Chapter Three: Death and What Comes Next

The clothes Flynn had sent up were tolerable. Yuri wore loose beige pants and a button-up green shirt trimmed in gold. The fabric was thicker and softer than anything he'd ever worn before, but at least nobody expected him to wear tights.

He'd just finished getting dressed when breakfast arrived. A serving girl carried a covered plate into the room and smiled at him. "Good morning. Are you Master Yuri?"

Yuri's chest puffed up; he'd never been master anything. "Yeah."

"Commandant Flynn asked for this meal to be brought to you." She set it on the kitchen table. "Bon appetit!"

As she left, Yuri wasn't willing to admit he didn't know what she meant. Bone appetite? Was he eating bones? His stomach rumbled, so he decided to find out. Yuri slid into the chair at the table and pulled the domed lid off the plate. A steaming plate of pancakes slathered in butter and syrup met him, which was much better than bones. There was a side plate with a few strips of bacon and a peach, as well as a glass of orange juice. Yuri grinned when he saw a frosted cupcake sitting in the corner; Flynn hadn't completely ignored his request, at least.

Yuri couldn't wait any longer to dig in. He couldn't remember the last time he had such a big breakfast. If he wasn't the only one in the room, he would have been sure he was meant to share this. All this food was just for him! The clothes were annoying, but being rich had its perks.

After shovelling his face full of food, Yuri set off into the castle. At first he was annoyed at being restricted to the building, but once he found the door to the garden and took one step outside, he changed his mind. The sweltering heat sapped his strength after just a few seconds of exposing himself to it and he quickly hurried back inside to the cool hallways. The castle must have some system for keeping cool, and he was going to take complete advantage of it.

It turned out that the castle was huge. He'd never been in a building this big and he ended up so turned around. Every door he tried led to new discoveries and it didn't matter then he didn't have any toys or friends, because he was content to explore all morning.

Eventually he realized the the slick floors would probably be awesome for sliding on, so he found a long stretch of hallway, took his shoes off, and gave himself a running start. It was like sliding on ice. He stuck out his arms to stabilize himself and let his socks whisk him down the hallway. At the end, he turned around and glided right back. With a grin plastered on his face, Yuri slid up and down the hall for at least fifteen minutes, and only banged his knees or elbows when falling a few times.

His fun crashed to a halt when he slid toward the end of the hall and smashed into a man walking around the corner. "Ack!" Yuri fell backward as the man stumbled away. "Sorry, mister!"

"What is the meaning of this?!"

Yuri looked up at purple armour and blue hair, and his heart sank. "It was an accident."

He started to get up, but Cumore grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him to his feet. "Little brat."

Yuri couldn't pinpoint why he found Cumore so frightening, but his heart throbbed and he struggled to pry Cumore's hand from his shirt. "Lemme go! You big jerk, let go of me!"

Cumore's eyes narrowed. "Who are you, anyway? Where have I met you before?"

Where had he seen this guy before? He must have some reason for why he had such deep fear and anger towards this man he supposedly only met yesterday. "I dunno. I'd remember a face as ugly as yours."

Cumore raised his hand and this time there was no Flynn to step in at the last minute. The blow made his head snap to the side and Yuri's hand flew to his cheek to cover the sore spot.

"How dare you speak to your betters like that. Children like you should be taught respect."

"I didn't even do anything! I bumped into you on accident!" He struggled enough that Cumore finally released his grip on his shirt.

"The royal castle is no place for unsupervised children."

Yuri glared at him. "Yeah, well Flynn said I could go wherever I wanted and he's your boss so you'd better deal with it."

Cumore wrinkled his nose. "Ah, that obnoxious upstart. It is true, though, that he holds power, however ill-founded his promotion was."

"Yeah, that's right, Flynn's the boss so you'd better do what he says!" Yuri puffed himself up with pride for Flynn.

Cumore gave him a look like he'd seen more pleasant things beneath his shoe. "I'll let you off with a warning this time, brat, but next time I catch you wreaking havoc, I won't be so easy on you."

Yuri crossed his arms. "Yeah, whatever."

Cumore sneered at him and then marched away. Once he was gone, Yuri let himself shudder. That guy was so creepy. Still scowling and rubbing his sore face, Yuri stomped down the hall. He was in too sour a mood to go sliding now.

