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 Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 2:20 pm
The woods surrounding Amityville were Calder's playground, more visited than any of the common rooms or areas of the campus lawn that most students preferred to lounge between classes and the long hours of the night. The woods had always been Calder's safety, as was both taught and known to him since youth. Despite a new year, he was pulling a little more away from his friends, not that they ever noticed. Christof couldn't see Calder for a week and probably wouldn't have noticed, what with following on the heels of Barth and his beloved Riley, something that made Calder's frown twitch more thanks to the revelation that Christof had told him before he went to go home for break. As for Barth. Well, Barth didn't exhaust himself with caring or much else. That was the luxury of the demon. Calder could see him when it was convinent but if Calder needed the other to show some effort in caring, well, he knew he wasn't really going to get it. As for Malodore, as nice as it was to wear his pin, he didn't visit the Plague Doctor enough to have the undead feel any sense of alarm in not showing up and it wasn't like he visited. It was a sad reality that Calder pretended not to notice. He placed a lot of effort in people that probably wouldn't notice if he just disappeared.
And yet here he was, being secretive even though he didn't really need to be - again, who would notice? - and putting in a lot of effort in working a way to be able to stay in school without Murchadh pulling him out and keeping him in the clan and their herd, back at home, or well, his new "home', and away from the outside world with the rest of the Devon Clan.
Again, if he failed, would they notice?
Calder would like to think so. He at least hoped so. He just...didn't ask yet in fear of the actual answer. Maybe that's why he was being secretive. He was hiding.
It wasn't the only thing he was keeping to himself. When didn't he? As long as he had friends, he was content enough. Well, he was at least not alone. The bare minimum was accomplished, and compared to nothing, what he had was better than what he once had. Well, didn't have. The idea of being friendless bothered him to no end - so in no way could he place any sort of additional burden of his own troubles on his friends. Not that he didn't care for them, but because he had seen enough in a year to know they couldn't handle or understand his own problems when they could barely handle their own. Jack! Christof was still handling the baby steps of independence and a messed-up love brought on my servitude, Barth was a convienence but had yet to really show any real signs that Calder could even give him his pin to show he trusted him, and Malodore rebelled from his entire clan and thus probably would not get the emotional complexities of what he was going through. After those three, Calder was out of resources to lean on.
Well, he just had to stallion up and do this on his own.
Sighing, he looked at the list written out in thick, hard script. It was impressive at first that Murchadh even knew how to write, seeing as even most Leads in his clan had a hard time sounding out words in the common language of Halloween, but like most things that dealt with his band leader, Calder didn't have the guts to ask. The list was simple in that it showed a list of vague, all-encompassing jobs that Calder could show interest in that were approved and needed in the clan. Most of them were ones Calder knew off the top of his head, and he felt personally insulted that Murchadh had to bother writing them down or maybe it was that Murchadh wanted to remind him that these were it.
It was a short list too, very plain, and yet showed the simple values of his kind. There were jobs in farming and herbalism. That of basic healing wiht botany, plants to promote good health, others for pleasure like wine crops, and others still for just basic tending to fields. Not rocket science by some standards, but his kind certainly knew how not to exhaust the swamp beds and soil of the river bank with rotating crops too often. There was also craftsmanship in regards to picking the best wood and then crafting furniture and even small boats and carts fit for his kind. Nothing in the way of metal aside from maybe basic armor, hinges, and rough tools. Thinking of it, he felt sick to think that Barth and Christof would laugh at the crude instruments of his kind and think him dumb.
As for healing, well, he wondered what Malodore would think. His kind didn't see doctors. You visited tea smiths and drank all your medicines as was custom. Most everyone knew basic mineral tips and where to find home remedy herbs around the fields. Even Calder knew his basics ,and probably more from doing chores with his mother. Not that he ever showed it here. Well, not to anyone else. He had plenty of tea and plants hidden in his chests and baskets in his room - but then again, no one really came to his place to hang. Barth didn't move and Christof was always busy.
Frowning, he let his green eyes roam down the list for probably the hundredth time - as if to see something he missed that would inspire him and make his heart soar rather than sink.
