Behavioral Activation

My mornings had usually started with Lyla hammering on the door of my room until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Those irritating knocks were no more starting today, and nothing else could haul me off my comfy paradise. To make matters worse, my body wouldn’t listen to my commands for it to move. It could be an act of defiance, or the toll accumulated from the sleepless nights finally overpowered me. The sight of Lyla’s bow and arrow necklaces on the desk might have served as an amulet that kept me caged on my bed.

Coyote mostly kept to her room, so I didn’t have much chance to interact with her except for meals and Lyla’s writing lessons. It was too much to expect her to stand in for Lyla. My late start to the day bothered me more than it should have. Maybe I was really regressing to a child. I should find something that can replace an alarm clock starting tomorrow. Would a rooster work to herald the sunrise? Where could I even get a rooster?

The deliberations continued as I made my way down the stairs. There was a guest fiddling with the merchandise on the shelves, and it wasn’t a customer. Zeroc didn’t express any displeasure at my late arrival, with only that usual grin on his face.

“I thought you were on duty today,” he said.

“Do you know solitary confinement is a form of psychological torture?”

“You knew that and you still kept me waiting here alone?” My excuse backfired, but I was too tired to run from blame.

“It isn’t lunchtime yet. Why are you here?”

“How can you treat me like an errand boy?”

“That’s not what I meant. I… Oh, forget it. Let me get to work.” With heavy steps to emphasize my fury, I sat down behind the counter. Zeroc stood across from me and pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment from his pocket.

“Do you know what I have in my hands?”

“I’m not in the mood for guessing games.” I rested my chin on the counter and closed my eyes. The sturdy support of the wooden surface was ample comfort for me to drift off to sleep. Zeroc flapped the parchment against my forehead, preventing me from relishing my much-needed relaxation.

I slapped the parchment away. However, after that, I still sat up and read the contents of the parchment. This outcome was determined anyway, as Zeroc wouldn’t have given up on harassing me until I yielded. The literacy lessons from Lyla paid off. I could recognize enough words to understand that the parchment was the contract of employment for Lyla and me.

“Why are you showing this to me?”

Zeroc answered by tearing the parchment in half and then further into pieces; he widened his palms to let the remains scatter across the floor.

“You don’t have to be so dramatic. It is two days before the end of my employment anyway.”

“Oh… so, you’re keeping track.”

“What slave wouldn’t count the days until the control… I mean the contract is over?”

“That isn’t important. Come with me.”

“What about my job?”

“No one is going to visit the shop today either.” And so, my excuse went down the drain. Also, why did Zeroc hire us? No one would be so stupid as to think that he was here to do anything other than investigate the city. Oh, wait…

“You are actually the real Topaz, the owner of the company.” It was careless of me to verbalize my wild guesses so casually, but I no longer cared about being smart or safe. I should just say whatever I had in mind. No amount of rationality could help me regardless.

Zeroc’s face twitched. My sudden assertion caught him off guard. Then, he exhaled a disappointed breath, the same reaction as someone whose sandcastle was destroyed. “What gave it away?”

“A little clue here and there. In the end, it was just a whim.”

His straightforward validation of my hunch wasn’t what I expected. I thought he would deny it playfully, and I could use it as a chance to end the conversation. The development I had gotten instead could spell my doom, but there wasn’t any fear that started building up. My insides felt hollow, as if someone had drilled a hole where my heart should have been. No longer would I care, because the act of caring couldn’t solve anything at all. We were slaves of fate.

“Follow me,” Zeroc’s next words interrupted my self-defeating thoughts. With this boon, I could feel only annoyance.

…

I didn’t know how long I followed Zeroc (I was too used to his alias to call him Topaz) on the main street. My gaze was on the ground the whole time, counting the dust and pebbles abandoned here and there. It wasn’t Zeroc’s request that led my eyes to diverge from my front. The blame lay in the near-complete depletion of my appetite for the city view. It was even a drag to keep track of the time to get to the destination.

