JoJo & Ria 1: Countryside Joyride

"Jojo, this is not what I was thinking when you suggested 'jesting around'," Ria commented tensely as we happily scoured the countryside sharing the same stead. The girl was tense and particularly frustrated as she reigned the horse to keep gallop aimlessly as I happily enjoyed hugging her from behind.

It was so rare to be spared from our duties as Kings, and this was the best opportunity we could get to be the bestest of friends. And what kind of sillyhead could I be if I didn't create a form of struggle to push us even closer?

"Sorry?"

"Don't… not until we're away from them and I can properly scold you."

Now, imagine the brilliant idea that I came up with. Me, her, and lots of angry knights giving chase to us after we had thoroughly pissed off half a Petty Kingdom. Our identities surprisingly held despite the fact we had just changed hairstyles and clothes.

With Ria having adopted a more feminine look by letting her hair run free, I decided to pull my hair back and tie the small exceeding bit in a ponytail. Since hairdressers weren't a thing, I really had my hair reaching my shoulders. Truly an interesting development considering how I would usually keep them short for convenience.

The girl had then decided to pick something from her earlier days, before she became a king. A dull light-gray shirt that was as bland as it could be, a pair of dark-blue pants and a set of dark boots. I had kept modest, deciding to go for a sleeveless blue shirt, a pair of gray shorts and light-brown boots.

Compared to our 'usual selves', the secret identities we had created were rather… different. Not enough for people that knew us to not get that we were… well, us- but still enough to fool silly tyrants that hadn't known about our real faces.

So when I learned that one of the neighboring fiefs was taxing heavily the poor peasants that could hardly sustain their family in these atrocious times, I decided to call in Ria with a mission of justice at heart… but eternal childishness in my soul to push for the most infuriating way to defeat our current enemy.

Ruining the dipshit's reputation was quite important in my plans, and thus I decided to strike where he would feel the reputation-ruining the most. His own castle-town.

Ria was blissfully unaware of the horrible ordeal she was running into all because of my devious idea, but she seemed to take without hesitation the fact that 'jesting around' meant starting a brawl and brilliantly start insulting the retinue of the petty monarch we were trying to disrespect. At first I doubted the girl would've managed to swear at them… but I found that very experience rather enlightening.

Not only I learned that the blonde was well capable of saying bad words, but I learned some that I didn't know about. Either those were common in this time period, or Ria just had a natural affinity in being a potty-mouthed trash-talker.

So after making sure we had all of them pissed and running at us, the only thing that remained was to bail on them before they could've overwhelmed us. The horse we stole neighed, either protesting the unpleasant amount of weight it had to bear with or because we had been chased around for almost an hour now.

The poor thing sure looked tired and ready to drop dead anytime now.

"Jo- Jojo, stop monologuing. We need a way out!"

"Yeah well… how about we go there-" I said while aiming at the large patch of forest we were approaching "And then we…"

I whispered the rest of my glorious plan to her. Soon her eyes were narrowing at the forest, and yet I could feel that her glare wasn't aimed at the innocent form of nature. I had the distinct feeling she was, for some inexplicable reason, pissed at me too. And what a tragedy it would be for this first of many lovely trips to enjoy the world as the closest of friends!

"You take the fall," She ultimately muttered, the horse picking up the pace once again, possibly realizing that we were close to be 'done' with that mad run through the English landscape. Once we entered the woods, I had just enough time to grasp back at Ria as the girl turned around to wrap herself onto my chest.

As quickly as the noble stead turned to the left and hid us from the eyes of our pursuers, I jumped off the animal and dived for the nearby sections of bushes on my back. There was pain, but there was relative peace as we both waited out for the knights to split to try and intercept us beyond that forest, never realizing the trickery that had just happened.

…

…

"Ria, that was awesome!" I exclaimed, promptly seeing her head rise from my chest with the most furious glare she could muster. "Don't be this annoyed. I could tell you were cracking a smile during the first bit of the chase."

"Maybe because I thought you meant you had a bow and arrows when you mentioned you had something to handle our chasers!" The young woman lamented. "Yet you brought only some rocks and a silly slingshot that broke after two uses."

I huffed. "The shopkeeper that sold me this said that many kings of old used this, so I thought it would've worked."

"And you trusted a merchant on this? Did you even inform yourself if he was trustworthy before purchasing anything from him?"

"He… he had this reputation of being a fraud, maybe it has to do something to why he was so keen to sell stuff at low prices- But these accusations had no foundation. It was all words and no-"

Ria rested her chin on my chest, her eyes fixed on my face like a lion contemplating to commit a murder.

"And how is Ginny going?"

"Don't change the argument," The blonde accused. "Guinevere is doing well. She has been asking rather insistently for a proper visit to Londinium."

I hummed. "Mia had asked me to invite you all but… I thought you were busy with the whole 'trying to make the marriage work'."

"We're doing… well," She tried to rebuff, only for my intense staring getting her to look away. "I think so-"

"I don't think you're not doing anything, just that… you haven't thought of something poor Ginny might be suffering. And that is romantic affection."

"We hold hands," The blonde pointed out.

"And perhaps she head pats you when you're sad-"

"Y-You're diverting my attention away from the real issue here," Ria snapped. "What we were doing was dangerous."

"Considering how big of an impact that stunt got, I believe a little danger thrown our way was to be expected-"

"Not when we both should've been prepared to handle it and more."

"Didn't we elude the knights?" I pointed out with a frown

"But we came close to get caught," She rebuffed with a sigh. "I know we did good since that petty king is going to lose face when his retainers learn of his failure to deal with two 'unknown' individuals insulting him and his people. But we also came close to suffering because of it."

…

"Sorry?"

"I don't think I will accept an apology like that… I believe..." The girl started to think about it and then nodded with a convinced nod. "You will give me a head pat."

…

"What?"

"A head pat. And make a proper one at that," She demanded sternly. "Or else I'm going to tell Mia that you stole from a child-"

"I did no such thing-"

"But wouldn't she believe it if I also say what happened today? You were, by all definitions, a troublemaker on this occasion."

…

It wasn't like I was having any trouble giving her some head patting, but at the same time I felt that giving in like that would make me the weaker ling in this duo. And that I wasn't really happy about.

Still, I had to concede and take the 'humiliating defeat'. With my hands reaching for her face, Ria looked confused as I had both palms so close to her. Her confusion melted away the moment I 'assaulted' her with a classic head pat… and some chin-scratching.

Eyes closing instinctively upon my touch, the blonde seemed to abandon herself to my touching as this entire scene lasted for twenty minutes or so.

Despite her reluctant acceptance in continuing with our adventures, one thing was imposed on me to give her some incentive to go ahead with this insane idea of mine. Once we would be done with our little troublemaking, she would get to decide a reward for me to give to her, may it be head-patting or something of the same degree.

With that condition being agreed on, I couldn't help but feel like I had enabled Ria into more activities for the next future. And at the same time, I wondered what kind of 'other rewards' she was aiming for with that new rule…