Aside from plants and carpentry, there were the tending of young colts and fillies, a duty of all members of the clan and band, but nannies were always appreciated and not gender specific. A male or female watching a scarling was just as important and smiled upon, and Calder certainly liked children. It was that he didn't know if he could make a life out of it. After a while, the discussion would come to how many children he would want, and considering his current problem, the idea of him and Murchadh, he just didn't want to think about it.
He skipped on ahead, but it all went grim from there on.
Light Foot was available as a job to go into town once every so often or into other clans to deliver messages or packages as they really had no mail service aside from the trained wyrns or floresce, and only a few were good at haggling. Calder was no pro as he found out on a trip with his father into town where he found himself feeling guilty demanding any sort of price and buckling under the demands of a snaggle-toothed troll who didn't want to pay full price for demi-goat hide.
Sighing, he gave up on the rest, and set the list back on the rock by the bank of one of the streams that ran through Amityville. this one Calder dubbed as Shimmerswish on the sound it made as it sped through a pile of rocks that nearly made a small damn. If the list of what was available to him wasn't as bad, it was that he didn't know what he would want to be even if he had the option. Certainly not something so mundane that would keep him away from the new sites and every-day discoveries he found here at Amityville - much unappreciated and glossed over due to everyday familiarly by most students at school. Maybe it was because he just didn't know what other jobs were out there. No doubt nice ones. Fantastic ones - but he wondered if any would fall in amazing and also beneficial to his clan in order for him to pursue such a career and not have Murchadh call him ridiculous and yank him out of school and teach him a "worthwhile" career back in the safety of the clan.
All he knew was that he wanted to stay in school, and that if he didn't find out a way to pick, Calder had only one option left.
One that wasn't listed on that piece of water-wrinkled parchment that Murchadh had given him before seeing him off to Amityville as far as the front gates.
Rising up from the moss-covered boulder he was taking a break on, he tied his hair back up in a bun and breathed out. His jacket and shirt were left on a rock as he stepped back into the fast moving waters of Shimmerswish and back to the pile of rocks he was moving. A very basic training, he had to admit, but training he could do without interruption. Moving over to the end of the dip in the river, he grabbed one rock under the water and, legs bowing under the weight, slowly walked over to the other side, against the current, and heaved it up and onto the pile that was growing ever higher under the water. He had heard it as a rumor that some stallions did so to weight train and, seeing as he was more or less shunned last year from the Fitness group (he could only imagine Riley laughing at him attempting this sort of workout routine), he decided to just try it out on his own. It was flying solo from here on out, and despite the effort he was making to keep his friends by hiding yet something else from them, he had to admit, it was a very lonely process to gain your own freedom.
And if he failed....well, maybe the fact his friends didn't notice would be a good thing in the end. They certainly did well without him around most times anyways.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 2:21 pm
With a hard grunt, Calder forced another rock on the pile before leaning against it, exhausted by another day of moving the pile of heavy stones from one end of the stream to another, destroying one damn to then create one on the other side. It was monontanous, back breaking labor and while Calder was a strong kelpie, he was really starting to realize just how much he needed to work out. By normal standards, he could break bones with his kicks and could outrun and outlast most, but the sort of heavy lifting that wasn't just hauling cargo on your back was working muscles he never used, and all the while he hopes that just making them stronger would somehow translate to being a stronger fighter because, in all honesty, he didn't know what else he could do!
Still, in the long hours it took to move stone 1, 2, 7, 14 over to one side, it gave him time to think. He tried to think what he wanted to be be when he grew up back when he was a little colt, and smiled at his distant memories. At first, he remembered he wanted to River Runner, a mythical creator of his kind that, from the dawn of his kind, had created the many rivers of their kind and then settled to then create the clans. Calder had liked the idea of running all over and creating rivers behind him, but his dream was dashed when his parent informed him that the great ancestors died out long ago. Still, on rainy days, he remembered running and turning back to see his hoof-falls flood with water in the saturated moss, filling up miniature lakes for slugs, and grin at his creations. He liked leaving that sort of mark that would make him remembered, special, and appreciated.
