Perspective: Elfina
Date: August 10, 2008
Time: 6:10 AM
Location: St. Jude Orphanage, Outer Rim of the Celestial Kingdom
The first thing I felt was the warmth of his chest rising and falling under my cheek.
It was warm and steady and smelled like dry cedar wood, which was about a million times better than my own bed across the hall. My own room was cold and stupid and had way too much empty space that felt like it was staring at me. Here, squished sideways right up against Kai's ribs with my knees tucked under his blanket, there wasn't any room for anything else at all.
I propped my chin right on his chest and stared into his sleeping face.
His messy black hair looked like he had fought his pillow in the dark and lost completely. He breathed so softly that if you didn't press your cheek right against him, you'd think he was a statue.
Every single morning my chest felt all bubbly and full, like someone was shaking up a bottle of sweet fizzy soda behind my ribs. Whenever he went out to fetch firewood with the bigger boys, my stomach felt sour until he walked back through the gate.
Miss Liora always told us that good girls shared their toys and made lots of friends, but Miss Liora was silly.
I didn't care about toys, and other kids were loud and pulled my hair.
I only wanted Kai.
I reached out and squished his nose with my thumb.
"Wake up, Kai. The sun is already peeking."
Kai didn't jump. He never jumped at anything. His dark blue eyes just slid open, entirely unbothered, staring back up at me with that flat, lazy look he always had.
"Elfie," he said, his voice scratchy from sleep. "You're heavy."
"I'm not heavy! I'm growing!" I puffed my cheeks out and wiggled forward so my whole stomach was squishing him. "Miss Liora said good children grow fast! You're just being lazy!"
"You weigh 21 kilos," he muttered, not even bothering to push me off. He just stared at the wooden rafters above our heads. "If you grow any faster, the bed is going to snap in half, and then we're both sleeping on the floorboards with the cockroaches."
"There aren't any cockroaches in your room."
"There will be if you break the bed."
"Then I'll just sleep on top of you on the floor!" I giggled, grabbing his right hand with both of mine. I yanked it over and clamped it flat against the front of my dress, right over my thumping heart.
"Hear that? That means it's breakfast time! And you're eating with me. Only me. For the whole day!"
Kai let out a small, tired puff of air that tickled my forehead, but he didn't pull his hand back. He just let me hold it until his fingers curled slightly around mine.
He acts grumpy, but he loves it. I know he does. ♡
He sat up, dragging me along like a clingy sack of flour attached to his waist, and swung his bare feet onto the floorboards.
Outside in the courtyard, the iron morning bell gave 3 loud clangs for morning wash.
I smoothed down my pink dress while Kai pulled on his faded grey tunic. As soon as we stepped out into the stone hallway, we ran into Miss Sarah. She was 19, one of the younger caretakers who had just come back to work at the orphanage 2 weeks ago after having a big party in the village.
"Good morning, you two," Miss Sarah said cheerfully, carrying a wicker basket piled high with steaming washcloths.
"Up early, Elfina?"
I didn't answer because my eyes immediately locked onto her hand.
There was a shiny, polished silver ring on her 4th finger, glittering under the hallway lantern.
"Miss Sarah," I blurted out, pointing my finger right at her knuckle. "Why do you keep wearing that shiny thing? Did you find it in the river?"
Miss Sarah laughed, setting her laundry basket down on the wood bench. "No, silly. It's a wedding ring. My husband gave it to me."
"Why?"
"Because we got married," she said, her face turning all soft and pink. "It's a promise that we're going to stay together and take care of each other forever, no matter what happens."
My ears perked up like a rabbit's.
Stay together forever?!
"What if he forgets the promise?" I asked, taking a step closer and furrowing my brows. "Big Tommy promised to give me a strawberry cake 3 weeks ago, and then he ate it behind the well all by himself! Boys lie about promises!"
"Well, that's why you have a wedding," Miss Sarah giggled, leaning down to tap my nose. "At the end of the ceremony, in front of everyone, you seal it with a kiss. It's the most special thing in the whole world. It means you chose each other over everyone else."
My jaw dropped.
A kiss.
You seal the promise with a kiss, and then you stay together forever.
The most special thing in the whole world!!
The very second Miss Sarah picked up her laundry basket and walked down the hall, I spun around on my heel and grabbed Kai by both of his shirt lapels.
I leaned all the way up on my tiptoes, staring right into his eyes.
"Kai. Kiss me right now."
Kai looked down at me. His face didn't move a single muscle.
"No."
"Why not?!" I shrieked, stomping my little shoe against the floorboards. "You heard Miss Sarah! It seals the promise! It means you can never ever leave me!"
"Uhhh, no," Kai said flatly, peeling my fingers off his shirt 1 by 1. "And you have strawberry jam on your chin."
"I wiped it!" I furiously dragged the sleeve of my dress across my mouth, rubbing until my cheek was bright red. "Look! All gone! Come on, Kai! Just 1! On my cheek? On my forehead? On my nose?"
"We're going to be late for breakfast," he said, already turning and walking toward the stairs.
"Kai! Stop walking away! I'm serious!" I sprinted after him, throwing my arms around his elbow and hanging all my weight off his arm. "You're the meanest boy in the entire world! But I'm gonna make you do it anyway! Just wait and see!"
He didn't say anything back, but as we reached the bottom of the stairwell, I saw the tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth.
He's holding back a smile. I saw it! He totally wants to!
*
The dining hall was loud and smelled like boiled grass.
About 40 children were crammed along the long wooden benches, clattering their spoons against empty wooden bowls. When we reached our usual table, a little girl named Liddy was just about to sit down in the empty spot right next to Kai.
I charged forward like an angry bull and shoved my hip straight into her side, bumping her right off the bench with zero shame.
"Taken!" I announced, puffing my chest out. "Go sit by Tommy!"
Liddy whimpered and scurried 3 seats down. I slid onto the bench, planted my elbows firmly on the wood, and made sure my shoulder was glued directly against Kai's.
On our trenchers sat a scoop of steamed coarse barley, a spoonful of yellow lentil mash, and 3 greyish slices of boiled turnip.
I picked up my wooden spoon, poked a turnip slice, and let out the most tragic groan in human history.
"Where is the chicken?!" I complained, slumping forward until my forehead almost hit the grain. "Kai! It's the evil grass again! Why do they keep feeding us wet grass?!"
