by Kody Boye
“Odin?” Nova asked.
“He wanted to hurt himself, Nova.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess it makes you feel better.”
“How could digging your fingernails into your skin make you feel better?”
“I don’t know.”
Yes I do.
He knew more than well that hurting oneself or shedding blood in any way produced something inside the mind that made it feel good. The simple act of imparting a mortal would on one’s skin could bring about the reality that pain did, in fact, exist, and if pain existed in a world where everything seemed wrong and out of focus, you, too, had to exist, despite what was said or done or what floated before your eyes at certain times of the night when you couldn’t go to sleep.
“Should we ask Joseph to come?” Nova frowned, once more shocking Odin from his thoughts. “Do you think he’d be able to help?”
“He can’t help Miko. I don’t think even we can.”
“We got him to stop.”
“That’s because he knows us. Do you think he’ll let a complete stranger come anywhere near him when he’s like this?”
“No,” Nova sighed. “I don’t.”
In the following moments, when it seemed as though everything was raining down upon him in a maelstrom of agony, Odin crossed his arms over his chest and tried desperately to maintain control over his emotions. He would not cry. He could not cry, because to reveal weakness in such a moment would have been to abandon his duties as a caretaker when at that point in time it seemed completely necessary.
It wasn’t until several moments later, when he wrapped his arms around Nova, that the darkness began to dissipate.
“I’ll be ok,” Odin whispered, setting his face in Nova’s stubbly neck. “We’re here for him… and each other.”
“I know,” Nova sighed. “That’s all we can do, right? Be there for him.”
Odin nodded.
He thought he felt a tear slide down his collarbone when Nova chose to set his face in his neck.
After they came inside, they decided that it would be best if one of them stayed close to Miko at all times. A heavy change in schedule, both physically and emotionally, would be required, but until they knew for sure that the Elf would not harm himself, they had to keep close tabs on his whereabouts and actions.
The following morning, Odin roused his knight master from sleep and undid his bandages. Bloody, but not completely soaked, he set them in a nearby pile, all the more wary of the possibility that placing the blood in an open orifice could make him immortal.
He said if someone drank it.
Then again, blood could go through places other than the mouth—the eyes, the nose, wounds, sores.
Really, though—was he that afraid of being truly immortal? How could he be, especially after the revelation that the blood traveling through his veins was deluded with the essence of immortals?
“Odin,” Miko muttered.
Odin looked up. “Yes, sir?”
“I can bandage my own arms.”
“I know, but I don’t want you to hurt them on accident.”
Gathering the bandages into his arms, Odin took a roll of the hand-sewn fabric and unraveled it, cutting a piece of cloth only when he deemed the length necessary and suitable. Afterward, he applied medical gauze that had been included in their supplies to the bandages’ lengths, then started wrapping Miko left, and worse, arm.
“If you need anything,” Odin said, raising his head from his progress to look the Elf in the eyes, “tell me, ok?”
“All right.”
“I’m serious. You… you need to rest.”
He thought about adding both physically and emotionally, but figured it might cause more harm than good.
While he continued to bandage the Elf’s strong but torn arms, Odin examined his master’s facial structure and how, when depressed, the beauty seemed to disappear. His skin, usually vibrant and pearl white, now seemed dull and grey—ashen, like the remnants of a fire that had destroyed a loving home. His cheeks were hollow, the cleft in his chin more prominent, his nose harsh and ugly. Even the grand purple that made his eyes sparkle had deemed and now resembled nothing more than two black, empty wells—places where, Odin knew, the dark things lay, endlessly tormenting the one creature who could not choose just what it was that haunted him.
Is this what happens to Elves when they’re upset? he wondered. Do they lose their beauty?
He could ask, but he didn’t think it would do any good. Maybe a book from a library or personal collection could help him. Even a mage might be able to answer his question.
Or I could ask Icklard and Domnin.
The thought of speaking to them hadn’t crossed his mind until just then. If he did end up getting in contact with them, he’d have to wait until Miko fell asleep.
“There,” Odin said, setting a hand on the Elf’s shoulders after he finished bandaging his arms. “Better?”
“They sting.”
“They’re supposed to, sir. It’ll help.”
“I…” Miko stopped. He turned his handsome face up. A bird, desperate to escape its cage, lay in his expression—his eyes its wings, his cheeks its body, its tail the oh-so-prominent cleft of his chin. Above all, and most frightening, were its cries, made of eyes that so desperately wished to speak pain, but couldn’t. “Yes,” Miko then said, slowly and deliberately, as if unsure of his words, “I… suppose they are.”