New fantasies took hold to replace the new, and soon he looked to other places. Without friends, he decided he wanted to be a leech trainer upon his unforgettable discovery of Fester, and imagined creating a massive, colorful colony of leeches that everyone would want and buy because they would be pretty, smart, and the best pet to surpass all others. The idea of whole mounds of leeches, of every illogical size and shape, shade of prismatic green to crystal blue, zigzag stripes and blotchy dots, all of which flashed in kalodiscope mountains in his mind as they surged in mounds in a glimmering lake. The idea was enough that he had tried to wrangling a whole mass of leeches, transplanting them to a small pond he dug in the back. Yet, after days of collecting, a heavy rain flooded the bank and whisked his hard work away. He decided that leeches were meant to be free and throwing stones at the river for the rest of the day, gave up that dream.
At one time he picked up a broom and pretended to be a witch, but after the novelty of riding a broom around the yard wore away, he pretended to be a wandering traveler who sold brooms. Without only two parents and a disinterested leech to barter with, he gave that up to then try his hand at farming with his parents, but the waiting for sprouts didn't give him the instant satisfaction or even distraction he desired and after unearthing his seeds over and over, he gave up and tried to use them by making traps to catch little animals - all of which were smart enough to either not draw close to the little kelpie who watched his traps only a few feet away, or were quick enough to steal the food when he fell asleep in the warm, autumn sun.
When the outside provided little else, he moved indoors. He baked for a time, and was a good helper, but grew fussy when he couldn't use knives or the oven, and then upset when he burned himself. While he liked the smells, the sounds, and handling food, he grew tired when there was nothing to cook or when the menu started to repeat itself. Like all children, his attention went elsewhere and he soon forgot about being a chief before the idea really took hold. He tried being a hair stylist for a night, but after braiding and buns, found the styles too complex to form with his small hands and knowing too little in cosmontology to do much else than add a pond-paddy here or there in what he proclaimed, in hsi expect opinion that mainly involved touching his chin and giving his work a long stare, was a masterpiece.
For a time, he helped his mother, and had often returned to the idea more than once of being a tea smith. As a child, he liked the idea of voo-doo after hearing a few stories from his parents, but grew disappointed in the lack of boiling cauldrons, puffs of colorful smoke and flashing lights with every dash of new ingredient, and frowning even more when he was used as a tester to all the medical creations to see if they were up to taste. After ingesting too much tea and seeing too little in the way of crazy concoctions, he would sneak out and play until he grew bored again and went back to watch. In the end, it usually mean he was used as an errand boy, and when he visited less as he grew up, the errands were then implemented as chores and he was often left herb fetching during his many free hours.
Reading had opened the idea of being a writer, but paper was expensive if not impractical in a home that was almost always flooded. At one point he also wanted to a librarian, but could only imagine what one looked like when looking at the small number of books they had at home. With lack of resources for his mind to craft with, he moved on. Growing up and being alone, he almost always imagined being surrounded by other kelpies, and tried to imagine jobs that would make him loved and wanted. Lead of the Clan. A Hero. Maybe just an amazing bagpiper. All these were things to make him smile, but never serious considerations. Fantasies more than career options.
When he met fauns for the first time migrating through the woods, moving nearby, he thought of impressing more than just kelpies. Desperate, he tried to find out what they appreciated, and found out about their love of music. He dreamed of being a great musician, and traveling in a band of fauns, but once his bagpipes and looks were insulted, he smothered the dream when he cried into his pillow. Self-hating, he thought of being a crazed monster, with horrid, knotted hair down to his hooves, open wounds, and long teeth that traveled the countryside eating small creatures that crossed his paths. And then, when he knew he couldn't even so much as shovel one of his leeches without feeling guilty, just resigned himself with being a miserable hermit.
It was about this time he escaped into reading upon the discovery of fairy tales, and nurturing, his parents gave him a few more books. What little grains of romance he found, he ate up and played out. Now it wasn't so much as a career but a role he desired. The damsel locked in a tower. The creature hidden in a dungeon. The discovered prince in a wooden cabin. They all had dreams of rescue, with the promise of a happy ending and someone to make the special someone of the story feel wanted, special, and desired. That they were above all things, wanted and unique just as they were. Calder feasted on romance to escape all else as he had little else for company. His rebellious teens were spent in moody shadows under trees, reading between chores and demanding privacy from his parents snooping and reading his books - all of which they gave him out of him having so very few demands and out of his parents own feelings of guilt due to his seclusion. He knew that much now. He had sometimes pushed that card on them a few times to be left alone.