"It's a turnip," Kai said, calmly using his spoon to mix his lentils into the barley. "It grew in the ground, not a swamp."
"It tastes weird.... :("
"Then swallow it without chewing."
"No! You eat it!"
A brilliant, wonderful idea struck my brain. I scooped up a huge mound of the yellow lentil mush, blew on it twice until it stopped steaming, and thrust the spoon directly against his lips.
"Say ahhh!"
Kai pulled his head back 2 inches, staring at the spoon like it was a live frog. "Elfie, God gave me two hands and I am happy with it."
"Say ahhh right now!" I leaned across the table, bouncing on my knees. "If you don't eat from my spoon, I'm not eating a single bite of the grass! I'll starve, and it'll be your fault!"
Across the bench, Veyren and 2 older boys were staring at us. Veyren scoffed loudly, rolling his eyes and muttering about babies who couldn't even eat their own food.
I didn't care about Veyren. Veyren was annoying and got mad every time he lost at games.
Kai stared at the spoon, then at my face. He knew I was 100% stubborn enough to sit there and starve just to make him feel guilty. With a long, silent sigh of defeat, he opened his mouth.
I shoved the spoon right in.
"Chew! Chew! Chew!" I cheered, clapping my hands.
While he was chewing, I reached up with both hands and firmly patted the top of his messy black hair, beaming the biggest smile I had. "Good boy, Kai~ Eat slowly!"
Kai swallowed, gave me a look of pure deadpan misery, and picked up his cup of water.
"I can't believe you're still set on feeding me breakfast daily. Maybe I'll run away when its breakfast time."
"You wouldn't dare! It's my responsibility!"
I giggled so hard my ribs shook. To celebrate my total victory, I lowered my left hand under the edge of the table.
I focused on that funny, warm tingling feeling that always lived right behind my heart.
Swish.
A tiny, playful gust of air swirled up around my fingertips, catching a loose grain of barley off the wood. It floated up into the air, spinning in a little lazy circle, accompanied by 3 microscopic pink sparks of celestial light that flickered like tiny fireflies. ☆
"Look, Kai! Look what I can do!" I whispered, tugging his sleeve urgently. "I made it dance! When I get bigger, I'm gonna lift a whole orphanage into the sky!"
Kai looked down at the floating grain. His eyes watched the tiny pink sparks for a second, then he reached out with his thumb and pressed the grain flat against the table, snuffling out the light before anyone else noticed.
"Keep it under the table," he murmured softly. "If Sister Clara sees sparks, she'll think the lantern oil leaked."
"Did you like it though?" I leaned all my weight against his arm, staring straight up into his face with wide, hopeful eyes.
"Was it amazing?"
"It was cool," he said quietly.
HE SAID IT WAS COOLLLL!! ♡♡♡
Before I could demand that he say it 3 more times, Kai set his wooden spoon down. His bowl was already completely clean. He wiped his hands on his trousers and slid off the bench.
"Miss Liora called me," he said. "I have to go to the office."
My face instantly crumpled into a tragic pout. "Already?! But you just got here! You've been gone for 300 years already!"
"I've been sitting next to you for 15 minutes."
"That's basically the same thing!" I grabbed his wrist, squeezing as hard as my little hands could. "You have to come straight back! You promised to read me a story!"
"I'll be back," he said. He reached down and gave the top of my head a quick, clumsy ruffle with his knuckles before turning toward the hallway.
I sat back on the bench, kicking my legs back and forth under the table.
"Hurry back, Kai~" I sang in a silly, bouncy whisper. "Don't talk to Liddy~ don't talk to anyone else~ come right back to Elfie~"
*
As soon as Kai disappeared around the corner, the dining hall got instantly cold and annoying.
The turnips tasted even more like wet dirt without him sitting there. I shoved a bite into my mouth, chewing grumpily, when my ears caught the sound of hushed voices near the serving hatch.
Mother Martha and Sister Clara were huddled over an empty iron kettle, their aprons twisted tight in their hands.
"...only 4 sacks of cracked oats left in the cellar," Mother Martha whispered, her forehead creased with deep, scary lines. "The carter from the eastern road told me the royal patrols took every wagon of grain between here and the capital for the army border camps. 3 supply convoys were turned around or taken. Nothing is coming through the pass."
"What about the secondary levy?" Sister Clara asked, her voice cracking. "Lord Governor promised our relief shipment 3 weeks ago! We have 45 mouths to feed now, Martha! We already had to stop buttering the bread! If the flour runs out—"
"Hush," Martha hissed, glancing nervously over her shoulder at the tables. "Don't say it in front of the kids."
I blinked, chewing my turnip very slowly.
No flour?
No butter on the bread?
I looked across the room toward the corner table.
Sitting there were the 3 new kids who had arrived yesterday in the back of a hay cart. They were wearing dirty burlap sacks tied with rough string, their arms thin as dry sticks.
The smallest boy, who looked about 5, wasn't even using a spoon. He had both of his skinny arms wrapped completely around his wooden bowl like a wild dog guarding a bone. He was shoveling the plain lentil mash into his mouth with his bare, filthy fingers, coughing because he was swallowing too fast, his eyes darting frantically left and right like he was terrified someone was going to jump out and rip the bowl from his hands.
When an older boy walked past him to return a cup, the little boy flinched so hard his whole bowl rattled against the wood.
2 seats down from me, Ren was quietly sliding a hard piece of leftover bread crust into his shirt pocket, hiding it under his arm so the caretakers wouldn't see.
Everyone was watching everyone else's food.
A weird, heavy knot twisted in my tummy.
The little refugee boy was clutching his bowl because he was scared of losing it.
I looked down at my own empty plate, then at the empty bench where Kai had been sitting.
I want Kai back.
I slid off the wooden bench, leaving my spoon behind, and slipped out into the corridor.
*
Perspective: Kaiser Everhart
Date: August 10, 2008
Time: 6:42 AM
Location: Matron Liora's Office
On Thursday afternoon, I officially scored 2.3 out of 20 on our weekly arithmetic exam.
I had spent nearly 10 minutes carefully designing mistakes that looked convincingly stupid. For question 7, which asked for the sum of 5 and 7, I wrote down 3. It was a masterpiece of mathmatical incompetence, perfectly auditioned to keep me positioned dead in the middle of the bottom third of the class, precisely where nobody asks questions.
