Chapter Sixty-Eight: Caring Is Exhausting

Tim and Meg didn't speak a word to each other for days.

Back at the inn in town, the issue of the broken wall was settled with a stern look and a bag of coins from Tim to the owner, and the next day, the pair left.

On their way back to the library, they passed through Riben once more, and stayed at the inn.

Meg headed in first as usual, and payed the girl at the bar for two rooms. Not willing to hang around waiting for Tim, she asked the girl to inform him which room was his, and began to head towards the door upstairs.

As she did however, she was stopped by a man who stepped into her way. He stood a short distance taller than her, with short brown hair, and a steely look in his eye. Under other circumstances Meg might have been intimidated by how he seemed to glare at her, but she was far too emotionally drained to care.

"Are you Meg?" The man asked.

"Who's asking?"

"My name is Peregrine. Though people tend to call me Perry." The man said. "My mother is the owner of this inn." He put out his hand, but pulled it back as it became clear Meg wasn't interested.

"Then yes, I'm Meg. Now if you'd get out the way, I'd like to go to bed."

She then tried to move past him, but he held out his hand in front of her, barring her way.

"Please, I need to talk to you and Tim. It's about my mother."

Meg stopped, and shot a look at him from the corner of her eye.

A minute later, and the two were sat at a table with a drink on the house, joined by Tim.

"So what's this about?" Tim asked. Perry had simply asked him to sit down, and Meg was still refusing to speak with him.

"I heard you were here relatively recently." Perry said, prompting Tim to respond.

"We were."

"So I assume you're aware that the other employees here have requested that my mother take some time off?"

"We are."

"Do you know why?"

"...Because she's old?"

Perry sighed, and a look of melancholy spread across his face for a second, causing Tim to frown.

"I figured as much." Perry said to himself, before continuing. "You've been coming here semi-regularly for quite a while now Tim, and I've heard that mother is quite fond of Meg here, so I thought you both should know."

Meg's attention was now invested in what the man was saying, whereas before she had been half-listening whilst trying to ignore Tim's presence. Tim stayed silent, and the two waited for Perry to continue.

"The reason she's been forced to take a break, and the reason I've now come back to stay, is because while she was working... Mother suffered a spell of dizziness and collapsed."

"Is she alright?" Meg asked, shocked. But Tim simply closed his eyes, and lowered his head solemnly.

"She seems to be fine now. But she's not getting any younger, and as headstrong as she may be, we need to start preparing for the inevitable. I just thought you should be made aware, since I know she won't let anyone else say anything."

Meg sat back with a distraught look on her face, while Perry stared at Tim, who was now looking back at the man, expressionless.

"Meg." Tim said, and she turned a glazed look over to him. "Me and Perry need to talk, you can go to bed now."

After a few seconds, Meg nodded. She stood up, said goodnight to Perry, offered her best wishes, and left the public area.

The two sat in silence for a few minutes. Perry didn't let up his stare, and Tim slowly emptied his glass, before breaking the silence between them.

"I don't want to be up all night Perry. Spit it out."

Perry closed his eyes, and braced himself. Then he began to speak.

"I'm actually relatively good friends with Mr. Jacobson, and I've heard things from both him and mother about you."

"Get on with it."

Perry swallowed, feeling his dry throat rubbing against itself, and listened to the hubbub around them for a moment. Then, quietly, he began his request.

"Tim... C... Can you-"

"No."

Perry stopped, and looked down. With sorrow in his eyes, he whispered.

"That's a lie."

Tim stared at the man coldly. "Then allow me to be clear, I can. But I won't"

Perry's head snapped up, and he looked at Tim with pleading eyes.

"Please, can't you-"

"Give me one reason." Tim cut him off again. "What is it exactly that makes her so special?"

Perry's stoic expression and steely gaze was but a distant memory as he tried desperately to think of something that would appeal to the stone-faced man that hadn't aged a day since Perry had met him.

"She-"

"Everyone has a mum Perry."

At Tim's words, Perry realised that he was being told to give up. There was no answer he could give that would satisfy Tim. If there was a reason he would accept, he would've thought of it himself and done the deed already. Perry hung his head, and after a moment of silence, Tim got up, and left.

As he passed Perry, Tim stopped.

"I'm sorry."

He said softly, before leaving the man to his misery.

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Tim entered his room, and let out a deep sigh. Ever since the last time he was here and informed of the late raider party up North, he had been mired down by emotional baggage, and was starting to feel it weigh on him.

