You'll be mine, Octavio!

Chapter 1: Who are you?

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Ink splatters and fades

Feelings of betrayal must remain

For we will eternally stay caged

•

It was another hazy summer afternoon in Inkoctolis City. The Octarian prince sat in the royal gardens, accompanied only by a string instrument lying on the wooden bench beside him, and his thoughts. He gazed up at the sky, the sun seeming to warm his face in a loving, comforting way. His pupils relaxed from their usual cold, piercing stare as he closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the season; The buzz of phytoplankton resting on tree stumps. The muffled and overlapping conversations of the townsfolk. The crashing waves of the sea...

"Sigh..."

Safe to say, he was bored out of his non-existent skull...

Suddenly, he heard a commotion, just outside the walls of the garden—yelps, frantic footsteps, and a thud, as if someone had run straight into the thickets that surrounded the garden.

"Augh! SO not fresh, too-fresh-to-eat sashimi!"

He whipped around in the direction the sound was coming from. After a minute, he heard the ruffling of foliage and then someone... climbing? Up a brick wall? But that would be impossible, would it not? He hadn't heard the wet splashing of ink against clay beforehand... Despite all his time spent studying the different species the Octarians shared their turf with, he wasn't aware one could do such a thing. One thing was for sure though, and it was that this day had just gotten a lot more interesting.

Octavio intently watched the wall with anticipation, half afraid and eager to lay eyes on this bush-crashing, inkless wall-scaling intruder. And a few short moments later, his wish was granted. A panicked inkling rose over the top of the wall. And then, came unceremoniously crashing down.

The prince was, to say the very least, disappointed. He had been expecting some dry-wall scaling, wall-thrashing entity to appear before him so that he would have an excuse to whip out his Octobrush and eliminate it swiftly, like in one of his adventure novels. He had seen many an inkling in court making some sort of trade and business negotiations he had been too disinterested in to pay much attention to. Nevertheless, this was not some everyday occurrence, so it managed to be interesting in its way.

The inkling had landed not too far away from him, face down in the tall grass. The apparent contents of its satchel at its side; scattered loose papers, notebooks, pens, pencils, and brushes had spilled out, making the area around the inkling resemble the desk of a busy, disorganized artist.

He sat in shock for a second, unsure of what to do. After containing his nerves and gathering his courage, he cautiously slid off the bench and made his way over to the crash site. He squatted down and gently poked at the inkling with a long stick he had picked up.

"Hello...? Are you alive?"

The inkling only softly grunted in response.

"This inkling must have some type of injury." The prince thought as he poked the unconscious inkling again, slightly harder this time."He just fell over a fifteen-foot wall... SURELY he has some type of injury."

The prince, whose name just happened to be Octavio Takowasa, repeated his question.

"Are you alive? Blink twice if yes, and don't do anything if no!"

"..."

With no response, he considered the increasing possibility that the inkling was dead. Octavio began to brainstorm how he should handle the situation. He almost enjoyed the process of playing doctor, trying to figure out what exactly might have caused its untimely death– Head trauma? Broken bones- Wait, inklings don't have bones, do they...? He'd have to check up on that fact later.