Mistakes Were Made (A Pygmalion Fail Book 2)

by Casey Matthews

  “I’m not mocking,” Eliandra said. “I’m only amused.”

  “We get a lot of that in our world.” Dak shook his head. “People wink about ‘homoerotic subtext’ with frat bros and sports bros—like they’re saying, ‘I’m fine with being gay, but those guys are too homophobic to admit they’re gay.’ If you wink like that, no, you’re not fine with it. You’re still leveraging the culture’s fear of gay men to attack any hint of affection in scary masculine subcultures you don’t like. Men shouldn’t have to hide their affections behind dumb rituals, but one reason they do is people still think it’s okay to label any affection between dudes as about sex. Men feel the same feels women do; they’re allowed their outlets.”

  “This sounds more like your hang-up than mine,” Eliandra said.

  “Don’t get me wrong. Plenty of homophobic dudes slapping each other’s asses on the football field. But you know what the best part of being in a truly post-homophobic society’s going to be? The shapes of our relationships can finally stop mattering. I can lick Isaac’s face and no one will assume it automatically means I yearn for him.”

  “Still.” I was eager to change the subject, as Dak had gone on this tear before. “It would solve all our girl problems if we just yearned for each other.”

  “You could always magic yourself into a girl,” Dak said. “Except you’d probably be an ugly one, and you’d spend all your time stalking me.”

  “If anyone here has to be the girl, it’s you. Otherwise it’s too stereotypical, and you hate stereotypes.”

  Dak snorted. “I can’t be a woman. I’d use those powers for evil.”

  Eliandra stared at us. “I have the sense you’ve discussed this.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Do girls not talk about whether they’d bone each other if they were gay?”

  “They probably don’t talk about anything fun,” Dak said.

  Eliandra smirked. “I don’t have to talk about sex. If I want it, I just do it.”

  They traded barbs awhile, and I sensed the intensity between Eliandra and Dak. I had no desire to third-wheel a conversation between my best friend and his latest love/hate interest, so I stood and brushed off my pants about the time he started trying to explain yaoi to the Queen. “I’m going to bed down. Wake me if Ronin catches a cheeseburger somehow.”

  I left Dak, who cleared his throat and began: “Sometimes when a cartoon man and another cartoon man both love each other very, very much…”

  I sprawled on a patch of soft ground, and it would have been heaven if not for the cool damp in the air. The spot overlooked a distant pedestal being struck by a misting waterfall, which tumbled over the pedestal’s lip and into the dark pit. Its hiss was precisely the sort of white noise that lulled me to sleep.

  I woke warmer than before, covered in a heavy cloak. It was the color of shadows, and I realized it belonged to Ronin.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, glancing up at her.

  She was seated on a rock, staring off at the waterfall. “I don’t need you taking ill.”

  “Any luck on food?”

  “None.” She stood and walked away.

  Just when I’d managed to ignore the gaping hollow in my center long enough to drift off again, Dak flopped onto the moss beside me, stretching out. “How you holding up?”

  “Tired. Just looking at the waterfall. I put hidden treasure on that pillar.” I pointed at the spot. “Want to climb out and get it?”

  “Is the loot a sandwich?”

  “Nah. Magic dagger and a pile of gold.”

  “Not even a trail ration?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not worth it.”

  I smiled tiredly. “Not at all.”

  Dak scratched his chin. “I wonder if any Dungeons & Dragons characters ever wished the loot was a sandwich.”

  “We were terrible role players all along.”

  It was quiet for a while until Dak came out with what bothered him. “I can’t figure out whether I want to yell at Eliandra or ask her to go steady.”

  “You have that problem a lot.” I turned my back to indicate I wanted sleep.

  Naturally, he pressed on. “Ronin’s into you, by the way.”

  “What? No she isn’t.” I shifted back to face him. “You think so?”

  “She completely is. I pulled it from Eliandra. We both came to the conclusion Ronin’s into cute, funny, nonthreatening guys. Which is your wheelhouse, through and fucking through. Eliandra even said she loves the ruffled, dusty-blond look.”

