I pick up a spear and nearly drop it on the floor. “Why the hell is it so heavy?” I cry.
“So it packs more punch when it goes through the skull of my enemy. It’s made for mounted attacks. I can drive it right in while I ride past,” he says, sounding far too excited about this. He even takes it from me and mimes the movement as though I couldn’t visualize it myself.
“I… see,” I mutter. Then I notice an armor stand covered in beautiful black armor. It’s almost like a mixture of Asian and European styles that adds its own flair with unidentifiable things on the shoulder pads and down the arms.
“What are these?”
“The spikes of a dhuer.”
“Which is?”
Torin contemplates this. “Maybe in your tongue we’d call it a small water dragon? They are nasty little fuckers that will take any opportunity to kill you. The one I got these spikes from tried to kill me when I was very young, maybe fourteen. It relentlessly hunted me down for six nights until it pinned me down, and with barely a breath left in me, I drove my broken sword right into its heart. I had one living in the pond outside for a while. We had a pact that he could live there if he didn’t eat any people. He mostly listened.”
“Mostly?”
“Yeah, there was this asshole of a guy who just like…accidentallygot pushed in there one day… by me… and into the jaws of the beast. It was fine. He died very quickly. After that, I realized he was like… hmm… what do you call it in your tongue… like a place to dispose of things.”
“Of… things?”
“Living things that no longer needed that ‘living’ part.”
I stare at him, uncertain which part of this was fine, but he seems to believe it.
“Would you like to try the armor on?”
“Me? After feeling the spear, it’s probably heavy enough to crush me.”
“No, it’s very lightweight. You need to be able to move quickly in battle,” he says as he pulls the breastplate off and fastens it to me. Once it’s on, he starts in on the other pieces. Then he pulls a sword off the wall and places it in my hand, finally parking me in front of a mirror before realizing he can just hold Kit in front of me.
Kit seems disappointed that she doesn’t have some armor to wear.
“I feel like a proper badass,” I comment as I strike up a pose that makes him grin.
“You look like a proper badass,” he says before flipping the visor down. “Now you just need a mount.”
“I will stick with the subway.”
“You’re missing out.”
“I don’t feel like I am,” I say as I turn around, pleased that I can look at every side of the armor because of Kit. While it’s obviously too large for me, it’s really not as heavy as I imagined it’d be. I find myself wondering what Torin looks like in such armor.
I also can’t help but wonder how many battles he’s worn this in. The idea of a war seems so distant to me. Sure, we have fights and have had to deal with many magical people and creatures, but a real war? One I’d wear armor in and ride into battle for? That seems like something out of a history book or a fantasy novel. He’s from a world that is hundreds of years behind ours with tech, so how are they in other areas?
“Is this world currently in a time of peace?” I ask.
“There has not been a war in nearly two hundred years. One hundred and ninety-eight years, to be exact.”
“That’s how old this armor is?”
“That armor is over nine hundred years old.”
“This is wild,” I say as I hang up the sword. He helps me out of the armor and puts it back on the rack, even though I debate asking him to put it on.
“Is it too much to ask for a toothbrush now?”
Torin stares at me for a second and then smiles. “Might be.”
“Dammit,” I say.
