Mothi Messages

Frankly, Brutus should get a medal for not succumbing to the urge to bash in the skulls of every creature around her.

Jaw clenched, she rested her arms on the table and stared, mind dead, at the golden blobs of the creatures in front of her. The blobs shifted and shimmered as the creatures discussed whatever trite hokkzeit they were discussing.

About new decorations (the cushions were a shade off from the color Renfinus had anticipated). New drinks (they were running out of the finest liquors, which needed to be imported from Kan, ASAP). New construction (this one was kind of important, she would admit. But not when it was about new ballrooms and verandas and hokkall. How about the railings on the walkways? Ramps? Braille labeling on more of the rooms? General accessibility? Of course not. Brutus had personally filed for the limited accessibility they DID have).

She didn’t know why they even wanted her on these meetings – they hardly asked for her opinion.

The particularly radiant blob of Renfinus was sat at the head of the table, like a pillar of blinding, sparkling annoyance.

Whenever she met with him, it was a biting reminder that she still had no clue why he was like that. Why his magic was so strong, and his keyaa aura distinctly brighter and hotter compared to any other creature she’d encountered.

It kept her up at night. Squinting at his stupid shimmery-ness, she raised a hand to rest her chin in it. These meetings kept her up at night.

On Renfinus’s right was Chrrris. His left, one of Chrrris’s stronger cronies. Four others were at the tables, but Brutus didn’t care because they were all pompous mages already educated in their crafts and uninterested in sharing any of their knowledge or resources.

They just wanted to revel.

 To make a stage where they could show off their wealth and power to other ‘like-minded individuals’. In other words, they were hokking spaks.

Brutus was about to say hokk it and excuse herself when, behind her, the sound of fluttering fabric met her ears. No sooner, a faint weight landed on her shoulder, her mothi.

Now what, her lip curled. With a sigh, she gently plucked the velvety mothi from her shoulder and fished out the letter held in the pocket on its back.

Then she wanted to smack herself on the head.

She was out of sorts from having to ignore the chatter of everyone at the meeting – she couldn’t read this now. Well, she couldn’t get a read-aloud spell to read it to her, not with these zeitheads around.

But –

She paused. She had already opened the letter, and her fingers brushed against a raised bump on the paper.

Huh?

Quickly, she unfolded it, and only became more baffled that it was braille.

Because no one messaged her in braille, only her family. And her mothi knew not to bring those to her – they stayed at her mailbox.

Intrigued, and with a small spark of excitement she would not admit to, she brushed her fingers over it and read.

Then that spark was doused like a bucket of icewater poured upon her head.

Taking in the message, she scowled. Appropriately. This was a scowling matter.

It read: ‘What did the triangle say to the circle? You are pointless! I am the triangle and you are the circle I think. To my dear Brubus from Amek.’

The paper crinkled as Brutus crumpled it violently in her palm. Briefly, she imagined the paper was instead Amek’s throat.

Unfortunately, this brought up some questions.

Has Amek always known Braille. And if he hadn’t (most likely) did he learn it specifically to send Brutus messages. To specifically send her zeit jokes and piss her off.

Brutus’s nails dug crescents into her palm, having broken through the paper.

The idea of Amek sitting down, learning braille – something valuable and interesting and useful that few appreciated – with his only intention being bother Brutus made her blood hokking boil.

She needed to respond to this immediately.

With difficulty, she unclenched her hand, releasing the Amek-tainted paper and mentally making a note to burn it later.

Then she took a centering breath (albeit, through gritted teeth) and came up with a plan. She was good at plans. Plans are good because they make sense and are logical. (Amek did not make sense and was not logical).

She took in the state of the meeting.

It had not progressed nor had it changed. They were talking about perfumes now and how there should be different perfumes for different hallways and rooms to showcase a different ‘vibe’.

If she thought about that for another second it would piss her off more than it already was. She could only handle so many things pissing her off at once, so she put it in The Box (the corner of her brain designated to hold and hide annoyances she could not deal with immediately).

Now for her plan.

Option one: she could excuse herself and dictate the message to her mothi to write. This would draw attention and potentially rankle Renfinus and other creatures in the room. Sadly, she did have to keep up appearances.

Option two: write the message at the table right now. No one was paying attention to her anyways, and if they asked, she could say it was an urgent message. Not like they could read braille.

Considering the two options, and the logical familiarity of ‘planning’, her heart rate had dropped significantly, and she calmly unzipped her bag and retrieved her mini-slate, notebook, and stylus, laying them out on the table. (Thankfully, the others didn’t notice, or care enough to remark on it).

She had several slates, but this one was the best on the go. It was compact, 6 rows of 19 cells each, perfect for notecard-sized things. Its metal was cool on her fingers as she slotted a paper from her notebook into it, and began punching out her response right to left with the stylus.

It read: ‘kill yourself.’

She leaned back for a moment, deciding if she should add anything. Then thought, no, that got across everything she wanted it to.

Actually.

She added something, the finished message reading: ‘kill yourself. To Beepbug’.

Yes, perfect.

Satisfaction from a job well done swelling in her chest, she tucked the message into the mothi’s pocket and sent it off.

Stupidly, idiotically, even, Brutus had thought that would be the end of it. Certainly, such a vitriolic response would deter Amek? Certainly, he had better things to do with his time?

(Remember; Amek did not make sense and was not logical.)

Around two, three hours later, after the meeting had been concluded, and Brutus had been enjoying watering her houseplants, she received a response back.

She missed the sound of the mothi’s fluttering wings, but was altered to its presence as it settled on its perch by the window. Its weight activated a mechanism that wrung a shrill bell a few times.

On instinct, Brutus stopped and perked up at the sound, going over to check what the message was.

This time, it took great restraint not to rip up the message before she had even read it.

It read: ‘Aww you are so easy to anger darling! If only you could put that anger to good use… So sad. Anyways, what do you –’.

The paper ripped in half between her fingers.

What was he trying to do. Literally what was the point in this.

What was the goal. Did he even have a goal.

What was –

She slapped her hands to her cheeks and took a deep, slow breath.

She is calm. She is so calm right now.

What he wanted was this: her anger, her response, her inconvenienced.

Alright, then she wouldn’t give it to him, wouldn’t let him win.

She wasn’t responding again. So there.

Walking much louder than was needed (what some creatures may have (wrongly) described as stomping), she chucked the two halves of paper into the trashcan, and felt a bud of victory at the faint thump of the pathetic piece of paper hitting the other trash – exactly where it belonged.

Then, wanting to actually enjoy the rest of her evening, she put Amek and all his idiocy into The Box.