A Gamer's Guide 376

“I’m not sure if I can?” 

His gaze burns holes in my skull.

I shrug. “We can try, I guess?” I put my hand on his chest. No chest hair. As a matter of fact, aside from the hair on his head, he has no body hair. Sure, there’s the eyebrows and the eyelashes, but nothing else. It’s how I’d expect a model to look, sure, but now that I’ve actually got it in front of me, it feels surreal, almost unreal. Perfectly smooth skin without any scars or freckles or visible follicles. No nipples. How is that even possible? 

“Please,” he croaks. “Undo this.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll try, but you have to hope, too,” I say, trying to recall the details of the hoping to hope miracle. Something about crystalizing hope, right? Hoping to hope, hoping to hope… 

Lett reaches out and puts his tiny hand next to mine atop Garath’s chest. His face is scrunched up in concentration, his brows folded over his clear, shining eyes.

Right. Looking back at Garath, I begin chanting. I close my eyes. “I hope I hope that Garath turns back… I hope I hope that Garath turns back… I hope I hope that Garath turns back…”

…No. I don’t even need to open my eyes to tell that it didn’t work. Something is missing. An ingredient has been left out and now the cake won’t rise. It would be nice if I didn’t know what it was or if I didn’t know who failed to bring it to the potluck. 

“It won’t work,” I sigh, opening my eyes. Garath looks up at me, and though his face is the very picture of despair, he still looks ready to be on the front page of Vogue. I can’t say I enjoy letting him down like this, but… If nothing else, he deserved to know the truth. “I don’t have enough hope to make it work.”

His angular, gritty eyes blink with all the innocence of a newly born lamb. “What must I do?”

Lett reaches out and touches my hand, very gently. “Can I…?”

I shake my head at the both of them. “That’s not it. You two are feeling enough hope to vanquish a demon king, but I’m… Sorry.”

“Do you not want me to be returned?”

“That’s not it! Really, it isn’t. I feel very bad that this happened and I wish I’d known beforehand. But, I mean, on the other hand…” I shrug at him, trying to lighten the mood with a little smile. “This isn’t too bad of a solution to the issue, right? Now, you can come along with us to the city! That’s nice, right? You must have wanted it too, or else this wouldn’t have happened.”

“I’m a monster,” he mutters, staring up at the everblue sky. “This is my penance. The Goddess of Fire has smiled upon me once more and granted me a body incapable of rendering enemies, unable to soar on wings of freedom. Even you, my new master, have rejected me. You save me from eternal demise in my own head only to condemn me to another eternity, stuck in a body as malformed as yours.”

“Hey, hang on, now,” I say. Putting aside the insults… “No need to be dramatic. You do still have wings, you know? And, by human standards, you are very handsome! Or did you not hear my internal monologue about that? I think I described you quite nicely, all things considered.”

He sniffles. “This I cannot deny. You were quite flattering.”

“See? Life’s not so bad! Lett, you agree too, right?”

And maybe he would if he hadn’t been so clearly busy thinking about other things. At which point one might wonder, what could possibly be more riveting to think about than the buff angel-man in front of us? A question Lett soon answers, by asking one of his own. In a small, wavering voice, he asks, “Do you think that miracle could heal my legs?” 

Ah. Um…

While I’m racking my brain for a good answer, Garath sits up, grunting as he does. All four of his wings are splayed out behind him, too huge to properly fold across his back while he’s sitting. Wavy, silken hair splayed dramatically across his face, Garath turns his face to Lett. Even though the face I’m looking at is human, I can’t parse the expression at all. Triumphant? Despairing? Savage? None fit. 

“He can’t,” Garath rumbles. “Even if he wanted to.”

“Why not?” 

“In his shrivelled, dead little heart, he doesn’t see your lameness as a bad thing. Nor a good thing. He views it… How shall we put it… The same as he does your baldness, or your eyes. It is simply a trait of yours, and so, he fails to find any reason to undo them.” His almost feral grin is lessened immensely in ferocity by the neat row of perfectly white teeth, aligned so neatly as though the patron god of dentists had put them there himself. “He doesn’t care that you are this way. You’d find as much hope in him if you asked him to turn you orange.”

“Oh,” Lett says, and it hurts. I pull myself away from him. “That makes sense.”

Sometimes I envy snails. They can draw in on themselves and disappear forever and nobody would come look for them. That’d be pretty… 

My hand is turning translucent again. Heart leaping into my throat, I shove it into my shirt, hoping that the two of them didn’t notice.

