----------------------------------------
Arsene’s home was not as it seemed. The inside of the strange man’s abode was large, open, and filled to the brim with all manner of oddities and collectibles, memorabilia covered in cobwebs and enough dust to make us cough the moment we entered. In the center of the room were the things that necessities; a bed to sleep in, a table to eat at, and a smoldering fire that had been used recently. On the table were three plates, each holding a different spread of food for each of us.
The moment I saw my plate—a bicornucopia, filled with potatoes and bicorn steak, topped with a salty dressing that had some tang to it, and a light vanilla cake for dessert—I used the last of my energy to run over to it and started scarfing it down. Basil and Sage followed suit, though they had more self restraint. Sage even continued his conversation with Arsene between bites of his cake.
“So Arsene,” he asked, “you’re aware of what has happened in Avocado then? Seeing as you knew we were being pursued.”
Arsene nodded and picked up a book, idly flipping the pages. “That’s right. I know a couple other things as well, such as the wellbeing of the queen and how things are being handled right now.”
Basil wiped his mouth and asked, “So then what of them? Do you know why Cashew has done all of this?”
“I don’t know why Cashew has done what they’ve done,” Arsene replied, flipping to another page. “I can speculate, for sure. But I haven’t the slightest idea what they’re up to.”
When he said that he knew the status of my mother, I put my fork down and turned to him, wiping food from my face with my forearm. “Uhm, sir?”
Looking up from the book, he smiled at me warmly. “You may call me Arsene, Mint. What is it? Would you like to know about your mom?”
I felt my nose tingle and my face get hot, so I nodded and turned away, breathing slow and heavy.
“You’ve no need to worry,” he said. “She’s fine, no harm came to her at all in the coup. Currently she’s organizing the citizens to help rebuild from the damage the fire caused.”
Sage asked, “Is she searching for Mint?”
Arsene paused a moment, flipped a page. “Yes. She has sent out a search party in secret, so that the Cashew occupants are unaware. Her power is limited, though. It seems that an agreement was made so that she would be allowed to remain the queen; she does what the Cashew royals want, so technically she is not in power. I’m afraid Avocado might become Cashew soon if she is unable to do something, which she most likely isn’t.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, my voice shaking. “We have an army there. They should be able to take Cashew out, I’d think.”
“Well, I’m afraid that a decent portion of the personal army at Persea were Cashew spies. They were able to take out a sizable portion of the army and those remaining are under the threat that their families will be murdered.” Arsene sighed and shut the book, dust floating in every direction. “Unfortunately, her greatest asset is missing as well. And the king has not returned with his crew. Cashew’s information was too good, their timing was perfect, their attack too brutal. Who’d have thought they wou—”
“Shut up,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Mint,” Sage growled, his voice in that familiar baritone. I could hear him get ready to lay into me when Arsene sighed and placed a hand on Sage’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Mint. I won’t speak of it if it’s not something you want to hear.”
“He needs to hear it,” Sage said. “He has to face what’s going on if he wants to be of any use to his mother and his kingdom.”
Before I could muster the courage to yell without crying, Arsene stepped in once again. “You can’t force something like that on him.”
Basil nodded. “Right now all that matters is that he is safe and we can still save the kingdom when we recuperate. Mint is still too young for all of this, and you’re partially to blame for forcing him into this situation. He doesn’t need to be a part of the discussion if he doesn’t want to be, just as he doesn’t have to do unnecessary training if he doesn’t want to. Right Sage?”
I was surprised by how much Basil was trying to fight for my best interest, and I could only think it was his way of kissing my ass at the time, the same way everyone else was back home. It made me more wary of him than ever.
Sage just sighed and kept eating.
“Mint, if you’re done you can come downstairs if you’d like,” Arsene said. “I can show you to a guest bed and you can get as much sleep as you need. Would you like that?”
At first I was reluctant, but everyone there agreed that I looked horrible. I was loathe to admit it, but I felt awful. Maybe it was the way they were talking, or the aching that had begun setting in after all that rowing, but I was pretty much done. So Arsene led me over to a stairway that I didn’t notice before, in the corner of the room. Down in the basement of the home were three beds, all neat and the proper size for the three of us. There were candles lighting two of the corners of the room and that was all, no windows or anything, yet it didn’t feel stuffy. I went to the bed furthest from the stairs and sat down, removing my shoes and cloak.
