Dhampir Knight

Chapter 3 - Theo's Projects

When young Danell made it to his room, Theora had already pulled the box from under his bed and opened it. She had been working on this little project of theirs for two years, and for some reason, had decided to keep most of her materials and tools hidden in Danell's bedroom. He had a feeling it had to do with her mother, but he didn't ask. He didn't mind sharing his room with Theo; she'd been his best friend since they were toddlers.

Taking his time, Danell took himself to sit on his bed while observing Theo. She sat on the floor with her legs crossed and her tongue out, like every time she was focusing hard on a project. It was always a bit exciting to watch Theora build something, although he had no idea how she did what she did, nor how she had become so talented. If anything, he thought Theo's best skill was being stubborn. Very, very stubborn and determined. Even when things didn't work out the way she wanted, she'd try everything she could before she'd really give up. And even when she did, Danell was sure she would secretly try by herself later. Theo didn't like showing that she had made a mistake or lost. She was stubborn in that way too. Although not all of her ideas worked, when they did, it was impressive. The more crazy projects she threw herself into, the more Danell believed it would eventually work. So, if she said she would make him a new leg, he would just sit and believe she would. Eventually.

He didn't actually mind whether Theo succeeded in giving him a new leg or not. She was his friend anyway, and he was just happy to watch her try her very best. He knew it wasn't because she wanted her friend to have two legs like the other kids as much as it was because there was something to fix, so Theo wanted to try and fix it... In fact, this was her fourth prototype already. It had begun when they were very young children, almost as far back as Danell could remember. Theo had been a bit of a weird girl. Not only because of her strange eyes and her boyish nickname, but she would stubbornly refuse to play with the toys they were given or quickly get tired of the games with the other kids their age. She didn't get along very well with the others, and she fought with them a lot. Especially the boys... Except for Danell, of course. He wouldn't have been able to win a fight against Theo anyway. But because she fought a lot, Theo was grounded a lot, and she became friends even less with the other children. She didn't like being inside much if she had nothing to do, so she often snuck out of her parents' house to wander around the valley, or come to Danell's house, because his mom never snitched on her. Danell was glad his mom was on their side because Theo was the only child who came to visit him. She didn't like Danell's toys, but she liked to chat with him, and she always told him he was smarter than the other kids; he liked it when she said that. He didn't actually think he was smarter than the other kids, but he did read a lot more books, and although Theo didn't like books, she liked to discuss with him what he'd read, so Danell had to read a lot of books so he could chat with Theo about them afterward.

When she was six, Theora's favorite toy was her grandmother's clock, which she had taken to show Danell before she'd torn it apart, on the very floor of his bedroom like now. It had taken Theo three weeks to put it all back together again, but to Danell's shock, as soon as the clock had worked again, Theo had decided to tear it open once more and re-do it again. Theora's grandpa, who had found the two of them in Danell's room with the clock insides' out, had laughed and actually encouraged her instead of scolding her, showing them -mostly to Theo, because Danell didn't understand much of it- the gears, the bands, ratchets, springs, and other little pieces, and how they all worked together. After that, Theo had taken the clock to her grandparents' attic to work on it with her grandpa, but she'd kept Danell updated on it. She had been quite excited whenever she had talked to Danell about that clock, and she had told him about it so many, many times, that he knew the full story and the clock's insides by heart. Sadly, Theora's grandpa had passed away the following winter. He'd left Theo with that clock restored for the third time. Theo hadn't talked about her grandpa's passing, and she hadn't re-opened that clock again, but she had taken apart and rebuilt a lot of stuff that winter, and the following spring... And she hadn't talked much at all back then. Danell had never seen Theo cry, but he knew she got really quiet when she was upset. Sometimes, Danell wondered if building stuff made Theo feel better because whenever she looked sad, she'd just find something to build, and look a lot better and be a lot chattier after she was done.

