A/N: Okay. So this was the chapter that was supposed to be done in a week. But then I took a step back and realized, "yikes this is awful." Two times. So this whole thing had to be redone. Two times.
What I am trying to say is, this could have potentially been a disaster, but now it's...not?
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The Customer is (Not) Always Right
Another Night at the Lumpy Pumpkin
-PART 2-
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"Phoeni. So she was a student at the Knight Academy with you?"
Dovos slouches and hangs his head, seeming to shrink a little. "No...not a student."
I give him a pressing look.
He avoids my gaze. "You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Try me."
A draft blows through, rustling the pumpkin leaves and causing the foundations of the tavern to creak. It's a warm night, but the wind is chilly. Wingy hovers over my right shoulder, eyeing Dovos intently.
"All right," he says after a few moments, clearing his throat. He winces up at me, like he's bracing for a smack to the face. "Phoeni was a...a..." he swallows, "A ghost."
An uncomfortable silence passes between us. I wipe the disconcerted expression from my face, hoping he's too drunk to have noticed it.
"Okay..." I just nod along and pretend like he's speaking sense, exponentially more concerned than I was a few moments ago. "Do go on."
Dovos shifts, folding his arms behind his back. "It all started in the middle of my first year. That was when I met...her," he begins reluctantly.
"One evening, I heard a strange, echoing voice coming from the first floor bathroom. A girl's voice. At first I thought I was hearing things. I went inside the bathroom to investigate, but then there was no doubt about it. There was a voice coming from the drain!" He flails his hands in a dramatic re-enactment. "I was so scared. I got out of there and ran upstairs, screaming, 'HEADMASTER! HEADMASTER! I think someone flushed themselves down the toilet!'"
I have to slap a palm to my forehead. Really?
"I'm pretty sure Headmaster Gaepora thought I was joking, but he came down with me to take a listen anyway. He said he didn't hear anything and I should get the feathers out of my ears. But then he went around with me and we took a census to make sure everybody was still there. Just in case. That made me feel a lot better." He slurs his words together, "I was just so scared because I had nightmares about getting sucked down toilets, but I didn't think it could actually happen. Now I know that's not possible, though."
I just blink at him in silence. Were five-year-olds allowed to enroll at the Knight Academy back then?
"Anyway. That night, I heard her again, when I was lying in bed about to go to sleep. She was calling my name. Dovos...Dovos...You know when you're just about to fall asleep, and you think you hear a voice? And then you wake up and realize it was all in your head?"
"I guess so?" I squint. "Yes. I suppose every once in a while, that does happen."
"Well, it was just like that. Only it was every night. And it was the same voice. Her voice. And it was real." His eyes go wide, and he looks very crazed indeed. "And that's not the only thing. Some nights, I could feel a gentle hand on my forehead, stroking my hair. She would whisper to me, saying things like, 'I'm so happy you noticed me. Thank you so much for being concerned about me.' She sounded so sad, but she had such a pretty voice. Soon, I...I started talking back to her."
I press my lips into a nervous line. Okay. Now I'm scared. Hearing voices is one thing, but talking back to the voices? That's...
"I wanted to know more about her. So every night, I would ask her all sorts of questions. About herself, where she came from, how she got in the toilet."
"Whoa, whoa. Back it up a second," I interrupt. "The toilet ghost? The Knight Academy's infamous toilet ghost? You're telling me you were friends with her?"
"Uh...yeah?" Dovos shrugs a shoulder.
...
"...I see." To his credit, it's been a long night. Peater didn't know what he was talking about either.
He drones on, "She didn't remember anything. Nothing about her life, her family, her loftwing. How she died. All she remembered was 'a fire,' she said. So maybe that had something to do with it."
If I were sitting, I would be on the edge of my seat.
"She didn't even remember her own name, so I asked her if I could call her 'Phoeni.' She said, 'why Phoeni?' I told her, 'my loftwing's name is Phoeni, so it'll be really easy to remember! And you know, since Phoeni's my other half, and you're kind of like my other half too...it makes me feel closer to you."
