[PRP] Sadcastles (Mik + Carl)

[Baneful]

Mikael had only been in the infirmary for a short time, but it had been the longest time he'd ever been there. Managing to avoid most missions for a very long time, he'd not run into anything remotely traumatic other than the odd bit of danger on island which he'd run and hid from in the dungeons. His life had been uneventful, so for his first event to be so scary he'd found it difficult to deal with. His dreams had lapsed into strange and fitful nightmares where it was a crazed father who came for him. He didn't rest well, but the rest of his time in spite of the headaches was littered with a lot of asking about things he'd never seen and being chatty, especially when he realised that he wasn't in direct trouble and they understood the effects of redeye. No one could tell him what had happened to his friend he'd acquired though.

Once he was out, he ate all kitkats he could, gave the rest to Malkam and placed the teddybear on his bed proudly. Other than the nightmares and the hypervigilance his life went mostly back to normal.

That day he was on the beach and had carefully built a beautiful castle out of sand which he set some hand carved little figures on, playing out the day to day dramas of a fictional royal family who needed to worry about nothing more than trade agreements and who their very eligible daughter would be married to, all while their daughter had a complex relationship with the prince of a neighbouring country.

The princess was a self insert.

When he was in these modes Mikael was all but oblivious to most of the world around him, reaching for intense escapism as a means of avoiding everything else in the world.
 

[Zoobey]

"You."

There was some angry up kid in the distance who looked like he had had better days. His shoes were covered in mud as if he had gone through some crazy romp through indiscernible swamp territory on the island, and his hair had gone from manageable to slightly puffed up like some angry cat who just did not want any of this. In his hands was an almost perfect replica of the paperweight Mikael had shattered not that long ago.

He was shaking the paperweight now, and it was mostly white with just the lightest specks of red. How he had gotten another one, or why, remained a mystery. "You did this and- and you're going to help me fix this before anyone notices."

Bad news Carl: a lot of people had noticed.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Mikael looked up, almost dazed from his little castle drama. "You look a mess." he said, stating the obvious. He looked clean and well groomed himself and it was a good bet it was under someone else's help and observation.

"I didn't know dropping the stupid thing would cause so much trouble. How can I even help? I don't have a net or anything."

Much like his father, Mikael was also lazy to a fault.

"I'm sure there are other people who can help you." he said sadly.

 

[Zoobey]

"No," Carl said firmly, trying to smooth down his hair in vain with one hand, "You are going to help me fix this otherwise I'll- I'll tell everyone you did this."

It was a bluff, probably. Not to mention Carl's repetoire of 'everyone' was basically Mark, and Rep, and maybe Shu.

He snapped his head to one side just as a literal horde of red butterflies soared above them and into the distance, vaguely towards the weapons cove. He gave Mikael a flat look.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Mik looked genuinely distressed at everyone knowing what he'd done and the threat seemed to work, already putting away his little wooden figures in his pockets as he butterflies soared overhead. He looked up at them.

"They are really pretty." he said. "But I guess." And he got to his feet. "Why do they need to be trapped anyway? It's not very nice to keep things trapped, everything should be free, like lions and antelopes, I bet they weren't happy in that desk."

 

[Zoobey]

"No they wouldn't," Carl said, misinterpreting the sentence in the most literal of terms, "Lions and antelopes wouldn't be happy in a desk at all. Plus the lions would probably eat the antelopes."

"Here you take this," he aggressively shoved the paperweight at Mikael and then winced as he probably strained some stitches, "Don't drop it, you're just going to get yourself infected again. Don't talk to me unless I tell you to, I'm not done being angry with you either."

He started making a very angry stride through the beach, kicking a particularly rough patch of black glassy sand.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Mikael gave Carl a confused look for a second before conceding that lions and antelopes wouldn't be happy in a desk either, just like the butterflies wouldn't be.

He took the paperweight this time with genuine paranoia, holding it at a distance from himself and wincing as if it might hurt him just by existing. He was very careful not to drop it.

Jogging a little to keep up with Carl he made a little nasal sound of distress. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to attack you. I didn't mean it at all, I don't want to hurt people. I didn't know breaking a thing would do so much, I'm used to paperweights just being glass and nothing else."

 

[WE ARE HALLOWEEN]

He was still trying very hard to ignore Mik as they walked and finally paused in annoyance. "It's not a paperweight", he finally corrected, "it's a cage. A cage for them." Carl vaguely pointed towards the sky, just a hairline of coherence away from sounding absolutely insane.

He didn't wait for a response and picked up his pace again, as fast as a normal person could anyway, and then after a minute stopped, clearly very lost, a little north of the weapons cove. "Where did they go?"

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

"It doesn't look like a cage." Mik said, turning it this way and that. "Why do we need to cage them up? Are they from somewhere else? It's like they flew out of a fairy tale." Mik didn't seem to question odd things too much, simply worried about the feelings of those odd things as much as normal people.

He squinted at the sky. "I don't know, maybe they found people again?"

 

[Zoobey]

He suddenly stopped, as if suddenly realizing that yes, finding people was indeed a huge problem.

"I'm going to call Mark," Carl decided, because he felt really bad about calling Rep since that was what literally everyone else he had met did, and it sounded like Rep was way more important than Mark. He then picked out his new cellphone, touched the only button available on the interface, and just stared at it. "What does passcode lock mean?"

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Mikael hadn't really met Mark too much and thought that anyone with a name starting with M had to be all right. Melvin was, and Malkam. So Mark would probably be.

He moved over to Carl, in his personal space as he looked at the phone. "How did you put a passcode on it?" he said. "I don't even know how to do that. Did your butt do it while it was in your pocket?"

They were already shaping up to not be the brightest pair to get the butterflies back.

"Maybe try my birthday! 190597!"

 

[Zoobey]

Carl dubiously looked at Mik, but since he really had nothing better to try, he slowly did so in the four-digit passcode boxes, and then paused. "Where do I put the last three numbers?"

At this point, they might as well have forgotten about the whole butterflies and saving the island and wronging Mikael's rights thing.

The phone buzzed in error, and Carl, not really understanding why it was doing that, took the time to enter the last three numbers in the cleared passcode box. "What should I put as the last number?" He paused, clearly confused. "I don't know, my other phone didn't have one."

Who even knew what happened to his other phone.

'Baneful

 

[Baneful]

"Er." Mikael said. "Er, I dunno." He hadn't really thought about the whole four digit thing. "I dunno man. Maybe try like, one two three and four?" Mikael wasn't cut out to be a hacker of any sort. "What were you going to do anyway?"

He fished out his own phone. "Can you do it with mine?" Somehow he'd gotten a rainbow coloured case and his screen had a picture of him, his mother and father on it, he looked very young in it. "I don't think mine locks at all!"

 

[Zoobey]

Carl reluctantly took the phone, the screen and picture offending all his senses, and didn't really think much of the family picture, not really having much impression of his own.

Past the password lock, he was actually marginally competent, probably having some time to explore on his own, and after a few tries, managed to pick out the phone contact list. He stared at it. "Do you have Mark's phone number?"

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Mik looked a bit confused. "Er. I don't think so, I mean, isn't there a directory or something?" He'd never really looked for people's number before. "I mostly just call my dad and Malkam. Don't you know his number?"