…or, It’s Only a Problem On Paper
Iason showed up late for the field class, swaggering out of the trees as we arrived at the site. He actually looked worn out, with faint shadows under his eyes, and a cocky grin. He was wearing a scarlet cape and hat with a feather that could only have come from the ass-end of a phoenix. It was the sort of hat that would refuse to sit on the head of anybody who wasn’t way too fucking pleased with themselves. He wore it well.
Last I’d seen him, he’d been plotting a night of fun with a pair of twins. I wasn’t jealous that he’d slept with them. I’d had my time with Barley, after all.
I was a little jealous that they’d wrecked him, though. My elven blood could take me far with a human partner, but the difference between my endurance and an elf’s was the difference between “long lived” and “eternal”.
“Nice of you to join us, Mr. Iason,” Professor Bryony said. “Now that we’re all here, I’d like you to all take a good look around the clearing, folks. After today, we’ll be bidding it a fond farewell for the time being,” she announced. “But before you fall to the weeping and gnashing of teeth and other assorted lamentations, you’ll be taking the time to eulogize it in a memorial paper. Three pages, singling out one herbal resource found within its environs and explaining its uses, any cultural and historical significance, and what makes this clearing a good place for it to grow and for us to find it. I’ll expect samples. This is a practical class, so the quality of the sample and the care in taking it will be one half of your grade.”
“How are we supposed to know all that cultural stuff from digging around in the sun?” the girl Sarah asked.
“Well, I don’t really know the answer to that question,” Professor Bryony said. “Maybe you could go to the library and see if they have a book which will answer it for you.” She outlined the requirements for the paper and then turned us loose to start gathering information for it, adding, “Friday morning, I have an engagement in town, so you can treat this as a free period for writing, or for coming out here on your own to do field work. Or you can sleep in. The paper will be due on Monday either way.”
“That’s less than a week,” Sarah complained.
“Three pages,” the professor said. “You could take a page a day and still have Sunday to rest. If you’re that pressed for time, you’re welcome to go and get started on it now.”
Sarah looked tempted to take Bryony up on her offer—the part about leaving class right away, anyway. There was no risk she’d actually start her homework right that moment. The professor knew that, and Sarah was too timid to walk out knowing that she wouldn’t be fooling anybody.
It wasn’t like Bryony was being a hardass. We had the whole hour to work freely, and we were getting Friday off. Under the circumstances, I didn’t mind one bit when Iason came sauntering over.
“Have a good day yesterday?” I asked him before he could open his mouth.
“I had a nice day,” he said. “And a very nice night.”
“How nice for you,” I said. “I spent Tuesday morning with a nymph.”
“And the night?”
“I slept alone,” I said. “Strangely, I survived. There’s a lesson for at least one of us there, I think.”
“Did you know that Linus had never been with another man besides his brother?” Iason asked. “Which, given how like one another they are, is tantamount to masturbation. For all intents and purposes, I deflowered him. With your ass to dangle as bait, I believe I could have every man in Treehome by the end of the month.”
“Or you could, I don’t know, just have my ass,” I said.
“Oh, are you interested in talking about a change in our arrangement?” Iason asked.
“As a matter of fact, I’m interested in talking about just about anything else,” I said. “How about we just talk about class?”
“Well, that is an exceedingly fortuitous change of subject,” Iason said. “Because, as it happens, we do need to talk about my paper.”
“Okay, you can stop right there,” I said. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because I let you in my pants it means I’m a pushover. If I give in to sex, it’s because I want it, too, but we are not going to talk about your paper.”
“Oh, must every topic be run past your imperial censors now to appease some nebulous sense of suitability?” he asked. “I thought you wanted to have more conversations with me, not fewer.”
“I don’t want to have a conversation that begins ‘let’s talk about my homework’,” I said. “Because I think I know what’s coming next, and I’d rather leave some doubt than be sure.”
“I see,” Iason said. He deflated a bit. “Am I so transparent?”
“Anything’s transparent when it’s thin enough,” I said.
“Are you calling me shallow?”
“A little more depth wouldn’t kill you.”
“Well, perhaps I, too, should leave the matter unstated so as to allow some doubt to remain, but I must ask: what do you suppose would be coming, exactly, had you allowed the conversation to continue?”
“You know,” I said. “You come sidling up to me, as smug as ever, and go, ‘Let’s talk about my paper. I know the teacher said three pages, but I was thinking you should do more like five. Given that I am an elf, it will be more believable if it seems I am overachieving.’ Something like that.”
He stared at me, putting on a hangdog expression that would have looked ridiculous on anybody, but especially an elf.
“What?” I asked. I felt like I was missing something.
“I am offended,” he said.
I laughed.
“Iamie!” he said. “I am really hurt.”
“Oh, what, it’s beneath you to pressure your boyfriend do your homework for you?”
“As a matter of fact, it is,” he said.
“You were going to fake iron poisoning to get a free meal from a restaurant,” I reminded him.
“That I would defraud strangers who are nothing to me is no indication of how I behave towards those nearest to me,” he said.
“No, but how you behave towards those nearest to you is a pretty solid indicator,” I said. “You’ll lean on me to do anything you want me to.”
