Day 190

Day 190

“The mentally diminished.”

I stare at it, completely forgetting the whipped honey cake.  “When the hells freeze over, and not a second before.”
“Hear me out,” it starts again, lifting a fork to point at me.
“No,” I answer.
“There are plenty of inma who would love them.”
“No.”
“Some wouldn't even be any more or less intelligent.”
“No.”
“They would be cared for and happy.”
“No.”
“And the taxpayers wouldn't need to pay a copper for them.”
“No.”

It stares at me, its face growing a deeper blue in frustration.  “Well at least explain why.”
“Because they can't protect themselves, and because they deserve a chance to live and die with dignity instead of existing as a food dispenser.”
It groans, and again drive a fork into some manner of fruit-laden cheesecake.  “That's what you always say.  Dignity.  Like it's impossible for anyone to have dignity and also fuck every now and then.”
“They can't make the decision for themselves.”
“And what makes you their caretaker?”
“We're their species.”
“And?”
“And,” I start, before taking a breath.  “Would you like it if I decided what happened to every monster that couldn't learn their letters?”

It leans back in its chair with a huff.  “Well, that's one plan.  You said there were a dozen ways to solve the problem, so let's go on to number two.”
It takes another breath, before sighing again.  It looks back to me a second later and says “The suicidal.”
“When the hells freeze over twice.”
It throws a hand up dramatically.  “And what's your problem with that?”
“My problem is that half of them probably wouldn't want to die if you and your kind didn't exist.  You're talking about imprisoning people who would rather die than be anywhere near you.”
“I'm not,” it begins.  It leans forward again and presses its palms to its eyes.  “If their lives aren't worth anything to them, then why can't we have them?  We'd make them happy,” it says, quietly, as though to its plate.
“People should have the right to end their own lives if they so choose.  We can't say that the people of our country are free if they lack the most elemental control over their own existence.”
It lifts itself back up, burying its frustration again.  “Just give us a few days, and if they don't change their minds-”
“Mind control is so much easier on those who don't fight back, isn't it?”  Its shoulders slump as it stares at me.  “Who better to target, then, than someone who doesn't have any fight left?”

We stare at each other for a long moment before I ask “Third plan?”
“Third plan is I bang my head into this glis cram until I pass out,” it answers immediately and flatly.
“Oh, I like it,” I offer, perking up.  “I don't think it'll help the hunger issue much, though.”
“Well I don't,” the owner calls from across the room.  “I spent time on that, and by the eldest you're going to enjoy it!”
“I am going to enjoy it,” it admits in a defeated tone, before cutting into it with its fork.

---

“Oh hey,” Ember pronounces as a single word, waiving as soon as she spots me.  Rather than her uniform, she's wearing some manner of massive, fuzzy sweater.  “Crazy place – barely anyone else in the train but me, but a dozen couples taking the trip back.  What's with that?”
“You should check my reports out.  This is a light day.  How've you been?”
“Amazing!”  If it were anyone else, I would've been caught off guard by the sudden shout.  “Working with mages – oh gods, the options!  The things you can build when metal doesn't have to weigh what it does, or be as dense as it is, or be made of metal!”
I smile at her, watching her face light up whenever she remembers something interesting.  Heavens, it felt like it had been forever since I'd seen her this morning, but now it's like she'd been here the whole while.

“You look tired and crotchety,” she notes.  “So, I mean, the tired part's new.”
“It's not an easy job.”
“They wouldn't need you if it was.  If I asked your kill count, would it sound like war losses?”
“Not even a little.  Honestly, if it weren't for the shield on my neck I'd probably have more.”
She bursts out laughing as hard as I've ever seen her.  She actually doubles over as she clutches her stomach and her eyes moisten from the force of it.  “Victor,” she manages to say as the laughter abates.  “Finest anti-monster weapon,” - laughter - “ever crafted,” - a slightly stronger fit of it - “but you'd do better with just a sword.”
“I'm good with swords,” I say, sheepishly.  It only makes her laugh harder.

“Let's get something to eat,” she finally says, looking at me like I'm some sort of walking punchline.

