The Reality Shaper

“I think Nancy Forgeworth would make a fine match for him. She’s perhaps a little more dull than the other girls, but she’s never shown any inclination towards disloyalty or improper behavior,” Edith Dragonheart said to her husband, tutting around the kitchen as she tidied their dinner table, sounding for all the world as if her son wasn’t there, in clear earshot of the conversation. “Besides, our boy couldn’t handle too much excitement in a marriage. He’s far too anxiety-prone and nervous.”

That much, at least, was accurate. Boris Dragonheart, who sat between his parents, pushing his hash around his plate as meekly as if he didn’t tower over them both and wasn’t trained in four separate forms of martial arts, was definitely more neurotic than the average dragonborn.

When things didn’t go exactly to plan, his stomach twisted up in painful knots. An agonizing sensation spread through his body as if his guts were trying to constrict his lungs, and when it overwhelmed him, he found it excruciatingly difficult to breathe. Though he was well aware the pain was psychological, nothing he’d found on the planet could stop it. Herbs and potions did nothing, and hypnotism only made the condition worse.

Luckily for Boris, he’d been blessed with a predictable and monotonous life, making his instances of anxiety relatively few and far between.

He’d known from childhood what was expected of him. His father was head of the Cedrelian Royal Guard, his father’s father had been head of the Cedrelian Royal Guard, and his father’s father’s father had been a farmer. That is, until his father’s father’s father had formed and founded the Cedrelian Royal Guard. And, of course, served as head. So, Boris’s path in life had been trodden and macheted into a straightforward sidewalk. One he’d taken with, if not quite joy, a deep feeling of relief that he’d never have to wander aimlessly searching for purpose, the way others did.

No, Boris had attended every school, every seminar, and every meeting that his father had, and in all things, he excelled. His teachers lavished him with praise, as he executed all rules precisely by the book. Not once in his life had Boris ever cut corners. And in many ways, he had built upon the foundation of his family, becoming stronger than any of them had ever been, all in the pursuit of fulfilling his one and only purpose — protecting the citizens of his beloved Cedrela.

“Nancy Forgeworth is a fine girl,” Lloyd Dragonheart said with a sigh, “but she hasn’t done much to differentiate herself from the other girls who fawn over our boy.”

“Well, isn’t that exactly why she should be the one?” Edith said. “His wife shouldn’t be a show-off.”

Boris didn’t question his mother’s assumption that he’d want to marry a woman. Having a wife was part of the plan, so a wife he would have, regardless of whether he was attracted to women in the first place. Which, for the record, he was. He was just also attracted to men, and, once, to a person he’d met who was neither a man nor a woman. But he brushed the memory off — attraction had very little to do with marriage. Marriage was in the plan, and attraction only served to distract him.

“What do you want to do?” An awkward amount of time passed before Boris realized — with a start, in fact — that his father was talking to him. Boris blinked rapidly. He couldn’t remember ever being consulted before on big decisions. His schools, his hobbies, his career — they had all been carefully selected by his mother and father. Not once had they asked him what he thought.

“Well? What do you think?”

What did Boris think of Nancy Forgeworth? He didn’t think of her much at all.

“She’s . . . erm, that is . . . She’s very . . . pretty?”

His mother clapped. “You see? They’d be delightful together.”

“Now, now, Edith.” Lloyd wore an expression that looked foreign to Boris. Something between affection and curiosity. “Marriage isn’t like boarding school. Boris has to approve of whomever you decide to pair him up with. More than approve, he has to genuinely enjoy their company.” He caught Edith by the waist as she passed by his chair, pulling her into his lap. “After all, it would be a shame to deprive him of the love I feel every time I see your face.”

“Oh, stop that!” Edith smacked at his face as he leaned in to kiss her, returning to cleaning up their dinner. “I’m old and wrinkled!”

“You’re as beautiful as the day we met!”

“I’ve aged.”

“Like a fine, fine wine, my dear.”

“Oh!” She whipped a dish towel in his direction, though she was clearly blushing. “Really!”

Boris couldn’t keep the smile off his face. A different child might be disgusted by such a display from their parents, but Boris had always loved watching their antics. Everyone in town knew that, as devoted as he was to his work, Lloyd Dragonheart would always love his Edith more.

Everything Boris knew about love, he knew from them.

He knew love wasn’t the grand sweeping gestures of lore or the gallant rescues of fairy tales. It wasn’t the hookups that his boarding school friends whispered about over a few pints or the one couple in the mess hall overdoing it on the PDA. Love was an eye roll, a smack upside the head, a fond smile that couldn’t quite be stifled. Love was laughter bubbling up from a tear-stained face, an interlocking of pinkies on a hard day, an embrace that lasted fifteen minutes before anyone pulled away.

