Xaxac did not try to leave the next day.

He sewed up the hems of the hat he had made and cast on another one, after he had finished his cleaning for the day. He was subsisting mostly on the carrots Lorsan had brought him, which he could eat raw without getting sick, but when the sun set, he made another fire and set out potatoes to roast, in anticipation of Lorsan’s visit.

They fell into a new routine so quickly.

But Xaxac missed everyone. He missed his mother, his sister, his father, Jimmy, and Lee, but more than anything, he missed Agalon. He didn’t know when Agalon had become more important to him than anyone else, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. But it was the truth, and there was no use denying it. He didn’t want Agalon to see him in his sorry state; his beard was an actual beard now, not stubble, not the scraggly beginnings of a beard, but an itchy, ugly mess of soft, fluffy hair that moved outward, just like the hair on his head. He hated it. He couldn’t put his makeup on, and it made him look ten years older. And it was uncomfortable- he didn’t know how other men stood it. Yes, the shaving was time consuming and difficult, but it was not a constant, underlying sense of discomfort, on the edges of perception, always there, always tickling, on the edges of his nerves- it was enough to drive him mad! And Agalon would hate it as much as he did. He would hate how it looked, he would hate how it aged him, and he would hate how it made Xaxac feel.

Xac wondered if Lee kept the shaving supplies somewhere he could get to them. He also wondered, not for the first time, where Lee slept. He had never seen him before, before he came to the big house, and he seemed to hear the bell ring whenever Agalon rang it, even in the middle of the night. Did he live in the house somewhere? Some slaves did. Xac did.

“Hey Xac,” Lorsan said as he entered the room, “Exciting day?”

“I actually got a lot done,” Xac said because he had picked up on the sarcasm and was insulted by it, “Both these rooms are pretty damn spotless, I finished the hat I had made for Alex, and I’m makin a new one for Aggie.”

“He don’t never wear red,” Lorsan said.

“It’s all I got,” Xac deflated, because that was true and he had considered it, “I don’t know what happened to all my fur. It was gone when I woke up.”

“I mean,” Lorsan shrugged, “He’ll probably like it. I just ain’t never seen him in red. I don’t think he buys it, you know, for himself. I bet he’ll like it.”

“Stop,” Xac said and listened to the soothing sound of his needles click click clicking together.

“I like it,” Lorsan said and picked up the hat Xac had set on top of the folded baby blanket on the coffee table, “This the finished one?”

“Yeah,” Xac said, and watched Lorsan stuff it onto his head. His face seemed like one who was shocked about something, so Xac asked, “What?”

“I didn’t think it’d go over my ears,” Lorsan admitted, “You made it for a human.”

“The band’s a knit two purl two rib,” Xaxac explained, “It stretches pretty good, but not enough to where it won’t be warm.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Lorsan said, “But uh… that’s neat, Xac.”

“A purl stitch is a reverse knit stitch,” Xaxac said.

“Right,” Lorsan took off the hat and set it back on the baby blanket, “Super informative. I’m gonna go ring Nancy to bring us some wine.”

“Do you ever eat, Lorry?” Xaxac asked, because he hadn’t seen him eat anything except the vegetables he had packed upstairs for Xac the entire time his father had been gone.

“Not nothin made by somebody who poisons my friends,” Lorsan said, lingering in the doorway, “No. I ain’t stupid. Put a little hemlock in my tea or somethin. I ain’t drank nothin that didn’t come straight out the pipe or from a sealed bottle, neither.”

Then he was gone, tugging the bell in the hallway.

When he returned, Xac did not look up to speak.

“Hey Lorry,” he asked, “Do y’all have a copy of the holy texts?”

“Yeah, we got a million different ones,” Lorsan said, “Got complete collections, partial collections, that big family one, little ones to take to the temple… we’re set.”

“You reckon you could read it to me tonight?” Xac asked, “I was just… wonderin what happened, with the curse and all, ya know?”

“That’s a long story, Xac,” Lorsan said, “I mean, there’s a lot to it. All the legends are kinda intertwined, you can’t just read one part, you gotta have context. I been tryin to explain that to some priests who seem like they need to hear it.”

“Well… can we do that, then?” Xac asked.

“We won’t finish it before I leave for school,” Lorsan said, “It’s thick as hell. But yeah, if you want.”

He stood and made his way to the bookshelf as MrsOfAgalon entered with their wine; she had brought up three bottles this time, likely to save herself some trouble, and Xaxac slipped until he was lying on the sofa so that he would not have to look at her over the back of it.

