Tales from the Universe
Moral Dilemma: If a harder version of yourself once kept you alive, when does continuing to wear that armor stop being survival and start becoming a choice that harms the people who no longer threaten you?
The first time Toren frightened someone, he was fourteen.
He had been trying not to get robbed.
Three older boys cornered him behind the tannery.
“Money.”
“I don’t have any.”
One boy pushed him against the wall.
Toren was small.
Thin.
His father had recently died.
His mother worked nights at the dye house.
Nobody was coming.
So Toren did something strange.
He smiled.
Not nervously.
Not kindly.
He looked directly at the boy holding him and smiled as though something wonderful had just occurred.
“Do it.”
The boy frowned.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re planning.”
Toren widened the smile.
“But if you start, I’m not stopping when you do.”
The boys looked at one another.
Toren had absolutely no idea what he would do if they called his bluff.
They left.
Toren stood alone in the alley, shaking.
Then he laughed.
He had discovered something.
Fear could be borrowed.
If he could not stop being afraid, perhaps he could make the other person more afraid.
He practiced.
Shoulders back.
Chin slightly down.
Eyes still.
Speak slowly.
Never explain yourself twice.
Never let anyone see the first flinch.
By sixteen, nobody cornered Toren.
By eighteen, nobody raised their voice at him.
By twenty, people crossed streets.
Toren considered this success.
He became a guard.
Naturally.
Captain Sera noticed him immediately.
“You don’t look strong enough.”
Toren smiled.
“Would you like to test that?”
Sera laughed.
“No.”
He was hired.
Toren was good at the work.
Excellent, actually.
Most trouble ended before it began.
Drunks lowered their voices.
Thieves reconsidered.
Angry men suddenly remembered appointments elsewhere.
Toren rarely fought.
He didn’t need to.
People believed he would.
Sera eventually learned the secret.
They were drinking after shift.
“You’re terrified.”
Toren nearly dropped his cup.
“What?”
“Whenever trouble starts.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You think I look frightened?”
“Not remotely.”
“Then?”
Sera tapped the table.
“You rub your thumb against your first finger.”
Toren looked at his hand.
He was doing it.
He stopped.
Sera smiled.
“Every time.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Why would I?”
Toren drank.
After a while he said:
“I thought fearlessness was the trick.”
“No.”
“What is?”
Sera shrugged.
“Doing the work.”
Toren liked that.
Years passed.
The city became safer.
Toren became older.
Then he met Lysa.
She sold maps.
Not glamorous maps.
Property boundaries.
Sewer routes.
Road surveys.
The sort of maps people needed rather than framed.
Toren liked her because she was unimpressed by him.
The first time he used the stare, she said:
“Are you constipated?”
Toren laughed so unexpectedly that tea came out his nose.
He married her two years later.
They had a son.
Jori.
Toren adored him.
He had absolutely no idea how to behave around him.
Babies did not respect intimidation.
This was Toren’s first warning.
Jori grew.
At five, he spilled milk.
Toren turned.
Not angrily.
He simply looked.
Jori froze.
“Sorry.”
Toren’s mouth opened.
The boy’s eyes were already wet.
Something felt wrong.
“It’s all right.”
Jori nodded rapidly.
Toren cleaned the milk.
He forgot about it.
Jori didn’t.
At eight, Jori broke a window.
He hid the broken glass.
At ten, he failed an exam.
He forged his mother’s signature.
At twelve, he began lying about where he went after school.
Toren became increasingly frustrated.
“Why does he lie to me?”
Lysa stared at him.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
“He’s afraid of you.”
Toren laughed.
Then saw her face.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I have never hit him.”
“I know.”
“I don’t threaten him.”
“You don’t have to.”
“He’s my son.”
“Yes.”
“That should mean he knows I wouldn’t hurt him.”
Lysa’s voice softened.
“Why should he know that?”
Toren became angry.
“Because I love him.”
“Those are two different pieces of information.”
Toren confronted Jori.
This was another mistake.
“Are you afraid of me?”
Jori looked terrified.
