The Destiny Detour

A Door

Drake

"A trade agreement," chirped Cliff, waving a paper in Drake's face. "Can you believe it? Signed! Official!"

"Paper is only as official as the army behind it," Drake reminded him, flicking the paper out of his face.

"You are so jaded," Cliff scoffed, taking back his documents and running a hand down them like Drake had wounded them.

"Realistic," Drake corrected him. "There are plenty of Baysellians who don't give a cup of salt about the rules."

"You would know," Cliff muttered darkly. "Most of us want a better tomorrow for families and hard-working citizens who just want to—"

Drake laughed. "Negotiations are over, Cliff. Ratchet back the inspirational speeches. I get it."

Cliff sat down, staring off into the distance, consumed with thought. Drake stifled a groan. They should have left a long time ago, but Cliff kept cycling back through his idealistic crusader speeches, on some sort of negotiation high.

"You don't think this is going to ease tension?" Cliff said, flapping his precious paper. "Give honest traders a reason to stay honest?"

"Of course I do," agreed Drake, half to get Cliff moving again, "but you can't expect Utopia overnight, not when a crumbling monarchy and gang rule is all people know."

"But, look." Cliff waved his paper again. "We've set boundaries. Agreed on common laws. Reopened communication. All without bloodshed."

"As long as people like you keep fighting," Drake acquiesced, "the streets will look more and more like that paper in your hand. The words on the paper. Not the actual—forget it. Are you packed?"

Cliff finally realized that was the most encouragement he was going to receive from Drake, and he hopped up to go crow his achievements to someone more receptive. Drake did not mean to be such a raincloud; he just knew what it was like out there. Sometimes laws were secondary to real life. Maybe jaded was the right word.

Cliff deserved his moment, and Drake felt like a spikefish for taking away some of his pride in his hard work. The trade laws would help honest merchants and maybe offer some real competition to the not-so-honest ones. Besides, Drake was leaving after days of the best food he had eaten in his life, hob-nobbing with royalty, playing with a set of very entertaining magical children, and hanging out with a pretty girl. He was a ringing endorsement for the value of honest work. Bring on Utopia.

He caught sight of a piece of paper fluttering under his bed and bent down to retrieve it. Cliff had kept him up half the night practicing pieces of his speech, discarding most of his flowery prose and ridiculous anecdotes under duress. This was probably a rejected soliloquy about Risa, the fictional brick-layer who was fictionally being squeezed out of her fictional business by fictional black market thugs. Drake's head was just under the frame, and his fingers were inches away from the paper when an unexpected "Hello?" caused him to jerk upward and slam his head on the underside of the bed.

He grabbed the paper in one hand and slid himself out from under the bed, clutching his smarting head. Cliff and Risa had given him a headache twice in two days. How many moons of Utopia would it take him to stop being so jumpy?

"I'm so sorry," gasped Rosaliy. "Are you ok?"

"Fine," he lied instinctively when he saw she was reaching down to examine his head. He stood, shoving the paper in the closest bag and ignoring the growing lump on his head. "I'm sorry we're still here. I almost have Cliff ready to leave." That might have been another lie.