a broken crown: an empty room - 547 words

"There you are," Steve exhaled in unsurprised relief. Her material body lowered from the high ceiling as smoothly as it always did. Her one, singular eye tilted, and its expression shifted to worry, and secondhand grief.

 

It was often like this. Too often. Caspian would burst through the door without saying a word, and just walk. Everywhere, somewhere, anywhere - it didn't matter. He was always searching for something. Each corridor, room, and pocket passed, added to his anxiety with every step. The eternal was very particular about the space he was looking for, but he never accepted help.

 

He needed an exact place - but he didn't know what it was, or what it was like. It had to be a certain way, a specific size, and feel a particular way as soon as he saw it, but he couldn't quite place or name any of the characteristics he sought. Maybe he searched for a mirror of his own inner turmoil. Perhaps an opposite. Or who knew - maybe just a place that felt the same as his own solitude and loneliness.

 

Steve slid slowly and carefully closer to Caspian. He had pressed himself as far as he could get into the farthest corner of the space. He sat on the cold, shiny floor, head down and buried into his knees. His dark tail curled tightly around his legs. The shifter's shoulders shook when he heard Steve clear her nonexistent throat.

"What happened?" She inquired cautiously, her voice low. Her soft tone didn't help. Caspian didn't want to talk about it. He rarely did. All of his energy went to fending himself, from himself, and from the world that raged between his ears.

 

Even after so long, he could still hear them laughing at him.

 

A sudden sound of something made Caspian wince. Almost violently so. He lifted his head, his heart skipping rope from the scare. He could see a moving image in the air only momentarily, before it disappeared. Of course. The Athos turned to Steve, turning up his nose and narrowing his gaze. The Interface shimmied happily in place a little as she noticed the man getting up.

 

Good. Worked every time.

 

"How am I supposed to mope here, when you just-" Caspian interrupted himself, and pinched his eyes shut as his face puckered. His shoulders tensed up, as he tried to make sense of the image he had seen only a moment prior. He relaxed himself and opened his eyes. After a few confused blinks, he turned back to Steve.

"Was that a wacky waving inflatable arm waving tube man?" The tone of his voice, combined with his serious facial expression, clashed with the content of his words like two cruise ships. Steve raised her singular brow sharply, both curious and triumphant. She could practically hear the gears turning and grinding against each other within the shifter's skull.

"On a weather report?"

"Eeyup," the Interface affirmed immediately, the confirmation ending in a playful pop. Caspian shook his head and blinked profusely. What?

"Oh, now I have to see this," he finally concurred. He crossed his arms, and leaned on his left leg. The screamingly bright red orb, that some could've called an eye, shifted yet again as Steve's joy nigh radiated from her mechanical form.