"Oh." This revelation gets mulled over as he takes another drink. "I'm not brooding. I'm actually very happy. I think. I've never been happy before, so it's a little bit hard to tell."
"Never happy?" Asar-Suti said, shaking his head. He didn't ask what had made the young man unhappy; instead he said, "What is making you happy, then?"
In fact, he thought, the young man did look a bit like him, minus the purple - scruffy longish dark hair, big nose, skinny, geeky fingers. The lips and the cheeks were also similar.
Hopefully, poor Fuchsia wouldn't thing this was her brother.
"You actually like being Bound?" Asar-Suti said, shaking his head. "I have had people that almost killed themselves because they were Bound and thought they'd left the kettle on. Is your world that horrible?"
"Yyyyyyyes," Miniver replies without hesitation. "Yes it is. And I hope I did leave the fucking kettle boiling." He giggles into his drink. "It'd serve the bastards right, whoever they are."
"That sounds really vindictive," Asar-Suti giggled - he could relate to that sort of attitude, being a Dark God and all that. "What was so horrible about them?"
Miniver took a drink. "There's the wars made for nothing, king's fortunes spent on weapons when they could be... I dunno.... doing something productive, and it isn't even the wars, it's that there's no honor in the world anymore. Nobody holds a door open for a lady. The days of chivalry were dead before my great-great-great grandfather was born. And they pretend they're all so proper because nobody can talk about sex except the flower children, and they have to be high to do it. Like animals who can't say anything but groovy, man because their brains are so fried on mushrooms. Yeah, man, they live like animals, but the rest of us are cattle, and where's the life or value in it all anymore? Growing up means having to accept fairytales aren't real. It's all messed up."
His voice, which had become progressively sulkier, perks up suddenly. "So that's why I like it here. There are real things."
"Mine is a world of swords and magic, bards and gods," Asar-Suti said, sitting down.
He was having coffee, of course, as always.
"There were many different realms in our world," he told the young man, "and two different magical races that had descended from the same, long ago. The Cheysuli, warriors that mgically bondd with animals and were able to take their shape, and my Ihlini, whose magic was much more abstract and less earthy. They fought for domination once the balance between them had been upset by a king that persecuted the Cheysuli; using the non-magical kingdoms of normal people allied to them, they finally achieved reunification, not victory."
"That's beautiful. Your world must be really, really beautiful." His eyes as he speaks are distant. He can see Sooty's world in his mind. An avid dreamer more "elsewhere" than wherever his body is, he might remind Sooty a little of Gorlim before Gorlim was brought back to life, back when he was still a wraithy little wanderer with too much fondness for the bottle.
"Oh, it was," Asar-Suti sighed. "The lovely primal forests, the forbidding mountains; the pink sandstone of Homana-Mujhar, the castle of the Cheysuli and their Homanan allies, or the black, mirrored perfection of the basalt columns deep in the halls of Valgaard stronghold of the Ihlini. And beautiful magic, beautiful, passionate people, loyal hounds and great, doomed loves."
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In fact, he thought, the young man did look a bit like him, minus the purple - scruffy longish dark hair, big nose, skinny, geeky fingers. The lips and the cheeks were also similar.
Hopefully, poor Fuchsia wouldn't thing this was her brother.
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He sits back in his chair, grinning happily. "I couldn't go back if I tried.
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Miniver took a drink. "There's the wars made for nothing, king's fortunes spent on weapons when they could be... I dunno.... doing something productive, and it isn't even the wars, it's that there's no honor in the world anymore. Nobody holds a door open for a lady. The days of chivalry were dead before my great-great-great grandfather was born. And they pretend they're all so proper because nobody can talk about sex except the flower children, and they have to be high to do it. Like animals who can't say anything but groovy, man because their brains are so fried on mushrooms. Yeah, man, they live like animals, but the rest of us are cattle, and where's the life or value in it all anymore? Growing up means having to accept fairytales aren't real. It's all messed up."
His voice, which had become progressively sulkier, perks up suddenly. "So that's why I like it here. There are real things."
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Perhaps this young man ought to meet Fuchsia, with all her vagueness and her tendency to romantic tales.
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The flower children had it all wrong. THIS is some serious mind expansion, yo.
"What's yours like?" he asks suddenly, sitting up and focusing keen blue eyes on Sooty.
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He was having coffee, of course, as always.
"There were many different realms in our world," he told the young man, "and two different magical races that had descended from the same, long ago. The Cheysuli, warriors that mgically bondd with animals and were able to take their shape, and my Ihlini, whose magic was much more abstract and less earthy. They fought for domination once the balance between them had been upset by a king that persecuted the Cheysuli; using the non-magical kingdoms of normal people allied to them, they finally achieved reunification, not victory."
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