More Tales of MU

…or, Equipping Boy

“You are wrong about one thing, you know,” Iason said while I was pulling on my pants. He’d managed to get himself completely dressed in the time it took me to get them.

“Only one?” I said. The jeans pocket which should have had my cigarettes in it was flat and empty. “That’s pretty good. I think I’m gonna have to be happy with that.”

I held out my hand to Iason, who gave me back the pack without comment.

“You said something about my long-term plans,” he said. “I’ve told you before, Iamie, I am not one for making plans.”

“Your intentions, then,” I said, reaching for my shirt. “I know you have those.”

“Indeed, I do,” he said, with the crookedest, most roguish smile he had in him.

“Like these,” I said, pointing to my ear piercings. “I suppose you intended them to be a simple gift, right?”

“No, I intended them to be a magnificent gift,” he said.

“Right,” I said. “That was your intent. And you didn’t plan on me being caught owing a shitload of taxes on them.”

“Taxes?” he repeated. If he was feigning innocence, he’d gotten a lot better at it in a hurry. Either that or he’d been obvious before just to be cute. Or to throw me off when he really needed to get away with something. “For a gift?”

“Apparently, gifts count as income,” I said. “Doesn’t work that way for elves?”

“We do not tax income, but we do tax valuable goods as we tax property,” Iason said. “I would have expected an elf to be liable for the increase in the value of his holdings as the result of such a gift and taken that into account before giving it, but you are not an elf.” He rolled his eyes. “Though, I suppose I should not be surprised, as your empire does tax everything else.”

“So, you’re not surprised, but you weren’t counting on it, either,” I said.

“Counting on it?” he asked. “In what sense?”

“In the sense that you thought I’d have no options but to come crawling back to you when the bill falls due,” I said.

“Iamie, I am beyond offended,” Iason said. “If you’re approaching me on your hands and knees, I want it to be out of desire, not extremity. I enjoy giving you frivolous gifts because they are frivolous and I know that you could reject them out of hand if you did not truly want them.”

“At least, those ones which don’t immediately bond with my hand,” I said. “Or neighboring points.”

“You will note that I have not repeated that sort of action,” he said.

“Except when you turned me into a stag.”

“That was reversible,” he said. “And really, it was a continuation of the same action. But I will point out that even knowing that I could reach out at any moment and make you my mount once more, I have not done so.” He held up a hand to wave off my objection. “I know, I know, you do not give me points for not doing what I should not. But if we are to be keeping score, I feel I deserve to be credited for recognizing that I ‘should not’ do this thing, when everything about my upbringing and my nature screams that nothing would be more right. Do you know the accepted method for breaking a new mount captured with one of these items?”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Ride until exhausted, transform, repeat, transform, repeat.”

“Quite so,” Iason said.

“Consent being optional, in the bad old days,” I said.

“Consent was not expected to come until much later, after the new relationship is fully established. That it was not given up front has traditionally been considered less important than the fact that it is eventually arrived at.”

“That’s quite a worldview,” I said.

“I’m not defending it,” he said. “I’m stating that it is so. Elves have ever favored the long view. If someone comes to love you wholeheartedly for a century or more after a few weeks of even the most violent protestation, why should those weeks of hate outweigh the entire era of love? That is the traditional viewpoint, of course.”

“And how do you feel about this tradition?” I asked. He was presenting these views as though they were relics of a forgotten age. Elves bred relics, though. And there was no danger of Iason forgetting any ages when there would be somebody around who could give him a first-hand reminder of them.

“I told you, I think there is more romance in spontaneity,” he said. “I think there may be some parallels in how I have made my approach to you, I think, though I try to keep my actions at a reasonable balance of the romantic elven past and the modern human reality.”

“Yeah, I know you say you’re not one for planning, but I don’t know how well that’s going to work in the long run,” I said. “Practically speaking. If you have a philosophical disagreement with the law about robbing banks and you try compromise by leaving half the money behind, I don’t think the law is going to appreciate your gesture in the spirit it was intended.”

“The law is an ass,” Iason said.

“It’s an ass that fucks back,” I said.

“Were you planning on pressing charges at any point in the foreseeable future?”

“I’m just saying, you can push things too far,” I said. “I’m not so worried if you do it with me, because that’ll just mean it’s over between us. But I don’t know how much of what you show me is the real you and how much is an act you put on for my benefit.”

“What if the real me is an act?” he asked with a grin.

“This isn’t the time to be cute, Iason,” I said. “There are a million different ways you could cross the line. In your world, if you trick somebody out of the price of a meal, that’s the same as earning it. In my world, that’s called fraud and it gets you put in jail, or deported to the forest. In your world, you can settle anything with a duel just by saying so. In mine, there are forms and licenses.”

“Well, of course I know all that,” Iason said. “Did you think I would have been allowed to pursue a university education without first taking courses in human law and governance?”

“I think you’d have an easier time retaining the parts of those courses that don’t get in the way of what you want to do.”

“I see,” Iason said. He pursed his thin, pale lips. “I must wonder, from where does this unprovoked bout of personal criticism come?”

“What?”

“Are you so angry at having to pay a tax for my gifts that you feel the need to lay out my flaws in such a cold, calculating fashion?”

“No,” I said. “Iason, I was saying that if you turned on me, if you crossed the line with me, it would suck because that would mean it’s over for us.” This was verging towards territory I wasn’t comfortable in. He’d asked, though. “But if you crossed another line and got yourself arrested and exiled, that would also mean it was over, but—well, it wouldn’t be a clean break for me.”