Arsene stood watching me for a moment, his arms folded as if he were thinking. “Before you sleep,” he finally said, “would you humor me?”
Groaning, I said, “As long as it doesn’t take long and it isn’t weird.”
He laughed, which was strange; it came out a very distinct yukking sound. “No, it shouldn’t take long or be weird. All I need you to do is to close your eyes and let me hold your hands for a minute or two.”
Yawning, I asked, “And what will that accomplish?”
“As a clairvoyant, I have the ability to see the shape and color of your future up to roughly a month out,” he said, sitting across from me on the bed next to me. “Basically, if I do this I can see if your near future will be bad or good as it stands right now. There’s room for error, and usually if I tell you the results there is a good chance you’ll change it, either slightly or entirely, due to paranoia. So afterwards if you want me not to tell you I can just keep it to myself.” When I didn’t answer, he smiled at me and it made me feel comfortable, like I was discussing going on a trip with mother. “Don’t worry about it, if you don’t want me to do any of this I don’t have to. I just think this might be helpful.”
“You try really hard to make people feel comfortable here, don’t you?” I asked.
Arsene nodded. “Being good to a visitor is a universal thing, especially around these parts. I usually only see that fool Sage, but even he deserves a good meal and good company if I can supply it. It’s my job as the host. Plus,” he added, staring off into space, “I make friends this way, and what’s a life without friends, eh?”
I smiled back politely, then I said, “Okay, fine. Make it fast though, I’m tired.”
So I held out my hands, first as fists but Arsene told me that wouldn’t work so I switched to open palms. Arsene grasped them firmly, massaging my palms rhythmically and slowly, to the point where I was beginning to fall asleep from the repeated motion and soothing silence I felt. Despite the situation being weird—which it certainly was, and it’s even more apparent now that I write it out like this—I felt a serenity in that room during this time, like I was able to clear my head out of all the ruckus and finally just be at peace, which is something I can’t say I ever felt even back home at the castle.
When he was finished, I opened my heavy eyelids and yawned out a, “Well? What’s the verdict?”
After a lot of “Hmphing” and “Umming,” he finally shrugged and said, “Well I can’t say for sure, which is odd. But if you want my opinion, I’d say you’re reaching a crossroads, something you can’t avoid. You’ll have to pick one way or the other.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like, good or bad? Martin or Cloony?”
Laughing that yuk laugh, Arsene shook his head and got up with the same precision we all have when we reach old age. “No, not a good or a bad thing. That’s something that happens in fairy tales. You’ve got something inside you, something powerful; dangerous. If you aren’t careful you might do harm, sure, but that’s not what I’m seeing. I can’t say for certain, but in due time you will be presented with a dilemma. If you want my advice, think before you throw it away.”
“Be Martin?” I yawned.
“Not Cloony,” he completed the euphemism with a smile, and he turned to walk up the steps.
It was quickly apparent that it would have been more prudent not to have my future told to me by a reliable psychic right before bed.
Unable to sleep, I asked right as he reached the third stair from the top, “So which choice do you think I should go for? Did one look more right to you?”
And Arsene smiled at me, his black eyes glistening. “Come on, I just told you there was no right answer. All you can do is live your life to the best of your ability. But if I had to tell you anything,” he said, enunciating the words carefully, “You should act. If there is ever a time where you can choose not to act, act. You’ll see better results, I think.”
At the time, that felt like such a nothing statement, something that could have meant anything. Looking back, though… well, he wasn’t wrong.
♣ ♣ ♣
Despite being nervous over the reading Arsene gave me, I fell asleep pretty quickly in that nearly pitch dark room. And while nothing noteworthy happened during my rest, I will say that I had a dream, and that the dream was not prophetic, metaphoric, philosophical or anything so grandiose and ridiculous. Like Arsene said, those things only happen in fairy tales, and this is not a fairy tale. This is a princely tale. And in my princely tale, I had a dream that was of a memory, one that I often went back to over and over again during my youth until I finally understood it.