The problem was that the woman currently staring at me across a mountain of open ledgers knew that 3 days earlier I had restructured her quarterly food budget.
Matron Liora looked like she hadn't slept since July.
Her spectacles hung crookedly off the bridge of her nose, her dark hair was coming loose from its pins, and her knuckles were stained with black ink from trying to balance numbers that refused to balance.
The Celestial Kingdom's central treasury had cut provincial institutional stipends again. Meanwhile, the drought in the western valleys had wrecked the harvest, and the royal army had set up requisition checkpoints along the trade roads to seize grain for the front lines. The money on Liora's ledger was technically there, but in the village market, a sack of flour now cost 3 times what it did in spring.
I walked up to her oak desk and set a heavy linen pouch directly on top of her red-inked page.
Thunk.
The dense, unmistakable ring of heavy silver against hardwood made Liora jump in her chair.
She froze. Her bloodshot eyes dropped to the pouch, then snapped up to my face with that exact expression she had been giving me every 2 weeks since June: a horrific mixture of profound relief, intense suspicion, and the pure, pounding headache of an adult woman realizing she was being managed by an 8-year-old child.
She reached out with shaking fingers, untied the hemp cord, and peeked inside.
Neat, solid, heavy silver coins. Stamped with the seal of northern trading cartels.
Exactly 100 silver.
"Kaiser," she said, her voice dropping into a desperate, furious whisper. She didn't sound amazed. She sounded like she wanted to tear her hair out. "Do not do this to me again. Where did this come from?"
"A donor," I said mildly.
"Don't you dare give me 'a donor'!" Liora hissed, slamming both hands flat onto the desk as she stood up, knocking a dried quill to the floor.
"An adult stonemason in the village works 6 days a week for 4 silver! You brought me 90 silver 2 weeks ago! You brought me 110 before that! Where does an 8-year-old orphan find 100 pieces of imperial trade silver?!"
She rounded the desk, crouching down so her face was level with mine. She grabbed my shoulders—not hurting me, but gripping tight enough that her hands trembled.
"Are you stealing from the town hall? Did you get tangled up with those cutthroats on the south road? Kaiser, listen to me. If the town bailiff searches this cellar and finds a purse of unmarked silver, he won't arrest a child. He'll throw me in the county stockade, revoke our charter, and march 45 children into the workhouses in the valley! You have to tell me!"
I looked back at her. My expression didn't shift.
"The bailiff doesn't search your lockbox, Miss Liora," I said calmly. "He searches your public reports. If you record an emergency cash donation from a traveling merchant guild in the town ledger, the diocese will audit your books and deduct the exact amount from your winter fuel stipend."
Liora blinked, her grip on my shoulders going slack. "What...?"
"Don't record the silver," I said, pointing toward the open book on her desk. "Keep it in the floorboard safe under the linen closet. When you buy supplies, don't use the central market square where the tax collectors sit. Send Master Peter with the mule cart to Tobin's grain depot behind the south gate. Pay in cash at the rear gate. He'll give you wholesale price."
Liora's mouth opened, then closed. She looked at me like I had just started speaking in ancient draconic.
"Tobin...?" she stammered, shaking her head in disbelief. "Tobin is a miser! He threw a bucket of dirty ditch water at a stray dog outside the chapel yesterday! He's selling oats to the military convoys for double the price! Why on earth would Tobin sell grain to us at wholesale?!"
I gave her my best innocent 8-year-old blink. "Maybe he had a change of heart."
"Tobin does not have a heart, Kaiser!" she snapped, pressing both hands against her temples and letting out a long, ragged groan. "He is selfishly greedy!"
"Then he understands money," I said, walking back to the desk and tapping the open column. "Which brings us to breakfast. You cut the morning fat rations again."
Liora's face flushed with defensive guilt. "I had to! The inspector comes on the 1st of the month! If the columns don't match our allocated stores—"
"Starving the children to make the documents look tidy is bad management." I said plainly.
It was a clean warning. I didn't to play games when it came to nutrition.
"If they only eat boiled barley and turnip greens, they lose weight. When the September rains start and the cellar gets damp, the 3 kids coughing in the back room won't have the strength to fight off their lung diseases. Then you'll be spending 10 silver on the apothecary's bitter tea and mustard poultices instead of buying food."
I pushed the pouch of silver an inch closer to her inkwell.
"Use 30 silver at Tobin's for cracked peas and barley. Use 20 silver at the butcher's for salted marrow bones to boil into the soup. Fat keeps their chests warm. If milk is too expensive, get bean curd from the millers. Feed the sick children first, and give the refugees full bowls."
Liora slowly sank back into her wooden chair, staring at the small linen bag like it was a live viper sitting on her paperwork.
She looked at the 100 silver. Enough to cover our food deficit for the next 2 weeks without cutting a single meal. Enough to keep 45 children fed while neighboring orphanages were already turning away refugees and watering down their porridge to translucent broth.
Then she looked back up at me.
Her brow furrowed, her voice dropping into a tired, bewildered mumble.
"You got 2.3 out of 20 on your arithmetic test on Thursday, Kaiser. You told Sister Clara that 7 plus 5 was 3."
I looked back at her with wide, innocent eyes.
"Math is very hard, Miss Liora."
Liora pressed her forehead directly into the open ledger and groaned into the parchment.
"If you say so... authetic fool."
Outside in the corridor, through the frosted glass of the office door, the faint sound of small shoes scuffed against the stone floor, followed by a bright, cheerful humming.
Elfie had finished breakfast. And she was already looking for me.
*
The moment I stepped through the door, 2 small hands clamped around my right elbow like an iron vise.
"Kai!" Elfie beamed, practically vibrating on the balls of her feet. Under her other arm, she was clutching a massive, leather-bound volume—the illustrated chronicle of the early Celestine Kingdom and the 1st Sword Saints, a book so heavy its brass corners dragged against her pink skirt.
"You took 400 years! Miss Liora is the slowest talker in the world! Come on, the sun is hitting the branches already!"
Before I could adjust my sleeve, she was already pulling me down the stone corridor at a full jog, her leather soles slapping against the flagstones.