“Naturally. Of course I will,” he said. “But I am hurt and offended that you think I would want you to do my homework for me. You are my sweet prince, Iamie, and if you would relax and allow me to, I would gladly treat you as such. I would not push a menial task upon you as though I were not fully capable of doing it myself.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, okay then. What were you going to say about your paper, then?”
“I need you to help me with it.”
“Iason!”
“Not to go so far as to compose it yourself,” he said. “Just go over it when I am finished, to help me to overcome a certain difficulty.”
“What difficulty is that?”
“Though I may speak it with the exact tone and diction of a native, I do not read the Pax language as well as I should be able to,” he said.
“Uh, exactly how bad a deficiency are we talking about?” I asked. I’d heard thicker accents than Iason’s, but if he didn’t realize he had one then it was likely he was overestimating his writing ability, too. The fact that he could admit a fault and ask for help, floppy-brimmed hat in hand, was a warning sign on par with ”BRIDGE OUT” or ”CAUTION: SPHINX ON ROAD”.
“Well,” he said, scratching at the base of his neck under his hair and giving a crooked elven aw-shucks grin. “I am unsure how to rate such a thing precisely.”
I sighed.
“Humans use grade levels,” I said.
“Ah,” he said. “Elves do not, or I might be familiar enough to make such a comparison in relationship to myself.”
“Well, give me an example then,” I said. “Something that gives you trouble.”
“Very well,” he said. “For example, I should be able to read and write Pax, but I cannot. This gives me a not inconsiderable amount of trouble.”
“At all?”
“I do most of my work by dictating to a crystal ball,” he said. “But this produces embarrassing mistakes, which I am unable to catch. You could go over and clean it up, or alternatively, I could write it in Elvish and you could produce a translation.”
“So you can’t read Pax at all,” I said again. I didn’t want him to feel bad. I just wanted to verify the magnitude of the problem.
“I can recognize some words. And I know how to write your name in Draconic letters,” he said. Khersis help his crooked little soul, he smiled like a three-year-old with a picture of a cat to put up on the fridge.
“Okay. A college student, having graduated from high school, should have a twelfth grade reading level,” I said. “A lot probably don’t, though. If you need some remedial help, you won’t be alone. Really, that’s what you should do, long-term, instead of having people go over your papers one by one.”
“This thing you suggest, I cannot do,” Iason asked. “’Remedial’. I know enough Pax to know it is a dirty word.”
“It’s not.”
“It is,” he said. “I see the faces people make when they say it. I hear the scorn and the biting sympathy in their voices. Humans, with their century allotment, have nothing but pity or contempt for those who take more years than they judge prudent to learn a thing. I have mastered skills in the past ten years that it took my father decades of abstract study before he applied himself towards a practical knowledge.”
“Translation: elves haven’t cornered the market on assholes yet,” I said.
“Not for a lack of trying,” he said.
“What did you do, the semesters before this?”
“I slid by on my not inconsiderable luck and charm,” he said. “I believe my professors gave me some latitude at first, as a foreign speaker. After I joined the skirmish team, it became easier to find assistance.”
“So why do you need my help now?”
“Because it galls me to have to go to others,” he said. “To have them think I am a ‘dumb jock’, as the saying goes, as though I had not been admitted to this institution on my own merits before deciding to bless the team with my talent.”
“On that subject, though,” I said. “Didn’t you have to take some tests to qualify for admission?”
“Elves do such things orally,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s not what the bumper stickers say,” I said. I shook my head. “Damn it, Iason.”
“I am sorry, Iamie,” he said. “I was in a hurry to learn so many other things that this one little one fell by the wayside.”
“I’m not swearing at you,” I said.
“This is where my knowledge of Pax fails me once again,” he said. “Apparently, there exist some alternate meanings to the words ‘damn’, ‘it’, and ‘Iason’, of which I am woefully ignorant.”
“I was damning ‘it’,” I said. “The situation. Sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. Okay, here’s the deal: I will help you with this paper, and your other homework, but I can’t carry you all semester by myself.”
“But you are my noble stag and I am your humble rider,” he said, taking my hands and going down on one knee. “Who else shall bear the burden of me, if not you?”
“You’re going to get me in trouble with Bryony,” I told him, pulling my hands away and turning away. ”Humble” my ass. He could turn into a cornball prince now that he needed something, but there was nothing wrong with my memory. “I’m not qualified to do something like this, and I’m going to have my own homework to do, too. You need to get an actual tutor or take a class or something.”
“I told you, that is not possible,” he said.
“I think you can still drop and add classes,” I said. I knew what he meant but I was pushing past it. “Nobody’s going to think you’re stupid. Foreign language speakers taking remedial Pax get some slack. If anybody gives you shit about it, just, I don’t know. Ask them how many languages they speak and then say something insulting in Elvish.”
“But, you will help me with this paper, then?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “If you prove to me you’re actually willing to actually do the work.”
“Excellent!” Iason said. “Just tell me what I must do, Iamie. Tell me how I may prove myself to you, and it shall be done.”
“You might start by actually getting to work,” Professor Bryony said, from a few feet away. Iason scowled and stalked away. She turned towards me. “You, too, sweet prince.”