Calder had stopped dreaming about a future job and more of a future life. He wanted to be someone's one and only, have scarlings as was custom, and be happy. How that was to happen, he wasn't sure, but the books had promised him it was destined.
Maybe that was the problem now. He had lack of direction, and he ended up on this distant path from his actual dreams.
Calder paused, collapsing on his back as he rested on the bank. Where were those promises all those books gave him? And what did it say about him that through a life of experimental, short trials in dream jobs, he still didn't know what he wanted out of life? Why wasn't he as sure as his friends. As Malodore, who knew from back when that he wanted to be a doctor - a healer and leave his clan? Or Barth, who really didn't seem to have been rushed in any way to decide or even troubled by the idea. A demon of luxury perhaps to never had to face that problem or maybe he just already knew? Or unlike those, Christof, who was both content with his predetermined station in life and loved it - or so he seemed to - even if Calder didn't like the idea of Christof being traded or worse, turned to scraps. Chrsitof was still happy actually working at the job he loved from the moment he was created. Was it better to have a lack of freedom than to have too much in some ways? Why was it so hard to decide what to do with his life? Wasn't he passionate? Why didn't anything really SING to him, inspire him, grab him like it did for other creatures?
And worse, what would happen if he kept being indecisive? How much worse could things get if he let himself drift this way or that with each passing current that life threw his way - to be shaped by others rather than his own desires and actions.
He wished he knew, but if he didn't know what he wanted after all these years, he wasn't going to figure it out tonight no matter how hard he tried.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 2:22 pm
Tired and aching, Calder entered his room much like he had been for the past week. Yawning, he'd open the door, slam the door shut, and collapse in either his bathtub or on the moss-covered ground. Nesting on the floor, he slept for several hours before waking, thinking about class for a moment, noticing he missed one, and then rolling over. He could miss one class, right? He had been a good boil. For the life of him, he couldn't even remember what class he was supposed to go too, and decided that it mustn't be all that important if he couldn't remember it. Instead, he peeled off his clothes, reached out for a blanket, and fell back to bed. It wasn't till late afternoon that he woke up, and by then the day was over and he gave up on the idea of dinner even being available until the nocturnal rush come nightfall.
After some deliberation, he got up and dressed, forgoing his jacket and sporran for now and just button up his shirt and slipping on his kilt. Dressed, or as much as he felt like at the moment, he flopped back down on the ground and reached around for the nearest magazine. Shoving his botany book aside, he pulled out an edition of Mangled Manes, a publication that was about dangerous bad boils in rather sexy posses. The last edition had focused more on faculty, something he got a kick out of considering he was now in school, but the newest one had really sparked his interest. It focused on servants, and while Calder had expressed his points on the issue with Christof about being used, it took a whole new realm in the world between glossy print.
In one page, a porcelain doll butler was undressing a rather amused demon. The horns alone, which spirals around like a ram, had kept Calder's attention for the most part before looking at the rest. An open shirt had already been undone, and the butler was kneeling, pulling loose the tie. The demon showed no effort in stopping or assisting, and seemed to recline back, waiting on the plush, oversized bed nicely light by a red moon. A candle flickered in the back behind torn gossimer curtains.
Calder flipped the page.
The next was a maid, dressed in a short, frilly uniform and pristine stockings. It was a monster, no doubt about that, of some sort of albino lab rat variety. It's buck teeth stuck out in a pouty manner as its ears perked out from it's frilled headband. A series of wrinkled bows hung off it's long tail which it's glossy Mary Janes, fitted for it's feet, had tripped over and caused it to fall, sending a mess of various pumpkin, bat, and ghost shaped spookies all about it. As it looked rather miserable, a slender man with a glimmering rooster tail and slender wings as arms, leaned down and took a cookie from the nicely arranged mess, the maid's legs parted just so to be tasteful yet suggestive, and dipped the cookie in a dollup of frosting that had fallen from the cookies all over the maid and was now being scraped off the boil's cheek.
