“I guess you are the only person who likes barbeque even more then me, even I would never try to grill myself!”

Mister I laughed as he applied goop to Corvayne's burns. Corvayne had repeatedly asked the monk not to disclose the ingredients of anything he used after ingesting something last time he was banged up that had a lot of various animial's reproductive organs in the mixture. So far, so good.

Corvayne shrugged, causing some of his burns to twist. He winced a little as he adjusted how he was sitting on the exam table. “I'll just take it as a compliment that I'm the first thing that's come before you cooked that you were willing to fix instead of eat.”

Mister I hummed but kept dabbing at the wounds, so Corvayne's attention drifted, at first to the T.V.

Mister I had flipped the news on, where reports of arson in Ko-Ban the previous night was matched with a story about Tel-Star mine shutting down after a safety incident and hikers reporting a gang of kids in costumes was trying to mug people out near Cascadia National Forest. The little room in his clinic was stuffed with a mix of old complicated machines and various herbs and jars all lined up on shelves and counter tops. He was not sure what was medicine and what was food, as Mister I sometimes slipped things that he assumed were animal based alchemy components into his mouth as snacks. He also had a bunch of various statues and totems positioned in corners of the room, faced along the walls to look at each other. Despite all the musty materials, the smell of rubbing alcohol overpowered everything else.

After some more dabbing, Mister I dusted his hands off. “You can put your shirt on... If Mr.Argyle shows up in old town today you might want another mend, but you seem to set your own bones well enough, and of course all too quickly! Ah, on matters of the heart... I still wish to do that session with you and Wick, but...” Mister I trailed off and waved his hand around, as if showing off the wood panels. Maybe he meant the office was crowded?

“Always busy with mortal danger.” Corvayne nodded. “I hope once this monk thing is over... not you, the bad monk. Once it's over, I'd like to get a solid week to actually do things like talk about Wick and me with you, go fishing, watch more movies with Grunt... is it weird I think about when me and Wick were stuck in the dungeon? Just us?”

Mister I shook his head. “I don't want to speak too early, but perhaps you are in fact a danger seeker? You seem to often step out in front of everyone else.” He held up a hand. “I don't mean to say it's not appreciated! My old bones are more fit for sitting down or eating rather then leaping and hunting!” He patted his barrel chest. “But you are cavalier with your own well being, and have picked a rather difficult target to woo. I won't tell you anything Wick hasn't, but I want to urge you to take caution with her, lest you push too hard and hurt yourself in a way that you cannot heal from.”

Corvayne felt a need to protest, but bit it down. He was about to take a more neutral response when Mister I practically stuck his finger in Corvayne's face. “Ah! Right there! What did you want to say? C'mon! Spit it out! You have these flashes of real Corvayne then you dump them, throw them overboard. Even if you somehow got me to hate you, I would still help you. So out with it! What did you want to say?”

He felt himself frown. “I wanted to tell you to butt out. I got angry for a moment.”

There was a pause. Mister I smiled. “If you had said that to your trainers, from the Watchers? If you told them that they made you angry, they would twist it back on you, right? Or hurt you?”

Corvayne closed his mouth. The monk just laughed and patted his knee. “Corvayne, people bump into each other. I've been called a lot of things, someone once called me a 'real doctor' which truly hurt but I forgave them, since they've never had to deal with one haha!” He slapped his knee. “But really... you are racing to catch up. If you are fighting a giant turtle, yes, bottle it up. But around us? Try to embrace what you feel.”

Corvayne nodded. “Will you then tell me how you really feel any moment as well?”

Mister I laughed. “Never! It would break your heart!”

It got him to laugh, which was something.

“Corvayne, I am an old man. Old men have regrets that young people shouldn't have. Sure, I'm spry, but it's getting harder and harder to find people who match my age that are also so lively. Why, I'll have to add another girlfriend soon to balance ages out!”

Corvayne folded his hands. He would not trust Mister I with a meat pie, but everything else? “I know your busy and I'm hogging your time but I got really mad all the time before I left the village. I sometimes feel like... the me in the village was a different person.”

The monk smirked. “You fought monsters before, right?”

Corvayne nodded. “Yes. We needed to keep the numbers down, and hunting the creatures allowed us to have a pretty large... maybe suspiciously large village. I say that, but it was more like a city in the middle of nowhere.”