Tim sat down on his bed, and was about to turn in, when a timid knock came at the door.

"...Come in."

After a second, the door opened, and Meg walked into the room, looking very upset. Tim silently watched her as she closed the door behind her, and sat down beside him.

She looked down at the floor, and after a moment of silence, she spoke her concern.

"Helen's going to die." She said quietly, to the point where she could've been talking to herself.

"Yeah."

"And Perry, and Charlie, and Rose, and Thomas. Everyone's going to die."

"Eventually, yeah."

Meg shook her head, and wiped the moisture that was collecting in her eyes, before looking up to face Tim.

"Why? Why do I have to be stuck with you?" She asked, before looking away again, and wiping her eyes once more.

They sat in an awkward silence for a moment, neither quite sure what to say. In the end, Tim was the one to break the silence.

"You know, I don't think your view of how things should be is wrong." He said, tilting his gaze upwards while Meg glanced over at him.

"A world where people are punished for what they've done by an impartial authority, as opposed to some guy running around and murdering whomever he fancies. One where you aren't killed automatically because you happened to grow up in a bad situation and surrounded by worse people. I don't think that's a bad idea."

"...If you think it's a good thing, why'd you have a go at me for it?" Meg asked Tim, clearly still unhappy with how he'd brushed her aside in recent days.

"Because it isn't possible in reality."

"Oh, thanks."

"Well think about it. Groups like that form too large to be handled effectively without people dying, there's nowhere to keep them even if you could, and even if we had somewhere to keep them, you couldn't feed them all without starving innocent people or spending a ridiculous amount of money on food. Reality simply doesn't allow it without cause more suffering than it prevents."

"So basically, 'Great idea! Too bad it's fucking impossible!' Is that it?"

"I never said it was impossible."

"...You said reality doesn't allow it! It's not like I can change the way the world fundamentally functions."

"Why not?" Tim turned his face back down to look at the increasingly irate Meg, who now looked back at him, confused.

"...What?"

"You are the single most powerful human on the planet who isn't a Representative of a God. Why can't you change the world?"

Meg stared back at him in shock. "Me?" She said, incredulously. "I can't do anything like that."

"Why not?"

"Look, I just do random magic by myself, I can't do anything that would have a major impact."

"You were going to destroy the world before."

"I already said that I was wrong, what more-"

"I'm not talking about the morality of it, I'm talking about the scale. How is that any different from trying to change the world for the better?"

"I-It's not as easy as that, destroying things isn't nearly as complex-"

"No-one said it'd be easy. But Meg, you're the one who on multiple occasions has punched a hole through reality and dragged living beings back through. And you're currently working on a project that by your own admission would upend basically everything known about how magic works."

"That's not creating anything though, that's just working on and improving work that other people have done."

"Yeah? Name me one person who has worked something out without any prior knowledge. Anyone can look at a something that happens and say it exists, anything after that about the subject is just working off of that basis. Even the original magic users didn't come up with anything from scratch, they were helped by Metz."

"But, there's no way I'll be able to just jump forward advancement in fields I know nothing about without taking years to study it."

"Yeah? You going anywhere?"

Meg's mouth shut, and Tim lightly sighed.

"Look, just because I'm not as daft as I let people think, that doesn't mean I'm capable of doing anything complex. I can't do magic, I can't do math, reading makes my head hurt and I can't even nail together a barn. For fuck's sake, the first half of my childhood I picked fruit and chopped wood, and the second half I spent like a stray dog, begging for food and trying my best not to then have it taken from me. And after that my life has consisted almost solely of killing things. If I can live my life like that, and end up as I am today, with all my connections and money, in a world where I can do as I please, where I'm limited to only what I'm able to think of... Imagine being in that position, but actually having the intelligence to be able to find ways to improve the world around you."

"..."

"I have power, and with it, I can change the world. But only as far as I can imagine how to. You have the power, and the intelligence to do so much more with it. Your problem is you lack the will to actually use it. If you want the world to be a better place, then change it so it can be."

After that, Tim was silent.

A minute of silence passed, until Meg stood up.

She made her way to the door, but before she opened it, she turned her head back towards Tim.

"I still hate you." She said, giving a small smile.

"Yeah, yeah." Tim said, waving his hand while returning a similar smile, and Meg left.

A few seconds after she was gone, and the door had close, Tim let loose a huge sigh, and flopped down onto the bed.

"I hate dealing with people."

He said to himself, then turned over, and went to sleep.