“Alright now, you gotta be careful,” Lee explained as he held the razor, flipped open with the blade angled toward Xaxac’s skin, “It’s real easy to cut yourself, especially on the neck. I’m gonna do one side and you do the other. Do exactly what I tell you.”

“I wonder if my daddy knows how to shave,” Xaxac thought aloud, “seems like he’d’a told me how to do this.”

“Pay attention,” Lee warned, “This is a knife, to your face. Lord, Xac.”

“I’m payin attention!” Xaxac argued, “And I like the floofy stuff. I like whiskin it!”

“Feels like bakin,” Lee chuckled, “I half expected you to eat it.”

“Can you eat it?” Xaxac asked.

“No,” Lee warned.

Lorsan leaned against the frame of the open door sipping the whiskey Xaxac had left in the glass the previous night, and Xaxac tried not to let it bother him, though he was almost sure that the reason Lee hadn’t taken it away was because he wanted him to have it, not Lorsan. Lee was right, he needed to concentrate on the knife he was going to use to scrape the hair off his face.

“Start at the sideburns,” Lee instructed, “Use your other hand and keep the skin pulled tight- guess that ain’t a problem for such a spring chicken, but get to be my age… just keep it pulled or you’ll nick. Go down in smooth, even strokes, like this-”

“This is fuckin terrifyin,” Xaxac interrupted him, “Sorry I just wanna- that is right by my eye. Like right… please don’t stab me in the eye.”

“Hold still,” Lee said, “Hold real still and relax.”

Xaxac liked that phrase, and the kind, caring way Lee said it, so he tried his best to obey him.

“Rinse it off between strokes,” Lee said as he swished the razor through the basin, “Every time. Smooth, clean strokes. Don’t pull, and don’t push down. You reckon you got that?”

“I think so,” Xaxac said.

“Alright, do the other side,” Lee said as he handed him the razor.

It was so heavy. It was a weapon. It was dangerous.

Some people thought too much. Some people got in their own heads. Some people broke down into tears over bad dreams. Some people needed to be watched while they shaved.

He held the skin taut with his free hand and moved the blade down in a smooth stroke, rinsed it, and tried again. He thought he knew what Lee was talking about, about ‘getting a feel’ for it. It wasn’t difficult to judge if you remembered what you were really doing, just scraping off the hair.

“Good,” Lee praised, “Perfect.”

Lorsan sipped his whiskey and watched this process as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Alright,” Lee said as he took the razor back, “First couple of days I’m gonna do your lip and neck. Till you get a feel for it. That’s the easiest place to nick.”

“Can you just do the whole thing?” Xac asked.

“Keep your mouth shut, boy,” Lee warned, “hold real still.”

Xac swallowed, hushed, and allowed Lee to move his face however he wanted to. As the blade grazed his skin, again and again, he thought of how thankful he was to have someone he could trust to do this for him, to show him how to do it. Lee was absolutely right- one wrong move and there would be blood.

“Alright,” Lee said as he swished the blade through the dirty water, “Always dry your razor before you give it back to me. You don’t, it’ll rust, and it rusts, I’m whoopin your ass cause Master Agalon’s gonna blame me.”

“That sounds about right,” Lorsan agreed, “that’s how he is.”

“Then wet a rag and wipe your face off,” Lee said, “not in the dirty water. Empty the basin, rinse it, and refill it.”

“Shit, every morning?” Xaxac asked, “This is a goddamn ordeal.”

“Watch your mouth,” Lee warned, “Yeah, we do this every mornin. Let’s see if we can’t speed it up as we go. I’d like to get it under a quarter of an hour.”

“Sure to god,” Xac said as he carried the basin back to the sink, dumped it, then sat it into the sink to pump water over it, to rinse it. He wondered how the hell the other men, who didn’t have water in their houses, did this every single morning and thought that Mrs OfAgalon was out of her mind. But then again, Agalon had said he didn’t like beards on humans. This might be his rule. He hadn’t seen Mrs OfAgalon in any real capacity in a long time, and wondered how she was doing. He took a rag, wet it, and ran it over his face to remove any lingering trace of the cream they had whipped. His face burned a little, but it looked good; it looked as if none of it had ever happened.