Mister I smiled. “Well, you are still the you who fights with monsters. The Corvayne with a spear. The Corvayne who nearly dies but comes back from it. Tch. How annoying do you think it is for me hmm? To have another person like Grunt who goes out and gets his ass kicked and shrugs it off? Another Wick who shies away from the support she needs? Pah! Even Dawn is like that, you know, she is afraid of herself! Oh, and Lady Blood Claw, she had bad burns! Wincing all over, was considering using a dart gun to knock her out because she kept running away. I don't give two craps about alien or not. Chicken, Beef, Squid, all of them don't like getting cooked. Totally clueless about why cultists were after her. Tch. Okay, didn't have the heart to tell her.”

Corvayne tilted his head. “You know why they could sense her?”

Mister I froze. “Oh boy. No no no. I'm not going to tell you that one. She would kill me! You figured out the painting thing, so you should be smart enough! Think about fantasy books!”

He took a minute to think but he had no idea what Mister I was trying to tell him about LBC so he switched back to a different tact. “You implied me and Dawn are... afraid of ourselves?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“You both have the same problem. Tch. You are terrified that the person you are, we won't like you. Some of it is because yes, Wick is terrible for you! You love each other but she's too hard for you. The elf girl? She's really a simple person. It's sort of disappointing you know, to finally meet an elf and instead of a wise ancestor type she's a teenage girl.”

Corvayne felt his heart clench. “She's older then me!”

Mister I laughed. “Sure, and I'm older then a twenty year old dog, but in dog years? She is not a KID kid, calm down criminal.” He chuckled at his own joke, then swept some stuff aside to pull out a hotplate and got a beaker of water boiling.

“Cold rainy day, let's have some tea. So Hari is an adult, yes? But she's just barely one. Thankfully, she's wise and doesn't act like she knows it all. Just knows what she knows, and she knows she likes you. Perfect first girlfriend, because you are young at heart. You say your twenty... twenty six? But if the years are empty... well you are an adult. You had a job, got your own place, started making friends. She is the same, but all her trauma came all at once. Bad relationship, then her new friends all got eaten. But... she liked you. She likes Wick too, but LIKE likes you. Honest, strong, and careful. Plus she thinks you are hot.”

Mister I saw the water was bubbling and grabbed a black glove to take the glass off the burner and pour it into a teapot, then tossed a bag in to seep and turned the little hotplate off, peeling the glove off. “She will be back. She's a good match. Even if you two changed and dump each other, you are at the right stage of life where it will last long enough to figure what you want out.”

Corvayne nodded. “Okay, so why are you trash talking Wick? You, Dawn, Grunt all basically took her in. She is maybe a little paranoid, but she's getting treatment for something, and I bet the meds she talks about come from you.”

Mister I nodded. “She has fake identities she could use to see someone better then poor old me but, well, I'm the only doctor she trusts, because I'm not a doctor. I told you, she's too hard for you to handle.” He opened a drawer and produced two teacups, their glaze a little cracked with age but elegantly painted white and blue.

“The pattern reminds me of the dungeon with the slimes.” Corvayne said as he looked at the cups.

“Oh no. The pattern is Artoodeetoo. Based on an old fantasy movie. I mean, the cup is expensive now as it's 600 years old, but they were made as a joke. Jokes eventually become fine art. Just like me!” Mister I poured tea for himself, then for Corvayne who took the cup as Mister I continued. “I have a bunch of them and other things I could sell if I ever badly needed more money. I mean, there were two whole boxes full of them in that garage. I can afford to lose these.”

“You have secrets too, Mister I?” He smiled.

“It's my name! Ick-ari-E. Hence, Mister E! Ha ha ha. No, no. My secrets are boring burdens of an old out of touch man who sticks his nose into things.” He took a sip of blazing hot tea and winced a little. “Now, you and Wick. She is going to be hard. Two reasons, first that she is terrified of the things she wants. You see how she likes to hug you and kiss you, and sometimes when you do it, okay! And sometimes, she goes into fight or flight mode? That's not going to fix itself. It might get better soon, I hope, from fighting back. But ah, even if you defeated all her foes, her paranoia is not her being crazy, so it will take a long time of knowing she is safe.”