“Thanks, Nancy,” Lorsan said.

“Yes, master,” she said, “Will that be all?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Lorsan said, “Feels about like a vacation here without daddy, don’t it?” Apparently this quazi joke did not land because he sighed and in a more somber tone said, “Yeah, that’ll be all.”

“Yes, master,” she said, and Xaxac listened to her walk away. He would not move until he heard the door close.

Then he put away his knitting to attend to their wine. Lorsan selected an older book with a cover that looked as though some sort of green fabric had been stretched over wood, emblazoned with the symbol of an unbroken circle in gold. Within the circle were three other symbols, but Xaxac did not know what they meant. One looked a bit like the flickering flames of the fire he was using to roast the potatoes, but he could not guess to the others. They seemed to have no inherit meaning, like the squiggles the elves used to write. The book was much older and much more worn out than Xaxac expected anything in Agalon’s house to be, but it was the one that Lorsan carried to the sofa and plopped down with, so it had to be the Holy Texts.

Xac popped the cork and poured their wine as Lorsan began to read.

“In the beginning, there was chaos.

The sunlight that burned down upon the world would have brought death, had there been any living thing to die.

The rains fell with stones from the unforgiving heavens, the fire below the earth broiled so that the land flowed as the angry sea, and the sea itself boiled away, then fell, then boiled again. The world was formless, without law, and without life.

The great god Thesis looked upon the world, and he said to them, ‘Let us create order’.”

“Said to who?” Xaxac interrupted.

“Now see, that right there is a damn good question,” Lorsan said, “Folks have been askin that for centuries. Best guess is he’s talkin to the lesser spirits, but the thing about that is, this book ain’t just one book. It was wrote by a lot of different authors, all claimin they was divinely inspired, channelin the word of Thesis through their pen, not their brains. But yeah, that’s a good question. Because it seems like maybe this ain’t the beginnin, don’t it? Like maybe somethin happened before this? There’s other texts, but they didn’t get put in here on account of they was apparently not divinely inspired that talks about Thesis creating the lesser spirits, like the forest spirit, to act as his voice on Xren, and then there’s other passages that talk about that, but that part was cut so,” he took a deep breath and said, “I’m gonna level with you, Xac, the reason that this book has scholars dedicated to goin over it is because it’s a straight up clusterfuck. I know blasphemy’s a sin, but the more you look at it the less sense it makes. Don’t think too hard on it, alright? Just let it wash over you and absorb the gist of it.”

“Oh,” Xac frowned, “Well when does it get to humans?”

“I told you, you gotta read it in context.” Lorsan said.

“But you just said it don’t make sense in context.” Xac pouted and sipped his wine.

“I’m just… readin what’s in front of me,” Lorsan sighed, “Hush and listen. I can’t debate it or teach it, my faith ain’t strong enough. You’d have to ask a priest that kinda shit.”

“Oh,” Xac said, “Ok. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it’d… you look mad… I’m sorry.”

“It’s just I’m readin the same thing you’re hearin,” Lorsan said, “How the hell would I know?”

“I’m sorry,” Xac said again.

“So Thesis set into the sky the firmament, to catch the rain of stones and any other dangers from the world beyond. This tempered the sun, and cooled the world.

He calmed the roaring lava below the ground, and the lands rose up, steady and calm were they. The sea fell flat, but did not stop, for still it collected into the heavens, but because the firmament, having been laid by the great god Thesis, had been laid, the rain collected into clouds, and fell gently upon Xren.

Thesis set into law all that which is natural, and decreed the logic behind the seasons, the rains, the snows, the heat and the cold, the night and the day-”

“It’s like a greenhouse!” Xac said.

“Yeah, actually,” Lorsan said, as if he was proud Xac had drawn that connection, “It is like a greenhouse.”

“And he said to them, ‘The world is good. The laws of the land have brought order to the chaos. But the land is dead. Let us create life upon that which is good, and let it live by the laws that we have written.’

And the great god Thesis set upon the sea, and sprinkled into it the seeds of life, and they blossomed in his creation. Upon the land grew all the greenery, the plants that live and grow, good and green, and bore fruit that was good to eat, and flowers, and seeds, and roots that grasped the living earth of Xren. And Thesis looked upon it and saw that it was good.

