Glass and Art

With his tail tended to, Elias made his way to Marcel, Serena, and Lin, who had waited nearby for him.

“Glad she was able to help,” said Marcel, upon seeing the bandages and splint that now adorned Elias’ tail. “How’s it feel?”

“Still hurts,” said Elias. “But hopefully it’ll be better tomorrow.” He turned toward Serena. “And she said that she’d teach us magic at the shore tomorrow at dawn.”

“So early,” grumbled Serena. Then the girl slapped her cheeks, as if to push away her own complaints. “No, I can do this. Thank you, Elias.” She smiled at him, and something about her gaze made his stomach summersault.

“No problem.” His cheeks grew warm and he managed a stilted nod.

Then Lin grabbed Elias’ hands.

“And now you can come to my room and–”

“Lin,” Marcel groaned. “We just talked about this a second ago.”

Lin rolled her eyes.

“I’m sorry for scaring you before with Kuchisake and that television,” she said. Without even waiting for Elias to acknowledge the apology, Lin continued talking. “Now you can come to my room and allow me to etch your essence into my canvas.”

Elias rolled his eyes. He considered refusing after that stunt in the storage closet, especially when Lin laughed, but he had the sneaking suspicion that she would keep badgering him. Best to get it over with now rather than later.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Thank you!” Lin jumped up and down, still clutching Elias’ hands.

Lin led the way back to the red flower field and the semicircle of shacks that rested upon that field.

During the walk, Elias’ stomach rumbled with hunger. A question that he probably should’ve asked finally reared its head.

“Guys, what do you eat around here? Do Bill or Kuchisake bring food, or…?”

“Usually father sends food to us,” said Serena. “Rains down from the sky in these paper packages. We’ve got about two hours before the next one?” She looked toward Marcel for confirmation, who nodded. “But sometimes Bill and Kuchisake show up with food and drink.”

“Like the tea keg,” said Elias, and Serena nodded. Elias managed not to frown, but he remembered how his arms had ached when he’d helped Bill carry the keg down the stairs of Merloine’s tower, through the path to the boat, and through this island to the red flower field. But surely Merloine had his reasons for why he couldn’t transport that keg in the same way. Maybe he was afraid of the keg breaking from the fall.

Serena stared at Elias. Her eyes drifted to his ears and tail.

“Now that I think about it, you are a bit cat-like,” Serena mused.

“I’m glad you finally noticed.” Elias rolled his eyes.

“Did someone bring you food back in your world?” wondered Serena. “Like how humans keep cats as pets and feed them?”

“I’m nobody’s pet.” Elias gave Serena a withering look. “I have these ears and my tail because…” His brow furrowed. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten them. A fog settled over his mind as he tried to mull it over, but an ache filled his chest.

“I think Serena meant ‘royalty’,” chimed in Marcel. “The way a prince might have servants looking after them.”

“I’m not royalty either,” said Elias. And even if he had been royalty, his world had allegedly been destroyed. At least he could defend himself and hunt his own food in a pinch. If he’d been some spoiled prince that only ever relied on his servants, he would’ve surely died by now.

As they strode past the blue flower field on their way to the red, a thought struck Elias. Merloine fed and housed these people, not unlike how someone might take care of pets.

“Does Merloine ever ask for anything in exchange for the food?” Elias said. He looked mainly at Lin and Marcel. It went without saying that a parent would support their child, after all.

Lin and Marcel exchanged a look before shaking their heads.

“I can’t think of anything,” Lin said.

“If he looked out for us in the world we came from,” added Marcel. “Then maybe he still feels that same obligation even if we’re in this Inkyard now. We’re just lucky to have someone so generous and kindly looking after us.”

“Maybe.”

They eventually returned to the red flower field. While many of the people had left, some remained and continued chatting. A few had even begun kicking a ball around. Then they stepped inside the shack. As he followed Lin to her and Marcel’s room, the sounds from some of the closed doors that lined the shack walls made Elias blush. Lin, Marcel, and Serena, however, seemed unbothered.

Serena nodded toward the hallway, in the direction of where her and Elias’ room lay.

“I’ll be getting some rest,” she said. Her eyes lingered on Elias. “Feel free to disturb me.”

“Thank you?” Elias tilted his head but nodded uncertainly.

Serena rolled her eyes, and parted ways from the group. Her red ponytail swayed from side to side as she walked up down the hall and rounded the corner, vanishing from his sight. He didn’t have much time to think that over before Lin grabbed his hand and pulled him toward her and Marcel’s room.

“Come on!” she said.

Marcel tried to walk inside after them, but Lin glared at him.

“No distractions!”

“Fine.” Marcel held his hands up in surrender. “I’ll go work on another musical piece. Maybe a girl will look my way.” He laughed, but it carried a self-deprecating note.

