After their snack, Empty Eyes and Lily spent the day exploring Iratari Park with the girl leading a tour of her favorite places. She bragged that she knew the park better than anyone after having spent many days hiding from her nanny. At first, Empty Eyes followed because Lily told him to but in the end, he was just as excited to see the girl’s next hideaway as she was to show him. Late in the afternoon, Empty Eyes worried he had been gone too long and the clerks might soon send someone to look for him.
“If you think that last spot was neat, wait until you see this,” Lily teased.
“I have to go,” Empty Eyes replied.
“Oh, okay,” Lily eyeballed the sky to take the time. “I guess I should go too. Daddy doesn’t like it when I’m late for dinner. See you tomorrow, Knotty!”
Lily ran down the walking trail with her grass stained dress and messy curls flapping. The idea of playing with Lily more than once never entered the Adjudicator’s mind. During all of his fun, he couldn’t shake the thought that he was breaking the rules in some manner. Should he confess his activities to a clerk? If he just asked, maybe the clerks would understand and grant him permission to keep his new friend. But what if they said no?
“See you tomorrow, Knotty!”
The words looped as he returned home to the Monastery of Law. By the time he pulled open the abbey gates, he had reached a verdict: he would say nothing and risk his Wheatcream ration rather than risk not seeing Lily again.
The next morning, Empty Eyes departed Piaire’s bakery with two cinnamon twists. The baker handed over the free pastries and wondered how long until the day came when the monster would demand his entire shop.
Lily accepted the cinnamon twist and stuffed it into her mouth while she sat within Fort Mine. She wiped her sticky fingers on a clean dress and stared at the Adjudicator as he sniffed his pastry time and time again without taking a bite. Her giggling bloomed into a rolling laughter as the curious ritual unfolded.
“What’s funny?” asked the giant holding a baked sweet inches under his nose.
“Why do you do that?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Nuh huh! That’s not how being friends works, Knotty. Friends trust each other. That’s another rule.”
Was that true? If he had known secrets were subject to such laws, he would have chosen a different word. He was learning that having a friend required learning an evolving list of rules associated with it. Empty Eyes was grateful that he had an expert in Lily to guide him.
“I had one before. I don’t know when but I think my Mom gave it to me,” he held the cinnamon twist before him as if channeling the memory.
“You think but you don’t know? Wait a minute, you have a mom? I thought those monks cooked you up in a cauldron or pulled you from the ground or something like that,” Lily said. The idea of Adjudicators being born to a mother and father was an incredible contradiction to the stories she grew up with. She was loading up a litany of questions and ready to fire when she realized she may have said something wrong. Even with a face like the Adjudicator’s, sad still looked like sad.
Lily took a moment to think about what to say; a tactic she rarely employed.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say you came from the ground. It’s just what everybody says so I didn’t make it up to be mean. Knotty, I’m sorry. Really. I’ll tell you a secret, ok? I don’t remember my mom either. She died when I was born. Daddy said she died when she got sick with Wet Lung and I was just too young to remember but it’s not true. My nanny Marjie told me. So see? I don’t remember my mom either so we’re alike, right?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Lily had given it her best shot. She pulled her knees close and pouted in the silence she caused. An elephant ant paced the perimeter of her shoe before exiting Fort Mine. A breeze blew into their hideout and Lily blew a sigh back at it. Knotty wouldn’t be the first friend her mouth had cost her but he would certainly be the most unique. Maybe palling around with an Adjudicator was too much to hope for anyway. What’s worse, she didn’t even get a chance to boast about it to anybody.
“I remember the smell and feeling happy. I remember her singing but I don’t remember words. Just sound. I remember a lot of stuff. Strangers’ stuff. But none of it is mine. This is mine.” Empty Eyes said in a voice soft and deep like distant thunder and for once, Lily had nothing to say. The Adjudicator had never spoken more than a few words at a time until then.
She placed a hand on the mountain that was Empty Eyes’ knee and gave him her best portrait day smile. “Thank you for sharing your secret, Knotty. I’m happy we’re friends.”
The moment was special and lingered until Lily popped up and announced: “Okay, Knotty! Time to play!”
********
Iratari Park was the pair’s playground for the rest of the week. Empty Eyes quickly realized that Lily was almost entirely without fear. She would jump without pause from toppled logs or boulders whose height exceeded the Adjudicators’. She would dig up the largest bugs she could find and throw them at Empty Eyes just to laugh until she snorted as he batted at his robes. She had a limitless trove of hiding spots and crawlspaces that she’d duck into and explode from as Empty Eyes passed by. And despite the critters launched his way and the scares from Lily popping from unpredictable angles, Empty Eyes was fascinated by the girl and eager to see what she would do next. She was so different from anybody at the Monastery. The monks avoided the Adjudicators until duty required their interaction whereas Lily squealed every morning she visited Fort Mine and found her friend had returned for another day.
For the first few days, Lily tried to pry information from Empty Eyes to learn more about her strange friend. She bombarded him with a hail storm of questions but her efforts never paid off.
“How does your sword work?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long have you been an Adjudicator?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you do when you’re done being an Adjudicator?”
“I don’t know.”
After the one-hundredth “I don’t know”, Lily gave up and took over full time duty of all conversation. She accepted the responsibility without complaint.
Lily never ran out of topics to discuss. She’d describe her animals that lived on Daddy’s ranch and their quirks. She’d complain about the worthless academia her caretakers forced upon her when they could pin her down long enough to teach her anything. She fussed about all the business keeping her dad too busy to be any fun. She told Empty Eyes a story of her Dad attending and surviving two separate blood trials as a defendant before she were born.
“People call him ‘The Most Honest Man in Iratari’,” she bragged not knowing her dad’s moniker was self-applied.
One morning, Empty Eyes arrived to the park like usual and found a sign painted with bright red letters hammered into the side of his headquarters. When asked, Lily explained before starting the day’s march: “It says Fort Mine. Like you said you wanted, remember? You can thank me later. I have something really neat to show you today.”
********
The couple’s friendship was a celebration of disparity and their adventures in Iratari Park were the highlight of Lily’s summer but every adventure has an end.
Empty Eyes waited at Fort Mine with two fresh cinnamon twists cooling rapidly despite his best efforts. When Lily finally arrived, she was late and moving at half speed. She took her treat and mumbled a “Thanks” before plopping down. Empty Eyes didn’t need the blade to see that something was bothering her.
“I have some bad news, Knotty,” she confessed. “My dad is taking me on a business trip to Pocklin tomorrow. He just told me. I asked to stay with Marjie like before but he wouldn’t budge. I’m not even supposed to be here but I ran out to tell you.”
“Are you coming back?”
“Of course! Sorry, Knotty. I tried. But hey! We can still play today, right? I’m already in trouble so we might as well have some fun.”
And they did but the day moved too quickly and before either of them wanted, Lily was waving and promising to ruin her dad’s trip if it dragged on for too long.
“See you soon, Knotty!” she cried.
‘Knotty’ thought it didn’t sound nearly as nice as “See you tomorrow!”