#theothar

(X)

“Dad?” Kostas called. His father’s basement office at Peel & Co. had always been off limits to him, locked at the bottom of a narrow, creaky staircase. The door smelled spelled of pine and preservatives, though the latter, Kostas barely noticed anymore.

No answer followed. Kostas knocked instead.

His father replied, gruff, “Come in.”

The knob felt heavy and resisted Kostas’ turn. “You wanted to see me?” His dark, curly mop fell across his eyes just as he stuck his head into the office. On the floor, thick carpeting swallowed up any spare noise. He felt like his ears were suddenly stuffed with cotton.

Stavros rose behind his desk. It was a simple, even austere piece of furniture, and it matched the chair.

A second figure stood, like an echo to the first. His back faced Kostas.

The boy gripped the edge of the door. That wasn’t one of the usual undead goons, nor was it Mister Vincent, the driver. The figure stood slimmer, about the same as the lean Undertaker.

“There’s someone I wantcha t’meet, Khor.”

“Who?” Kostas stayed near the door.

Stavros nodded.

The figure gripped its arms tight to its sides and turned. He looked like a youth, perhaps no older than Kostas himself, dressed in a too-large suit. The sleeves hung past his wrists. A high collar fringed up to his ears, but could not conceal the faint stitches lining his jaw and tendrils.

“This’s Theo, and he’ll be yer friend. I made ‘im fer you.”

Made. Kostas grabbed at the door knob. His eyes darted around, anywhere that wasn’t his father, or his ‘friend.’ Another door stood slightly open, and through it, Kostas spotted a tile floor and the edge of a metal table.

Meanwhile, Theo lowered his chin with a remembered urge to swallow. He held out his hand, amicably, and the motion tugged up the sleeves.

Kostas drew back, and shook his head. He found himself incapable of speech, though not movement. A few quick steps took him up the stairs, where strides lengthened to a run. Outside, clouds buckled and thunder rumbled, reporting the onset of a storm. Kostas bolted for the garage.

(x)

(Many years ago, inspired by this)

“All right kiddo, you got your basket?”

“Yes sir.”

“Got your hooves?”

“Yes s-- why do I need my hooves?”

Theothar percolated with laughter as he strodeon the path, his own wicker basket in a thick grip. Beside him, a young, pale-hairedgirl with a puddle of freckles on each cheek trotted alongside. Her basket wasthe same size as his, which made it look more like she carried a bathtub.

“Theo, why do I need my hooves?” Veriinyainsisted with a serious face. “I always have my hooves.”

“Because we’re going to need them to knockthose apples down.” He grinned. “It’s good training!”

At the word ‘training,’ Veriinya scrunched herface with concentration. She needed it. She was so much smaller than soldierslike Theothar and Voshanin. And Ishnia... the tall Commander intimidated hersometimes with all that heavy armor and her dour expression. Veriinya wanted tobe like that, she would be like thatone day.

So for now, she needed to train. Theothardropped his basket next to an apple tree in the temple gardens. “All right, sothere’s the normal way of doing this.” Reaching up, he plucked an apple from alow-hanging branch and dropped it into his basket.

Veriinya watched intently.

“But that’s not a lot of fun. So we do it likethis!” The violet-eyed vindicator turned his back to the trunk and kicked. Hisbroad hoof collided hard with the tree trunk, and rattled a few apples loose ina fruity rain. “And then we pick them up and—“

Already, the girl scampered around to collectall the apples and deposited them into Theothar’s bucket.

He nodded with approval. “Try to catch some!”Another solid kick shook a few more down, and Veriinya managed to get a couplebefore they hit the grass. “That’s it.” A few trees like that, and she pantedfrom all the dashing.

“I want to kick the next one,” Veriinya toldhim as they walked to another spot. “And you catch the apples.”

“If you want, just be careful not to hurt thetree or your hoof, okay?” Theothar sounded a little concerned.

Veriinya dismissed his worry with theconfidence of a child. She was going to kick that tree so hard all the appleswould fall in one blow. Theothar selected the tree, which had a single, lovelyred apple dangling in view. Silver eyes widened and reflected in its glossy,ruby surface. Theothar followed her gaze, and positioned himself with thebasket underneath the apple. It was so low he could have simply reached out andplucked it, but he waited.

With care, Veriinya positioned herself with herback to the tree as she’d seen Theo do, and she let out a fierce kick! The treebarely shook. It only trembled, as though a stiff breeze had passed through.

The apple remained up in the branches.

Veriinya scowled and kicked harder. Then shekicked again, and again, determined to make the apple fall.

Theothar watched, and only once offered a bitof advice for her to get a little more leverage and power in her kick. If hemoved around to give the tree a whack himself, she’d see. If he used his magicto sever the stem, she’d see that too. So he stood still, and encouraged.

