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You think that you're supposed to enjoy birthdays. Most people seem to. Perhaps your inability to do so is simply one of the many inextricable flaws that you wear like shackles.
"Palistrom carving is an ancient and noble art," says the elderly man in front of you. He has a hard, serious face pocketed by sharp wrinkles that make him look a bit like a folded pastry, but you know better than to say such a thing, though once upon a time, you did not. You have learned through trial and error that it is safer to speak only when spoken to. "One that only the most elite of practitioners are allowed to perform now that Palistrom has become so sparse."
You know that. It's one of the reasons (though there are many) that you wonder why a piece is sitting here on your kitchen table, and why that piece is apparently yours.
It seems such a waste. A palisman could double or even triple a witch's strength and control over their spells. You build robots and mechanica, and while you use magic in their creation, the increased strength and control means nothing to you. It would not improve your work because of the nature of it. A palisman is an expensive luxury that you don't understand why Odalia insists you must have. Someone else, someone better than you, could use it more. It shouldn't be here.
"Mr. Blight?" he says, sounding irritated. Wait– has he been talking? Did you stop paying attention again? Typical. "Perhaps I'll skip the formalities, then. All I need to know is what you want me to carve."
You stare at the wood.
You have been given a task. You must complete it. You need to pick something. Anything. It doesn't even matter what. You know that you won't be able to awaken a palisman, anyway, so it isn't important what he carves. A palisman needs conviction to awaken, something that you, like many other things, are lacking. You are a pitiful excuse for a man and whatever creature sleeps within the soft Palistrom wood will feel that as well as everyone around you can. When Odalia sees you fail at that part, she will realize how pointless this all was. She will blame you, of course, as she should, but she will accept it, and then this whole unpleasant diversion from your work will go away. You can settle back into the comfortable numbness that comes when the days bleed together, one after another, all the same as the last, until it is a warm soup that envelopes you like the closest thing to a friend you have had since you were seventeen. Perhaps a bliss you don't deserve, but greedily you will indulge it anyway.
You can't think of a single thing.
"Well?" the carver demands.
It's as if you've never seen an animal before in your entire life. Every name for every creature rushes out of you like a tsunami and leaves you hollow, empty, voiceless and pitiful, staring blankly at a piece of wood and unable to form a thought as cogent as 'cat.'
"I don't know," you murmur. "I've never thought about it before."
"Don't give it too much thought," the carver dismisses. "Go with your instinct. First thing you think of."
"Uh…" You glance around the room for help and find nothing. The kitchen of your family home is a fine thing, done up in elegant print wallpaper with detailed crowning and a marble floor that you could see yourself in if you could stand to look at yourself. You don't come in here often. A servant delivers food to your workshop. You've learned to eat what you are given.
"Hm," the old man says in a voice that suggests he likes you about as much as you like yourself, "Raise your hand, Mr. Blight."
You do as you are told.
"Place it up on the Palistrom, Mr. Blight."
You do as you are told.
It feels dead beneath your fingers. Lifeless wood, as empty as you. Perhaps this is your fated palisman; uncarved wood, worthless, useless, ugly. Maybe Odalia will find the sum that someone needs to sell her an already awakened palisman to pretend is yours. It would be prudent of her, and she is always prudent.
"What do you feel?" asks the carver. "Close your eyes and listen to your heartbeat. Let it come to you."
You close your eyes. You listen. You wait.
Nothing.
"Mr. Blight," the carver says tersely, "I may remind you that I charge by the hour, and that includes this consultation."
"Can I think about it?" you ask. You don't know why. You won't think of anything no matter how much time you buy yourself. It is in your nature to fail when given the opportunity.
The carver sighs. "Fine. If you must." He stands up. "I will return tomorrow promptly at one for your answer, Mr. Blight. Think hard tonight."
You nod numbly as he passes you, heading back the way he came from the entranceway, apparently willing to see himself out. That's probably fine. You would probably mess even that up.
The front door shuts. You stare at your hands and listen to the clock tick, so much more thunderous than the sound of your beating heart.
That night you lay on your back in the darkness. There is a thick hum from the generator that you can feel in your bones and a regular rattle of the pipes that run along your workshop walls. Dim colours pass across the looming grey ceiling as beakers and steel and enchanted gems capture the shifting light.
Your back hurts.
It's been hours. It's well into the early morning now. You mostly sleep during the daytime, anyway, you'll just need to set an alarm to be up to meet the carver.
What creature could possibly represent you? Everything seems far too good for you to deserve. A cat? Too elegant. A bird? Too evocative. A wyrm? Too regal. Everything too strong, too beautiful, too brave or beloved or bountiful. None of that applies to you.
Perhaps a rat. A wretched creature that squirms in refuse and spreads rot and disease wherever it goes. Something that disgusts and revolts. Something that lives only to eat, breed, and die.
Even that is too good for you.
You swing your legs over the side of your cot. You can't sleep. Not until you come up with something. You have been given a task. You have to complete it.
