The Friend & the Wanderer

There was a long, quiet pause in the air of the diner.

Then, Cally spotted something at her feet—a mangled black headband, complete with a line of diamonds down the middle. She bent down and collected it off the floor, then met Evony’s gaze again. The two girls hesitated, and the young clerk behind the counter was eyeing them both, as they were next in line. Seconds after, Cally let slip a half-smile, tossing the diamond-studded headband over to Evony, who swiftly caught it, surveying it closely and giving the blonde an odd look.

“Keep it,” Cally said with a shrug. “She has seven. Won’t even notice it’s gone.”

Evony stared down at the expensive accessory for a moment, then made a sideways nod and pocketed it. Cally turned to face the counter, waving for her to join.

“Sorry about her,” Cally uttered, reading over the menu on the wall. “She’s always been kind of a sociopath.”

“I figured,” Evony mumbled, glimpsing between the menu and the tiny girl beside her. “Why do you hang out with her…?”

Cally shrugged again. “Not a lot of options in this town. The only reason I hang out with them is because Trisha is my best friend’s sister. Plus, I grew up with them, so…”

“M’kay… makes sense,” Evony said. “Your friend being the one that runs the underground club… right?”

“Oh hell yeah,” Cally grinned at her. “That’s my favorite part of Silverhollow. Take a wild guess what the club’s called.”

“I really have no idea…”

“The club is called the Silver Hollow.”

Evony stared blankly at her. “Seriously?”

Cally laughed and nodded. “It’s literally underground, and it’s covered in snow, just like everywhere else—so I guess the name fits. I thought it was stupid because it’s too on-the-nose. Javari thinks it’s perfect because it’s too on-the-nose.”

“That’s funny…”

“You like going to clubs?”

“Eh,” Evony sighed. “I’m not really that social, to be honest…”

“Well, then.” Cally stood on her toes and draped an arm around Evony. “I shall teach you my ways, new girl.”

Evony let out a laugh, slowly ducking out of her grasp.

“Cally—what do you want?” the clerk asked impatiently.

“Oh, I don’t know yet. You go first,” Cally insisted, nudging her new friend toward the counter.

Evony was gaping up at the menu, reading off the bizarre foods and feeling utterly at a loss. There were many strange meals and various types of meats—elk, deer, caribou, and even polar bear. The foods of the south were totally foreign to her.

“Just… give me a few of the cheapest things on the menu,” Evony decided.

“That would be seal-ka-bobs,” the clerk nodded and punched the buttons on the cash register.

Evony took back. “You eat seals here?”

“Yeah,” the clerk replied nonchalantly. “They’re overpopulated and delicious. So yeah. We do.”

Cally took the liberty of ordering the same thing.

Once the seal-ka-bobs were ready, the clerk handed the girls a large collection of elongated aluminum wrappings, containing all their seal-ka-bobs and smelling wonderfully of fried meat and fat. Evony turned away and peeled the aluminum back, squinting skeptically at the blobs of meat on the stick. It was unlike any food she’d ever seen before—as Starrylake had mostly ordinary seafood and beef products—but it smelled incredibly appetizing.

After paying for their food, the two girls stepped out of the diner, greeted by a gust of ice cold wind. Evony and Cally strolled down the side of the snowy road, Cally munching on her seal-ka-bobs happily while Evony continued staring untrustingly into her own. She decided to slip them into her bag and save them for later.

“What’s your name?” Cally wondered.

“Ahm… Evony,” Evony replied.

“Cool. I’m Cally,” Cally said, wheeling around and walking backward, offering her hand.

Evony returned the handshake.

“Are you a refugee?” Cally asked her. “Just curious.”

“Kinda,” Evony answered. “I have family here, so… I don’t know what I’d be considered.”

“Did you come here because of the bombings in Starrylake?”

“Yeah. I did.”

Cally opened her mouth to speak, then fell silent, eyeing the scarring around Evony’s left eye, mostly covered by her combed-over bangs. Her expression diminished, and she whirled around to walk normally again.

Evony narrowed her eyes at her. “You don’t have to be sensitive about it or anything. I didn’t lose anyone in that attack… unlike most of the other people there…”

“Yeah, but… that like… just happened,” Cally said, giving her a serious stare. “That just happened like a week ago. I can’t imagine what’s going through your head. I bet you’re feeling a lot of intense things right now…”

Evony merely shrugged and shook her head once.

Cally turned and eyed her interestingly.

