The Pauper Princess and the Spark's Holiday, Part 3
Part 2 is here.
The story so far:
-Our Heroines found all the Hidden Mousehearts
-The Princess reacted poorly to the notion of fixing her own broken air purifier
-So Agatha fixed it...or did she??
The legal disclaimer stuff:
"This story is not approved by, sponsored by or affiliated with Studio Foglio LLC or Airship Entertainment."
Pauper Princess FanFiction Theatre Presents:
The Pauper Princess and the Spark's Holiday, Part 3
After the terrible fright of losing Agatha, who was found tinkering with, of all things, a Spark device, the ladies regrouped and then decided to visit the nearby town of Allcourt for its weeklong music festival. True to form, all instruments were analog - no electronica of any kind - and sounded... pretty good. The food was so-so, though, and the merchandise vast. Sanaa managed to snag her beloved commemorative ladle, as well as plush versions of the Prince and Princess, the latter sporting its own tiny, wooden ladle and tiny patches on its dress. Of the four, only Sanaa was bogged down with shopping bags. Agatha had purchased a small book with the claim of telling the "untold" story of Guildern/Mouseheart, and Violetta and Zeetha returned empty-handed.
There were no other official meet-and-greets planned with the royals for the rest of their stay, so they dined alone, but were attended by the castle staff. The trip was "all expenses paid," so the women took advantage of this. The food and drink flowed freely all night.
The royal couple, meanwhile, turned in early, as was their custom. There had been no other discussion between them about the events of the day since the incident with the screwdriver. The children had been put to bed in the nursery long before. Mara's time with them that afternoon had melted her cares and worries away, except for the lingering concern about Isabel's stomach problem. The essence of esophia was helping, but not making it go away. The nanny and nurse would wake them if anything came up, so eventually, she drifted off to sleep.
Whoooosh-Huhhhhh, Whoooosh-Huhhhhh, Whoooosh-Huhhhhh...
Both of them shot up in bed.
"What the hell is that??" said Kelvin. "Are we being attacked??"
"Shhhhh!" said Mara. The door to the next room, where the air purifier was, was open. She listened intently.
Whoooosh-Huhhhhh, Whoooosh-Huhhhhh, Whoooosh-Huhhhhh...
"It's from the next room!" whispered the Prince. He yanked back his sheets and climbed slowly from bed.
Chug... Chugg... Chuggg... CHUGGGG... CHUGGGGGG....
He grabbed a poker from the fireplace and brandished it, creeping towards the door.
"What are you doing?" said Mara, climbing to her feet. "You don't need that. It's the purifier!"
"Shh!" he said, trying to wave her back from the door. She wrestled with him for the poker, won, and set it down. Together they entered the next room, where the purifier was pulsing enthusiastically. Sometimes a puff of something that did not smell fresh came out of its vent.
"Eugh! Good lord!" said Kelvin. "What's the matter with this thing?"
Chitty-chitty chitty-chitty chitty-chitty chitty-chitty...
"Well, obviously, it's broken-"
BANG BANG!!
Both of them jumped back in fright. Kelvin threw his arm across Mara, who gently pushed it down and peered at the device.
"Just turn it off so we can get some sleep," he said.
"I'm trying to," she muttered, feeling her hand along its surface.
BOOM shokkalokkalokka BOOM shokkalokkalokka BOOM shokkalokkalokka...
"The off switch is right here, remember?" he said, feeling for its usual place. There was no switch. He felt around some more, growing more frustrated. "What the hell?"
"The switch was moved," she said.
"Well, where's the power cord?" he said, looking behind the dresser it rested on.
"Kelvin, I'll deal with this," she said.
OhhhhWayyyyOh...WayyyyOhhhhWayyyy...OhhhhWayyyyOh...WayyyyOhhhhWayyyy...
"I'm just trying to help," he said, and grabbed a wire. "I think this is it."
"NO!" screamed Mara, grabbing his wrist tightly. She was hyperventilating. "Don't - touch - anything."
Kelvin let go and held up his hands. "I'm... just trying to shut this damned thing off."