When I was six years old, or maybe seven, I was in my mother’s bedroom for our hour of daily together time when my father decided he wanted to come home. I remember this distinctly because of a number of reasons; it was one of three times I had ever seen my father, and the only time I remembered because the other times I was a newborn and not old enough to form memories; it was the first snowfall, which is a sort of mini holiday in Persea, so we were talking about what we should make for the feast for the citizens; I was sick that week, with something we call the black cleanse, which essentially means that I had to fast for a week or so to help my body get rid of some kind of tar that infested my body, as I understand it, and I was taking an herbal medicine called poppy, which you burn and inhale the smoke of, and if you are unaware of what poppy can do, well, it causes hallucinations. So a few aspects of this memory always stumped me when I was young, due to the nature of my mind at the time of this happening and my inability to be certain on reality or fantasy.
My mother was pacing back and forth between the window and the door, her dress making this wispy noise like wind blowing autumn leaves. On this day, her hair was particularly green, deep and nearly black under the right light. She held a thoughtful finger to her chin, tap tapping, tap tapping. “Should we do pasties?” she asked, mostly to herself. “They’re rather wintry, wouldn’t you say?”
I rocked back and forth in my chair, trying not to doze off. The snowfall was so calming, and the warmth of my cloak and the blanket my mother provided were making this perfect napping weather.
“Perhaps we should do pies—no, no. That’s more of a fall thing, isn’t it dear?” I rocked back and forth, which she took as a nod. Tap tap, tap tap.
“Then pasties. We’ll do pasties, fresh baked by our bakers. I’m sure they will go over well. So that just leaves the main dish, which needs to be a roast of some kind, or perhaps a stew…” Tap tap, tap tap. “Which would you prefer, Minty? A roast, or stew?”
Her question pulled me from my trance, and before I could get passed humming and deciding, the door creaked open and my mother stopped, I stopped, the snow stopped. Time stopped, and we all stared at my father.
I didn’t realize it was him at the time, so his intrusion came off strange to me. If I were older and healthier I might have risen up and asked how he could show up unannounced, but I was so out of it I could only sit and watch what happened as if it were a play in our court.
My mother’s lips formed a neat line on her face, and she ceased her tapping, fixing her dress instead. “Merano.”
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My father knelt down to the ground, bowing his head. He wore all black from head to toe, and a hood was raised over his head. When I remember him, he has no face. I’m sure it was there, visible and easy to see, but his face isn’t there in my memories, and his voice is distorted, a ghost of what it was, himself appearing to me an apparition.
“June,” he said.
She stared down at him, and it was so quiet I could hear the snow settling outside. “What are you doing back here? You’re supposed to be making your rounds in Lychee, aren’t you?”
He dipped lower, in a position that appeared uncomfortable. “They would not have me down there, and I received word that our son was sick. I felt I should visit, so here I am.”
My mother’s lips curled upward, and she brought her hand back to tapping her chin. “Well, he’s fine now. His treatment just has him groggy. But you are also aware, I’m sure, that you can’t be here.”
My father, Merano, the king, whimpered. I’m sure that I heard him do so.
Gliding over to him, my mother’s fragrance wafted into my nose. She smelled of cinnamon. Then I blinked, or at least I think I blinked. Maybe I fell asleep for a moment. But when I came to, when I opened my eyes and looked at my father, he had slammed through the door and onto the floor in the hallway, the carpet wrapped around him like he was a carcass.
“If you know you can’t be here,” my mother sneered, “Then leave. Get out of here. Before I do worse to you in front of your son.”
I heard my dad say something, I wasn’t sure what, and then I heard a slam and my mother came back through the door, her arms folded, staring at me with disgust. For me, or for my father, I was never sure.
“Don’t turn out like him, my little Mint,” she cooed, petting my hair. “Your father is the most good for nothing king Longan has ever known, and an even worse man.”
I nodded, and then I fell asleep to her asking me which drink would be preferred by everyone with the stew, winter cider or a honey based beer she said they were working on in the cellar. She placed her hands on my wrists, began running her fingers over my palms, and when I woke up from my dream I realized that Arsene held them in a similar way.