"You're going to drop that on your toes," I said, letting myself be towed along. "That book weighs 4 kilos."
"I have strong arms!" she declared over her shoulder, tossing her messy pink hair. "And today you promised to read chapter 6 with the scary horror story! You have to do the growl! If you don't do the growl, I'm going to pinch you!"
"I only do the growl if you sit still for more than 5 minutes."
"I can sit still for a whole hour!"
"You can barely sit still without wiggling."
"That was not my fault!" she huffed, shoving the heavy oak side door open with her shoulder and dragging me out into the blinding August glare.
The heat hit us immediately, dry and dusty from weeks without rain, but out in the eastern meadow stood the ancient oak tree. It was the only thing on the orphanage grounds that didn't look tired. Its wide canopy cast a massive puddle of cool, green shadow across the yellowed grass, isolated from the noisy chatter of the older boys playing stick-ball near the wash-lines.
We reached the base of the trunk, and Elfie collapsed dramatically into the shade with a theatrical gasp, dropping the heavy book flat onto the grass with a dull thud.
"We made it," she whispered, throwing her arms wide. "The sun almost melted my ears, Kai."
"It isn't even that hot yet," I said, sitting down cross-legged beside her and pulling the book into my lap.
She immediately wiggled over, pressing her shoulder against mine with zero hesitation, tucking her legs beneath her dress.
Always this close.
If there was an inch of space between us, she treated it like an insult. Miss Liora thought Elfie was simply an unusually clingy child who needed affection after being dumped on the orphanage doorstep as an infant. But watching her tuck herself under my arm, I knew it wasn't generic affection.
She didn't care about the other children. When big boys tried to talk to her, she ignored them completely. When the caretakers offered hugs, she endured them politely and then ran straight back to my room.
She was already way too attached to me.
And the strange, inconvenient truth was that I liked it.
I opened the heavy parchment pages to the colored ink illustration of the 3rd Sword Saint standing atop a shattered fortress wall. Elfie leaned her head sideways, resting it directly on my right shoulder. Her hair smelled like lavender laundry soap and dry grass.
"It was a stormy night," I began, dropping my pitch slightly into the dry, steady cadence she liked, "Sam wilson went out at 2 am to buy chicken eggs. He was in dire need because he was hungry. He had made chicken biryani with his last chicken today."
"Huh?! Why at 2 am Kai?" she whispered, staring wide-eyed at the painted ink.
"Sam wilson was a determined strategist," I replied. "He even went out with raincoat predicting the rain using his past knowledge."
"Smart! Though why are your stories always starting with stormy nights?" she giggled softly, her eyelids already fluttering under the drowsy warmth of the afternoon breeze. "I'm gonna practice with you later... I'm gonna make it rain later..."
"Sleep, Elfie."
"I'm not sleepy..." she mumbled, her voice trailing off into a slow, rhythmic puff against my collar. "I'm just... resting my eyelashes..."
Within 45 minutes, her breathing leveled out into the heavy, motionless rhythm of deep sleep.
I stopped reading. The quiet of the meadow settled around us, broken only by the distant, muted shouts of children across the yard and the dry rustle of oak leaves overhead.
Carefully, so I wouldn't wake her, I slid my right arm out from behind her back, took her shoulders, and eased her head down from my collarbone until it rested squarely in my lap.
Elfie shifted instinctively in her sleep, burying her cheek into my trousers. Her little hands reached up, grabbing a fistful of the rough canvas over my left knee, anchoring herself as if she was afraid I'd vanish the second she let go.
"Kai..." she murmured into the fabric, her lips twitching in a tiny, unconscious pout.
"Kiss..."
I looked down at her.
She was still dreaming about Miss Sarah's silver ring. In her 7-year-old mind, a kiss was not a physical act of romance; it was an absolute, magical lock. A cosmic contract that guaranteed permanence.
Which, theoretically speaking, was complete nonsense.
Adults kissed, exchanged gold bands before priests, swore eternal devotion, and then abandoned each other the moment arguments raised or a younger partner appeared. Miss Sarah believed her wedding vows were unbreakable because her marriage was 14 days old. In 5 years, if her husband took a soldier's commission or the drought forced him south to find work, that silver ring would buy bread at Tobin's depot just like any other metal.
Humans were biologically driven by shifting utility.
And that was the flaw in the picture.
Elfie was 7.
Right now, her entire world was this tree, a bowl of turnips, and the sound of my voice reading about the great sam wilson. She crawled into my bed at 4:00 AM because I was the only person who never lied to her, never made sudden loud noises, and made her feel safe.
2 months ago, in June, when I wanted to kill myself because of the sheer failure to bring back cartethyia using magic, she had been the one to grab my wrist with her muddy little hands. She hadn't said anything profound. She had just cried, dragged me away from the ledge, and demanded I live for myself.
She had given me a reason to stay alive. Not a grand destiny. Not a cosmic duty. Just a daily preference for existence over non-existence.
The 100 silver I handed Liora every 2 weeks wasn't for the orphanage. I didn't care about the 45 children in the dining hall. In 60 years, every single 1 of them would be rotting beneath churchyard grass from old age, cholera, or imperial wars anyway.
Keeping them alive was merely temporary motives.
I kept the orphanage standing because Elfie lived here. Because without food and roof tiles, her world would grow cold, and I liked the quiet order of this world. Whenever I wanted to be alone, she forced her way into my space. Whenever I was busy, she made herself a nuisance.
She occupied my time with an absurd, unwavering certainty, as if living without me was an impossibility.
And I enjoyed it.
Elfie gave me a reason to simulate smiles, to practice human mannerisms, to act like an 8-year-old boy instead of a hollow calculating weapon. Around her, the performance felt less like a chore and more like something genuine.
If humans grew up and followed their biological cycle of choosing a companion to build a life with, I honestly preferred her over anyone else. She was peaceful. She didn't require elaborate facades.
She was the something I wanted to keep permanently.
Will she still choose me at 12?
My mind ran the developmental trajectory with clinical, brutal clarity.
At 12, puberty would begin altering her brain chemistry. She would become aware of social hierarchies and how other people perceived her.
At 15, the provincial society would introduce peer groups. Talented young nobles. Handsome magic prodigies who could summon lightning and carry royal family crests. People who possessed wealth, social status, and charm.