"I will handle this," she said, popping off the top and peering inside. She poked her hand around a little bit in the dim light, then sighed. "Of course she moved the switch to the inside," she muttered. "That makes perfect sense."
OooogaOooogaOooogaShokka OooogaOoooga>CLICK<
The purifier was off, but Mara continued muttering to herself as she poked at the device. Kelvin sighed in relief and put his arm around her to lead her away. She gently peeled his arm off her.
"No, you go to bed," she muttered, still peering inside and poking at the device's innards. "I'll be there shortly."
"Dear, you've had a long, and stressful, day," he said. "Look at it in the morning."
"Go on," she said, waving him away. Her attention was still on the device. "Get to bed. I won't be long."
"Look, the Lady Heterodyne did this," he said. "We'll ask her to check it. Maybe she was in a hurry, or didn't have the right tools."
"Bed. Now."
"Not without you," he said, folding his arms. "You shouldn't be able to fix this, remember?"
"Darling," she said, turning to him, wrapping her arms around him, and giving him a long, deep kiss. When they parted, she looked deep into his eyes. "Get. Back. To Bed," she whispered. "Now."
He set his jaw and looked back at the device, then at her. "Very well," he said, backing away. "But you're just looking at it for a few minutes. You're not staying up all night with this thing."
"I'll be in as soon as I can," she said, blowing him a kiss. As soon as he left the room, she ran to the door and shut it tight, then raced over to a cupboard and unlocked its bottom drawers. From those she pulled out four battery-powered lanterns that she turned on and spread out all over the dresser. Now that there were real lights in the room, she could examine the thing properly. Her eyes grew bigger and rounder, their pupils dilated, and a big grin slowly spread over her face.
"Hee hee!"
*************************
Kelvin dreamed about walking along a seashore at sunrise. He stopped and listened to the waves lapping gently at the shore, and breathed deep the cool, sweet breeze that only the sea could provide. He removed his shoes and let the water caress his toes and feet. Then his eyes opened. He was back in bed, but was probably still dreaming, because he could still hear waves lapping at the shore, and Guildern did not have a coastline. And he could still smell something sweet. Groggily he turned over to ask his wife if she was experiencing the same thing, but her side of the bed was empty.
Kelvin sat up in bed, blinking and rubbing his eyes, yawning, stretching. The ocean sounded like it was in the next room. He arose from bed and pulled on his robe, then walked to the doorway.
The purifier was still on the table, but seemed to be larger now. More items had been added to the tops and sides, but for what purpose, he could not tell. There was no movement from it at all - not like the rough vibrations of last night - but it was doing a perfect imitation of the sounds of a seashore. He breathed in deeply again, and smelled the sweet air emitting from its vent.
On the floor, one leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee, and one arm draped over that, sat his wife Mara, still in her nightgown, which now had a tear on its side and grease and dirt stains everywhere else. Her free hand rested on the floor, idly fingering a spanner. If she noticed his presence, she did not indicate it. She was staring off into the distance, looking pensive but tired.
"Darling?" he said. She still did not look his way.
"Good morning," she said flatly. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes, I-- slept very well. I dreamed about walking on the seashore, and then woke up and- still heard it."
"Good," she said. "I was wondering if I'd got the sound right."
There was no sound but the (virtual) waves of the sea.
"Um," he said, "Did you sleep well?"
Still looking straight ahead, she chuckled once. "I finished about 30 minutes ago," she said, finally looking at him. "So 'no.'"
"You worked on this all night?" he said, pushing aside tools and leftover materials so he could sit beside her. "I thought it was supposed to be a simple fix."
"Oh, it was," she said, nodding. "Fixing the purifier itself was simple, as the Lady said. I was done in about 10 minutes. Well, 20 if you count undoing her damage."
"Damage, eh?" he said. "That's surprising. She and her family have such a reputation. I wonder if it's exaggerated."
"She broke it on purpose," Mara said.
"...Are you sure? That seems a bit devious."
Mara shrugged. "I'm sure she meant well," she said. "Forcing me to confront... myself, you know. It was set up to break in the middle of the night so it would, uh, motivate me to fix it myself. That's why the switch was moved to the inside. To force me to open it up and start examining it."