Overall, the magazine wasn't the worst he had, but it was usually the ones that didnt' show much at all, that seemed to narrate a moment in time between the ones being photographed, that were the most worn in Calder's collection. He liked this edition, and flipped through the array of maids, butlers, and every mix of house servant in between, in some motion of interaction with their respective masters and mistresses (this edition was co-ed this month), in some frozen moment of tender intimacy or amusing working blunder. Of course from knowing Christof, he knew the servants didn't look half as glamorous, none lookin worn from bone-breaking labor or hours of endless demand, or stressed from a constant supply of errands. None were calloused here, their uniforms barely wrinkled, showing no signs of wear, or even a loose thread or stain. The masters didn't look bored or mean, or even impatient, but more caring and taking too much time paying attention to what their servant was doing than spending the time saved by not doing the work themselves on other matters of business.
If that was servitude, then it certainly didn't look half bad. Considering his own misery in deciding what he wanted to do, just letting someone else decide, even for a fleeting moment, in privacy, was alluring.
Rising up, he laid the magazine a chest to a center-fold of one maid balancing a tray with a cup, tea pot, and sugar dish complete with a mound of very good looking sugar cubes. Having nothing in the way of a skirt, he attempted to hike up his kilt a little higher, He didn't have much else he could pretend to be the uniform before he remembered a rather elegant, long-sleeves dress shirt he had in his dresser. Moving over, he pulled it out and took off hsi shirt to replace it with the other. Now set with long sleeves, he grabbed a bundle of ribbons and set to work placing a few in his tail, one each inch or so, and then one about his neck. The hair was the hardest part to decide, and after flipping through the pages, he decide on what seemed to be a pony tail, one on each side of his head. Pigtails, right? They didn't look curly though. Calder lacked that, and he wondered if he could somehow get his hair to curl into a spiral, but for now it just hanged down. He didn't have a headband, and frowned when he couldn't make anything that looked like one. He gave up on that for now, and instead fetched a book.
Examining the magazine, he grabbed a teacup he had, and then a stapler to serve as a sugar dish, and then a small box he used to keep his pins safe when he did laundry and set them all on the book. This he balanced and stood at one end of the room. "Not so hard." He thought, smiling at his own ridiculousness. Very slowly, he moved with his imaginary platter of tea treats and paused at imaginary guests. Handsome guests, who came to his cafe simply because he was serving them, and would watch him as he moved, awaiting to have him take their order. The orders were always for tea, and it wasn't so much the realism as the fantasy of this play act that was the important thing. He pretended who he might like to see, and what they would say, and sometimes he would laugh to himself or wave them off for saying something either too sweet, too charming, or just too indecent for the public (though certainly deserving of a wink and a 'call me' gesture) before moving on to the next table. When Calder finished serving the business demons sitting at his bath tub, the minotaurs at his dresser, a lonely centaur placed by his literature homework, and Fester who was sitting with a pair of twin were-unicorns who were rather inebriated, Calder tipped over his book too far and sent the content and his fantasy crashing to the ground.
In a flash, he was Calder again, and picking up pieces of broken teacup off the floor.
If only life was as pretty and easy as those magazines.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 2:23 pm
Calder hadn't seen Barth in over a week, and hadn't bothered to show up. Usually his visits were more frequent. The unannounced pop-in that barely caused the demon to lift up his head. Never a celebration or grand show of excitement in his passing or going, where he was neither refused nor welcomed in a way that made it feel as if his coming and going mattered. Still, the demon had that easy in all he did that allowed Calder to come to the demon when needed. Mostly he would come in for a talk, usually about Christof and sometimes just random chatter that Calder couldn't get with Christof either because the Igor didn't get it or simply didn't entertain such idle conversation. Despite what few responses that Barth ever gave in return to the downpour of noise that Calder gave, he at least listened, and it the end it was better than Calder talking to himself or the doll Riding Assist Calder had affectionly dubbed Christof 2. The demon neither pressed deeper nor directed the conversation, and if talk ever got uncomfortable, Calder could easily steer it in another direction. Changing the issue or returning to one required energy that Barth didn't seem to want to give, and Calder took full advantage of.
That was the luxury and curse of a friend who didn't work hard for anything.