“Sir—” The knot in Odin’s chest tightened, constricting his lungs. For a brief moment he found himself unable to breathe until Miko made the slightest movements. Of anything the Elf could do, he blinked, eyelashes meeting in a brief embrace before the dull, black purple came back.
“Yes, Odin?”
“I’m… I’m worried about you.”
“Of course you are,” the Elf said, a smirk somehow managing to lighten his face. “Your empathetic heart yearns to ease the restless soul of a creature you will never understand.”
“I’m trying to understand. Can’t you see?”
“I understand that perfectly well, but maybe you should acknowledge the fact that I am hundreds of years older than you will most likely ever be, then consider that you will never completely understand me.
“But at least I’m trying.”
A grand tremor started in Odin’s chest, forced its way down his arms, then made his fingers twitch. He managed to contain it, for the most part, but it was still more than obvious his mind waged a battle with his body, trying to overtake even the simplest task of resting on his knees.
“Odin,” Miko said, the smirk disappearing and his eyes gaining the slightest clarity. “Please… don’t fear for me.”
“But I do!” he cried. “I do fear for you. You tried to… to—”
“I didn’t.”
“What were you doing then? Why were you tearing your arms about?”
“I wasn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me! I know how much pain you’re going through! I mean… I only know bits and pieces, but… I know more than anyone else does.”
“Odin, don’t—”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you. If you died… I’m not sure what I’d do.” Tears, slick and wet, trailed down his face, sliding across his cheekbones and kissing the curves of his lips.
“Don’t cry, Odin.”
“I can’t help it, sir. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Miko reached out and set his hands on Odin’s shoulders.
“Nothing will happen to me,” Miko said. “I promise.”
Odin looked up.
For that brief moment that he met the Elf’s eyes, he thought he saw the normal spark that made him proud to be not only the Elf’s squire, but his friend and confidant.
It wasn’t until that breath of time that he realized someone—or, more appropriately, something—had come back.
Miko plagued his thoughts, his dreams, his waking moments, his
beautiful breaths and his terribly agony—he walked the plane of beauty and caressed within his skull the places that held compassion, virtue and integrity. Yes, he would speak, while Odin lay sleeping, as if he would be heard even through the barrier of unconsciousness, I am here. Most often than not, Odin would fall asleep thinking about the Elf only to enter a dream in which he became present. An epiphany, some would have been fit to describe him, were they to see the creature within Odin’s dreams, for shrouded in light and bearing a halo on his head the Elf appeared to be an angel—a deity so spoken of in human lore but with no true recollection on whether or not they existed. In these dreams, he would walk, he would talk, stop, then exhale a breath of air. From his lips would then be born happiness, as when red smoke expelled from the Elf’s mouth and around his body Odin felt as though nothing in the world could go wrong.
The night after he tried to console the creature’s weary soul, Odin had a dream—a dream that, while natural and seemingly-content, both surprised and startled him.
In this dream, so shrouded in light and shadow as it was, they walked along the outskirts of Ornala’s castle ground speaking freely and without hesitation. Miko, without his cloak and in all his glory, walked along the side of the road as if he were without worry of the attention he would draw, and attention he did. Both men, women and even children would stop in place to look at the mighty creature. Their eyes would falter, their mouths would drop, their limbs would tremble—even yapping dogs felt the need to be silent, for it was within his presence that they felt all the more mortal and all the less like Gods.
They don’t know what he is, Odin thought in his dream, turning to watch a group of squires glance at them, then quicken their place. Tht’s why they’re afraid.
Really, though—who could blame them? When faced with something new, a person usually reacted in one of a few ways: he would run, she would scream, the girl would laugh, the little boy cry, the elderly couple would stop and sigh and realize that it was within such a short amount of time that their lives had passed, for they knew when looking upon the creature’s face that this thing was ethereal. When Odin himself had first met his knight master, he’d felt a slew of emotions—awe, terror, unease, excitement. In the end, however, hiow could he expect them to feel the exact same as he did when looking upon something so beautiful, yet strange?
“How does it feel,” Miko began.
Feel, Odin thought, but found his dream self smiling, then saying, “Good.”
“You’ve worked hard to get this far.”
For the first time since the dream had begun, Odin took notice of how much older he looked. His face, hardened and squarer than his previous teenage years, lay framed in a dark beard shadow, which ran along his cheeks, darkened at the chin, then lightened slightly before it curled up onto his lip.
Is this, he thought, what I’ll look like…
When he… what, exactly—became a knight, went back to the castle, returned from a great and grand mission several years down the road?
Does it really matter?
No. It didn’t. The vision, as amazing as it was, only existed in a dream, and would continue as such until the future revealed itself for better or worse.
