14.

10 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR

Learning to speak for the first time was a monstrous task. Her mouth and tongue weren't used to making the necessary efforts to create the right sounds. She was also used to staying quiet, to never have verbal conversations with the outside world.

To never speak her mind.

Mr. Henri had no interest, or time, to teach Lotte to speak. Miss Yudo seemed to like her less now that she could clearly agree and disagree with things.

There was no one to help her—but when had there ever been?

Lotte kept trying. She feared that if she didn't try hard, her voice would go away, like how some flowers bloomed only during the short months of spring.

She continued to paint, forming words with her mouth as she did. Her budding speech abilities opened a new compartment in her imagination, bringing forth unexplored pathways.

She could suddenly reflect back on things and give her paintings names. Her new creations became even more in demand, they began to drift from the realistic, into the realm of surreal dreams and nightmares.

"This..." Mr. Henri was visibly shaking from foot to scalp as he stared at her latest painting. "This is your best one yet," he whispered, drawing up a chair.

He sat there, staring at it, for over an hour.

It was a large piece, three feet in width and five feet tall. The canvas had been custom made to her specifications and she had had to use a step ladder throughout the process.

It was a portrait of sorts. A girl sat in the foreground, staring absently over her shoulder, long hair billowing in the wind. Behind her, the background was a world of grey and black, bruised with aubergine purple. There were smoking factories and decrepit looking buildings, starved-looking monsters and grey men in bowler hats, with thin-fingered, grasping hands reached for her, pulling the away the brown out of her hair and and the pale beige from her cheeks.
But the girl's body, inside, was a riot of colours, motion and fantasy. A circle of multi-coloured but faceless children danced in her heart, flowers bloomed overhead with hummingbirds and butterflies darting between them. Scores of imaginary animals ran up the walls of her image, as stars, moons and suns swirled among wispy luminous clouds inside a jungle of unusual shapes. Nothing was the colour it should be, thousands of shades and hues patterned the girl's inner world, crisscrossing, colliding, contradicting. This created a mosaic of sorts, making it impossible to see all the levels of detail in one glance. One had to stare and stare to fully explore all the worlds of this painting.

"My goodness, even the outside has hidden surprises. There's always a darker darkness, isn't there?"

Lotte nodded her head.

"Everything is moving in this painting, even the buildings move. But outside I see everything is travelling straight lines while inside it moves in circles and spirals..."

Mr. Henri grasped his chin. "She's you," he concluded. "Extraordinary and beautiful."

Lotte didn't know what to say—she never used to have this problem. Thus she settled for, "Thank you."

"No, my dear, thank you." He looked at the painting and shook his head. "This level of skill. What will you do when you'll be an adult?"

"I... will do..." She formed the word with her lips a few times. "Better."

That made Mr. Henri grin. "Has it a name?"

Lotte nodded, looking at her painting. It had taken her the better part of two and a half months. She had spent panting this more hours than she could count until she finally decided that it was complete. And yet, every time she looked at it, there were always small changes she wished she'd have made.

It was too late now.

"Half," she said.

"Half?"

"It is...me." Lotte meant 'half' in elven. No matter if they called her Poppin, she still thought of herself as simply that.

"Ah."

Mr. Henri didn't like the name, but he didn't protest. Half was displayed in the hearing room at the high court for two weeks and then in the entrance hall of the parliament building. After touring the the most important walls in the country, the painting was sold in auction.

For more than half a million daies.
Mr. Henri threw a grand party for Lotte, or better yet, for the fortune she had made. She was the wealthiest child in human history.

And she wasn't even human.

Oddly enough, people only spoke at her in such events. Lotte was used to them. She bore them as best she could, like a puppet, before Mr. Henri let take a seat near the back with her doll.

She would pretend to play with dolls sometimes. Lotte was still young, but she had never had toys before. She didn't know the first thing about what to do with them.
And she didn't like the dolls.

They were beautiful, yes. But they stared at everything empty-eyed, emotionless. The same way Lotte retreated into herself when she was sad and scared.

The doll she had at that party—a brand new one delivered from the region of Malcabri—was made entirely, from head to toe, out of porcelain. It wore the same exam frilly pink and yellow dress that Lotte wore. With the same gloves, stockings, petticoats and cream coloured ballet-style shoes that were tied into pink bows at the sides of her ankles.

It was lying face down on the chair, exactly how she had left it when the party started.

She picked it up.

Its delicate round porcelain face was smashed in. Lotte looked at it quizzically. Something was not right. She didn't like the dolls, but she'd never let anything happen to them.

They were all hand-made. They were all works of art.

Lotte would never harm art.

A shadow fell over her, Lotte turned.

He was a young man in a drab suit. Lotte had spent enough time among expensive apparel to know he was out of place here. But that wasn't why she felt the urge to clutch the broken doll to her chest. There was something wild about his eyes.
Wild...and sinister.

"I've always wanted to meet a living legend," he said, lip curling into a sneer.

