by Simon Archer
“You were one of the greatest--” I started, but Barth cut me off.
“I know, I know,” Barth said with a heavy sigh. “I knew talent when I saw it, even in the most unlikely of places. Like a podunk inn in the middle of the countryside.”
I paused then, letting his words properly go through my ears to my brain because I was sure I hadn’t heard him right. There was no way he was saying what I thought he was saying. That Bartholomew Cantori, arguably the best trainer in the last forty years of the MFL, was complimenting… me?
“I can’t tell if you’re messing with me,” I said wearily. “I mean, you’re obviously Bartholomew Cantori, I can see that, but you can’t possibly mean me. You see talent in me?”
“More than I have in a long while,” Barth admitted. “It’s raw, real raw, but it’s in there.” Barth poked me in the chest.
“There’s no way,” I argued, the doubt from all my previous critics surfacing. “I haven’t ever even been in a ring. I haven’t had any training. That fight back there was the first one I’ve had that wasn’t with a sack of flour since I was a boy.”
“All that may be true, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have talent,” Barth protested. “That you have something special in you that is meant to be in the fight.”
That small, persistent feeling of hope bloomed in my chest. It swelled and forced me to take in a full breath of clean air. I gritted my teeth together to keep the emotions at bay when the rejections weaved their way back in. The truth of what I wasn’t, of what I would never be, took hold and deflated my growing heart.
“It’s impossible,” I said, stating the obvious. “I’m a human. I don’t have magic. They haven’t ever… they won’t ever let me in the ring.”
“That’s what they said about Warpin, now look at him,” Barth said as he flung out his arm as if Warpin were standing right beside the pair of us. “I made him what he is, but he would never be where he is without that something. That same something you have.”
“So, what are you saying?” I posed, feeling foolish. “You want to train me? And then what? I put in all this work just to have them turn me away again? I don’t know if I can do that. That hope would crush me harder than any heavyweight fighter.”
“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” Barth admitted, “but I can give you what you didn’t have before. I can give you a literal fighting chance.”
“What’s in it for you?” I asked. “Elves and city dwellers never struck me as the charitable type.”
“It’s true, we’re not.” Barth swallowed and squared his shoulders before continuing. “The MFL isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. They are too set in their ways and take it from me, you know how long I worked with them. I want to see things shake up a little bit. I think you’re just the one to do that. What do you say, Rico Jacek? Do you want to fight?”
7
“I don’t know,” I answered the elf honestly.
“You don’t know?” Barth repeated my words, incredulity coating his question. “With how you talk about the fight, what the hell is stopping you from taking my offer?”
“The fact that it’s nearly the middle of the night, and I have to get up in the morning,” I replied. “I would like to sleep on it. Think it through.”
Barth narrowed his eyes at me. “You are more in your head than I thought you were. That’ll be trouble for you later on if you don’t learn to break that habit.”
“Where can I find you to let you know my answer?” I asked, ignoring Barth’s assessment of me. “I promise to let you know by tomorrow.”
“Ah, see,” Barth said as he rubbed the back of his neck, “I don’t exactly know where I will be tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?” I wondered, my eyebrows coming together in a look of confusion.
“Well, when I came to the Blue Water Inn, I didn’t know it wasn’t actually an inn…” the elf trailed off.
I nodded in understanding. “Common misconception. So, wait, are you telling me you don’t have anywhere to stay?”
“Well, no,” Barth admitted, “but it wouldn’t be the first time I slept out under the stars. Couldn’t say it’s my favorite thing to do, though.”
A thought struck me as I looked at this vagabond male, the remnants of one of the most influential creatures in a sport I loved. He was legendary, and here he was, standing in front of me with dirty robes with nowhere to go. The whole scenario made my head hurt when I thought about it too hard. The predicament seemed backward and completely unworthy of a prestigious figure like Bartholomew Cantori.
“Stay at my house,” I offered. The words left my mouth before I had a chance to second guess them, but even when I thought them over, I realized it was the right decision. “I have plenty of rooms, you are welcome to one of them.”
“Aw, Rico, I don’t need a hand out like that,” Barth said while shaking his head. “Not of that magnitude. I can just find a comfortable patch of field and hunker down for the evening. Surely, there’s another local place we can meet up in the morning?”
“That’s ridiculous,” I countered. “Not when I have a perfectly acceptable house to share. Come on, I’m not giving you a choice.”
“I can manage,” Barth protested.
I started off down the road, trusting him to follow, but when he didn’t, I turned back to face him. The elf had his arms crossed over himself like a stubborn child.
“I’m sure you can manage,” I said gingerly. “I have no doubt about that. But for tonight, please, come stay at my farmhouse. It would honor me to have you there.”
“Now, that right there is why I won’t come.” Barth pointed directly at me accusingly. “If you’re gonna go and treat me like some king, I’m going to turn right around and head off to the next town. My offer to train you will be gone in a flash.”
I held up my hand hands in surrender. “Alright then, Barth,” I said, using his nickname to emphasize my sincerity. “I won’t do anything of the like, but I’m still inviting you to stay. Think of it as country hospitality, if you have to.”