The two of them continued down the road, but stopped at the end of a path that slanted down to a hill. There, they watched the water of the Ornalan harbor from the docks, eyes mused and mouths pursed with indecision.
“Are you glad to be home?” the Elf asked.
“Yes,” Odin said. “I am.”
Startled from sleep, Odin glanced around the room, wondering where exactly he was. However desperate his heartbeat, how placated his mood and how uneasy his thoughts were, it took but a moment to remember that he lay under the roof of a cottage in Neline—a cottage that, while small, had been supplied by the mayor of the Globe Village, particularly for Miko’s comfort and sanity.
Will we really be here for that long? He thought, sitting up and running a hand with sweaty hair.
Nova leaned against the nearby wall, watching him with calm, amber eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I had a weird dream,” he replied.
“About what?”
“That we hadn’t gone back to the mainland until I was older.”
“How much?”
“I’m… not so sure.”
The concept of age could hardly be explained by physical appearance, let alone by simply looking at someone’s face and gauging the fat in their cheeks or the hollow of their face. Just because he had looked a little older and had beard shadow didn’t mean a thing, as for all he knew that could be on his face tomorrow or even next year.
He said we’d be here a year… so that makes sense.
What didn’t make sense was the time difference that seemed to have been so obviously-present in his dream. If they returned to the mainland when he completed his journey, that would make him eighteen, if not nineteen-years-old. He’d become a squire at sixteen-and-a-half—if all played out well, this would all be over when he was eighteen.
“Ah well,” Nova chuckled. “A dream’s a dream, right?”
“I guess.” Odin turned his head and watched Miko’s back rise and fall with each passing breath. “Has he said anything?”
“No. Why?”
“I was just wondering. I’ve never had a dream like that.”
“You haven’t had dreams about me or him?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just… weird. It felt like I really was at the castle with him.
“Well, like I said, dreams are dreams—you have ‘em or you don’t.”
“I know.” He settled back into bed and drew the blankets tightly around him. “Anyway, I’m going to try and go back to sleep.”
“Sweet dreams,” Nova said.
Sweet dreams they would hopefully be.
Odin sat up with Nova out of boredom and because he couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Miko, who hadn’t said a word since Odin rose from his tangled mess of blankets and pillows, rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, eyes wide and aware.
“Are you all right?” Odin asked, a frown crossing his lips when he took in the Elf’s behavior.
“I’m fine,” Miko said, draping an arm over his brow. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Neither can I.”
A brief smile crested Miko’s fine lips before it disappeared into the pearl canvas of his fine face. He studied the ceiling for several long moments, then sat up and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his naked torso and setting his attention on the door opposite them.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Nova asked.
“I’m feeling much better than I have in quite a while, my friend.”
“Does this mean you’re ok?” Odin asked, wary at the idea that recovery could come in such a short amount of time.
Miko smiled and lifted a hand to push a length of hair behind his long, pointed ears. “It does, Odin. I guess… I guess…”
What? Odin thought, staring at both the creature and at the look in his eyes.
“You guess… what, sir?”
“That I can be myself again.”
In that single moment, when it seemed that the entire world was riding upon the Elf’s shoulders and only his, Miko’s bright features returned. His porcelain skin gleamed in the sullen moonlight, his eyes sparkled despite the darkness, and his smile—arguably the most beautiful thing about him—showed strong and pure.
They say that there comes a time in someone’s life when they think they are about to lose everything. When that time comes, there is only one of two things to do—to give in and die or to fight.
It seemed as though Miko had just won his fight.
Odin couldn’t be happier.
“Sir,” Odin said, drawing his eyes away from the sky to look at his knight master. “You said we were going to be here for a year, right?”
“Yes,” Miko nodded. “That’s right.”
“But where does that leave my other year?”
“Ah.”
Expecting more, Odin stopped, waited, and gently nudged a rock out of the road. Miko set a gloved hand on his shoulder, leaned into his side, then whispered, “It’s a secret.”
“No,” Odin laughed, taking a few steps back and away from his sire. “You’re not doing this to me again.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not waiting weeks to find out where we’re headed once we leave here.”
“What’s the fun in waiting to go somewhere?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
“So,” Odin paused, drawing the word out to gain his master’s attention. “Are you going to tell me?”
“No.” The Elf chuckled and continued walking down the road, only gesturing Odin along when he stood his ground. “Come, Odin.”
“What if I don’t move until you tell me where we’re going?”
“Then you’re going to be standing there for a very long time possibly forever.”
When Miko started walking again, Odin stood his ground, hoping that the Elf would give in and reveal to him their next destination. It wasn’t until the much older being turned the corner that Odin sighed, took a deep breath, and continued following his knight master, knowing the secret would eventually come despite the circumstance.
