World of Orrison

A young master must never stoop so low as to be mistaken for his lessers.

Always whispered by disapproving voices, telling Lukial to leave Elegy at home. Turning to angry when Elegy sneaks into the carriage anyways, and snappish towards Butler. Never understanding when Lukial tries to explain in his eight-year-old wisdom, that Elegy obeys no man.

Always sighed by scathing eyes, looking through Lukial instead of at him. Like a vase, or a painting, critiqued on craftsmanship over quality. Elegy shoddy, Butler lacking, Lukial unkempt. A standard of perfection a child’s height fails to reach.

Always muttered by guiding hands, turning Lukial away from festive processions. Parades of masks and cloaks and merriment, booming outside the gate to the mansion. An annual joke never explained.

Lukial grows up in the iron-wrought walls of his parents’ keep.

The night he turns nine, Lukial climbs into his four-poster bed. Beyond the quiet “happy ninth year” from Butler, the day proceeded as usual. Lukial wakes, attends breakfast where his parents talk over his head, sits in the library as tutors droll, attend lunch with Butler, and return to his tutors.

Dinner that night had been the same, if not shorter than usual. Lukial placed Elegy on the seat next to him, the tiny Luto unable to peer over the table. Likely the only reason no reprimand had been given.

Elegy paws Lukial awake.

“What is it?” he whispers, sitting up. Moonlight cast across his floors stretches the shadows and glints off Elegy’s immaculate mask. Lukial rubs his eyes with a chubby fist.

Elegy hops off the bed. It walks to the door of Lukial’s room, pawing it open. Slipping out into the hall, Elegy turns and waits for Lukial to follow.

The Luto leads Lukial to the gardens. In the hedge, an Elegy-sized gap in the hedge betrays the festival on the other side. Flickering lanternlight illuminates in the tiny hole.

Lukial drops to his knees, ignoring the grass and dirt staining his pajamas. The space in the hedge only fits Elegy, one of its many routes in and out of the mansion grounds. Lukial, even as young as he is, fits no more than his face to the hole.

On the other side, masked figures swirl and dance. The flare of wings, the flash of claws, the flick of tails. A parent tosses a giggling child up into the sky, catching them in large, soft hands. Other children weave through long legs, arms outstretched towards each other.

He looks away as Elegy climbs into his lap. On his hands and legs in front of an immaculate dark-leafed hedge, Lukial sighs. He lifts his head back up to peer into another world.

“I wish I were as small as you. Then I could go through this hole.”

Elegy croons in reply.