“You’re supposed to keep your goals realistic, Marcel,” said Lin.

“Yeah yeah.” He waved off her words before smiling at Elias. “Don’t be afraid to put your foot down if she goes too far. I ought to take that advice myself more often, but…” He shrugged.

“Thanks,” said Elias. “And thanks for spending time with me, Marcel.”

“Don’t mention it. I wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

Marcel departed from the shack, and Lin steered Elias into the bedroom. As she shut the door behind them, Elias beheld the interior.

The room itself looked identical to his and Serena’s, but the left half bore both small and large paintings that hung from the walls. All of them bore a beauty that stole Elias’ breath away. The right half of the room, meanwhile, sported pages upon pages of sheet music. A wastebin was piled high with crumpled up sheets.

“And now you’re all mine,” said Lin. She crept toward Elias with an ever-widening smile. “Your essence is within my grasp.” A hungry gleam shone in her eyes.

Despite her being more than a foot shorter than him, Elias still backed away from her until he felt the washroom door against him. Before long, Lin sat him down on Marcel’s bed, and then sat on her own across from him. A pencil and sketchpad held tight in her hand, she motioned for him to speak.

“Tell me what your world is like. Your home.”

Elias’ eyes closed as he pictured his home. He smiled as he remembered the home. Or the feeling of being home. But a faint fog still lingered in his mind, and he couldn’t quite picture the buildings. But they probably looked like the shack he dwelled in now though, right? Four walls and a triangular roof seemed like a solid design in general. It made sense that his own home would have similar buildings.

“It’s a bit like the buildings here,” said Elias. The fog settled in his mind like a reassuring blanket.

“It is a pretty stable design,” Lin said. “And we’re all people at the end of the day, so it makes sense that people would live in similar style homes, even if they’re in different worlds.”

Her assurances earned more nods from Elias. As Lin began work on a canvas, he peered at the finished paintings that hung on the walls. There were five paintings, but given how eager Lin was to paint, that seemed like a small number to him.

“I thought you’d have more,” remarked Elias.

“If I kept all of them here, there wouldn’t be room to hang up new ones,” Lin said. “If I want to put up new ones, I take the others to a small shed past the yellow flowers.” Her lips pinched to one side. “Bill wanted me to get rid of them, but they’re like my babies.”

Elias blinked a few times.

“Why would Bill want you to get rid of your paintings?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” said Lin. “For now, why don’t you…” She hummed to herself before walking over. She asked Elias to assume many, many poses until his arms and legs ached.

“Can we take a break?” he said.

“We’re done when I say we’re done!” she cried. “No moving!”

As Elias suffered under Lin’s domineering commands, he thought back to the sounds he’d heard from the other rooms. It wasn’t lost on him that Lin and Marcel also shared a room, but the notion of uncoupled people of opposing genders sharing a bed would’ve been a scandal back home. That didn’t stop some lords from taking advantage of their own power and authority, but still.

“It doesn’t bother you to share a room with Marcel?” he said.

“Why would that bother me?” Lin tilted her head. Her brush paused against the canvas.

“Because…well…” Elias squirmed, his cheeks reddening, but a glare from Lin stilled his movements. “Did you know Marcel from the world you came from, then? I figure sharing a room with your childhood friend wouldn’t bother you.”

“Not that I can remember, but then again, Marcel is pretty boring. Not memorable enough for me to remember,” remarked Lin. “But if you’re getting at what I think you’re getting, then no. I’m sure nobody has even touched Marcel. And even if I had done anything with him, I wouldn’t have anything to fear.” She sounded so assured that Elias gave her a bewildered look. Lin returned this bewildered look, and then her eyes widened. “Right, you came here recently. I guess nobody told you. We can’t have kids here.” She spoke the words nonchalantly.

“Huh?” Elias blinked a few times. “Why’s that?”

Lin shrugged. “Don’t know, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

As Elias grappled with that, he considered the implications. If that applied to everyone in the world, then there was no way to replenish any population. Unless the Inkyard received refugees like Elias all the time, enough to keep the population from plummeting.

Then Bill’s words came to mind. He’d talked about one day having a child, and Elias’ eyes softened as he remembered the wistfulness that had coated every word of the man’s voice. Maybe he was counting on Merloine’s magic to make that dream a reality.

After an arduous two hours of serving as Lin’s muse, Elias finally caught wind of an escape. There was a knock on Lin’s door, and his ears flicked in the direction of his savior.

“The food’s falling,” called Marcel, panting. “Thought you should know.”

“Did you get some for me?” said Lin.

“Nope.”

“Typical.” Lin rolled her eyes and motioned Elias outside with her paintbrush. “You’re free. For today.”

