Xaxac sat on the sofa with his legs drawn up and his arms around them, watching Lorsan make his way quickly through his father’s flask.

“Send my ass to that stupid military training camp and can’t even be here when I get back,” Lorsan snarled, “You think I wanna be in the goddamn military?”

“I don’t know what that is,” Xac said. This boy was a test, and it was much more difficult than he had anticipated. He couldn’t be mean to Agalon’s son, but he also couldn’t stand the way Lorsan spoke about Agalon. He couldn’t understand it, couldn’t understand why he was complaining at all. He lived here, on his father’s dime, in the big house, where he could do whatever he wanted and had people waiting on him hand and foot. He could travel whenever he wanted, go wherever he wanted. Listening to him was bizarre.

“That’s where they get you all trained up so Xandra can send you somewhere to die,” Lorsan snarled, “Some godforsaken edge of the empire full of savages and wild animals. That shit won’t happen to me though,” he rolled his eyes, “Because I’m special. I’m kin to Xandra. My daddy’s the Duke of the Agricultural district so my ass’ll be right here raisin cotton stuck in this hellhole, close to the capital with all the other dandy little assholes, till the day I die, hopin I cross my ts and dot my is so that bitch don’t send the Emerald Knight after me.”

Xac shuddered. The military did sound awful; that didn’t sound like something Agalon would put anyone through. And he thought Lorsan spoke far too harshly of the plantation; it may not be perfect, but it was Xaxac’s home, where he had been raised. He certainly wouldn’t call it a ‘hellhole’; there were many places that were worse, and he suspected Lorsan knew that because he had described places Xac hadn’t known had existed.

He just missed his daddy, that’s all that was wrong with him. He had expected him to be home and didn’t understand that people couldn’t always be there for you, even if they loved you. People had to work. But Xac remembered when he had been too young to know this, how he had cried for his parents when they had left him when they hadn’t come back when he had expected them. He knew what that felt like.

“The Emerald Knight only gets you if you’re bad,” Xac said, “You don’t seem like a bad feller to me.”

“How old are you?” Lorsan asked as if he wanted a particular answer, and if Xac gave him the wrong one, he would grow angry.

“I don’t know,” Xac shrugged, thinking that the truth was probably the safest thing to say in the situation, “I wouldn’t born here. I was bought in.”

“You look real little,” Lorsan said.

“Do I?” Xac asked, “I think I’m littler than some folks but… I ain’t a baby.”

“Right,” Lorsan said, studying him. “He keep you locked up in here?”

“Just till I learn how to act,” Xac said, “He’s trainin me. Then we’re gonna go down to Basilglen and get me some clothes and watch the fighters.”

“Right,” Lorsan said again. He took another drink and fell back against the sofa, “Humans are… weird. Y’all are weird. You’re almost elven. It’s…”

He paused for so long that Xac was afraid he had planned to trail off completely, and he had begun forming his reply when Lorsan spoke again.

“Uncanny,” he had apparently been searching his tipsy mind for the word, a word with which Xac was unfamiliar, “You move, walk, even talk like an elf… but you’re not. You’re just enough off to look wrong when you do it.”

“I’m sorry,” Xac said, “Folks can’t help what they are.”

“It ain’t your fault,” Lorsan said, “It’s just weird… an animal that close… I feel like… something is off. It’s weird to look into the eyes of a creature and see that… that real intelligence. I almost feel like… if you can talk you must have sentience, you must know…” He trailed off, staring into Xac’s eyes, apparently seeing the intelligence there.

“I’m sorry you don’t like us,” Xac said, “I can try not to look smart if it bothers you. Shouldn’t be too hard. My daddy said I never was that bright, but I work hard, so that’s ok.”

Lorsan laughed as if this had been a joke, so Xac, happy that the tension had broken, laughed with him.

“Well my daddy said,” Lorsan said, “That the holy texts say that the elves, being the Chosen People of Thesis, gotta watch after and care for all animals on Xren. Including you.”

“Neat,” Xac said, because he had heard many people speak of the holy texts and knew that they were important. They were a guidebook for everyone, not just elves, that needed to be obeyed in order to please the great god Thesis. He suddenly wondered if the holy texts were among the many books Agalon had stored in the shelves of this room.

“I feel like some folks, like daddy,” Lorsan said seriously, “Are takin severe advantage of that verse.”

“He does take good care of me,” Xac insisted, “He’s always been real good to me!”

“Yeah he watches you real good,” Lorsan said sarcastically, “By leavin you alone all day.”

“He has to go to work,” Xac insisted.

“Yeah,” Lorsan scoffed, “To train other humans to fight to the death. Real great, daddy, adhearin real close to the holy texts. That’s what the Chosen Child of Thesis would do- train animals to fight to the death.”