At 20, identity solidifies. People discover new ambitions. They get manipulated by politics. They outgrow childhood attachments. They realize the boy they shared porridge with at 7 was just a magicless orphan who scored 2.3 on basic sums.
Simple maturation was a solvent that dissolved childhood promises.
I didn't care about the uncertainty of war. If the royal army advanced, I could set death traps on their march routes. If grain failed, I could exploit the merchant cartels.
Those were deterministic problems with physical constraints.
But Elfie?
If she grew up, looked at me with adult eyes, and decided I was no longer her priority... what then?
If she found another purpose, walked away, and chose someone else... would I even be able to continue simulating human emotions without her? Or would the mask fall off, leaving me right back at suicidal thoughts?
I reached down, resting my palm lightly against the crown of her head, my fingers gently brushing through the soft pink strands of her hair.
She shifted against my knee, a faint smile touching her lips, muttering softly in her sleep: "Kai... kiss..."
She's dreaming about me.
I looked up through the thick green canopy toward the pale blue sky.
I didn't need her to remain 7 forever. That was impossible, and I had no interest in owning a doll. What I needed was her choice. I needed the 15-year-old Elfie, and the 20-year-old Elfina, to look at the entire world and still choose to stay beside me.
Uncertainty was a flaw in the system. And flaws were meant to be eliminated.
I needed to know how deep this attachment actually went. And to find out, I needed information.
Perspective: Elfina
Date: August 11–16, 2008
Location: St. Jude Orphanage
Something broke on Monday morning.
It didn't break like a clay cup dropping on the kitchen floor with a loud smash. It was much worse than that. It was like waking up and realizing the air in the room had turned cold, but nobody else noticed except me.
The 1st thing I noticed was his hands.
Normally, the second we stepped onto the porch after the morning wash, I would reach out and grab his right wrist, and his fingers would automatically curl around mine. He never said anything sweet about it, but he always held on.
On Monday morning, August 11, I skipped down the front steps, reaching my hand out for his—and my fingers hit empty air.
Kai was already holding a heavy wooden bucket of well-water in his right hand, and another in his left.
"Watch your step, Elfie," he said, walking right past me toward the vegetable garden. "The gravel is loose."
I blinked, standing there with my empty hand hanging in the air.
Oh. He's just carrying water.
That made sense. Water was heavy, and Master Peter was always yelling about watering the cabbages before the noon heat.
So I ran after him, jogging sideways so I could look at his face. "Kai! When you finish the cabbages, let's go back to the big tree! We have to finish chapter 6! Sam wilson met badass ruponto in the jungle!"
"I have chores until lunch," he said. He didn't sound mad. He didn't sound mean. He just sounded like he was reading a list of grocery items. "Go help Sister Clara with the beans."
"I don't want to shell beans! Beans are boring!" I pouted, grabbing the hem of his grey tunic. "I'll carry 1 of the buckets with you! Look, I can use a tiny gust of wind under the wood so it feels like a feather!"
"Don't waste your mana on buckets," he said, setting the pails down near the cabbage patch with a dull slosh. He didn't look at my face; he was already checking the dry dirt around the roots. "Go inside, Elfie."
He didn't call me annoying. He didn't threaten to feed me raw cabbage. He just... turned around and started scooping water with a wooden gourd.
My chest felt all weird and prickly. Like when you swallow a dry bread crust too fast and it gets stuck behind your ribs.
By Wednesday, August 13, it was worse.
At breakfast, he wasn't at our bench.
I walked into the dining hall clutching my wooden trencher, my pink eyes scanning every single table, and his spot was totally empty. I panicked so hard I almost dropped my spoon, running up to Miss Sarah near the pantry.
"Where's Kai?! Did he leave?! Did someone take him?!"
"Calm down, sweetie," Miss Sarah laughed, wiping flour off her apron. "Kaiser ate early with the older boys at 5:30. He offered to help Master Peter chop the dry oak logs behind the shed."
I sprinted out the back door so fast my shoes kicked up gravel.
Sure enough, behind the wood-shed, Kai was there. He had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, holding a small iron hatchet, splitting dried pine logs into kindling with neat, perfectly straight strokes.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
"Kai!" I gasped, skidding to a halt in front of the chopping block. "Why didn't you wake me up?! I had to eat turnip mush all by myself! It tasted like GRASS!"
Kai paused, resting the hatchet blade against the stump. He wiped a streak of sweat from his forehead with his forearm, his blue eyes looking at me with that calm, polite stillness.
"The wood needs to be stacked before the storm clouds roll in tomorrow," he said. "You should go play with Liddy."
Play with Liddy?! >:(
My face went entirely red. "I don't care about Liddy! Liddy picks her nose and talks about flowers! I only play with you!"
I marched straight over to the woodpile, picked up a heavy chunk of pine that was almost as big as my chest, and tried to lift it onto the stack to prove how useful I was.
"Look! I'm helping! See? I'm your helper!"
The log slipped.
Crack.
The heavy edge came down right on the tip of my big toe.
A sharp, horrible jolt of pain shot up my leg. I gasped, hopping backward on 1 foot, my eyes instantly filling with hot, stinging tears. For half a second—just 1 tiny fraction of a second—I saw Kai's hand twitch forward, his fingers opening like he was about to catch me.
But he didn't.
He stayed standing by the chopping block, his arm dropping back to his side.
"You shouldn't carry logs without work boots, Elfie," he said, his voice quiet. "Go to the infirmary and ask for cold water."
I sniffled, biting my lower lip until it almost bled. I didn't want cold water.
I wanted him to pick me up! I wanted him to carry me like he did when I scraped my knee!
"It doesn't even hurt!" I lied loudly, wiping my tears with the back of my dusty hand, blinking furiously. "Look, I can even tell a joke! Kai, listen! Why did sam call himself the symbol of danger?!"
Kai looked at me, his face unmoving. "Why?"
"Because... because sam's duck's name was danger!"
I forced out the loudest giggle I could, bouncing on my good foot, waiting for him to roll his eyes. Waiting for him to tell me it was the stupidest joke he had ever heard and threaten to trade my breakfast for grass.
Instead, he just gave a small, polite nod.
"Very funny, Elfie. Now go wash your foot."
He picked up the hatchet and turned back to the log.
Thwack.
The wood split in half.
