Thunderlight

(Cont.) Why, Then, Do They Not Eat Cake?

Mott returns to the inn, a satisfying ache in his joints as he stretches them out. After a long, hard day, he's glad to be back home. He'd only had one little moment where the day wasn't so good, when he saw the curator's note, but that didn't last long. His uncle had wanted Mott to show him the financial records he'd drafted up, so any dark thoughts had been swiftly swept aside.

While he was showing his uncle the books, he could hardly go a minute without being praised in some way. It was strange, but not unwelcome. As if his uncle could tell he was suffering from an internal conflict, he'd been sure to shower Mott in abundant praise to soften the ache in his chest. Soon enough, he was forgetting all about his worries and diving into the world he'd so longed to return to.

All in all, it was a satisfying day. Returning to the warm inn is like a cherry on top. As soon as he closes the door behind him, a familiar, buggy head pokes out from behind a dresser.

"You're back!" Lenny exclaims, beaming. He pulls himself to his feet, his burned limbs trembling slightly. Mott moves to help him up, but Lenny brushes him off. "So? How did it go? Is your uncle gonna lessen the taxes on the people? Ooh, was it really awkward talking to him about that? I can imagine that being really awkward."

Mott smiles, booping their heads together. "It was great."

A look of delighted relief washes over Lenny. "So does that mean—?"

"He's not gonna lower the taxes, yet," Mott says with a natural shrug. Maybe this is how he can convince Lenny to stay: say he needs just one more day to convince his uncle, over and over again. "I'll have to visit again tomorrow and see what I can do."

Lenny clucks and shakes his head, frowning. "Well, he sure sounds like a piece of work. Thank you for handling all that. I can't imagine it's all that fun."

"Honestly," Mott says, grinning, "it's more fun than you'd think."

They start to settle down for the night, Lenny making them a small dinner and Mott reading one of the inn's books aloud to him: a murder mystery. Every sentence or two, Lenny interrupts to ask about a dozen questions—who's this character again? wait, why are they chasing the duke? what did they jump in the well for?—and Mott quickly loses his own train of thought. In the end, he ends up laughing at Lenny's impression of the terribly written main character, the book lying forgotten beside him.

As Lenny serves their dinner, he says, "Oh, I almost forgot! Mott, I never got to bake your cake!"

Between bites, Mott responds, "It's not a big deal, don't worry about it."

"I really meant to, honest! But you see, I went out and bought the ingredients and was fixing to come back and make it but then I saw a family who was looking awfully hungry and I thought, 'well, I can't just let them starve, now can I?' and I gave the ingredients to them."

"It's fine, Len."

"So then I figured, 'I guess I oughta go buy some more ingredients, then,' and so I went all the way back to the market but those darn tax collectors were roaming all around the place and they asked me for my money and so I told them, 'well, sirs, I don't live here' but then they said, 'well you're gonna have to prove it, mister."

"You don't need to bake me a cake."

"I spent a good twenty minutes trying awfully hard to prove I don't live here, but they wanted to see my birth certificate as proof, and I don't know about you but I don't even have a birth certificate, much less one to carry around wherever I go. So I had to give them some money, so I returned to the inn to get more money to buy the ingredients but by the time I got back you got here so I decided I oughta start fixing up dinner instead and that I could just make the cake tomorrow."