“How can you just… walk it off like that?” she wondered.

“Because… there’s… no point,” Evony resolved. “There’s no point in freaking out about something that’s totally beyond my control. All I can do is walk it off and carry on. So I am.”

“Wow,” Cally breathed, revealing a smile. “You sound like a military chick.”

Evony scoffed out a laugh. “Nah. That was my mom, not me.”

“Your mom was in the military?”

“Yeah… long time ago. When she finally came home, it was kinda the worst time to…”

“You ever think about joining the military yourself?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because… there’s no point,” Evony told her, meeting her eyes. “Nothing I do is gonna stop all the world’s problems. I don’t see the point in trying.”

Cally slowed to a stop, giving her a long, somber stare.

Evony paused and shot her an odd squint. “What?”

“Nothing,” Cally sighed. “That’s just… like… a really depressing way to think.”

“I guess… but it’s true,” Evony said dismissively.

She began to march on, and after a moment of hesitation, Cally caught up with her.

“Hey, y’know—just because you can’t fix all of the world’s problems doesn’t mean you can’t fix some of them,” Cally told her. “Everybody can fix some thing in the world.”

Evony didn’t reply.

Cally frowned at her. “Hey, chick, listen to me—after what you just did to Bellura, I find it really hard to believe that you’re half as hopeless as you sound.”

“Not hopeless,” Evony said emptily. “Just realistic.”

Cally tossed her head back and rolled her eyes. “Ugh… I hate when people say that. Reality is gonna have a lot of good and bad in it, but people who talk the way you do only ever believe that bad things will happen. No—sorry—that’s not realistic. Bad things are only half of reality. Not all.”

Evony said nothing, beginning to feel annoyed.

After a moment of tension, Cally released a heavy sigh, which was visible as a tiny cloud in the icy air.

“Okay—rewind,” she said suddenly, shaking her head and extending her hand. “I wanna make friends outside of my bitchy circle, so let’s start over. I’m sorry if I got under your skin.”

“It’s fine,” Evony exhaled, shaking her hand again. “I just don’t usually talk to anyone about that stuff. I don’t usually talk to anyone about anything, honestly…”

“Then you’re not used to it,” Cally figured. “I think you need a friend as much as I do.”

“Maybe,” Evony shrugged.

“Well… I have to head home,” Cally remembered, glancing at the sky. “It’s gonna be dark in an hour or so. Do you have a phone? Wanna trade numbers?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The girls pulled out their phones and exchanged phone numbers, then pocketed the phones and straightened up.

“I’ll text you,” Cally told her. “We’re gonna hang out at the Silver Hollow sometime soon. You cool with that?”

“Yeah—but I have a question before you go,” Evony recalled. “Do you ever go to that Silver Peaks place? Do you know if they’re hiring?”

Cally smirked coyly. “I’m one of the cooks there. I know for a fact they’re hiring.”

“Yeah?” Evony breathed. “You work there?”

“Yeah, I’ve worked there since I got out of school,” Cally answered. “They’re not hiring any cooks, but… I know they’re hiring general maintenance workers. People who clean the rooms, and do the laundry, and all the general stuff. It’s only part time, but it’s gonna turn full time when it’s December.”

“Oh man,” Evony uttered. “Have you ever met the guy who owns the place…?”

“Oh yeah… I see him all the time,” Cally replied. “He’s weird… but he’s loveable as hell.”

“Okay… cool… how do I apply to work there? Can I pick up an application right now?”

“Sure. Just be careful who you talk to. Some of the people in town are… kinda assholes,” Cally mumbled, her smile waning. “Some people here think a lot like Bellura does.”

Evony stared at her questioningly. “Meaning what…?”

“Meaning… they don’t like refugees coming here and taking the jobs,” Cally explained. “Even though they’re the same people who complain about refugees not working. Granted, they aren’t the majority, but still. A few of them do work at Silver Peaks, and they’re just as assholeish as Bellura is.”

Evony nodded, pondering on the mayor’s daughter and feeling a sickened lump forming in her stomach, wondering what might come of their little altercation.

“Okay… well… go get your new job,” Cally said conclusively, offering her a smile again. “I’m gonna go home. Night, Evony.”

“Night, Cally. Nice meeting you.”

“You too!”

The girls said their goodbyes and waved each other off.

Then—Evony faced the magnificent Silver Peaks Lodge, took in a deep breath, and began a steady stride towards it, feeling a kind of nervousness she usually never did anymore as she headed off to the snowy, beautiful castle.

