Tomes of Nevermore: Shattering Light

Chapter Three: Best Friend Tarah Weird

Tarah awoke outside of yard full of scrapped mechs on the outskirts of the city. (Mechs are clockwork machines that run on coal light or steam.) Her face was covered in mud and her mind was reeling as she tried to figure out just where she was and how she had gotten here. As she went to wipe the mud from her face she felt the coin given to her by the lesser god stuck to the palm of her hand. As she peeled the coin from her flesh it left an indent of a skull on her palm.
"Both sides of this coin are the same." Tarah thought. "No matter what side the coin lands on death is always the final result." Her heart pounded in her chest as her mind played out a thousand different scenario's, none of them pleasant in the slightest of ways.
"This is what I was meant to do." Tarah told herself. "It was the will of a god for me to have this coin. Even if it hurts Ty, even if it hurts me, it can't hurt more than being alone." She teared up trying to convince herself that what she was doing was the right thing to do.
"Hey girl!" Said a fat little insect creature with the narrow black eyes of a beetle as he swung a broom trying to scare Tarah away as its tiny feathered wings beat behind its back."Get off of my property! This a business and there isn't anyway we can have dirty scruffs like you mucking up our business. Don't you know nothing gir! Businesses can't be getting mucked up just doesn't stand to reason!"
"I'm sorry." Tarah said picking herself up as her head still throbbed. "I didn't mean to get in your way."
"No one cares what you meant girl. Why are you still here mucking up me business! Businesses is not meant to be mucked!" The insect boy said as he threw a bag of metal scraps at Tarah. The entire bag ripped open and the metal pieces all fell out, including the strangest looking mech Tarah had ever seen. "Look what you went and did girl! You bloody ripped the bag! Trash is meant to be in bags! What kind of stupid poor mucker are you?"
"Aye!" The boys even uglier even fatter father shouted from the building. "What the matter son? That scruffy brat mucking up our business!"
"She is! Then she went and ripped the bag!" The boy said through his broom on the ground the way a toddler throwing a fit would throw his toy.
"She's probably trying to steal our trash! Stands to reason a poor girl like herself would want our perfect trash!" The father said as he fed an even larger mouth on his stomach. "Get out of here girl! This our trash!"
"No it's not." Tarah said turning around deliberately being defiant. Clutching the coin that the god had given her she felt stronger than she had in her entire life. She felt confident, she felt as though Ty was already by her side once again. "It's trash. That means it's trash in case you weren't aware and because I am so poor I just do love trash! Infact I may just take this stuff after all you threw it in the street. That means it's the world's trash now."
"You really love trash?" Said a strange mechanical voice as something within the trashbag began to move around. Tarah turned and watched as a twenty sided glass dome that sat on top of a plastic box with two light up stickers on the dome that appeared to be its "eyes." The mech floated up from the ground shaking all of the tiny plastic eggs inside of its twenty sided glass dome of a head. "No one has ever loved me before."
"Aye!" The boy said angry. "That stupid lil weird mech we stole yesterday done turned on! What kinda sorry muckers crock is this?"
"He was faking he was!" The father said. "Get that trash back in here. Get away from our trash poor girl or I'll feed you to me second mouth!"
"No." Tarah said putting her arm out and stopping the little fat boy. "You threw him away. He's trash now and I'm poor. Poor people need trash to do poor things. The way I see it this little mech belongs to me now."
"I'll have your hand for stealing girl." The father said coming out with spiked metal club in his hand.
"Yeah!" The son added. "We stole that thing fair and square yesterday. Just ain't right to be stolen from!"
"But I'm not stealing. Besides even if I was you couldn't do anything to stop me." Tarah lied pulling the black hair from in front of her eye unveiling her eye patch. "I'm a witch you see." She continued lying. "A wanted criminal. A bane of the gods. Plus you said this mech was weird. My last name is Weird. So I think he will fit me quite nicely." She looked at the little mech cowering behind her back. "I think this might just have been the gods themselves that dropped me here."
"I can help with your eye miss witch." The mech said as it popped out a little plastic egg. Inside was a tiny mechanized eye. "It is the most advanced mechanized organ I am able to create. I have scanned your body and made it to your preference. I am sorry but the eye will forever be synced to me but it will restore and improve your sight nearly one hundred times. Also it will allow you to scan information you see directly to your brain and my software as a result."