That very cold spring had passed, and Theo had gone back to her normal self, but she still liked to build stuff. At eight, after she'd managed to deconstruct and reconstruct every single mechanism in her parents' or grandma's house, Theo had moved on to sneaking into the shops and workshops of the village to find more stuff to get her hands on. Sometimes, she had found success and ran to Danell to show him the typewriter, mechanical calculator, or scale she'd stolen, which would mysteriously reappear back where it belonged a couple of weeks later at the latest. Danell didn't really understand her passion for machines, but he loved watching Theora get excited over them; she always brought it to where he was, so he could watch her work, sometimes in long silences or while he read a book, if he got too bored. Because he could barely walk, most of the other children had given up on him, and wouldn't bother to go to his house to invite him anymore. Theora was the only one who seemed somewhat happy to have a friend she could sit down and chat with.

"Is that what you ordered from Yanheim last time?" he asked while she was bent over several long pieces of wood and metal.

"Yeah," Theo said, her eyes riveted on her project. "He said he had to put a special order to the Blacksmith Guild, too! It's the perfect size... Look!"

She placed her new piece of metal around large pieces, screwed the mechanism together, and, happily, pressed the ends so it would collapse into a smaller piece.

"If you put your weight on your left leg, it should do that, and you can activate it like it was your ankle, and then, you should be able to rebalance on your other leg and walk... Here!"

Without waiting, she pulled the left hem of Danell's pants, revealing the end of his leg. It was a simple mound of flesh, as if his leg had simply decided to simply stop growing any more below his knee, except for the fact that four minuscule toes were sticking out in the middle of it. Danell had been born like this, missing the lower quarter of his leg and his left foot. According to Theo's dad, who had delivered Danell a few months after Theo, Danell's foot was just never going to grow. This reality didn't sit very well with young Theo, who had decided to try and fix Danell anyway.

"Try it on," she said, putting the device on Danell's limb already. "You... You grew again!"

"Sorry," Danell grimaced, as if it was his fault.

He had indeed grown an inch since Theo had last measured him, and while his leg wouldn't grow a foot, it did grow everywhere else, meaning the end of Theo's device was already a bit too small to fit.

"I told you to eat less soup," Theo grumbled, taking back her device and grabbing the measuring band she'd borrowed from her grandmother.

"Sorry," Danell said again.

And there Theo was again, taking new measurements and frowning, checking her device and probably wondering how and where she would make appropriate adjustments.

"I'll have to redo the leather," she mumbled. "It should be easy to just redo the sheath so you can slide your leg in it, and I can make a belt to strap to your thigh, with a lot of holes in case you grow again."

"I'll probably grow more," Danell confessed almost guiltily. "My dad's pretty tall, and your dad said I'll probably be tall too."

Theo shot an annoyed glance at him. In fact, Danell was already tall for a child his age, and he would have been taller than some of the older kids if he could stand up properly. He would have happily not been that tall to please Theo's request, but it was as impossible as wiping the freckles off his face. Secretly, he was actually quite happy to be tall; Theora was also tall for her age, and he didn't want to be smaller than her. He was already quite skinny, and he had a bit of a complex about his glasses and all the freckles on his tawny skin. Like Theo, he had curly hair, but his was very thick and russet brown. One of the other boys had once said he looked like a mix between a mushroom and a stick bug, before Theo had flattened his nose... Danell liked bugs and mushrooms, but not being compared to them. Since that day, he always asked his mom to cut his hair very short once a week.

"Danell?" his mom's voice suddenly came from the entrance. "Is that Theo with you?"

"Yes, mom!" he shouted.

"Hi, Theora! Are you eating with us?"

"No thanks!" Theo shouted back.

"Alright then! Make sure you're not home late then, or your mom's going to show up again... Come on Nallie, let's put those away."

Danell's face brightened as soon as he heard his little sister happily helping their mom.

"Don't you want to have a sibling, Theo?" he suddenly asked.

"What for?" Theo frowned, confused.

"To play with you? Nallie often keeps me company when you're not there."

"No thanks."

And she returned to her project. Danell was a bit glad; if Theo's parents had another child, maybe she wouldn't spend as much time with him...

"So, you saw Yanheim?" he asked, not afraid to bother her. "Did he come with a lot of people this time?"

"Just the usual," Theo shrugged. "...My mom fought with him and Quil."

"She did?" Danell exclaimed, surprised by the news. "Your mom? What for? She never fights with the Marshall!"

