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Matty approached the fence bordering the field Acri worked in. The war mage glanced up as he approached, but quickly set his eyes back down on what he was doing, sweat dripping down his pale face despite the relatively cool air. He glanced quickly a bit down the field, where a black and silver plow, formed of and pulled solely by magic, paralleled his own progress behind a horse. The young teenager watched for a moment, a little bit concerned by what he saw.
“They don’t know you’re using magic, do they?” He asked, matching Acri’s pace along the edge of the fence.
“No.” Acri answered shortly. “Everyone but you, Roland, and Gabrielle still think I am either sealed or don’t know that I am a mage.”
“You’re going to kill yourself working at this pace.” Matty warned, his eyebrows pinching together a little as Acri finished the row and with it the field. The man paused, looking over his work in the fading light.
“Not what you intended suggesting I look into this job?” He wheezed, leaning against the fence for a short break. The boy had suggested that this older couple, Wilfred and Mabel, needed help, and that Acri could afford to give it. They couldn’t afford to pay much, but the older man was struggling to keep up with the farm alone and if it failed, they would likely starve the following winter unless they begged for aid.
So Acri had taken the job, which offered very little in coin. He didn’t particularly need it, though, not at this time. He’d set about learning how to do everything on the small farm quickly, starting with the animals for the first few days before the old farmer declared that the ground was well and truly thawed and the plowing could begin. Then Wilfred, the old farmer, had injured himself badly with the plow.
The man was angry with himself and frustrated, even more so since it meant they were completely dependent on Acri doing his work and doing it well. The healer Gina had known their financial position, and initially refused to take any money at all from them. Their pride had them insisting, so she asked a price far below what her services were worth that they paid with great relief. Even with that, Wilfred's movement and ability was greatly limited for a while.
So now Acri was committed to doing the work of two men. Except that he noticed that Wilfred barely used a quarter of his available land, and in asking about it learned that the man simply hadn’t been physically able to keep up with using more without aid that he couldn’t afford to hire. Acri responded by internally making it a challenge to do more, and he currently looked over double the plowed land Wilfred had expected to be able to make use of.
Matty scowled at his friend, his more or less adopted brother. “Of course not. I didn’t really think you’d even go for it.” His voice seemed to be all over the place recently, going scratchy or high or unexpectedly low unbidden. He’d also been growing quickly taller, leaving the hems of his pants hanging well above his ankles. “You’ve changed a lot since you left.” The boy added, his voice getting a little softer.
Acri shrugged. “I suppose. I rather thought you’d be pleased.”
Matty hesitated. “It’s a good thing.” He said slowly. “But it feels like everything is changing so much and so fast lately. It feels a bit like getting a rug pulled out from under your feet.”
Acri nodded thoughtfully. “I imagine it would.” He smirked a little. “Should I make a point of tossing you into the pond for the sake of showing you I’m still plenty ornery?”
Matty chuckled a little, but it sounded forced, and Acri paused to look the boy over. Physically he seemed fine, but he had seemed… off, sometimes. Different. And it had been going on for some time, since shortly after he’d returned. For the most part that was around other people, alone or with Acri he would still engage in shenanigans and he was currently determined to make friends with a squirrel in their backyard. When in groups, however, he'd become a bit withdrawn.
“You’ve changed too.” He said tentatively, careful but needing to at least try to talk to the boy who had come to mean so much to him. “You’re quieter, more subdued. Did something happen while I was gone?”
The boy shrugged, looking away. “Not really. Nothing specific. Just… There was a whole war, and even if I wasn’t in it I saw some of the effects. I guess I just realized that I was acting like a child, but it’s past time I grew up.” He said softly.
Acri studied him again, but made himself move to put away the plow and stable the horse before the light was completely gone. “Don’t wander off.” He warned, gesturing for the boy to follow him. “What do you mean by that?”
Matty shrugged again, the gesture barely visible out of the corner of Acri’s eye. “Well, I was kind of naive, wasn’t I? I was always so sure everything would work out alright and pushing away the feelings I didn’t like. But that’s not the way things are, is it? Some people didn’t come home from the war, and others came home with injuries that will never fully heal. It’s hard to stay cheerful in the face of all that pain.”
The boy’s eyes got sad, and he frankly looked miserable. “And… I don’t think it’s quite respectful to be that way. I don’t know. I just felt like a helpless child sometimes, and I don’t want to be that anymore.”
Acri was well out of his depth. He took advantage of the work he had to do to take a few extra seconds to answer. “You’ve experienced death and loss before.” He stated slowly. “How did you handle it then?”