Finally, after about the twentieth try (andwith a cry of frustration to empower the blow), Veriinya sank onto her rumpwith a glaze of tears over her ears. She would never be strong enough. She’dnever be tall and big like the others.

Then a distinct thump filled her ears.

“Heeeeey, look! You did it!” Theothar loweredthe basket. There was her apple, bright and shiny and perfect, finally knockedloose by the last kick.

“I did it!” Veriinya burst upwards and grabbedthe basket from Theothar. “Let’s go show Voshanin!” Before Theothar had achance to do more than grab his own basket, she already dashed from the orchardwith her prize, and glowed with her success.

 ------------

Milennia later, Veriinya walked with a smallflock of children into the orchard at Sun’s Peak. Glancing around the trees,she saw the tell-tale healed scuff marks of hooves on bark. The traditionalways were still alive and well at the sanctuary.

“Now, there’s the normal way,” Veriinyaexplained as she reached up and plucked an apple from a low-hanging branch, anddropped it into his basket.

“And there’s magic!” Rond’theron cheatedoutrageously and summoned a whole bushel down on them. It rained fruit for afew moments, and the others chided him.

Laughing, Veriinya turned her back to a tree.“But that’s not a lot of fun.”

“It is for me,” Rond’theron pouted.

Veriinya aimed, and let out a fierce kick at the trunk. The tree rattled, and applesdropped to the grass. “So we do it like this!”

The children cheered, and all took their turns kicking down apples for pies, juice, and cider for the rest.

(x)

(Many years ago, following this).

Theothar earned his chance to speak to Voshanin about the tensionboiling between them, but not in a manner either man would choose.

Veriinya burst into the barracks long after dusk. Most of theVindicators had returned from long guard shifts around the temple and thesurrounding land, save a few. “Vosh!” she called over the din ofrelaxing - and thus rowdy - fighters. “Voshanin!”

The man sat up in his bunk immediately. “Veriinya?”

She shoved across a game of dice and kicked over a nearly fullbottle of alcohol in the process, in a rush to reach him. Protests snapped at her ankles.

His stomach tightened and he threw off the covers. Something musthave gone terribly wrong at the village.

Minutes later, Voshanin stalked down the stairs, a pillar ofglittering fury. The previously-disturbed paladins scrambled to follow, butnone moved as fast as he. “Go to Ishnia and wake her up,” hegrowled at Veriinya. “Tell her I am traveling to the villageimmediately to investigate the kidnapping.”

“You won’t have backup when you get there!”

“I will get there right when I perfectly well intendto.”

The pale-haired Peacekeeper paused and flicked her tail, anxious.Watching Voshanin’s armored back grow smaller and smaller. She ached to follow him,but he had given an order, and she only knew she had to follow it instead.

It wasn’t anywhere close to an even fight. Battered and bloodied,Voshanin felt his skull collide with a hard stone wall, and the heavy finalityof a chain clanged around his neck.

When he woke, a hand grasped his. Warm, strong, and familiar.Voshanin’s swollen eyes couldn’t open to see his fellow prisoner.

A muffled voice slurred his name.

Voshanin, whose mouth had not been shackled shut like the other man’s,spoke clearly. “Theo.”

(To be continued)

(Many years ago, following this)

Theothar felt awful, and hesmelled worse.

All alone in the showerroom, the Vindicator was too distracted by the wonderful hot water streamingdown and cleansing him to notice much else. He’d spent the evening with hiscontingent running hard drills – made more arduous, he was certain, byIshnia’s ire – and then he and Voshanin separated themselves in order to cleanopposite sides of the barracks while everyone else proceeded to the mess.Theothar’s stomach grumbled. Voshanin had completed his half without aword and left Theo alone to finish the latrines.

Now hours late for dinner,he resigned himself to a long, hungry night. Crestfallen, he wondered ifanything with Voshanin would be right again, after the verbal lashing his friend gave him in the woods.

“Theo, are you in here?” Awoman’s familiar voice floated in through the steam.

Theothar perked. “Hey,kiddo, I’m in here.” He sounded tired.

Veriinya perched on a bench angled away from the stall. “We just got back from the village and Ididn’t see you out there. There’s a meteor fall tonight and everyone isclamoring over the good spots.”

At the moment, Theothardidn’t care about bright balls of gas raining on him. Just hot jets of waterwashing away his day. “That’s good.”

Unused to such a conciseresponse from the ebullient man, Veriinya peered at the steam cloud containing the Vindicator. “Iseverything okay?”

“No.” Theothar’s throattightened.

“What happened?”