"I know. It was weird... Yanheim said something about a new King, and it upset my mom and Quil. And they had an argument about that... I didn't like how my mom spoke to Quil."

"There is a new King? Does that mean the previous one's dead?"

"I think so."

"Oh... Why does that bother your mom and Quil though? Will there be problems?"

"I don't know... Do you think so?"

"I don't know," Danell shook his head. "Sometimes there are wars before there are new Kings, you know. Like the Battle of Two Kings that the teacher told us about the other day! Or the New Moon Conspiracy I read about. It was interesting... But if there already is a new King, maybe there won't be a war."

"Maybe..."

Danell frowned for a while, trying to think. They had to learn about former Kings and Queens in class, but he wasn't sure who had become King now, if the previous one was dead, because the teacher had told them the previous King didn't have children yet. Danell loved to read about history, but he wasn't as up-to-date on modern royalty, because everything that happened in the Capital felt so far away. Their village was far away, far away enough that it sometimes took weeks for some news to reach them.

"One day I want to go to the Capital," he said. "I want to see the Royal Castle myself, and the trains! I heard the train station is almost as big as our village!"

"It can't be that big," Theora frowned. "Where would they put the houses of the people that live in the Capital?"

"Lunaris City is much, much bigger than our village, isn't it?"

"Probably... It didn't seem that big on the teacher's map, though."

"Maybe the map was too small."

"Maybe."

"Don't you want to go, Theo?" Danell asked, pulling the hem back over his leg.

Theo finally raised her eyes from his prosthetic leg, or the pieces of wood and metal she called so. This time, she looked to be seriously thinking about his question.

"Hmm... Not really. Or maybe to see the Blacksmith Guild," she said. "But I'd rather stay here and build stuff."

"You could build more stuff if you went to the Capital," Danell said. "I heard Lunaris City has the best engineers, and there's even a Guild for them! You could train with a master to teach you."

"...What if I'm better than them?" Theo worried. "I don't want to go for nothing..."

"Maybe you could ask your cousins to go and ask them? They probably take students all the time. If you ask your cousins to check if the engineers are good, you could know before you go?"

Theora shrugged. She had never met her cousins who lived in the Capital, but she did exchange letters with them, mostly because her mom liked her to have pen pals, and they were both girls her age, too. One was a year and a half older, the other almost a year younger than Theo. For some reason, it made her parents happy to think she was friends with girls her age, even if it was only through long letters... And Theora didn't enjoy writing those letters very much. She wondered if her cousins hated writing letters as much as she did but just kept writing to be polite. They had pretty handwriting, so maybe not.

"Alright, I'll ask them," she finally said, happy Danell's idea gave her something substantial she could put in her next letter.

It made her reminisce about how her mom had argued with Quil about writing a letter to someone. Why would a stupid letter make her mom mad? And to whom her mom could write? Her mom didn't have family in the Capital, it was her dad's sister that lived there.

"Why do you want to go to the Capital?" Theora asked Danell.

"Lots of things! They have a huge library there, the teacher told me. With thousands of books, anyone can read! Your dad's the only one who owns more than ten books here, and I've already read even the more complicated ones. Books are expensive, but I heard that, at the library in the Capital, anyone can borrow a book, for free! Oh, and I want to see a real train, too."

Theo wanted to see a train, too. She was curious to see how they worked, to be able to go on tracks and take people to places very far away...

"Let's go to the Capital, then," Theo decided. "When you can walk, we will go to the train station on the other side of the mountain, and take the train to Lunaris City."

"We should do that!" Said Danell his eyes shining with excitement. "Let's go with Nallie, too. We will take the train, and visit the library, and the Engineers' Guild, and the Blacksmith Guild, too. And we can go and eat in a restaurant! We should ask Yanheim what else to do in the Capital, he knows it well. Oh, and of course we should go and see the Royal Castle! I heard it's the most beautiful building in the Capital. Do you think we will see the new King?"

"Maybe he will be too busy," Theo said.

"Right... I hope the new King is a nice one. My dad said the previous one was a spineless quack."

"What's a quack?"

"No idea. I'll ask Mom later."