Xaxac stared up at the sixty flowers on the ceiling, and the light in the room told him it was nearly time to get up anyway.

He was tired, hungover, and dying for a cigarette, but not nearly as sore as he had thought he would be. He hadn’t exercised in so long he expected he would wake up half dead. But he didn’t.

He slowly turned to look at the dressing table. He needed to get up. He needed to shave.

He hadn’t seen a mirror before he had gotten into the bath, and he wondered how terrible he looked. He was absolutely going to pull his hair back today. At least that way he had some sort of hope of keeping it presentable.

There was no point in wearing makeup, but he would, because it was part of his job.

He closed his eyes and began to count the ticking of the clock.

“And… Lee,” he said, in time with the sound of the door to the sitting room opening.

“Coffee, wine, fruit, frost,” Xaxac said as the door to the sitting room opened, and Lee entered, carrying his breakfast tray.

“Get up, Xaxac,” Xac whispered.

“You have another bad dream?” Lee asked, careful not to wake up Agalon.

“I… I don’t even… I don’t reckon I can tell the difference no more,” Xac said, “I had a dream. Don’t know if it was good or bad.”

“Well,” Lee shrugged, “That’s something, I guess. Get on up. Get shaved and dressed. Eat a bite.”

“He crashes so hard,” Xaxac said of Agalon as he put on the house slave uniform Lee had laid out for him.

“That frost is what that is,” Lee said, “If I was you I don’t reckon I’d funnel that stuff down. I don’t rightly know what it does.”

“Hey Lee,” Xac said, “I gotta… hypothetically… if my mommy was… gone… would ya tell me?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Lee said, “Shave.”

“I ain’t gonna… I just… I’d like to know. If you’d tell me. If somethin happened. If they was gone.” Xac asked as he sat down.

“Shave,” Lee said.

“Yeah,” Xac said, wondering why he didn’t feel worse, why he felt very little, “That’s what I thought. You know… Takashito said that on the water continent, humans go to school.”

“I reckon all them water elves are kinda crazy,” Lee said, “that’s the rumor.”

“Pretty though,” Xac said as he whipped the cream.

“I ain’t never had much of an eye for elves,” Lee admitted, “They all look damn near each other. Takashito looks like um, ‘cept he’s blue.”

Xac pulled his skin taunt and ran the blade over it as Lee watched. He was getting better at it. His hands didn’t shake so much if he took a sip of the wine first.

He wondered what a prison was like. He had never seen one.

“GET THE FUCK UP!”

Xaxac jumped, felt the slice on his cheek, and a stream of blood shot onto the mirror.

“Wha?” Agalon asked, “Lorry?”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?” Lorsan shrieked as Xaxac held the cloth to his face and waited for the bleeding to stop.

The shrieking was apparently coming from one of Agalon’s decorative plants, because Agalon sat up and his earrings began to glow as he reached toward it.

“What’s wrong?” He asked in a panic, “What time is it? Are you alright?”

“I JUST GOT YOUR INVITATION TO MY OWN ENGAGEMENT PARTY, FUCKWAD!”

“God damn, Lorry, you scared the hell outta me,” Agalon sighed, “It is… stupid o’clock in the mornin.”

“It’s five!” Lorsan screamed, “It’s mail call! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?”

“Five?” Agalon asked, “Ain’t that meal time? Is that still meal time? You ain’t screamin like this in the mess hall, are ya?”

“I AM CAUSING A SCENE!” Lorsan explained.

“You gonna spend all day doin pushups,” Agalon sighed, “Might do you some good to get that wore out.”

“I AIN’T GETTIN MARRIED!”

“The hell you ain’t,” Agalon said, and Xaxac could not help thinking how strange it was to watch him argue with a plant. “You ain’t gotta stay married, but you are gettin married. It’s happenin if we gotta drag you, drug you, and prop you up on the altar.”

“What’d you get?” Lorsan asked, “What’d you whore me out for?”

“Look, Lorry,” Agalon sighed, “You best not be projectin me. Are you projectin me? I’m gonna sever this scry. I’m gonna go get my tablet and holler back at ya.”

“You ain’t severin’ shit!” Xac was sure Lorsan had shouted, but the last word abruptly cut off in the middle.

“Thesis in heaven above,” Agalon said as he rubbed both hands over his face, “You know, I don’t know what I expected. Lord, god almighty, that youngun is… that boy ain’t right.”

He walked quickly out of the room and Lee turned to Xac.

“You want me to finish that?” He asked.

“I got blood on my shirt,” Xac sighed, “I guess… it don’t matter. I was gonna get it dirty anyhow. But it’s fine. I’ll… I can finish.”

He picked up the glass of wine and knocked back the contents.

“Alright, gentlemen,” Takashito said as he stood before the fighters, “I see that my chart is still here. I trust that you have memorized it. We will go over the poses I showed you yesterday. Please, follow me.”