We arrived at an innocuous building with a barely visible doorway. Zeroc led me straight into the damp and stuffy interior. The glass roof graciously allowed sunlight to fill the three-story room. The place was a high-bay space with no other floors. Rows of enormous potted plants, like those frequently present in prehistoric illustrations, surround a single desk with some chairs. A miniature indoor garden.

“Please take a seat.” Zeroc showed me to a chair. I sat down without any reservations. The cold marble surface of the chair began its theft of my body heat.

“What is this place?”

“Somewhere I spend time when I have things on my mind. The plant collection I have here has helped me make several great decisions. I hope it would do the same for you.” Zeroc settled down across me. His smile became heavy. “I’ll be frank here. Join my company. I will train you to be a citywide manager of my business. We can determine which city later.”

“Why me? I’m a nobody.”

“At first, I was curious what elven nobility was doing with a human child. You don’t see this very often. Elves hate children. They even hire outsiders to look after their young. And I was right. You are something special.”

That didn’t sound adaptive under natural selection. I wondered how elves developed this tendency. No matter what the truth could be, it wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Lyla would be back where she was from, enjoying her happiness. It must have been tough for a noble like her to put up with me. With all my posturing and self-indulgence.

“What do you say? Are you accepting my offer? Hello?” Zeroc knocked on my skull as he didn’t get a response out of me. It was too much of a hassle to dodge, so I let him hit me to his heart’s content.

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” I said under my breath.

“What did you say?” Zeroc yelled next to my ear. This time, he got the reaction he wanted, because humans instinctively cover their ears from loud noise.

“I said I don’t want to go anywhere!”

Zeroc leaned back in his seat and shrugged. He pulled out another rolled-up parchment from his pocket. Just how many of these did he hide on him? He unwrapped it and showed it to me. It was another copy of the contract. He pointed specifically to one of the clauses.

The temperature of the room seemed to drop right when I read it. And I could hear myself inhale a deep breath. It stated that the violation of the contract, which included tampering with the merchandise and vacating the post, was punishable by a necessary signing of another contract with Topaz (Zeroc).

My panic level rose off the charts. I wanted to do nothing all day from then on. The prospect of having to work shook me to my core. “You permitted us to use the products. And the walks I took during those mornings were part of the job. I was patrolling for anything suspicious and looking for potential customers.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you snuck out during work hours.” This was his strategy: knocking me off balance with that outrageous contract. I clenched my fist to re-anchor my mind to think of loopholes that could save me.

“How many of those violations can you prove? I don’t have to remind you that no customer visited the store in the past month.” My voice became much steadier after calming down. Zeroc was unfazed by my recovery.

“With my reputation, I could bring this to the high court. I’ll prove to them exactly what you said. No one visited the store, yet the stock kept getting depleted. And how could you prove I let you use them? But… that wouldn’t be quite as interesting. We don’t have to take this to that dull place. I have conclusive evidence of a violation. Do you know what it is? I’ll give you some time to think.” These were tactics to rattle me. I couldn’t fall for it like I did before. No way he could… I froze. He did have a claim he could latch onto. Hoping that he would overlook this, I stayed silent.

“The environment here is so different from outside. How do you achieve this?” I launched a clumsy attempt to change the topic. Better than nothing.

“I’ll play along with your detour. A mana stone-powered contraption adjusts the temperature and moisture in this place. I should probably take it with me when I leave the day after tomorrow. It costs a fortune. Now, back to the contract…”

“You are better off hiring someone who knows magic, because I don’t.”

“You can learn. The more you know about how the world works, the more magic you can use. I thought Lady Lyla knew a few spells herself. Did she not mention it?” Lyla’s explanation of magic suddenly made a lot more sense. Then, my psychology knowledge had to be worth something. While I was thinking about the implications of what I had just learned, Zeroc took the chance to strike.

“Speaking of Lady Lyla, she violated the contract when she left. Many of the soldiers can serve as witnesses. How do you defend yourself now?”