I think that Darin and his knowledge of his side of town could be very helpful to Josh and having an in with Josh could, yes, be very advantageous to Darin.

Marcinak is not an idiot (beating up Josh aside), he knows that if he did anything to Darin or Sara-Beth, Reggie would take it personally, and Reggie takes a dim light to people who upset him personally.

You’re quite right that if this develops into a friendship between Josh and Darin the implications for him post-graduation are huge. We’ll have to see what happens with them.

And by we, I mean you, I obviously already know. Thanks, Winter!

If it was anyone but Darin and Sara-Beth, I might be worried that they got their hands dirty with whatever Josh is into. However, it sounds like they ought to be well-protected from the rough crowd by Reggie. And if he and his sister aren’t at danger, it’s not a bad thing for Darin to have a personal connection with the baron’s son. (No slash goggles!) He seems to consider himself an outsider forever with his schoolmates, that their worlds aren’t going to ever mix in anything but the expected way. He may not be destined to be one of them, but getting a foothold in would be a huge advantage over any other would-be stewards or tutors. Connections are a benefit to that fancy education, too, and it will be good for Darin to pursue them.

I am glad that Darin made a good showing, it’s kind of core to who he is, doing the right thing even if, as I said to Morgaine, he’s not doing the smart thing. Unfortunately now he’s INVOLVED and it will probably have more than a few repercussions.

Jayson’s an enigma a lot of the time. Just because it’s what most fathers would do doesn’t mean that he would. And I don’t think the Grim and all his cow demons scare Josh more than his father does. He’d rather take the beating from Marcinak than find out what Jayson will do to him for what he did.

No, he didn’t tell Sara-Beth who actually beat him up. And Sara-Beth was willing to let it pass because of who Josh is. Josh, of course, doesn’t know about Sara-Beth’s history and the people that she knows so he thinks in a lot of ways that telling her is putting her in danger. And it might be, but honestly, the best way for Marcinak to end up very, very, very dead is for him to do anything that would threaten Sara-Beth. Reggie would not like that. Not like it at ALL

Morgan and Accolon, as per Morgaine’s request, have gone Underhill. But very few people know what happened to them. They just disappeared one day and because people know that Morgan and Accolon were basically immortal, the assumption is that they are still alive, somewhere. Morgan and Accolon are not active in Albion and won’t be any sort of characters in the story. But references to them are typically made in a tense that fits the character’s belief on whether or not they’re dead yet. Darin thinks they probably are. Josh, for instance, thinks they probably aren’t.

Thanks, Van!

As for what Marcinak is thinking, well he does know that Josh won’t tell how he got beat up and is counting on it. He chose his cony fairly carefully when he chose to work Josh over like this. Josh would rather go jump into a live volcano than go tell his father anything. And you and Van are making the assumption that Jayson didn’t know about this. It’s entirely possible that he did and chose for whatever reason to look the other way. We’ll probably not know for a while.

Though, yeah, I totally see how that could be a hazardous undertaking in your Albion.

They are doing the right thing, not really the smart thing, but the right thing here. Hopefully it won’t come back to bite them. :-/

Oh, Darin will definitely be mentioning this to Reggie. We’ll see how Reggie responds in a few posts.

As for how he feels in the morning, I think that his various aches will be the least of his worries…

Thanks, Morgaine!

(And I apparently have my slash goggles on today, because I kept looking for hints of chemistry between Darin and Josh.)

Curious as to how Josh got tangled up with Marcinak and his thugs–and also, like Morgaine, wondering about his father. Sure, he’d probably be in trouble for shady dealings, but I’m thinking that most noble fathers would punish the men who beat their sons first, punish the sons for whatever they did to piss off the wrong people later (assuming they actually did do something… which, if Josh won’t tell his father, I suspect he did, unless his father is the extreme victim-blaming sort that is sadly all too common). Did he tell Sara-Beth that it was Marcinak? I’m going to assume he didn’t, unless she insisted (I get the sense that Sara-Beth gets what she wants).

Are Morgan and Accolon still alive and living in Albion? It sounded like Darin referenced Morgan in the present tense. I know that Morgan is effectively immortal in Albion canon, but I figured that she and Accolon would eventually decide that enough was enough (assuming that they’d found a way for Accolon to age and die naturally and painlessly).

Although … what was Marcinak thinking, doing that to the Baron’s son? Does he know that Joshua is too afraid to tell his father & is he counting on that? Because … well, I know any one of my lords would raise holy hell if a criminal, even a mob boss, did that to their son. Even Mordred. (Granted, in Mordred’s case, it would be a relatively private hell — and he’d probably give little-to-no sympathy to Gawaine/Gareth should they be the victims of such an attack — but still. It would be the principle of the thing. Criminals Do Not Beat Up Lord’s Sons and Get Away With It.)

But good for Darin for helping him, even if Joshua isn’t his favorite person. Good for Sara Beth, patching him up and letting him sleep in her bed. They’re running a risk here, I’m thinkin’, but they’re doing the right thing.

And I wonder if Darin ought to mention this whole incident to Reggie … at the very least, Reggie won’t like Marcinak on his territory, and that might keep Joshua relatively safe.

Here’s hoping the kid feels better in the morning, even if I’d bet money that he’s not going to look much better.