Tonight, Calder arrived only because he missed class, and had needed to ask Barth if he had attended, stayed awake to find out what the homework was, and tell Calder what it was for the next class. In the evening, he knocked on the door and when he received no answer, invited himself in. It was both convienent and stupid for Barth to leave his door open, but seeing as it allowed him to go inside at any time of the day or night, he never complained. Not unless Barth wanted to give him a set of keys to his dorm.
The room was in the state it was usually in. Lavish, perfectly comfortable in temperature, and soft in light. The furniture was plush, soft, and despite it's constant use, still rather pristine. Calder had to wonder if it had all been charmed in some way to resist stains. A pretty pumpkin seed to have done, but something Calder knew Barth could afford. A bed rested in the back, many sizes larger than most, and a compete set of couch, love seats, and table were set in a sitting area in the middle of the room. A kitchen, clean for now but usually cluttered, sat against the wall, and in one corner, overflowing with coils, springs, various metal bits, gears, electrical wire and things half in production or corspes of inventions scrapped for better versions during the brainstorming process, all clustered in a heap around a work table. The current project? - who knew. Calder certainly didn't even if it was explained. He hadn't sat through one of Barth's and Christof's invention sessions in a while. The lever pull of the patchwork lepus had still tasted bitter in his mouth, and had added a final push in making him feel worse during those times. Usually he tried to somehow absorb knowledge just through witnessing the two work together, but he found that the words all flew overhead his comprehension and he was left bored and out of the picture during most of it. He was seen as a distraction when Chrsitof was about, and often got looks for distracting Barth even more into being useless during those times. He never liked being left out, and despite his attempts, it was one of those things no one had time to explain or bother with. They had both been introduced into that world early in life, and wasn't about to hold his hand while he attempted his first scarling steps.
As such, he decided to be busy or gone during those times he knew they were up to something, and show interest and surprise at some thing-a-jig or whatchama-callit that was exposed from under a tarp or blanket. They certainly seemed productive without him.
Standing, he moved over to the desk, lightly touching it and though it was made of wood, something he was familiar with by it's natural nature, it still felt strange to his touch. Even being this close to it felt wrong to him, as if he was sneaking into someone else's clubhouse when he wasn't a member. No Kelpies Allowed.
Stepping back, he looked around. Barth, despite his lack of gusto for anything, even knew what he wanted in life. He didn't struggle with anything, and in this case, probably wouldn't in the future. Not only due to being gifted with the luxury of financial security, but with a settling into what he seemed to be good at. He never seemed the type to speak with such confidence as Malodore did about medicine nor show the star-eyed glimmer of enjoyment as Christof did when being used for assisting in anything. Still, he seemed to have no need as his room spoke for him or so Calder felt.
Sighing, Calder tried to locate the boil in question, knowing he was asleep if he didn't here the drawn out 'err' of welcome. After tip-hoofing about, he noticed the boil in one of the armchairs, covered by his coat that he was using to cover his eyes. Tired, asleep, or just dozing, no one could be sure. Either way, the boil was out and couldn't help him. It would take either a drowning or hard punch to the ribs to wake the demon and Calder was too tired for both and certainly not angry enough at anyone to do that. Instead, he sighed and leaned in, wrapping his arms about the boil and heaving him up to carry him bridal style - or what was called bridal style. Sack of potatoes over the shoulder was actually Bridal Style where he came from, but you got the point.
Despite his dead weight when asleep, Calder found him rather easy to carry though his arms were already singing with pain from the stone piling he had done that morning. Wincing, he heaved the boil to his bed and laid him out atop his covers, knowing to leave his shoes on only because it probably would take a decade for the demon to get them back on when he woke. Moving some hair from his face, Calder went to fetch his jacket and grabbed it from the chair, dusting it off a bit before laying it over the boil's chest as a makeshift blanket and to keep Barth from going All the Way over to his chair to get it. It was while flattening it out that he notice a strange thing.
Something he never really caught before. There was not a single pin on Barth's jacket. Confused, Calder lifted one end up to inspect Barth's shirt, and found that it was too devoid of pin. At the very least Calder would have thought he would see Chrsitof's clipped somewhere, but after looking about, craning his head, and even lifting up the frills of his cravat, Calder saw no signs of any emblem. Placing the jacket back down, Calder sat down a moment on the bed and watched the boil sleep. Easy, Without any sigh that the lack of trust or friendship bothered him in the least. In fact, Barth never pressed the issue, or made any indication that he might like one - not that Calder did. Pins were rather personal things.
