a broken crown: treasures in the trash - 3350 words

Kiri skipped along the pathway that had been narrowed by masses of people. She eyed stalls, their wares, and sellers curiously as she passed them. The Guild's open market brought together so many different people from all around the Paperverse, but the guild buildings themselves could only hold so much. A line after line of stalls bled from Pavia's guild hall, every booth more colorful than the last. It was its own kind of miracle how all these sellers were able to withstand the desert heat outside, but for everyone's fortune, the night was closing in, and the air had started to cool. It would become frigid quite quickly, but for now, it was pleasant enough.

 

The ginger-haired elf scoured the offerings around her. She didn't have that much gold with her, so she had to be extra careful in what she chose to get. She remembered someone mentioning window shopping, that allegedly took no currency at all. Kiri had brushed it off as a strange joke. She didn't understand such persistent urge to purchase windows, and to her knowledge, they weren't free, either.

 

Suddenly she came to a stop, nearly falling over while doing so. Kiri turned on her heels and retraced her steps, until she had returned to the sight that forced her to do a double take. She hadn't really thought much of the abrupt gap between one stall and the next, and had just kept going.

 

Except, it wasn't a gap. A singular, wooden door stood between two booths, as if thinking that it somehow belonged there. Not attached to anything, it was an anomaly. Kiri squinted as she scanned its painted surface, navy blue in color.

 

She knew exactly what it was - but why was it here? It wasn't like Caspian let just anyone in his ship for the reasons he had, whatever those might've been. In addition to the ones she already knew. Steve came to mind. She wouldn't go that far though, would she?

 

Kiri's thoughts drifted just like her gaze did. No, actually, Steve would. She did whatever the heck she wanted. The elf snapped herself back to the situation at hand, and leaned in to knock on the door.

 

"DON'T YOU DARE TO TOUCH THAT!"

 

The sudden, muffled outburst made Kiri jump back in surprise. She recognized the voice - and hoped that Steve wasn't screaming at Caspian for a change. The door opened, wailing on its hinges, and a small person flew out in an impressive arc. Steve's big, red eye followed right at their flying heels. "AND STAY O-- oh, miss Kiri! Please, come in."

 

Despite the Artificial Intelligence Interface's invitation, the door now in turn slammed shut as soon as Steve retreated back into the ship looming within it. The woman looked at the lone, closed doorway, confused as ever. The door opened again, and she flinched.

 

"I apologize. I need more hands," Steve explained her rudeness, although it didn't really add up. Not if Kiri believed the mess of a man that called himself Caspian. She hadn't seen these so-called dozens of hands, but apparently Steve had at least a dozen.

 

Climbing up the few stairs to the lobby's center, she realized that she hadn't been lied to. Steve truly seemed to have all her hands full with multiple people and objects - and there were many of them, both mechanical hands, and the things she had to deal with. All except one of the hallways to and from the lobby had been barred up with something that seemed to be metal, and decorated with black-and-yellow-striped tape across their whole mass diagonally. Kiri didn't recognize any of the people the AI interacted with, but she was quickly redirected to someone she did.

 

Right where Steve had nonchalantly pointed at, Caspian leaned on a metal railing with his lower back - on his phone, like always.

 

"Caspian!" Kiri called his name and waved. Startled, the eternal nearly fell backwards to the lobby's lower levels. His surprise didn't help with anything else outside that, as he managed to fumble his phone down instead. Caspian watched the fall of the brick of plastic and tech into the darkness below, distraught, as though he had lost his keys into a drain.

 

Still, there was no sound - and quickly after a mechanical arm lifted from the shadows, and plopped the cursed thing back on Caspian's opened palms.

 

"See what I mean?" Steve remarked with a slight smile in her voice, before she returned to... whatever she was doing. The elf felt a little bad for a passing moment for causing even more ruckus than what was already there. She walked over to her tall friend, noticing something strange.

 

"Why are you behind bars?" Kiri leaned on the comically large, vertical metal bars with her forearms. The gaps between them were large enough for her to effortlessly slip through - though she presumed that doing that wouldn't be polite. They must've been there for a reason.