“Well, with mom I kept thinking and hoping she’d show up in the doorway. For weeks every time the door opened I hoped it was her. Dad said she probably was dead, but it never felt… I didn’t believe it for a long time, and it never quite hit that she was gone. Like, forever gone. It felt more like she just slipped out of my life, and I slowly just got used to her not being there. Like when someone moves away and you know you’ll probably never see them again but you assume they’re safe and happy, so you don’t mourn.”
“With dad… That was harder. I knew he was gone within a few days, but we never did find a corpse. I cried a bit, but I didn’t like it, so I tried not to think about it. I focused on figuring out how to take care of myself.” He shrugged yet again, the gesture seeming to have become one of his favorites over the last months.
Acri nodded, then tried to proceed cautiously. “Now, can you try to see yourself from outside? Would you have thought badly of someone who acted like you used to if you met them while coming to terms with those losses?”
Matty considered it. “No-o.” He answered slowly. “I wouldn’t think badly, because it was always at least kindly meant. I probably would think they were naive, though.”
The naivety had been part of Matty’s charm when Acri had met him. It was a bit sad to think of him losing it, but it had always been inevitable. A naive child was endearing, a naive adult was foolish or immature. In truth, though, Matty had never been that naive. Optimistic, yes, but intelligent enough to understand difficult topics, observant enough to see them, and patient enough to hold back his emotional responses most of the time.
Acri wiped down the horse and began to brush him out. Matty stepped in and joined him, the simple, repetitive work calming for both of them. The cow was in another stall, having come in of its own accord to be milked and now simply watching. He had to do a few things to make sure the animals were taken care of before he could go home, but he didn’t think it would take too long.
As the boy stepped closer Acri became very aware of the stench cloud that never seemed to leave the kid for long recently. He tried to ignore it as well as he could. Matty was not quite so considerate.
“Whew, you reek.” The boy gagged.
Acri responded with a glare. “Like you can talk, brat. Don’t walk too close to Mabel’s flowers, they’ll all wilt in your wake.”
Matty took the hem of his shirt and started flapping it, evidently spreading his smell with a mischievous smirk on his face. Acri responded by flicking the boy’s nose, making him flinch back and stop the flapping. The horse shifted, and Acri turned his attention to calming it before it could step on him or try to bite Matty. Then he quieted himself and brought their conversation back to before their smell antics.
“I personally liked the way you were. My memories of the stubborn child who pulled me out of a dark mental state whether I wanted to get out or not have gotten me through quite a lot while I was gone.” Acri admitted, the words coming with difficulty and a little bit of a hit to his pride. “And I am well aware that sooner or later everyone has to grow up. But you still have time to decide what kind of person you want to be. If quiet and thoughtful is more comfortable for you, go for it. If you were happier being outgoing and cheerful, return to it. Neither one determines your maturity or whether you will be a good person. I’ve seen good and bad in both styles.”
Matty smiled a little bit at the first two sentences, but it faded into contemplation as he continued to talk. “It still doesn’t seem right to be happy when other people are miserable.”
Acri scowled. “ That depends. By all means, show people support when they’re mourning, but learn what is appropriate when. There are people who take perverse pleasure in inflicting misery on other people, and those people will never be satisfied. Making yourself unhappy for their sake is an exercise in futility. Your sacrifice, your hurt, will never be enough and what they get out of it is not worth the price you pay. It also marks you as a future victim for them to use whenever they want that release in the future, and they will never stop.”
The young teenager watched him while he ranted, frowning a little before tentatively asking his own question. “Which one were you? The victim, or the person making other people miserable?”
Acri paused, his brush coming to a pause. “Both.” He said softly. “At first I was just the victim, but when I realized that inflicting pain relieved my own stress… For a long time I didn’t know any other way to cope, but that’s really no excuse. I was an adult. I made my choices, and some of them were horrible. So I’m telling you from both sides of that - acknowledge others’ losses. Mourn with them if that’s appropriate. But if they are only pleased when you are hurting, get away from them. No one gets to dictate what you feel except for you.”
Matty bumped Acri’s upper with his shoulder. It was a bit of a surprise to realize the boy was tall enough to do that, enough so that Acri felt off balance for a moment.
“Look at that, you learned something.” The boy teased with a smaller smile. “I know. It just seemed like something you needed to say. I’m… I’m learning how and when to be what I need to be and what other people need me to be. It’s just, it’s harder than it used to be. I get angry, or really happy or sad really quickly and I don’t know why or how it happened. I said some things I shouldn’t have, and I figured I should just be quiet until I can control my emotions better.”
Acri returned the shoulder check, sending the kid staggering back with a squeak. “Fine! Yes, you showed me that my emotional state is more dependent on me than anyone or anything else.” He mock snarled, the only way he could get the words out at all. Then he became gentler. “It’ll get easier. Right now you’re physically growing up, and your mind is going to be testing and experimenting with all the changes for a while. But it will settle down eventually.” He finished with the horse and moved on to the cow.