“I don't think she's crazy. She has problems, but that happens to people...” Corvayne sipped his tea and narrowed his eyes. Soapy. “Mister I, did you put those pine needles in the teapot?”

Mister I grinned evilly. “Hahah, when you like the taste, you'll be a real Cascadian.”

“You Jerkbag.” Corvayne smirked and tried another sip. Bleh. It was a clean taste, too clean.

Mister I took another sip and leaned back in his chair. “Wick has people after her, yeah? And they want to kill her. You know this. She is right, they will always be looking for her. So it means she had to learn to break things off. She came to Cascadia with almost no money when she was fifteen and ended up at my doorstep, yeah? Maybe she knew of me, but I think it was fate, dumb luck. But no money, only a few things to sell to pay for something to help her sleep and a room. Same deal as Grunt, shockingly! And before him, Dawn was the same. This is where people go who have nothing. Well, except me. I used to care about money, a lot. Once I stopped, I had too much.”

Corvayne thought for a bit. “You're not just here... you own this building, don't you?”

Mister I smiled. “Wick has the deed to her side. I... forget to charge rent sometimes on mine.”

“Why not... fix it up?”

“People see what they want to see. It's why Wick is hard to deal with too. She cannot be herself. She lets a little of who she is out on Saturdays when she speaks to a crowd, but even that is filtered through who she has to be.”

“She's acting. All the time.” Corvayne felt a chill run through his stomach.

“Wrong! Boy!” Mister I's voice suddenly had steel behind it. Corvayne nearly dropped his cup as Mister I's eyes grew serious. He softened his voice. “She's been dropping it, more and more. She loves you fool, and I've heard her voice slip. You gave her hope.”

“That's good though?” Corvayne asked.

Mister I sighed. “She's not my daughter, but she's like one I never met.”

“You mean never had?”

Mister I pretended to not hear that. “She's not ready to drop her acting or mindset, at all. It's going to snap back, and hurt you. People who are hurt like her... they do like other hurt people, but you are odd. That's the second problem. She is going to be attracted to bad people. Both her attraction and fears mean she wants act out for a reaction or because she cannot deal with things, and sometimes she is just tolerating people who love her and that she loves because it's too scary. Think of it this way, some people, you tell them the tea cup is precious, and they don't want to drink tea from it! So... it will go great then one day, she will dump you because she cares about you and it scares her. You become a cup too precious to lose, then it all gets boxed up and forgotten and then you are old and griping about being old to old men.”

Corvayne was confused. “But she likes you, and Grunt, and she hasn't...”

“Not romantically. She keeps a certain distance from us, and Dawn too. Too afraid to trust at first, but then too afraid to bring people she trusts with her. She's accepted Grunt as a sort of brother, which is good. But I want you to set your worries of her aside. Even if it's rough, I'm more okay with it now that I see you have friends and maybe an elf on the way back for you. Good learning experience! And if I am wrong, I will happily officiate the wedding.”

“I thought you were a monk, not a priest.” That got him thinking about Mosh waving his hand telling a bride and groom they got the gist of it and to get to smooching. A pretty good thought.

“Oh for sure! I've had a lot of jobs! But no no, enough about Wick. I want to talk about Corvayne.”

Corvayne felt a little odd. “Me?”

“Yes you! You should be broken. When someone is abused and has no support or is neglected, they are usually non-functional. Or feral. The only odd thing I see is that you take risks that suggest... you don't value yourself. That's part of why I want to do real therapy with you! It's sort of boring I know, I just ask you questions and let you talk, but it's sort of like the spear-dance thing you do, where it's about stretching muscles so that when you do have to spar, you're ready. Let's say, Monday next week.”

Corvayne nodded at the idea of penciling in a time, but it took him right back to the elephant in the room. “What about the monk?”

Mister I pointed to himself looking confused, then just waved his hand and laughed. “Oh, I'm betting on Mr. Argyle being dead next week and you needing to talk about killing him. So Monday early, maybe after we get back from a dungeon too? Maybe eat ribs too? Eh? Eh?” He smiled and raised his eyebrows.

“What if I lose?”

Mister I laughed at that. “You know, then we are probably all dead! No pressure!”