The Truth Is All About You

by avery selk

I

The Great Falls were larger in real life than in the paintings— louder, too. The crashing sound of water hitting glistening sandstone drowned out the chatter of elven passerby, and the chirps of wingèd beasts that soared overhead. Muted as they were by the thrash of the falls, the very sight of the eastern creatures blew him away. Although miles away from home, he was at roughly the same latitude as the desert town he grew up in. When he was young, he had dreamt of a prestigious city life— that was what everyone dreamed of in Logikē. Yet here he was, in a foreign place where everyone looked, quite literally, down on him. He had never been particularly tall but never had he passed so many people who would have to bend their necks so far just to look him in the eye. Few stopped to stare, but those who did wore expressions laced with confusion or contempt.

He didn’t mind the falls. The rushing water’s steady rhythm was comforting. It reminded him of the sound of the riversides that had soothed him as a child. He remembered zoning out as smaller mer-life swam by. If he closed his eyes he could picture his favorite ocean where he used to spend hours lying against the cool ground of the beaches, getting sand in his hair and on his feet. He never used to think about the consequences. His aunties had scolded him for his irresponsible behavior as they combed the sand out of his curls. An hour later when they’d given up undoing his hair and just cut off the remaining braids, he had gone to bed resentful. Not at his aunties, or the other kids who would surely make fun of him the morning after. He hated the rules he always seemed to be bumping into. Throughout his childhood he often found himself increasingly dissatisfied with his society. And, in that moment, he had despised being born scienike. No, it went beyond race or nationality. He hated being human. No one back home wanted a kid like him. A kid who was always bending the rules, asking questions that didn’t lead to a thesis. So here he was—in Technē, of all places—equally alone.

II

It was cold the day I met Ari. Unlike most tourists or travelers, he was dressed for the weather, though not for standing under the chilly spritz of the waterfall that sprayed him every so often like an ungulate going through a puddle too quickly. Despite his thick, wooly, elven-cut robes, the boy stood out amongst the crowd of statuesque villagers and students that were hanging out around the busy streets. Something about him drew me in, and even now I can’t quite describe it. Not for a lack of things to talk about, nay, I am constantly finding new things about him to be drawn to. That day my gaze was caught by him, by the red ribbons braided into his hair and the way he removed one glove to fidget with it. I tried to let my eyes pass over him, like any other face. But he wasn’t just any other face, so I bit my lip and approached him.

Ari was tall for a human, though not as tall as me, and I quickly saw that we were about the same age. He was holding a crumpled pamphlet in his gloved hand, and his eyes held the distant curiosity of someone whose thoughts were never stagnant. If he had been elven, I would have mistaken him for a peer. Not that my peers wore bright colours and naive nervous smiles or were people I wanted to talk to. I had paused three feet away from him when he looked up.  At the sight of my academic robes, his eyes widened and he blurted out, “You are from the Technē Academy for Magical Arts!”

His accent was unfamiliar, a clear legato— probably scienike. He pronounced every syllable distinctly. His words had been a statement, an exclamation, but I answered as if it was a question.

“Yes, actually— I’ve been enrolled for five years.”

“Five?” he looked shocked., “That’s incredible, you must have been so young.”

“Since I was ten, yeah,” I frowned. “It was my paren— my father’s idea.”

“Oh, the never-ending cycle of guardians with such misplaced ideas and expectations.” He smoothed out the pamphlet, and I looked away from his eyes for the first time long enough to recognize it as an official TAMA handout. “It can’t be that bad, though, can it?” His voice got quiet as if he was afraid someone would reprimand his enthusiasm, “I mean you work with MP8 all the time!”

“MP– what?”

“You know,” Ari made a twirling motion with his hands. “Zap, buzz, vroom.”

I couldn’t help it—I cracked a smile. A genuine one.

“You mean magic?”

Ari shifted from foot to foot, looking down, “I am not, ah, supposed to use that word. Hasn’t gone well.”

I tilted my head, not sure what to say. Then, cautiously, placed my hand over his and pointed at the pamphlet with the other. “I know a place where they would let you say as many magic words as you would like.”

His head shot up, and there was an intensity in his gaze that wasn’t there before.

“Me? At an academy like—like that?” He looked like he was trying to laugh at the idea but couldn’t.

“No hope is truly impossible.” I recited, not used to hearing the words outside of my own head, “That’s the point of hope, to keep us going.”

He grinned at me, then down at the pamphlet. I miss that. I miss when it was just us. and I miss making him smile.

III

I saw him the other day, in the forest where I teach. No longer out in the open by waterfalls and mountainsides, but my eyes followed him all the same. Pandea, a half-elf on my mother’s side, was leading the oddest mixture of people I had ever seen, and trailing behind in the very back of this group was him. Ari. My Ari. Or the person who used to be mine, who I thought was mine, who I could have sworn was... He’s older, taller, and he’s cut his hair. He was walking shoulder to shoulder with a Hedoni girl, the two of them laughing indistinctly with each other. He looked happy.

I wonder what his life has been like, how he’s changed, how people have changed him. I wonder if he ever did learn magic— if he found someone to believe in him. To believe in his dreams. I like to think that he did.