there’s a smile playing across hips lips. he wonders when that he had become his neutral expression. no longer the hunched shoulders and sad eyes of a kicked puppy or a thoroughly bullied middle school. instead the joy of a hero in training and of a boy lucky enough to love and be loved in equal measure by his both his boyfriend and his friends, brings a glow to his face rarely seen by those without the ability to look directly at the sun. 

         currently he’s a little bit busy, placing the candles in each of the menorahs. he’d had to buy different types to fit them both. he wants them to look perfect when shouto gets here even if they will not look completely right unlit like this, but that’s something they would have to do together. he’s spent most of the afternoon moving loud balls of fluff and claws away from the shiny chanukiahs so as not to let them bat them to the ground. 

           he’s spent a bunch of nights on the internet this week trying to figure out a way to make this really cool and special. and also trying to figure out how to pronounce the hebrew properly. he hasn’t had to practice any hebrew whatsoever in three years and it’s killing him to not remember how to do what once came so naturally to his tongue. though, if you asked his to still remember his bar mitzvah piece he could do it perfectly.

“Alright that’s fine. Let’s end this here shall we?” As his guest got up and left, Pyrre shifted his glasses and sighed, tidying up his notes subconsciously as he stood up. Outside the enclosed office that he did interviews in, his mechanoid colleague awaited his exit. The skeleton reporter flicked his wrist to check the time on his watch and then twisted the doorknob and stepped out.

“Hey Kai, here’s the notes. I’ll go get lunch for the two of us and then let’s call it a day.”

“Well Pryer, as this was your last one for today I won’t scold you this time for trying to get home as early as possible. I’ll send the script in the evening.” Smiling brightly, the red haired mechanoid took the papers from his partner and set them on his desk.

The two of them were close partners, with Pyrre being the senior by 5 years who took interviews and was casted in the daily morning newscast, and Kyle the junior who wrote the scripts for the newscast, deriving them from the notes Pyrre took. It was Kyle’s second year in this line of work, having been placed to be Pyrre’s assistant since the beginning. The two rapidly grew close, helped by Pyrre’s system of calling each other nicknames. Kyle had been the first to figure out the joke acronym of Pyrre’s name and Pyrre just shortened Kyle’s name.

Pyrre quickly bought and came back with their lunch, lingering effects of Kyle’s ability speeding him up. ‘Energy aura’ was an ability that increased the energy and adrenaline of any being within a foot radius of Kyle. Pyrre could suppress the excess energy, since he was used to it after all the time they’d been together, but still manipulated it into small bursts for his own needs.

Eating seperate sandwiches, the two sat across each other in a cozy alcove within the office. Neither spoke and merely ate in a familiar silence. Once both were finished, Pyrre stood up and gathered the rubbish, heading towards the exit and binning them. Kyle walked over to the papers left sitting on the desk and began scanning the notes.

“I’m off then Kai! See you in the evening.”

“Goodbye Pryer! I’ll come ‘round at 7 o'clockish.” The skeleton left, waving to his other colleagues in the building as he headed home. Today hadn’t been a busy day as the tension was mainly building up for the next week, when the petition results for isolating mechanoids would be revealed. Shivering as he walked down the road, Pyrre hoped the petition wouldn’t be a success. He and Kyle were practically best friends and he’d hate to never see him again.

Turning the key and opening the door, Pyrre yelled out to his 19 year old cousin whom he was the legal guardian for.

“Dracon! I’m home!”

“Nice to know yer alive cuz!” Chuckling at her joke, he shut the door and shrugged off his coat, leaving his fedora on. He slipped off his shoes and went upstairs, carefully entering Dracon’s room. The dragonfly metazoan was sitting in a circle of books, the titles evidently showing they all contained medical knowledge.

Subconsciously using her speed ability, Dracon was zooming through the books, she was so focused she didn’t even notice her cousin sit down opposite her. Not until he snapped his finger bones. Jumping and dropping the book in surprise, Dracon looked up to see her cousin’s grinning face, her lips contorting upwards into a returning smile.

“Yer home early. No news ‘til the petition results eh?” Casting his gaze downwards, he nodded. Flashing a glance at her page position, she left it as she flew over to her cousin and hugged him.

“Hell at least yer here quicker now.” Smiling at her affection, he petted her hair, noticing the newly dyed tips. He agreed with her sentence but the thought of next week really worried him…

“Yer here so early I didn’t make lunch!”

“S'fine already had it.” Putting on a pouty face, she turned to him.

“I still can’t believe you eat all that processed junk! It’s not healthy.”

“It was only a sandwich!” Laughing, Pyrre set his elbow on the kitchen table and placed his palm on his chin, watching the metazoan flit about as she cooked. Ever since her parents, his aunt and uncle, died of pixelation syndrome she had worked hard. Studying to become a doctor, learning to cook since Pyrre didn’t have the time, cleaning and taking care of the house. Pyrre often felt ashamed he couldn’t do more for her, he had been placed as her legal guardian as he had been old enough at the time and his own parents had long been gone. Setting down two plates and then serving curry and rice onto them, Dracon sat across him and dug into her food and Pyrre did the same since sandwhiches aren’t that filling anyway.

She worked hard everyday and all he did was deal with liars and relate news to the world they’d be happier not knowing. But it was the way he got the money for her to bring food on the table so he had to keep going. For Dracon’s sake.

Kyle popped round at 7:40, Dracon hugging him also. If Pyrre was a father figue in her life then Kyle was the wonderful uncle. Affectionately greeting Dracon back, Kyle handed the script over to Pyrre who pocketed it immediately. The two friends discussed random problems with the world, Dracon occasionally including her input as she made dinner. Unlike others, Pyrre and Kyle valued Dracon’s opinion and agreed and disagreed with her point like she wasn’t the late adolescent she was.

After eating dinner, Dracon asked Kyle to help her test her theory on Mechanoid blood flow. Hesitantly, he agreed and she reassured him she wasn’t going to cut him open or anything. Waving to the two of them as they went upstairs, Pyrre washed and put away the plates before settling on the sofa in the living room. He was getting himself comfortable when a sudden pain hit his cranium.

‘The-He-I-gone-it-’ A blur of voices echoed in his skull, whispers of secrets told that he can’t share. Clutching the scarred side of his skull, he pushed down on it to ease the pain. Stumbling, he went to the kitchen and opened the drawer for his pain killers. The thudding pain decreased as he popped in the pills and gulped down water. God he hoped Dracon and Kai never saw him like this. Adjusting his hat back on, he began watching tv again, onto a fantasy show about a Masic and a Metazoan who explore a world they have been plopped onto by a mischievous diety. His dark blue eyelights dimmed with fatigue and his vision blurred.

After an hour of theorising and testing, Dracon and Kyle came back downstairs to see Pyrre passed out and sleeping on the sofa. Smiling, Dracon draped a blanket over him and quietly waved Kyle goodbye, locking the door behind him. Turning all the lights off, she set his alarm beside Pyrre’s head and settled down on the sofa next to him, preferring to stay as close as possible to him instead of being in her own bed.

Skullsworn by Brian Staveley.

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Series: Stand Alone (Unhewn Throne Series)

Publisher: Tor Books (April 25, 2017)

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Length: 304 pages

My Rating: 2.5 stars

With his new standalone novel Skullsworn, Brian Staveley returns to the world of the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, focusing on one of the characters from that trilogy: Pyrre.  This…