"What...do you...w-w—want?" Her back was to the chair which stood against the wall and he was imposingly close. Her eyes darted towards where she had seen Mr. Henri last.

"No one's coming to find you," he said. "No one cares. You're nothing to them. All they care about is a story."

"Go... aw—away."

He grabbed for her, but he was only human. She was faster, sliding aside and then around him.

But he was after her.

"Help!" she cried, her voice louder than the chatter, louder than the music.

Everyone turned, everyone saw. Suddenly, they were both surrounded.

"Wysley?" Mr. Henri said just as Miss Yudo made a spectacle of hugging and fussing over Lotte.
"What are you doing here?" Mr. Henri's voice was grave and his face, from what Lotte could see with all the grown-ups blocking the way, was absolutely livid.

"What? Can't a man meet his replacement?" The young man, Wysley, let out a dry cackle.

"Enough with your nonsense," Mr. Henri said. "I do not want to see your face here ever again. You are not to approach Poppin in any way or form. I will take you to court if I must, understood?"

Wysley snorted. "Oh, I understood long ago, Master Henri."

Mr. Henri was becoming redder by the second. "Jonas, see that Mr. Pellen is safely escorted off the premises."

Mr. Wysley wasn't the only one who got taken away from the party. Upon a nod from Mr. Henri, Lotte was whisked back to the house.

She was given a glass of milk and a pat on the head, then sent straight to bed.

In her crisp white nightgown, Lotte nestled in her bed and put the broken doll before her. She dug the shards of porcelain out from within the hollow head and laid them carefully on her night-stand.

"I'll fix you," Lotte promised. "Tomorrow."

It was true that no one cared. Lotte felt it. Her insides were as hollow as this doll's. Mr. Henri skimmed the surface of emotion, keenly interested in art but Lotte sensed that there should be something more.

Some kind of warmth, like a swirl of orange, yellow and pastel pink.
Before, at the party while faced with Wysley, hugging the doll gave her comfort.

In the darkness, Lotte hugged her again.

And decided to love.
***
PRESENT DAY
"You have to think clearly otherwise I feel you thinking at me but it's all fuzzy," Maloru said over his shoulder.

The enchantments Lotte had created on Maloru appeared as bright green tattoos on his stomach in his daytime form. She could feel the one enchantment that connected them like a string in her mind. If she focused her thoughts at that string, somehow, Maloru could understand her.

She was glad he couldn't hear everything. She hadn't yet told him about her dreams, and she wasn't sure she should. Whatever was happening between her and Blue was private.

And defied common sense.

She didn't want to get talked out of it.

The wildfire had driven them far off-course. To reach Maloru's friends—those who he insisted would help them get to Port Kelt and their ferry to Serades—they had to somehow bypass the city of Fayder, cross under the famous Raimil highway and reach a backwater village called Amorca.

But the the ongoing battles in the area made bypassing Fayder too dangerous. Lotte had seen the explosions and airships overhead. The place was crawling with human military.

That left them little choice but to pass through Fayder.

Maloru kept checking to see that Lotte's scarf was securely wrapped around his head and face, hiding as much of his elven features as they could. Lotte had woven an army of disinterest enchantments into his hair and clothes.

But even she couldn't help feeling nervous when they finally left the woods behind them and found themselves in a crowded city street.
Lotte had no map of this city, no idea where they were, only that they needed to head northeast. Maloru was the better navigator during the day, but Lotte worried he'd get them lost in his current state of panic.

"I'm not panicking," Maloru squeaked in reply. "We have to cross that bridge over there and then try to go a little bit left."

That led them to an even more crowded street. People were milling about in their most festive clothing. The road was swollen with motorcars bearing the Agathar Republic flag. It was strange to see so many people about when the war was happening so close to here. Nobody was rushing, nobody looked worried. It was only until Lotte spotted the military flyers pasted to shop windows and lampposts that she understood what was happening.

GOOD DEFEATS EVIL. TECHNOLOGY TRIUMPHS. LORD GENERAL ANNOUNCES, THE ELVES IN THE PENINSULA HAVE BEEN DEFEATED.

It sounded as if the war had already ended, but then that didn't make any sense, either. The explosions Lotte heard last night were clearly a battle. That couldn't have been the last battle of the war?

"Look at all these people," Maloru muttered as they moved through the crowds, trying not to bump into anyone. "Don't they know that everything between here and Malias is burning?" He pointed up to the sky where plumes of grey smoke drifted eastward. "How're they explaining that?"

Lotte doubted these people had any clue what was happening outside their city. Fayder had the reputation of aspiring to be like Raidox. The city was life, nothing beyond it mattered unless it was an even bigger city.

"We have to go left again, this street is curving right."

Their next left led them to a narrow alley where they both breathed out a sigh of relief.

"If we continue that way, I think the next street will take us in the right direction."

Lotte wondered how Maloru had so much experience with walking through human cities.

"Things weren't always this bad, you know?" Maloru said. "Between humans and elves, I mean. Around twenty years back, that's when it started getting harder, but I even went to a human school, you know?"

