Manly Hero

~ prologue ~

THE MORNING OF HIS THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY, Manly Hero woke to find that he had nearly come to terms with the facts of his life. They were as follows:

Firstly, his parents – almost certainly inebriated at the time – had inappropriately and anti-prophetically named him Manly, and no one was ever going to give him a half-decent nickname.

Secondlier, he was a Hero with a capital ‘H.’ The last, and very likely the shortest, in a long, illustrious line of Heros. Manly’s family, alongside the Legends and the Champions, had long-ago sworn a solemn oath, promising to protect the Queendom of Aldendhar against all manner of evil. Specifically, the Hero family had dedicated themselves to dealing with monsters. Dragons being a prime example, but there were also demons, swamp goblins, hydras, the unnaturally undead, the naturally undead gone rogue, bad unicorns, etcetera, etcetera. It was a rather long list.

Thirdlisome, Manly was never going to live a mystery-filled, quest- questing, monster-hunting life of adventure, for monsters no longer existed in Aldendhar. Manly’s grandfather, with a little help from his contemporaries, had managed to rid the entire queendom of every last monstrous thing, ushering in an unparalleled age of prosperity and boredom in the process. There were, of course, a few ogres left here and there, some tourist-attraction trolls chained up under bridges, and a centaur or two poking around the darker parts of the forest. But, technically, these didn’t count as monsters, as long as they kept to themselves and didn’t do anything... monstrous.

Fourthlilike, Manly was never going to grow up and marry Amelia Champion, his childhood crush and eternal dream-girl. In fact, forget marry! It was increasingly unlikely that they would ever speak again. Amelia had grown into a beautiful, fashionable socialite; the toast of Thrakis and darling of the tabloids. Manly, on the other hand... well...

Fifthliwise, Manly Hero was the Curator of Butterflies at the Royal Museum of Arcanonatural History.

And so, by the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Manly was pleased to find that he was honestly and truly, almost okay with all of this. So very close to ‘okay’ that it nearly counted as being actually okay with it all.

Almost.

~ one ~

MANLY SAT ON THE EDGE of his deep featherbed, wearing his favorite striped nightshirt and cap, and forced his eyes open against the morning light. Thirty, he thought groggily, feels very much like twenty-nine. It was a mildly disappointing realization.

For several weeks now, Manly had been experiencing a peculiar anticipation in regards to his birthday, as if something truly life- changing were about to happen. He hadn’t yet decided if the feeling was exciting or ominous. A small part of him had hoped that turning thirty would magically make him smarter, or wiser, or... taller. Make him amazinger, somehow.

He glanced over the edge of the bed at his dangling feet, toes barely reaching the floor. Not taller, then, he thought ruefully. But, I suppose the day is still young.

“It’s an excited feeling,” he decided aloud, nodding to himself in encouragement. “Today is going to be a very good birthday, indeed.”

But a good birthday, like any good day, had to start with priorities first: tea. Manly had purchased a new Thuvian breakfast blend from his favorite teashop the day before. It was embarrassingly expensive, but he had excused it as a present to himself. He forced himself up from the bed and stumbled sleepily into his kitchen, eager to try it out.

‘Kitchen’ was a very generous term for the two shallow cabinets, tiny wood stove, narrow prepping table, and small cold-cupboard wedged into a single corner of his apartment’s main room. (Manly thought of it as his kitchelividining room.) Though quite compact, it was functional enough to prepare tea and a decent birthday breakfast.

Besides, Manly thought, as he took one of the kitchen chairs and stood on it, giving himself the necessary reach to retrieve his copper kettle from its special shelf. There is nothing wrong with being just a little small.

After boiling water and setting the tea to steep, he opened the cold- cupboard. His mother had insisted he add it during the remodel, and now, though he would never admit it to her, it was something he couldn’t imagine living without. Inside the cold-cupboard were truffle-fed Heffenshire bacon slices, local cream, a stinky yet delicious cheese, a carrot from Mr. Yaffle, leftovers from the great little stew shack down the street, and an egg. An egg! Yup, an omelet would make a nice birthday breakfast. A single megahen egg he’d picked up the day before at the Cherry Hill peasant’s market. He added a little cream, a little cheese, and some oregano. He considered the carrot, but didn’t want to go too crazy. He poured the mix into a cast-iron frying pan he’d inherited from his grandmother, set it over his small wood stove, and topped it with bacon. Voilà! Perfect.

As breakfast cooked, Manly surveyed his apartment. It was part of an ornate old mansion that had been converted into a lodging house. Quite a common situation here on Cherry Hill, a formerly posh section of town that was now popular with artists of the struggling variety. It was a vibrant community, brimming with musicians, painters, and people who spent vast amounts of time experimenting with fringe magic and smoking whatever they could burn. With his family’s name and money, Manly could have lived almost anywhere he liked, but that was one of the reasons he’d chosen Cherry Hill. To be away from all the money, and – if he was honest with himself – to have a little distance from his family and his noble upbringing.

“How can you want to live up there?” his mother had asked. “People will think you are a drug-addict or a... a poet!”

“I don’t really care what people think,” Manly had replied.

At this assertion the Lady Hero had nearly fainted.

The only way Manly could convince his mother to accept his choice, without letting her feel like a gigantic social failure, was to give her control over decorating his apartment. It had, of course, turned into a full-scale remodel.

For three months Manly’s life had been consumed by candle consultants, fabric experts, and rare woods people. Not to mention the twitchy lady who had spent an entire afternoon smelling the walls, making the contractor rip out ‘spiritually rotten’ sections. She had specialized in Décor Magic, a branch of the mystical arts that Manly’s friend Cronimus found embarrassing, insisting that it gave real magic a bad name.

The whole ordeal must have cost his mother a small fortune, but in the end Manly supposed it had turned out alright. Light blue walls that were specifically hued to accentuate his skin tone; fashionably ornate furniture that was hopelessly uncomfortable to sit on; and highly appropriate, completely uninspiring paintings hanging here and there about the space. Not the artsy apartment Manly had hoped for, but it was nice in its own way. Like a picture. Except for one, tiny detail.

The head decorator had been so enamored of the reclaimed hardwood flooring that he had refused to allow Manly a rug of any kind. “Bug farms,” the man had taken to calling them whenever Manly tried to gently broach the subject. “Here?!” the decorator would ask with a shudder and a grand gesture. “You want a bug farm here, in this domestic temple?!” It nearly came to blows – well, emotional blows anyway – before the Lady Hero took Manly aside and pointed out that once the whole process was finished, and the decorator long gone, Manly could “buy any hideous carpet in the entire godsdamned world.”

But, with no functional concept of style to call his own, Manly had still not found the ‘bug farm’ of his dreams. He had grown increasingly convinced that this chronic ruglessness was the source of the vague, un-grounded feeling that had haunted his life of late. He resolved, for the umpteenth time, to simply make a decision and buy the first functional rug he found. It seemed like the adult thing to do. A thirty-year-old should definitely own a rug.

He turned his attention back to the sizzling omelet, but, as he did, something on the floor by the front door caught Manly’s attention. It was a small, powder blue envelope.

He froze at the sight of it. He knew exactly what it was without needing to pick it up. He knew how fine the antique paper would feel, how precise and perfect the handwriting on the card inside would be, and how that card would carry the faintest hint of a scent that would transport Manly back in time.

For that little, powder blue envelope contained a very special birthday card. It was from Manly’s long-deceased grandmother, Sophia Hero.

And, Manly knew, it was the last such card he would ever receive.