You pace back and forth, bare feet on the cool, smooth concrete floor. Pat-pat pat-pat, back and forth, back and forth. The night is syrupy around you, the room vague in shape and colour, the thin sliver of light cast from beneath the door outside shifting across the floor as the moon sets and sun rises. Either ten seconds or ten years pass and you realize the morning has come.
Once more a failure. At least you never fail to disappoint.
You start rifling through your stuff.
Sketches of abomination machines and schematics for airship designs. Books on abstract chemistry and engine mechanics. Endless black and white paperwork. Nothing that can save you.
You have nearly accepted your fate when you pull out a box of your old school things from when you attended hexside. You took the required core class on beast keeping at some point, and you're hoping that maybe there's something in there.
When you pick up the old textbook, a sheet of looseleaf paper slips out and floats to the floor. You set down the box and glance at where the paper rests.
You stare at the image before you.
"Why do you always sit like that?" Darius laughs.
"Sit like what?" you frown.
Darius sits up straight in his cafeteria chair and brings up his arms at a ninety-degree angle against his sides. He lets his hands fold down, fingers curling into his palms. "Like this!"
You glance down at your arms, which you are currently holding like that. You immediately cross them indignantly. "Because I want to. So what!"
"You're so offended!" Darius scoffs. He drops his arms away and then leans an elbow on the table beside him, eyes softening fondly as he regards you. "Don't be. It's cute."
You feel your face flush. It always does when Darius looks at you like that. You will never understand how someone as sculpted and elegant as Darius could ever call you cute and mean it.
"Cute," you mumble, "Sure."
"Cute!" Darius insists. "Like a little rat."
"A rat!" you burst, swiveling sideways to gawp at him. "You think I look like a rat?!"
"What's wrong with looking like a rat?"
You roll your eyes. "Listen, I know I may not look like I ever shower, but I'm telling you, I–"
"Hey!" Darius interrupts indignantly. "Rats are not dirty. You know that rats spend hours a day grooming themselves? Even more than cats do! They're smart, and curious, and empathetic–" He pauses and gives you a mischievous look. "and cute. I won't hear a word of anti-rat propaganda from you, got it?"
You roll your eyes. Darius enjoys nothing more than being right about everything, all the time. You wave him away and return to crunching from your intro to beastkeeping textbook before your next period.
Eventually the bell rings and your classmates rise around you, hustling and bustling to get wherever they're going. You sit up with a yawn and stretch your arms over your head, sighing as you feel your spine crack satisfyingly in three places. You look back down.
Over top of the page you had been reading now rests a loose sheet of notebook paper. On it is a carefully drawn picture of you as a rat, little ears set between scraggly hair and tiny goggles. Splotches of abomination goo have even been drawn in purple pen.
You puff with startled laughter and turn to raise an eyebrow at Darius in amusement.
"See?" Darius says with a cheeky grin but irrevocably soft eyes. "Cute."
Something about the way he says it makes you believe him. You roll your eyes but can't stop yourself from smiling.
"Yeah, okay, maybe rats are kind of cute," you admit. You snap the textbook shut over the drawing and pack it away in your satchel.
"Almost as cute as you, Ratador," Darius teases as he pushes himself to his feet. You shove him and he laughs, loud and shameless and joyous, the way he always does.
You meet his crinkled eyes and think that maybe he's right. When he looks at you like that you think for a moment that you really may just be as special and beautiful as he is. You hope that your gaze makes him feel the same. You hope that he never stops looking at you like that.
You bend down slowly to pick up the drawing with careful fingers, like a delicate prototype. Like something precious.
For a long moment you just stare at it, rubbing the graphite with your thumb in silence.
Then you burst into tears, sobs racking your body so strongly that you have to collapse against your work table just to keep from crumbling to the ground. You let go of the paper so that you don't crumple it in your shaking hands, then bury your fingers in your hair and wail, open-mouthed, so loud that you're glad that your workshop is soundproof.
How strange. You haven't cried in years.
The carver is not happy when you bring him the drawing. Odalia is even less happy when she sees the finished product, but she's never happy with you. The second that she lays eyes on it she throws it away and orders you to forget the whole thing.
You pluck it carefully from the garbage and wash the rubbish away. Rats are very clean animals, after all.
You aren't expecting much that night when you lay in your bunk and hold it in front of you, trying to draw words from the aether that might wake it.
"I want to be a good husband," you try, "a good father."
Nothing.
"I want to make my parents proud," you try again, "I want to live up to my family name."
Your hands tremble against the wood.
"I want to do something right for once," you warble, "Please. Anything."
And yet still, nothing.
Curiously, the tears find you again. You wonder where they've come from. You had thought that you'd forgotten how to cry entirely, purged it from your heart like every other emotion. And yet. And yet.
"Please," you whisper, curling up on your side and bringing the little carving to your face, eyes scrunched shut and chest heaving, "I just want to get through it."
For a beat, there is only your choked sobs and the rumble of the generator.
And then, a squeak.