"That still strikes me as devious," he said. "Ah - You know, maybe this is a prank because you were rude during tea."
"Honestly, I'm too tired to work out her reason for it," said Mara.
"I can imagine," he said. "Good lord; you were really up all night? You didn't sleep at all? But if the repair took so little time, what were you doing all night?"
Mara closed her eyes and let her head drop back. She smiled sadly. "Finally you ask," she said. "You see, it's what the Madness does. It's not enough for something to do what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to do more. MoreMoreMore. Even if it doesn't make sense. While working on it, I realized there was so much room inside that it could have even more functions to it. So I decided to add a sentry function to it. But no, then it wasn't enough to just sound an alarm or flash bright lights; it had to actively subdue any threats."
"'Actively subdue?' Well, what does it do now?" asked Kelvin.
She turned her head slowly to look at him. "Do you want to see?"
"Should I be afraid I asked?"
"It's nonlethal, Darling," she said. "I stopped myself in time from making it worse. I'd use myself to demonstrate, but it's already calibrated to my voice and scanned my appearance."
Kelvin was standing up as she spoke, giving double takes along the way at phrases like "calibrated" and "scanned my appearance."
"You're sure that it's nonlethal?" he said.
"Yes," she said. She had not moved so far from her spot on the floor, or changed position. She was too tired. "You know, I could just describe what it does."
He held up his hands. "I'm going to trust you, Darling. Please don't disappoint me. Or hurt me. But what should I do?"
"Just stand in the middle of the room," she said. He did so. "Here goes, then." She looked up and behind herself, at the purifier. "Puri," she said, "Intruder alert."
"Darling, are you sure you want to be-What the hell?!" In an instant the entire purifier was a blur of movement, exploding outwards, shifting, whirring, sliding, clicking itself into a humanoid shape, but with no obvious head, and it leaped from the dresser and at the Prince, all in one fluid motion.
"Intruder alert," it echoed, in a mechanical version of Mara's voice.
"Don't move, dear," said Mara calmly. "Let it demonstrate."
"Are you crazy?? I'm- OOF!" The clank, or 'Puri,' as she called it, slammed into the Prince, but did not knock him down, but used its momentum to catch him, pick him up, flip him horizontal, slam him onto a nearby table, and hogtie him with a rope that shot out of one its hands. This occurred in about three seconds.
"Intruder restrained," it said, and pressed an "elbow" against the small of his back to hold him down.
"Uncle! Uncle!" said Kelvin. Mara finally stood up.
"Puri: stand down," she said.
"Standing down," it said in her voice, then leaped back onto the dresser, shifting, whirring, sliding, and clicking itself back into the shape of an air purifier. The sounds of the ocean and a gentle breeze wafted through the room.
Mara untied her husband, who hopped off the table and onto his feet. For a moment all he could do was stare at her and rub his wrists, while she tried to avoid eye contact.
"I don't think you can say anymore," he said, "That you 'don't know' if you're a Spark."
"Actually, I-- couldn't really say that before, either," she said, looking down. "It's something I don't like about myself. Something I've been trying to make go away. And I was hoping you'd never learn about it."
"But why not?" he said. "Have I ever given you reason to think I'd-- I don't know, be angry? Reject you? Is that what you thought?"
"No," she said. "No, it isn't about you, but me. Um... You know that I was the little girl whose father beat her for-?"
"-Building devices, yes," he said. "I think I figured that out."
"Yes, ah..." she said. "I'm not very good at subtle. But now that you know-" She took him by the hand and led him to the wall next to her bookshelf, the one with a few historical tomes, law books, plays, storybooks and other literature. She fiddled with a spot that looked like a stain on the wall, and with a slight hiss of air, a stone door revealed its cracks, and opened slowly on its own.