“Hurry up!” Lee called, “I ain’t got time to babysit you. I got a house to run!”

Xaxac sighed, picked up the basin and brought it back to replace it on the stand.

“Alright,” Lee said, “Now this here is an after-shave ointment. Don’t rub it on, pat it on. Rub it between your hands and pat it on your face. That’ll make it quit burnin.”

Xaxac did as he was instructed and had to fight the urge to scream. It actually did the exact opposite of what Lee had described, and the abrupt difference between expectation and reality almost knocked him off his feet as the burning sensation engulfed his face.

“Oh god, it hurts,” Xac said, “It hurts so bad.”

“Might be the alcohol in it,” Lee said, “You musta got cut.”

“It quit but goddamn it, you lied to me!” Xaxac snarled.

“This whole thing is an unnecessary mess,” Lorsan said, “There ain’t no point to nary bit of this. It’s just gonna grow right back tomorrow.”

“I didn’t know you was cut!” Lee argued, “It didn’t bleed! But either way ain’t no use bitchin about it. Now, put the lotion on so your skin don’t dry up. You just exfoliated to hell and back.”

“Is it gonna burn like hell?” Xaxac asked, “Why are there so many steps?”

“I hope not,” Lee said, but Xaxac eyed him wearily as he applied it.

“Now while you’re waitin for that to soak in go wash the dish and the bowl,” Lee said and Xaxac picked them up to head to the watercloset, “Lay um out on a town to dry. Turn the bowl upside down! Then get back in here and do your makeup!”

“That’s so much prep for nothin,” Lorsan said.

Lee shrugged and said, “It’s his job. He’s gotta get used to it.”

“I’m bored outta my goddamn mind,” Lorsan said as Xaxac dusted the setting powder onto his face.

“Why don’t you read somethin?” Xac asked, “Aggie always reads.”

“I read everythin in here,” Lorsan called from the sitting room, “It’s mostly encyclopedias and military history. Nothin good.”

“Alex acted like books had stories,” Xaxac said, as he surveyed his face and deemed it ‘good enough’. “He said his master read to him about animals, or maybe monsters.”

“That’s a bestiary,” Lorsan said as Xaxac sat on the couch and picked up his knitting. “Want me to read you a beastiary?”

Xaxac arched an eyebrow but did not look up from his ribbing.

“Um… yeah, I guess?”

“Ok, there’s a bunch of them,” Lorsan said, “Which one you want? We got ‘Flora and Fauna of the Urillian continent’, ‘Creatures of the Fire Continent’, ‘Legendary Beasts and Artifacts’, and ‘Mysteries of the Aquatic Depths’.”

“I dunno,” Xaxac shrugged, “Whatever you want. I don’t know nothin about um.”

Lorsan selected a book and threw himself onto the couch next to Xaxac, reclining in such a way as to take up half of it, looking more comfortable than Xac had seen him look in a long time, possibly ever.

“Legendary Beasts and Artifacts, by Klin of the Sacred Woods,” Lorsan read, “Introduction.”

“It happens that sometimes, in the course of their travels, one will come upon things that have been spoken of by many, but seen by few. This volume is a collection of creatures and items that I can confirm, with absolute certainty, do exist, and those that I have only heard tale of. I am skeptical, at this point in my life, to the existence of such creatures as I have not seen, because the author has been cursed with exquisitely bad luck, and it is my firm belief that if such monsters exist, they surely wish me ill. My thoughts have been archived in the order of the syllabary, for easy access. Please see the following guide for a complete list. It is possible that one may find themselves alone before these creatures, and the author wishes the reader the best of luck in their travels.”

“Are all books this boring?” Xaxac asked.