"I remember she laughed and said, 'won't that be confusing, Dov?'" He gives a little chuckle, shaking his head at his own stupidity. "She was right. It was really confusing..."
He gazes off fondly, a bashful smile unfolding on his face.
"We started dating after that."
My stomach gives a little lurch. ...Dating?
"Phoeni was really shy and hardly ever showed herself to me, but we would talk for hours, staying up late into the night. I never got tired of listening to her. She had such a wild imagination. She even dreamed up a whole wide world beneath the clouds! How crazy is that?"
He smiles, looking to me for a reaction.
"Aha, yep," I say, skin still crawling from his latest revelation. "Pretty crazy."
Wingy nips at my shoulder. I shove her bill away.
"I had a lot of fun listening to her, though. She would help me with my homework too, and help me study. She was always patient with me, and she never got mad at me when I made mistakes or spaced out," he recalls dully. "She got braver and braver as time went on. Pretty soon, she started following me all the way to the sparring hall to watch me practice. By the end of the year, we were flying hand in hand across the sky, just me and Phoeni and Phoeni..." He goes cloudy-eyed, lapsing into some distant, hidden memory. His features turn solemn.
"She still wouldn't show herself, though, no matter how gently I pleaded with her, er—at least not all of her. All she would show me was...her hand. She said I wouldn't love her anymore if she showed anymore than that."
He sighs.
"I guess she was just really insecure. Other than that, things were going great. But then one day, all of the sudden, she broke up with me." His voice cracks a little. "She said she fell out of love with me. That she didn't like me that way anymore and it would be best if we didn't speak to each other again."
"I just didn't understand. I thought everything was perfect between us, and then that came out of nowhere. I...I lost it after that. I just couldn't hold it together anymore. I got so depressed that I failed all my final exams. My parents were mad. Really mad. It would have cost too much to retake all the courses I failed, so I ended up quitting. That was why I dropped out."
He just stares at me, a dismal, haggard look on his face. I fidget with my clammy hands, not quite knowing what to say.
"Wow. I don't know what to say," I say in an attempt to disband the awkward silence. All these deeply personal things you just told me... "I've never had a girlfriend, but—"
"You haven't?" The look of surprise on his face catches me off guard.
"Er, no." I cough. "I happen to be very selective." I would not date anything that had been in the toilet, for one. "What I'm saying is, I'm outside looking in here. But from the sound of it, this...Phoeni...had a whole wealth of issues that were way beyond your control."
"You're probably right," he says with a deep sigh. "I mean, I'm mostly over her now. I think. But back then, I felt like when she disappeared down that drain for the last time, my life went down the toilet too." His eyes glaze over with sadness.
"At that time, she was...everything to me. I told my parents all about her, but they didn't believe me. They thought I made her up to get out of school on purpose and called me a lazy, deluded, good-for-nothing freeloader. After that, I lost all my motivation, all my confidence...no matter what I did, I just couldn't seem to do anything right anymore. I had a few jobs, but I couldn't keep any of them for very long. I got a job baking cupcakes at the Bazaar café. I got fired for licking the extra icing out of the bowls."
"Ew, well that's..." a pretty valid reason for firing somebody. "That's unfortunate."
"I just didn't want all that icing to go to waste," he sniffs, rubbing his nose. "After that, I got a job taking out the trash, but I got fired for dumping trash on the wrong island. So then that potion lady was looking to hire a taste tester, and I got a job working for her—" His breath catches in his throat. Tears gush from his eyes.
"Oh my..."
He tries to suck up the tears. "I applied to the Item Check when that guy died last year too, but they wouldn't even consider me for that. Pretty soon, I just gave up, and my parents gave up on me too. They kicked me out, and..." his lip shivers. He takes a long, tremulous breath.
