280ALL THE WRONG REASONS
Eryk: Three weeks
What could a person do in three weeks? I could...
...grow my nails long enough to sharpen them into claws. Except I'd probably scratch myself into ribbons in my sleep.
...dig a hole under my bed so I would have a hiding place for the things I don't want mama to know that I have. If I could stay up until after mama's gone to sleep, that is, because I'd never be able to do that in the daytime.
...wear this smock to death so that I could finally have a grown-up tunic; only babies wear smocks. And I'm not a baby anymore.
Eryk held in a gigantic sigh and looked at his sensible blunt fingernails fidgeting on the scarred wood of the tabletop. Only two nails were chipped, which could be considered a minor miracle of sorts for him. Across the table, an older youth was working on a small hill of root vegetables. The task was supposed to be shared by the two of them, but nobody would ever know that looking at the relative size of the pile of skins in front of the two of them. His hands were hidden from view behind the peelings he'd produced, but they were moving swiftly, adding steadily to the evidence of his diligence. Granted, the harder worker of the two hadn't said a word about his partner's lack of participation, but looking at that accusing pile of spud skin was enough to make Eryk pick up his knife to continue on the half-undressed potato he'd abandoned earlier. That drew a faint smile of approval from the other, but unfortunately the spell of conscientiousness didn't last long; not five minutes later, the internal monologue had started up again.
Three weeks is such a long time to wait! I feel like I can't bear it any longer… I wish I were twelve now! Not that I think being twelve will be any different from being eleven… but I just really, really, want to find out if I'm one of Them.
"One of Them!"
At that sound of private thoughts being made public, the youth dropped his knife and the root he'd been peeling with a yelp before sucking on the knuckle of one finger. Immediately, Eryk was full of contrition, apologising and grabbing at the finger. The owner of the finger promptly raised the hand containing the finger into the air and thus out of reach of the shorter boy.
"Let me see, Myka!" Eryk demanded.
"It's just a nick," the injured youth replied, but he surrendered the finger for examination nevertheless, knowing that the person confronting him would not let the matter rest just like that.
Satisfied at last that the injury was indeed minor, Eryk said, "Sorry I startled you. I was just thinking about... well, you know."
Myka's response was his usual frown, which made Eryk start wondering—not for the first time—if he'd have a permanent fold in his forehead soon from all that scowling. Along with that idle thought was an urge to tell Myka to smile for once, but the frown looked too genuine, so the urge was intimidated out of existence. When Myka opened his mouth, Eryk tried not to cringe at the scolding that was surely coming.
However, his voice was without rancour when he spoke. "It isn't like what you think," he said lightly.
Eryk bit an already well-chewed lip and reflected a little sulkily that it was easy for him to say that since he already knew that he was one of Them – the Talented ones. It made the waiting all the harder when the whole village now knew Myka had a Talent, and apparently a very strong one too, based on the Sign that he'd received.
When patient silence did not make Myka elaborate any further, Eryk got up and began to kick a peeling around the small kitchen. Keep it moving, but don't let it spin out of reach… somehow that makes me feel that at least I have something in my life under my own control.
Myka continued working, looking up now and then to witness the peeling being kicked into mush.
"My birthday is coming. What's wrong with being happy and excited?" Eryk asked suddenly.
The youth didn't answer, but he set down his knife and tossed his heavy braid back over one shoulder. At the same time, he held out one arm, the one with the hand that wasn't muddy from handling the roots. For one moment, Eryk considered rejecting the gesture in a childish huff, but the moment did not last long. A quick scramble into that familiar space between Myka's arm and chest, and the petulant question was laid to rest, drowned in security and reassurance. When I put my ear over his heart and shut out every other sound but that steady rhythm, I feel that everything is just the way it should be.
The perfection of the moment was marred by a twinge of regret: soon he would not fit exactly into that space anymore, the way Myka was growing taller so much faster. In fact, the time spent with Myka was also markedly less ever since he had started training with Rubdya, so much so that Eryk was starting to get really jealous of the old village healer.
"It's my first visit to First Village… my first trip outside the village, even." The words were muffled against Myka's chest. "There'll be so many things to see and to hear… And the Touchstone…" Myka found his arms being gripped excitedly as he was shaken vigorously. "They say it's so beautiful it makes you cry just to look at it!"
That remark brought on one of Myka's rare fleeting smiles as he replied, "It didn't make me cry." He took advantage of the surprise caused by his reaction to work his arms free. "But that's cause I'm not a cry-baby like some people," he added teasingly before crossing his arms in front of his face and cowering like he was expecting to be attacked.
