Post by Katty on Jan 10, 2010 23:37:00 GMT 10
Top Ten Tips for Surviving Squiredom
By Joren of Stone Mountain
So – you want to be a knight? A big hunk of sweaty, masculine muscle wrapped up in leather and plate metal? Well, you’re going to have to survive Squiredom first. As the most promising, not to mention the most handsome, Squire in the kingdom I’ve taken it upon myself to leave a list of tips, if you will, to those less aesthetically endowed as myself: my Top Ten Tips for Surviving Squiredom....
1. Be the best you can possibly be. Accept early that it will never be as good as me.
2. Train hard at all things: staff work; sword play; tilting practice; wrestling. Keep a firm, even grip and good balance. Don’t be afraid to ask Lord Wyldon for some one-on-one tutoring – his grip is very firm.
3. Hazing is a necessary part of training to be a knight. So is shaving your legs. Needless to say, Keladry of Mindelan staunchly opposes both.
4. Never underestimate the importance of hair care. I touch my roots up EVERY day. No one wants to be rescued by a knight with split-ends! (Seriously. Wouldn’t you rather be dead?)
5. It is the job of a Squire to be both useful and discreet. In hindsight, I realise that giving Mindelan marriage advice falls into neither of those categories – running her through with a lance would have been much more diplomatic (and less messy).
6. Steer clear of progressives. They’re dirty, underbred hippies with
7. Never, ever fall in love with the enemy. No matter how good Queenscove may look in red and gold that’s tight in all the right places.
8. If you want to score with the ladies, don’t pay to have them hidden up a tower so you can rescue them (thus making them fall head over heels in love with your manliness). Chicks just don’t dig it. More than likely they’ll get cranky and haul you before a magistrate for “kidnapping” or something.
9. If you do decide to go the fabricated-damsel-in-distress-route, make sure to occupy any potential love rivals while you seduce your lucky lady. Don’t underestimate girl love-rivals; it might *seem* like potential threesome territory, but there’s nothing more embarrassing than them beating you to your damsel and receiving the gratitude and devotion that rightfully belonged to you!
10. Have a fail-safe tactic to help you survive your ordeal – some kind of back-up, last-resort move to convince the Chamber that you deserve to be a knight. Garvey breakdances. Zahir can juggle. Vinson didn’t have one, which is clearly why he failed. Me? I can shimmy like a naughty Carthaki Princess.
Xoxo