Disclaimer: I don't own anything!
Author's Note: Just finished reading Of Mice and Men for my English class. I loved it, and I'm not usually one for the classics.
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You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. ~Attributed to both Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi
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Yuan is a strange one, the other slaves think. He's not wild, like so many half-elven boys are, and he had some street smarts to him. Not that that was what made him so strange. Every child is different after all. But the boy has more than simple street smarts. He doesn't usually join in the conversations in the laundry rooms unless invited, choosing to listen and watch the others with blue-green eyes.
The strangest thing about him is that he seems to actually like his master. Master Aurion is small for twelve years old, with a rather quiet personality. He was better than many masters that most of the slaves had had in the past, but having a master at all was not a good thing.
The other slaves have seen them together. They snicker and grin like there were no boundaries between them, like one hadn't hit the genetic jackpot and was born fully human. It's unnatural.
"Pretending ta be friends with them don't make it any easier to be set free, y'know." A girl tells him one day when they're once again at the laundry. It's muddy outside, and their knees are dirty and uncomfortably moist with the sun beating down on them. It was only spring, but after hours of being outside, even spring sunshine got hot.
Yuan glances up at her. Alina was her name, he thinks. "What?"
"That's why you are the way ya are, isn't it?" Her voice has a country drawl it, subtle and half-forgotten. She couldn't be much older than Yuan and he wonders when she got taken from her family. Her friends, her life. "It's why you're so close to Master Aurion, ain't it?"
Yuan has to work not to correct her language. "It's really not." He and Kratos agreed that people shouldn't find out about their friendship, that it could put Yuan in danger if they did. But Alina was just a kid, like them. A little older, perhaps, but a kid. And every kid knew the Rat Rule. You never rat out another kid. Never. "…He's my friend. For real."
Alina stared at him as though he'd grown another head. "Humans hate us."
"I know. But Kratos is different."
"I doubt that Master Aurion is different from the other humans at all." Alina said, voice brittle. She was like so many half-elves were about humans. Sharp-edged, mistrusting and cold.
Yuan has tried to use the title before, when he was trying to play the charade in front of the humans that no, he and Kratos weren't best friends. The words don't fit right in his mouth, like he took a too big bite out of something. The title just didn't fit with Kratos, the best friend.
"I swear, he is." Can't rat out another kid, Yuan reminded. Admitting they were friends was one thing. Admitting that Yuan knew how to read, albeit slowly, and was learning arithmetic rather quickly, was a different matter altogether.
"If you say so." Alina says doubtfully. Yes, that was what their world was made of now. Doubts and misconceptions and all Yuan wants to do is return to summer nights on the roof, telling stories of the constellations or climbing pomegranate trees to see the distant horizon.
Yuan isn't sure why she doesn't understand, why she's so stubborn in thinking that humans and half-elves really can't be friends.
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Kratos should be used to feeling small. He's been the smallest kid around for as long as he can remember. But here, here there is something very…wild...that hadn't been back home.
They hear rumors of fights every day. Sometimes, people in his classes will show up with black eyes and split lips and the rumors start with a new furiousness. Kratos sits near the back of the class, by the window, and is always careful to hide his novels behind the textbooks. Reading for pleasure was an unspoken taboo among his classmates and Kratos, for the first time in his life, can't wait for the bell signaling the end of class to ring.
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They share the bed, mostly because they're both stubborn enough when they want to be. Kratos had been the first to say that Yuan wasn't sleeping on the floor and that he should take the bed. Yuan had naturally said no because Kratos shouldn't have to sleep on the floor either. So, logically, the only answer was that they share the bed.
Yuan moves in his sleep. A lot. Most of the time, Kratos doesn't mind because they're small things like shifting position. But Yuan has nightmares, even if he won't talk about them out loud.
One morning as they're both getting ready for their day, Kratos asks him. "What do you see?"
Yuan stares at him like he doesn't know what he's talking about. "What?"
"In your dreams." Kratos clarifies. "What do you see?"
Yuan avoids his eyes. "Home. The way it's supposed to be." With no ashes, no bodies in the streets, sitting with Zaren and Mama at their rickety dinner table. Then Yuan looks back up at him, eyes narrowed. "How do you know about my dreams?"
"You talk in your sleep sometimes." Kratos hesitates before saying, "It's okay to miss them, y'know."
"Of course I know that." Yuan says defensively, automatically, but there's a grateful half-smile on his lips.
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Yuan is shaken from that strange place of mind that he went into when he did laundry, a place built on repetitive motions and tuned out conversations. "Yuan! Yuan, guess what?"
He nearly drops the shirt he's washing, Kratos is shaking him so hard. It takes a second to hit him and then he really does drop it. "What're you doing here?"
The area where the half-elves did most of their chores, whatever they may be, was out behind the kitchens. It was barren out there and there was always the hope for a cool breeze to relieve the heat. It was well away from the classrooms and the practice fields.
"I had to tell you something."
"Don't you have class right now?" Yuan is standing now, the coolness from the mud he'd been kneeling creating an odd sensation on the knees of his pants.
"Yes, but this is really important!"
Yuan studies his best friend. Kratos was sweaty and his face a little red from exertion. Yuan casts his mind back to the schedule that Kratos kept tacked onto the wall by the door. Sword training. That was where he'd just come from. "What is it?"
"We got to use the practice swords today." Before this, they'd been learning to make their own swords and physical training. Kratos was usually exhausted for the rest of the day thanks to sword training.
"Congratulations?"
"I'm not done. We got to use them and the drill master set us to spar a bit with each other. And—this is the miracle—I'm actually not completely terrible at it!"
Yuan blinks at him. "What?"
"I think I actually might have some kind of talent with swords!"
Yuan wants to be happy for him, he really does. But he knows that particular tilt to Kratos' smile. Kratos wasn't happy about this for himself. Not entirely anyway. Most of the excitement was because Kratos was thinking that his father might notice him now, might have a reason to notice him.
Yuan thinks he might actually hate Sandor Aurion for that. This should be Kratos' moment, not his.
But Yuan grins in the dubiously supportive way of friends. "You? Have talent in something physical? This I've gotta see."
Kratos laughed, exhilarated. "I just skipped class to tell you!"
"And whose decision was that?" Before Kratos can come up with a retort, Yuan says, "Get to class before you're scrubbing the latrines!"
Kratos grinned briefly before beginning to run to his next class. He'd still probably be made to run laps for this, but today, it was worth it.
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"You weren't lying."
Yuan looks over at Alina. Kratos had left nearly a half hour ago—Yuan had finally been taught to read a clock, though sometimes he would glance at the clock three times and still not know what time it was. Kratos assured him that that was normal—and Alina hadn't said a word since.
"Lying about what?" Yuan asks.
"You and Master Aurion being friends. It's true."
"I told you it was."
"Yeah, but…I didn' think it was possible." They revert back to their silence for long minutes before she speaks up again. "He can hurt you, ya know. Humans do that."
"Kratos doesn't." Yuan doesn't think he has the temperament for hurting people, on purpose or otherwise.
Alina looked unconvinced. "If you say so."
Yuan was a strange kid, her opinion on that hasn't changed. His hair is an odd color and she can't predict the way he thinks. The strangest thing about him is that she's not sure whether to call him brave or stupid because he has to be one or the other to be friends with a human.