“Country hospitality,” Barth scoffed.
“You know what,” I relented, “it is your choice Barth, but I’m gonna start walking home to my large farmhouse, to my comfy bed, and you’re more than welcome to follow if you like. It’s up to you.”
I spun on my heel and stuck my hands in my pockets, assuming my normal stance for making the trek back to my farm. I didn’t dare look behind me as I traveled along the road. But a couple of yards down the path, I heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps behind me, the dirt kicking up against other rocks.
Barth jogged up beside me and said, “Did you say farmhouse?”
“I did.”
“You live on a farm?”
“Yes, I do,” I confirmed.
“Like an actual farm?”
“Does that surprise you?” I wondered if the elf was being facetious.
“I’ve never seen a farm before,” Barth admitted with wonder in his voice. There was also a little trepidation too.
“You grew up right near Gabril’s Gym, in the heart of the city,” I recited from the back of his trading card. “It makes sense you never ventured out beyond there. You didn’t really have a need to.”
“Damn, you do know your stuff,” Barth complimented softly. “You’ve gotta stop doing that, though. Please.”
“I promise to try, but it won’t be easy,” I confessed. “The information is just sort of stored in there. If it comes to fighting or the MFL, I absorb it all.”
“I told you,” Barth said as he poked me in the head, “we’ve gotta get you out of your head. Knowledge is good and all, but a lot of fighting is about feeling.”
“I know that, too,” I defended.
“That proves my point,” Barth said exasperatedly. “What were you thinking about when you were fighting those halves?”
“Well, that was different because there were four of them,” I argued, looking over my shoulder at Barth,
who stopped suddenly. “What is it?”
“It’s not different, okay?” Barth said as he stomped up to me. “A fight is a fight. Now, damnit, tell me what you were thinking about?”
“I don’t know… I wasn’t really thinking,” I said, surprising myself with the answer.
“Exactly!” Barth said with a triumphant finger piercing the air. “You were moving, not thinking. Sure, there is strategy involved and practice, but once you step into that ring, you’ve gotta let all of that go. Trust yourself that you know your shit and just hit the opponent.”
“That’s how I’ve always thought it worked,” I assessed, happy to know my vision of how a fight went down was correct.
Unexpectedly, Barth released a mighty groan. “By the end of this, I swear that think, thought, any form of thinking is gonna be erased from your vocabulary.”
“Barth,” I started, trying to reason with the elf. “Thinking is all I’ve ever done with fighting. It’s all I was able to do. Think and watch. When my dad died, I lost the ability to talk about it with anyone, so thinking and watching were all I had.” I kicked a larger pebble on the road. It skittered off into the grass. “I tried to fight. I try all the time, and I do what I can to play it out, but it’s different when you’re on your own. Sometimes, it was less depressing to keep it all inside my head instead of playing out mock fights in the barn.”
“You know when I said you gotta feel the fight,” Barth said, “all this feeling sharing was not what I meant.”
I scoffed and shook my head. “I get it. Elves are not naturally touchy-feely.”
“This elf in particular.” Barth pointed to himself using two thumbs. “At least save it for when we’ve had a few drinks, okay?”
“A few more than the dozen or so you’ve had?” I commented unabashedly.
“Alcohol doesn’t hit elves the same way it does you nonmagical creatures,” Barth countered. At that precise moment, he burped, and the belch penetrated the air with an almost visible noise and stench.
I waved my hand in front of my face. “Walden, Barth. I aim that somewhere else.”
“Sorry,” the elf grunted.
“You really defy all other elf stereotypes,” I stated absently.
Barth didn’t answer verbally. He only offered me a noncommittal shrug. Just then, we crested the hill that led to the edge of my property.
“It’s just a little farther to the farmhouse,” I announced to Barth, “but we’re on my farm, though, in case you care.”
“I thought there would be more animals,” Barth said as he gazed about.
“They’re all down there, mostly sleeping,” I said, pointing further down the hillside to where we could see the barn and the farmhouse.
Barth shielded his eyes from the moonlight, putting a hand to his forehead as if that could help him see better.
“That’s your house?” He asked in awe.
“Yes,” I confirmed. I started the trek down the hill and towards the house, but Barth continued to gaze upon it from the top.
“It’s huge!”
“I guess,” I answered honestly. “There are bigger ones around here if you really want to be impressed.”
“Coming from my former tiny apartment on the twenty-second floor of a skyscraper, I can easily say that I’m impressed,” Barth said. He finally scuttled down the hill to catch up with me.
I never thought of the farmhouse as large. It had about five bedrooms, most of which were empty. My room didn’t technically even count as a bedroom since it was in the attic. One housed all of my parents’ stuff from their room. Once I packed it up, I refused to touch it ever again.
There were two floors, which were impressive in this day and age. The kitchen was probably the most impressive thing about the house, large and spacious. It was my mother’s favorite place to cook the eggs, churn the fresh butter, or bake the bread from the wheat fields.
The barn stood across the way with the little chicken coop next to it. The coop was painted to match the deep maroon barn and was its miniature in every way. Then further into the fields was a second barn that housed the cows, which worked out for when they didn’t want to make the trek across the farm to get back to the main barn.
