"I can ride. I'm not as good at it as I am at other things."

"Well, that's what school's for."

"Yes!"

"So those're the stables and up here is the practice yards, that's where we have tourneys, jousting goes over there, there's the archery range but that's pretty much optional once you know which end of a bow's which, I skip it."

"I like archery," says Glynn.

"Then the archery teacher will like you, she gets very tired of people dropping out of her sequence when they're allowed."

"Yeah, some people, just not most of them."

"I'll be one of the weird ones, I guess. That's nothing new."

"No? You are the only would-be knight in an entire village full of knitters and pumpkin-gardeners and competitive scone-bakers?"

"Not exactly. Do you actually know any competitive scone-bakers? Are there scone-baking competitions I've been missing out on all this time?"

"There are baking competitions. I don't know if they get as specific as scones. But they're great to attend because the judges don't tend to finish a whole batch of anything and people can take some!"

"Next time you go to a baking competition I want to come."

"When I wind up going to that sort of thing it's usually with a girl, but we could double-date, if you brought one of your own."

"I don't really know any girls. Not to go to baking competitions with, anyway."

"Well, I know what to do, then, next time I get the 'oh but my friend will be lonely' bit from somebody. Long as her friend isn't too much older than you, I guess."

Glynn giggles.

"Which is good! My other friends respectively have steady girlfriends or like boys or do not care for baking competitions and similar. You fill a niche. Congratulations."

"Yeah, that's what I meant. Or only like girls about as much as I like boys."

"Oh? How much do you like boys?" he wonders.

"I basically didn't notice that it was 'at all' until I'd been mad about girls for a couple of years? And then a girl expressed the opinion that boys should kiss each other more, so me and the other fellow in the room sort of shrugged at each other?" Jann shrugs illustratively. "Very much an afterthought."

Glynn laughs. "Oh. I like girls and boys about the same amount, I think. I haven't noticed a difference, anyway."

"Yeah, that happens too. Usually if I get the 'my friend will be lonely' thing the friend's a girl though. Though one time it was the girl's twin brother."

"What is the 'my friend will be lonely' thing, exactly?"