“I see,” Iason said, a smile spreading across his face. “You are worried about me.”

“About what I might lose,” I said.

“How very mercenary of you,” he said, and he laughed. “You cannot fool me, Iamos Toxotes. You would miss me. Enough to follow me back to my homelands?”

“Yeah, put that scenario out of your head,” I said, picturing Iason challenging one of his professors to an illegal duel or something else outrageous to put me in the position of having to choose between my life as I knew it and him. “I’ll visit your world, but I want to live in mine. Fewer people want to castrate me here.”

“You know it is only a rumor that the organs of manhood cannot be restored through ordinary healing magic,” Iason said.

“I’m still strangely disinclined to put myself through the experience,” I said. “You have your own lines you draw for defending your masculinity. I have mine. They involve my balls staying attached to my body. Is that so strange?”

“I suppose you have drawn the line at sillier things,” Iason said, hiding a smile. “Well, then, I suppose I shall have to watch my step, as it were, until such time as you are more amenable to relocation.”

“I suppose you will.”

“Though, to return to another subject,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “Do you, by chance, have any other options of which you are aware for paying the impending tax debt?”

“It’s a ways off,” I said. “I could come up with the money. Conceivably. I really don’t intend on asking you to pay for it.”

“Naturally,” Iason said. “But what if I were to find a way in which you could satisfy or ameliorate the debt? Would you accept that help from me?”

“Yeah, I believe you could get out of a restaurant without paying,” I said. “If only because anybody could do that, once. I’m less sanguine about your ability to defraud the imperial government when it comes to enchanted bits of platinum and diamond.”

“And sapphires,” he added. “But I am not speaking of fraud. What if I were to hit upon a way which was purely legal and without risk of penalty?”

“I’d say that would be such a fortuitous circumstance that it strained the credulity,” I said.

“Yes, it would be incredible, would it not?” Iason replied. “So, would you accept that from me?”

I sighed.

“What do you know, Iason?”

“I know nothing,” he said. “I have only just learned of this situation.”

“What do you know?” I asked.

“Nothing!”

“Bullshit,” I said. “This is like the wagers you make on duels. You wouldn’t be betting if you weren’t sure you’d win.”

“This is no wager, Iamie,” he said. “I am not asking for anything in return, and I am not forfeiting anything if I fail.”

“But you don’t think you will,” I said. “You’ve got that light in your eyes that says you think you’ve already won.”

“Won what?”

“The game,” I said. “With me or with the taxman or whatever. What do you know, Iason?”

“I tell you, nothing,” he said.

“I swear to you, if it turns out you had this planned—”

“Had what planned?” he asked, and there was the old familiar fake innocence.

“Whatever you’re thinking now,” I said. “If it turns out you had this planned from the beginning and you don’t tell me right now what the fuck is up, then that’s it. That’s the line. It’s over.”

“Certainly, I would expect nothing less,” Iason said. “But what if, on the balance, the scheme I concoct on the proverbial spur of the moment fits together so perfectly that it seems—”

“Just fucking tell me,” I said.

“Adventuring equipment,” he blurted.

“What?”

“Delving is a business activity,” he said quickly. “Delving gear is a deductible expense if it is purchased, and is exempted from taxation if it is found or acquired through other means. I am no scholar of tax law, but I believe this gift constitutes ‘other means’.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“No, I am not,” he said. “Why do you think so many adventurers continue with their trade until they die?”

“Because death usually ends adventuring,” I said.

“But why do more of them not quit after making that ‘one big score’ that everybody supposedly hopes for?” Iason asked. “Perhaps it’s not the only reason they keep their hand in, but they have a strong tax incentive to keep their wealth tied up in useable gear, and to use it.”

“This is awfully elaborate information for your ‘spur of the proverbial moment’ idea,” I said.

“It is ‘proverbial spur of the moment’,” Iason said. “The moment itself is quite actual.”

“So’s my skepticism,” I said.

“Iamie, when I expressed interest in a delving expedition, you made it quite clear to me that you would not entertain such a notion if I could not approach it properly,” he said. “Am I to be castigated now for having taken your words to heart and done my homework, as they say, upon the subject?”

“Yeah, but you bought me the magic jewelry before we had that conversation,” I said.

“Is that not an argument for the innocent nature of the gift?” he said. “Again, you are looking for a long term plan where none exists. If my intention had been to outfit you for a dungeoneering session, I could have found more substantial enchantments with which to fortify you.”

“So, why the big show of ‘I know nothing’?”

“Because I do not know anything,” Iason said. “I am not a tax scholar. I do not know for certain that your pieces would qualify as equipment, or that the sort of expeditions we might credibly mount would be sufficient to establish us as delvers for tax purposes. What sort of scoundrel would I be, to lead you on the adventure I so desire on the basis of a promise which may prove false next year?”

Those were actually good points. When he put it that way, it seemed like a long shot; something you could get excited over, but not something to bank on.

“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m just a little paranoid.”

“Your apology is accepted.”

“But, you know, I wouldn’t get so paranoid like this if you didn’t play so many little games,” I added, shaking my head.

“Victim blaming is an ugly thing, Iamie.”

I threw my shirt at him. He whipped his off and threw it at me.

It was a while longer before we went to find Marlot.

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