---

“So tell me, what's it like being around monsters all the time.”
“Frustrating.  Exhausting.”  After a moment I add “Boring.  Most of the time they aren't doing anything worth paying attention to.”
She lets out a thoughtful hum as she watches a succubus walking outside.  “It seems like there's a lot of things a boy might want to pay attention to, though.  I guess you must be using the purification of sight pretty often.”
“I, yeah.” It strikes me that I can't remember the last time I did.
She looks back to me, and there's something either thoughtful or sad in her expression.  Then, just as quickly, it's gone.  “So what's fun to do around here?”
“Fun?”
“Come on, you've been here for what, like half a year now?”  She glances away, expression suddenly severe.  “Has it been half a year already?”  And again, just as quickly, she's smiling at me.  “So what do you do for fun?”

I don't tell her talking to a centaur.
I don't tell her eating strange elven foods with a succubus.
I don't tell her trying strange, northern meals that the neighboring Kikimora makes.
“I don't do much when I'm off duty.”
“Wow.  Wow, Victor.”  There's honest surprise buried somewhere in her flat tone.  “You honestly don't have any fun when no one makes you, do you?”
“I enjoy my walks.”
“Wow.”
“Oh come on, Min is a nice place to walk around in – at least when there aren't any monsters around.”
“Just wow.”
“And it's good exercise,” I insist.
Her head promptly falls to the table.  And then it's back up and she's smiling at me again.  “Well, you're definitely not an impostor.”

I do whatever it is you call a sigh through the nose.  “I'm doing fine.”
And she smiles further, like she'd lost all her concerns in the world.  “Well, that's all I needed to know.”

I really missed that smile.

---

“It won't take me so long to come here next time.  I'm starting to get some actual vacation time coming up.”
“I'm not surprised.  I knew you'd fit with the artificers from the day we met.”
“Mm.”  She looks back at me as she walks, slightly ahead, toward the train.  “Yeah.  I guess we understood each other pretty well from the get-go.”

She turns leans in suddenly, and I feel her lips on mine.
And just as quickly, she's a foot away again.  “There.”  It's like she'd finished some project she'd been working on, from her tone to that look of accomplishment.  “Men are almost eight times more likely to get taken if they don't get any affection from human girls.  Didja know that?”
It takes a moment for me to realize that she'd asked me a question.  I shake my head.

“You should,” she says, and in an instant her expression and voice are completely flat.  “Roderick is missing.  They think he was taken.”
I try to find things to say or to think, but the second shock came too close after the first.

“If something happens to you, I won't forgive you.”

She climbs up into the train before I can respond.

---

The walk back is slow.  I step down an alley, and I'm halfway to the other side before I realize that I took the wrong turn.

I turn back.  I stop.
“You're armed.  I can tell.  You walk like a warrior.”  The lizardwoman stares at me, blade drawn.  Its feet slide into a stance.  “Face me.”
I want to.  I want to in ways I've never felt before.  I want to hear it break.  I want to hear it gurgle.  I turn from it, so that it won't see my neck when I adjust my clothes to draw my sword, and already I can feel it – the edge is the wrong weight, dragging it in a strange arc.  The handle somehow digs into the flesh of my hand wrongly.  Uncomfortably.  No matter how I hold it, it's just wrong.

I want to shake it.  To yell at it.  To explain to it what these things are.  I want to stop fighting this damn thing.  Why don't you understand, I think at it.  Why don't you get it?  These things have taken so much already.  They have to die.

“Is this just, paladin?”

“Shut up,” I yell as I launch the damned thing against the wall.  It clatters as the rusty, pitted blade falls to the ground.

“And you.”  I turn to the monster, and I open my mouth to speak the word.  It shreds my throat, like trying to pass a rusty chunk of iron from my lungs, but I force the bloody gobbets of meat out along with the sounds.

---

“Some believe that it was the dwarves who first coaxed metal from stone, or who fashioned it into swords.  We of the paladin orders know the truth, though.  Tools, weapons, armor - all these were first made by man.  Fire was tamed, wood was sharpened, stone was stacked, and metal shaped by the hands of men before any else.  By this sacred word, we remind them of this fact, and the weapons of our enemies remember loyalty.”

---

It flees no sooner than it sees me brandishing its own blade toward it.  I weigh it in my hand, admiring the clean lines and the well-honed edge.  It's a fine blade.  It won't try to stop me.

I cough wetly, anointing it with my blood.