The Kingdom of Albitia: Central Council to His Royal Majesty, King Tarvek Tyral.

Ten Humans sat at a round table, all of them sat in silence as they gazed at a floating crystal above the table. The crystal shone with ethereal light, varying hues and shades danced across the smooth, glasslike object.

There was a faint sound, like bells, and they all seemed to be lost in the slightly discordant melody.

"Tell me." King Tyral spoke. "Stranger, where were you able to get Etharite this large, and at such purity?"

One of the ten Humans was a rather diminutive Human, who smiled without showing his teeth. The comparison between the King and this man was like comparing night and day. King Tyral wore simple, yet opulent clothing, threaded with gold filigree and a surprisingly modest ten gemstones sewn into his clothing. Still young and healthy, he was expected to rule for many years to come.

The smiling man, on the other hand, was pale, almost to the point of being stark white, like a winter's snow. He wore primarily black, and a wide-brimmed wizard's hat was presently resting on his lap.

"That is my secret, your Highness." The man said without allowing his teeth to show. It more than unsettled the King's advisors, but King Tyral maintained a stoic façade. "Were I to share it, there would be no point in seeking to supply it."

"And this?" The King asked, gesturing toward the large crystal.

"A gift."

Such a massive crystal being given as a gift, to a king no less, was considered an act of extreme excess, that the man gave it freely without expectation of reciprocation was startling. The King considered the strange man for several long minutes. "What are your terms for trade?" He asked.

The man's smile widened. "I can get you so much Etharite that you would never want, all I ask is the hand of your eldest daughter in marriage."

Such proposals were not to be made lightly, such an arrangement would surely put the strange man in a position to inherit the throne, should something befall the rest of his family.

"I will consider your proposal." King Tyral stated. "You are dismissed."

The man's smile fell, but he did not speak further, but was allowed to leave. The remaining nine Humans sat in silence for a brief moment, then King Tyral looked to the man on his left.

"Arch Mage, what say you on this matter?"

The Arch Mage was old, wearing robes and a hat as gray as his beard, he had the wizened look one typically associated with a Wizard. He idly scratched his beard as he considered the crystal before them.

"Such a prize would wars be fought for." He stated. "A princess' hand in marriage such a small prize in comparison." He looked at the King, who idly stroked his brown beard. "I do not trust him."

"And yet, we can clearly see that this man is capable of obtaining large amounts of Etharite." The man who had been sitting to the right of the diminutive man stated. "And at such purity, there is no doubt such a deal would make us powerful."

"The Lord of Coin speaks soundly." King Tyral's right hand man spoke. "Yet, the Arch Mage does raise a fair point. If this... individual were to use his position to claim the throne, by coercion or guile, what would the state of the Kingdom be in?"

"Spymaster, can your Umbergales keep a close eye on him?" King Tyral asked.

"It shall be done, my Liege." A man in rather opulent clothing stated with a bow of his head. While he looked no different from a typical Noble, this was a ruse, and indeed a convenient means of misdirection. Nobody would ever suspect a haughty Noble to be the ringleader of a guild of spies and assassins.

"I want to know with whom he communes, what deals he strikes when he is certain none see him, and what his intentions are."

He looked at the crystal once more before addressing the Central Council. "Now, what is to be done regarding the Harvest Festival..?"

A memory, or a dream. A home, three weeks ago.

My room was dark, I always kept it dark, because I didn't like how bright it was outside. I couldn't afford blackout curtains, so I just hung a dark blue comforter on the curtain rod, tying the corners to the pole because I was too lazy and unskilled to sew a proper loop.

I kept it dark because, as ever, I just didn't care. I didn't care anymore, I couldn't afford to care anymore, because nothing I ever did worked out. A tenuous peace was kept, I did the bare minimum of what was expected and conserved my constantly dwindling supply of energy.

It was like some invisible beast was sucking my batteries dry, and I had to be plugged in at all times to even function like a normal human being. The stories I read, the shows I watched, they were written for people like me, for people who didn't really have a reason to keep going.

There was a knock at my door.

"Yes?" I asked.

The door opened and Mom came in. She walked effortlessly through the mess that was my room and sat down on the edge of my bed. "How are you doing?" She asked.

"Eh." I sounded. I pushed myself to a sitting position, crossed my legs, and looked at her. She was beautiful, at fifty five, her face and body were pudgy, and she was concerned regarding her weight, and her brown hair, no longer sleek and shiny, but somewhat dull and graying in some spots... but she didn't need to be anything other than who she was. Her gray eyes shone with love, and she was beautiful.

I hugged her, and she hugged me back.

"I love you, Mom." I said.

"I love you too, son." She replied. "Do you think you can get the counters clean for me today?"

That was more than the bare minimum. "Yeah." I said. I didn't have the energy for it, I just wanted to sleep. I was exhausted. "I'll get on it."

