Chapter 31: 36-37. Severe Weather Warning // Stop Crying

Rorri

 

Paints, brushes, and used palettes littered the kitchen table. Rorri stood before his bargain easel, a strong Snowy buzz brushing his brain, chewing his cheeks and his lips until they were raw. He was so intent on replicating his model to the canvas, everything around him melted away.

Adar was sitting on the floor, propped up on his palm, one leg curled beneath him. His other knee pointed towards the ceiling, defining his glorious calf. He raked his fingers through his cascading raven-black hair, his eyes glimmering. His silver skin twinkled like fine misty rain in the diffuse light, and a single shockingsunray slipped through the fogged window’s cracked glass, tastefully obscuring his genitals.

“Where’d you get all those s-scars, anyway?” Rorri asked, brush between his teeth, as he pressed black pigment into white paint with a palette knife.

“Do you really want to know?” Adar said with a tiny, mischievous smirk. Rorri paused.

“On second thought, m-maybe I’m better off in the dark…”

Adar suppressed a chuckle so as not to disturb his posture, releasing only a small puff of air through his nose. “So,” he said, barely twitching a muscle, “how are things going with your tutor – or should I say girlfriend?”

“Ha!”

An agitated grin darkened Rorri’s face, his next words tumbling out in a rapid staccato.

“You might as well start using her n-name, since absolutely nothing has happened – if she’s trying to come onto me, she’s doing a t-terrible job – goddammit,” he cursed as his hand twitched, smudging the shadow on Adar’s leg. He paused, paintbrush still raised, and inhaled sharply.

“You seem… frustrated,” Adar observed.

“I just wish she’d say s-something, even if it’s,” he continued in a falsetto, “oh, Rorri, you’re just so p-poor and ugly, I hope you don’t think I’m attracted to you.”

“I doubt it’s like that,” Adar said. “Poor, maybe, but your bone structure and symmetry are excellent, and your unusually expressive eyebrows really set you apart from most people. I can’t imagine she thinks you’re ugly, even if you could stand to gain a few pounds.”

Rorri’s face softened. “Thank you,” he said as he returned to the painting. “But w-what am I supposed to do? It’s not as if I can bring it up! I shouldn’t e-even be thinking about it…”

“Hmm…”

Rorri set about correcting the smudge, eyes darting between his subject and the canvas, over and over. After a long while, the glaze in Adar’s eyes cleared.

“Didn’t she buy you fancy clothes or something?”

“She had me f-fitted,” Rorri said. “But that was weeks ago. I haven’t heard anything about it s-since.”

“Well…” Adar tilted his head slightly.

“Stop moving.”

“Sorry.” Adar reversed the tilt. “Well, I imagine when the clothes are ready, she’ll want you to try them on.”

Rorri narrowed his eyes. “Obviously,” he said as he switched the brush out for a finer one. “I dunno why it’s taking s-so long…”

“I’m sure a nobleman’s tailor has no shortage of work,” Adar shrugged.

“Stop moving.”

“Sorry. Anyway, correct me if I’m wrong – when you try on new clothes, you first have to remove the clothes you’re already wearing.”

“What? Of course you’re not w-wrong.”

“Right, so, eventually, you will be in reasonably close proximity to her, without any clothes on – sorry, can we pause for a second?”

“Sure,” Rorri said, lowering his brush. Adar threw his arm back and scratched furiously at a spot between his shoulder blades.

“Oh, god,” he sighed euphorically. “Been sitting on that for a while.”

“I bet.” Rorri waited, lightly bouncing in place, as Adar resumed his pose. “So, w-what were you saying about me being without clothes?”

“I have a question,” Adar interrupted. “If you can do magic now, can’t you just… magic your art to the canvas?”

Rorri gave a heavy sigh. “It d-doesn’t work like that,” he said. “I’d have to use magic paint, or else it would just g-go away when I stop looking at it.” He took a step back, scrutinizing the painting against its model. “Anyway, that would be ch-cheating, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess,” Adar said. “Um, are we almost done? It’s getting chilly in here.”

“I see that,” Rorri snorted.

“Sure you can’t warm me up a bit?”