And from the seeds he had sprinkled into the sea came the living, moving things, that swam in the sea, or crawled upon Xren, or flew in the skies, or dwelt in the flames, and he looked upon it and saw that it was good, each creature to their niche and each to their kind. And each followed the law of the land as it had been written, and life flourished in the new world according to his law.

And the land grew wild, and complexity sprang forth from the creatures on the land, and Thesis began to grow worried, and he said to them, “These things have not the intelligence to understand our design. They can fall to danger. Even now they dig in the earth and hunt in the fields, even now they tip the scales. We must create for them guardians, to watch over them and care for them’.”

“Wait,” Xac said in confusion, “Did he say that to the animals? That sounds like he said that to the animals but then he calls them ‘them’ instead of ‘you’.”

“Best I can figure,” Lorsan said, “Is he was still talkin to the spirits? See this was originally written in ancient elven and their pronouns are all kinds of fucked up. It’s a protolanguage so they really only had like two pronouns, but they didn’t use um consistently. They’d kinda translate to ‘it’ and ‘they’, they didn’t have gendered pronouns, and you’d think that’d be easy, like ‘it’ would be singular and ‘they’ would be plural, but we don’t see it like that. It actually kinda works like… well, again it ain’t ever very consistent, but the one we’d call ‘it’ seems like it’s maybe you’re talkin to somebody of a lesser social rank, and ‘they’ is somebody of a higher social rank, but not all the time… Languages are weird. My point is, people smarter than us argue about this shit, so once again, an’ probably any time you ask me this kinda shit, I don’t know.”

“It’s just don’t make a lotta sense,” Xaxac said and refilled his glass, then took Lorsan’s and refilled it as well, “I get confused.”

“No, it don’t make a lotta sense,” Lorsan agreed, “There’s temples full’a priests who spent their whole lives studyin it. It ain’t meant to be flipped through like a magazine. I told ya, don’t think on details, just try an’ take in the whole story.”

“I just like stuff what makes sense,” Xac pouted, “I’m sorry. I know I keep interruptin. I’m sorry. I’m trying to quit, but I’m gettin tipsy and it ain’t helpin.”

“You want me to stop?” Lorsan asked.

“No!” Xac begged, “Please! I wanna hear it! I’ll be good!”

“‘Let us make them in our image, and teach them our ways. And we will make for them a land like unto which is our land, beyond the world, beyond the firmament and the twinkling stars in the sky, and let them dwell there and learn our ways, and be happy all their days. And let us teach them the ways of the world we have created, so that when the time comes, they may rule it as we have ruled it. And let us make them in our image, so that the creatures of the world may know them, and they shall know them by their image, which is like unto that of a god. Let us give unto them their ears so that they may hear the voice of a god, and their eyes, so that they may see the workings of a god, which the other creatures cannot-”

“That’s why you can see souls!” Xac interjected, “He’s talking about you!”

“Yeah, and why our ears are so long,” Lorsan said and took a sip of his wine.

“When I shift, ain’t my ears longer’n yourn?” Xac teased.

“Yeah,” Lorsan giggled, “Your ears are like two foot long. You ever hear the voice of a god?”

“I can’t remember nothin when I shift,” Xac said.

“Well I ain’t never heard no god,” Lorsan shrugged.

“And let us teach them how to use those workings, so that they may treasure, guard, protect, and rule the land, and all the creatures upon it, so that they may work the will of a god.’

And so the great god Thesis created in the world a beautiful city,”

Lorsan looked up and said, “This here actually bothers me, because the word just means ‘place’, so some folks have translated it ‘city’, some folks have translated it ‘kingdom’ and some folks just go with ‘place’. So there ain’t really no way to tell what it actually was.”

“Huh,” Xac mused, “Weird.”

“Built of sparkling crystal that reflected the sun, inset with stones and precious metals, at the top of the world, and he filled it with all the tools and beautiful things, and he set into it his most glorious creation, which he had made one by one, of his own hands, in his own image, the high elves.”

“I swear to god,” Lorsan said, “This should be ‘whole elves’. It don’t mean ‘high’, it means ‘whole’. I know this is a big debate but I don’t know why. Any other time you see that word it means ‘whole’. Like all of somethin. Like ‘I ate a whole pie’. It’s weird to me that the whole damn empire has decided to call these folks ‘high elves’.”

“I dunno what to tell ya,” Xac shrugged.