I stood there in the dry sawdust, my toe throbbing, but the ache in my foot was nothing compared to the awful, suffocating coldness spreading through my chest.
He didn't laugh. He didn't tease.
He was treating me like... like I was just another kid in the yard. Like I was Liddy. Or Alira.
By Friday night, August 15, I couldn't take it anymore.
The whole day had been miserable. In the afternoon, he had sat on the stone wall reading a heavy economics book, and every time I tried to climb up next to him, he politely made room, but as soon as I leaned against his shoulder, he stood up 2 minutes later to check the rain barrels. When I tried to show him a new trick with my wind magic—making 4 little sparks dance over his shoe—he just told me to save my energy.
At 9:00 PM, after the lanterns in the hallway were snuffed out, I crept down the floorboards in my bare feet.
I didn't knock. I just pushed his bedroom door open, stepping inside with my pink blanket clutched to my chest.
Kai was sitting at his little wooden desk under the pale moonlight, using a small awl to repair a torn leather strap on his satchel.
The moment the hinge creaked, he looked up over his shoulder.
"Elfie," he said, his voice flat in the dim room. "Sister Clara put fresh linen on your bed today. Go sleep in your room."
I froze in the doorway.
My knuckles turned white around my blanket. My chin began to tremble, shaking so hard my teeth clattered against each other.
"Did I do something wrong?"
The words spilled out of me, cracked and desperate, sounding so small they barely reached the desk.
"Was it the strawberry cake? Was it because I nagged you at breakfast on Sunday? Did I squish your chest too hard when I jumped on you? I won't do it anymore! I promise, Kai! I'll be super quiet! I won't use magic inside! I won't touch your ears!"
A fat, hot tear broke over my eyelashes and rolled down my cheek, splashing onto the floorboards.
"Just... please tell me what I did wrong..."
Kai put the awl down on the desk.
He turned in his wooden chair to face me. The moonlight cut across his cheekbones, casting deep, unreadable shadows over his dark blue eyes. He looked at my shaking hands, at my red eyes, at the blanket I was clutching like a shield.
His voice was completely soft. Completely gentle.
"You didn't do anything wrong, Elfie."
I choked on a sob. "Then why are you being like this?!"
"I have work to do," he said simply. "We're getting older. You can't sleep in my room every night."
He stood up, walked across the floorboards, and gently took my shoulder, turning me toward the open doorway. He didn't push me hard. He was careful, almost polite, guiding me out into the empty hallway.
"Get some sleep," he murmured.
Then he closed the door.
Click.
The latch fell into place.
I stood in the dark corridor, staring at the painted wood planks of his door.
If I had broken a plate, I could apologize. If I had gotten plum jam on his shirt, I could scrub it clean. If I had been too loud, I could stay quiet for a week.
But you didn't do anything wrong.
If there was no mistake... then there was nothing to fix.
And if there was nothing to fix, then how was I supposed to make him come back?
Tears poured down my cheeks as I dragged my blanket back to my empty room, curling up in the far corner against the cold wall.
Outside, the crickets sang their endless, lonely songs in the dark.
And for the 1st time since I was 6 years old, I fell asleep crying all by myself.
*
Perspective: Kaiser Everhart
Date: August 15, 2008
Time: 11:45 PM
Location: Deadwood Ravine, Southern Woods
By midnight, the old floorboards of the orphanage had settled into silence.
I unlatched my bedroom window, slid over the sill, and dropped 12 feet into the soft nettles below without making a sound.
The air outside was thin and damp, smelling of rotting pine needles and wet shale. While the rest of the province slept behind bolted shutters to keep out wandering deserters and hungry wolves, I walked south along the dried creek bed, heading straight into the rocky folds of Deadwood Ravine.
About 2 kilometers into the tree-line, the wind died completely.
The crickets stopped.
I stepped into a wide, sunken limestone hollow shadowed by gnarled black oaks. Above, the sliver of a crescent moon cast long, skeletal shadows across the pale dirt.
From behind the boulders, they emerged.
They moved on 2 legs, lanky and tall, standing roughly 4.5 to 5 feet—just slightly taller than an 8-year-old boy. At 1st glance, a distant traveler might mistake them for oversized hares, but up close, nature had abandoned all pretense of gentleness.
Their pale slate-grey fur was patchy and tight over bone. Their long, pointed ears twitched backward like antennae, catching every flutter of an owl's wing. In place of a rabbit's soft snout was a gaunt, skull-like face whose jaw unhinged backward past where a cheek should be, revealing an endless cavern of curved, needle-thin teeth glistening with thick, dark saliva.
Their black eye sockets were dominated by 2 glowing, concentric circles of scarlet red.
And where a normal animal had an abdomen, their skin had parted completely.
In place of a belly was an exposed, wet cage of dark red muscle cords and thick pulsating veins, throbbing openly in the night air.
The local hunting guilds had no official classification for them, so I called them what their morphology dictated: Rabbit Predators.
They were pack hunters. Sadistic, territorial, and remarkably intelligent. When hunting alone, they were frail, but in a swarm, their preferred tactic was horror: they severed a victim's Achilles tendons, collapsed their lungs with claw strikes, and tore strips of flesh from their limbs while the prey was still breathing.
4 months ago, this ravine had been infested with nearly 70 of them.
The older alpha specimens were stubborn, territorial brutes that couldn't be reasoned with. So across 6 weeks in April and May, I systematically exterminated the dominant adults using pitfall spikes, deadfall logs, and nightshade paste on dried meat.
I left 18 of the younger juveniles alive.
Monsters didn't understand loyalty, morality, or honor. But every biological organism understood Pavlovian conditioning, associative stimulus, and utility. Over 120 days of careful behavioral reinforcement—pairing ground vibrations with food, acoustic clicks with safety, and stone strikes with violence—I had built a working bridge between us.
Tonight, 16 of them crouched along the limestone ledges, watching me with their glowing red eyes.
"Chk. Chk-chk-chk."
A series of dry, rhythmic clicks echoed from the throat of the nearest one. It was a juvenile male, missing half of its left ear.
It hopped down from the ledge with an unnerving, loose-limbed gate, dragging something heavy through the dirt.
Thud.
The object rolled to a stop right against the toe of my canvas boot.
It was a human head.
