EP - tiny!Emcee

[i_am_your_host]

The door works in the strangest of ways.

So when a certain someone is holed up in his room, his younger self, his much, much younger self, enters the bar.

Small and pale and undernourished, the elfin ten-year-old boy (who could be mistaken for even younger than that) is dressed in secondhand school clothes from a distant era: knickerbockers and knee socks, a cardigan and cloth cap. He stares at his surroundings with large brown doe eyes.

Has he been here before? Perhaps in a dream? Why does it feel so familiar, when the door shouldn't have led here at all?

But this is a pub, and the little boy knows pubs. He goes up to the counter, peeking over it on tiptoes, to look for the barman. But there is none. How odd.

Even odder is the glass of milk and the plate of cookies that suddenly appear out of thin air.

This must be a dream.

Comments

[i_am_your_host]

He looks at him a little questioningly. In exchange? If there's an exchange, Hansel isn't aware of it.

"Well, I guess I do help with chores. I sweep the floors and help fix the beds and tell the ladies they look pretty."

A pause as he takes a sip of milk.

"It's a brothel," he adds for clarification. It's a straightforward statement.

[thewidewideworld]

"I understand." Sinric says gently. "I grew up as a palace pleasure slave. But I'm glad they treat you well."

[i_am_your_host]

He blinks and frowns, so full of questions.

"What's a pleasure slave?"

[thewidewideworld]

"A whore who is owned, not paid." He explains without shame. "I belonged to a powerful man who thankfully loved and cherished me. I warmed his bed, entertained his guests, and pleasured him and those he bade me to."

Sinric shrugs elegantly. "It sounds quite terrible but it wasn't. I was gives an education to rival any prince and lived in the most beautiful palace in the world. And I was valued and loved. Few free men could boast the same."

[i_am_your_host]

Hansel absorbs this information, connecting it with the way Sinric presents himself, how he speaks, his manners, even his clothes, the tea set, and choice of tea. And he passes no judgement, even if it all sounds strange to him, like a fairy tale.

"But that isn't what you are now?"

[thewidewideworld]

"No, it's not." Sinric smiles, impressed by the boy's sharpness. "I'm a free man and wanderer. I do as I please, going where fate and the wind send me. Mostly I make my living as a singer, or trading rare goods."

[i_am_your_host]

He processes this, too.

"That sounds like fun," he decides with a small smile. "Maybe I could do that. But...maybe when I'm grown up. I like having a home for now."

[thewidewideworld]

"It can be. But not having a place to call home can be hard. I have come to call this place home as it is the only constant I have. And here I may find my friends who are scattered through space and time." He makes an expansive gesture, taking in the bar.

[i_am_your_host]

"It seems to be a good place for a wanderer," he says thoughtfully. "You have everything and everyone here, but you can still travel and come back to it whenever you want."

[thewidewideworld]

"At least when the door is kind. Although it's easier now the tree is part of the bar. It's another path I can travel along. Not an easy one but-" He shrugs,

"What of you? What do you wish to do when you're grown?"

[i_am_your_host]

"The tree?" he asks quizzically.

And then he shrugs at Sinric's question, a delicate movement of his thin shoulders.

"I don't know. I...haven't really thought about it."

A formerly homeless child with no parents doesn't have much to aspire to. Or the hope to consider that there's more beyond finding the next meal and surviving the night.

[thewidewideworld]

"It's difficult to explain but as the bar is attached to the world by the doors, other worlds are connected by the branches of the world tree. I have- abilities that connect me to the tree. Once, in a moment of desperation I used the tree to reach this place and now the roots reach here as well."

He smiles fondly. "Learn everything people can teach you. Learn to watch and read them. That will give you a great advantage than you know."