Earlier, while Pollyanna sat across from him and Taylor sat next to him, Them made polite conversation with Taylor.
“So, Taylor…” Them began, but she suddenly began playing with her food which made him clap a hand to his mouth to contain his laughter.
She shoved her biscuit into her noodles and pretended it was a dragon drowning. “Help me! Help me! I’m drowning!”
Them commented, “you certainly are creative with your food…”
Taylor exclaimed cheerfully, “oh yes! I’ve always been creative! You should have seen me when I was locked up! The guards would come around with food, slide it through a little hole in the wall, and then I would play with… I mean… Eory would…”
Taylor went silent, then, and clutched her head.
Them could see she was having a crisis. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Hey, are you alright?”
Taylor took a shuddering breath and then she shrugged. “I’m fine, you fool. Just a little dizzy.”
Them leaned his cheek on his hand. “Well, you should eat something.”
The fairy girl slumped down in her chair. In a moment, she gnawed her arm instead of her gnawing her food.
Them nudged her. He recognized the nervous tick she had and tried to get her to stop. “Hey, you should eat your food, not yourself.”
She had such a look on her face that Them was afraid she would snap as she was prone to do and become unruly and wild.
Them never knew what she would do when she became like that. Sometimes she would stamp her foot, and sometimes she would pinch him or smack him.
But this time, she obeyed and ate her food instead of playing with it. Once she swallowed her last fork-full of noodles, she asked, “shall I meet you on the dream plains tonight?”
Them looked at her dreamily and nearly said yes, but instead he said, “I’m sorry, I should let you get as much sleep as possible…”
Taylor slammed her fists on the table. “Fine! I didn’t want to see you tonight, anyway! I don’t want to see anyone tonight!”
Them blinked wildly and couldn’t tell whether there was something wrong with her or whether she was just being her usual self.
He thought there must be something wrong. This kind of craziness was different than her usual kind.
__
Them crawled into bed that night next to Pete. He was glad that their elven overseers didn’t mind them sharing a room. However, his mind was stuck on past events, and he had much trouble getting to sleep. He lay curled up on his side, breathing evenly, and then rolled over onto his back and stared, unblinkingly, at the ceiling.
He turned his head to look at the sleeping Pete next to him and thought to himself,
you’re supposed to get me on the right path… We met at such a young age, but I’ve never felt like I was on the right path. That’s why I belong here. Maybe I can do some good for once.
Them seemed to have spent all of his twenty-eight years trying to find something fulfilling, and always failing.
He had been many things in his life; a thief, a scribe, a craftsman, a cook, a cleaner, a tailor, but he was not particularly great at any of them, and they didn’t make him burn the way he thought a breathing creature was meant to burn on a day-to-day basis.
There was only one thing that seemed to do that, and it was women.
Life was so unenthusiastic to him that he felt the need to take his pleasures where he may. He fell in love as much as possible, because it was the only thing that made him burn with the passion he had been searching for his entire life.
He liked women of all species, he liked them of all shapes and sizes—he couldn’t get them out of his head once they had winked at him, or touched him suggestively, or laughed more than was necessary at one of his many jokes.
Back in Trella, when he was a younger, there was one such woman.
He was seventeen, and she was twenty-four. She was married and she already had five children. Like all waif women, her mate was chosen for her. And, like all waif women, she was not allowed out on her own, and always had to be accompanied by a man.
Them was good friends with her husband—the man, Roran, was Them’s tutor in woodcrafting—but the man was oftentimes too busy to be there when his wife needed to go out.
But Them wasn’t, and Roran asked him to be there for his wife when he couldn’t be.
Them rolled onto his side again.
Just thinking about the woman made his cheeks and forehead feel hot and made him feel stupid, useless, and used.
And yet, here he was, thirsting for another woman whose intentions toward him were certainly not true, and not only that, they were probably far more vicious than this woman he had fallen head-over-heels for in the past.
He knew he wasn’t really in love with Taylor. Just like he wasn’t for any other woman he had ever pined for, it just felt like he was in love because desire was overriding his common sense.
Them loved the chase, and Taylor loved
being
chased.
Them couldn’t get their first meeting out of his head, however. It was so special; so intoxicatingly romantic. It felt like some silly fairy tale come to life.
Them had been working as an assistant to a Gamayunian alchemist named Pietro. The Gamayunian kingdom of Maaris was far to the northeast—miles and miles away from Trella--and Them decided to go there for the same reasons he always decided to go to far off places.
He was looking for that reason to burn wish passion.
Them arrived in freezing Gamayunian lands wearing a heavy cloak, fur boots, and fur gloves and traversed the dangerous and rocky land carefully.
He travelled through swirling snow until he came upon a little ramshackle Gamayunian village where Pietro kindly promised him food, a roof over his head, and a little money if he and Pete cleaned up his alchemy lab for him and assisted him on building any new-fangled machine he wished.
Them had lost his way so long ago.
He had lost it before he had taken his spiritual journey on the mountain to the north of Trella—he had lost it the moment he decided to steal from the other waifs in the forest--but if he had to pick a moment that he had entirely lost it, it was when he had come back from the mountain alive, but with no magical powers. He had gained Pete as a friend, but lost his hope of becoming a great mage.
Or so he thought.
The old snow bird, Pietro, who Them worked for, specialized in magical knowledge. Like most Gamayuns, he thought magic was a blight on the world and he tirelessly looked for ways to combat it through science.
He had created a little metallic machine—a little box shaped thing that Them could hold in his two hands—that would whir wildly when it was near a creature who had magic coursing through their veins.
It had whirred uncontrollably when Pete was near because the wisp was practically made of magic, but, when the wisp left Pietro’s hut, it still whirred gently.
“Something made of magic is still nearby…” Pietro said, hopping around on his bird legs and throwing his human head left and right—trying to find the culprit.
Eventually, the human-headed bird stopped in front of Them and examined him closely with his eyes narrowed. “It’s you! You lied to me! You said you didn’t have magic!”
Them scratched his head. “I don’t have any magic… Believe me, I’ve tried to conjure some over and over, but it never works…”
Pietro lifted a feathery hand and scratched his chin. “Well, I’m not a master of using it. I’m only a master of dispelling it. Perhaps you should get your magical friend to help you conjure some.”
Them found the old buzzard confusing, and he asked, “you don’t like magic, and yet you want me to awaken magic within me?”
Pietro shrugged as he dug through a pile of metallic junk and machinery. “Well, it isn’t as if I want to rip it violently away from people who already have it. I just want to be able to counter it when it gets out of hand!”
Them left the buzzard to his devices, and then went to find Pete who was out gathering wood as Pietro had bid him.
Them wrapped a blanket closely about his shoulder and called through the blustering snow, “Pete! Pete! Where are you?”
Snow swirled in his eyes and flew up his nose.
He kept an eye out for the bright light that was Pete in the pine forest down below.
Eventually, Them saw a light in the distance emerging from the woods, and Pete slowly returned carrying a big stack of wood with his ethereal magic.
I heard you call. What do you want?
“Well, Pietro just informed me that I have a little bit of magic buried deep down. Can you sense anything? Can you help draw it out?” Them asked curiously.
Pete was silent for a moment, and then he replied,
I can’t sense it, but I’ll try to help you draw it out again.
Pete had been trying for years and years, on again and off again, to help Them conjure magic, with no success.
Maybe Pietro can help us, too.
As Them thought about past events, he eventually closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.