 

Caspian lifted his eyes from his phone. He finally put it away, shoving it into his pocket. "Because I can't throw anything away. Or so I've heard."

 

"You absolutely can not," Steve raised her voice to reach over the constant murmur. "We're both drowning in the things you keep stealing."

 

"Oi!" Caspian objected. She wasn't lying, but not everyone needed to know.

 

The AI groaned. "Accidentally or not, Sir."

 

The shifter crossed his arms and huffed: "The ship's endless, Steve."

 

"And you still store everything in the lobby," Steve argued back instantly.

 

Caspian had nothing to add or correct. He did indeed do that. It was an out of sight, out of mind thing. If he didn't see the things he had accidentally grabbed, he would never remember to return them.

 

...not that he actually did. It was a rarity for him to return any of the things he seized without meaning to. He simply couldn't stomach the thought of the anger that would be directed at him if he did - even though it would probably be a lot less if he didn't let that fear dictate his doings so strongly. On the other hand, such was nothing new under the artificial starlight he spent so much time in.

 

Kiri glanced at Steve, and turned back to Caspian. "Isn't that a bit of an unfair reason to keep you locked up?" She whispered, but didn't really try to keep her voice down. Just enough that the unusual noise of the room somewhat masked it.

 

The Athos raised one of his brows at the elf. He then proceeded to pry himself through the bars. It wasn't as smooth as it would've been for a human-sized person, but it still was extremely easy for a prison break. Seeing the neonpole now out of the nothing-proof cell, Kiri nodded acknowledgedly. Steve clearly wasn't really trying. For what reason, was its own thing entirely.

 

Something on the floor drew Caspian's attention. He took a few steps to it, and picked it up. The elf watched the eternal rotate an item in his hands that she didn't fully recognize. It was familiar, but she couldn't quite remember what it was called.

 

A coffee pot. Most probably from a coffee maker. The glass attached to a plastic handle was clear, but excluding the shape and the material, the similarities to things back at home ended for Caspian. No warning texts, no measurements, and no ugly company logos. Instead, it seemed like images and patterns had been painstakingly painted on the whole outer surface, by hand. Careful, pitch-black strokes created animals and scenery in an endless dance that looped with every full rotation of the object. He had no idea where he had gotten it. It was too Terran to be from anywhere that was more central to the 'verse.

 

"Sir."

 

Steve's stern tone pulled both Kiri and Caspian out of the fascination towards the strange pot. They turned to the Artificial Intelligence.

 

"Don't make me get angry at you," Steve added, speaking directly to the Athos. Her voice was a mixture of calm reassurance, and firm enough strictness to make a point.

 

Caspian's ears drooped. His expression shifted with their descent. Like a child, ashamed and caught red-handed, he carefully placed down the coffee pot. He retraced his steps back to the vertical bars, and stiffly slipped through them. The eternal sat down on the floor behind the metal poles, timidly crossed his legs, and lowered his eyes to the uneven metal flooring in front of him.

 

Steve could only watch Kiri's rushing step to the shifter. The Interface had gone too far. She knew what triggered him. She knew so well - and still she did it. Not maliciously, not deliberately, but she still did. What she didn't know, was how to approach such situations she had pushed into motion. There was no clear indication if the better option was to let her master be alone, or not. Sometimes isolation was what he wanted. Needed. Other times, it was the complete opposite - but Steve had no way to know which one it was.

 

This time, she didn't even have time to assess the damage she had caused. She had all her main and backup hands full trying to keep the flow of so-called customers in line. The more junk she could get rid of, the better.

 

It was simply unclear, if that was worth the effort right now.

Kiri kneeled next to Caspian. She scanned his hunched figure erratically with her eyes, confused and worried. Tried to find a rhyme or reason. It wasn't surprising that the Athos could turn his demeanor on a dime. She knew he could.

 

Knowledge, however, didn't equal to a plan for a sequence of actions. The elf had no idea what to do. The man in front of her felt like a maze, that either dropped you into a pool of lava, or a frigid ocean without any inbetweens. The way Caspian stared at the floor felt both genuine and overexaggerated at the same time. It was like he tried to hide. Make himself as small as he could. Attempted to lift his shoulders so high he could almost cover his ears with them.

