The murder of a smile

“... and now there is the meeting tomorrow. What am I supposed to do? What should I tell? It’s not their fault I don’t want to be a ward,” Fulgor rambled as he expertly changed the baby’s diaper for a clean one. “Some kids want to, you know? But it’s scary. Because, what if they are mean?”
He decided to interpret the gurgling answer as a word of encouragement. “You are right! No point in succumbing to panic, either. The only thing I’ve ever managed with that is to make the grave deeper,” he admited, as he easily secured the nappy’s pins.
He was quiet for a moment as he started to put the diaper bag in order, but soon he went back to panicking aloud. “Is just... what happens if they hate me? I don’t want to be hated by the people who decides the rest of my life, you know? And yes, yes, I will have plenty of chances to make a mistake in the future, but it’s kind of early for—”
He interrupted his rant, suddenly mesmerized with the encounter of an unexpected idea.
What happened with kids if the potential guardian changed their mind before the adoption process?
He threw the diaper in the wash and ran to the archive.
Not a second later, he came back, to make sure that there wasn’t any cloths of other type and see that the machine had the right setting. He confirmed that everything was working fine and nobody would be inconvenienced. Then he ran to the archive.

**

Now that everyone has gone to their rooms, except for the toddler that had fallen sleep under the table, Fulgor was alone with his thoughs. He tried to put his full attention on the patterns of the sun hat he was weaving, but his mind kept coming back to the memory of the woman that would definitely become his guardian.
A week before, when he was told that he had ben chosen to be a ward, he had felt like throwing up. Not four hours ago, as the aristocrat’s servants respectfully bowed and recited that they were waiting for his next visit, he had barely held it long enough to reach an area where people wouldn’t have to witness it.
A visit, they had said! But they all knew that the next time he crossed that threshold, he would be an inhabitant of the house, not a guest. And there was nothing he could do about it anymore. He had missed his chance and now it was practically written in stone.
He felt just as the fire dancing out of existence in the common room’s hearth. “I heard you make a good impression” a raspy voice said behind him, somewhere by the stairs.
He turned around by reflex, not recognizing the voice though it was familiar enough to know it was one of the girls of the orphanage.
Efigie was on the fourth step of the stairs.
Third.
Second.
Not a single sound, until she added: “The manager was worried that you could try to sabotage the meeting, you know? People seems to believe that you didn’t want to be adopted.”
Believe it? Everyone knew it. And he had went to the meeting with every intention to sabotage the process. But that plan had failed and he was doomed. Worst of all, now he understood that he was set for the worst possible kind of adoption.
“I heard she’s kind of evil,” Efigie said, nonchalantly. “That she...”
“She’s not,” he sighed.
“Is it just bad luck, then? I mean, that’s a peculiar amount of”—she made quotes with her fingers—“lost wards”
“Would you stop?” He cut her off. “I’m already aware of the mess I’m in.” Efigie smiled, her hands still on the air. It wasn’t a cruel smile, or a kind one. It was a scary version of a teacher’s pride after the student gets the answer on their own.
“Good,” she said, finally letting her hands down and adopting a determined tone that sounded way more natural that the casualness from before. “Do you want to know how to get out?”
Oh.
Now he recognized the smile. This was a seller who knew that the buyer had already bit the hook.

