Branches, Birches and Junipers/Chapter 8

“Uggggghhhhhhh,” Polynices threw himself into a heap on Mark’s dorm floor. “Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh, uugugugghhhhhh.”

“You okay?” Mark asked. He grabbed the office chair at his desk, spun it around, and sat up on it, legs crossed.

Polynices pulled himself up, looking at his vessel with an agape face. “Excuse me? You’re asking if I’m okay? You should be asking whether you’re okay! That was terrible!” The demon leaned back, covering his face with an overdramatic double-facepalm, and tumbled backwards into a conveniently placed beanbag. “Not the play, mind you, that girl’s reaction! And not her reaction to the play, either, her crying. And not her crying about the play, t–“

His Marlinchen blinked.

Polynices gulped to catch his breath, and continued screaming. “Argh!! Ugh!!!!!” he said with so much annoyance that the Narrator deemed it appropriate to use excessive exclamation marks. “Hey… look, please, kid, listen up. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. Here I am, sent down to help you, and my only plan backfires before it even begins?”

Polynices stretched his arms out, and flung himself forward onto the floor. He lay, limbs outstretched, his brown hair flopping down with him.

Mark edged his chair a little forward, and prodded the demon’s side with a foot. “Look, it’s not your fault,” he said.

The demon looked upwards. “It’s… not?”

“Well, you didn’t know what would happen, right?”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I did terribly.”

“… but that doesn’t make you a terrible person.”

Polynices propped the top half of himself up. “You’re too kind and forgiving,” he mumbled, before speaking up a little more. “And let me have my little angst moment, please.”

So Mark let Polynices talk and flail. The guy started pondering how troubled his life really was. It was so problematic that even his demons had demons. Polynices simply talked without breaks, but all Mark heard was words and phrases mumbled up together.

“You’ve awfully helpful for a demon,” Mark said quietly, while Polynices paused for breath after a particularly long sentence.

The demon looked at him with something reminiscent of a scowl mingled with a pained smile. “Of course I’m helpful! Or, at least, of course I try to be helpful! Do you seriously expect me to be anything else?”

“No,” Mark frowned. “But I was thinking.”

“As you do.”

“Okay, so I was thinking, right? And don’t like, demons usually sign deals for their own benefit? Right now, you could just be ‘tough luck, kid, go find another way to be Marlinchen’, but here you are, stressing!” the boy waved his right arm over at Polynices, who was still lying like a forgotten potato chip on the floor.

Here you are, stressing.

The Juniper’s words rang in Polynices’ ear. Nick’s eyes widened, and he slowly pushed himself up. Slowly, steadily, he was back on his feet, but soon tumbled back into the mountain of cushions.

At 16, would this have been the kind of person he wanted helping him? No, of course not. He wasn’t being a help, he was being an absolute embarrassment. And why was he the one feeling terrible, anyway? It wasn’t his life being affected. That already had been something gone from him, two years past.

“I don’t want to stress,” Polynices said, shaking his head pejoratively, more at himself than the Juniper kid. “I want to help. Let me help.”

He sounded so desperate and broken. Mark almost pitied him. “Hey, you’ll be okay, okay?” Mark said. “Look, I’m going to go out, and… I dunno, quit my job, get an ice-cream, hope that the girl working at the pet shop isn’t working today so she doesn’t think I’m trying to hit on her while I’m just trying to talk to birds.” He sighed. “I don’t know, you seem like you need to chill. I’ll give you some space.”

And so, Mark went out, and did all of these things. His boss seemed a little disappointed when Mark quit his job, but working at a coffeeshop would just amount to stress upon stress. The ice-cream shop ran out of blueberry, and Mark unfortunately had to settle for strawberry. Finally, at the pet shop, the girl was there. Mark just headed straight for the birds. The birds told him that he looked like a mess, and he replied with a “thank you”.

It was an oddly serene thing to do. No demons following, no friends accompanying. Just himself. Sure, there was the looming Marlinchen issue, but in those few hours, there was normality.

——————————

“Wow, you really trust people,” Polynices said, once Mark returned. “Like, your computer! It has no lock! I’m amazed but also terrified for you.”

Mark blinked, spotting Polynices tapping at the keyboard. “Why are you on my laptop?”

“Oh, just research! Let me tell you, WiFi here is brilliant! Lucky legacies…” he closed his webpages and gingerly placed Mark’s laptop back on the desk. “I did some research on your issues! The amount of databases and the amount of information is more than astounding!”

The demon grinned with a new sense of hope.

“Look, I’m helping! I’m not pathetic or weak or… anything!” Polynices gestured towards himself. “I can fix your Marlinchen state, I promise. Let me talk.”

He raised a hand pointedly, looking as if he was some omniscient higher power, ready to bless the world with miraculous knowledge or something cheesy like that. Then the demon coughed.

“Look kid, you’re only a Marlinchen when you think yourself as Marlinchen. You never cried tears of blood before you were told your destiny, am I right?”

Mark plopped himself down on the floor onto a cushion. “No... so if Lea knows she might be the next Marlinchen, would she cry tears of blood?”

A shrug. “Potentially. Potentially not. It all depends on whether she feels like Marlinchen, I suppose. These guides were helpful, but they’re also rather vague: rather like the fairytales that shape this world.”

“But wait, I think of myself as Marlinchen. I should be crying, shouldn’t I, right?”

With that, Nick let out a deep sigh. “Now, that’s the golden question. Theoretically, you grew up with Marlinchen. Furthermore, you’ve signed the book, sealed your destiny. Heck, sometimes you even tell people that you’re Marlinchen before you tell them you’re Mark. Marlinchen defines your life, your every move, and yet, the classic curse of Marlinchen evades you.”

The Juniper boy looked at him nervously.

“Confidence,” Polynices announced, his word reverberating. His tone was sharp and didactic, like one of those politicians who rallied people with lies. “You’ve lost your confidence, I think. I’ve read the reports. Being Marlinchen isn’t just about being dutiful and obedient. It’s about trusting people… and most importantly, trusting yourself. It’s realising that you’re someone with your own agency and identity.”

“Look, you’re lost,” the demon continued. “You’ve questioned yourself in your role of Marlinchen as well, and because of that, you’ve questioned yourself in general. Have you been anything other than your legacy, Mark? Do you even have a personality outside of that? Because that is what we need to fix, desperately.”

Finally, Nick scrunched his face up. “Look, I might be your friendly, helpful demon, but I’m completely sure that I’m unsure that I’m sure about everything. In other words, I think we need a second opinion."

Mark frowned. "Icarus has friends... and they're solid friends. Like, they keep your secrets and support you sort of friends. I guess that's a start?"