He turned a few corners, wandering aimlessly, until he came to a door at the end of a hall. There were pillars around it and its position at the end of the glossy hallway indicated it led somewhere important, and his curiosity spiked. Maybe it was the treasury! Yuri pushed the door open and stepped inside.

"Oh!" Estellise looked up from her desk. "Hello, Yuri."

"Oops, sorry!" He'd accidentally wandered into the empress' office.

He quickly backed out, but Estellise called, "No, it's ok, you can come in."

Yuri returned and closed the door behind him. "You don't mind?"

Estellise set her pen down and then stretched her arms before in. "Not at all." She smiled at him. "Actually, I could use the break."

"Cool." Yuri wandered into the ornate office and stopped by her desk. "What'cha working on?" He peered over the desk to see her paper, but it was covered in confusingly swirly letters.

"I'm writing a speech for the celebration next week." She slid the paper toward him. "What do you think? As an ordinary citizen of Zaphias, does it sound good to you?"

Yuri stared at the words and wrinkled his brow. If he looked beyond the loops and curls, the first letter looked like an H. Yuri began whispering the sounds as he worked it out. "H… hel...hellllo. Hello. Ev...eh...er...yuh...oh...nee?"

Estellise pointed to the second word. "That says 'everyone'. I'm sorry, I should have asked if you know how to read."

"I can read!" He put his fists on his hips. "Flynn's mom taught me." His confidence faltered when he considered his cover would be blown as soon as she asked him to read further. "Well… I mean, I'm still working it out and your handwriting's all squiggly, so…."

She smiled and pulled the paper back. "It looks like you're getting off to a good start."

"I know what sounds they all make." Yuri scowled at the word 'everyone'. "But it's not fair when they get together and make different sounds. It's like they're ganging up on you."

Estellise tilted her head with a smile. "I never thought about it like that. Maybe instead of ganging up on you, though, you can think of them as working together to help! We don't have a letter on it's own that can make 'thhh' but if T and H work together they can do it."

"Hmmm maybe."

"Don't worry." She patted his shoulder. "I'm sure you'll get it. You just need more practice. I'd offer to help you now, but…" she looked back to her desk with a small sigh. "I have so much work to do."

"What kind of work?"

"Well… government work. Taxes and laws and organization and things like that."

"So you're, like, the queen of everything, right?"

Estellise giggled. "Of the Empire, yes."

"That's really cool. I wish I was the king. That would be awesome!"

"Oh? And what would you do if you were the king?"

Yuri gave a confident grin. "I'd make everything better for the lower quarter!"

She tilted her head to the side. "What sort of things? I'm trying to help people, too, so what advice can you give me?"

"Um… well I'd give them more money." Yuri nodded confidently. "'Cause the problem is that we're all poor, right? And the government creates the gald. So you should make more gald and give it to poor people so they won't be poor." Really, the solution was so obvious. Yuri could only assume the government had never done that because they didn't actually want to help. He didn't like the way Estellise was smiling at him, though. He'd seen that smile on grown-ups before, and it usually meant, 'aw, how cute.' That was fine for a five year old, but he was eight now, and definitely not cute!

"I'm not sure if that would really work," Estellise said. "I really wish it would, though. Running the government can be so complicated sometimes." She sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Too bad we can't trade places. I'd let you be the king and I'd get to run around and be free again."

Yuri leaned forward, his chest pressed against the edge. "You don't want to be the empress?"

"It was never really what I wanted to do."

"How come you don't give the job to someone else, then?"

"There isn't really anyone else who could. You see, it came down to me and a relative named Ioder. But, Ioder passed away last year, so I was the only heir left."

Yuri frowned. "He's dead?"

Estellise nodded. "That's right. He drowned after a ship caught fire and sank."

"Oh." Yuri ran his finger around a whirl in the wood. He chewed on his lip, trying to understand everything about this future. "So… was he old?"

"Well… no. He was about my age."

Yuri's frown deepened. He understood that old Mrs. Cameli was dead, because she had been really old even in the proper time. And Flynn's dad was gone, too, because he was a knight and knights did a dangerous job. That made sense. But Flynn said his mom was gone now, too, but how had that happened? She wasn't old. But maybe he'd been wrong about how old you had to be to get sick and die. Parents, he guessed, were old enough. Ioder was only as old as Estellise, though, and she was... probably not more than thirty or something. People died at the end of their lives, but if people could just up and die at Estellise's age, that meant no one was safe. Could Flynn die? Could Yuri himself die?