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“Not while I’m p-painting,” Rorri said. “I can’t focus on that and doing magic at the same time – are you going to f-finish what you were saying earlier?”

“Oh, right. Uh… Well, maybe she’s just waiting to pounce until you’re already nude.”

Rorri scoffed. “Seems a bit… what’s the opposite of subtle…?”

“Crude, maybe?”

“S-something like that.”

“I don’t understand you people at all,” Adar sighed.

Rorri reeled back. “You people? What—”

“Normals.” Adar shook his head in its tiniest possible increments. “Always making things complicated. Why can’t you just be direct? It’s not that hard.”

“It’s – I—” Rorri’s jaw hung open as he grasped for a response. “Look, there’s lots of reasons f-for being subtle, okay? Like…” He took a stiff brush, dipped it into a new color, and furiously swept it about the canvas, filling in much of the background space. “She’s nobility, for god’s s-sake! Do you really think we’d be able to g-get away with flaunting ourselves in public?”

“Probably not, no.”

“Exactly—”

“I still don’t see why you can’t just bring it up to her, though,” he continued. “You know, in secret or whatever.”

Rorri huffed. “You really don’t get it, d-do you? Nobles have rules. Bilge taught me when I first w-went up there – ‘Jus’ act like a nice pet dog’.”

“Why would she want to have sex with a pet dog?” Adar grimaced. “That’s weird, even for me.”

Rorri blinked. The revelation dawned on him. He dropped his brush, sending a spray of paint across the floor.

Adar sighed. “I’m sorry for calling you a ‘normal’,” he said with genuine remorse. “That was uncalled for…”

He looked up, but Rorri was already gone.

“Wot’s wrong wif bein’ normal?” Bilge called as he appeared in the kitchen doorway, clutching a bottle inside of a paper bag. Seeing Adar’s naked form, he stopped dead and turned to flee, but the painting caught his eye.

“’At’s not bad, that,” he grunted with an approving nod.

“Thank you!” Adar said, fluttering his lashes. Bilge winced, then darted to his room, leaving Adar alone and naked in the chilly kitchen.

 

Pak

(Grandmother’s House)

 

I have a little stuffed dog. It’s black and white, with floppy ears, and long, fluffy tail, and buttons for eyes. I have named it “Boog”. I am a child – a very small child – and that is the first sound I know how to make. It’s the only soft thing I know. I hold Boog when I sleep, and we talk every day, babbling, unintelligible conversations. I don’t know how to speak, but Boog understands. In my mind, it understands. I feed it my soup, staining its face. It’s not alive, but I am a very small child, and I believe Boog is hungry, so I feed it. I don’t know any better. It’s my only friend.

 

The door flies open. I hug Boog tight to my chest. Grandmother looms in the doorway. Her skull sucks in her eyes, covered by puffy pink lids, their surfaces shiny and wet, like burns. Her lips form tight wrinkles around her mouth. Her hair skitters down her shoulders, like rats from a nest, all the way to her waist. I hug Boog tighter. She takes three ragged steps towards me. I hide my face in its fur.

“You’re too old for this now,” she says dryly, like her tongue is crumbling to dust.

I don’t know those words, but I know what she wants. She hates Boog. She always has. She snatches it up with her twisted, clawed fingers, and I try to hang on, but my weak little arms cannot compete. I scream and jump and try to snatch it back, but she holds it up high, far out of my reach. I cry. I scream its name. The sound sparks a fire in her eyes, and the fire heats her voice.

“Stop. Crying.”

I fall over, wailing, screaming its name, beating my fists on the floor.

“STOP CRYING.”

I don’t know the words, but I know what she wants. Still, I am a child… I don’t know how to stop.

“SHUT UP!” she screams.

I try so hard to stuff the pain back in, stuff the noise back in, but I can’t. She clenches her fists. Boog’s head nearly pops off. She stomps away and slams the door, shaking the walls…

I wail until I tire, until I fall asleep on the cold, hard floor. When I wake up, my head throbs. My skull sucks in my eyes, covered by puffy pink lids. I still feel the heat behind them, not unlike the heat of burned skin.

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