This thorough education, unfortunately, was how Boris knew he didn’t love Nancy Forgeworth.

“What about it, Boris?” His father seemed to have read his mind. “You and Nancy?”

Boris glanced at his mother’s back. “I’m . . . not sure I feel anything for her.”

“Well, of course you don’t! It doesn’t come out of nowhere,” Edith said, “I’ll arrange a date between the two of you, and then you can tell us if sparks fly.”

“Darling.” Lloyd lowered his voice. “He said —”

“I thought” — Edith waved a wooden spoon at her husband — “I thought we were suddenly letting Boris decide! Boris, dear . . .” He felt his guts give a twinge at the tone in her voice. “Don’t you want to give Nancy Forgeworth a fair shot?”

He nodded before he could even think it over. “Of course, Mother.”

“Wonderful!” Edith went back to wiping down the counter as Lloyd took his spot at her side, diving in to wash the day’s dishes. “I’ll set it up.”

------------------------------------------------

Early on Monday morning, Boris pulled on his work boots and headed up the street to work. On his way, he passed quite a few of Cedrela’s old landmarks. To his right was the Church of Draxis, where his mother volunteered, and then he walked through Town Square, where many Cedrelians were starting their day. The local tavern — The Horseshoe — was just opening up, along with the library and the produce stands that lined the street.

Cedrela was generally known as the city of the high elves, but there was plenty of diversity if one knew where to look. The neighborhoods were speckled with half-orcs and gnomes whose families had come to Cedrela half a century ago, when an exploratory mining operation had turned up Mithrill in one of the mountains, bringing a rush of new hopeful people to the city. But instead of a fortune, most of these unlucky immigrants found themselves scouring the mine for mere copper a day, turning in everything they found or facing steep punishment.

So, most of them had sought other professions in the years since then. Like the grocers who dotted the streets with carts full of fresh produce.

Additionally, a large dragonborn population resided on the east side of Cedrela, in an area his parents called Little Abeir. The east side, however, was not where Boris grew up. His father made a good amount of money, so his family owned a home in a nicer area, close to the church in Town Square, and where Boris and his father worked — Guardsman Headquarters.

Boris made his way past rows of empty desks. He was the first to arrive at the Headquarters, which was typical, especially for a Monday.

Boris had been a member of the Guard for a year or so. At nineteen, he’d only been out of school that long. But he’d already established himself as a role model among the other cadets. It was mostly because of his family’s reputation, but Boris liked to think it was at least partly because of his own skills. Though he wasn’t commanding in family or personal matters, he could always be relied on to follow protocol at work, and thus made an excellent cadet. And someday, he knew he would make an excellent leader.

He worked on some beat reports for an hour or so until a few other cadets arrived. Travis, Boris’s partner in crime-busting and good friend from the Academy, sat behind his own desk, which was pressed flush with Boris’s on the long back end. “Have you heard?”

Travis was a large bookish half-orc with a less-than-secret flair for the dramatic in his gossip. Boris liked him because of his glowing track record and maybe a little bit because Travis seemed to always know what was going on. Boris was usually too busy with his work to keep up with it all. “What?”

“Sergeant Hordeson.” Travis’s voice dripped with the juiciness of the secret. “He’s retiring.”

An older dragonborn and a friend of Boris’s father, Hordeson had been an officer for the Guard since long before Boris was born, yet it was difficult to picture him in retirement. He gave the aura of a man as solid as a rock, and just as unmovable.

“Really?” Boris asked, adjusting the arrangement of pens on his desk. They lay parallel to his stapler on the right side, and his notepad rested at a perfect ninety-degree angle to the bottom edge.

“Word is, his wife finally put her foot down.” Travis leaned in. “She gave him an ultimatum — retire or she’d stop making his favorite blueberry pancakes. And you know Donna Hordeson makes the best blueberry pancakes this side of the mountain!”

Boris nodded; they were indeed the highlight of every Guard family picnic.

“So, he’s retiring. I mean, it’s long overdue, but he’s announcing it today. He’ll be phasing out his responsibilities and choosing his successor in the next few months. He plans to be gone by December!”

“Wow . . .” It seemed so soon to accomplish all of that, but Travis was right that it was overdue. Hordeson was getting on in years and wasn’t as quick on his feet as he once was.

“So, it looks like there’ll be a promotion in the pipeline for you, and way ahead of schedule.” Travis gave Boris’s planner a friendly tap. “You were hoping to make sergeant in two years, right? Better up that timeline.”

“It won’t be me.” Boris said, “It’ll be Grossman or Sanders. Actually, it’ll probably be Harrison.”