Kelvin's eyes went wide as she gestured to the secret room, really more of a secret closet, piled high with many times more books as on the "real" shelf, but about the scientific method, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, imagineering, calculus, chemistry, biology, xenobiology, physics, quantum physics, logic and reasoning, geology, astronomy, propulsion science, and other subjects he wasn't certain were real, but what did he know? And scattered everywhere else, in stacks, on the shelves, on the floor, were reams of drawings, equations, doodles, and lovingly crafted watercolors and oils of would-be devices. While Kelvin stood slack-jawed, she gathered up a sampling of pages and brought them to a table, spread them out, and directed his attention to them.
"How long have you been doing this?" he said. "And-- when did you build that?" He pointed to the secret room. "It wasn't part of this room."
"Actually, it was," she said. "But I suppose knowledge of it was lost over the years? As for all this-" she gestured to the drawings- "Since we've been together."
"But that's only been three years," he said.
She nodded. "Until then," she said. "I was... afraid of putting any of my ideas on paper. Here, after some time, I finally felt safe enough to start, but-- not safe enough to do it openly. I hope you can forgive me that, but I was.... I am... afraid of losing myself. Keeping the Madness limited to just filling closets full of drawings and schematics has been difficult enough. I could manage to ignore that thing-" she pointed to 'Puri' - "because it was sealed up. I couldn't see what was inside. And I used it as sort of a test of my will, to keep it strong. That's why I didn't insist on throwing it away."
"But when have you been doing all this?" he asked. She looked away contritely.
"Uh... I guess it's good that you're a heavy sleeper?" she said.
"Hnh. And I thought it was taking care of the children that made you so tired."
"Oh, they helped with that."
"Bu-bu-but Darling, why have you been torturing yourself like this?" said Kelvin, holding her arms. "You're not alone anymore. There's no one who's going to punish you for this. No one who'll stifle your talent or your passion."
She let him hold her arms for a moment, but when he started to lean in for a kiss, she pulled away and grabbed some drawings from the table. "Look at these," she said. He did, but his expression showed noncomprehension, so she took them back and held them up one by one, setting them down as she described each device's function.
"This device inverts internal and external organs," she said. "That's another way of saying that it turns people inside out. Its purpose? Killing them. This is a remote-controlled, flying gatling gun. Yes, a gun that flies. Its purpose? Killing people. This is a tank whose front is modeled after a lawn mower. Its purpose? Killing people. Horribly killing people. This is a doomsday device that activates every tectonic plate and faultline on earth, simultaneously. This is a death ray. I don't have to explain its purpose, right? This-"
"Ah, now that looks like silverware," said Kelvin. "So that's probably some kind of silverware sorting machine? Cleaning machine? Not for killing people?
Mara looked at the drawing more closely, then showed it to him again. "The shapes are a coincidence. This part pulverizes stone into dust. This part liquefies metal. And this part boils people's blood without raising the ambient temperature." She threw them all to the floor. "This is what comes out of my head, Kelvin. Horrible devices. Instruments of death! Do you see what I have against Sparks now? I'm no better than any of them! I mustn't be given the chance to make any of these things!"
"But..." he said, slowly pointing at 'Puri,' "But-but you made that. That's nonlethal. Right?"
"It was going to have a death ray, Kelvin," she said, staring at him intensely. "Do you know why it doesn't have a death ray?"
He swallowed. "Ah..." he said, "Because... you don't want to destroy the castle and everyone in it?"
"Ohh, you'd think that," she said. "That would make sense! This is what stopped me." She held up her hands, indicating her wedding ring on the left and her betrothal ring on the right. Both had rather... substantial... gems, such as a 6-carat ruby for the wedding ring, and for the betrothal ring, a 2-carat emerald plus smaller diamonds and rubies surrounding it. "I came to my senses, and kept it nonlethal, after I found a tool I could use to pry the gems out and use them to focus the ray's beam. I was this close to popping out this ruby, but even the Madness couldn't make that happen."
"Well... thank goodness for that."
"And do you know why it uses a rope instead of c-gas?"
"Um..."
"Because I couldn't find any!" she said, and pinched her eyes together. "What's going to stop me the next time, Kelvin? Hm? Those were lucky breaks."
"I don't know," he said. "Your moral center?" She scoffed. "Darling, why don't you talk to Lady Heterodyne about this? She... indirectly... caused this, and is known to be a very strong Spark, so we will ask her - nicely - to take responsibility for this."
