Center of Attention

I Didn't Want This

          Smallik knew what he wanted, and it wasn't a game with old friends that he tried to separate himself from. Yes, Smallik had a past here in Ortim, and he was afraid to admit it to anyone other than himself because of all the terrible things he had done before he decided that he needed to be God. He was calloused. In many ways, he felt sympathy for Firstien just because he knew he had once hit rock bottom. The truth was that Smallik wasn't from this time, either. No, he lived in 9127 just like Firstien, and it came as a shock when Sobollum gave him the opportunity to leave. But this story no longer belongs to Smallik. It belongs to my father.
And he'll figure this all out soon enough.

The alcohol was way too strong or way too watered down every time another glass was set down on the rickety table. We played a game called 'Sad Man's Cards', and we all enjoyed ourselves as we made stupid bets with one another. Most of us, even Smallik who detested the idea in the beginning had gotten drunk off of the few glasses. I was mostly alert. A few glasses of beer used to be a normal night for me, so I wasn't worried in the slightest about losing to a bunch of drunks. However, Oligark was able to manipulate everyone else in their drunkenness. He was mostly sober no matter how many glasses he drank, and he would kick his heels up on the table every time he won a hand because he thought he was just that great. I sneered.
"Ya ain't no fool, it seems. Quite ta drinka', eh?" he spat. It was at this point I knew he was slurring his speech. Whether that was purely from his tired nature (it was starting to get late enough to where we were the only ones in the bar) or from finally getting a buzz after all this time, I smiled. Dwarves were known to have high alcohol tolerance. Some of the bars I frequented back in the future had been named after the dwarven tales spread around as children, and it definitely made me think for a moment. But in all honesty, I was glad. I was more sober than a dwarf.
Tiosi yawned, and his wings stretched with him. "Oligark, we need to get to bed. We can't stay up all night playing Sad Man's Cards." Tiosi nudged him with those sinister black eyes. He had his head lying on the table like he was already falling asleep. Actually, everyone did except Oligark and I. I silently agreed and threw my hand on the table, and I nudged Smallik to get up from the table he thought was comfortable to pass out on. He slightly lifted his head and fell back into my torso like there was nothing else to fall on. There was a moment before I realized that maybe I should have just left these guys to their game of Sad Man's Cards, and it was that moment long enough for me to yawn myself.
Despite Smallik's drunken vibe, he had waved to the woman who had been patiently waiting at the bar. She nodded towards a set of stairs, and Smallik had started to climb them like they were a mountain too steep to get across. I helped him like a much more sober friend would, and managed to lift him up the stairs and guide him to one of the many rooms. They were all closed off, and Smallik had clicked on just one. Inside, it was like a tiny house. An apartment. The only thing missing was the kitchen, but otherwise it was like where I used to live. Well, still live. Technically.
There were two beds side-by-side, and Smallik collapsed into one of them. I pursued the other with his coin bag dropped onto the end table. He had his bag full of fruit still on.
"I... hate this town..." Smallik managed to whisper. "Humans... are so greedy."
I grabbed the lit candle and blew out the flame like pictures from the future described so vividly. Closing my eyes, I sighed back. "Maybe it's not humans, but it's people themselves. Did you ever think that?"
"People then. Every single one in Ortim can just die."
I felt myself drifting. "Goodnight, Smallik."
"Goodnight... Firstien. To the only good human."

When I woke up that morning, I still felt the hangover that was from last night. I could hear Smallik shuffling through some of his stuff and half-awake curses at how he was last night. My name passed his lips a few times, but he never actually confronted me about it. So I slept. Well, pretended to sleep. It was hard to go back into the land of dreams when Smallik was continuing to curse as he had done things around the room that I didn't know of . At one point he sat at the end of my bed, and I was almost certain he was going to wake me up. No. He just sat there, staring at the wall.
"Dammit, I'll never leave this cursed place."
Smallik kept saying that almost like a chant that was meant to be said for a good morning. I knew it was mostly towards himself, but I sat up with a sudden jolt just so he would stop mumbling. He turned his attention towards me and sneered my way like I had done something wrong. Oh, I did. I dragged him into that stupid game with those people last night, and I remembered hearing those protests from him just before we dragged out the deck. I should have listened, but I was also curious about everything all at once. You couldn't blame me. But I did. I started to feel guilty as Smallik's pink skin glistened in the sunlight.
"I hate Ortim," he growled, staring at me with such an anger that it was almost scary. "It's a city full of lies and people who just want to manipulate you. I hate that we have to go through it, and I hate that I was so easily sucked in like it was no big deal last night. Firstien, those aren't old friends. They're just enemies with an agenda that once aligned closely to mine. And it's not like it's the only city with corruption or anything. Kings and Queens are full of slander from within themselves that it's almost scary to even say that you're in this damned country. I hate this place."
I sighed. "I'm sorry. I just..."
"It's not your fault. They took their slimy fingers and wrapped them around your pure heart like they did to me." He locked eyes with the floor for a long time before replying with the venom he was spitting just before. "Any innocence in the world is stripped away the moment you're conscious of it and how much it makes you a person as anyone else. It defines you in a lot of ways, your innocence."
He was right. I was so skeptical of my own son just because he wasn't as innocent as I thought. I had always imagined Firstien to be much less knowing than what he was, and it just didn't end up that way. At all.
He continued. "I lived here all of my childhood, begging across the streets and all that. Yes, Faes are secluded people, but some of us do integrate with humans. My mom did before she had died. See? Died. When you say you've lost someone, I understand. I've felt that way so many times before."
"Then why do you want to destroy this world to the one that I had to live in?" I asked. "It's because of you that I had to watch my son get shot and die. It's because of you that the trees and the races are all gone. Why? Just because you felt bad?"
"That wasn't me!" he spat. "I wanted to be God to save the world from that very future! I know the future better than you think. It's not like it's an unknown concept to me."
"What do you mean?"
He stood up, and dropped his bag of fruit. His feet crunched into the floor like he was trying to show me that it was all going to be a hard journey with rough patches. His pink, calloused hands reached out towards my face. I recoiled as he had gotten closer, but he grabbed me by my cheeks and held me there to stare into his black eyes. I saw myself in them, fear striking across my face like a mask I had put on to hid everything else. Get away, I thought. Get away from me and let me breath. However much I tried to tell myself that in my head, I could not do anything to pull him away. His eyes were keeping me there, and I stayed still.
"I grew up in Ortim," he said. "In 9127."
The words came as a shock to me, and I could only mouth the word 'what?'.
"I think you said it yourself." He pulled away from my cheeks. "You lived in a world full of dispassion and no hope with only humans to walk your streets. I hate to tell others they're wrong, but you're wrong. Very wrong. In the year 9127, the city of Ortim still stands, and it houses every monster and every race that isn't human. While you all thrive, we are stuck in poverty." He clenched his fist and banged it against the frame of the front door. "I'm not becoming God, though I do like saying that. I'm trying to change the world, and Sobollum is the only damn reason why I stand here. Along with you. Center. The real Center."
"You're not?"
"Hell no." He grimaced. "I'm only a child who knew the stories, and I knew of the stories about faeries able to grant immortality. The faeries don't exist in 9127."
I stared down at my hands and sighed. They were pale like snow. "What happened between now and then?"
He didn't answer me right away. His hands ripped away from the wall, and he sat down on the bed right next to me. "Something. Something you and I both have no choice but to stop. For our families, for your son. Everything had to change."
Everything had to change so the future would be just as glorious as the past.