Here’s the opening to a little fantasy thing I’ve been thinking about for a while. I hadn’t written anything on it until tonight. This is what I’ve got. I like it. If I don’t watch myself, I might end up writing it.
The Anarchist took his coffee scalding hot and cavern-black. His one-room thatched-roof sweat-soaked cottage cramped in around him. His table was spread with overwritten letters, and he bounced infant Chara in his lap. The Anarchist was on his last letter of the morning, and he spat out his coffee when he read it.
“This is it! This is the one! I knew it I knew it I knew it!”
The Anarchist slapped the table, and his wife, rolling biscuits, sighed.
The Anarchist was not yet called the Anarchist. He was called Khrysos (because of his hair), and that’s what his wife Argyra called him just then.
“Khrysos,” she said. “Khrysos, I don’t want you to get your hopes up about this one; there’s only—”
“To Khrysos of Oikon,” Khrysos began. He peered over the paper at his wife; he raised his brow. “That’s me,” he said.
“Mmhmm.”
“To Khrysos of Oikon, greetings from Spurius Pompilius Caveat—hey! I remember that guy!”
Argyra put the biscuits over the fire. “Oh?”
“Absolutely! He’s this merchant up in—where was it? Dulce? Decorum? Oh! Fortuna! That’s where it was: Fortuna. Anyway: To Khrysos, so on and so forth, it is likely that you do not remember me—ha! Gotcha! I utterly remember this guy. He had this little donkey named Dolores that would only walk backward if it rained, and you know, over there, it rains like every—oh, nevermind. It is likely, says Spurius Pompilius Caveat—there’s a name for you—it is likely that you do not remember me.
“I have—” Khrysos held up a finger and smiled. “Listen to this: I have suffered a regrettable accident that I believe will qualify under the policy we discussed earlier this year, and I am willing to take up your offer. Some property of mine has gone missing, and I have reason to believe that goblins may be involved. For reasons I prefer not to discuss in writing, I am unwilling to obtain redress through the usual channels. I may be contacted at 335 Blah Blah Blah Whatever Whatever The End.
“Did you hear that!?” Khrysos slapped the letter back on the table; it soaked up his spit-out coffee. “Did you hear that?”
Argyra nodded. “I heard it.”
“And?”
“I’m very happy for you.”
“But?”
“You know but.”
“I do know but.” Khrysos dragged his palm over his face and let Chara down to crawl. “But, even though I know but, don’t you think it would be—”
“I know it would mean a lot to you.” Argrya said. She seated herself at the table and placed her hands over his. The scent of the biscuits filled the cottage.
“It wouldn’t just mean a lot,” Khrysos said. “It would mean everything. It would be a justification of everything I’ve been through; it would make it all worth it in retrospect.”
“But you’ll have to leave us.”
“Not forever.”
“How long?”
Khrysos sighed. “How much longer do I have?”
Argyra counted on her fingers; her hair was the lightning-blue of her people. “Three months. Father will expect you at the castle then.”
“That’s no good,” Khrysos said. “It’ll take a month just to get there and another to get back. How am I supposed to—”
Argyra shrugged at him. “That was the deal. Father’s being very generous, you know, and I don’t care to see you acting like he’s not. He gave you all that money to start with, and he gave you a whole year to pay it back, and how much have you paid back so far?”
Khrysos snorted.
“Exactly,” Argyra said. “And he’s been putting up with all your weirdness and your issues—like, oh, I don’t know, insisting that we live only on your savings. Here. In this shack in the mud. Here.” She gestured around the demense. “We could very well be staying up in the castle. They have floors there you know. I’d grown accustomed to floors.”
“Princess.”
“I know! I am!”
Khrysos crossed his arms; he split his face between anger and humiliation. “Well, I’m sorry that I couldn’t provide you with a castle and a moat and sixteen hundred pairs of shoes and a—”
“Don’t start! I don’t want to hear it.”
They stewed and watched the baby crawl. The biscuits got cold.
“Go,” Argyra heaved out at last.
“What? I’m sorry, Little Sweetbiscuit; I didn’t mean to—”
“No,” she said. “I mean go. To Fortuna. Exercise your right of sub—supra—super—”
“Subrogation.”
“Yes. That. Exercise that on those goblins, get Whoever-It-Was back his property, and come back here in three months with your pockets stuffed out with policy subscriptions. Or don’t. I don’t care. Just come back. I’ll be proud of you either way.”
“Really?”
“Of course.” Argyra smiled. “It doesn’t matter to me one bit whether you do your own business or the King’s. You’ll be doing one or the other in three months, and I don’t care which. I just want my husband back, preferably without goblin teethmarks in him.”
“Well, then,” Khrysos said. “It’s really happening! This is really happening! I’m really going to do this! I’m going to go up to Fortuna, talk to that guy, get him his stuff, grab whatever from the goblins—and, when I come back in three months, everyone’s going to say ‘Hey, remember that Khrysos guy?’ And someone will say ‘Yeah, what a loser.’ And then someone else will say, ‘Whoa, whoa! Hold up! You heard he’s doing this thing now, right?’ And they’ll be like, ‘No, what?’ And the other one will say, ‘It’s called insurance.’ And they’ll be like, ‘What’s that?’ And no one will know, but everyone will respect it.”
Khrysos gathered his girls in his arms, threw open the door, and breathed in the sunshine.
“This is probably the greatest thing ever.”
ONE MONTH LATER
Khrysos felt the goblin-chains around his arms, heard the gate rattle shut, and breathed in the darkness.
“This is probably the worst thing ever.”