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Ben Medinets / story2j

PART II

Chapter 10: The Real Training Begins

Both Benny and Cletus went to bed at respectable times. Unfortunately, both were incredibly nervous about going back to school. Thus caused them both to have great difficulty falling asleep, despite laying down and resting.

When they awoke the next morning, they realized they had slept through breakfast. While they weren’t living at the school, and didn’t need to wake up for breakfast there usually, they still had to arrive earlier due to administrative reasons. Specifically, they had to do final inprocessing. Both ended up looking quite ragged for first impressions at the prestigeous school. They both tried to look as best they could despite the circumstances. Despite all their efforts, the only thing that kept them from getting kicked out was that they both were attending due to royal (and imperial) sponsorship.

After this early incident, the rest of the day and the week that followed were entirely uneventful. The school soon found out that Cletus didn’t have a lot of formal education, but he had a great capacity to learn things quickly, since enlisting in the king’s service. It would still be an uphill battle, but the school found that his studies wouldn’t be as bad as they first thought.

Since Benny had more education, (well he finished high school at least, which is more than can be said for Cletus’ sparce education) he was asked to also tutor some problem students in addition to his other studies. Some of the stories from their earlier adventures began to filter into the school, and some of the students were dying to get into tutoring sessions with Benny.

While he lacked a dynamic personality, and was quite introverted, he was still able to entertain them despite being quite obtuse in his story-telling abilities. The primary reason was that he didn’t want to upset the younger student’s studies, nor was he quite sure what he was able to tell them. Nonetheless, they were still quite thrilled to hear whatever he was able to tell them.

Time began to fly by. None of the distractions at the palace were present at the school, and the rumors were next to non-existant. Actually, there was little news of the outside world that reached the school. This was so that the students at large would learn without being distracted, or at least as little as was possible.

In just a couple of months, Cletus soon began to understand some of the reasons of what Benny did before they started out on their adventure. Some of those early experiences were able to assist in some accelerated learning. The learning gained at the school he would find quite useful in his duties as the new defender of Wembly. In just a mere four (4) months, he left the school and began his on-the-job-training with Princess Stephanie and her fiance, Vic.

Cletus found that his experiences helping Benny allowed him an easier time with some of the more mundane, administrative work like preparing guard schedules and setting up food and payment plans for the soldiers. He was used to being in the guards’ shoes and now he was on the other side in a relatively new situation in an administrative position.

As for Benny, his studies weren’t going as fast as he’d like. Learning the ancient tongue wasn’t that easy. Not much longer after Cletus left, Benny was called to work with the priest, and to help assist in the preparation of his sermons. So in this capacity, he was very much like a monk in a monestary, but in this case he was working with the priest’s own library. For this phase of learning, Benny moved back to Leon’s townhouse.

It was largely lonely at the townhouse, as Benny was now by himself. In his learning with the priest and staying at the townhouse, King Leon visited only several times when there was a council, Vic stayed there a handful of times, and both came only a couple times together. The rest of the time, Benny was there alone. Whenever King Leon was there he was quite interested in Benny’s progress in his studies by asking both Benny (who always said it was “interesting”) or the Priest Jean-Paul his “tutor” (who always said Benny was “learning well”).

A few months into his studies with the priest, Benny hit a snag in his studies. It wasn’t that the material was over his head, it was largely because he was suddenly distracted at the townhouse when Princess Lisa arrived for a “prolonged shopping excursion”.

Benny was definitely interested in the princess, but was scared to vocalize his feelings (for her) to her. After all, he felt quite plain in her presence and also he didn’t want to upset King Leon, his sponsor, and employer. There was frequent flirting from both of them to each other, and there was that rather warm congradulations she had given him months earlier at the Imperial festivities. He knew that her hand or the rest of her wasn’t a reward for him to take. On the other hand, he reasoned, was that Princess Stephanie and her fiance would take the throne, and he knew station wasn’t a primary consideration for Leon when finding suitable suitors for his daughters.

Though the key consideration that prevented him from putting a move on Princess Lisa was that any physical activity with her would be a complete betrayal to his studies. She began to find it amusing, that she was causing him so much anxiety and starting to make him very uneasy at the townhouse. As was said, his studies started going noticeably downhill.

Father Jean-Paul soon discovered Benny’s lack of concentration and in a very short time, caught Benny writing some poetic verse to Princess Lisa. Jean-Paul took the poetry and said he would personally deliver it. Benny was very embarassed at this, but Jean-Paul insisted.

So while Benny returned to some research, Jean-Paul went to Benny’s townhouse and after delivering the romantic prose to Princess Lisa, and then he had a discussion with her about the influence on Benny’s studies. The Princess left, but not before leaving a note of thanks for his hospitality and proper behaviour and of course for his mushy poetry. She also wrote that he was more than welcome to write her again. Jean-Paul discussed this with Benny, and said that this was OK as long it didn’t impeed in his studies.

Benny reluctantly agreed. His studies were progressing quite well. His monk-like studies were back to normal and progressing quite well. His studies were allowing himself to harness knowledge and wisdom he didn’t think was he was capable of. The help he was able to provide to the priest was invaluable. The Emperor enjoyed the sermons more and more, he brought his wife out to hear the sermons, and even the prince came out once in a while to hear the priest’s refreshing message.

Soren, of course, was observing Benny’s studies. After 6 months of study with Jean-Paul, Soren it was time to move forward in his studies by saying it was his turn to take over in Benny’s learning. The priest was upset at this, but he knew Soren was right because there was little help he could further provide to Benny’s learning development. Soren insisted that Benny move into his abode for this phase in study so as to not have any further distractions.

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