It was a large operation, and most days, I wondered how my parents ever did it with just the two of them. I remembered that sometimes they would hire help, especially in the fall when it was harvest season. But mostly, it was the two of them, taking care of everything. Now, after they both passed on, it was only me keeping the whole thing running.
When we got close enough, Graham bolted from his slat in the front door and raced towards us. At the sight of him, Barth leaped behind me and shivered. He gripped the back of my shirt and held me close.
“Please tell me you’ve seen a dog before,” I pleaded with an eye roll.
“Seen? Yes,” Barth admitted. “Met? No.”
“Well, Graham is the ideal first dog to meet.” I bent down and slapped my thighs. “Come, boy! Come here!”
Graham immediately approached me and leapt up to put his front paws on my chest. I wrapped him in my arms and knelt down so he wouldn’t have to be uncomfortably up on his hind legs for that long. I ruffled his hair and let him lick my face until Graham’s nose caught the scent of the elf.
The dog paused and cocked his head at Barth. Barth copied Graham’s movements as if that would make him more comfortable with the animal. When Graham took a couple of steps forward, Barth did the same until the two of them were a foot apart.
“Hold out your hand, like this.” I demonstrated for the elf by making my wrist limp and stretching out my arm.
Barth looked at me strangely before doing as he was told. Graham leaned in and appropriately sniffed the elf. Barth twitched a little but stayed in place as Graham examined him. Then, in a sign of approval. Graham nuzzled his head under Barth’s hand.
“He wants you to pet him,” I translated.
It was like I asked Barth to touch a dead body. He awkwardly stroked the top of Graham’s head with the barest of touches. Graham waited patiently for Barth to grow comfortable. Eventually, the elf deepened his pets, his long fingers stroking through the dog’s fur before he added a second hand.
“He’s so soft,” Barth commented more to himself than to me.
“He likes you,” I assured the elf.
“Really?” Barth looked unsure.
I gazed down at Graham’s wide grin and lopsided tongue as he panted happily.
“Really,” I confirmed. “Come on, let’s get us all to bed.”
We approached the house, and I lit a torch in order to show Barth the lay of the land. I let him have his pick of the four available bedrooms that weren’t crowded with the items of my late parents. He selected the largest of them, impressed, I think, by the sheer size of it.
“My whole apartment could fit in this room,” he commented.
Graham made sure to ruffle up the bed for the elf, much to his dismay. The dog hopped onto the blankets and walked around on them, digging his paws into it, and eventually plopped down at the edge.
“Looks like he’s sleeping with you tonight,” I said with a grin.
“Thank you, Rico,” Barth said unexpectedly.
I didn’t quite know what to say to that. It was an unusual moment, to be thanked by someone I’d grown up admiring my entire life. So, I gave him a nod and went to close the door behind me when Barth stopped me with a question.
“What’s your gut telling you?”
“About what?” I asked, stalling. I knew exactly what he was talking about.
“My offer,” he said. “What’s your gut telling you to do?”
“It’s not that simple--” I began, but the elf wouldn’t let me continue.
“Yes, it is!” he interrupted sharply. He shifted to the edge of the bed and gripped the sheets in his fists. “Do you want to fight or not?”
“Yes,” I answered as quickly as I could.
“Then why won’t you just s
ay yes and let me train you?” Barth wondered. “I don’t understand why you would let this pass by.”
“I don’t plan to,” I replied honestly. “I really want to take you up on it, I do. I also know the impossibility of it all. I’d also like to wake up in the morning and be sure that this whole thing isn’t a dream.”
“If that’s what you need,” Barth said, shaking his head. “But if I wake up and you don’t have an answer for me, I’m walking, and my offer is coming with me.”
“I understand,” I said. And I did. He didn’t want to waste his time, and I didn’t intend to either.
I couldn’t exactly explain why I didn’t just say yes. Part of it was fear of being disappointed again. Of having to look Joaquin in the face as he denied me yet another match. I was going to put in all of this work, more than I ever had in my entire life, for what? A mere chance? I needed to make sure that it was worth it.
I was at war with myself all night. There was no sleep to be had. The sun peeked over the horizon a couple of hours after I left Barth. I was still no closer to a decision than I was before, so I decided to get up and start my day. Maybe the monotony of the chores would help me decipher my feelings.
After I pulled on my work boots, which I left by the entrance, I opened the door to find Deity standing on the other side, her hand raised to knock.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, just as surprised by me as I was by her. “Rico! Oh, thank Walden, you’re okay!”
Then, out of nowhere, she leapt into my arms, and I found myself closer to this woman than I had ever hoped to be. My hands didn’t quite know where to go, so I settled them gently on the small of her back. That felt too intimate so then I reached for her shoulders and pulled her back so I could look her in the face.
“Deity,” I said her name, soft and low as my body shivered from her touch. “What are you doing here?”
“Herc told me what happened last night, and I couldn’t believe it,” she said in a rush. “I was worried something had happened to you, especially when he told me that he was never letting you back in the bar again.”
