Chương 35: “The Name”

She asked him on a Wednesday. Just: "Do you have a name? A real one. Not Mr. Grumpy." He waited.

"You don't have to say," she said. Then: "Actually, you can't say, can you. You can't say anything." She looked at him.

"That must be annoying." The understatement was so complete that he glowed, not the one-glow yes or the two-glow correction but something longer, brighter, involuntary. She grinned.

"So you do have a name." One glow.

"Can you tell me somehow?" This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. He thought about this. He pressed his awareness into the room, with no intention to change anything, just to move it, the faintest displacement of air, a coldness that traced itself across the condensation on her water glass. One letter. Then another. She watched it happen with her chin in both hands and her eyes very wide. He wrote his name on her water glass. She read it slowly.

Said it once, quietly, trying the shape of it. It was the first time anyone had said his name without it being a weapon or a warning in longer than he could accurately remember.

"Vorrath," she said. One glow. She looked at him for a moment.

"Can I still call you Mr. Grumpy?" He did not glow. She laughed. It was a good sound. He had opinions about sounds, having been made of and surrounded by them for three thousand years. Screams, silences, the acoustics of collapsing stone, and the laugh of a child who was genuinely happy was in a category that he did not have a word for until recently.

"Okay," she said.

"Vorrath when it's serious. Mr. Grumpy the rest of the time." He glowed once. He told himself it was a concession.