by Kody Boye
“You’re too big,” Odin said, almost without thinking how his words would sound.
“Sadly, yes. It’s not easy to make a bed that will support my height or weight.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor too.”
“There’s no need for that.”
“I’ll sleep where you sleep.”
“While I appreciate your kindness, I’d much prefer if you slept on the bed. I’d rest easier knowing you were comfortable. You’re still sick, remember?”
“Yes sir. I do.”
In the moments of silence that followed, the Elf continued to watch him with his same, unblinking stare, almost as if he were examining him for each and every flaw that could be struck across his appearance. Odin wanted to turn away, just so he wouldn’t have to face the Elf’s eyes, but gradually found that were he to commit such an action, he might offend the creature that had come to his aid.
He’s not a creature, he thought, now staring at the Elf in turn. He’s… just not human. That’s all.
It would take quite some time for him to grow used to the feeling of being inferior to the fine specimen of artistry before him. It would, however, not hinder his attempts any, as it seemed in that moment that there was little, if any tension between the two of them.
“Don’t be nervous,” Miko said, drawing Odin from his thoughts.
“Can you… um… read my thoughts?”
“I would never invade your personal privacy. But to answer your question, yes—I can read thoughts, but I’ll let you know here and now that I will never under any circumstance invade the depths of your mind.”
“All right,” Odin said, reaching back to rub his neck. “If you didn’t read my thoughts though, how did you nerve I was nervous?”
“You have a tendency to shift your eyes away from the thing that’s making you nervous. Also—you tap your fingers on your thigh or the table.”
Odin immediately stopped feeding the gesture that he’d just been called out on. “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I thought I was being polite, but I—”
Do you really believe he cares?
Did he? The Elf had to know he was ignorant—had, without a doubt in his mind, to understand that he was merely a mortal who knew nothing of higher behavior, intelligence or just what it could mean. For that it seemed he had no worry, as the Elf would surely understand his predicament, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the constant worry in his heart was warranted or not.
“You’re learning,” the Elf said, lips curling into a smile in the moments of silence that followed.
“I’m trying to do this right.”
“You’re doing just fine, Odin. To be quite honest, I thought you wouldn’t be this open.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” The Elf turned his attention up to the door. “Someone’s coming?.
“Can you hear them?”
“Their footsteps. Tell me, Odin—have you ever dropped a sewing needle?”
“No.”
“Have you ever heard the sound of one being dropped?”
“Not particularly.”
“All right. “The Elf closed his eyes and pursed his lips. “Surely you’ve heard the sound of a drop of water falling into a pool.”
“I have.”
“What does it sound like?”
“Like a… well… pop.” He tapped his finger on the table very lightly for emphasis.
“Yes. It sounds like the snap of something, yet it’s very quiet, almost indiscernible from anything else that might be happening to go around. That’s what these footsteps sound like.”
A knock came at the door. “I’ve brought dinner!” a boy called.
“Does that hurt your ears?” Odin asked.
“No. Why do you think it would?”
“I thought that, since Elves had better hearing than humans, loud noises would bother them.”
“No. They don’t. There are certain filters that protect us.” The Elf rose. “Please, get the food, if you will.”
Before Odin could even begin to rise and make his way to the door, Miko stepped through a threshold to the side of the room—where, Odin assumed, a bathing chamber lay, nondescript and out of the way.
Stepping forward, he opened the door and nodded at the page, who carried a large platter of food that was balanced on a pair of arms trembling and unsure. It was any wonder that he hadn’t dropped it on his way here. “Thank you,” Odin said, accepting the offering.
The boy nodded before walking off.
“I’d prefer my presence not known while I’m here,” Miko said after Odin closed the door. He stepped back into the room a moment later.”
“What would they do if they saw you, sir?”
“They would act like your father did, but worse.”
“Why?”
Odin set the food on the table. The Elf took a small piece of meat between two fingernails and lifted it to his lips. He chewed, then swallowed before returning his attention to Odin. “The food’s quite good,” he smiled, “but to answer your question, they would most likely throw me out of the castle.”
“How did you get in then?”
“I was garbed in my cloak. I asked for permission to enter the Outer District, but was denied permission unless I revealed who I was. The guards forced me to disrobe before them and reveal my person.”
“What did they do?”
“Stared, mostly, then asked what I was.”
“They didn’t mind your appearance?”
“I wouldn’t say they cared so much as they were ‘unsure.’ Despite my appearance, they treated me quite well, and delivered my belongings to the room just as I requested, including my sword.”
Odin’s eyes trailed to the far corner of the room—where, leaning against the wall was not only the blade he himself had personally been gifted with, but a curved, pure-silver masterpiece of weaponry. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
“It was given to me by the queen of the Elves some time ago,” Miko agreed, turning his attention back to the platter of food, which remained almost untouched. “Eat.”