♣ ♣ ♣
When I woke up in that dark basement, I didn’t want to get up and the only reason I managed to get out of bed was because I had to relieve myself and Sage was in the bed next to me snoring to the point where I was surprised he wasn’t waking himself up. Stumbling forward, I found the wall and walked up the stairs with one hand gliding across it the whole way up. Arsene was in the room, sleeping in those awkward pajamas in the bed in the center of the room. I walked outside and it wasn’t until I had found a spot that I realized I hadn’t seen Basil at all.
“You should be resting,” he whispered from behind me, making me gasp and nearly make a mess of myself.
“And you,” I said with the slurred voice of one who hasn’t spoken since they woke up, “You need to cease this sneaking up on me before I kill you.”
“My apologies, Mint. This was merely happenstance.” He stood with his back against a tree. He looked terrible. Even though he slept on the boat his eyes were still sunken in, and I couldn’t tell what was holding him together.
“If anything you’re the one who needs sleep,” I said, folding my arms more to keep warm than to appear standoffish. “You don’t look too great.”
He smirked. “You’re right, but I’ll look better again eventually.”
“I noticed you didn’t eat all that much compared to everyone else tonight, and you’ve been becoming less jovial the longer we’ve been away from Avocado.” He was silent, his eyes drooping slightly. “I get that you think we’re in constant danger, but Arsene has said we aren’t. So it makes sense to rest here.”
Basil continued to stare at me, looking either bored or tired, so I gave up and walked back to go inside when I heard him finally sigh and answer. “When you were sleeping,” he said, “Arsene wasn’t just talking with us about the weather and foreign policy or whatever else kids find boring to converse about. Arsene read our fortunes individually, then as a whole.” My body went stiff in the cold, and I found no matter how tightly I hugged myself I was freezing.
“And?” I asked.
He walked over to me and put both hands on my shoulders. “For my fortune, he revealed that my fate is unquestionably rough…” he trailed off, tightening his grip on me. “It’s got me worried about what I should do. So forgive me if I’m paranoid, neurotic, I wish I weren’t. If anything, things are worse for you—you’re still only a boy.”
“I’m almost fourteen, you know,” I said, confused. Basil was obviously worried, and I felt for him. But he couldn’t go calling me some boy. “I’m almost a man.”
“Maybe in your eyes,” he laughed. “But in the eyes of the world and the eyes of other men, your physical age doesn’t matter. You’ll be a man when you’ve accomplished a feat only an adult, a man, could be proud of. Until then, you’re a frail prince, precious cargo to be taken care of until we make it out of the proverbial woods.”
My blood was boiling in my face, and I yanked his hand off one shoulder and pulled away from the other. “So what were the other ones? The one for Sage and the one for all of us.”
Basil narrowed his eyes at me, then pulled his cloak tighter around him as the wind grew faster, louder, and most importantly colder. “For Sage, he spoke a riddle. He simply said look inside yourself to find the newest form of yourself.”
“The hell does that mean?” I muttered.
Basil just smiled, mischievous. “That’s what Sage said. Sounds like some basic garbage anyone could tell you and be correct, like some two bit fortune teller on a backwater island. But Arsene loves messing with Sage. So odds are he’s right, but it will take until it happens for Sage to get it, and odds are he still won’t get it, the oaf. The last thing was more of a warning, and it confirmed my suspicions. ”
Basil wanted me to humor him, waiting for my response, so I asked, “So what did he say, Basil? Get to the point already.”
“He said, ‘The Vastmire is in danger.’”
I stared at him, waiting for him to continue and explain that weird thing he just said, but he didn’t. “You want to repeat that? Not sure I heard you right.” When he repeated and it was the same word, I nodded. “Am I supposed to know what the hell a vasmir is?”
Suddenly, Basil’s face transformed, cycling through a few expressions before settling on worry. “How in the dark are you…?”
“Come on, quit messing with me old man and tell me what it is.”
But Basil just walked away, pacing in a wide, squiggly circle, muttering and rambling like a lunatic. It was fascinating, and a little frightening. After a moment, he perked up and beelined to me, getting in my face so fast that I nearly jumped out of my body. “Your mother,” he said, frantic. “She never told you what is guarded in Avocado?”
