In Other Lands

by Sarah Rees Brennan

The other had a bright vacant smile that someone, finding it empty, had filled with light.

“It’s my thing that’s about to go on fire, and not yours,”

Elliot thought it was possible she was messing with him. What a babe.

Mocking people who didn’t get it was kind of pointless, like throwing sharp weapons into pudding.

Dale continued making cheerful oblivion an art form.

Serene is extremely intelligent and by all accounts really good at stabbing stuff and whatever.

Elliot’s statement of some shatteringly obvious facts

“I don’t understand,” said Luke. “I don’t know how to express the depths of my surprise,” Elliot told him.

“My new friends, meet,” Elliot said grandly, “some guy.”

Besides, is Mr Dustlaid going to punish me? Really? He can barely summon up the will to live.

“Someone built the wall,” said Elliot. “Because it’s a wall, and not a rock. Rocks are always there. Walls are not. Someone has to make a wall. Nobody has to make a rock.”

Luke must have confused the issue somehow. His command of the English language is not what it could be.

“Sometimes people like to do this cool thing with words called ‘reading them,’” Elliot explained. “These treaties say different things.”

“We want peace between these two peoples,” he said. “A peace achieved like this won’t hold.” “And how would you know?” the captain asked. “You’re a child.” “I know because it’s . . . really obvious?” said Elliot,

“This is a book. You open it like this, see? Not along the spine. That’s very important.”

“The thing is,” Elliot announced. “I think I left the oven on in—”

They looked like practise sketches of Luke, before the artist had got him right.

“See, you two are not original souls. Kids at my old school used to hit me all the time, I have collected the data on this subject, and I am in the perfect position to tell you that it has no useful results whatsoever. It just means I’m bleeding as well as annoying.”

You are useless. You are entirely without use,”

“Nobody asked you to breathe out IQ-lowering air in my vicinity,”

“He looks like a prince,” she continued wistfully. “Well,” said Elliot. “The monarchy are historically inbred.”

“Serene is, what’s the word I’m searching for here, oh yes, ALSO FOURTEEN.”

He had to admit that he was desperately worried about both of them: he had to admit that Luke was Elliot’s friend. It was so embarrassing. Luke could never know. Elliot decided that he was just going to be Luke’s friend very sneakily.

“Sorry, um. It’s not you, it’s me,” Elliot said. “I don’t like you.”

“Okay, cool, good for you,” said Elliot. “But what if . . . just for instance. . . a guy didn’t aspire to come pure to his marriage bed? Like, if he was no true gentleman, but a hussy? Is there any advice for hussies in this library? I need advice for hussies.”

“I can read Luke like a book,” Elliot told him evasively. “And I read books extremely well. Speaking of which, do you have any instructive pornographic literature?”

Elliot also found war very traumatizing, but he’d thought that Luke would be more used to it by now. He reached out in the dark, found Luke’s shoulder, and patted it.

“So you were . . . serious about . . . all that?” asked Luke Sunborn, secret gossip fiend.

“Luke, please don’t develop an eating disorder,” Elliot begged. “We do not have any therapists in this world!”

“I don’t particularly care about the redheaded slut you’re amusing yourself with,”

“I was saddened to hear Serene had launched a successful attack on the citadel of your virtue,” Swift said. She sounded genuinely grieved. Elliot was grieved to be having this discussion.

“I will remember that. In fact, I have a feeling this scene will come back to me again and again. And again and again and again.”

“I . . . actually don’t have a response to that remark,” Elliot said.

“We are two souls with but a single thought, baby,”

“Ha!” said Elliot to Dale. “That was my girlfriend . . . killing a sentient creature. But for good reason and showing very praiseworthy athletic skill!”

There was a thump and a flutter of falling leaves, like a small localized storm of greenery. Dale Wavechaser had fallen out of his tree.

Luke was still sulking over the horrific indignity of a unicorn seeing his bod.

Luke and Serene continued to make Elliot exercise, which was the despair cherry on the sundae of misery that was his life,

“But I have heard that nobody likes him, and he is dull. And he has an unhealthy and morbid attachment to lettuce.

“Thanks for this disgusting object I didn’t ask for and don’t want, by the way.”

He was used to telling people they were unintelligent and leaving at speed.

“How fascinating, please go on,” Elliot encouraged Dale gently, and stabbed himself in the arm with a butter knife.

Whoosh! went the bluebird of sarcasm, zooming miles above Dale’s head.

“You’re not watching,” Luke said crabbily later. “You’re not wrong!” Elliot called back.

“Hi, I need something,” he said. “Will something be another living nightmare?” “It’s a tiny thing!” “Is it a tiny living nightmare?”

one of those dawns that appeared to have been dropped on the floor and retrieved covered in dust.

Luke did not go off to excel at physical activities. Luke chose to sit in the dirt, because that was a super fun time.

“Listen up, moron,” Elliot said tenderly.

“It’s a rock band,” Elliot answered. Luke gave him a look that clearly conveyed Luke’s disdain for the idea that stones could form a group.

Elliot was trying to teach himself trollish via a two-hundred-year-old book by a man who’d had a traumatic break-up with a troll. This meant a lot of commentary along the lines of “This is how trolls say I love you. FOOTNOTE: BUT THEY DON’T MEAN IT!”