Episode 197: Annatto Dinner (Rhyss)

After Meldrick left, it was just the two of them. Rhyss looked at Annatto, who he could tell was trying not to look pissed off but the expression had kind of settled onto his face. Rhyss got the feeling he was upset a lot, in his old life.

And Rhyss had somehow adopted a kid.

Oops?

It wasn’t like he could’ve said no to some kid, some boy, who reminded him so much of himself at that age. All that anger. It wasn’t really anger, it was that hope that kids had, the belief that the world was better than this, mixed with the realization that it wasn’t.

But it was. It could be.

It was up to Rhyss to show him that. Like Spence and his dad had shown him, this week. Only Annatto was younger, so maybe it would have an even bigger impact on him.

“Do you want to play games?” Rhyss asked after a minute.

He looked at the clock. It wasn’t that late yet, but he didn’t have much time to figure out if he was taking Annatto to the campaign dinner or not.

Annatto looked at him and scoffed. “Games?”

“Video games. They’re…it’s on the tv, over there, and you have a little guy or girl, and you fight bad guys. Or rats, sometimes there’s just really big rats.”

He didn’t know if there were rats in Elesara. There should be. Everywhere deserved rats.

“Rats?” Annatto asked.

Guess not. “Yeah, they’re these…they have really long tails and they…”

“I know what a rat is. I’m asking why anyone would want to fight any.” Annatto met his eyes with this fierce look.

Rhyss knew this one: Make someone else feel like a jerk for liking the stuff they liked, so you could feel better about yourself.

“Well, you don’t have to,” he said. He sat down and started the game up and went into the character-building intro part. He picked the girl with almost no clothes on and a big chest and started picking armor.

Annatto sat down next to him on the couch. “How does it work?” he asked.

So Rhyss got up and grabbed the second controller for him and changed it to a two-player game. This time he picked a macon – a sort of wizard-priest – for himself, because he knew it would be powerful.

Annatto picked the underdressed girl and spent a lot of time on her outfit and armor.

“So,” Rhyss said. “What made you hate your family?”

Annatto changed the girl’s hair from red to purple and gave her shimmering turquoise eyes. “Who told you that?”

“It’s kind of obvious. You have an enormous family, but they gave you to me. You’re pissed at the world.” He shrugged and let Annatto pretend to be distracted by which shield he wanted for his character.

Then Annatto had to pick a sword. Rhyss set his controller down and went and made popcorn. When he came back, Annatto was ready to actually play.

Rhyss was a little surprised to see that he’d picked a practical sword instead of one of the showy ones. He must actually know swords.

After a few bites of popcorn, Annatto announced, “My dad killed me.”

“My dad did too,” Rhyss said automatically. That wasn’t actually true. He shouldn’t have generalized.

Annatto looked at him. “He did? Did you kill him back?”

“He sort of did. I was sick and he knew how to save me but he didn’t. Some other guy did.”

Annatto shifted so he could see Rhyss better. “Did you? Kill him?”

Rhyss laughed. “No. But I was pretty mad at him for a while.”

“I’m killing my dad.”

Rhyss focused on the game. “Okay,” he said. He shrugged for emphasis.

“Okay?” Annatto asked. “Why is that okay?”

Rhyss didn’t answer. Either Annatto would sort out for himself that it wasn’t, or he wouldn’t. He was smart enough that Rhyss suspected he would get it. Hoped he would get it.

“So I’m just supposed to let him live?” Annatto growled after a minute. “Even after everything he did to me?”

Rhyss paused the game. “I don’t know him, and I don’t know everything he did,” Rhyss told him. “But you don’t seem like you’d really want to live with yourself after that.”

“So maybe I won’t,” Annatto said. “Nobody says I have to survive it.”

“Let me get this straight.” Rhyss leaned back against the couch. He tried to act casual, even though tension was buzzing in his veins. He knew how much this conversation mattered to Annatto, to him even. “You’re mad at your dad for killing you, but you plan to die killing him? Why didn’t you just stay dead before?”

“Because,” Annatto seethed, “he needs to know what it’s like.”

Rhyss nodded his head. He got that feeling.

“Yeah, but then you’ll know what it’s like too. And you’ll be the guy that killed his dad. You don’t think you’re better than that?”

Annatto was quiet for a long time. So quiet that Rhyss could hear the fridge humming in the kitchen, a whole enormous room away.

Then he stood up. “Don’t appeal to my decency,” he told Rhyss in a perfectly calm voice.

Rhyss didn’t know what to say to that. He hoped Annatto had some. He didn’t want this to turn into an argument, he just wanted Annatto to think about who he was, who he wanted to be.

So he waited.

Annatto shrugged his shoulders after a minute, and dropped the controller onto the couch. “You’re weak,” he told Rhyss, and he walked away.

Rhyss looked down at his hands.

All he could do was keep trying. Not right now. Right now Annatto needed space.

Just like Zero had given Rhyss space.

Tomorrow, he would take Annatto out on that catamaran thing in the harbor. He bet Annatto would like that, and they could just be quiet and let the water help Annatto find whatever he needed.

He missed Em. She’d know what to do. She wouldn’t be failing at this.

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