A grown man, roughly 35, with ragged brown hair, stubble, and vacant, bloodshot eyes staring into the dark. His neck had been torn unevenly by hundreds of tiny puncturing teeth. Judging by the dried mud on his cheek and the faded mercenary tattoo on his jaw, he had been 1 of the deserters prowling the trade wagons on the southern road.
The juvenile predator looked up at me, its split jaw clicking twice, its scarlet pupils widening in anticipation.
I looked down at the head, then back up at the creature.
I raised my right thumb and gave it a calm, deliberate thumbs-up.
😎👍
"Chk-chk!"
The creature let out a high-pitched, excited chitter. It dropped to all fours, its long, grey tongue swirling wetly across its needle-like fangs in a grotesque grin, before dragging the head back into the shadows to gnaw on the cheekbone.
I picked up a dry pine branch from the ground, walked into the center of the clearing, and scraped a flat circle in the pale dirt.
The remaining 15 predators crept forward, their long ears tilted down, their crimson eyes locked on the stick.
I drew an outline of a human stick figure, then drew an arrow pointing directly toward the clearing.
Immediately, 3 of the larger females shook their narrow heads violently, their jaw hinges chattering in refusal.
They understood human hunting theory.
When humans hunted monsters in the woods, they marched in a standard 3-part formation: a heavy vanguard with iron-rimmed shields in front, 2 flankers with spears in the brush, and an archer or mage holding the rear. If the predators ambushed them from the front, the shields held the line while the spears pinned them to the trees.
The monsters had lost too many siblings to that formation. They refused to attack wagons head-on.
I didn't argue. Instead, I drew a long, curved line that looped around the stick figure, funneling into a narrow, dead-end ravine.
Then I raised my right boot and struck the bedrock twice.
Thump. Thump.
The low, heavy vibration rippled through the limestone.
The pack went dead silent. Their long ears snapped forward, standing completely rigid.
Counter-theory was simple: humans were arrogant, and formations required terrain. A shield wall couldn't maintain coherence in a rocky trench where the walls were 8 feet high and crumbling.
I tapped the tip of the branch against the drawn funnel.
1 of them would act as wounded bait, limping across the open road 50 meters ahead of a human supply cart. Humans always broke formation to chase isolated prey. When the vanguard pursued the limping rabbit into the narrow limestone chute, the crumbly shale would prevent them from bracing their shields.
Then, and only then, the remaining 15 would drop from the overhangs above, severing the tendons of the rear guards 1st to seal the exit.
No frontal assault. No wasted force. Maximum leverage.
The predators stared at the lines in the dirt.
"Chk... chk... chk-chk!"
The largest female nodded her narrow skull in sharp, jerky motions. Her split jaw parted into a wide, terrifying crescent, exposing rows of curved white fangs. The others echoed the clicking sound, shifting their weight on their clawed paws, their red eyes burning with learned understanding.
The trap was set.
I tossed the pine branch aside, wiped the dirt from my hands, and turned back toward the dark trail leading to the orphanage.
They had their hunt.
And by next week, I would have my inventory.
*
Perspective: Kaiser Everhart
Date: August 16, 2008
Time: 10:15 AM
Location: Lower Borough Market, Oakhaven
By Saturday morning, the provincial market of Oakhaven looked like a graveyard that hadn't finished dying.
Half the stalls along the cobblestone avenue were boarded up with rough pine planks. The drought had scorched the barley fields, and royal requisition officers had swept through the valley 3 weeks ago, seizing draft horses, dairy cattle, and sheep for the army's northern campaign.
Flour was selling at 4 times its normal price. Salted beef had vanished from the stalls entirely.
Yet, as I turned down Cooper's Alley into the meat district, 1 shop had a line of 12 customers stretching out onto the street.
The sign above the door read: Corvan's Provisions.
I pushed past the canvas curtain into the cool, dark interior. The air smelled strongly of coarse salt, vinegar brine, and rich, iron-heavy meat.
Behind the heavy butcher's block stood Master Corvan. He was 54, built like a beer cask, with thick grey whiskers and leather aprons stained black from years of pig grease. He was currently slicing a thick slab of dark, lean red meat with a massive steel cleaver.
Thwack.
Corvan looked up, saw me standing by the barrels, and a broad, greasy grin split his weathered face.
"Well, look who crawled out of the brush," Corvan rumbled, wiping his cleaver with a bloody rag. He leaned over the counter, his small, shrewd eyes gleaming. "The little businessman. I was wondering when you'd show your face."
"I told you I'd be here on Saturday, Master Corvan," I said, resting my hands in my pockets.
"Aye, that you did," Corvan grunted, tossing the cut of meat onto a sheet of butcher's paper for a customer. Once the villager paid 3 silver and scuttled out the door clutching the parcel to his chest, Corvan leaned across the counter. "The batch you sent through Tuesday night was clean. Dressed well, drained properly, not a speck of grit in the muscle. Lean, too. Almost no fat, but dense. Folks in the borough can't get enough of it."
He chuckled, a raspy sound in his chest, and tapped the side of his nose.
"I tell the town magistrate it's mountain venison from the southern ridge. He doesn't ask questions so long as I slip a roast into his saddlebag every Friday. When is the next cart of 'poultry' coming in?"
"Poultry arrives when the hunters finish their rounds," I replied calmly.
Corvan threw his head back and barked with laughter. "'Poultry'! Gods above, kid, you've got ice in your veins. Never seen poultry with bone structure that thick, but so long as it stays cheap and fresh, you can call it swan for all I care. How much can you give me next week?"
"80 pounds," I said. "At 18 silver per 100."
Corvan's smile tightened, his merchant instincts flaring. "Now hold on, Kaiser. 16 silver was our rate in July. Grain is up, but nobody's got coin—"
"The army seized Master Miller's pigs on Thursday," I said, not blinking. "You are the only butcher between here and the river with fresh red meat in your cellar. If you don't want the 80 pounds at 18 silver, Trevor will take it for his lunch crowd at 20."
Corvan stared at me for 3 long seconds, his jaw working behind his beard. Then he spit into the sawdust behind the block and reached under the counter.
"You're a ruthless little bastard, you know that?" he grumbled, slamming a leather coin purse onto the wood. "14 silver upfront as a deposit. The rest when the sacks hit my cellar door on Wednesday."
"Done." I said, pocketing the pouch.