“How do you want me to split this up?”
“There’s no need for that.”
“You must be hungry after coming all this way?”
“The Elves don’t need to eat much. Had I been born a pure, white-blooded Elf, I wouldn’t be eating meat.”
“They don’t eat meat.”
“No,” Miko said. “I’ll answer this one last question, then ask you to remain silent until you’ve eaten your dinner.” He waited for Odin to say something in response. When Odin didn’t, Miko continued, saying, “Pure Elves feel as though we as a higher, intelligent species should not sacrifice animals just so that we can eat them. You see, Elves gain the nutrients they need from meat through the sun, much like a plant would when exposed to the open air, unlike other creatures who must kill to gain the nourishment meat holds. Since I am half Drow, I need to eat meat in order to get the nutrients I need. Normal, pure-blooded Elves, as I said, have no reason to devour flesh.
Odin nodded. “Thank you for answering my question.”
“You’re quite welcome. Now, eat as much as you like. I’ll eat whatever you don’t.”
Given permission to eat whatever he wanted, Odin dug in, assembling his hands through the meat, vegetables, and the few biscuits and shoveling food into his mouth as though he had never eaten before. Warm, succulent, as though it were personally gifted to him by the grandest chef in all of the castle—never in the past two years had he eaten such fine, warm food, so to do so was an honor unlike he could have never possibly imagined. He did, however, take note of just how much he was eating, as he didn’t want to act the pig and eat all of one particular thing while depriving his newly-acquainted knight master of the variety that currently lay before them.
He must have to eat a lot to keep him going, he thought, eyes wandering from his food and then to the Elf’s awesome frame—from his broad, gargantuan shoulders down to his near
-impossible waistline.
He knew for a fact that if he were as big as the Elf, he would need a good amount to keep him going, as it seemed the nourishment it would take to fuel that kind of body and physique would have been completely necessary in order to keep him functioning.
“Are you all right?” the Elf asked.
“Yes sir,” Odin said. “I’m fine.”
“All right. I was just making sure.”
He knew I was staring at him.
While he’d become more accustomed to the Elf’s presence since he entered the room, not a single part about him was not awe-inspiring or at least mystifying in its own way. His hair: dark, purple, braided near the sides of his face; his eyes: dark, equally-enrapturing and set perfectly within their hollows; his muscles: flexing with each and every breath and moving beneath his skin as if they were living entities—this creature, though flawed, could have been the most perfect thing he had ever seen, yet he was unable to distract himself from the form before him. The only reason he was finally able to pull his gaze from the Elf was because a sliver of meat sauce slid down his lip and dropped down onto his chin, pulling him from thought.
“I’m finished,” Odin said, bowing his head to the food, then rising when he felt as though he could eat no more.
“Thank you, Odin.”
Before Odin could take his eating utensils to the door, Miko caught his wrist. “May I borrow your work and knife?” he asked.
“But I’ve already used them,” Odin said.
“That’s fine. I don’t mind sharing.”
“But what about—”
Miko shook his head. Using his free hand, he gently uncurled Odin’s fingers, careful not to cut his skin with his fingernails, then lifted them into to his lips. He expelled, from his throat, as if he were a mystical dragon, a plume of red mist, which sparkled in the air as if it were some great dust before it eventually drifted to the floor and disappeared entirely.
“What did you do?” Odin asked, unable to resist the urge to reach up and rub his itching nose.
“I killed anything that might be on it,” Miko said, relieving Odin of his eating utensils. “You are aware that there are tiny life forms living on each and every surface, no?”
“There are?”
“Yes. They’re hard to see unless you use magic or have a looking glass which can magnify their appearance, but they’re there. These little creatures are the very things that keep the world in order.”
“I didn’t know,” Odin sighed.
“Please don’t let what I said upset you.”
“It doesn’t,” Odin said. “It’s just… I don’t think I know as much as some of the others do.”
“You think you’re not as intelligent as the other squires?”
“Yes.”
Miko set a hand on Odin’s shoulder. “Don’t,” the Elf said. “You have nothing to worry about. As your guardian, I will teach you the things you need to know, and maybe more between here and there. Please don’t believe you’re lesser than someone else, because you’re not. Everyone learns at a different pace.”
Odin nodded.
“Go lie down,” the Elf said. “I plan on retiring for the night once I finish eating. I suggest you do as well.”
When Miko thrust the fork into a piece of meat, Odin made his way over to his bed. There, he unbuttoned his jerkin, let it hang loose on his chest, then took his boots off before sliding his belt out of the loops in his pants. “I’ll try not to fall asleep,” he said.
