An Oil Lamp Flickers

The Moon was high in the sky by the time Pan and Vic made their way back to Pan's neck of the woods. There were no crickets out that night, but Pan could hear the Pallas Owls screeching in the trees. While the birds would, occasionally, startle Pan, they were little more than an annoyance. To the Questian, though, they were a terror.
"Mah-AH-ah!" screeched the predator of night.
"Oh, ah!" cried Vic, who was now right behind Pan, and hunching so that he breathed right on Pan's neck.
This went on for several minutes before Pan, clutching his silent flute, turned on the Sage.
"Look, Vic, I'll feed you, but it would be very nice if you could, you know, not do that."
Vic rotated his head, not unlike an owl. "D-d-d-do what?"
Pan wanted to explain how difficult it is for children to be brave when adults are fearful, how disquieting it was for him when the grown-up was so, well, disquiet. But Pan did not know these were the things that bothered him, since all he could understand was his own annoyance, so he said, "Just calm down, huh?"
Vic wrung his hands. "Okay."
"Okay."
They were back on the move, and his father's barns were in sight, the heavy oak strong on the horizon. Pan didn't realize he started walking faster, especially when he saw the hazy glow of a candle in the window.
"Slow down," Vic forced out between pants. He was almost limping, or loping, now. Pan thought it might be called a lomping.
"We're almost there," Pan told the ponderous Questian.
"Well we don't have to run, then," Vic spat, quickly followed by a screech, a rustle of grass and, Pan was almost certain, a weakening squeak. "On the other hand..." Vic picked up the pace considerably.
In short time they arrived at Pan's father's house. It was a small place, a bedroom for each of them, a kitchen and a small parlor. An oil lamp blazed in this front room as Pan and Vic entered. Pan's father was sitting next to it, tying a fishing fly.
"Evening, Dad," Pan said.
"Hullo, there, Loafer," said Pan's father as he glanced up, fixing his gaze on Vic. "And who are you, stranger?" Pan's father set down the fly and took to his feet, then straightened his back, then raised his head. His brows settled into place last, forming a look of discernment more than anger.
"I'm Vic, the Sage," Vic said as he offered his hand.
Pan's father took his wrist and shook. "Rusby McKennitt. Pan's father," said Pan's father, who gave another shake and said, "And you're a Questian."
"Oh, yes, I am. I'm afraid. Yes." Vic looked as though he was trying to make his muddy clothes, indeed himself, dissolve into the deep shadows thrown by the single lamp.
"You're always saying we should be generous, Dad, and Vic said he was hungry, so I thought we could give him a crust, and you say to be generous. Right?" Pan said to his father's eyes, trying to pull them from the Questian.
Pan's father's look relaxed, if only in his brow, and he gave his son a little smile. "I do, don't I? Alright, Questian, you may have some food now, and a little to take with you. But then you have to go."
Vic the Questian frowned a sad, calloused sort of frown. "Yes, I suppose."
Pan took him to the kitchen and gave him a hearty heel of bread, along with a little hard cheese, a few wild onions and waybread.
"Thank you so much," said Vic, who was much less inquisitive when he had some food before him.
"Don't mention it," said Pan's father, who did not really go back to his fishing fly. "Really. Don't."
Vic took on an air of self-importance, but only one that is fully contained in self. "I don't mention, but rather inquire. And when I am enjoined, I answer. But I do not simply 'mention.'"
"Hmm," was Pan's father's only response.
The lamp flickered as a wind moved across the chimney.
"Portentous, that," Vic said through a bite of bread.
"What?" asked Pan, not noticing his father's look of exasperation.
Vic swallowed his bread. "Well, you see, I've heard, in sundry places, that a sudden wind flickering an oil lamp is a rather, ominous, sign."
Pan's father looked away from the fishing fly, then back. "Hmm."
A few hundred yards away, three figures, silhouetted by the waning moon, noticed the yellow twinkle.