I want to exist. I want to exist. I want to exist. I want to exist…

Sitting up properly, Garath leans in closer to Lett, easily dwarfing him. “Though he may not care, I will admit that I am a bit…” Garath hunches over him, sniffing deeply, expelling little puffs of white smoke with each breath. “Yes, it’s there. You are lacking in divinity? Pray.”

“Pray?”

“Yes,” Garath says. “That is what you must do. Pray to your patron god, and let your intention flow into your legs. Feel them. Here, clasp your hands.”

“Clasp…?”

“Do you not—? Nevermind. Ignore what those that came before taught you, and do as I say. Here, finger over finger, woven together and strong.” Reaching out, Garath takes Lett’s hands into his own. Though his hands are comparatively massive, they move with such gentle ease that I feel no need to worry about either of them. Cupping his hands around Lett’s, he molds them, moving the fingers into the right position with genuine warmth and care. When he releases them, Lett’s hands are clasped together, firmly, though without tension. “There. Now, pray.”

For a time, Lett simply stares at his clasped hands. Small flakes of snow begin to flutter down, one landing on his hands. “I’m not sure how to, anymore.”

“Have you never prayed before?”

“No, that isn’t it, I just…”

“I see. Then, I will speak, and you will repeat after me. To whom will you pray?”

Biting his lip, Lett keeps his hands on his hands, not raising it at all. “The God of Hope,” he mutters, weakly. 

“Very well. Repeat after me: Oh ever-generous God of Hope, whose gentle arms have accepted my offering of devotion…”

After a moment’s hesitation, Lett repeats the words spoken, saying, “Oh ever-generous God of Hope…”

</Oh ever-generous God of Hope>

As they continue speaking, praying, my eyes are glued to the message slowly appearing in front of me, the same as the one they’re saying, echoing through the back of my skull.

</Whose gentle arms have accepted my offer of devotion

/Hear my plea as You have seen my pain

/Take my hand in Yours

/Hold my body now and forever

/Bring unto me Your grace and calling

/Be with me in times of need as in plenty

/And grant me Your everlasting Hope

/To overcome that which troubles me

/To protect that which is in Your honor

/Now and until my life evermore rests

/Only in Your arms warm and true

/Aye>

The final part of the message fades away and I’m left to stare in mute horror as Lett takes a deep breath and smiles, an insurmountable air of relief painting every stroke of his young face. “Thank you,” he says. “I’ll try to remember it.”

“I doubt I’ll be going anywhere soon even if you do.”

They smile at each other and I feel nauseous, so I stand up and stagger over a pace or so before expelling whatever was in my stomach at the base of a tree. Now the tree is covered in a thin bit of runny, glittery white mucus, thick in some places and watery in others. It smells like vanilla. What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?

I wipe the residue from my cheek. Glittery. Glittery. Why is there glitter in my vomit? I have eaten no unicorns. The allegations are thoroughly untrue. Leaning against the tree I just defiled, I turn to look at Garath and Lett. Looks like Garath is trying and failing to stand up. Come on, old boy, I know you can do it! 

A hiccup bubbles up the back of my throat and makes the inside of my nose burn. Ouch. 

And then there’s a weird creaking next to me and the snow that was atop the tree falls down on top of me, pushing me to the ground very violently in a way I do not condone whatsoever. Right. Snow. Love the stuff. Wonderful, wonderful snow. 

I dig my way out of the pile and glare up at the tree that dumped it on me only to find that it’s blooming. Little white flowers like the petals of a cherry blossom have sprouted out in full and are now covering the tree in more white than the snow did. Ah. Hm. 

Standing up, I wipe the snow off of me and go away from the tree because yeah, no. 

One of the few good things about not having a body temperature is that snow doesn’t melt into my clothes. On the other hand, I am always cold, so you win some, you lose some.

Garath is still struggling to stand up, so I help him out by pulling him to his feet. “There you go,” I say, swallowing to try to get the noxious taste of vanilla out of my mouth. “All better now. Shall we go?”

Arms held out wide, wings still splayed out, he stares dead ahead and promptly falls over face-first into the snow. With his arms spread out wide and his legs likewise, it almost looks as though he’s about to do a prone snow-angel! Haha, that’s a funny visual.

<Don’t look at me.>

It’s difficult. You have an exceptionally round butt. 

His wings instantly fold to cover his body. 

<You are a cruel man and I regret

everything I have ever done to lead me here.>