“If you do, that’s fine. I’ll say goodnight now, just in case you do.”
“Yes sir,” Odin said. “Goodnight.”
The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the Elf sliding a biscuit into his perfect mouth.
He woke coughing in the middle of the night, and while he tried his hardest to keep the noise down, he couldn’t. It seemed as though in that moment when, while pressing his hands to his mouth, that his entire body would simply revolt—that his chest would cave into his lungs and eviscerate them from the inside out, thereby spilling blood up his throat and out of his mouth in a sick viscera of color. It wasn’t until the Elf began to rise from his place on the floor that Odin’s worst fear happened—that blood, the sick color of black, spilled from his throat and into his outstretched hands.
“It’s all right,” Miko said, helping Odin out of the bed. “There’s a bucket right here.”
Odin had just taken hold of the bucket when another bout of coughs took over. However, unlike the first unexpected cough, blood didn’t shoot out, but instead trickled from his partially-closed lips, as if he were a babe drooling after being freshly fed.
“There,” the Elf said, rubbing his back in small, circular motions. “Does that help?”
“Yuh-Yes,” Odin managed, spitting a mouthful of blood out. “Thu-Thank yuh-you.”
Miko continued to kneel by his side, rubbing his back and humming in low tunes, until the coughing spell ended. Once sure it was completely over, he gestured Odin up, stood, then took the bucket and set it near the door before settling Odin into one of the tableside chairs.
“How bad does your chest hurt?” the fair creature asked.
“A lot,” Odin said. He squeezed his eyes shut to try and quell the tears, but they came anyway. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It hurts, I know. I’ve had it as well.”
“I hope I don’t give it to you.”
“You won’t. Don’t worry.”
Miko set his hand on the bare section of Odin’s chest and splayed his fingers as far as he could manage. He then, with brief and efficient detail, channeled purple light from his palm and into Odin’s body—a sensation that, while violating to some degree, seemed to soothe all but the deepest sources of pain, that of which existed in his lungs and not in the surrounding areas.
“Does that feel better?” the Elf asked when he pulled his hand away.
“Yes,” Odin sighed, lips slicked with blood. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” Miko whispered, setting his hand on Odin’ sides. “I’ll take care of you while you’re ill.”
“The healer said I was starting to get better.”
“You are, and you will.”
Odin waited for the Elf to stand and make way for the beds before he pushed himself out of the chair. From there, he turned, strode through the room until he came to the bathing chamber, then, as carefully as he possibly could without touching them with his hands, pulled on the sink’s cross-shaped arms and cleaned his hands off before returning to the room.
“Thank you for helping me,” Odin said, settling back and into bed. “Goodnight, sir.”
“Goodnight, Odin.”
After waking from a quiet, peaceful sleep the following morning, one of which seemed particularly peculiar in light of what had just happened last night, Odin blinked and tried to clear his eyes of the haze that clouded his vision. In doing so, he found the room alight in bright and vibrant colors—in hues of white and gold that, while not particular symbolic of healing remedies, seemed to help dispel the pain that still lingered in his chest.
“Are you feeling well?” the voice asked.
Startled, unsure what to do, Odin threw himself back and into the corner, nearly managing to bang his head against the wall in the process. It took him but a moment to realize it was just the Elf sitting between the beds, eyes attentive and face shrouded in what appeared to be slight amusement and concern.
“How long have you been watching me?” Odin asked, wary of the stare for but a moment before he pushed himself out of the corner.
“For the past little while. I’ve been waiting for you to get up.”
“All… right,” he said.
Smiling, Miko rose and walked to the table, where he gestured Odin to follow in the few brief steps it took him to cross the room.
After sliding out of bed, Odin made his way to where the Elf stood—where, before them, a platter of breads, broth and cheeses la
y. “I’ve already eaten,” the Elf said, setting a hand on Odin’s shoulder. “I’m glad you woke when you did. It was starting to get cold.”
Odin plucked a piece of cheese from the plate and slid it into his mouth. While he chewed, he tore a piece of bread away from the small loaf and dipped it into the broth.
“It’s good,” he said.
“I thought so. Eat as much as you like.”
“You don’t care?”
“As I’ve said, I already ate.”
Odin watched his knight master but for a moment, then shrugged and slid into the chair closest to the platter and opposite the Elf. The whole while he ate, he couldn’t help but watch the creature and notice his attentive stare, which seemed to capture him within his grasp and hold him in place without actually doing it.
He just… stares at me, he thought, a bit uneasy at the attention currently set before him.
“Is something wrong?” Odin asked, hoping to break the tension by introducing conversation.
“No.” Miko blinked, then slightly smiled. “Oh. I see.”
“It’s all right. I’m just not used to having someone watch me.”
