THOTH & MORVEREN
Thoth wasn’t used to people inferring he was slow; usually, people insulted him at the other end of the intelligence spectrum. He frowned as he tried to process the comment.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he told Tristan, before turning back to Danny. “You’re, what, ten?” Without giving the younger boy a chance to answer, he turned back to Tris. “He’s, like, ten,” he said dismissively, as if that explained everything. As usual, Thoth’s thought process didn’t quite add up to what the rest of the world deemed ‘common sense’. He neglected to mention, or had forgotten, or deemed it irrelevant that he had been bullied by Tarquin’s gang by a much younger age. Danny was only about ten, therefore Tarquin’s actions were unacceptable and someone had to make a stand for him. Thoth was fourteen and could take care of himself (even though he couldn’t). That made sense, in his head.
His frown deepened at Tristan’s last question; he couldn’t work out if it was rhetorical. Or sarcastic. Sarcasm was something he could usually get, but the question could feasibly be genuine, which threw him. He decided to assume it was serious but respond sarcastically, to cover all bases.
“Because I’m totally a rule-setter,” he replied with one eyebrow quirked, “and you’re definitely the rule-following type.”
At this point he noticed for the first time that Morveren was chewing the bottom of his walking sick to pieces, and distracted himself by trying to shaking her off it. Assuming it was a game, she hung on tightly and growled with pleasure. Unable to dislodge her, Thoth reached into his pocket for something to distract her with. He pulled out a live mouse, a live gecko, a piece of shed snake skin, a piece of string, and a fragment of bone before he came across the best investment he had ever made: a tiny little rug from a doll’s house. His niece’s doll’s house, to be precise. Morveren dropped the stick like a hot potato and sat bolt upright, her ears pointing forward, her jaw gaping and her beady green eyes fixed unwaveringly on the minute rug. Thoth threw it down the stairs and watched her yelp with excitement and half-run, half-tumble down after it.
Now that they were here, he had no idea what to do. His plan had consisted of getting Tristan; beyond that, he hadn’t actually thought about what they were going to do to Tarquin. Tris had also unintentionally raised a very real issue. Thoth stopped Tris intervening when Tarquin bullied him because he believed Tarquin would be worse for it; whatever they did, they had to make sure it didn’t backfire on Danny. This thought process flashed vividly across Thoth’s face as he glanced at the young boy with a concerned look he usually only reserved for his animals. He never normally needed to be concerned about Tristan, and didn’t really care about many other people.
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