"I wish I hadn't dropped out of knight school. Being a knight was my first love. My real first love. And I gave that up. All for a stupid, stupid reason. I'll never forgive myself for that." He breaks down and buries his face in his hands, whimpering, "what have I even been doing all this time?"
I look away from him and spare him some dignity. A couple minutes pass by like this; him crying uncontrollably, me standing across from him in silence. Witnessing the sniveling, blubbering mess before me now, I still find myself stumped as to how this man made it past even one year of Knight Academy. Maybe there is more to him than meets the eye. Or there was.
Soon, he stops sobbing long enough to speak again. "My parents always said I was a hopeless case," he forces out, wiping his eyes on his arm. "That I'd never amount to anything..."
I turn and face him, looking him in the eye. "So prove them wrong."
His mouth drops open, but no sound comes out. He looks like he's afraid to respond one way or another.
"Dovos, you're what, thirty? You're not all that old, you still have time. You have some sparring talent. You have the will, or you once did. You could probably find it again," I say in all seriousness. "If being knight is what you really want, and you set your mind to it, you could go back and finish up."
"Aren't you forgetting something? I'm out of money!" He's teary-eyed again. "Going back to school is way expensive, and I'd have to take a bunch of remedial courses."
I scoff, "Well, I never said it was going to be easy. Of course you can't get there tomorrow, you have to start small. You can start by looking for a job," I tell him. "What you lack is a purpose."
"But I'm too fat and out of shape to go back," he moans.
"You're not even hearing me."
"They'll take one look at me and fail me on weight cuts before I even have a chance to take an entrance exam!"
I pause and search for the right words, but for once the first ones seem to be right ones. "You're right," I say simply. "You are fat. I think that every day I see you walk into the Bazaar and see you sitting there stuffing your face."
Dovos goes slack-jawed. Don't look so shocked, you just said it yourself.
"But you don't have to accept that!" I clench my fist. "Sure, you're fat. You're a wreck. So the question now is, what are you going to do about it?"
My words ring out like a challenge, more than I meant for them to. Dovos seems petrified, still afraid to answer. Afraid to take a step forward, to make even a single move.
"You say you want to get better. I know you do. But something's stopping you. You're afraid to fail, I think. I know...I fail every single day. But you can't let that fear paralyze you! You have to take a chance." Now I can feel the pumpkin juice powering me and right words flowing. My mouth seems to operate independently of my mind; I scarcely recognize the voice coming out of me.
"Life might kick you in the dirt and spit all over you, but it's up to you whether you stay there. You can choose to let your past keep beating you down, or you can put it behind you and forge onward. You always have that choice."
He's listening now.
I lower my fists to my sides, glaring down into the grass. "I know what I said sounds optimistic. And you're right, it probably won't happen. But if being a knight is what you really want, you have to go after it anyway. There's always chance things could work out in your favor, however small. But only if you get up and go after it! You have to hold out for that chance, live for it. Because..."
"...Because?"
"Because that's all we really have, Dovos. I really don't know what else to say." I exhale. "Even if you do fail...well, you'll be better off than you are now."
He raises his brow. It's strange, but I feel at the same time I'm reassuring him, I'm also reassuring myself. Where is all this coming from? Must still be the pumpkin juice talking.
"You can't just wait for things to get better on their own, though. You have to want to get better. It has to come from you," I emphasize. "No one else can do it for you. I'm not telling you to go conquer the sky. I'm telling you to make a start. Just start something. Something is better than nothing."
"A start," he repeats slowly. "A start. I think I can do that. Like taking baby steps!—Phoeni always called it that when she would help me with projects, huhuh," he explains when I give him a questioning look. "Okay. So you said I should start by looking for a job again, right? Where can I find one of those?"
I sigh, crossing my arms. "I don't know, Dovos. I don't have the answers to everything. What are your skills? Figure that out and try asking around. If worse comes to worse, you might even have to take the self-employed route and start up your own business like I did."
"I wonder..." He averts his eyes downward, shuffling his feet. "Do you think maybe I could...I could work for you in Henry's place?"