During the time when Evony was exploring the town, meeting Cally, and fighting Bellura—inside of the magnificent Silver Peaks Lodge, Osric Azarias was inside his personal office on the top floor, playing music, flipping and tossing his cane around, and practicing things that no one else likely ever did.

This room was quite nice and spectacular, designed to his liking; to the left and right were two opposite doorways, presumably leading to the rest of his living quarters, but the main room was a humongous area lush with colors and décor, mounted heads on every wood-paneled wall, and various silver and green rugs along different sections of the floor. There were several portraits hanging alongside the mounted animal heads, an elk’s head and a painting above the fireplace. The fireplace was across from the large red desk, comprised of brick, and the desk itself was cluttered with random things—a closed laptop, business documents, coffee mugs, a tiny robot that was in the process of being repaired, and a small white globe that showed a complete map of the continent of Concordia.

As the music played—he stood in the center of the spacious and rounded office area, flipping the cane around both hands before tossing it away and flourishing both wrists upright, tiny metal rods rapidly shooting out from beneath the sleeves of his overcoat and snapping together around either of his gloved hands. Once the skeletons of the gauntlets were in place—countless metal plates shot out of them and clicked together, forming two thick metal gloves atop his leather ones, large metal gauntlets with a chrome-like shine.

Osric jutted both hands up—and each gauntlet revealed a tiny round barrel at the top of the knuckles, shooting tiny colorful sparkler fireworks into the air above him.

“Ehe,” he breathed with a grin, twirling his wrist and flourishing his hand forward.

Another firework whizzed out of the barrel of his right gauntlet, spinning midair and making a faint whistling noise, leaving a bright red and green trail behind before vanishing.

“Hah!” Osric cackled, wheeling around on his heel and aiming his dark goggled eyes at the tiny round robot hovering in the air behind him. “Whaddo you think? Good enough for my part?”

The round floating robot—Oliver, his own personal bot butler—wore a tiny top hat that was affixed to the top of his metal body, two skinny arms hanging down from either side of him, and his face was nothing more than a screen with a pixelated expression displayed on it, now showing what looked like a face of intrigue as it gently tapped its three metal fingers to what one would assume was its chin area.

“You always try to out-do your previous performance every year, sir,” the robot remarked, speaking with a smooth British accent. “And I must say… this is the first time you’ve fully invented something new just to introduce your guests to the event. Quite flashy, if I do say so myself.”

“No, no, no… not flashy, just engaging ,” Osric corrected, wagging a finger in the air and sauntering over to the edge of the rug where his cane lay. “You know I don’t want all the attention on me. All your brothers will be putting on a fun little light show after my part is over. The guests can enjoy…”

He picked up his cane, held up his hand, and made a walking-away motion with two fingers.

“And I… can slip… away,” he smirked, cocking his head and adjusting his hat. “That’s the perfect amount of social for me, I think. Not too much, and not too little. Just right.”

“Yes… you have achieved peak Goldilocks status, sir,” the robot affirmed with a salute.

Osric let out a faint laugh at hearing this, sauntering behind his desk and pausing there. He patted the top of his cane for a moment, looked down at the chair behind his desk, and sighed, shaking his head once before walking away from it.

“I don’t think I want to sit, and read, and work, and waste away…” he mumbled, wandering over toward the large green double-doors that led out to the hall. “I want to go for a walk.”

Oliver’s face flickered, expression changing, and he hovered toward the inventor from behind.

“Are we quite certain that’s wise at this time, sir?” the robot asked. “The lodge is rather busy at the moment…”

“Don’t care,” Osric dismissed, stopping at the doors and thumping his cane twice to the floor.

Then—the doors suddenly began to open on their own.

Osric walked in between them and strode down the hallway.

“I just thought you might show extra caution when wandering about in public now… given the state of things this year,” Oliver added, floating along beside him.

“Oh, I seriously doubt if anything will happen. Well… anything dangerous. Something annoying might very well happen, if the media is around…” Osric said while he walked.

“You yourself speculated that any and all people of significant importance may be in danger here this year, given the sudden spike in reptilian sightings in the area,” Oliver reminded him. “And you are one of those people, sir.”

“Yes… thank you, Dad, but I think a simple walk to the shore is perfectly harmless,” Osric responded.