I gave him a brief nod and stepped back out into the bright sunlight.
My 2nd stop was 3 streets over, near the teamster depot: Trevor's Public House.
While every other tavern in Oakhaven was nearly bankrupt, serving watered cabbage soup and bitter dregs, Trevor's tavern was packed to the rafters.
The heavy smell of roasting meat, browned onions, and thick brown gravy washed over the threshold. Over 30 teamsters, caravan guards, and laborers were crammed onto the long oak tables, laughing loudly, clinking clay mugs, and tearing into heaping trenchers of dark, tender meat stew.
"I'm telling you, Trevor, you must've robbed an elven lord's manor!" a burly wagon driver shouted with his mouth full, wiping gravy from his chin with the back of his hand. "Haven't tasted meat this rich since the festival 2 years ago! What kind of beast is this anyway?!"
Behind the bar, Master Trevor—a short, bald man in his late 40s with a nervous smile and quick, darting eyes—poured an ale with a practiced hand.
"Special stock from the southern valleys, boys!" Trevor shouted back with practiced cheer. "Secret family recipe! Eat up while the kettle's hot!"
When Trevor saw me standing near the pantry door, his nervous smile twitched. He quickly handed the ale pitcher to a barmaid, wiped his hands on a towel, and gestured me into the back storage room between the beer casks.
He shut the door, cutting off the tavern's roar.
"Kaiser," Trevor breathed, exhaling with sheer relief. "Thank God. The lunch crowd is devouring the stew 2 times faster than last week. I'm going to run dry by Tuesday. Tell me you have another barrel."
"Wednesday morning," I said. "50 pounds, salted and cured."
"Can you make it 100?" Trevor pleaded, grabbing my arm before catching himself and letting go. "I'll pay 22 silver! Cash in hand right now! The competition down the road had to shut its doors yesterday because they had nothing to serve except boiled turnips. People are walking 4 miles from the upper town just to eat here! I need more stock!"
I looked past him through the cracked pantry door.
At the front table, 3 laborers were literally scraping their wooden trenchers with their spoons, licking the grease off their fingers, grinning with absolute, blissful satisfaction.
Yes, yes. Enjoy the cheap meat. It tastes wonderful, doesn't it?
Us poor orphans in the house have to choke down boiled turnips and salt grass, while you pay good coin for premium cuts.
The sheer, dark irony of it danced quietly behind my eyes, but my face remained as smooth as polished slate.
"50 pounds is your limit, Trevor," I said evenly. "If I give you 100, the town watch will notice the smoke from your kitchen and wonder where a 2nd-rate tavern is getting half a ton of livestock in the middle of a kingdom-wide famine. Greed attracts auditors. Stick to the schedule."
Trevor swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. He nodded quickly, wiping sweat from his bald head.
"Right. Right. You're smart, kid. Too smart." He reached into his apron, counted out 25 silver pieces, and pressed them into my hand. "Wednesday morning. Behind the coal shed."
"Understood." I replied.
I slipped the silver into my satchel and exited through the alley, making my way toward the outskirts of town where the freight wagons parked.
Behind the abandoned brick kiln sat 4 massive, heavy-axled transport wagons covered in waxed grey canvas.
Leaning against the wagon tongue was Master Harlan.
He was in his late 40s, tall and lean, wearing a weathered buffalo-leather coat with iron buckles. He was a traveling provision broker—a man who didn't deal with petty town butchers or taverns. Harlan supplied private military contractors, mercenary battalions, and black-market trade convoys operating along the disputed demon and elven borderlands.
Harlan was slicing an apple with a thin folding knife. When he saw me approach, he didn't smile. He just closed the knife with a crisp click.
"You're 10 minutes late, Everhart," Harlan said, his voice flat as gravel.
"Trevor likes to talk," I replied.
"Trevor is an idiot who sells stew to wagon drivers," Harlan scoffed, stepping down from the wagon wheel. "I have 3 mercenary companies stationed at the border fortress who haven't seen real protein in 3 weeks. Soldiers don't march on turnip mash. I can take every pound of cured red meat you produce, Kaiser. Everything. 200 pounds, 400 pounds, a ton. Name your price. I'll pay in imperial silver marks on the spot."
A lesser merchant would have jumped at the offer. An entire inventory liquidated to a single wholesale buyer with zero retail risk.
I shook my head.
"No."
Harlan's cold grey eyes narrowed. "Why not? You'd save yourself 3 trips into town. No sneaking through butcher alleys, no dealing with grease-stained tavern keepers. 1 drop, 1 payment."
"If I give you 100% of my inventory, you control my entire distribution pipeline," I said, looking straight into his eyes. "If a royal border patrol seizes your wagon convoy next month, my revenue drops to zero overnight. Furthermore, once you become my sole buyer, you will use your monopsony power to dictate prices to me by November."
Harlan stared at me. The silence stretched between us for 5 long seconds.
For the 1st time since I had met him, the broker's lips curled into a genuine, chilling smirk of respect.
"An 8-year-old child lecturing me on distribution monopolies," Harlan murmured, shaking his head slowly. "Where in the hell did you learn to think like that?"
"Books are free in the orphanage library," I said. "You get 55% of the next batch, Master Harlan. No more. 110 pounds of dried, salted rations, packed in burlap. You pay 24 silver per 100."
Harlan studied my face, realized I wasn't going to budge by a single copper, and spat on the gravel.
"55%," Harlan agreed, pulling a heavy brass-clasped pouch from his coat and counting out 26 silver coins. "Delivery at the old sawmill by Thursday midnight. If the salt isn't dry, I'm docking your pay."
"It will be dry," I said, taking the silver.
I packed the coins away into my satchel, securing the leather strap I had repaired the night before.
Between Corvan, Trevor, and Harlan, the revenue stream was secure. The orphanage would have its 100 silver every 2 weeks. The children would eat oats and lentils, the sick kids would get marrow broth, and Liora's ledger would show a miracle of private charity.
I looked up at the sun overhead.
It was past noon.
I checked the mental clock in my head. Saturday afternoon.
The monsters were fed. The merchants were managed. The money was settled.
Which meant it was time for Part 2 of the Elfie experiment.
I adjusted the strap over my shoulder and began the long walk back toward the orphanage, ready to do what was necessary.