Chapter Eleven

“Do magic races not require as much sleep, or are you two just…exceptions?” Varus asked after going back and forth from his desk where his writing still waited, to where they still lay going back and forth in their own way, from humming, singing, and practicing their letters, to humming, singing, and drawing crude doodles of the sort no experienced artist would display, but which children were always eager to show off.

‘I tried.’ He thought to himself as he mentally apologized to his characters for leaving the current chapter unfinished.

Sometimes as he looked around, he could swear he saw them lying around and dawdling about his cottage as translucent spirits. “It’s okay, neighbor, it’s just our lives, that’s all.” The hero said as he lay idle on the couch with his feet up and hands folded behind his head like he was ready to take a nap. He was clad in full plate armor and had his sword lying against the wall, his heavy riding boots caked in mud, had he been real, it would have made a frightful mess. His sharp, steel eyes were oddly at ease as he smothered his words with sarcasm like gravy over hot biscuits.

“Yes, just the very fabric of our existence and the fate of our world waiting, it’s no big deal, who cares if you just…never finish, and leave us taking one step forward every decade or two until the paper rots away to nothing!” The hero’s love interest said with a dismissive wave of her hand, standing nearby, clad in a ranger’s light green and black leather armor, a bow on her back, and similarly filthy boots, she hovered over the drawings done by Tuesday and Hannah while keeping her hands firmly on her hips and equal measures of sarcasm to her lover, dripping from her lips.

‘H-H-Hey! Don’t be mean! He’s doing his best!’ The priestess of their group said, clutching her staff, she was clad in the blue robes of her faith and wore a tall pointy blue hat, her blonde hair cascaded down her back, but the blonde strands were broken up by various leaves that were still caught in it from their time in a nearby forest. She wrung her hands around on the spiral wood design while she rebuked her companions, ‘He’s looking after these two! Who cares if it takes a little longer, besides, they’re adorable!’

“Not half bad with the art either.” The heroine added, “I guess it doesn’t matter if you take a little time away, but… not too long! You should at least get us to camp or something so our story is paused where we can take a break!” She raised her voice at the end in a rebuke, but there was no heat behind it.

“Meh, it’s fine.” The hero remarked, raising his hand and giving it a flippant wave without looking in Varus’s direction. “If you have to take a pause though, could you do it during…grown up time, so I have some serious staying power during your break? I mean, we’re based on your old friends, you know, the ones you left behind without checking to see what happened to us after you rose from the dead? How important can we be?” The hero’s casual words stung Varus no small amount, and he recalled his thoughts in the forest, and then muttered under his breath.

“What exactly do you want me to do? I’m an Elder lich, I can’t go wandering into a random town or city and asking questions about what must be at least a centuries old war. The Dark Mother’s shadow might not dislike the undead, but uncontrolled ones are still dangerous and nobody would just let one of those wander around. Look what happened to the skeleton.” Varus retorted, and the priestess answered instantly.

“You c-could… try, I don’t know… so-something. It’s better than nothing. Then you might know how to end our st-story too!” Her stutter added to her charm, and looking at the nonexistent figure’s wide blue eyes so full of emotion and a need to know that he had never properly expressed, and it was the face of one of many lost long before.

“I-I’ll try? I promise.” Varus answered, and then he felt a faint tug on his robe, and the translucent figures of his characters were gone.

He looked down to see Hannah’s wide feline eyes looking up at him. “Yes?” He asked in a small, quiet voice.

“I asked, what story?” Hannah said as if she were repeating herself. Varus’s red eyes and faceless skull showed none of his confusion, but his voice did just that just fine. “What?”

“We told you, ‘yes’.” Tuesday spoke up as she scooted on her knees over to where he stood. “Magic races only need about five hours if we’re not exhausted first. Then Hannah asked if you could tell us a story since that always helps us sleep anyway, and you said, you’d try… but… who were you talking to before that?” Tuesday’s fox ears twitched as if searching for a noise, and her tail bristled a little. “Was it a ghost?”

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“That is… hard to explain.” Varus answered, “I apologize for the distraction. If it will help you sleep, I’ll tell you a story, and tomorrow we can work on more of your reading, if you’re confident in your letters.” He promised, and they let out little ‘Squee!’ noises before scooting even closer to him.

“What kind of story would you like? A fairy tale? A romance? An action or adventure story?” Varus’s voice rose with enthusiasm as his passion ignited.