**

They walked down the children’s secret passageway. At this point, it was probably not even a secret, since at least a couple of the kids had grown up to become part of the orphanage staff. Even so, it remained open and unguarded: a sort of leniency for those who dared to escape to the beach once in a while. Or maybe a setup.
Either way, the path was there for those who wanted to avoid chores and get forbidden fun. It wasn’t a way to run from the lonely building on Derrota cliff. There were no means to leave the hidden beach other than going up the same stairs and, more important, the orphans had nowhere to go.
That part still bothered Fulgor. Efigie’s plan to start over made all the sense in the world: for her. He could end up in a lot of trouble by moving into a riddler’s city. In theory, they respected the limits imposed by the country, but that was in part because the signers stay away, right? The riddlers had been close to destroying their culture during the invasion, and where probably still resented of how they had been the ones who ended up conquered. The city of Gracia could be seen as a self imposed imprisonment instead of a fortress for those who refused to follow the trading laws but knew they couldn’t fight the country.
He was sure that the inhabitants of that place resented the restrictions ruling them now. What if they took it on signers like himself?
One way or another, it was both too soon and too late to worry about that. The ship was there, waiting for the couple of fugitives, so they provided the payment as arranged and jumped in, becoming temporary members or the crew. One of the sailors recognized her as a riddler, and there was a bit of discontent, but Fulgor explained that she had always been at the orphanage, and knew nothing from the invaders culture. Besides, a deal was a deal, right?
For the next months, they alone where in charge or keeping the boat clean. That wasn’t exactly part of the payment, which had been more than a regular client would have given to travel in a passenger’s boat to the place they needed to reach. But they didn’t have a home, let alone a businnes of their own, so they were expected to work for someone else. The trader’s, in this case, since they were on their ship.
He was often summoned to do other chores, or even voluntered for activities that were extremely unpleasant, but that didn’t meant that he would contribute less with the task he shared with Efigie. She was apparently happy to clean each corner as long as she was unnoticed, but he wouldn’t let anyone else carry a burden alone, especially if they were supposed to be a team.
It was a surprise, though, how easy and fun it was to work with her. More than anything, it was a surprise to find out that she seemed to be having fun too. Not with cleaning, or about being disliked by a couple of people on the ship, but around Fulgor. They talked more over the first month of travel than they have done living under the same roof during almost a decade. They had worked together in some chores back then and, she at least, had plenty of free time, so he wonder why they had interacted so little.
“I didn’t know you could be so funny” he confessed, one night, as he caught his breath after laughing about and old story from the orphanage. “How is it that I never knew anything about you?”
“Nobody did. How could any of you have guessed that the daughter of a war criminal is a normal person,” she answered, and despite her best attempts to play it down, he could see that it hurt her to know that everyone saw her that way.
He felt like apologizing, but she clearly didn’t want to hear that, or anything else, and was already back to cleaning.
“Is not your fault,” he said. “The things they did, have nothing to do with you. I know everyone is hard on you because your dad was so high ranked, but the decisions he made, the things he ordered and what they both did... None of that is your fault.”
She didn’t answer at first. He didn’t expect her to do it, when she talked:
“I know that. And I know that you would have seen me, as me and not as their daughter, if I had given you the chance. You are the kind to do that, always looking at people, looking for needs to provide for.” Something in her tone made it sound like that wasn’t a good thing. “I keep my distance from everyone because it’s safer that way. But I know you aren’t a dangerous person. That’s why I asked you for help instead of anyone else. Others were more interested in running away but I didn’t dare to approach them. From my perspective, it was lucky that you ended up in a situation where you needed to escape too.“ “Why do you need help, though? You have it all planned.”
“No captain would have made a deal with an orphan from my kind, no matter how much money I could offer. Don’t you remember that they made questions? They barely accepted me being your friend and with your explanations about how I’m one of you.”
He hasn’t really lied. She has really be raised as a citizen, even if no one talked to her because of her family history. But they wouldn’t have trusted her alone.
“You are one of us,” he smiled, even when she wasn’t looking at him.
She must have read the emotion, though, because when she turned around, she was smiling too. She smiled a lot these days, in a way that was very different from her triumphant smile.