“I know. People would be even weirder if it didn’t. How much more do you have to do?” The boy asked, frowning.
“Just finish this and make sure everything is closed up properly. Mabel will have taken care of the chickens, and they don’t have a pig this year.” Acri answered, trying to ignore the fatigue that wanted to claim him. The older couple, it seemed, had to choose each year to hire help or to raise a pig to butcher come fall. They preferred to hire someone, they made more money at harvest time then, but they couldn’t always afford to hire a good hand.
“Are you going to be able to keep up with all the farming stuff alone?” The teenager asked.
“I’m going to try. I do have a speed strain to my magic.” Even thinking about using it felt exhausting, though. After forming and controlling a plow from his shadow magic all day that part of him felt raw and overused. It was more than he’d done with it in such a short time since well before he’d been sealed, and it felt worse than a similar amount of exercise with muscles would.
Matty grinned. “I don’t think any of us could have seen you doing anything like this back when you first came to Carabas.” He said. “Wilfred and Mabel can’t pay you anywhere near what your work is worth, but when you’re done they might be able to save enough to hire people to keep the farm going a few years longer.”
Acri laughed a bit. “I couldn’t have seen it back then either. As for keeping the farm going… I don’t know. I don’t think it will be enough.”
“It might almost be better for them to sell it after this year and live off what they can make from it.” Matty suggested. “But… they don’t have any kids to take care of them, and there’s no telling how many years their money will have to last them.”
Acri shrugged. “I don’t know. For now this is what I can do, so I’ll do it.”
“Will you work for them again?” The boy asked curiously.
The war mage hesitated to answer. “I don’t know.” He confessed. “I was thinking about taking you to see some of the places you’ve asked about, and if we do that I’m not sure when we would come back.”
Matty went quiet, considering the possibility. “Couldn’t Evariste just teleport us back and forth?” He asked.
“He could. Whether he will or not is another thing. I also suspect sometime soon we will hear of him and Angelique getting married, and I am not interrupting their honeymoon, whenever that may be, to ask for a portal.”
“Fair point.” The boy acknowledged. “But can we even afford to travel?”
Acri smirked a little. “Yes, actually. But if you don’t want to go…” He trailed off, expecting an immediate protest, but looked up with a bit of concern when it didn’t immediately come.
The boy saw the movement and hurried to answer. “I do! I do want to go, eventually. I guess I just didn’t realize it could happen so soon, and… it sounds a little scary, actually.”
Acri just stared for a long moment. He found it difficult to grasp that the sometimes seemingly fearless boy was intimidated by that. Yes, the child was afraid of the ocean, and being left alone too long made him uncomfortable, but he’d been chattering about this since the day they’d met.
“We don’t have to.” He said slowly. “I just thought it was what you wanted, and if I’m being honest, I’d rather spend next winter somewhere I don’t have to break ice on a pool and either jump in and bathe in ice cold water or half heat a pot over stove and use a washcloth in order to get clean.”
Matty snorted. “That would be a nice change. I’d rather not get tossed in icy water again.”
“You wouldn’t if you took care of it yourself!” Acri protested, finishing up with his work and leading the boy out into what was nearly complete darkness of night. A large part of him just wanted to fall into a pile of hay and sleep. Wilfred and Mabel only ate two meals a day, and he had joined them for the latter, so he wasn’t too hungry at this time, but sleep was a sweet siren's call.
They walked in the quiet for a while, until Acri’s mind drifted back to their earlier conversations. “I’m not your father.” He said, rather abruptly and prompting a confused look from Matty. “Or your brother, or uncle, or anyone else with a right to try to parent you. I wouldn’t have a clue where to start if I was. But I’m here, and believe it or not I care. I can’t say I know what I’m doing, but I know you’re starting into a new, harder stage of life and if I can help you navigate it, I will. I don’t want you to ever think you’re alone, or be afraid to talk to me if that’s what you need.”
Matty started laughing, the noise growing louder and more contagious until he rammed Acri from the side playfully. “Whatever happened to ‘humans are selfish’?”
“They are!” Acri protested. “You’ve just… brought more good into my life than I’m willing to give up in a failure to take care of you. That’s the selfish part, I guess.”
The boy’s laughter subsided, but his voice still told of the grin that stretched over his face. “It’s okay. I don’t need another parent. Whatever you are, you’re still some kind of family, and that’s enough. We’ll find our way through it, whatever comes.”
Acri smiled a little, and reached out to reel the boy in for a friendly side hug.
“You still stink, though.” The boy’s voice reminded, and Acri chuckled while he fondly remembered the day he’d thrown the teenager into the half-frozen pond to rid him of his own stench.