...
"...Um."
At that moment, a loud crash jerks both our heads toward the Lumpy Pumpkin. It sounded like it came from the eastern side. Dovos looks around wildly.
"Oh no. Phoeni!"
The gray loftwing is nowhere in sight. Dovos takes off, half-running, half-waddling toward the pumpkin shed. I dash after him, down around the left side of the building to the sheltered alcove where the pumpkins are stored. What we see when we reach the shed makes us both gape in horror.
There is Phoeni, her face buried in a gigantic pumpkin. All around her, at least a dozen more smashed, muddied pumpkins litter the ground. That's when I notice that the entire top shelf in the shed is severely damaged—completely torn out of the wall on side. The pumpkins' final resting place before they splattered in the dirt and met their untimely demise.
"PHOENI! NO!"
Dovos throws his arms around the base of her neck and wrestles her out of the pumpkin mush. She reels backward, orange gunk dribbling down her bill. The white feathers on her face are dirtied with pumpkin mucus, sticking together in damp clumps. She snaps up the rest of the gunk stuck in her bill and whips her head from side to side, as if trying to rid herself of imaginary flies. She seems very...out of it. Even more than usual.
Dovos's eyes are wild with distress, unseeing. "What'll I do? What'll I do?!" he cries out, becoming increasingly frantic. He digs his fingernails into his temples. "This is horrible! I'm so dead! DEAD!"
"No, no. Listen to me, Dovos. You are not so dead." Not on my watch.
Before I can grasp what is happening, he's mounting his incapacitated loftwing and getting ready to take off into the night. Without a second thought, I move to block his way out of the storage area, throwing my arms out.
"Dovos!" I raise my voice as loud as I dare. "Just stay calm. This isn't something to lose your head over. It's not a big deal." Of course it's a big deal. But I am I going to say that to someone who is clearly mentally unstable? No. "Just take a deep breath and dismount your loftwing. Everything is going to be all right."
"How do you know?!"
My stomach pangs at the sound of his voice. He clamps onto Phoeni's belt tightly, on the verge of panic. I plant my feet firmly on the ground and outstretch a calm hand, approaching him like I would some unpredictable beast.
"I know you're scared, but you can't fly away from this. You can't fly at night; it's dangerous," I try to get through to his head. "And those pumpkins were fermented! That loftwing's drunker than you are. You couldn't even fly her in the middle of the day. That's as good as suicide."
It suddenly strikes me that that might be his intent. That this could very well be the disaster that pushes an already unstable man over edge. I become very aware of my heart pounding in my rib cage.
Dovos doesn't back down. A cold breeze whips up, carrying his voice away and partially drowning him out, "Then let me borrow your loftwing!"
"That would...also be suicide." Yes, let's risk my bird's life instead. That's a great idea.
"But I can't stay here!" he yells. Phoeni thrashes about below him. "I have to get away from here! AWAY!"
"Shh! I'll tell you what you should do: shut up!" I spit. "Just SHUT UP. Can you do that one thing for me?!"
Dovos draws back like a little kid who's just been reprimanded, effectively shut up. I sigh. Of all the people in Skyloft, why me? I'm the last person I would pick to talk somebody out of killing themselves.
"All right," I soften my tone. "No one's going to come out here until tomorrow, I guarantee it. But if you make a huge ruckus and draw attention to yourself, then someone might and you'll really be in trouble. So be quiet." I relax my posture, letting my arms fall to my pants pockets. "Now...come down from there. Please."
After a prolonged moment of hesitation, he swings his far leg over Phoeni's torso and drops to the ground. I breathe a little easier now that he's one less step away from almost certain death.
He gawks at me in a befuddlement, waiting for me to tell him what to do next. I crane my neck past him to get another look at the damage. There's no way we can make the mess disappear. We'd need a repairman to fix that shelf, and we definitely can't replace all those smashed pumpkins. Better vacate the scene.
"Let's get Phoeni away from the pumpkins," I hiss, turning back to him. "Come on."