**

By the second month at the traders ship, Fulgor had gotten his own room, and his friend has quietly made her way into a bed in a shared cabin; but they still spend more time on a dark storage room or looking at the stars, as they whisper or laughed loudly about the past they didn’t share and their plans for the future.
“I meant it when I said you are one of us,” he dared to comment once. “We could stay and just be... like everyone else.”
“We could keep cleaning the ship, now for money instead of as a bonus from letting us come with them,” she laughed.
“Or sell quilts to this poor people.”
“Oh, we would be selling quilts, but that’s when we have enough money to buy materials, and a little house on a cliff.”
“So we would be back to the life we had before running away?”
“Oh, it seemed to me that you loved it,” she teased, and he laughed.
Maybe she was right.
“Would you have stayed to work at the orphanage, if they'd let you choose?” Efigie asked.
He shook his head. “I... Don’t laugh, but... I was planning to become a messenger, or maybe a merchant.”
She looked at him, surprised. It seemed as if she was about to ask something, but since she didn’t, it was him who questioned her about her own plans as a child.
She blinked at him, now utterly shocked.
“Did you really think...? Well, I guess you did stand a chance. But orphans usually become wards,” she said.
“Didn’t it bother you?” he asked, but immediately laughed and said: “Well, of course it did, you made an escape plan!”

**

They had no baggage to carry when they left the ship in nearest port to the border.
It was just them and the little money they had left, the exact amount to bribe the guards to pass the border once they had managed to arrive there. If they managed to arrive.
“I thought you had been given a few things,” she observed. “Did your friends took their presents back now that you are not sailing with them?”
He didn’t answer immediately, so she stop midway and demanded to know what he was hiding.
“I’m not...” he started to say a lie, but he knew he was running out of time. “Efi, come back with me.”
“What?”
“If they know you, the crew would be your friends too. And nobody out of Derrota knows who your parents are. You can...”
“What? Pretend I’m not a riddler?” she said, her eyes half closed as if trying to spot a sign of treason or danger. “Spend the rest of my life pretending magic can’t hear me to pass as one of you?”
“If you...”
“Can’t. I’m not staying here.”
“That place is dangerous for me, Efigie.”
“No, it isn’t, they live at peace. And even if it was a problem, it wouldn’t be as bad as this country is to me.”
“But...”
“I know they have there reasons, but I still want better. And you should too. Even if the others are nice, you would work for the traders. You would never be free!”
“We are orphans, Efigie. That was never a possibility...”
“It is if we cross the border!”
He shook his head. He couldn’t risk it.
She gave him the same inviting look from that first night, and he felt like crying because he knew he would never see that expression again. But he stepped back. Away from the path that would lead her home. It felt like treason, to abandon her when she still had a long way to walk. But it wasn’t his path.
“You are letting me down? Me, of all people?” she barked.
He took another step back.
She sighed and looked away, but when she faced him again, she was smiling a polite, distant smile. “I guess we are just too different to be together. It was good while it lasted, I suppose.”
She seemed to be okay, and he decided to believe that. He chose to ignore that something in her eyes had just disappeared forever, something Fulgor couldn’t describe or define, but seeing it gone made him feel like a murderer.
But he drowned the idea by telling himself that it was okay to abandon her, because all his efforts to make everyone happy hadn’t stop people from abandoning him when he faced a horrible fate. He knew there was something wrong in that logic, a detail he was missing, but he quiet that down too. He would be back to being helpful and friendly as soon as he was back at the ship. But this time, just this time, he would take care of himself.
He knew he will never see her warm, trustful smile again. He knew he would never be free. But he had found a life that wasn’t really that bad. A life as happy as he could get.
So he smiled back, and they hugged and said goodbye.
Sometimes and ending was nothing but a separate beginnings.

---

A short story that will probably become part of the Forseer's path once I'm working with that properly. Or should I say if I ever try to publish that collection?
It takes place somewhere in Gehi, one of those big worlds with a lot of cultures that are mostly build around the same principles (which in this case aren't either nice or good, but work for them so who we are to judge?). So far, the Riddlers are the only ones in that world who don't follow that principle. They were violent against their neighbors, doing wrong things for kind-of right reasons, and paid a high price for it.

La Ruta del Adivino was the original collection of short stories, but a lot has happened since I wrote those, and instead of translating I will have to write most of it from scratch. This particular short is about new characters that will be part of that, born just last month (I think) as an idea, and still a work in progress. This is the first story I write trying to explore the new concept.