Galen awoke feeling well-rested. He swung his legs off the bed before standing up. The bedroom held only one window, which cast light onto the doorway. Galen walked over to the window and peered out onto the street below. Townsfolk littered the narrow street, bustling to and fro between the buildings. Watching the people go about their days motivated Galen to start his own. He descended the stairs and ran right into a box. The moving mess still cluttered the room.
Galen gave himself a quick pep talk before grabbing the box closest to him and starting to unpack the contents. One by one, he picked up books and set them into a neat pile beside him. Once that box was empty, he grabbed the next one. This box also contained books, so did the next and the one after that. Steadily, the stacks of books grew with each finished box until a corner of the room was filled.
Looking at the growing mountain, Galen grew concerned. He could not remember packing all these books, and he had no bookshelves. He pulled the next box to him and opened it up. Lo and behold, it contained even more books. This was going to be a problem. Great, he had another one. He neglected to bring any large furniture simply because the shipping costs were far too large. Now he had to figure out where to put all of them. However, that was a thought for after he finished unpacking everything.
Opening the next box, Galen was relieved to find something other than books. He proceeded to spend the rest of the morning unpacking every box and organizing it into manageable clutter. Standing with his hands on his hips, he surveyed the progress he made. The room was still messy, but a distinguishable order was established. He placed his incense and candles near the shelving unit behind the counter, the balms and salves near the shelving unit closest to the entrance, the potions and tinctures and tonics on the next one, and the ingredients for tisanes and decoctions on the furthest unit from the entrance.
Packaging for all of his wares laid scattered around wherever there was empty space, and the same went for his more exotic and rare plants. The balms, salves, tinctures, potions, and tonics were already prepared, but it would take forever to sort everything by use and type. The incense, candles, tisanes, and decoctions needed to be put into more appealing packages and labeled. Galen had a lot of work ahead of him, and he was dreading the coming days.
Today, he would tackle the book problem. Galen did not know how he had come to amass such a collection. When he was packing, he had not recalled this many. Galen did not even read. Well, he read as little as he was able. The store did have a storage room, but the sheer number of books would fill it. Galen needed that space to store his plants and make his goods, so that was one option gone. He could also keep them stacked in the corner of the room, except that was unsightly and might weird out customers. Another option made void. He could get rid of some of them, but he was unsure where to find a place to dispose of them. Galen was not about to become a litterer, so he crossed out that option. That left his room. The books would occupy half of the space, but it was the only viable option.
The rest of the afternoon consisted of him rotating between carrying piles of books upstairs and taking a breather. Galen was not the most physically active being, and the heavy piles he carried took a toll on him. As the day went on, he had to take longer and longer breaks. Finally, he carried the last stack into his room. He glanced out the window, sighing at the sight of the sunset. He had lost an entire day dealing with the books. He collapsed onto his bed, but sleep did not come as easy as the previous night.
Galen stared at the ceiling and thought about the future ahead of him. This was not the first time Galen had moved. In fact, it was only the latest of countless homes. He was as close to immortality as a not-human could be, and it was a tricky thing to deal with. It forbade him from settling down in one place for too long. People, humans, became suspicious, and his kind was not looked on favorably. Thankfully, humans had advanced past killing them, but the mistreatment never stopped. Galen preferred to avoid trouble, so he left before anyone could realize what he was.
As one could deduce, this made lasting friendships difficult between humans and not-humans. The absence of aging was not an easy thing to hide. Friendships between not-humans were not rare, but it was safer for them to avoid grouping together ever since the genocide. That left Galen bereft of both not-human and human friends.
At first, Galen was fine with not having friends. He preferred to keep to himself, but thousands of years was a long time to keep to oneself. Additionally, almost immortal beings like himself were prone to wasting away, a deadly condition that proved fatal to most who experienced it. Having a companion normally kept the wastes away, but finding a reliable source of them was hard to accomplish.
Galen did not often have thoughts that went in this direction. He had lived for too long to spend his nights cursing the unfairness of the world. He knew not to dwell on the unchangeable, yet the argument he interrupted earlier lead him here tonight. Thinking back to his conversation reignited his disdain for the sheriff and his curiosity about Severin. He saw friendship potential in the young man, which excited him. However, if there was one thing he could not do, it was to get his hopes up. Too many tragedies had befallen him from being hopeful.
The next day, Galen awoke with a lingering melancholy from the previous night, but he had a lot to do, and there was no time for sad thoughts. Getting out of bed, he immediately went downstairs and got to work organizing his inventory. By late afternoon, Galen had placed the tisanes, decoctions, incense, and candles into their decorative packaging, labelled them, and put them into their correct spots. Any excess packaging, as well as his rare and exotic plants, went into the storage room. That left the potions, tinctures, tonics, salves, and balms, but he would get to that tomorrow.
