Chapter Ten - Suitable Suite

The cultivators of the Ashen Forest sect were kind enough to provide me with a small suite within the sect's pavilion. It was an apartment with three bedrooms, a pair of washrooms, as well as a small kitchen space, a room for closed door cultivation, and access to a roof garden where some benches waited atop some flat stones with raked ash between them.

It was telling that they didn't include a library in their suit. Or maybe I had just set my expectations too high.

"Yes, this will do," I told Cinder.

She bowed her head my way. "Good good good, I'm glad you found the rooms to your liking. These are usually reserved for visiting elders of other sects. Though I think we can count on one hand the number of times that has happened."

"I suppose that the area is hardly a tourist attraction."

"It isn't," Cinder confirmed. She glanced back towards the doorway, where Char was resting his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and eyes half-lidded in boredom. "We'll be leaving at first light in the morning. I hope that's enough time for you to rest and recuperate?"

"It's not as if I need the sleep," I said. "But I do appreciate the time. It'll let me catch up on some of my reading."

Cinder nodded and then hesitated for a moment before slipping away. Char followed her out of the suite, sliding the door closed behind him. I suspected that he was there as a sort of chaperone, which was an inherently silly thing to have, all things considered. My libido was about as alive as the rest of me.

I took a moment to wander through the suite once more, this time with an eye socket towards a good reading spot. There weren't many, surprisingly. Whomever had designed this suit had done so with an eye towards luxurious austerity.

That is, the space was tastefully empty of anything, with large rooms that only held as much furniture as they needed and not an end table more.

A proper reading nook, in my humble and well-studied--and therefore correct--opinion, was a space where the reader would feel comfortably coddled. A small, warm space, free of distractions, with good lighting and a minimum of distracting sounds.

Outdoor spaces were fine for this, though it was usually best if the outdoors was a window away, as opposed to where the reader was directly located.

Personally, I enjoyed a good skylight, or a full-glass wall overlooking something calm. A shoreline, perhaps an uninhabited forest. At times a graveyard, for the classic necromantic aesthetic.

Ideally, a reading nook should have at least one large seat, with cushioned arms, several blankets, a few pillows soft enough to squeeze against one's side, and perhaps a foot rest. Leather seats were right out. The material clung to skin in a distasteful way, and even though I had no skin in that game (ohoho!) I still disliked it on principle.

A fireplace was nice, but not necessary. A butler or maid on standby was nicer still. Perhaps one ready to remind the reader of the time so that they might ignore it and any duties they had in order to continue reading.

The suite was certainly not up to spec, but it was a good effort given the short time they had to prepare it.

I found a good-enough seat, some pillows from the bedrooms, and a small box that I could use as a footrest. These were all levitated to a room with a window overlooking Shitake City's ashen rooftops.

I settled myself down, then reached into a pocket for a book to read.

Long ago, I had discovered myself afflicted by a sickness I called Reader's Hesitation. It was an illness that arose when one had many choices of what to read, but wasn't in a mood for any of them.

Unfortunately, no matter the genre, style, or themes I was in the mood for, I would always eventually reach the end of written matters in that niche. It was extremely frustrating to want more of something that I had already caught up on.

I'd even gone so far as to resurrect favourite authors so that they might continue their works, and I was the patron of many an artist.

Eventually, however, I'd discovered a simple solution. A catalogue of books I'd enjoyed the reading of. Some more than others. Essentially, it was a list of some several thousand books that I'd rated between satisfactory and excellent.

These were placed within a pocket dimension which would create a copy of a random book from the catalogue when reached into.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Of course, by necessity, I had read every book in the catalogue, but that's where the clever part came into play.

On reaching into the pocket dimension, a complex magical trigger was pulled, one which would give the reacher a fresh book to read, and which would simultaneously erase their memories of that very same book.

I sat back into the seat, a new book in hand. It was blue, with a pair of lagomorph ears on the cover. "Oh, this seems interesting," I commented to myself. I had no recollection of this one, as intended.

I opened the book, finding a small review written on a loose leaf just behind the cover. It was penned in my own hand, and, of course, spoiler-free.

Nodding to myself, I opened the door and idly started reading. This was a distraction. There were certainly other things I could be doing at the moment, even other books that I could be reading. A refresher on certain topics wouldn't go amiss, and perhaps I should have been studying the work that went into the creation of my phylacteries. After all, I was on a mission to recuperate one of them at that very moment.

But I didn't feel like doing that.

Once, I'd been the sort of person that put work first. Studying and improving myself was my priority in all things. Amusement was only found as long as that amusement came from my work, and I did truly enjoy the scientific process. Discovering something new, or proving myself wrong, was always a great way to spend the day.

However, as the realities of immortality began to sink in, I realized that while I had forever to do what I wanted, the only thing standing in my way was myself.

I wouldn't consider myself a lazy bag of bones, but some divertisement from time to time isn't that great a sin.

I was about six chapters in when the door to the suite opened. Fortunately, I recognized the soft, padded steps as Alex, and the louder, clunkier steps followed Alex as Rem. It seemed as if Mem wasn't with them. I imagined that she was probably lost.

Alex came to stand nearby, then they waited.

"Why aren't you saying anything, stupid--" Rem started.

"Shh," Alex said.

"What? What do yo--"

"Shh," Alex repeated, a little more insistently. "A good butler knows to wait until their master has reached the end of a chapter before interrupting. It's only polite."

Rem sniffed, but other than some low grumbling didn't say anything else. Fortunately for the mantis's patience, I was a quick reader and these chapters weren't overly long. I carefully dog-eared the corner of the page I was on, then closed the book. "Yes?" I asked.

I noticed that Alex and Rem were both carrying a mantis-person. They were covered in ribbons, one... significantly more artfully than the other, and they both seemed to be knocked out at the moment. "Hello, Daddy," Alex said. "We were mugged."

"Were you mugged by these two?" I asked.

"Only her," Rem said, while pointing to the mantis she was carrying. "That one's Rob."

I sighed and shook my head. "Rem, I have a question for you, who named you?"

The mantis blinked. "My mother?" she said, though she didn't sound entirely certain.

"And at what age did she name you?"

"Young?"

"Hmm, interesting. I'm wondering if your sibling's names are a case of nominative determinism or if it's all just coincidence. Depending on which, it may or may not be a case of fantastic wordplay, which would oblige me to respect your mother at least a little."

Rem glanced at Alex, then back at me. "Can you eat that?"

"Nevermind," I said. I'd question Rem's mother myself when the time came. "In any case, what do you intend to do with these two?"

"Does Father want the bodies?" Alex said. "I can kill them so it doesn't show."

"I don't have a particular need for them, no."

Alex hummed. "More butlers?"

"No!" Rem said. "You haven't finished training me, yet."

"That's true," Alex replied. "Well, I don't know what to do, then. Maybe we can give them to the sect? I think they generally dislike the mantis people."

"I suppose it's an idea," I replied. "Let me know what you chose to do. Oh, and we're leaving at first light in the morning. You might want to track down Mem between now and then." I returned to my reading, curious as to what past-me meant by that review I'd left myself.

***