“I think this was wrote in Elvish and translated,” Lorsan said, “It was wrote like a hundred years ago. Nobody actually talks like this, I don’t think ever. You can kinda tell what some of it’s supposed to be. I had to take Elvish in school, I bet I could translate the original better. They always try to make shit seem fancy, but it ain’t. Let me see if daddy’s got the original. He gets weird old shit and keeps it forever.”

Lorsan sat the book on the coffee table, and Xaxac glanced at it while his hands moved of their own accord.

Lorsan plopped back down holding a book that looked no older than the one on the table and opened it.

“Ok, so… let me see if I can get this. Common’s actually an offshoot of Elvish, and Urillians speak the closest dialect to it so it actually ain’t that hard. Hold on a minute.”

“Y’all ain’t gonna believe the shit I’ve seen; the kinda shit I’ve heard stories about, but I get out here and of course it comes after me. Why the hell not? I’ve wrote down a lot of shit I’ve just heard tell of, but I swear on my soul I’ve actually seen most of this. This is some true-ass shit. There’s some fucked up shit out there. I actually have a real hard time believin the stories because if any kind of fucked-up shit exists, it’s gonna come after my ass. That’s the kinda luck I got. I tried to put this in some kinda order to try and make sense of it, but the world don’t make sense. Y’all on your own with that. Good luck.”

“That’s a big difference,” Xaxac said.

“Yeah,” Lorsan agreed, “You can’t believe everythin you read. A lot of historians try to make folks smarter than they are. They want Urillian scholars to sound scholarly. But this feller… well first off he wouldn’t no scholar, or I’d be shocked if he was. He mighta been. But he ain’t got no last name, and that means he’s broke as shit. Peasants ain’t got last names. This guy probably ain’t got a pot to piss in.”

“But he can write,” Xaxac said, “He’s an elf. Elves are rich.”

“Some elves are broke as shit,” Lorsan said, “I go to school with some of um. Their parents straight up sell um to the military.”

“You can buy elves?” Xaxac asked. The prospect had never occurred to him and he didn’t know how to feel about it. He turned his knitting at the end of the row, judged the band to be long enough, and began working the body of the hat in stockinette. He went from knit knit purl purl to knit knit knit knit.

“I mean not like… Xandra don’t technically own um but what they do is they send money back to their family and then it’s cut outta their paycheck once they start workin so they have to do what they’re told. They get in debt so they can’t like… not go on deployment.”

“They can buy their way out…” Xaxac said as he turned his row and began to purl purl purl purl. It knitted up much faster once he got to the more simple stitch, and his hands flew and created a high tempo rhythm of clack clack clack.

“Yeah, eventually,” Lorsan shrugged, “Now me, I can do whatever the hell I want after my apprenticeship. Xandra ain’t gonna touch me, on account of I’m kin to her.” He rolled his eyes as if he thought this fact was a profound act of stupidity.

“Will you read to me about the monsters?” Xaxac asked as he glanced at the clock, “It’s after ten and if you’re here Jimmy might bring up lunch. I wanna hear a couple of um before we have to stop.”

“How’d you know that?” Lorsan asked. “How’d you know it’s after ten?”

Xaxac’s body froze, but he powered through it. He didn’t want the sound of the needles to stop. He didn’t want to show that he had just made a mistake.

“The… the light,” Xaxac said, “I watch the windows.”

“You didn’t look at the windows,” Lorsan said, “You looked at the clock.”

“I figured it out,” Xaxac said, “I’m in here all the time and it goes in a circle. It hits the number on the top at noon, so I thought that must be twelve and I counted. There are twelve numbers, so those symbols must be what the numbers are. I’ve seen Aggie write those same symbols, too, so I’m pretty sure I’m right.”

Clack clack clack.

“Holy shit,” Lorsan said, “Yeah you’re… you’re right. You figured out the numbers just by lookin at um…” He closed the book in his hands, set it on the table, and picked up the one written in common, “Yeah, fuck it, let’s… let’s read some legends.”

“Lorry?” Xac stopped knitting, held his work in his lap, and turned to gaze at him imploringly, “Don’t… don’t tell nobody, ok?”

“I ain’t gonna tell nobody, Xac.”