 

She called his name. Quietly. Repeatedly. As calmly and softly as she could. No answer. Everything she did only seemed to push him deeper into his shell. Kiri raised her arm. She slowly inched her fingers closer to the shifter's shoulder. "Caspian?"

 

The reaction to her careful touch was like a distant bolt of lightning from a cloudless sky. Caspian turned his upper body immediately. It was as though he reacted before he even felt anything. He tried to curl up into something even smaller to the best of his abilities, almost like shielding himself from the woman. He held the spot she had touched with his other hand.

 

Heavyhearted, Kiri lowered her gaze to her own, open palms. She wasn't hurting him. Surely wasn't. She couldn't be. There was no way. It wasn't like she didn't feel anything whenever flames roared in her head. She didn't feel anything now. She could not have hurt him. Se just couldn't. Right? Right?

 

She barely noticed Caspian standing up. When Kiri realized that he was leaving, he was already half way turning behind the corner of the open, darkened hallway. The absence of light felt like it tried to suppress everything around it, even when looking in from the outside. It was like a hungry maw, that had just swallowed another victim, and now searched for another one to choke.

 

Kiri stood up, clumsier than usual. She only took half of a step towards the invisible rows of void-black, serrated teeth, before a voice pulled her back from her unplanned mindlessness.

 

"Miss Kiri," Steve called her name politely, and waited for her to turn before continuing: "Don't."

 

The Interface didn't give her a chance to object. It was clear from the woman's facial expression what she was going to say. How she was going to question the big, stupid, red ball that stared back at her.

 

"It is safer for both of you. For you, immediately, and for him in the long run."

 

Steve recognized another question forming in the creases of Kiri's visage, answering it: "There's no way of knowing if he can restrain and control himself when lost like that. He would never forgive himself if he hurt you. And me for letting you go, but that's the easier one to forgive. Even if not much."

 

The elf walked through the metal bars to the other side. It felt like there was a wall right where they stood. A certain kind of heaviness and tension that lingered there, isolated, dissipated almost instantly when she passed those poles. Defeated, she sat on the nearest, chair-like thing she could find. Today wasn't supposed to go like this. She just wanted to check out the market. See how it only grew in magnitude with each passing year. Kiri heard Steve clear her throat, and lifted her eyes from the tips of her boots to the AI.

 

"If you're not leaving anytime soon," the Interface paused. She fanned out two of her multitude of arms in seemingly random positions, almost like a disjointed shrug. "Care to lend a hand?"

Kiri didn't really notice time passing. She helped anyone with anything they were interested in buying, despite the fact that she was often just as stumped - if not even more so - about the items as the puzzled thrift shoppers. She checked every object she was about to give away with Steve to know if it was good to go. However, she quickly enough got the hang of it, not needing to ask so many questions. It was mostly just get rid of anything and everything, after all. It wasn't any kind of rocket science.

 

Still, she kept glaring at the dark hallway behind those bars.

Steve snapped her mechanical fingers on one of her hands. Mechanisms around the front door clicked and whirred for a few seconds, until a quiet thunk ended their song. It was the sound of the door getting locked. This had to do for now.

 

The ember-hearted elf looked around her. Heaps of stuff and things still dominated the room. She couldn't even tell if they had gotten rid of anything or not. If all of this was stolen, it was no wonder Caspian was such a nervous wreck. She couldn't even imagine how many places all of it had come from. That left a lot of people not too happy. It made sense why the man presumed that everyone everywhere hated him by default.

 

Kiri snapped her eyes to the dark hallway. She then looked at Steve with an obvious question framing her face. The Artificial Intelligence only turned away. It wasn't like she could stop her. Not really.

The woman turned the corner she had seen her friend take earlier. She didn't care if she had to run a thousand miles to find him.

 

Fortunately, she didn't have to run a single one. Eyes adjusting to the shadows, Kiri could make out a shape. On the floor, back against the wall, sat Caspian. Curled into a ball with knees pressed against his chest, his tail seemingly kept it all together. She warily approached him. "Caspian?"