At his back, he felt the stare of his manuscript and the characters watching him with a mix of annoyance and envy alike.

“Romance!” Hannah shouted and clapped her hands.

At the same instant, Tuesday clapped her hands together and shouted, “Adventure!”

Varus adapted quickly to the contrary wishes of the two small ones and looked briefly over his shoulder at the unfinished pages.

“A romantic adventure, I can do that. Do you mind if it’s a mostly true story?” He asked and grabbing his seat, he set it down in front of them before settling himself upon it.

“Even better.” Tuesday answered with shimmering, eager eyes.

“Then lie down, and I’ll begin.” Varus said and rubbed his hands together as he reordered his thoughts and cast his mind back to the earliest memories of life as a young man.

The pair scrambled into their bedrolls, and Varus looked one by one at the candle lights, and closing thumb and forefinger together, he used his power to snuff them out, until only one dim glow was cast about the room, which he held in his left hand just below his face. The dancing, flickering yellow light was a tiny sun in the darkness of the country cottage, and he began to speak.

“Once upon a time, there was a boy who was like every other boy ever born, in that he believed he was different from them all. Also like every other boy, he had big dreams of being a hero, slaying dragons, winning battles, and gaining immortal fame without so much as mussing his hair. He was not the nicest little boy, being spoiled rotten by his lazy parents, who never told him others were not so different from him. Then one day, he met a girl, who was like every other girl in every way but one.” He said and raised his forefinger in front of the candle light to cast its shadow down over the pair.

“She was different in that she always told the truth, and wouldn’t ever apologize when she did the right thing and other people didn’t like it. She met the boy in the garden of a palace during a grand ball meant for all the little nobles like themselves to make their debuts-”

“And they fell in love?” Hannah interrupted.

“And they ran away together to go on an adventure!” Tuesday contradicted her sister in her guess, and made her interruption just a little bit louder as if they were about to start an argument.

Varus cleared his nonexistent throat, “No. She punched him, really hard.” The Elder Lich made the hand in front of the candle into a fist, and the two little girl’s mouths made a sudden ‘O’ shape as their confusion set in.

“I’ll get to it.” He promised.

Behind his back, he could hear his characters speak as surely as if they were there. “You’d better!”

“She found the young man there in the garden, picking on a smaller boy than himself, telling him, ‘You be the villain! I have to be the hero! Do it, or I’ll make my father make your father make you do it!” Varus’s voice loomed like a menacing storm, and he began to stomp his skeletal feet quietly but steadily on the floor as he went on…

“The girl, Aowin by name, saw the upset young one on the verge of tears, stomped her way over to the one she deemed the bully, and without a word, her fist hit him in the face and knocked him to the ground. He fell, tears in his eyes, he grasped the place she’d struck and shouted what every spoiled brat has ever shouted.

“You hit me?! Do you know who I am?!”

Hannah and Tuesday’s eyes went narrow with dislike for the chosen protagonist, and Tuesday punched her right hand into her left palm to make a meaty ‘slap’ sound. “I hope she hit him again!” She exclaimed with the gesture.

Varus continued through the interruption, “And Aowin said to him, ‘Yes. You’re the villain in his story.’ and pointed to the smaller boy whose eyes were full of tears.”

“Ooooh!” The two girls gasped, and their tails swished about with delight.

“And the spoiled boy, Hero, by name, saw what he had done to someone else as if he’d never seen it for himself, and having seen it for the first time, he did something else he’d never done before. He said, ‘I’m sorry’ to someone else. And they were friends forever after. Now, goodnight.” Varus said and brought his hand up to snuff out the last candle.

“Wait, that can’t be the end!” Hannah protested.

“Yeah! That’s not the end! It can’t be!” Tuesday frowned when she spoke, her hands gripping the dark wolf pelt that was her blanket tight enough that her little fingers turned white.

“It’s not.” Varus replied, a smile in his tone even if it wasn’t on his face, “It’s only the beginning. I will tell you more tomorrow, but only if you go to sleep now.”

“And if we don’t?” Tuesday dared to ask, while Hannah promptly closed her eyes and began to pretend to snore.

“No story for the next three days.” Varus answered.

Tuesday’s eyes promptly mimicked Hannah’s, and she too began to pretend to snore.

Varus snuffed out the candle, plunging the cottage into darkness, and returned to his desk to at least try to progress his novel by another page or two before dawn.