“Uhm,” I trailed off, thinking. “You mean the fortune? Or maybe some legendary weapon like the Almite?”
A vein appeared on Basil’s forehead, and I could feel the pulse of his blood from it through the air. He growled, groaned, and just about screamed, picked up a rock, or more accurately a boulder, and launched it into the sky.
“Shit… Shit!” Basil yelled, repeating the word over and over, pacing back and forth, making me more worried than I had been. If I wasn’t awake before, I was awake then.
“Forgive me,” Basil said, his hands visibly shaking. I felt numb and confused. Either Basil was crazy, which I was inclined to believe for a multitude of reasons, or he knew something I didn’t. Something I should have known, maybe everyone knew.
“I’ll forgive you when you tell me what’s got you so worked up,” I said, still numb.
“You don’t know what the Vastmire is, do you?” Basil asked, locking eyes with me, unblinking. It made me blink a bunch.
“I thought we established that,” I said. “I can’t even pronounce it. Am I supposed to know it? Is it some kind of weapon?”
With a sigh, he looked down and nodded. “In some ways, yes. In others, it’s a demon. The Vastmire isn’t something so easily explained, but essentially it’s what lets myself and Sage run on top of trees and use the strength that we have.”
“So it’s like magic?” I asked. “Or some kind of superpower?”
“At its most basic, maybe,” he said, running fingers through his wild, spiked hair. He needed a wash. “It’s not so easy to explain, like I said. But if I had to burn it down to its most basic level, then sure, magic works. But it’s exclusive to our kingdom of Avocado, a genetic birthright. No other country has it, their magics and weapons inferior to the strength Vastmire gives us.”
Nodding, a chilling air hit me all at once and my nose began burning with each breath I took. “Let’s continue inside,” I said. Basil nodded and we rushed back inside together. There was no fire, but the moment the door shut it felt as warm as it would with one.
“Alright,” I said quietly, rubbing my hands together under my cloak and breathing on them as warmly as I could. “So if it’s a birthright, how does Cashew get the Vastmire? Do they breed with us or what? Is there a password?”
Basil shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Vastmire is something that lives in everything in Avocado.”
“How so?”
Sitting close to me, he asked, “You never left Avocado before, right?”
“Until now, no. Mother said I shouldn’t be like my father, I needed to be a pillar of reliability and remain home.”
Sighing, Basil made a shaky fist and tried to steady his breathing. “Forgive me, but the Queen can be such a fool. Well, whatever. So to you everything here on Durian looks incredible and strange, right?” I nodded. “Well, Avocado is exotic, not the other way around. Our grass there is blue when elsewhere it’s green, the water is green where elsewhere it’s blue, the trees grow strangely and the sky is green from our water’s reflection. Most animals don’t live there anymore, we have a few rodents and smaller predators like badgers and wolverines but everything bigger than that didn’t survive the new element. Vastmire’s influence is that great, and it reflects even in us.” When he said that, he knelt close to me and pulled his hair taut, then he nodded towards Arsene. “See how dark his hair is compared to ours? Everyone with Vastmire has green hair and green eyes like us.”
Still shivering, I chattered out, “So I can use magic like you and Sage?”
“I’m going to regret saying it’s magic, aren’t I?” he mumbled. “It’s like magic, but not really. Magic is something everyone can use, this is something a bit different.”
“But the results are similar,” I chattered.
Basil stared up at the ceiling and said, “I’m no teacher.” Then he moved and laid down on his back. “Magic is a power that you can learn to use that manipulates the world around you. Vastmire is something that exists in us due to our geography, our genes, and it’s the world influencing us. It’s like a conversation between us and the power, and we use it to make ourselves do things that are beyond our means. Does that make sense?”
“I think so,” I said. “It makes us a weapon?”
“Precisely,” he said, relieved. “That’s why it’s desirable to Cashew and others as well. Magic isn’t as powerful for warfare as Vastmire is.”
“So I can use it too then?” I asked, excited. Being strong was something that mattered to me as a prince, but was always out of my reach. I never won a single sparring match in my weapons training, and I never bagged a single animal on any of our hunting trips. It got to the point where by the time I was ten they had given up on training me like a man and began training me like a scholar. And it seemed, I thought angrily, they had even hidden the truth from me then as well. I knew so little.