Travis flinched and inhaled through his teeth. “You better hope it’s not Harrison.”

Senior Cadet Peter Harrison was an eastside dragonborn with a perpetually blank face and a tendency toward bluntness. He always seemed to keep himself firmly out of the loop — exactly the kind of person Travis would have difficulty sympathizing with. A couple years ahead of Boris and Travis as a Senior Cadet, Harrison was the only other person in the Guard whose work ethic rivaled Boris’s own.

Boris Dragonheart and Peter Harrison were always, for better or worse, compared to each other. The condition dated all the way back to their school years. They were a pair of overachieving siblings with demanding parents, except the two shared no blood that Boris knew of. Boris didn’t hold any ill-will towards Harrison but couldn’t help but quietly enjoy Travis’s dislike of the man. Despite this ongoing so-called rivalry, Boris and Peter had only spoken to each other a handful of times, and they’d always been cordial, if not exactly buddy-buddy.

Everyone had been floored that Peter made senior cadet in less than two years, and those who worked under his management had nothing but good things to say about him. There were even stories of Peter taking grunt work or the dreaded paperwork off the hands of younger cadets who found themselves overwhelmed. These lucky guardsmen would come to work the next morning to an empty desk and a deep sense of relief that they wouldn’t miss the Friday deadline.

Travis pointed the end of his feather pen at Boris. “I don’t like that guy.”

“Regardless, it won’t be me,” Boris said. “I’m probably close to the last person on their radar.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Travis sang.

And he looked like he was about to say something else, but the door at the front of the room crashed open. Boris leaped to his feet and was halfway across the room with one hand on his greatsword before the newcomer had even spoken.

“Help, please!” A halfling woman stepped through the doorway, out of breath and dressed in clean but threadbare clothes. “I-I came from Downey Estate, there — there’s an intruder! They’re being robbed!”

Boris dropped his hand from his sword, already pulling a leather chest plate down from the wall as he prepared to go — there was hardly anyone else there, after all. Travis followed right behind him and asked her a question Boris didn’t hear.

“I’m their housekeeper. I arrived for my work, and the lady of the house was outside, trembling, groceries strewn along the dirt! She was so scared that she’d dropped them. Her husband told her he would handle it, but he never came back out of the house! She told me to run here as fast as possible. Get help, she said, so please help!”

Boris didn’t have much time to ponder the unusual situation until they were speeding toward the Downey home in a carriage. A thief striking in broad daylight? A loon, perhaps, or someone with unimaginable audacity.

The Downeys, after all, weren’t just any wealthy couple in Cedrela. They were well-loved philanthropists and benefactors, known for throwing galas to fundraise for the queen and her Royal Guard. Boris had conversed with them more than once at these functions, and had known of their work since he was a boy.

They arrived in mere minutes.

When they arrived, tears streaked Mrs. Downey’s face, her eye makeup smudged under her eyes and across her cheeks. She could barely get out enough words to form a sentence, so Boris told Travis to stay with her and see what information he could get. Mr. Downey had not yet been located.

The Downey home was a sprawling modern mansion, all square orangewood columns and hand-carved crown molding and massive paintings that wouldn’t have looked out of place at the Royal Palace. It was extravagant, even by the standards of Cedrela, which was one of the richest places one could live. Boris drew his sword and inched inside, scanning the entry hall. The sheer vastness of the home meant Boris had to be extra cautious with each scan, so it felt like hours before he made it into the true interior of the house.

The living room was so large that it took him a moment before he even saw Mr. Downey hogtied to his own loveseat. His eyes perked up when he saw Boris, clearly trying to speak around the cloth gagging his mouth — a handkerchief, Boris saw. He untied it but not before placing a finger over his lips.

“Boris, thank god,” Downey whispered. “My study, the madman’s in my study. Untie me, my boy.”

But the knots around the elven man’s limbs and hands looked tangled, and Boris really didn’t have the time to undo them. It was protocol to pursue the intruder first. “I’ll be right back, sir,” Boris promised and moved toward the room Downey had indicated.

The man murmured indignantly, but Boris could no longer hear him. He approached the partly ajar door as quietly as he could manage.

The intruder, however, wasn’t trying to be so stealthy. Boris could hear books and trinkets thumping against the decadent mosaic-wood flooring and the exasperated muttering of a stranger. The voice was surprisingly pitched for a “madman,” but it didn’t exactly sound feminine either.

Boris kicked the door open the rest of the way, his greatsword drawn and pointed at the figure causing all the havoc. “Put your hands in the air!”