"I don't think it's safe for me to be anywhere near her right now."
"After you've calmed down," said Kelvin. "And before her holiday ends."
"...I'll think about it," said Mara. "Talking to her or not, what am I going to do now? How do I stop those... horrible ideas from taking over my head? When am I going to stop spewing out instruments of death?"
Kelvin stroked his chin in thought. After some pondering, he spoke. "I don't think this is something you can 'stop.' But it is something you can direct."
"Pfft."
"Don't 'pfft' me, hear me out," he said. "You've had the Spark since you were a little girl, since five or six, yes?" She nodded. "From what I hear, most of them don't show those signs until they're older. And then your father beat you for using your gift And for just about everything else. You yourself said you've feared and hated it ever since and have been trying to hide it. Even from me, knowing I'd be very supportive of you."
"Well I didn't-- know-- exactly..."
"Well, I'm telling you now," he said. "I will be. You've been so afraid, and so angry trying to hide it and suppress it for so long, no wonder all of your ideas are destructive. You want to know what's going to stop you next time? I will. The children will, too."
"Ohhh, nononono!" she said, backing away and pointing to the drawings. "They're not getting anywhere near these things!"
"None of those things, no," he said, stepping towards her. He glanced back at Puri. "Probably not that, either. But that's my point. You don't stop this gift, you manage it. You set boundaries, limitations, rules. Just because you're a Spark doesn't mean you don't need them. They probably need them more than anyone."
"Tell me about it."
"I'm going to give you your first rule," said Kelvin. "You can only make devices that the children can get near. And before they do, you show them to me."
For a long time, Mara was speechless. She kept trying to voice counter-arguments, but could only manage the first part or syllables of her words. It was when she stopped trying to argue, that the words finally returned. "I want to do that," she said softly. "But... what about the kingdom's rule about no sparky devices being in public?"
Kelvin shrugged. "Then they won't be in public," he said. "I don't know. We'll figure it out."
"'We'll' figure it out?"
"Oui," he said, and held his arms out to her. She stood her ground, head cocked. "Come on," he said.
"Noooo," she groaned, but complied, anyway, shuffling over.
"Come on."
"Nooo. I'm not worthy of you," she said, falling into his embrace. She rested her chin on his shoulder. It was good to be the same height.
"Likewise," he whispered, patting and rubbing her back tenderly. He kissed the side of her neck. "No more hiding. No more mistrust. It's a gift, not a curse. We're going to embrace it and manage it."
"Yes, sir," she whispered.
"Let go of the fear," he murmured. "The anger and hatred. Let them melt away from you. Flowing out like water... Draining away..." He could feel her body relaxing. "Listen to the ocean... Smell its sweet air... Breathe in deep... Let it out slowly..." He stopped talking to let her take in the white noise of the room and the gentle rubbing of her back. But soon enough he felt himself start to sway backwards, so he straightened up abruptly. Mara stumbled and yelped, steadying herself by grabbing his arms.
"Whuh-huh-?"
"I'm so sorry, Darling," he said, steadying them both. "I think that you fell asleep! I forgot; you've been up all night. You must be exhausted!"
"I'll be fineWHAAAULP!" Kelvin had bent down and scooped her up into his arms. She gripped his shoulder hard, then relaxed after being steadied. Then she gave him a Look. "Really?" she said. "You're going to be like this?"
"Like what?"
"Being 'manly' as often as possible?"
"You caught me," he said. "I'm going to be condescending to you all the time now, too. I'm going to be a terrible husband."
She sighed and leaned her head forward to rest it against his bicep, then closed her eyes. He took a moment to watch her, then carried her back to the bedroom. He could tell she had fallen right back asleep, and took extra care to place her in bed so as not to disturb this. After laying the sheets over her and tiptoeing away, she moaned. He looked back to see if she was awake again.
"Mmmmmm, dear, hand me the 3-speed aligning spanner with power torque zzzzzzzz..."
He paused to see if she had any other requests, and when she had none: "Of course, dear."
Here's Part 4.