Knock, Knock!

“Da?” Jason leaned his head around the door frame of his fathers office as he knocked on the wall beside it. There was no door to fill the frame, Da joked that a ‘no door’ policy beat the hell out of an ‘open door’ one. As a method for discouraging accusations of corruption Jason had to admit it was pretty effective. Anyone could drop in at any time to brother the old man. He could hardly get up to sneaky shenanigans without any privacy.

Or so the basic human emotions said. Jason wasn’t so sure. His Da was more than clever enough to pull off whatever he felt like directly under someone's nose. Thankfully, while he had the capability he lacked the temperament. He was a rock of morals and James found himself relying more and more on that rock to steer his way.

He blushed a bit thinking back. For a time, as a newly minted lawyer he had looked down on his fathers old fashioned ethics. They had seemed like fetters preventing his success. If no one else bothered to keep to the spirit rather than the words of a bargain then doing so was not standing to a higher calling. It was just being gullible.

That was then. The world was a much simpler place. No small claims court to adjudicate every little thing. Just the opinions of neighbors who you depended on to keep you alive. Suddenly the spirit of the deal was pretty damn important.

“Come on in, James! I haven't seen you for a couple days.”

“I have been around, just eating with my squad mates.”

“Squad mates… Ah, that's right. Arthur told me about that plan. You pool your wills to activate the enchantments more safely. How is that working for you?”

“Actually it’s been great. It forced us all to step out of our comfortable social groups and meet new people. We have to really trust each other. Not just for the Brotherhood's Loyalty. None of us are capable of doing much alone right now. But together we can even use an ELR. Together we are NOT useless.”

“I never thought of you as useless, James.” Joe’s rumbling dipped to a very soft tone.

James smiled, somewhat bitterly but he was working on that. “You didn’t have to. I can say it all on my own. I was useless. But I’m getting over it. I would like your help though.”

Joe made a gimmie gesture.

“Timothy dropped these toy molds on me and left me high and dry on how to distribute the proceeds.” He recounted the brief conversation nearly verbatim to his da. Years of training were good for something.

“Haaaaa, that sounds like your brother. Both brilliant and stupid at the same time.”

“I didn’t say that Da!”

“No, I did. He’s partially right. Giving the toys out would not be a good idea. But hes very wrong in how to go about it.”

He paused, tapping his fingers on the desk and staring at the far wall. “Have you heard your brother rant about sacrifice?”

James nodded. He could hardly have missed it considering how often the subject came up.

“I’m not sure I buy it to the extent he does but the damn concept does crop up at the oddest times. Do you remember playing that video game as a child. The one where the small character would hold every newly acquired item up in the air above his head to a dun Dun DA DA sound?”

“Of course! That's the Zelda sound Da. Not sure which one you mean though.”

“Do you remember when you got that cheat device for Regi’s old system? Something about a genie?”

“The game genie? sure I remember it.”

“Before that you loved the game. You would spend hours trying to find every little secret. Then you cheated to get the items you couldn’t find. You stopped playing it shortly after.”

James scratched his head. “I don’t remember that, Da.”

Joe waved it aside. “It doesn’t matter. The heart of the matter is that working hard to get something makes it valuable. If it's just handed to you it gets boring fast. If you just hand those toys out to parents they won’t value them much. And that is a problem.”

“There is a little something inside us all that wants to take care of our loved ones. To be a breadwinner or a caretaker. To show them that we are a mighty provider. That's even more important when times are as … unsettled as they are. People need to feel like they can do something for their children. Something big. You have a golden opportunity to do that with those molds. Forget selling them. Get the parents to provide the stuffing and the magic. Let them participate in the creation and you will be giving a present to more than just the child.”

James thought about that as he walked away from his Da’s office. He glanced down at the wooden token with a house number carved into it. Mrs. Agnace’s house number to be precise. Da insisted that she would be the perfect person to find the parents who might want to participate and organize them into something useful.

He hadn’t really thought about it that way. That parents needed to give just as much as the children enjoyed receiving. His original goal began to shift. It wasn’t about getting this done as quickly as possible.

Quite the opposite.

He had lots of plans in his head, and even a few written down, as he sat, an hour later, on the edge of the fountain in the main atrium of the undercity. A crowd of parents filled the space in front of him, even some who were not quite parents yet. But, considering their size, would be soon!

Mrs. Agnace clapped her hands together calling for order. “Alright all of you, we have an opportunity in front of us. James here has a series of molds on him to help make some presents for the kids this Christmas.”

She let the excited babble die down a bit before continuing. “Now I’m going to let him explain the details but understand. If you don’t help out in the making then you're going to have to spend good coin to purchase these toys later. If you do help then they will be free.”

James stood up holding a wooden plaque held above his head. He resisted the urge to let out his own dun Dun DA DA as he did. “Alright everybody. I have the outer shape of a Teddy Bear, a Hippo, a Unicorn and a somewhat funny looking Lion. My older brother already enchanted the molds. That’s Timothy if you have been living under a rock.” He paused to let the laughter die down. Refusing to look up at the rocks above his head. “We have the first molds, but we need a lot of work to have them ready to go. If you look at this diagram, we need a central ball of very soft springy material, then a layer of something more durable and finally a leather exterior.”

He chuckled inside as he thought about Mrs Agnaces comments earlier. “Your brother is a well meaning idiot. Children do not treat their prized toys as fungible. You can’t just replace them with something that looks similar. They grow to love those things. You make a lot of stuffed toys that will last just long enough for children to get attached before they fall apart and you just wait for the mob with torches and pitchforks to come for you. And I will probably be marching with them!”

“That means we need those of you on the gathering teams to snag some giant dandelions, or if you have a better idea, whatever is fluffiest. We need someone, or rather several someones, to carve an appropriately sized ball to fit in the center of each mold. We’ll pour sawdust in and make a mold around the balls like a rusian doll. Then we mold the final teddy bear in three parts. Inner fluff. Middle layer of plant matter and finally the leather.”

“If you can’t make the mold then help gather fluff, if you can’t do that then gather sweet smelling flower petals for the middle layer. If you can afford it, help us buy some boar hides for the skin. Now who-”

James smiled as the discussions continued. Timothy gave him the molds and he felt put upon. Now he created the plan and volunteered to work his ass off and he felt fulfilled. He felt useful in providing for the community. His clever Da was right again. And he very much appreciated the present.

dun Dun DA DA!