Elias scampered from the room as though he were a rabbit leaving a lion’s den. He found Marcel waiting outside, a pair of small parcels in his hands. He pressed both into Elias’ hands. The aroma of sweetened bread wafted to his nose, and Elias had to bury the urge to devour both then and there.

“One for you,” said Marcel. “And one for Serena.”

“Thank you Marcel.”

Elias snacked on one of the sweetened bread buns, and savored both the soft texture and the meaty filling inside. A close look found shellfish inside, and he munched with a cheery hum on his lips as he walked to his room. As he approached the bedroom door, Elias had half a mind to enter without knocking, much like how Serena had done earlier that day. But he didn’t need her yelling or hitting him, or worse, going to Bill, Kuchisake, or her father about how Elias had been mean to her.

So he knocked on the door.

“It’s me,” he said. “Marcel got us some food.”

“You can come in,” she called. “It’s open.”

Elias stepped inside. He beheld Serena on her bed. She wore light blue underwear that only made her red hair appear all the more striking, and nothing else.

Elias’ cheeks burned darker than Serena’s hair as he darted from the room and shut the door.

“You said I could come in!” he cried. The slam of the door and the volume of his voice drew confused stares from those in the hallway.

“I did?” Serena said, sounding confused despite being the one so scantily dressed.

“But you barely have anything on,” Elias protested.

“So? You’re sounding odd, Elias,” said Serena. “I was getting hot in that dress, so I decided to change out of it.”

The stares of the men and women outside remained bewildered, as if Elias was the one out of sorts. A deep breath steadied himself. Was he really the odd one here? His eyes closed, and he entered the bedroom again. After closing the door behind him, he risked a peek. Serena remained on the bed where she had been. She held a notebook in her hand. Her brow was furrowed and her lips pinched to one side.

Elias’ gaze kept latching onto her chest despite his best efforts, and he set the food parcel from Marcel on the bed next to her.

“Thanks,” she said.

“You look pretty deep in thought there,” he remarked, hoping to strike up a conversation to avoid getting entranced by her physique and hair. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Tomorrow won’t be the first time that Kuchisake tried teaching me magic, I think,” Serena said.

“You think?” said Elias.

“I don’t remember the lessons all too well. Or at all, really. But she insists they happened, so…” Serena shrugged. “Maybe I did so badly that I blocked it out.” She laughed, but her voice bore a weight that made Elias’ ears flatten against his hair.

“Maybe we can take notes on it this time,” said Elias. “I’m sure I’ll do pretty poorly too, but we’ll figure it out. We’re in a new world now, so maybe things will be different.” He laid down in his bed, and glanced at her side of the room again. Whereas Lin and Marcel had decorated their bedroom walls with paintings and sheet music, Serena’s walls were entirely bare.

“Not fond of decorating?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “There were decorations here earlier, but I threw them all out.” A heavy hum punctuated her words. Elias wondered if she had misgivings about having done that.

“If you moved in after someone else left, that would make sense,” said Elias. “Those other decorations were what other people put up to make their room theirs. Nothing to do with you.” His reassurances received another hum in response. “What did they look like?”

“Jewelry made from glass. A lot of them were on strings to make necklaces or bracelets.” Serena pressed a hand to the wall of her side of the room. “Everyone said that I liked them, and they did seem like things I would like, but…” She shook her head and laughed, but the sound was mirthless. “I sound weird, sorry.”

“Nothing you have to apologize for,” said Elias. He racked his brain, wondering what he could say to alleviate her concern. A passing line from Leon came to mind. “Hold on, didn’t Leon say something about a glass necklace? Maybe you threw them away because it reminded you of him?”

“Maybe.” From Serena’s tone of voice, however, she remained unconvinced. In fact, from the way her gaze fell to her lap, Elias’ attempt at reassurance might’ve muddled her thoughts even more. Eventually she massaged her temples and left the bed. “There’ll be another nightmare tonight with these thoughts swirling in my head. I’ll get a cup of tea from the infirmary. Do you want some, Elias?”

The same tea had fogged his mind each time he’d drank it. A part of him wanted to refuse, but this striking beauty had asked out of concern for him, and he’d been partly the reason she needed to get tea to begin with. Refusing felt rude. As the pressure mounted, Elias nodded.

“I’d appreciate a cup too, thanks.”

Serena pulled on her dress and left the room. Eventually she returned and pressed a cup into Elias’ hands. She took a sip, and so did he. The anxiousness over the discomfort he caused Serema faded away. As the fog descended over his mind yet again, his body grew comfortable against the mattress. As though he’d rested there for years. The bed back home must’ve felt exactly like this. Maybe it could’ve been that very bed.

The strangeness of that thought struck Elias, but the sickly sweet taste of the tea washed that strangeness away. It made sense. His initial change of clothes had come with him, so perhaps his bed had come too.