Ghostdog

Happiness is the butterfly of the soul. A philosopher on the isle of Mynos told me that a long time ago, and though at the time I was too young to understand, tonight his words make sense. I’m clean for the first time in a month at least, wearing new clothes better made than anything I’ve owned in years, and more than a little drunk. 

Being so close to a weak point between the worlds, I decided to make my campsite beyond the circle of wagons in the remains of a large government building, so as not to alarm the others in case I have spectral visitors during the night. Its three walls are intact enough to block the wind and I’ve got a nice fire going, courtesy of my son, who collected firewood and brush for kindling while I bathed.

He is with me now, silently working on the scavenged armor I got off of the Young Lord as I tell stories for the old healer and the wine merchant, who are sitting beside the fire with me on delicately carved wooden chairs. Tinados and I sit upon the ground. Grandfather responded by telling amusing stories of his own about the time he spent in the imperial capital, and now the three of us are laughing as the merchant refills our cups from the crystal decanter he says he always brings with him, the old healer holding his hands over our cups a moment as his hair glows like polished gold. 

Steam begins to rise from the surface and the three of us hold our cups up to the others before taking a drink. Ah, is there anything better in life than perfectly warmed wine on a crisp night?

There is, and as the merchant begins asking the old man questions about the emperor, my gaze drifts over toward Tinados, oblivious to us as he trims the leather with a thin bladed knife. I have a son. How wonderful, and yet…how strange. He has my eyes, grey as the Shadowlands themselves, but the rest of him belongs to his mother: his patience, his skill with his hands, the courage he showed in taking on the Daemo alone, and especially his comfortable silence. Meg made the clothes to the size I was when we were together and they hang loosely on me now. But I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world, and so it is with my son.

But as he trims off a sliver of leather and compares the edges with a critical eye, still oblivious to my gaze, fear touches my heart with a finger cold as ice. I don’t know what he truly thinks of me, but I fear it’s far better than I deserve. He trusts me the same way Meg did, but she knew the dark places in my heart and he does not. 

I’m going to let him down. Someday he’s going to see his father for the hollow knight I know I truly am, and the hurt I know I’ll see in his eyes will cause me greater pain than all of the wounds I’ve suffered over all of the years combined. His trust hangs on me like the clothes I wear and I fear I can no longer grow into either one.

But not tonight. Grandfather mentions High Lord Fortune of the Gold-Lotus clan, and I turn towards him with a smile. “Were you there the night High Lord Fortune ate something that disagreed with him violently and broke wind at a high court feast?” Grandfather snorts in suppressed laughter and I turn towards the merchant. “High Lord Fortune was a very fat merchant who bought his way into the high court, though he never became close to the emperor, as he wanted.”

“He was as pompous as he was corpulent,” Grandfather observes.

I hold up my cup to the old man in agreement. “Anyway, the emperor’s feasts were never meant to be filling but savored, and everyone, including the emperor, would always eat a normal meal afterwards. But evidently High Lord Fortune couldn’t wait. I was performing the sword dance with several others, Chai creating phantasms dancing among us, when we heard a loud rumble near the lower end as High Lord Fortune turned red as a ripe cherry. A moment later the most awful stench reached our noses…”

“Rotted fish wrapped in a baby’s soiled linen, as I recall.”

“And the lords seated nearby were turning towards High Lord Fortune with the most disgusted looks on their faces. But you never left your seat during one of the emperor’s formal feasts, and so the lords on the lower end could only endure it with bad grace. The emperor rarely missed anything, and when I ended the dance on the signal of his fan slapping his palm, and returned to his side, he had me kneel beside him and whisper into his ear what had happened.”

I smile in remembrance. “You had to know the emperor to really appreciate this. He never smiled during one of these functions, but he’d get a twinkle in his eyes and I knew he was up to mischief. He rose to his feet and clapped his hands twice. ‘High Lord Rooster’, he said the man beside High Lord Fortune, ‘several moments ago you seemed to get a look of concern upon your face. Is anything wrong with the feast?’”

“’Indeed no’,” Grandfather making his voice reedy thin as he speaks, ‘the feast is exquisite. It is just that, for a moment I thought there was a smell…but I am sure I was mistaken.’”

I make my voice grow concerned. “’There must be no foul odors at a high court feast; to introduce such would be an affront to the emperor’s sacred person.’”

“’No, no, Voice of Heaven, the smell was not foul at all. I was just surprised by the…fragrance of the odor, nothing more.’”

“’It must have been the most powerful of scents, for many of those seated around High Lord Fortune seem to have been surprised as well. Come, I have not heard any poetry this evening; craft for me a verse about this most fragrant of scents.”

The merchant has his hand over his mouth as he titters. “The emperor did not.”

“He did,” I reply, unable to keep the grin off my face. “Emperor Black-dragon-sun made each of the lords recite a poem about the delicacy and subtle fragrance of High Lord Fortune’s fart.” We laugh together, the wine making the story more amusing than it is.

“Papa.” I glance over at Tinados. His gaze has turned from his work and moved past us towards the darkness beyond the fire, and as I turn to see what he’s staring at, a sinking feeling grows roots in the pit of my stomach.