"Yuri? What's wrong?"

"I just… don't get it."

"What?"

"Dying. People are here and then they're not. Where did Flynn's mom and dad go? They're dead, but… but what happened to them? And how come Flynn's mom died when she never did anything dangerous and she wasn't really old? Who picks who has to die?" He rested his chin on his palm.

Estellise reached out to rest her hand on his shoulder. "Oh, Yuri, even grown-ups don't understand the answers to those questions."

"Then who does?"

"Um… I don't know. I don't think anyone really understands."

"Someone's gotta know."

She smiled grimly. "Not always. There are things that will always be a mystery to us."

"Hm…." That wasn't an answer he liked. "Maybe they time-travelled, too."

"Huh?"

"Well, I was there in the past right? And then suddenly I was gone and now I'm here. Maybe when people die, they jump to the future. Only it's a really distant future so we haven't caught up to them yet."

"Um… well, maybe. It would probably be pretty crowded."

Yuri nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, true. So maybe it's more spread out. Like some people are earlier than others."

"I bet that's it."

A knock came to the door and a man stepped inside and gave a short bow. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, but the Council needs a response on the Zadrock Proposal within the hour."

Estellise straightened up. "Yes, sorry! I'll get right on that."

He nodded again and then stepped out. Estellise sighed and slumped against the chair. "I'm sorry, Yuri, I really need to get back to work. There's always so much to do."

"Yeah, I get it. Sorry for bothering you."

When it was mid-afternoon, the door to Flynn's office pushed open without a knock and Yuri strode in. "Hey."

"Good afternoon." Flynn paused in writing his security briefing to smile at Yuri. "Have you had a good day?"

Yuri wasted no time in throwing himself into a chair across from Flynn's desk and declaring, "I'm bored."

"How can you be bored? You have the entire castle to explore."

"Yeah, but it's all the same. Marble halls, cool statues, snooty jerks giving me dirty looks, more marble halls. It's too hot to play outside. There's nothing to do and no one to play with."

"Well… what do you want me to do about it?"

"Play with me."

Flynn sighed. "Yuri, I have work to do."

"Come oooon, just for a little?"

"I'll entertain you tonight, ok? It's very important that I get everything in order for Estellise's royal anniversary."

Yuri heaved a dramatic sigh. "Fiiiine."

Flynn put his head down and got back to work. This was really more of a celebration than a ceremony, and the whole city of Zaphias was invited so it would be on the streets rather than in the castle. That meant it was impossible to screen all the attendees and there were a thousand places a potential assassin could hide.

After a couple of minutes, a rhythmic thumping began as Yuri swung his legs and kicked the front of the desk. After another minute of this, Flynn said, "Stop that," without looking up. He was blessed with silence for almost an entire minute until Yuri began tapping a tune on the edge of the desk. Flynn squeezed his pen tighter and calmly said, "Yuri, is there anything else you can occupy yourself with?"

The drum solo stopped and Yuri moaned, "But there's nothing to dooooo."

Flynn put his pen down and stood up. "Wait here." At the door to his office, he added, "I'm serious, I'll be right back, don't wander off."

Yuri rolled his eyes. "Yes, Flynn."

A few minutes later, Flynn returned with a battered wooden box that he'd fetched from the dark recesses of his closet. "If you're bored, you can play with these." He held the box out and flipped the lid.

Yuri's eyes lit up. "You still have the army?" Dozens of shabby tin knights filled the box.

Flynn still recalled long nights with Yuri meticulously setting up regiments across their bedroom. He'd barely played with them since Yuri disappeared, though. It just wasn't the same on his own, and by the time he'd stopped being constantly upset, he'd outgrown them. "I couldn't bring myself to throw them out. There's space on the floor in here if you promise to keep quiet."

"I will!"

Yuri rushed to the rug with the box, leaving Flynn in peace. Flynn watched him excitedly pull the knights out and begin setting them up, and then got back to work.

