Silver and Malleus (pt1)

Upon meeting the infant Silver for the fist time Malleus’ initial reaction is, “…What is this strange creature? It looks like a hairless monkey.”

Lilia says that Silver is adorable, but Malleus seems unconvinced.

Lilia immediately leaves the infant alone with an unwilling Malleus (“You would ask ME? To watch THIS?”) as he must go solve the mystery of how something can be both “powdered” and yet “milk” at the same time.

Malleus asks, “This creature is so tiny-what if I touch it and it breaks?,” and Lilia responds that he need only “pat him gentle and sing him a lullaby.”

Malleus calling after Lilia awakens Silver, and he hums a lullaby until Silver falls asleep again (“Please come back soon, Lilia”).

Malleus is unimpressed by Lilia’s adoption of the abandoned infant: “That doesn’t mean you had to raise the thing. You could have brought it to a human land and let them take care of it.” When Lilia says he wants to know if he is truly capable of loving a human Malleus responds, “What if you aren’t?”

When Lilia threatens to give the stewed grains and vegetables he feeds to Silver “a few creative twists” with armadillo meat and powdered blacknewt, Malleus advises against it, saying that he will arrange for regular deliveries of baby food from the castle, as he is unsettled by the thought of Lilia shouldering the responsibility on his own.

Lilia teases Malleus about this sudden interest in helping, saying, “I thought you disliked humans. What brought about this change of heart?,” but Malleus responds, “If the baby grows weaker, it would make you sad, would it not?” (Lilia: “…you’re a sweet boy, Malleus.”)

It seems it was Malleus who was able to guide Silver in using magic for the first time where Lilia could not, telling him and Sebek to control their breathing, extend out a hand and picture themselves winding thread around the length of a spoon that they are trying to move with magic.

The exercise works for Silver and only Silver, with Sebek saying he was unable to consciously use magic for another year and a half following that day.

It seems that it was also Malleus who taught Silver how to dance: he talks about an unnamed person who visited his and Lilia’s home in the woods, and whom Lilia asked to instruct Silver, who had been practicing on his own with a log. While Silver does not name him his speech patterns align with Malleus, and we have never heard of anyone else but Sebek and Baul visiting the cottage.

Silver says that the unnamed dance instructor spent all day teaching both him and Lilia how to dance.