He wanted to spend the rest of today gathering staple herbs for his medicine. He had specifically chosen Erasima to move to because the island nation boasted a rich environment filled with a plethora of good medicinal plants. It was now time for him to see whether this was the truth. Even if Erasima did not contain the amount he hoped it did, there would still be plenty of common plants he could use. However, Galen thought he might want to stash the stronger medicines away for emergency use if the country's claims were false.
Exiting the town, Galen took a sharp right and headed straight into the surrounding woods. Carefully scanning the ground, Galen was pleased to note that the boasts had been true. He immediately spotted four good plants within a couple of feet from the town's entrance. He treaded further into the forest and was even more pleased to see that there were plants he did not expect to see in Erasima. Galen would be able to make ninety percent of his stock and would only have to take occasional trips to the port cities to gather the foreign ingredients he needed for the last ten percent. Because he was so absorbed in gathering and identifying plants, Galen did not notice the figure walking toward him.
"Hey, you! I remember you from yesterday," the figure shouted at him.
Galen looked up and saw the young man from yesterday, "Hello, Severin. I also remember you from yesterday."
"Why'd you get up in our business? Here's a quick tip, stay out of things that don't concern you," Severin said as he aggressively approached Galen.
"Well, I could hear your argument from all the way down the street, and I wanted some peace and quiet, so I would say that your business concerned me," Galen took a step back to maintain his personal space. Severin noticed his movement and narrowed his eyes.
"Why are you backing up?" Severin laughed, "Oh wait, I know. That idiot, Morstat, must have told you I was renounced, huh. You don't want to be around me anymore."
Galen frowned at the accusatory tone, "While he did tell me you and your family were renounced, I only backed away because I like a certain amount of personal space. However, your attitude works just fine in keeping me away."
Severin faltered at that, but quickly gained momentum again, "I don’t need someone like you telling me what to do.”
“Someone like me? Who do you think I am?”
“I don’t know. One of the others!”
“That’s too vague. I won’t know if I am one of them if I don’t know who they are.”
Severin let out a frustrated sigh. “The people who judge me for being renounced.”
“I won’t judge you based on other’s words. However, I will judge what you show me. How you act toward me.”
With those words, Severin stared at Galen closely. There was something in his demeanor that made Severin believe him. Severin's aggressive stance fell, and he looked to the side, "Are you a good judge of character?”
“Why don’t you find out?” Galen laughed before sitting down. He patted the ground next to him. Severin hesitated a moment but ultimately decided to sit down. Galen said, "Tell me about how you were renounced."
Confused by the non-sequitur, Severin stayed silent. Galen nudged him with his shoulder. This jumpstarted Severin, "My family has never been well-off, so my mom used to pick up extra work at the Governor's office. She organized his papers and stamped things. She'd been working there for a couple of months when she noticed discrepancies with the papers; the money wasn't adding up."
"He was embezzling," Galen interrupted.
Severin nodded, "Yeah, he was taking a lot of money. You know, my mom was the type of person to do the right thing, so she reported it as soon as she found out."
Severin took a moment to clear his throat. Galen placed a hand on his shoulder for comfort, "What happened next?"
"I think the rest is obvious. The report goes nowhere, and the governor gets mad. He cuts off our family, and the town treats us like shit," Severin spits.
"Is that all?"
"My mother and father got sick. The town wouldn't help. They died. The end."
Hearing the succinct explanation of what happened clued Galen in to the simmering anger Severin felt toward the townspeople. The type of anger that could bubble over at any minute. He mustered all the sincerity he could, "I'm sorry they did that to you."
All of a sudden, a waterfall of tears fell down Severin's face, and he tried to frantically wipe them away. Galen watched him quietly. Severin groaned and said, "I'm 25 fucking years old. Why am I still crying like this? This happened years ago, I shouldn't still be this sad about it."
"You shouldn't be sad about a tragedy that happened to you?" Galen looked at Severin's hunched-over form.
“I don’t even know why I told you all this.”
Galen tried to stay out of human lives the best he could, but that was not conducive to making friends. So, he needed to be the one who reached out. Galen thought back to the last time he had a human friend. A time so long ago, he had forgotten everything about them but their name. "Severin, what is your favorite color?"
"What?" Severin laughed, "I just told you my sob story, and you follow that up by asking for my favorite color."
"So, does that mean you aren't going to tell me?"
"It's green."
Galen and Severin spent the rest of the afternoon talking about any trivial thing that passed their minds. Soon, the orange glow of the setting sun shone between the trees. Severin paused in telling his latest story and stood up. He dusted off the back of his trousers, "I've got to go. My house is a little way from here, and I want to get back before night falls."
"No problem. I should start heading back myself."
Severin lingered behind, "Will I see you later?"
"Of course,"
Galen said, smiling widely. Severin smiled back before swiftly walking in the
opposite direction. Galen turned and made his own way home.
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