I didn't really bother with getting dressed, I just tossed on a pair of sweatpants and left my room with her. With her working, and my father on business trips, the house was never clean. It wasn't a matter of people being too busy to clean, though I was sure that was a factor, it was more a matter that the only people who really cared to do anything was working retail and was depressed to the point of near inaction.

It was more than the bare minimum, I picked up plastic packaging for sausages that had been arbitrarily set aside instead of tossed in the ever growing pile of trash that somehow managed to stay in the trash bin, and realized that the amount of work I'd have to do to make clearing off the counter far exceeded the bare minimum.

I went back to my room, slapped on a shirt, slipped on my shoes without socks, and went back to the kitchen.

"Alright, Rex, you can do this." I muttered. Rex was the name of the big, badass sword-wielding main character of one of my stories, who just so happened to be an idealized version of myself. While he was the protagonist and inevitably solved many of the problems that came his way, I knew that making him a blatant gary stu was stupid and unfulfilling. What was the point of reading about a better version of you if they have none of your flaws?

Rex was the character whose attributes I channeled when I needed to get something done. It didn't confer any more energy than I already had, it didn't make me any more confident in whatever task I set out to do, it was just a means of telling myself that I needed to deal with it now, to not just give up, until I was finished.

I stepped on the garbage, compressing it further into the bin, tied it off, and dragged the bin to the door. I pulled it all of the way to the end of the driveway, where I lifted the bin and dumped the bag into the even larger garbage bin. Tomorrow was trash pickup day, and I realized that my work had more than quadrupled.

"Fuck." I said as I walked over to the house. I picked up a bucket that had been passively collecting rain water since nobody ever put it away, poured said water into the garbage bin to get rid of the garbage water that leaked out of the bag, and then dumped the bin into the grass to the side of the driveway. I repeated this once, then sat the bin down upside down in a sunny spot.

I went inside, grabbed a trash bag, and just started tossing trash into the bag. I cleared off a spot on the counter and took the dishes that were in the sink and stacked them on the counter, fishing out errant pieces of garbage as I did so. I rinsed my hands, took the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, then loaded it.

My father came into the kitchen with a sandwich plate and arbitrarily put the plate where the larger plates should go, and tossed his fork where I explicitly had the spoons going. I didn't have the energy to ask him to pay the fuck attention to what he was doing, so I just moved them because it wasn't worth the argument. I was already going above and beyond at this moment.

He pulled out a pan and started cooking ground beef in it. Of all the times to start cooking supper.

"What's for dinner?" I asked passively as I looked inside the dishwasher. It looked like water was sitting in the bottom, which meant the garbage disposal hadn't been cleared out. Again.

"Sloppy joes." He said as I closed the dishwasher and set it to the rinse cycle. It immediately started draining, and I flicked the switch for the garbage disposal to do its thing. Once the clog was dealt with, I tossed a detergent pod in and let it do its thing.

"Remember to cut the onions small." I said. He didn't respond.

I worked around him, clearing off and wiping clean the counter.

"Are you going to clean the floor?" He asked.

I looked at the mess on the floor; the garbage and the bullshit that was scattered everywhere because nobody took out the trash.

"No." I said. "I'm not cleaning up the fucking floor." He stared at me, as if I'd slapped him. "You want to know why I'm not going to clean up the fucking floor? It's because I'm fucking tired. I'm tired of cleaning everything up and the next day everything's gone to shit again. I'm tired of trying to maintain everything so that it's spotless so you can throw your goddamn tissues on the floor again. I'm tired, I'm exhausted, because the only two people who give a damn about cleaning in this goddamn house are me and Mom, and Mom's working her ass off so much that she doesn't have the time or energy to clean."

The moment he was stunned passed, and he launched into a tirade about how he worked his ass off so we even had a house, how he had to travel so the mess was our fault, how nothing was his fault. There was a knife on the counter, it was in arms reach, I walked away. I had to. He didn't chase me down, he didn't follow me, he couldn't hit me. Mom would never let him hear the end of it. I went into my room and took several deep breaths. No, I didn't hate him. He pissed me off at how careless he was, but I didn't hate him any more than I hated his behavior.

I wanted to hate him, I wanted to care so little for him that I wouldn't care about the consequences, but I could not hate him.

I stewed in the darkness for a handful of hours, he came only long enough to tell me supper was finished and to come and get it. When I did come out for food, most of what had been made was gone, only just enough for a sandwich was left, and that was likely because Mom made sure it was set aside for me.

"Ryan?" I looked at Mom. "Thank you for cleaning the counter for me." She said.

"No problem." I said hollowly. There was just so much to do, I couldn't do it by myself. I looked at the sink, the two packages of ground beef lay inside, empty, and I was angry. I wanted to throw something, I wanted to break something. I clenched my fist, then relaxed my fingers. I walked up to Mom and hugged her. "You only have to ask." I said...