Looking down, he ran his calloused fingertips over the two pins of Christof and Malodore, and knew that somewhere in the school, they had his. They had not asked for it, or demanded the pin from each other, but came to some point in time that it seemed right. With Christof, Calder had been sure and ready, yet still unsure all the while. With Malodore, it just seemed right. Fitting even despite it happening without thinking beforehand. Calder just felt he could trust the Plague Doctor. So why was it that neither Christof nor Malodore, who were also friends with the boil, had given their pins to Barth? Was it because they were waiting for Barth to go first, and if so, why hadn't Barth given his away? Then again, had Barth already to someone else? What was the requirement?
He doesn't trust you.
The thought was the first because it was Calder's requirement. The only reason he didn't throw his pins all around like a party favor was because he didn't show it just as an emblem that they were friends, but if something dangerous happened, he wanted someone who would protect him and that Calder would risk his lift protecting in turn. Someone that, if given his actual reign to, wouldn't take advantage of him. He could see neither Christof nor Malodore doing this, but Barth?
Calder watched the boil sleep, his chest rising and falling slowly. Barth had been there for him enough to talk to him, but he showed no effort in anything. People came and went and he didn't seem to mind their coming and going aside from Chrsitof. Even though they spent plenty of time together, and Calder felt safe to sleep beside him and drift into the heavy sleep that he could only get if in a herd and with someone he could feel would watch over him, it wasn't as if their lives were any danger here in this dorm. There had been no tests. No challengers where Barth had proven himself. In fact, looking back, Calder had helped Barth plenty, and while Calder had made a contract with the demon for seeds to help pay for a outfit for Christof, it had been business rather than friendship. Barth had not risked his life in any situation that he could recall, or even show a twitch of effort if things went one way or another. The easy of their friendship was that lack of effort, but even then, Calder seemed to have felt he had done more.
Was that why no one gave him a pin?
Calder frowned at the demon, thinking him nothing more than a lump, but felt bad for it. He had spent too much time and invested too much in the friendship to think it was pointless or didn't matter to the boil, and all he could think that it was terribly lonely to be surrounded by friends and yet not receive that symbol. Maybe in the end, Barth just needed a chance? A gesture, a sign even, that someone out there cared enough to put their life on the line for him? There had been enough times that both Calder and Christof had done that for the demon.
Sighing, Calder leaned back, already exhausted beyond measure, but held up his hand to curl it into a fist and closed his eyes. It took longer than it normally had when he had done this, but after a while, he felt the smooth disc in hsi hand. Once he was sure, he opened it and looked at the third button he created. A seal that said, "This is me. This is who I stand beside. Mess with him, and you miss with me. I will risk my life for this person." And lastly, most importantly. "I trust whoever wears this emblem with my life." Calder breathed deep at this thought. Reaching into his scarf, he lifted up the necklace hidden in it's folds up to the light and to glisten beside the emblem. The material was not silver, but looked as if made of shimmering, glistening lines that reflected light. Special hairs woven the day he was born, strung together with his very fear. His reign.
He looked at the necklace end he held, finger the material, and then at the emblem. If you give him a pin, would you feel comfortable with this demon even holding this as well?
Unlike the other two pins he gave, he wasn't so sure. Turning to one side, he looked at Barth, and wondered. Could he trust him?
Rising, Calder moved over to the side of the bed, looking at the other more closely as if to better judge his character, but it was his lack of pins that got him. Despite all the friends, even more than Calder knew, Barth wasn't held in high regard with anyone, and he felt that was sad. If anyone could even bother giving him, Calder, someone who wasn't very much of anything, a pin, than Barth deserved that chance to prove himself as well.
Leaning over, Calder pinned the button to the demon's vest, and looked at it. 
Barth didn't respond, only exhaling and, with a pause for thought, inhaling once more.
Smiling, Calder touched one of Barth's horns, just for luck, and went to leave, shutting the door but making sure to lock it first behind him.
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