To make rules. And behead people, probably.”
“I don’t know if we have their permission to behead people,” Calarian said.
“That’s fair,” Benji said. “To be honest, I feel that’s something I’d do without their permission anyway.”
Calarian nodded. “We could depose people though, I think,” he added helpfully. “Like from their positions on the duke’s council, for example. Is depose the word I’m looking for?”
“Demote?” Lars chimed in helpfully.
“Dehead,” Benji decided.
Curdled Cottage Cheese Man might have been a potential ally when it came to sowing discord in the new duke’s court, and Benji appreciated that, but the guy was clearly a dick as well. And not the good sort of dick. He smiled at the man, and made sure he showed a few more teeth than were necessary.