It was far from sundown but a blind man could see the world was winding down towards night. The three glowing orbs had burned bright and long but time was not waiting for them, and at this break, Kasoria always thought it hurrying them on. Soon dusk would fall, a hazy twilight that muddled shapes and made the distant invisible. Then night proper, and out here, beyond the eternally-burning braziers of Etzos, that was not something to fool around with.
"Can we go home now?"
The boy still sounded sullen. As if two breaks to digest the "lesson" from his father wasn't enough. Kasoria hadn't seen him let go of that puppy for more than a few bits at a time, and whenever he'd shifted and got to his feet, Martyn had shifted himself. Just a little, but just enough to be noticed. As if he were ready to fling himself at his furry friend and take off with him, if he had to.
He reached out at the two of them... and both seemed to shy away from him. Even Rufus had been marked, now. Indelibly associating the short, bearded human with fear and pain in the face of his friend. Kasoria looked down and sighed.
"I didn't enjoy scaring you. You know that, right? But I had to make sure you understood."
"I understand."
"Don't bloody do that."
"D-Do what?"
"That thing where you just say what the grown up's saying because that's what you think they want to hear and then they'll shut up."
The eleven-arc-old boy looked away for a trill and Kasoria's finger snapped out as he saw a guilty glint light up his eyes. Shortly followed by a very familiar angry frown.
"Ah-ah! Don't get pissy."
"I'm not!"
"Yeah, you are! Know how I know? Because I did the same shite when I was your age!"
"Mum says you're not to swear like that in front of little boys!"
"Well, I... fine."
He let his head fall back against the tree he was leaning on. Looking up into the sky, the suggestions of stars, just starting to array themselves for the night ahead. Alien though it was to him, he loved the skies in the country. Oh, you could see the stars in Etzos, but it was like... looking at a beautiful painting with pig grease over your eyes. You knew it was there, you could make out some details, but you knew there was so much to be seen and this damn shit was buggering it up.
Then you took a few days out in the country, got away from the smoke and lights, wiped the grease away and...
He smiled, and something cold nudged his hand. He looked down and found Rufus there, apparently looking to be friends again. He smiled and petted him behind the ear, that spot he knew all dogs secretly yearned for. After a moment or two, that back leg was kicking like Kasoria had hit a switch, and he looked up-
Martyn was smiling again, and Kasoria felt the vice around his heart loosen a little.
"Your Mum tells me you want to be a soldier. That why you stole the sword? Come on, no. Don't bother lying. You know it don't work."
"I... Yeah," the little boy looked away and focused on tearing up tufts of grass instead. Then he stopped tearing and started stripping the big, long blades, one razor-thin strip at a time. "My mates, Roger and Errol? Their dads are in the army. Corporal and, um, Ser-gent."
"Sar-gent, but close enough."
"I've seen them out before. With their armor and spears and swords. And they tell us stories! Like, when they were out, in the badlands west of us..."
Kasoria listened, but he also took the time to just... enjoy. There was his boy. Not too different from the dog: flip the right switch and watch him go. His sullen grousing was a forgotten thing, discarded in favor or a story, a tale he wanted to rattle off at breakneck speed. The smile spread across the father's face as his son became animated, alive, a whirl of flailing hands and acted out stories. Rising to his feet and stomping through the grass, playing monsters from the badlands and brave, noble soldiers in the same beat, the same breath.
Fates... if only we never lost that fire.
"I thought you wanted to write stories?"
"Well... I mean, I could be a... storytelling soldier." Martyn searched for the words like he was putting together eggs and pig iron: hesitantly and not really believing it himself, but damn it, he was still going to try. "And if I was a soldier-"
"Why did you steal the sword?"
He hated killing the boy's dreams like that, derailing them so utterly, but he needed answers. He needed the facts, the truth, so he could put this right for the boy. Things with the smithy... had not ended well. Calm words and persuasion didn't mean much to a man determined to exact punishment, even if it was on some silly boy. Kasoria had cloaked what he was, though. Maybe that had been the problem. Without his reputation, the sudden, seizing fear his name drew from people, he was just another scruffy shortarse from the South Side. That's all Tony saw.
So now he had to fix that perception. But it was only half the the solution.
"I... So I could be-"
"Soldiers aren't just men with swords, Marty," he said, trying to make this go down a little smoother with the lad's nickname. "That don't make a soldier. Being trained, being in a regiment, obeying orders and protecting the city. That makes you an Etzos soldier."
"Were... Were you one? Before, um, the... the Black Guard?"
Fates, the boy actually leaned closer and whispered the last part of that sentence. As if h were afraid some eavesdropper in the branches was cocking an ear in their direction, or hidden under the grass like an espionage-happy mole. Kasoria stifled a grin and mirrored the movement: better the boy be overly-careful than forget the lesson.
"No. But I knew plenty of them. Still do. And they're more than swords and armor and marching around, son."
Martyn was quiet for a long time. Long enough for the shadows to lengthen around him. He didn't fidget or fiddle or find some vegetation to torture. He just sat there and watched the town below them, slowly start to dim like the Fates were turning down the lamp oil over the world. He sighed and rubbed his messy mop of brown hair.
"I tried saying sorry to Mister Rael. Mum and me went around, and he wouldn't see us. Called us bad names." Something ancient and nameless growled again in Kasoria. He slapped it a few times and forced himself to listen. "He says... that he'll tell the commander. That means they'll take me away, doesn't it? They'll take me away from Mum and-"
"He won't tell anyone, son. Marty? Listen to me, look at me... that's right... look at me."
Kasoria leaned forward and cupped the boy's chubby cheeks in hands utterly unknown of such tenderness. But from a father, it was a gesture well-received. The boy with the watery eyes sniffed and stared, taking strength from the older human, the elder, the parent, because they always knew what was best to do. Kasoria smiled and wiped a tear away, smearing it across his thumb.
"He won't. I talked with him earlier. He said if it ever happens again, big trouble. But he won't tell the commander."
"I... But how-"
Kasoria's smiled broadened. Showed his teeth, his mirth, a genuine humor that Marty just returned with a childish giggle. Breaks and trials and seasons later, Kasoria marveled at the innocent of children, even one of his own blood. Because he did not see the demons laughing behind the mortal smile of the man. He didn't hear the purring, the growling, the hissing behind the soft snort he gave. He saw only his father smiling, and not the restless yearning his lie barely plastered over.
"I used my words, Martyn," he said, promise and deception at the same time. "Sometimes, that's all you need. The right words."
