The Seven Stages of Empathic Mimicry (I)

1: Observation

Other than helping Reevor with the lighter supplies from the storehouse to the Inn, Cyrus' didn't have many chores. He was determinedly kept away from anything even remotely tangential to animal-based food preparation. Ulraunt didn't want him to poison anyone, Father wanted him nowhere close the concept of killing things for consumption (or, really, for anything), not that they told him any of that. Ulraunt also wouldn't hear about him becoming a scribe or (eventually) an acolyte, likely because he wouldn't even contemplate the idea of Cyrus being nearby for the rest of his life. And working at the stables or chicken coops or other livestock proved similarly hopeless, since animals tended to become agitated or worse if he got too close. Reevor's cats had been the only exception, but even their lack of good sense was resolved after the fateful incident in the storehouse on that day, long ago. They kept well away from him now.

So all Cyrus had to do, besides running errands, was occasionally weed the gardens, vegetable patches and flowerbeds. The last ones Imoen usually helped with. Or, more often, helped hinder, since she tended to gripe constantly (when she wasn't going on random tangents about this or that piece of mischief she engineered) and smell the flowers more than care for them. She also wandered off or slipped away the first chance she got, claiming that she did more good to the world by going on adventures and having great and funny stories to share afterwards. She could only tell so many times the one about the barely failed pickpocket attempt on Winthrop in Beregost that somehow prompted the old innkeeper to take her in.

That her adventures were limited to little besides mixing up Phylida's and Dreppin's belongings (all variations of which she had done at least ten times before) did not make any difference, though to Imoen's credit she did occasionally manage to swipe one of Firebead Elvenhair's magic scrolls as well. That her attempts to learn the magic on them almost invariably ended in failure (save for occasions like that strange week when she walked around with all her colours inverted and became obsessed with the colour pink as a result) never deterred her. The same way her abysmally slow progress in learning her letters never seemed to deter her from escaping from Winthrop's enforced "time outs" either. This in spite of the man only trying to use them to teach her the worthwhile skills in life, and even more in spite of the fact that her continued semi-illiteracy was the reason for constantly failing to read Firebead's scrolls properly, which led to the biggest and strangest of the disasters in Candlekeep and, therefore, got her landed with those very "time outs."

As he carried a couple of ammunition stacks down into the basement of the Candlekeep warehouse, the not-as-small-as-he-should-be dwarf wondered why Winhtrop and everyone else seemed so bent on trying to impose any sort of structure on Imoen. Her free-spiritedness was precisely the reason she wasn't and never would be like him. Would never become dark/bleak/nothing.

That being dark/bleak/nothing was not… right.

It was probably nice to be able to feel happy. Cyrus only wished he could have more time to spend with Imoen. Maybe enough exposure to her self-light would even help him gain one of his own, or at least let him reflect hers for longer instead of staying bleak/dark/nothing.

Being bright on the inside was right. Bright like her. Like his name meant for him to be able to. He didn't feel much, but he did feel certain of that one thing, if nothing else.