True to his word, Yuri kept the volume down. Obviously, it was impossible for an eight-year-old to both play and be silent at the same time, but he put in a valiant effort to not bother Flynn. While Yuri acted out epic battles between soldiers and monsters (mugs, pens, and crumpled balls of paper borrowed from Flynn's desk), Flynn concentrated on finishing the day's work. He managed to get a lot done despite the susurration of whispered battle and the occasional under-his-breath explosion (Flynn faintly recalled it being an accepted fact that if you kill a monster in a cool enough fashion, it would explode).

Flynn stared at a paper. It was a supply request, and he really didn't want to deal with it at the moment. It was going to take a lot of math and a lot of comparing the resources of all the brigades in the area to figure out precisely what this brigade actually needed, and he just didn't have the energy to work it out. The windows were open and thick, stale air seared the back of his neck. His desk cast a long shadow across the floor as the sun lowered. Theoretically, the temperature should be dropping soon but the sun obviously hadn't gotten that memo.

"Arrrrgh!" Yuri whisper-screamed. "Oh no, he's been hit! I'll save you, Captain! Rrrrargh! Ahhh, it's coming!"

The pen slipped with Flynn's damp fingers and he rested his sweating face on his fist. It was these damn windows. In the other seasons, the massive windows in the commandant's office gave him a lovely view and plenty of natural light, but in the summer they were nothing but a gateway for heatstroke. He tugged at the collar of his uniform and analyzed the monster battle Yuri was passionately enacting.

"Your right flank is wide open," he said idly.

Yuri looked up from the twisted mass of paper that was terrorizing the knights. "Huh?"

"There." Flynn pointed. "There's another monster off to the right, isn't there? But all your knights are facing the first one. If the other attacked, many of them would be killed before being able to change position."

Yuri stared at his army and then, expression locked in a deadly seriousness only children can reach, carefully repositioned the knights along the right. "Is that better?"

"Better, but move the pikes to the front line."

"Uh… which one is a pike again? Is it this one?"

"No, that's a mace. The pike is… oh, here, let me show you." Flynn left his desk behind and kneeled on the rug with Yuri. He picked up a tin soldier and held it out. "This is a pike."

"I thought that one was a spear?"

"No, a spear is a lot shorter than this. These guys are good at taking on cavalry or monsters significantly larger than humans. But, since their weapons are so long, they should be on the front rows so they don't stab the knight in front of them."

"Oh, I see! Boy, you really learned your stuff, huh?"

Flynn helped Yuri rearrange his troops. "I picked up a few things, yes."

"Well duh, since you're the commandant now. That means you're the best knight of all."

Flynn had to smile at his earnestness. "Well, I don't know about the best. There were political reasons I was given the job, and it all happened under special circumstances, and…" Yuri wasn't listening anymore.

"I'll be the monster." Yuri grabbed a particularly large mug. "You fight it off with the pike people!"

Flynn reached for the nearest soldier. "Ok." Work could wait. After all, he had an imminent monster attack to deal with.

When the room was finally beginning to cool off, one of the knights died in a particularly dramatic fashion. The mug-monster rolled over him, flipped him into the air, and then caught him in the certain-death-pit of its exposed stomach. This caused the knight to explode, obviously, for which Flynn supplied a satisfactory mouth explosion noise.

A silence followed the climax of that long battle. Flynn spent it watching Yuri, who spent it watching the knight lying in the mug. He was the one who broke the silence.

"Did you bury your mom?"

Flynn faltered at the unexpected question. "Huh? I… yes, she was buried. Why?"

"'Cause you didn't bury your dad, 'cause he was really hurt and torn up and stuff. But if you buried your mom, then it means her body was still all together, right? So she wasn't really hurt. But she wasn't really old either. So how come she died?"

"Well… she got sick. Sometimes young people get really sick and they die."

"Why didn't you get a doctor to fix her?"

Flynn folded his legs under himself and got comfortable; this was going to be a complicated conversation. "Sometimes there's nothing doctors can do." And sometimes the quality of healthcare you could get depended on how much you could afford, which in Flynn's family's case was not very much.

"Are you gonna die, too?"

Flynn nodded slowly. "Someday, yes."

"When?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows when they'll die, but I plan on it being a long time from now."

Yuri's face was still filled with worry. "What if you get sick like your mom did?"

"The best doctors in the world are employed at the castle, and Estellise has very powerful healing magic. If I get sick, I'm sure they'll be able to heal me."

"Good. I don't want you to die."

Flynn chuckled a little. "I'm not looking forward to it myself."