“No.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“No.”
“Jori.”
“No!”
Toren heard his own voice hardening.
“Look at me.”
Jori looked.
The boy’s thumb rubbed against his first finger.
Toren stopped breathing.
He left the room.
Lysa found him outside.
“He does it.”
“What?”
“The hand.”
She understood.
“Oh.”
“He does what I do.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lysa sat beside him.
“You taught him.”
“I never taught him that.”
“No.”
Toren stared at his hands.
He tried changing.
That sounds simple.
It was humiliatingly difficult.
The face arrived before thought.
A servant made a mistake.
The face.
Someone interrupted him.
The face.
Jori talked back.
The face.
Toren would feel his shoulders settle.
Chin lower.
Eyes still.
The fourteen-year-old in the alley appeared automatically.
He had practiced that boy for thirty years.
Now he wanted him gone.
The boy did not agree.
Toren tried smiling more.
This was disastrous.
His smile was the original threat.
Jori became visibly alarmed.
Lysa laughed for several minutes.
“Stop helping.”
“I can’t.”
Eventually Toren spoke with Sera.
She was retired now.
“You remember when you told me I was afraid?”
“Yes.”
“You ruined my life.”
“Good to see you too.”
Toren explained.
Sera listened.
Then said:
“So stop intimidating your family.”
“I am trying.”
“No.”
Toren glared.
Sera pointed at him.
“That.”
He relaxed his face.
“Sorry.”
“You’re trying to stop looking frightening.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Be frightened.”
Toren stared.
Sera continued.
“In front of them.”
The idea was horrifying.
Naturally.
That evening Toren sat with Jori.
The boy was fourteen now.
Same age Toren had been in the alley.
“I owe you an apology.”
Jori became tense.
Toren noticed.
He wanted to tell him to relax.
He didn’t.
“I learned something when I was your age.”
He told him about the tannery.
The boys.
The smile.
The shaking afterward.
Jori listened.
“I’ve been afraid most of my life.”
His son’s expression changed.
“You?”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
Jori laughed.
Toren laughed too.
Then:
“Especially people.”
“You’re a city guard.”
“I know.”
“That seems like poor planning.”
“It was excellent planning. I got paid to practice.”
Toren looked at his hands.
“I thought if nobody could see I was afraid, I’d be safe.”
“Did it work?”
“Yes.”
That mattered.
He would not lie about it.
“It worked extremely well.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
Toren looked at his son.
“I forgot to stop.”
Their relationship did not heal that evening.
That would have been convenient.
Jori still lied sometimes.
Toren still frightened him sometimes.
Toren apologized.
Then learned not to make apologies into demands for immediate forgiveness.
That was harder.
Years passed.
Things improved.
Slowly.
When Jori was nineteen, someone tried to rob him.
Two men.
An alley.
Toren heard the story afterward.
“What did you do?”
Jori smiled.
“Your face.”
Toren groaned.
“It worked.”
“Of course it worked.”
“They left.”
“Good.”
Jori hesitated.
“Is it bad that I used it?”
Toren looked at him.
“No.”
Jori seemed surprised.
“No?”
“No.”
Toren touched his son’s shoulder.
“Armor is useful.”
He thought for a moment.
“That’s why people make armor.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Toren smiled.
A real one now.
He had practiced.
“You need to know when you’re home.”
Much later, after Toren retired, he kept his old guard uniform in a wooden chest.
His granddaughter discovered it.
She put on the coat.
Far too large.
Then she found his helmet.
She marched into the kitchen.
“I am Grandfather!”
Toren looked up.
She lowered her chin.
Squared her shoulders.
Made her eyes very still.
“DO WHAT I SAY.”
Lysa nearly fell out of her chair laughing.
Toren stared.
Then his granddaughter broke character.
“Was that good?”
He considered.
“Disturbingly.”
She climbed onto his lap.
The terrible face vanished instantly.
Toren kissed the top of her head.
The armor had not disappeared.
It never needed to.
It simply had a place to be kept now.
And a man who finally knew the difference between carrying it and wearing it.
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