We position ourselves on either side of the drunken bird and push. She doesn't resist, but she doesn't exactly help either. It takes a good five minutes to prod her away from the shed and get her back to the gate. Once, she clumsily careens into Dovos almost send them both hurtling over side of the cliff.
Wingy tenses when we draw near, sensing that this other loftwing is behaving strangely. She utters something akin to a hiss and falls back, keeping a watchful eye on Phoeni from a distance. The short trip seems to have taken it out of poor Phoeni. When we're almost to the gate, she collapses in the grass and falls asleep within seconds.
Though not panicking anymore, Dovos still seems shaken. His eyeballs flit every which way like he's expecting someone to pop out of the pumpkin patch and shoot him full of arrows at any moment.
"W-what should we do?!" he asks, rife with anxiety. His voice quakes.
"You mean what should you do? Don't lump me into this."
He stares at me with bulging eyes. In the dark, he looks very pale.
"Well, you definitely can't fly off into the night. That's not an option." I try to appear casual and matter-of-fact so as not to alarm him. "Sure, we have good visibility tonight, but there are no still no thermals. And let's not forget your loftwing is in no shape for flying."
"Thermals?" he slurs, running a hand through his hair. "What are those again?"
I sift through my brains for an explanation, but I feel like I'm grasping at straws. The answer should be right there; second nature, ingrained into me. But there's nothing. Why isn't it there?
"I have no idea," I reply groggily. I bring a hand up to rub at my heavy, steadily drooping eyelids. I feel like my mind has been pushed to its limit. I'm exhausted. "But that's not the only reason. You can't fly at night, you just can't. It's not only dangerous, it's illegal."
"It's not illegal."
"It's against the law."
"Well, yeah..."
I fail to hold back a frustrated groan. "Look. I am not going to let you do anything stupid. You could get killed. Or worse," I hiccup, "fined."
Dovos screws up his features in confusion, mashing his monobrow together. "Huh?!"
I don't know what happens then. I lose it. A chuckle escapes me, a stupid grin busting across my face.
Dovos flinches. "Wha-what's so funny?"
"Your face just now!" I gasp for air and cup a hand in front my mouth."I don't know why I'm laughing. It's really not that funny." I try to compose myself, but another snort of laughter forces its way out of my nose. My upper body gives way and I laugh freely, holding my sides. Somewhere in my murky brain, I faintly register that I've just passed from groggy to slap-happy. That this is only the beginning of a downward mental spiral that will end in an inevitable crash.
My laughter must be contagious, because now Dovos has gone ballistic. He trips over his own feet and flops onto the ground, landing flat on his belly. He just lies there, convulsing with fits of silent laughter. He rolls onto his back, sobs mixing with his mad guffawing.
"I'll tell you what we're going to do," I declare with a broad grin, once he's gotten a grip and managed to drag himself to his knees. He wipes some more tears from his eyes as he rises to his feet. "We're going to go back in there, order a few more rounds, and have a good laugh about all this. Whaddya say?"
"Let's do it!" he yells drunkenly, pumping his flabby arms. He almost teeters off balance and falls flat on his face again. "I guess it was pretty funny, huh huh. That Phoeni, always up to no good!"
"I know, right?! It's hilarious!" Your loftwing only destroyed hundreds of rupees worth in pumpkins. "That sneaky Phoeni! AhahahahahaHA!"
I allow myself to completely lose it. I laugh so hard my stomach hurts. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but if this prevents him from killing himself today, I'm all for it.
When the latest laughing fit subsides, I try to offer him a genuine encouraging smile. It feels weird on my face.
"Come on," I say, nodding toward the Lumpy Pumpkin. "Let's go back inside."
Dovos totters in the direction of the tavern—or tries to—seeming disoriented. Once he regains his bearings, he hesitantly leads the way up the steps and opens the door. A rectangle of golden light floods out into the pumpkin patch.
I follow him into the light and close the door behind us.