Xac had no response to that assertion, so elected not to say anything. It was difficult for him to think of Agalon, who had not only shown him kindness but had shown him the most kindness of the scant few people he interacted with in the manor, as someone who could be sacrilegious or evil. It was also dangerous for him to think that way. He had to love Agalon; he really had no other choice. He had to ignore certain things about the world to keep his mind steady, and at this point in his life, he couldn’t afford to lose it. The conversation was forcing him to dwell on things he would rather not think about, and he thought he should probably find a way out of it.

“I’m sorry you didn’t like camp,” he said, “I don’t know what it is.”

“You don’t know anything,” Lorsan said, as if this, like everything else, made him angry, “but I bet you could. I bet you could learn all kinds of things if anybody would teach you.”

“I know all kinds of things,” Xac said, feeling a little insulted, “I know numbers and songs and today I learned how to put on makeup.”

“That’s what I mean,” Lorsan said, “I bet you could learn anything if we let you. You’re almost elven.”

Xaxac didn’t know what to say to this, and it was beginning to anger him that Lorsan said it over and over. He didn’t think he was nearly elven; he didn’t think he was elven at all. There was a distinct difference, and Xac was human. There was absolutely nothing wrong with being human, he had never considered that it may be wrong somehow, but Lorsan seemed convinced that it was. But he couldn’t get angry, couldn’t allow it to show on his face, couldn’t respond in any way. He had to smile, and be good, and look pretty and do as little as possible.

So instead of flying into a rage, he politely said, “Thank you.”

“Maybe you’re lucky,” Lorsan got up and walked around the sofa, so Xac peered over the edge of it to watch him. “You don’t have to think about… most things. You can turn off your brain and let other people tell you what to do.” He huffed and amended, “Let daddy tell you what to do. He does that to me, but I’ll outgrow it. You won’t. You see these medals?”

He was indicating something inside the curio cabinet, so Xac stood to follow him and get a better look. He was indicating the metal circles with the rose, the ones Xac had seen on the painting. He had seen them now, so he nodded in response to the question.

“You know why they gave him these?” Lorsan asked, and Xac shook his head, so he continued, with contempt, “Because pert near two centuries ago they sent him and a bunch of other folk off to some godforsaken mountain on some foreign shore because Xandra wanted some more land, and this medal right here says he slaughtered the folks who were already there like sheep. There were people there, people who didn’t need to die. They didn’t fight a war; wars are fought with soldiers. The fire elves are gone. There ain’t no more. They wiped um out. Not just soldiers, the elderly, the weak, the innocent, the children.”

Xaxac instantly chose not to believe this. He didn’t even know what a fire elf was, so it was possible that the entire story was made up.

“Did it twice,” Lorsan huffed, “Fought on the water continent too, and now the whole damn place is underwater. Used to stretch all the way up to the ice fields, and now it’s just some shitty little islands.”

Xaxac actively chose not to believe this, either. He didn’t know what the water continent was and doubted it was any more real than the ‘godforsaken foreign mountain’.

“And now he wants me to do the same goddamn thing?” Lorsan spat, “Because he was in the military I gotta be in the military. Travel to new lands! See new locations! Meet exciting new people! And kill them.”

He glared at the curio case with a level of anger Xac felt was unwarranted.

“You’re an elf though,” Xac said helpfully, “When you grow up you can do whatever you want. And you have a really long time. Elves live forever.”

“We don’t live forever,” Lorsan said as if this comment had shocked him out of his anger, as if he couldn’t believe that Xac truly believed it, “We’re lucky to live three hundred years. Daddy’s real old, did you know that? You didn’t know that.”

“You live a real long time to me,” Xac said, “humans get old in our fifties. I wanna die before I’m old…”

“God damn,” Lorsan said, “Why?”

“Because I don’t wanna… get wrinkles and grey hair and stuff,” Xac explained, “Because then I won’t be cute and… worth havin. I don’t know what’ll happen to me when I’m not cute anymore.”

He had never really thought much on this, had certainly never spoken it out loud, but every word of it was true. He would rather die young and cute than outgrow his usefulness and find out what Agalon would do with him when he could not longer love him for all the things he praised him for. He was a toy, and broken toys were usually discarded, weren’t they? They were transient things that weren’t meant to last a lifetime.

His mother had made toys; she had made a human ragdoll for Allie and a rabbit for him, but he didn’t have it anymore, because that’s what happened to toys. He suspected his parents had given it away to another little boy, young enough to still need such things. The thought made him sad in a strange way that he didn’t understand, and he didn’t like the way Lorsan was watching him.

“If daddy ever gets rid of you,” Lorsan said seriously, “You can come and work for me. I’ll be old enough to have my own slaves then. You can be a valet, on account of you already know how to do hair and makeup and shit.”

“Oh,” Xac said, thinking over the possibility, which had never occurred to him, “Um… ok. Thanks, Master Lorsan.”

“My friends call me Lorry,” Lorsan said.

“My friends call me Xac,” Xac smiled.