“And they were perfect and beautiful. They need not eat, nor sleep, nor drink, for they felt neither hunger nor fatigue nor thirst. As they had been made perfect and whole, they need not fear death, for they could not die. They were neither male nor female, as they could not die, but both, perfect and whole.”

“Wait, what?” Xac asked, “How does that… follow? How does not bein a man or woman make you not die?”

“This’in I actually know,” Lorsan said, “Folks think they got this’in figured out. On account of it goes into it later. See, originally elves didn’t have babies, like at all. So we didn’t have male and female like the animals, because the point of that is to reproduce. Later, after the curse, they get split, and when they lose their immortality, they gain the ability to have kids, so the race don’t die off. That’s what this means. It explains it later. High elves don’t have kids, they just… are what they are. There wouldn’t never supposed to be a bunch of us.”

Xaxac didn’t really understand this answer, but he suspected it was more because he kept drinking than it was that it didn’t make sense, and he wanted to hear the rest of the story, so he didn’t push the point.

“And Thesis said unto them, ‘I have created you, whole and perfect, and I have given you this land, which is like unto our land, beyond the world, beyond the firmament and the twinkling stars in the sky, and I have set you here to live in peace and prosperity. Beyond this place lies the world, which I have created, and all the creatures that dwell within it. You, whom I have created in my image, must rule this land, and guard over the creatures within, each to their needs. I have given you access to the workings of a god, and you will stay here and learn of them, so that you may fulfill your purpose. As long as you fulfill your purpose, you shall feel neither hunger nor thirst, nor shall you fear death, for you shall not die, neither shall you feel pain, nor anguish, nor any painful emotion, for I have created you whole and perfect, and I have given you this land, which is like unto our land, beyond the world, beyond the firmament and the twinkling stars in the sky.’

And he looked upon his creation and saw that they loved and obeyed him, and they flourished in their paradise, each according to their purpose.”

“Then there’s a list a’ names that goes on for like two pages,” Lorsan huffed, “That I’m gonna skip. I mean, there’s a couple that matter, but most of um don’t.”

“Whichin’s matter?” Xaxac asked.

“I mean, there’s a couple what still got festivals named after um and whatnot,” Lorsan said, “Like Nicoli’s in here, Eishtar’s in here, stuff like that.”

“Who?” Xac asked.

“Come on. Xac, you know who Nicoli is,” Lorsan said, “Divine apparition who brings good kids presents on the winter solstice?”

Xaxac stared at him trying to figure out what he was talking about.

“You hang a stockin on your fireplace an’ he puts toys and candy in it,” Lorsan said, as if this was common knowledge, and it was worrying him that Xaxac didn’t know what he was talking about. Xaxac didn’t like the look on his face, didn’t like the pity he saw there, so he averted his eyes to refill his glass.

“I reckon maybe only elves get divine apparitions,” Xac said, “The only time we ever got candy mama brought it from the big house,” he paused, in his drunken state, and looked around as if just realizing where he was, “From here, I mean. From your house. An’ the only time we got toys was if our parents made um. They did always try to get us somethin on the solstice, though. It was just hard cause mama had to work so much, you know, in the big house? She said there was a party all solstice season. We wouldn’t see her most a’ the time. She’d leave at four and wouldn’t get back till after midnight. Solstice like ta’ killed her.”

“What?” Lorsan said, “Was this… was this when you was a youngun?”

“I mean,” Xac shrugged, “My whole life. That’s just how it is.”

Lorsan was silent for some time before he spoke, and when he did his mood was difficult to gauge.

“When I was a youngun,” he said, “back when my mama was alive and before she left daddy… we’d have parties the whole week of the solstice. We’re nobility, we’re supposed to throw parties for the district. My mama would play that piano, and they’d throw open the doors downstairs and make room for people to dance. Sometimes, they’d have the humans play music an’ dance together- I mean, my parents would dance together. They… quit doin that after a while. But we’d have a big feast, ever’ night, with cakes and cookies and candy, and on the day before the solstice all the youngun’s would hang up stockin’s, and the next day they’d be full a’ toys and candy.”

“Sounds like fun,” Xac said.

“Your mama… made them feasts,” Lorsan said, “She was up at four in the mornin cookin… didn’t get out till midnight… on the solstice…”

He turned his eyes back to the book and read something, which made Xaxac think he had also gotten drunk, because it was a passage he had already read.

“And let us teach them how to use those workings, so that they may treasure, guard, protect, and rule the land, and all the creatures upon it, so that they may work the will of a god.”