Sole Memorial

Tentative Normality

*peeks into the page* Hey there! Been a while, but I'm alive! I'm sorry I couldn't get this out in 2019, but better late than never? Real life can be such a nuisance sometimes. *le sigh*

For my loyal readers, I thank you sincerely for being so patient with me. Please continue to enjoy the story, and I'll be sure to keep writing.

It was bright when Flik woke, sunlight filtering into his crawl space through small side windows in his caravan. Normally, he would have gotten up energetic and well-rested, but he felt the opposite. He shouldn't expect anything different after dozing off so late in the night. Instead of sleeping peacefully, he had tossed and turned and tried to keep his void in check until he finally drifted off.

Even now, he was still thinking of Princess Atta.

"Can you make her happy?" Dot had asked him on the very night they met. At the time, he'd wondered what he could offer to someone who should have everything, but now he knew better. He knew her better.

It couldn't have been easy for Princess Atta to have the whole world on her shoulders. He didn't even want to think of adding her loneliness and grief into the mix. How heavy was her heart from those painful memories, with the "good old days" to reminisce about? Flik couldn't imagine even a fraction of her pain. In hindsight, fixing a music box with her couldn't possibly offset all that.

So he spent what little of the night left racking his brain for something he could do for her. It was still a work in progress. He couldn't change how the world worked, and he didn't dare consider talking her out of her duty. There was nothing he could buy that she couldn't obtain herself. Fixing the music box didn't count as helping, since he broke it in the first place. No, he needed to give her something else, something only he could make, something she could use and never get tired of!

He began to mutter in his ponderings. "What happens once she gets to the Middle Ground, anyway?" he asked as he peeked outside his small window, spotting the floating castle. He suddenly felt uneasy. "She's just... gonna live there, right?" Princess Atta never mentioned anything about dying, but why else would no one know what happened at the Middle Ground? "But what if she does live and I give her something useless? This is so... so... ugh!"

Just as it seemed he was about to get a headache, he began to hum. The song that came out was a soothing collection of melodies that popped up in his head and it had been the reason he'd been able to fall asleep. It would have been the perfect tune for a music box, and it would go along well with Princess Atta's.

But Flik didn't want to outdo someone else's final work.

Still no other ideas came to mind, but he always thought better on his feet than on his back. "Maybe all I need is some fresh air," he said after a while, then his eyes brightened and he snapped his fingers. "Oh, I'll ask Dot for her input! She'd know her own sister much better than I could." With renewed energy, he flipped onto his stomach. Aches shot up through his muscles and he landed with small puff! on his pillow and sheets. "Ow... Maybe I should have gone with an easier routine," he muttered to himself, now sluggishly dragging himself from his crawl space.

Standing was not as bad an endeavor as he expected, especially with the drawer as support. He stretched his limbs and body out a bit, relieving some of the pain. As he leaned against the drawer, one of his hands touched a cold waterskin, which made the telltale rumbles of shifting ice. He instantly grabbed it and applied it to his arms, sighing as the aches began to fade.

A small tag with his name on it hung from the makeshift ice pack. "How thoughtful," he said to himself as he moved the waterskin to wherever else it was needed. As soon as the soreness became tolerable, he walked out and into the summer breeze.