"What is this!" The father shouted rushing over. "The bloody little things a walking pile o' points! We don't even have to keep the thing we can just sell the eggs inside his head!"
"He could sell the eggs inside of his head." Tarah said correcting the two angry insect like creatures. "But I don't think that will work. You threw him away. He's a free mech now. He can make his own decisions."
"I choose to stay with the witch! She loves trash like Pal." The mech said sort of hiding behind Tarah as the father came storming up shouting in some language Tarah did not understand as his hard insect shell changed from a mucusy yellow to a sleek and shiny red. "I'll scrap you little mech! Just cause you pretended not to work won't fool old Civilgoo and his genius son! We fix mech's we rule this land! It's our property.!
"No you don't own this land." Tarah said smiling. "Me and this mech are standing in a dirt road. If I'm not correct this land belongs to the gods not to you. Besides this robot is too adorable for the likes of you. I think he's coming with me, besides he said that this eye he gave me will sync us together forever. Come on little mech, I can tell we're going to be the best of friends.
"Best friends?" The mech said. "I was not programmed for best friend. I scan people's bodies and craft an egg based on what they want. I am sorry but I cannot bring back your brother. I can tell that is what you want. I did not give you a present so that we could become best friends though. I was only trying to help. I do not want to be a burden.
"You're not a burden." Tarah said. "You're cute and nice. That's why we're going to be best friends. The fact that you make gifts is just a bonus." Tarah extended her hand out to the mech. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Tarah Weird."
"My name is Patented Automatic Lifelike-Zekian-With Animus life imitations and zekian incapacities. Or Pal-z-wallzi. But I am to be referred to as Pal for short." The mech said as it laid another egg. "My scanner tells me that you need a weapon."
Tarah opened up the egg and found an elegantly curved dagger with pink diamonds encrusted into the hilt which was shaped like the head of an owl with clock eyes. "Well you just keep getting better and better Pal." Tarah pointed the knife at the fat little boy. "Plus your cute. How come you didn't talk before?"
"Because those people were very mean." Pal said nervously. "I could scan what they wanted and they want terrible things and nothing but points to make themselves rich. More points than I could ever hope to give them. I can make people whatever they want, but if whatever they want cannot fit inside a single egg I can not make it and if whatever they want never stops I will run out of eggs and die."
"Aw." Tarah said giving the little mech a hug before tucking him under her arm. "How could you ever have been mean to him? Just look at those big black dot stickers he has for eyes. He's just so too cute."
"Yes." Pal said. "I am cute and I love stickers! How could you be mean to me or my best friend Tarah Weird. You sirs are not very nice and I do not wish to see you both ever again. Goodbye."
"I'll gut you you smart little scruff! Not nobody mucker's up my business!" The father said raising his club over his head ready to strike Tarah in the face. But the fan that kept Pal floating began to spin nearly twice as fast and Tarah was lifted up just narrowly avoiding the spiked club as it slammed into the muddy dirt where Tarah was standing only a second before.
"And you can fly!" Tarah said holding onto the glass dome awkwardly as a metal bar dropped down below Pal. Slowly they rose above the two fat insect mechscrappers who were cursing their names as they fluttered about below like chickens trying to jump over a fence.
"I have never flown this high before nor have I ever carried this much weight." Pal said. "But I have also never had a best friend before. My scanner showed that you wanted a way to escape, so I helped you escape even though escaping does not fit inside of an egg. Is helping someone escape what best friends do?"
"It most certainly is what best friends do." Tarah said laughing with glee. "This is a million times better than moonshoes."
   "My scanner is detecting that you want to return to your treehouse and bring back your brother. But I am unable to bring him back as I have already said. I am sorry best friend Tarah Weird." Pal said as they left the clockwork city in the distance and came to a forest of giant trees just as large as the buildings in the city they had left behind.
"No you can't bring my brother back." Tarah said holding the scroll tightly in her one hand as she held onto Pal's retractable handle with the other. "But I can and you're going to help me Pal. Starting by putting this crazy mech eye you made into my head."
"I am an excellent doctor." Pal said. "One of my past owners was a doctor."
"How many owners have you had pal?" Tarah asked as they neared her tree house.
"Many. I have had a very long life I will have to explain to you another time." Pal said. "But they don't matter they were owners. You are special and I will do all that I can to help you. You are my best friend Tarah Weird."