“Whatever I want?” he asked, before clambering into Adrissu’s lap. The conversation ended there.
So far the only similarities Adrissu could find between Volkmar and Ruan were that Volkmar was also an orphan, and that he was just as stubborn. It still seemed too soon to ask about his mother, but it was clear that Volkmar had no living relatives. And his stubbornness became obvious in the way that Volkmar continued to constantly ask permission to do things—regardless of how often Adrissu told him he need not ask—and the way he continued to attempt the test of magic that Adrissu had given him, even when it was apparent that he had no aptitude for it.
“This is the most common means of detecting magical ability in the untrained,” Adrissu explained, lighting a candle on the table between them. They were in his study, Volkmar sitting across from him and watching him with his eyes big and attentive. “Snuff out the flame without using your breath or touching the candle. I will show you.”
He gestured to the candle, before clasping his hands in his lap. Looking at the flame, he concentrated, smothering it out with his magic. The light winked out instantly.
“You didn’t do anything,” Volkmar protested, eyebrows furrowing.
“I focused on filling the space around it with only arcane power,” Adrissu said, as he snapped his fingers and the flame sparked back to life. “So the flame was starved and went out. Others might manipulate wind or water to blow the flame out or quench it. Some arcanists find particular hand motions help them cast. The only limit is that you do not touch the candle, and don’t blow it out yourself.”
Volkmar sighed, leaning back in his seat with a displeased expression. But after a moment of looking at the candle, he straightened, folding his hands on the table in front of him. His eyelids quivered as he stared intently at the candle. For a long moment he was motionless, only staring at the candle’s tiny flame; Adrissu did not sense any magic coming from him, nor anything touching the candle.
“Try a hand motion,” he encouraged, lifting his own hand and showing a waving motion. “This can help focus the power.”
Volkmar nodded. He lifted one of his hands and tried a few different motions: first waving how Adrissu did, then circling his wrist, then clenching his fist. As his fingers snapped into a fist, the flame flickered slightly—it shrunk and sputtered, but did not go out. Still, Volkmar grinned up at him, eyes bright.
“I think I felt something,” he said. Adrissu smiled in return—he had felt it too, but the thread of magic coming off of him was so small that he knew instantly it would never manifest as anything more powerful than snuffing a candle.
“Try again,” he said, and Volkmar did.
Each time the fire flickered and shrunk, but he could not get it fully extinguished. Adrissu watched him try, over and over, for the better part of an hour before murmuring,
“I don’t think you have much more than that, Volkmar. I’m sorry. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not uncommon for humans to have no significant magical ability.”
“I can do it,” Volkmar insisted, his eyes never leaving the candle. He kept trying. The sound of his fingers snapping into a fist echoed over and over in the quiet room, as Adrissu leaned back and observed, eventually moving to his own desk to read, then later down into the kitchen to make him something to eat.
When he returned with a warm bowl of soup, the candle was no longer lit, and Volkmar’s head was on the table in his folded arms. He looked up quickly at the sound of Adrissu’s footsteps, a bright smile fixed on his face, but his lower eyelids shone with moisture, as if he had been crying.
“I did it,” he said, his gaze flicking between the candle and Adrissu’s face. Adrissu forced himself to smile in response.
“Good job,” he said, even as he felt his heart constrict at the human’s hastily-hidden tears. He would give Volkmar anything and everything he wanted, he decided at that moment. There was nothing the human would ever want for again that he would not get.
When Volkmar had been with him for a little over a month, things seemed to settle into a more comfortable routine between them, and carefully Adrissu asked about Volkmar’s family.
“I am only curious,” he said quickly, before Volkmar could answer. “Madame Crowe had mentioned your mother, so I wondered. But you don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s okay,” Volkmar said, shaking his head. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the living room, Vesper coiled over his legs. His back was against the chaise lounge where Adrissu sat, so that he could idly run his fingers through the human’s hair as he read; but now he turned to face Adrissu. “It was always just my mother and I growing up. My father died just before I was born. He was one of the soldiers that went to fight Gennemont for Polimnos’ independence, before the Federation took over.” Volkmar paused. “You must have been there for that. I bet you even remember when that happened.”
A pained smile crossed Adrissu’s face. “Yes, I remember.” He wondered if he might have known Volkmar’s father, if Ruan might have known him. It was strange to consider. He glanced over at Ruan’s shield, displayed prominently on the wall of his study, wondering whether to mention him. But he hesitated too long, and Volkmar spoke again before he could decide.
“Anyway, when he died, my mom got a little bit of money from the mercenary’s guild, but not much,” Volkmar continued, looking down at Vesper as he spoke. Her dark, beady eyes were fixed on him. “I think we had a house, but she couldn’t keep paying for it. And when you’re a young widow with a child, sex work starts looking like the best way to make decent money. So she joined the Garden, and we lived there. She got sick and died when I was about sixteen, so I started working there too, to keep our room and pay off the last of the debt she had.”
“What was the debt for?” Adrissu asked, frowning. Volkmar shrugged.
“I’m not sure. Living expenses, I guess,” he said, sounding far more nonchalant about it than Adrissu felt. “Especially from when I was a little kid. Probably still cost more to take care of me than she made, so she borrowed money from the Garden.”
“I see,” Adrissu said. It still sounded suspicious to him. If he did not know what the debt was for, how did he know he hadn’t been taken advantage of? He could have been paying more than he needed for years. But it was paid off now, he supposed, so there was nothing to do.
“What about you?” Volkmar asked, grinning up at him. “What are your parents like?”
Adrissu chuckled dryly, shaking his head. “I have not seen either of them in a long time. Although, I did see my mother about thirty years ago now. My parents and I have never been particularly close.”
“Oh,” Volkmar said, and for a brief moment he looked almost disappointed. But then he laughed, looking back up at Adrissu. “I can’t even imagine you as a baby.”
“Elven babies are basically the same as human babies,” Adrissu said, shrugging.
“How old are you, anyway?”