It was hard to remember that Maloru was much older than he looked. If he were human, he'd practically be a senior.

"Sixty-one is nothing for elves though, right?" He grinned, looking as childish as ever. "I hear some of them live up to eight hundred years."

It was odd having a conversation this way, but better than being locked in complete silence.

"We'll get used to it," Maloru replied right before something came careening towards them.

It never quite managed to hit Maloru. The thing—a person— collided with Maloru's natural protective magic and bounced back to the ground. It was a human woman who stared up at them wide-eyed. She scrambled to her feet, brushing down her bright yellow dress.

She was awfully pretty, for a human, and had one of those smooth ebony complexions one only really saw in advertisements. She looked familiar.

"I'll pretend I didn't just see you if you pretend you didn't just see me," she said before passing Lotte and making for the opposite end of the alley.

But then she suddenly froze. "If I don't ask for the elf's help, I'm dead," she said quietly to herself. She swirled around, looking directly at Maloru, as if Lotte hadn't swathed him with enchantments. "Help me, please."

Maloru frowned at her, crossing his arms as if this woman was asking for trouble.

"I'll explain when I can. But I need your help. Please?"

It was at that exact moment, Lotte suddenly realised where she had seen this person before.

She wasn't absolutely sure. Maybe it was that yellow dress she wore that was playing tricks on her memory. But Lotte had a strong sense that this woman was the same girl who had given her a drawing pad and pencils many years ago while she was living on the streets of Raidox.
Figures appeared in the mouth of the alley behind them. "There she is," one of them cried.

Lotte heard the click of a gun being loaded. She grabbed the girl's arm with one hand and Maloru with the other and started to run.

Bullets bounced off Maloru's protective barrier as they dashed into the next street. Maloru, it appeared, was not only used to navigating cities, he was used to running inside them. They crossed a busy street, breaking off into another alley and through to what appeared to be a food market. Maloru led them along, weaving between fruit and meat stands.
Lotte had to pull the woman along since she could only run so fast in her high-heeled boots.

Her pursuers disappeared only to appear again, their guns hidden behind their jackets and feet splashing in the puddles created from the melting ice of a fish stand.

"No use running, if you go through the door behind the bookstand—it's not locked—they won't find you," the woman suddenly said.

"What?" Maloru asked.

The woman was scanning the stands around them. "There! That bookstand. Let's go." She pulled them along.

"Wait," Maloru said, yanking his hand out of Lotte's. "How do you know they won't find us there?"

"Because I know the future, come on."

"What kind of nonsense is this?"

They were attracting too much attention.

"Sarina Buligard," the woman said. "That's the human woman who raised you until you were ten."

Maloru's eyes widened, he froze on the spot. The woman had already turned and was pulling Lotte after her, through the narrow door, into a secluded courtyard.

Empty clothes lines zigzagged overhead. The woman leaned against a wall. Lotte turned to look at Maloru who had wandered inside. "How did you know?" he asked in a whisper.

"My name's Rowan, and you are?"

Maloru shook his head. "How did you know?"

Rowan sighed, sneaking a glance at Lotte and then back at Maloru. "I can send messages to my past self. I probably asked you to tell me something that'd convince you that I'm telling the truth."

"What do you mean..."

"I can change the present by sending short messages to my past self. I can usually only send them back a few hours, not much of a warning in some cases, you know?"

Rowan wasn't much taller than Maloru and he was standing on his toes to examine her. "You're human..."

"Yeeeep," she said with a big white grin. "And you're..."—she lowered her voice—"an elf."

"Then how can you do..." Maloru fanned out his fingers. "Magic?"

Lotte tapped Maloru's shoulder, since it appeared that he couldn't hear her when he was this preoccupied with his own thoughts. Obviously, whatever that name meant to Maloru, it put him on edge.

"She doesn't talk much, your friend." Rowan said.

Maloru turned to her, eyebrows knitted together. "She doesn't talk at all."

"Is it like a silence vow or is she just mute?"

Lotte glared at Rowan and then sighed. It was a by-product of having no voice, people talked over her as if she wasn't even there. She focused on Maloru, sending her question into his mind.

"Lotte wants to know if you were in Raidox ten years ago?"

Rowan's smile vanished. "Raidox? How'd you know..." Her attention snapped towards Lotte who was looking intently back to her. "Wait... I know you."

"Lotte says you gave her something."

"A sketchbook," Rowan said, blinking dumbfounded. "That was back when my brother..."

Lotte nodded. She had often wondered about that girl.

"Did—did it help you?"

Lotte nodded again.

"Geez. Okay." Rowan hugged herself. "I've got gooseflesh."

"Sorry to disturb your reunion," Maloru said. "But we have to get out of this city before nightfall."

"What happens at nightfall?"

"Never you mind," Maloru said, puffing out his chest. "You're safe here, so we'll just—"

"Wait," Rowan said. "I can get a motorcar and drive you. It'll be faster than walking."

"A motorcar?"

She nodded towards the far end of the courtyard. There was a stubby teal-coloured motorcar parked there in front of an iron gate.