 

"Please don't look at me," the eternal pleaded, face deliberately turned away, and voice weak from emotional strain.

 

Something brushed his side. It was like Caspian's whole body twinged in the aftermath of the violent jolt his muscles acted on. He turned his eyes to Kiri, the tears that still lingered burning with disappointment. He fully expected to see the elf's pleading face, and eyes overflowing with concern.

 

Those eyes didn't stare back at him. It took too long for the shifter's liking to even make sense of what he was looking at.

 

Kiri sat next to him, but had her back turned. Indeed, she did not look at him, just like he had requested. Caspian scoffed softly, turning to stare forward with a drained gaze. Clever. Very funny.

 

The woman waited for a followup, even though she was well aware there might not be one. The silence tightened around them. Intertwined with the lack of illumination. Kiri inhaled, not realizing how cautious her execution was. "Do you want to talk about it?"

 

"I don't know," Caspian muttered as a reply, his grumbling tone nearly making his answer unintelligible.

 

She waited. Pondered. Fidgeted with her hands. Despite everything inside her screaming no, Kiri turned around. She had to see him.

 

The sight wasn't that shocking. It both was, and wasn't. The man seemed tired. Understandably. His expression was an unclear form between blank and exhausted. It was like he stared at something far away, through the opposite wall.

 

The thing that genuinely surprised Kiri was his makeup. It was a mess, which was... rare. Not unheard of, but rare. It was always so pristine. Elaborate, even. It was no secret that shedding tears was nothing new to him - and yet, the striking colors painted over his eyelids never seemed to budge.

 

Caspian had heard the other shuffling. He gave her a side-eye. "I didn't waterproof it." He shifted his eyes forward again. "Thought I don't need it today. Should've known."

 

Kiri reached out her arm, but quickly decided against her plan. She pulled back her hand, and let it rest on her lap. She sighed. What was she supposed to do, anyway? What was she supposed to say? Just say something. "No one here is angry at you."

 

To her horror, Caspian's demeanor changed, and not towards a positive. His muscles stiffened, as if bracing for something. That same, childlike expression laced with shame and guilt returned. The shifter tried to scoot farther away along the floor, but barely got anywhere.

That's what she always said. Repeated over and over again, as though constantly restating the same would make it believable. She wasn't angry, no. She wasn't mad at him.

 

She was livid. For a good reason. He had destroyed her. Her life. Taken away her husband. Her happiness. He had taken everything from her - from his own mother. It was all his fault. The only suitable punishment was suffering. Nothing less. It was only right.

Caspian curled into a ball once more, as tight as he could. He held his head, trying to keep his pathetic whimpering to a minimum. It was a losing battle, trying to run up a vertical wall. His attempts to keep the surrounding silence intact made his breathing abrupt. It only made all of it worse. His own, irrational fear choked him from the inside. Held his heart with razor-sharp claws. Bent his ribs inward until they wailed. Cried in agony.

 

Kiri watched her friend writhe. Because of her. Because of what she had said. Her emotions bypassed the rationality of you don't have his permission for this.

 

She embraced the eternal - to the best of her abilities. She felt so small. Helpless. Couldn't even properly close him in her arms.

 

Even songs got stuck in her throat. The thought of just simple hums was like sand on her tongue. She couldn't come up with anything.

 

She was too afraid to.

Steve set her hands on her nonexistent hips. She ran her gaze over the chaos of useless junk. The AI tried to brush off and push away everything else from her electronic mind.

 

It was a failed attempt. Every struggled breath she heard made her physical body flinch. Each sob Caspian desperately tried to keep down, but couldn't.

 

She could've just told Kiri everything. To give her perspective. Help her understand.

 

Those things weren't for her to tell. Their source was too deep down. Too personal. How do you even know, she would be questioned. Did he tell you?

 

She couldn't tell her. She couldn't tell him. Not until the hounds found her trail, and would come howling. At that point, she wouldn't have to anymore.

 

They would silence her, and do it themselves.