  “How would Eliandra know what Ronin likes?” Eliandra had fooled me before. “Do you think they paint each others’ nails and chat about their perfect guy? She’s playing you.”

  “Either way, for your own good and for Ronin’s, you can’t get with her.”

  “Wait, wait.” I frowned. “You’re going to tell me what’s a healthy interaction with the opposite sex? The only women you like are the ones who hate you.”

  He shrugged. “You draw all these… Whedonesque, badass female warriors. They show up again and again in your stories, in your games. Ronin’s just that in purer form. Don’t you see? She’s the distillation of all your fanboy boners into one archetypal, blade-wielding dominatrix—and she so happens to have it for you bad. You made her with your dick, and you made her like you.”

  “That is not fair.”

  “You didn’t do it on purpose. But you did, and that makes her your creation. If you ever did anything with her, it’d be… well. Wrong. Like, ‘builds a sex robot but makes her alive and then uses her anyway’ wrong. Like, ‘it took a man to make you a real person and now I get to have sex with you’ wrong.”

  I groaned. “I don’t even think she’s my type,” I lied.

  “You would set yourself on fire for the opportunity to brush her hair.”

  “Not a big fire.”

  He eyed me, as if to say, I don’t believe you.

  “Fine, I’d do time in the burn ward.” I felt a gaping sense of loss. Why? Hope, I realized, had grown unasked-for, like dandelions from the cracks of a sidewalk. Now Dak had uprooted that bright patch of color, and I sort of missed the little weed. “What about Eliandra?” I grinned. “I’m still in competition for her, right?”

  My friend barked a laugh. “She is hilariously unlike any character you’ve ever drawn. She’s arrogant, immature, doesn’t like either one of us on any level, and plus she’s kind of racist.”

  “But smoking hot.”

  “Her looks may be contributing to climate change. But she’s also turned out the opposite of how you meant her to. So while it’s not creepy if you got with her, you should avoid her for… completely different reasons.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “For ‘my best friend would be jealous’ reasons?”

  He laughed again, leaning back. “For safety reasons. That girl is dangerous.”

  We both lay there and I nearly drifted into the sounds of the falls and the faint Ronin scent on the cloak wrapped around me. Dak muttered, “I know you’re mad I came. I had to.”

  “I just don’t want you to die,” I said.

  “You know you’re my only friend, right?”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It’s mostly true. I’ve known you since I can remember things. You’ve always been there. And I don’t want you doing dangerous quests alone. We came up together, and if that’s the way it’s got to be, we’ll go into the ground together.”

  “I love you too, Dak.”

  “You know it.”

  Slumber folded me in its quiet wings.

  ***

  I woke before I was prepared to open my eyes and say hello to the painful reality of no breakfast. For a time, I had the sense of hushed conversations and movement while I dozed. I was the last one up, since two in our party rarely slept and Dak had always functioned smoothly on less than five hours a night.

  It was strange to rouse in the twilight of the cavern. I shivered, though not from the cold—the last sunlight I’d seen
was two days ago; I’d eaten nothing but a mouthful of hardtack in forty-eight hours.

  Water boiled nearby and I stumbled through mushroom stalks for the fire. A rooty, earthen aroma drifted from the hissing pot that had been part of Eliandra’s hiking gear. I confirmed they were boiling mushrooms. “Food?” I asked desperately.

  “Poison.” Ronin stirred the pot.

  My face fell. “Maybe it’s not poisonous to humans.” I was ready to test my luck.

  Dak set his hand on my shoulder. “No, man. Just no.”

  “How is your head?” Ronin asked.

  “Splitting in half, but I can think straight. Only about food, granted, but straight. Can I please draw something now?”

  Ronin scowled into the smoky pot. “If you must. You’ve probably mended enough. But keep it small. Nothing you might lose control of.”

  My spirit sang. “I hardly ever lose control over food. Except that one time with the oatmeal, but that was a fluke.”

  Drinking collected water from a bowl only sharpened my hunger, so I set to work. My pencil fumbled from my obstinate fingers twice, so I wound up kneeling, bracing my elbow to a flat rock while I sketched. The light was poor; had I been thinking, I’d have started with a candle.