The fighters spread out, and Xaxac tried his best to concentrate on mimicing Takashito’s movements. He tried his best not to think about how everyone had seen the blood on his shirt, but no one had said anything. He tried his best not to wonder what Agalon had said, when he had gone down to the room where he normally kept his tray of dirt to talk to Lorsan, or what Lorsan had said back. He tried not to think of the fact that Agalon could communicate with his family, even when they were towns away, but Xaxac could not talk to his family when they were in the same house.

Because Xaxac was thinking too much, and he was thinking about all the wrong things.

When Xaxac thought about things like that, he had started having other thoughts.

He thought of how the Viper had gone from a living, breathing, person, to an inanimate object. He thought of how Billy was, even now, recovering from having his insides on the outside.

He thought of the time he had tried to playfully tackle Agalon. Agalon had gone down.

He thought of schools with human students, and elves who could not drown, and shifters with speed and strength that scared other people, even the earth elves, and if he kept these thoughts on the surface, he began to have thoughts that were dangerous.

He had never been the weakest person in the room.

He had always been the strongest.

Person.

Not human.

He was a monster, and people were afraid of monsters.

Goddamn right. They should be afraid of monsters.

“Good,” Takashito said, “We will practice this until it is all very fluid. But for now I would like for you to see it in action. Xaxac, please come to me.”

Xac stepped forward and tried to clear his mind.

“Do you remember our lesson from yesterday?” Takashito asked.

“Yeah,” Xac nodded, “I gotta learn to change.”

“Very good,” Takashito praised, “Very concise. I would like to see if you can apply what you have learned.”

He folded his hands together as if he meant to say a prayer and bowed.

Then he came up, went into the first pose he had shown them, and moved faster than any opponent Xac had ever seen.

But this time, Xac did not scream. He did not run.

He was unprepared, so the first blow landed on his shoulder, the one that had once been injured, and a pain radiated down that side of his body, but it was not as bad as the time he had broken his bones and popped his shoulder out of socket, so he chose not to think about it, to ride it out. But that didn’t mean he wanted to get hit again.

So the next time Takashito tried to strike he moved out of the way, darted to the left and reached out himself, keeping his hands in the position Takashito had taught them during their movements to more evenly distribute the force of the blow, and hit him in the neck in the place Takashito had drawn on the chart.

He did not hit as hard as he could have.

Takashito choked, coughed, and began to sputter in a language Xaxac didn’t understand.

Xaxac watched him and thought of how much harder he could have hit him.

“God damn,” Takashito said when he got his breath back, “You are… you are very fast, Mr Rabbit.”

“I’ll get quicker once I’m used to it,” Xac said, “I can clean Aggie’s whole set a’ rooms in like an hour now.”

“You clean your entire chamber in an hour?” Takashito asked, “Why? Do they not have a staff? I thought the duke would-”

“Gives me something to do,” Xac said.

“I took up macrame,” Takashito said, “we make plant stands. I think they sell them?”

“I knit,” Xac said, “I can show you how to-”

“You ain’t here to talk about crafts,” Ara reminded them.

“They would never give me the needles anyway,” Takashito shrugged. “Gentlemen, let us pair off! I will come around to check your form! Who is the best fighter here after Xaxac?”

“Billy,” Wyatt said, “But he’s still down from his last ass-whoopin. I ain’t feelin too hot myself, but he’s… he’s down.”

“What do you mean you do not feel hot?” Takashito asked.

“Lotta torso shots in my last match,” Wyatt explained, “Doc said I had bruised ribs.”

“You have bruised ribs?” Takashito asked, “Are you not in pain? Why are you not in recovery?”

“He’s fine,” Agalon said dismissively, “I healed him, vet cleared him.”

“I do not know that one would walk off such an injury,” Takashito said.

“Them humans got a much higher pain tolerance than we do,” Agalon explained, “You’re personifyin. Besides, he’s healed. He’s fine. He’s got another match comin up after the mask festival. He’s gotta be ready. I didn’t buy him for him to sit around. Billy’s costin me a fortune… but I don’t wanna lose him. Y’all heard the man, pair up!”

As Xac stood next to Wyatt he frowned and realized that he should have been going easier on him. Wyatt didn’t heal like he did, but he had also been in the cage. Xac hadn’t seen his match, but he knew what fighters did. He remembered how hard they hit, what it was like to be slammed around.

“You alright?” He asked.

“‘Course I’m alright,” Wyatt shrugged, and Xac noticed he had learned the moveset as quickly as he had learned it himself, “Come on, Foo Foo, whoop my ass. Try not to kill me, though.”

“I ain’t gonna kill you,” Xac giggled, “I wouldn’t kill ya even if I didn’t like ya. You got the biggest dick I ever had.”

“Do what now?” Wyatt asked, and Xaxac took the opportunity to hit him in the shoulder like he had been taught, then took advantage of the hiss of pain and stumble to kick him in the thigh. Wyatt fell to one knee to clutch at his injuries, so Xac stopped, put his hands on his knees and looked down at him.

“I’d stay down, ya thick dicked sumbitch,” he laughed, so Wyatt punched him in the throat, and as he tried to catch his breath he thought there was no way Wyatt was hitting him as hard as he could either.

They were both holding back.