Priam and His Customers

9 • a little bit of backstory

a little bit of backstory

PRIAM DOESN'T REMEMBER the rest of his name. For as long as he knows, he had always been Priam. Then he opened his café and suddenly he was Mr. Priam, or Owner, or Mr. Owner, or The Owner of The Pit. It was nice to have different names other than Priam. Bossman was, by far, his favorite.

What he does remember is that he met a fae when he first moved into The City. The faes are very fickle things. One had once tricked a passing student to give away his name. Priam gave the student a nickname because that's the least he could do to keep him existing. Another had warped a driver's perception that made him see green light instead of red, and Priam barely had enough time to grab the frozen toddler away from the speeding truck.

Priam is annoyed at the faes' playfulness because it always causes fatalities. It's all games for them. But there's not much he could do, for what could a mere human do against those touched by The Other?

He also suspects that a fae stole the rest of his name.

It made sense, now that he carefully thought about it. His frequent visits at the police station every time an incident occurs at The Pit was a clear testament to that.

At first, he had thought that his name was just hard to pronounce, so he let it be. His former college professors always had difficulty saying his name. But the visits kept repeating the more rambunctious his customers got, and the police still couldn't utter his name right. It was brushed aside as a joke at that time, but it inwardly disturbed him.

That's when he realized that everything he signed, his official papers, his contracts, his logbooks; they only contained one name and a title.

Priam. The Owner of The Pit.

The title is simple, though he couldn't recall when he started using it.

Nevertheless, it's not like the lost name took something else from him. It's just a name. He could just get another one.

Maybe.

At least it wasn't a demon who stole his name. They're very over-protective of things they've stolen.

Humor, in particular, has taken a liking to Priam's limited-edition bobblehead figurine of a black cat. He swiped it from the shelves and Priam pretended not to notice. The demon had helped him move in the heavy equipment after the boiling incident, so stolen figurines aren't much of a problem.

Anyway, the point is: stolen names are just regular occurrences. It'll be fine as long as one has backup titles.

____

It's 3 PM on a Saturday.

"Uhm." He squirms uncomfortably, eyes darting anywhere but the woman adamant in pulling him into very aggressive eye contact. "...Can I help you, dear customer?"

"Where have you been?!" the woman demands. She looks very angry for someone he'd just met four minutes ago. "You disappeared for years! Everybody thought you were gone for good!"

Okay, hold up. What.

"Excuse me?" He gives her an incredulous look. "I think you're mistaken. I've never met you before in my life."