  Instead, I drew a roasted turkey, a basket of bread loaves, and a bowl of shiny golden apples. My mouth watered as I added aromatic steam lines over the turkey. I penciled another roll beside the basket, broken in half to reveal hard crust and fluffy crumb, completing the vision with more steam lines above the toasty roll. My stomach made a sound like a guttering sink drain.

  Dak leered over my shoulder, whimpering.

  Soon, I’d drawn a crowd.

  “You can’t do this faster?” asked the Queen. “You’ve been at it for an hour.”

  As was common, I’d lost track of time working on the illustration. The detail was fine-grained, right down to the glaze on the turkey. “I think it’s good. Let me just add some shadows and—”

  “Isaac.” Dak snapped his fingers to draw my attention and stared me down. “Summon that bird or I’m eating the elf.”

  “Fine.”

  I went to exhale, but Ronin stopped me by presenting her palm. “Wait.”

  Eliandra groaned and Dak threw his hands in the air.

  “Try a cloned pull.”

  I blinked at Ronin. “A what?”

  “Exhale on the back of the page instead of the front. Your drawing remains intact, so you can pull it a second time later.”

  “But you told me never to copy things, or it would steal my power.”

  “If you draw by rote, it will. But you aren’t redrawing; you’re using the same drawing to produce duplicates. As long as you’re not summoning anything powerful, there won’t be side effects.”

  “This ‘side effects’ part concerns me.”

  “As well it should.” She motioned to the drawing. “Magic is chaotic. Your illustrations shape it, but magic wants to mutate. Every cloned pull runs a compounded risk of producing things unexpected. It’s a risk when you clone powerful things, because there’s more magic in them; mundane things like food, less so.”

  “So cantrips and first-level spells only,” said Dak. “We get it.”

  “You really need to write me an owner’s manual,” I said to Ronin. “Anything else you want to teach me?”

  “If you’re tired of summoning things directly on top of your sketchpad, you could try a distance pull.”

  I wanted to be angry, but not getting turkey grease all over my sketchpad sounded wonderful. “How?”

  Ronin shrugged. “Exhale onto your fingertips. Lightly stroke the page and stare at the place you’d like to summon your illustrations. It takes more focus than a direct pull, but it has uses.”

  “Someday you’re going to tell me how you learned all this.” I exhaled onto my fingertips and brushed them on the back of my sketch. Silver lines traced across the blank facing, precisely where my lines were on the opposite side. I stared hard at a toadstool that served as our table and, true to form, the food popped flawlessly from thin air on that spot.

  A savory poultry aroma flooded the cavern. Juices from the roasted bird gathered in the wooden platter it rested on and I tentatively flicked one of the rolls with my fingertip to confirm it was real. It made a hollow thunk and a jagged fissure on the crust broke open, releasing a plume of sweet vapor.

  Eliandra, Dak and I all reached for the bread at once. My teeth sank into the crust, which gave off a crackling snap before the chewy insides melted on my tongue. I swallowed and at the sensation of substantial food hitting my stomach, something just short of an orgasm popped off inside my brain. From the sound Eliandra made, there was no “just short” about it. She’d have made me blush if I weren’t ripping off a turkey leg and sinking my teeth into the crisp, glazed surface. Oof. If I can draw turkey this juicy, I’m never cooking again. The meat fell apart and mingled with the rich sweetness of caramelized skin. I wished I’d drawn napkins, because the drippings ran down my chin.

  I think Dak cried.

  We skeletalized the bird before I noticed two key facts. First, Dak could now easily wolf down half a turkey—I wished that were atypical of him as a human, but the difference was that his orcish body didn’t need to be rolled onto its side after and given a fistful of Tums.

  Second, Ronin never touched the food except for a single apple, which she polished on her sleeve, considered like an afterthought, and then cut off one sliver at a time with a sharp knife. She showed no more interest in food than eating those slices, even though I’d never seen her eat before.