“Voshanin yelled at me andIshnia put me on latrine duty. I’m so hungry I could eat a whole nest of akaliri eggs.”

Blinking in surprise,Veriinya straightened. “Why did Vosh yell at you?”

Theothar rubbed his face andturned off the water. The echoed privacy of the shower noise faded. “Apparently hesaw you and me kiss and thought that I’d been awful and ignoring you ever since then.He had a lot of choice insults Ithink he was saving just for the right occasion.”

“You lost me.”

“Don’t you remember, whenyou helped me get away from that crazy Anchorite?” By now he’d had time to ransackhis mind and locate the offensive moment on the garden path.

Of course she recalledperfectly. “That was just to get her off your tail, unless…?”

“Unless nothing, that’s allit was! I can still remember you cuddling up with Mister Babub on the trundlenext to me because you couldn’t sleep. You know I love you, kiddo, just never like that.”

Her cheeks darkened at thereminder of her stuffed childhood companion, as well as Theothar’s admission of affection. “And Vosh thought we were…” Veriinyastarted to laugh, but it sounded hollow to Theothar. Maybe it was the tilewalls.

He leaned on the divide andpeered over at her. “I don’t know how to fix it. How do I fix it?”

“Have you tried talking tohim?”

“Tried, didn’t get too manywords in edgewise between all the hurling of epithets and names.”

She frowned. “Well did you finish talking to him? Maybe he justneeded to get it out of his system before he could start listening back.” At thevillage, she’d learned a little bit about unrest and expression, and the Peacekeepershad done an admirable job of keeping everything calm, she thought. That was the main reason the people felt they could gather and watch the meteor fall together. With a few arguments over who got the best position to view the sky.

“Ishnia did interrupt usbefore he had a chance to fully nail shut my coffin,” Theothar mused. “I’ll talk to him.”Thus resolved, a grin appeared on the jovial man’s lips again, in its rightfulplace. “I tell you what though, you ever meet someone who treats you the wayVosh thought I was treating you, I’ll kick that Naaru-cursed lout from here all the way across the wall.” Theothar lifted both arms. “Ten points!”

Again, Veriinya laughed, buther glass face shone with worry. Had Voshanin really treated Theotharthat terribly, all because of her? Did he really care that much? The seed of an ideanestled in the furrows of her mind.

“Now I’m going to getsomething to eat and watch a meteor fall! You want to come with, kiddo?”

“Oh, sure.” Veriinya tossedhim a towel and after he dried and dressed, she and Theothar walked to the mess side byside.

Voshanin strode through the hallways to the barracks, whistling to himself.  Things were going well; Ishnia was pleased with his latest reports, and when the Commander was happy, it trickled down to the men.   Ishnia was always good about ensuring it wasn’t just the bad that went downhill.

His whistling stopped abruptly as he stepped into the barracks and encountered his friend Theo wearing… a very frilly, feminine gown.  “Uh.  Theo?”

The other Vindicator didn’t get a chance to respond before Veriinya brushed past him, pins in her mouth.  “Hi Vosh.  Theo, don’t slouch, I need to hem this evenly.”  As she dropped to her knees, Voshanin felt his face flushing dark.

“Apparently I’m the closest one to her size,” Oblivious to his friend’s rising blood pressure, Theo grinned cheerfully.  “I feel real pretty Vosh, you should try it sometime!”

Veriinya sat back on her heels, and the moment passed.  “Turn around, let me see.”  Focused on the dress, neither of them noticed when Voshanin beat a hasty retreat.

Theothar concealed fromZimina that her dead love, Stavros, was still alive at AU Auchindoun. To befair to Theo, Zimina asked him not to tell her. She had an importanttask: to bring the soul of MU!Stavros’s son to Auchindoun, and she felt shecouldn’t be distracted by the possibility of rekindling a fire she’d long extinguished. 

Not so soon after a freshly failed new relationship. She had work to do.

As it turned out, Stavroswas not only alive at Auchindoun on AU Draenor, but also he’d married, and lostAU!Zimina in a terrible accident. When MU!Zimina arrived, AU!Stavros, consumedby grief and vengeance, treated her like a distant acquaintance. It caused hera great deal of pain and confusion. Perhaps, if Theothar had warned her about how he’d changed, shewould have been better prepared to face him.

Zimina later told Theo, “You know I’m accustomed to competing with another woman forhim… I just never expected that this time, the other woman would be me.”

Where domesticated baby elekks come from.

The remark Veriinya made about Keialaar (I think that was her?) reading funny books with someone so that it sounded to outsiders like they were doing “something else.”

The “Let the Exarch win” rule of drinking games.

Why being physically attractive does not make up for the severe deficiencies in his family’s genetics, i.e. males losing their touch with the Arcane as they age.