Eryk gave him some half-hearted punches, but they both knew it was only for appearance's sake. He looked down at the packed-earth floor, suddenly unable to meet the other's eyes. Myka knew exactly what to do – he just waited patiently.
"I just want to know if I have a Talent," Eryk confessed eventually. "So that I can be like you."
"You're not like me," Myka said, smoothing wavy black hair off a sun-browned face so that he could take a proper look at the speaker's expression. "And that's why I like you."
I feel funny inside, like my insides have turned into water and my heart is going to burst with something I can't describe. I feel like that sometimes, when Myka says certain things to me… things that I don't really understand, that make me feel so right and yet so confused. Right now I don't understand myself. I should be happy and excited, like I said myself. Yet… why am I so anxious instead?
Myka's expression said that he was aware of the Eryk's confusion, and he wished he could make those bad feelings go away, but they both knew it was impossible – impossible for Myka anyway.
"Bet you wish I were a Soother, don't you?" Myka asked, voicing out the exact same unspoken thought on Eryk's mind.
"We already have one of those," Eryk sniffed, "And whee, what a whole lot of good that's done us!"
Myka shook his head at the sarcasm, but couldn't resist joining in. "We do? We have a great Soother living in the same house as us?" he asked with exaggerated wonder.
Eryk grinned. "Oh, yes, indeed! Can you imagine that?"
"Thinking of it makes me shiver with excitement!" Myka demonstrated the action with theatrical abandon. "But oh, why is it that I have never caught even a glimpse of this marvellous Talent who shares a roof with us?" he asked, putting on the kind of voice that actors used for grand tragedies.
"Alas, we live in a branch house, and he walks only the halls of the main house! For is he not the high and mighty firstborn of our noble house? Whose gilded lips would be soiled if they ever said our crude and lowly names?" Eryk was enjoying the moment, putting all the nervous energy pent up inside into delivering the lines with melodramatic heartbreaking despair.
"Perhaps he'll forget his own name if he tried to learn anybody else's," Myka said in his normal voice.
That made both of them dissolve into laughter, even if it was only too true that despite all the branch houses being connected to the main house by a 'trunk' corridor, the person they were discussing had never entered their part of the building. Thus he'd never even met them, what more knowing their names or talking to them.
"What's so great about his Talent anyway?" Eryk remarked when they'd stopped laughing. "It's just a lot of empty words."
"It makes you feel better," Myka said neutrally.
"For a while, but it doesn't solve your problems."
"Maybe... But they say he can do other things beside soothing with his voice."
"Like what?"
"I don't really know." Myka sounded thoughtful. "He can make people do things they don't want to, if you believe what people say. Just by saying 'do this' and somehow, you have to do it."
"Oh don't turn into a gossipy old woman, Myka."
Soothing is not a very useful Talent, if you ask me. Still, I think I wouldn't mind it that much if my Talent is Soothing. Then I could soothe Myka every day, and take away that deep, dark sadness that I can feel is buried inside him. And then maybe…. he'd smile more than he frowns.
Eryk heaved the hearty sigh that he'd held in earlier. Having so many complicated feelings was hard for someone who just wanted to have a simple life, and be happy and try to make Mama and Myka happy. All these strange emotions playing tricks on the heart and all these big thoughts that were so hard to understand were unwanted, like a mountain of unknowns that would suffocate the very life out of a person. And underneath this uncertainty was the uneasy feeling that perhaps understanding wasn't something that would be welcome after all.
Maybe I'm scared at what I might discover; I have this nasty feeling that it'd be better if I didn't know so much after all.
Eryk's brooding was interrupted by Myka's stern "Don't worry so much, you silly dolt," which came with a mock clip across an ear. "Everything will sort itself out."
"Who says I'm worried?" The retort sounded a little hollow, even to Eryk's own ears.
Myka chuckled, which was unusual enough to draw a stare from Eryk. Even more unusually, he wasn't frowning; he just looked calm and strong, and utterly convincing.
"Take things one at a time. Nobody's asking you to make sense of the whole world right away."
The strange feeling was starting up again inside, which turned into a watery smile along with a rueful observation. "Forget the world, I can't even milk a cow properly."
"Who said anything about cows?"
"You know what I mean, Myka. Having a Talent is the only thing I can hope for right now, cause there's simply nothing in the world that I can do really well."
Myka's voice was as gentle as the way his fingers were ruffling Eryk's hair. "The only thing you need to be better at than anyone else is being yourself, Eryk."
I hope me and Myka will be together forever until we die, because nobody else in the whole world understands me the way he does.