  Post-gorging, Dak begged me for a roll of my fantasy toilet paper and wandered off while Eliandra lazed against her toadstool by the fire. I settled with my sketchpad on my lap and worked on weapons for Dak. The group seemed to assume we’d relax and digest before taking on the Mirror Room. Always wait an hour before swimming and dungeoning, I guess.

  When Dak returned, he commenced his usual over-the-shoulder commentary: “No, the sword should be longer. I want a crossguard. Don’t bother putting razors on the shield’s rim, either; I want to bounce it like Captain America.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I get bonuses for bouncing.”

  “You shouldn’t be allowed near rulebooks.”

  “Make them both magical.”

  I sighed. “Like how?”

  “The shield should be unbreakable and absorb energy, but not when I attack with it—since I want it to damage people or bounce it off stuff. Like—”

  “Captain America. Right.” I rolled my eyes and started by drawing a literal Captain America shield, which was the easiest way I knew to ingrain comic-book physics into the object. I made gradual adjustments to its size and aesthetic, shading it obsidian and giving it rivets. I hoped beginning with the design and then altering it gradually would capture the spirit of what Dak wanted. To be certain, I added a few cartoons demonstrating its effects. “I dub this Not-Captain-America’s-Shield. Now, what about the sword?” I checked my magical-power meter, which hadn’t been replenishing much given the lack of true rest. “Keep it basic.”

  “Not sure.”

  “I’ve got an idea.” I sketched Dak’s sword and connected its hilt with an iPod via dotted line.

  “You doing what I think you’re doing?” he asked. Since the car accident, I’d forgotten about the little foot-shuffling dance my best friend always did when he was excited. It had never gone away. Dak the giant orc was bouncing happily foot to foot.

  I didn’t want to risk a cloned pull, but I practiced my distance pulls again. Silver lines zinged and the image of Dak’s weaponry faded from the page just as they sparked into existence where I stared at his feet. The shield was a lustrous-black, riveted disk, but the way Dak hefted Not-Captain-America’s-Shield onto his forearm, I sensed it weighed almost nothing. He raised the sword, which was long and subtly curved at the very end. Part of the reverse side of the blade was wickedly serrated and it had the
same obsidian color as his shield. When he lifted it overhead, a cue from Zelda: Ocarina of Time played to signify the acquisition of a new item.

  “A singing sword,” Dak said. “I’m in love.”

  Ronin set her face into one hand and shook her head. “What a waste of power.”

  “Sword,” Dak requested, “play me soft, romantic music. Because I’m in love with you.”

  The opening bars to “Take My Breath Away” filled the air.

  “If anyone needs me, iSword and I will be making love over yonder. Or maybe war. We haven’t decided. While I’m gone, Isaac, you might want to draw me a sheath and—I dunno—pants? The loincloth gets old.”

  When the ’80s crooning of Berlin faded through the mushroom forest, Ronin gave me a firm look. “You should stop now. You’ll run down your power.”

  “Or he could stop after he draws the orc pants,” Eliandra muttered.

  Ronin glared.

  The elf queen shrugged. “All in favor of clothing the orc, by show of hands?”

  She and I both lifted our hands and Ronin sighed. “Very well. Clothes. A sheath. But then no more.”

  “The Mirror Room could be a huge fight, though,” I said.

  “Always keep some power in reserve. We may need the flexibility.” Her tone was severe but instructional, so I just nodded.

  I couldn’t help armoring Dak a little. I plated his chest, forearms, and shins, but otherwise left him his mobility. I kept the armor mundane and was left with maybe ten percent on my mana-meter, which I assumed would only get me a medium-small summoning.

  Dak returned from chopping down the entire mushroom forest to the tune of a frenzied Mario Brothers medley and immediately donned his armor, which he approved of. We finally turned our attention to the remainder of the Pit of Souls.

  We leaped into a water bubble below the level of our pedestal and swam the length of the cavern using floating streams connecting the lakes. I floated where possible to reserve strength. All the exercise of the last few days paid off, though, and I made it to the towering Mirror Room entrance without hacking up a lung.