"Rather like the stars," mused Billiam.
"What?" asked Bubula.
"The lamp, twinkling like that. It's like a little, yellow star just resting on the horizon, as if a shooting star could shoot back up."
At this, Aeric shot Billiam a scowl. "Would you shut up with that crap?"
"Hmm," was all Billiam said.
"Okay," said Aeric, turning his gaze from Billiam by degrees. "We're going to take the sissy's flute to catch the moot ourselves."
Bubula's lips formed a smile, but no sparkle entered his eyes. "Good idea."
"Except none of us can play," said Billiam, who wasn't only uncomfortable with the plan, but rather bored.
"Then we'll get him to play," Aeric growled. He motioned for the other two to follow him as he approached the house, staying in the tall grass and trees' shadows. When they finally arrived at the house, Aeric spied through the open window.
"Is his dad there?" asked Bubula, not wanting to incur an adult's wrath, let alone one as burly as Pan's father's.
Instead, he caught the conniption of Aeric, who smacked the idiot while putting the other hand over his mouth. Billiam merely rolled his eyes at Bubula.
Aeric glowered at Bubula. "Yes, he's there," whispered the little ringleader, looking back at the scene. He stared for a second, glared for a second, squinted for a second, and shuddered for a moment. "Guys!" he said in something like a stage whisper.
"What?" asked Billiam, rolling his eyes at Aeric.
"There's a Questian in there!" Aeric was elated.
Billiam met his ebullience with apathy, Bubula with confusion.
"So?" asked Bubula through Billiam's hand.
Aeric sneered a coyote sneer and walked up to the front door. Billiam would have stopped him, for fear of a hassle, but was too intrigued. Bubula was still muffled. Aeric knocked at the door.
The door swung open, and Pan's father filled the frame. "Yes, Aeric?" There was no humor in the bear voice, but no panic, either.
"Just thought I'd check on my father's sharecropper," Aeric beamed a buzzard's beam.
"You and your father can't come by here unless you ask if it's okay first. You know that." The door only creaked a little on its brass hinges.
"Could a Questian?"
The brass hinges glinted, seeming to catch the fire in the big man's eyes.
"Questian?" His tone betrayed nothing.
Aeric made of show of trying to look around the bulky man's frame. "Yeah. There's one in there, isn't there? And I'm sure everyone would like to know how generous you are toward travelers." A gator's grin was taking up residence on the boy's face.
The man sighed. "What do you want, Aeric?"
"Just to talk to your son, sir."
Pan's father started closing the door, sighing with the brass and oak. It was stopped by Pan.
"It's okay, Dad. I'll talk to him." Pan had somehow already moved around the big man's legs, looking Aeric in the eye.
"Pan," said Aeric, "we were wondering if you could do us a favor."
"Yeah, a real nice favor," chuckled Bubula.
Aeric looked several daggers at his idiot, then turned back to Pan. "We would like a concert, if you would."
"No." Pan's father's word fell like a stone in a well, a cello bow pulled too quickly. Pan's father's brow was not knit in concentration, but was certainly knit.
Aeric was shocked. "My father..."
"Will do nothing. I don't know what you think you're doing, Aeric, but you are not welcome here and my son will not be playing for you. He will never play for you." The sharecropper, plower, earth-tiller glared at each ruffian in turn. "Never. Now, leave."
The boys, in various stages of fear and frustration, turned. Only Aeric spoke, kicking a tuft of grass and muttering, "We'll see."
A Pallas owl hooted. "I'm so sorry," said Vic.
Pan's father closed the door. "Me too." He picked up his fishing fly, inspected it and went back to work. "Leave as soon as you can."
"Dad, I," Pan started, the words seizing in his throat.
"No, Pan, you did alright."
The words, the very texture of the words, reassured Pan, but still he wished for a smile.
Pan's father did not say another word, and went to bed minutes later, after Vic had left. Pan did not get much sleep that night. He was dreading next day's school.