He slowed to a stop in the center of this quiet hallway, occupied only by sconces and the tall, elegant windows to his right, facing out toward the front of the property and the town of Silverhollow. He stepped over to one of the windows, gazing down at the area where the concrete stairway resided, gently adjusting a knob on the side of his dark goggles. His lenses zoomed into focus on the scene down below, and he saw the occasional person or group of people venturing up and down the stairway of Silver Peaks, but it was not so crowded that he could not slip through it or navigate it.

“Oh… not bad, not bad at all for this time of day,” Osric smirked, leaning back from the window and resuming his pace down the hall. “And it’s just before sunset. We’ll get there right on time to see the southern lights.”

“Are you certain you don’t want to at least consult your doctor on this?” Oliver inquired.

“I’m not sick, or mental, or dying. So… no,” Osric replied whimsically, thumping his cane along the floor and marching over to the elevator. “I don’t need to consult my doctor.”

“Mr. Walker adheres to more than your medical needs, sir,” Oliver said. “I’d go as far as to say he’s your voice of reason.”

Osric pressed the button for the elevator, then turned and squinted at the bot butler from behind his darkened lenses.

“Are you implying that I need a babysitter?” he asked.

“Not at all, sir. I’m saying that outright,” Oliver responded firmly. “And you know it to be true. The more thoughtless things you do, the more reasons you give to the town and the tabloids to keep labeling you as insane.”

Just when the elevator doors slid open, Osric let out a single, high-pitched laugh before stepping inside it.

“O-hoh, my dear little friend…” he chuckled, standing in the center of the elevator, turning around, and planting both hands neatly atop his cane. “That ship sailed and sank long ago.”

The bot hovered alongside him, its expression flickering to one of agitated concern now.

“Sir, please just consider what might happen if—”

“Don’t care!” Osric leaned over and pressed the button for the bottom floor, the doors sliding closed. “Geronimo!”

The elevator shut—and it carried them both down below.

And, around just the same time—Evony was slowing to a stop outside in the frigid cold, just at the edge of the wide stone stairway, pausing and gazing up at the lodge with impressed intrigue. A few people shuffled past her after stepping off the stairs, and she faced away from them, slinging her bangs over her left eye and avoiding their line of sight out of habit. The group of strangers stepped onto the snow and strolled under the archway, heading into town, and Evony slowly raised her head again, eyeing the turrets of the castle-like building and the tall, standalone balcony that overlooked all the rest.

She’d only seen places like this in books and movies, never in real life. Hell—most of the rustic castles that she’d seen in books and movies were either fictional or historic, once belonging to places that she’d never heard of here in Concordia. She never thought she’d see such a place here.

The longer she stared, the more a faint, subtle sensation began growing inside her—some small, blooming feeling, a sense of enraptured curiosity, something she never usually felt.

Then, Evony blinked and faced directly forward, stepping onto the snowy stone stairs and marching up them, heading toward the lodge’s mahogany double-doors.

A few more people moved past her in either direction. One of them had just emerged from the double-doors, seeming to be in a hurry as he thumped down the way, holding his cane upright and glimpsing around from beneath the brim of his hat.

Osric’s shoulder grazed against Evony’s as he rushed by.

“Oh—sorry, sorry,” Osric uttered breathlessly, turning back and raising a hand, offering her a polite little smile before quickly rushing away again.

Evony paused and stared after the stranger, watching as he and his bot butler then leaped off the side of the stone stairway.

Osric landed in the snow alongside the stairs, Oliver right beside him, and he let out a laugh before straightening up and resuming a hard, steady pace as he marched away from the path, as if he was doing nothing out of the ordinary. He straightened his hat, strolled across the ankle-deep snow in front of the lodge, and headed straight towards the snow-tipped woodlands that surrounded the property from afar. No one else ever walked this way—but he knew precisely where he was going, and he was able to see his tiny dirt trail from here.

“Nothing to it!” Osric grinned, gesturing knowingly over at Oliver. “You see? No one even cared.”

“No one noticed , more like,” Oliver chided him.

Evony remained still on the stairs for a moment, watching from a distance as the stranger and his bot butler slowly vanished from sight, both of them moving briskly toward a tiny dirt trail that let out at the edge of the woods. After they both disappeared onto the trail and into the trees, she continued to stare for a second longer, making a slight shake of the head, and wearing a perplexed visage.

She could’ve sworn it was that man—that person she’d seen on TV so many times, the inventor—but she shook the thought out of her mind and huffed out a sigh.