A tousled head of flame-red hair snapped towards Boris. The intruder was definitely an elf, but they didn’t look like any elf Boris had ever met. The high elves of Cedrela were tall, lithe creatures with regal stature and voices like silk. And he’d never seen one with eyes so golden they almost glowed. This elf couldn’t have been much more than five and a half feet tall, though it was hard to tell because they were standing on Mr. Downey’s desk to reach the books on the highest shelf. Boris saw the familiar string of Mrs. Downey’s prized diamonds, which looked almost comical lying against their worn green tunic. The frustrated expression on the thief’s face morphed into something almost like amusement.

“Why?” they asked in a slightly nasally and utterly shameless voice.

Well, that answered the question of what kind of person would rob the Downeys in broad daylight. The unbelievable nerve had even Boris struggling to keep his composure.

“You’re under arrest for trespassing and stealing. Put your hands in the air.”

“Oh, I see.” The thief put their hands on their hips, looking — incredibly — even more amused. “I’ve stolen your heart.”

Boris’s mouth dropped open.

With a swift move, the thief dropped down from the desk — correction, they were little more than five feet tall — and, amazingly, continued to pull paintings and plaques off the walls as if searching for something. “I’m flattered, really. But I don’t think I have enough free time at the moment to commit to a relationship. Which is a shame, because —” They grunted as they knocked over a heavy-looking vase. It shattered haphazardly on the floor. “You’re very attractive. Don’t think I could pull it off, but the scales really work for you.”

In all his classes, Boris had never been trained for this. “Excuse me?” He tried to muster outrage, but his voice just ended up sounding confused.

“You’re excused.” The elf was apparently satisfied with the destruction of the study, as before Boris could react, they’d slipped out the door.

“Hey, get back here!” Boris ran down the hall after them, giving up on any semblance of stealth.

“No, don’t go in there!” Mr. Downey shouted as the thief ducked into the third room on the right.

Not until later did Boris consider that the man may have been talking to him.

He followed the thief into a children’s room, puffing his chest and preparing to sharpen his voice — usually people saw him, a nearly seven-foot-tall dragonborn with dark eyes and copper scales, and listened to anything he had to say, so he’d never had to work at it before. “Now listen here! If you don’t cooperate with law enforcement, you’ll face a steeper penalty and even more jail time. Is that what you want?”

“Ooh, tell me more about how steep your penalty is. I’ve been a naughty, naughty elf and I need to be punished.” The intruder tossed the words over their shoulder as they dug through the shelves in the children’s room. Nobody had ever made Boris blush with such nonchalance.

The Downeys’ two youngest children were at boarding school, as most wealthy children in the area attended one of the esteemed schools just beyond the mountains. Their eldest daughter had left town about five years ago for college. Though he didn’t know her well, they had met once or twice at Guard functions. Boris was thankful she and her siblings weren’t here to see their home ransacked.

“That’s enough!” Boris said, his voice only cracking a little in his embarrassment. He tried again to sound intimidating. “Put your hands in the air, or I’ll have to use necessary force.”

The thief had the actual audacity to laugh. “Wow, you are a terrible liar.”

“I’m not lying!”

As Boris spoke, the elf tugged out one of the many children’s books — a thick tome that looked a bit out of place among the other colorful titles — and it jammed about halfway out. A lever, Boris realized, as a trap door slid open between himself and the thief.

“They put it in the kids’ room?” The elf wasn’t speaking to Boris anymore, he could tell. “That’s fucked.”

“Stop right there.” Boris stepped over the trap door to corner the elf between the bed and the bookcase. “This isn’t a game. You’re under arrest.”

“Do you seriously not know what’s going on here?” Finally, the elf seemed to be dropping the act, and one of their pointed ears twitched in annoyance as they leveled a glare at Boris. “I’m honestly shocked he had the balls to send for you.”

Boris wanted to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, but protocol didn’t condone asking questions. Instead, he put one heavy hand on the elf’s shoulder — engulfing the whole shoulder — in an attempt to turn them around and cuff them. That isn’t what ended up happening.

In hindsight, Boris should have anticipated the thief being more elusive than that. They didn’t even have to get fully on their hands and knees to slip between Boris’s legs. He inwardly cursed at the elf’s crouching escape, that mop of red hair soon disappearing through the trap door. Boris heard the elf yell up, “I’m not the one leaving here in handcuffs!”

Boris took the stairs two at a time, being perhaps less careful than he should’ve been on the steep, rickety stairs leading down from the trap door. He didn’t give a thought as to what a trap door was doing in a kids’ room, let alone where the stairs would take him.

Until he came to a long hallway and heard crying echo across the stone. The elf? No, it didn’t sound like an adult.

It sounded like a child.