Basil shook his head. “No, you can’t. For some reason, you are an ordinary boy aside from your hair color.” I sat still, shivering every ten seconds. “Perhaps that’s why your mother hid it from you. She didn’t want you feeling different.”
“You mean inferior,” I said, quiet and cold. I think Basil said something then, but I don’t remember. I got up and, wordlessly, headed back down stairs to try and sleep.
Of course, luck did me no favors and Sage was there sitting upright in his bed, legs crossed with one hand on a knee, the other hand resting on his chin. His hair was even more wild after he had slept.
“You should be sleeping,” he remarked drowsily.
“So should you,” I said, hopping into bed and pulling the covers over me. I made sure my back was to him to discourage him from speaking to me.
“Well, I was asleep,” he said, “But for some reason I heard noises and talking, and you weren’t here.” He heaved a sigh, rubbing his eyes. “I was worried.”
“Can’t you sleep through everything,” I asked, annoyed. “ Basil is keeping watch. No reason to worry about us.”
“That’s plenty of reason to worry,” he chuckled. “What were you two talking about then? I assume it was you two, since you won’t tell me.”
Fidgeting, I adjusted my head to get more comfortable. “He told me about the Vastmire.”
“Oh,” he said, then went silent, so I continued bitterly, “I just want to go home and be with my mom. I can’t be of any use away from home, but you two idiots seem to think I have so much to do.”
“That’s not true,” Sage said, cutting in. “We just need to learn more about what’s going on.”
“Exactly. That’s my point,” I said, smiling the stupid smile of a person believing themselves right. “You two don’t even know what the whole situation is and you’re removing me from it. I don’t even know you. If we needed someone away from the kingdom, well my father is. He always is. He never even came home for the solstice celebration. So for what reason do I need to be here? Isn’t one person away enough? Let alone it being the king of all people. The citizens think we’re weak without a king.”
“You think them that sexist?” Sage chided. “Come now, boy. Have more faith in them, and in your mother.”
“You misunderstand me,” I groaned. “That’s apparently your big talent. Maybe you got put in that big empty brick house because you made stupid assumptions.”
The silence after told me I was right, and my grin grew wider, my chest swelling with undeserved pride.
“You aren’t far off,” he confirmed. “But that’s besides the point here. I am well trusted among our country’s officials. Hell I may as well be your uncle with how close I am to your father.”
As much as I wanted to remain “invisible,” that made me get out from under the covers and look at him. His face was so tired, so wretched, and for me so unexpected that it took that swell in my chest and yanked it into my stomach with enough force to shake me, and I shivered from the cold in me.
“Do you know him so well?” I asked.
“Maybe not as well as I would like,” he said, a sad smile on his face. “But we go back, sure. That’s not the point here though. We’ve gone off topic.” Stretching, Sage was trying to reset the situation emotionally. “You seem to think this was all pretty immediate and foolish of us, but that’s not true. You’re missing the bigger picture.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, think about it. The moment I found you, there were strange people trying to get into your room and take you. And after that we were pursued the whole way up to my home. Not only were you pursued but you were pursued by Cashew royals and army men, not a single Avocado native. So even if you want to believe that this is all our doing, try to understand that you can’t go back home until we come up with a way to help on the outside. Because the moment you get taken back home, you will be imprisoned, maybe killed, for all we know by your own countrymen.”
Sage’s words made sense. And in me I knew these things from the beginning, as I believe everyone does when confronted by these new, terrible experience such as I was, royal or no. Big or small, bad is bad, and when it isn’t something you’re familiar with, it can be difficult to let yourself grasp that situation. So consider this when I say that despite understanding it, I chose not to believe it, even if I wasn’t conscious of the choices I was making, that choice was made by me.
“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” I said, rolling back over. “But only because it’s late and if I tried to fight any of you I’d die. I need you guys to get me back, so the only way I can do that is by being cooperative, right?”
He sighed, pounded a fist into the floor with enough force to cause the little home to quake. “No,” he boomed. “But fine. If you want to be that way, continue to be a sniveling child.”
I’m sure he spoke more, long and hard about things. I don’t remember them.