“No way,” Evony muttered, marching up the stairs once more.

After reaching the top, she swallowed, took a deep breath, and pushed the double-doors open—stepping into an enormous lobby as a blast of warm, welcoming air washed over her.

The room was larger than most gymnasiums she’d seen, and far more impressive; directly ahead was a long thin counter, where a skinny stringy-haired boy was standing and typing away on a laptop. Behind him was a massive wall containing various paintings and portraits, and at the top was the mounted head of a white stag, its antlers reaching upward and almost grazing the ceiling. At either side of this giant wall were two rounded staircases leading up to a balcony that overlooked the gigantic lobby, and to the left and right were two huge doorways, both of them lined with silver frames much like the entrance. A light gray rug covered much of the spotless tiled floor, and Evony hesitantly stepped onto it, feeling as if she might taint the beautiful color with her snowy, dirt-spotted shoes.

After a moment of admiring the décor and the sheer enormity of the interior, she wandered closer to the counter, her eyes fixating on the skinny boy behind it. She then leaned on the countertop and waited for him to acknowledge her, but he never did. The boy continued typing away for nearly a full minute, as if he was still alone in the room.

“Hey,” Evony finally spoke up. “Um… sorry to bother you. Could I possibly get an application?”

The skinny boy’s hands froze over his keyboard, his hairs dangling over his gaunt, expressionless visage. Slowly, he raised his head, and he gave Evony a look that no one would mistake for a friendly one.

“I don’t know,” the boy uttered in a hushed, sarcastic tone. “Could you possibly get fucked?”

Evony’s heart jolted angrily. “Excuse me?”

“Listen… I know this is probably hard for a feral vagrant to understand, but we adhere to a certain level of class in this establishment,” the skinny boy snarled nastily at her. “Which means… no ugly-ass disfigured fucking refugees. Get out.”

Evony became livid in an instant, thoroughly fed up with the level of disrespect she’d gotten today. Just when she wanted to open her mouth and unleash every incensed curse word she knew—she somehow managed to stifle the urge, turning on her heel and storming out of the building with haste.

She bashed the double-doors open and sent them flying out, thundering down the stairs at a quick, angry pace.

It seemed no one here was going to be warm and welcoming. These people were worse than the city folks who just stared at her scar without speaking; they loved to pick fights with her, loved to hate her for merely existing and having a scar.

“Fuck it,” Evony growled through gritted teeth. “ Fuck this…”

Then, as she thumped down the stairs—something caught her eye that made her slow to a stop.

Just down at the bottom of the stairs, near the right corner, and bordering a long line of snow-coated bushes—two hooded figures in dark brown cloaks were stepping over the edge of the stairway, one of them motioning off to the side, pointing subtly over toward the wooded area and the dirt trail. The second hooded figure nodded, and the two of them quickened their pace, marching over to the single set of footprints and following them over to the woodlands.

Evony froze there, her eyes narrowing, fixating on the two hooded figures, who looked suspiciously like they intended to follow the man who’d just entered the woods minutes before.

In fact—the two figures were bulky, one with a large black holster just visible beneath the edge of its flapping cloak.

Evony took in a long, heavy breath, standing on the edge of the stairway and gazing off toward the woods and the trail, watching as the two hooded strangers vanished into the trees, hot on the other man’s tail now.

Her stomach tightened, a sense of slow, steady dread beginning to fester inside her, just as it did whenever someone would follow her and her father home back in the city; it gave her the very same feeling, and it had all the same signs, people behaving suspiciously and sneaking along behind someone they were targeting.

She shook her head once, facing away and taking another step down the stairs. It wasn’t her problem, and there was no reason at all for her to get involved.

Still—she froze again, turning back and staring off towards the woods, feeling incredibly hesitant to simply go home.

She wasn’t sure if the man who had walked off into the trees with a bot butler actually was who she thought it was—but either way, whoever it was looked to be in danger, and she was the only person around who had noticed.

So, after standing still, glaring, rolling her eyes, tossing her head back, and muttering another series of curses—Evony reached into her pants pocket, pulled out her tiny black .25, and slipped it into her jacket pocket instead, leaping off the side of the stairs and making chase after the strangers in the woodlands.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck my goddamn life…”

Evony stormed into the woods with her hands crammed into her pockets, and one of them wrapped tightly around her handgun, huffing out a visible cloud of breath in the icy air in her wake as she disappeared into the trees as well.