U mad
The man stood there not quite sure what to make of the question, it wasn't anything like any response he was expecting. "No I'm not, now do you accept the duel or are you a coward?". He said sneering at Alex trying to regain his lost momentum.
Alex sighed, "You say you aren't and then you go and say something like that it just shows that you are a moron and one who has a death wish", the man opened his mouth to respond but Alex was just getting started, he stood up tired of craning his neck, and faced the pair.
"Let me guess the train of events, Petra here came to you and told you about her father loosing to me and that she would have to keep her promise and marry me, and in the course of a heated argument you got it into that thick skull of yours to challenge me to a duel ensuring the woman you love didn't end up with another man. Here is where you're stupidity comes into play, I'm assuming she told you how I beat the King and you who cannot beat him in combat wants to challenge the man who defeated him in a single blow, did you think some sort of miracle would happen allowing you live happily ever after? On top of all that you didn't even bother asking me if I was even going to marry her, I'm not by the way".
He faced Petra, "You little miss need to deflate your pride and get over a stupid promise made when you didn't understand the ramifications of what you were promising, everyone and their cat knows you simple used it as an excuse to avoid marriage it's not going to kill you to just admit that it was just a childish promise and grow the fuck up", Alex voice was loud and domineering it was almost like he was scolding two children.
He pointed at the man, "You do you love her?", his tone brooked no refusal to the question.
"Yes I do very much so" he responded.
Alex nodded and pointed at Petra, "You do you love him", again his tone brooked no refusal.
"Dammit all yes I do"
Alex pointed at the man again, "You heard her, now kiss her like you mean it", almost sounding like a drill instructor. Which triggered the man who saluted and then kissed Petra without thinking about it.
"By the power invested in me by absolutely no one I proclaim you a happy loving couple may you drive your father up the wall and now get the fuck out I want to eat dinner", Alex grinned at the last.
At that they stopped kissing and both blushed furiously and turned to face Alex who stood there with a smug smile on his face, so much for the devious sneaky plan he had been concocting, Oh well getting that shit out of the way fast is definitely more preferable than letting it linger.
Everyone in the room was dumbfounded at what they had just watched, Alex had literally berated the pair of them into an official relationship while getting Petra to drop the marriage promise. The pair in question were still working out what had just happened. The man who was still holding Petra in his arms didn't care all he knew was now was there was nothing standing between them now and the reason for that was the man he had intended to duel, it left quite the peculiar mix of emotions. Petra was having similar thoughts, she realised how stupid she was being abiding by that promise, it had seemed so perfectly ordinary to keep the promise that felt like it had the expectations of the various suitors on it, when it was really her being an idiot and was willing to leave the man she truly loved for a stranger, she felt like a complete moron.
"I'm happy you can be all lovey dovey in the open now I truly am but either join us or go be lovey dovey elsewhere, I wasn't joking about being hungry".
The pair turned and looked at Alex only to see him smirking at them and making a shooing motion with his hands. "If you don't mind I think we will stay for dinner, if that's ok with you?', asked Petra.
"It's your house why are you asking me?", chuckled Alex. The newly formed couple moved around the table until they reached and empty spot where they could both sit down. The King looked at his daughter and could see that she was much happier this way. Petra joined in the conversation with the other girls, now Alex had resolved the marriage issue they didn't feel any hostility towards her now, she introduced the man as Raul, who nodded to each of them in turn. When Petra got to Alex, Raul finally spoke up, "Thank you for setting us straight Alex, we had both be tied up with it for so long we couldn't see the problem logically any more if not for tour tirade showing us how stupid we were both being who knows how that would have turned out.
Alex chuckled, "You would have lost badly and then everyone involved would be feeling terrible about the whole thing", Raul frowned a bit, "Its not a given that I would have lost" Raul sounded a bit put out at the supposition that he would have lost.
"Don't backslide now Raul", Alex face became stern, "I'm a former arena champion, I was trained by aunt Melli, sure if we were having a spar and I didn't use my magic then I suspect we may be fairly evenly matched, but in a deathmatch I could kill you in an instant, you wouldn't last more than ten seconds which is the longest anyone lasted against me in the four death matches I had in Valent. You really should investigate the people you challenge", Alex joked.
Raul really had no response to that.
Just then the food arrived and conversation became sporadic as everyone ate their fill, Alex ate twice the amount of anyone else on the table, no one could work out where it was going. Dinner wrapped up and everyone headed off to do their own thing, Alex headed towards his room seeing he had to be up early in the morning to go register for the game and run through the prelim fight in the arena, he figured he would get a good night's sleep. However it looked like he would have to postpone the sleeping for a while as he had all the girls trailing after him. He reached the door to his room, sure enough they all followed him in.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of your ladies esteemed presence", Alex hammed it up. The girls giggled at his performance.
"We just wanted to spend so time with you is all", Kayla spoke in a sweet tone. Alex frowned a bit at that, "I love you all dearly buy just from that reaction there is something more going on here, out with it girls".
Lily sighed, "We wanted to have a talk with you about some stuff, we didn't want to cause you worry, I guess we weren't very subtle".
Alex laughed at that, "Yeah just a bit, now what is this serious topic you wanted to breech that has you all on edge?", he asked as he ushered them into the room.
"It's about us partly, more in line with how many more do you plan on having?", Vale just came right out and said it rather than beating around the bush. Alex was a bit surprised at the question, it wasn't something he had given much thought he just planned to travel around meeting and see what happened. He explained as much to the girls.
Kayla sighed, "You do realise that you have been effectively holding most women at bay since the academy, Rose was lucky in this aspect in that her situation managed to break through the barrier you have setup around yourself. But without that boost you wouldn't be together the same applies to Vale.
Alex frowned and thought back, it's true that he had put relationships on the back burner until he reunited back up with Lily and Anna, but had he cut loose that side of him once they were together again didn't he? He expressed his thoughts to the girls.
Vale sighed, "Not In the slightest, if you had you would have one more elven partner at the very least, but like the academy, when in the elven kingdom you stoically avoided all advance towards you, we aren't saying bed every woman that bats her eyes at you but at least look at them, give them a chance and get to know them, we aren't going to hate you or feel bad, we all knew what were getting into when we made the choice to be with you. The other girls called out there agreement with Vale.
Alex pondered what he had just been told, he hadn't even realised what he was doing, he mentally compared his behaviour to others he had known at his age and was shocked at the difference. Alex barely looked at a woman who wasn't his fiancé, let alone talk to one and get to know them.
"I never noticed that apart from you girls I barely look let alone talk to other women unless required to by the situation, I think I conditioned myself a bit to much in the academy, thanks for telling me I doubt I would have ever noticed my behaviour by myself, I just have no idea how to go about fixing it", he gave a self-deprecating chuckle.
"That's the other half we wanted to talk to you about, we will start pushing you to girls we approve of that would be a good fit for the group, we just want didn't want to be doing this behind your back so we decided we had to bring it up with you".
Alex just looked at them then suddenly started laughing, "Just what is so funny?" asked Rose. Alex calmed down a bit, "Sorry but the situation suddenly struck me as hilarious, most guys have troubles finding and staying with one partner and here I am with five wonderful women, and it's the women who are on the lookout for prospective partners".
The absurdity of the situation struck the girls as well and they broke out into laughter as well. Now that the girls had gotten that off their chests they felt more relaxed and bid Alex goodnight, they exited the room aside from Anna a Lily. "What's up my two little dragonlings?".
"We have you for tonight" Anna exclaimed jumping up to him and pulled his head to hers and engaged him with a passionate kiss.