From a gold bar and a chunk of wood from outside the town to a cave and coast of tins, each step further from home had never felt so enticing. As far as the librarian headed into the west, her eyes only met with more absurdity. But never had she seen something so beautiful yet ugly before her eyes.
One had caught her eyes in a twist of treasure, and the other had found himself an intact flesh. And as their eyes caught one another, so does hostility stand like a one-way fence. The Tin Man, shrouded in tins and scraps, twisted his tin arms for her.
"Is that...a Tin Man?" She thought.
"Is he made of tinfoil? A fucking tin?"
The Tin Man was standing small, not like any human—but a child. Had she not known from his tin face, she would have considered him a lost boy. But there was no 'man' for the Tin Man, for not even a flesh was present in him. The thing is as alive as a human—much like the prince had said about his machine.
The Tin Man stands before Eve. He is a small creature resembling a boy with unexplainable anatomies between his floating limbs, pebbles scattering around his body, and two long pillars on his head resembling a connector.
"Hello, young lady." Said the Tin Man, "What are you doing in my Tin house?"
"I—I don't know where to start. None of these makes sense to me..."
"Maybe you should start with how and why you were here?"
Eve ponders the Tin Man's face before backing off slightly to give him space to walk out of his house. Surprisingly, the Tin Man complies with her.
"I—well, it was complicated. It all started when I began leaving my house..."
"Well, I was just waking up in the morning while preparing myself a breakfast before I met Cyrus on the road, where we both talk about stuff as usual before heading on our way in Great Stone."
"Where he goes to school practising his 'magic' art for the people as usual, while I was in the library holding books and literatures until suddenly there's a heavy storm outside and everything went dark for a moment!"
"Then there's a carrier with an engineer named Dion Carven who just appeared out of nowhere to give us tickets to his weird show while showing off his walking machines."
"Then me and Cyrus came looking for him, only to find him a madman trying to take over the world for himself."
"And then I came here because that man threatened to make me jobless and I was furious!" She breathes intensely.
The Tin Man stares blankly into Eve's eyes—having nothing to understand from her.
"I followed a trail of smokes coming down here thinking I could ask for someone's help. Where's your master? Is there someone here?"
"I wanted to talk with your 'human' companion." Eve pushes the Tin Man aside.
"I'm the only one here. There's no human here."
The librarian finds it laughable, thinking of it as one of the prince's puppets playing on her head. So, to confirm her thought was correct, she looked around and found an apple tree standing by the coast with one fruit hanging fresh.
She grabs a limestone from the cave before handing it to the Tin Man, daring him to pick an apple through a tricky challenge. The Tin Man is to have a fruit down with only the stone, without having the stone close to the trees.
"Ohoho, don't be ridiculous. We don't have time to joke now."
"But I'm not joking. There's no one inside—I'm the only one living here..."
"Are you sure? I haven't even checked the house yet!"
Eve grew nervous with the Tin Man's reaction. She felt exasperated and confused by his words.
"Then do me a favour and prove me wrong."
Eve grabs a limestone and points at the apple tree from a distance. As the Tin Man follows her to the tree, she stands far with a riddle to test her doubt. The white limestone is cold and coarse in the Tin Man's hand, firm but hurt to grip.
"Get that apple from the tree using this limestone."
"Sounds easy to me. Alright, let me just—" Charger reaches for the tree.
"WITHOUT touching the apple tree or its fruit."
"What? How?" Charger stops in a disbelief face.
"I don't know. Find out yourself—only a human could know the answer. Prove it to me you're a human."
"I am sentient! I can show you!"
The Tin Man struggles at picking off the apple with only a limestone. His mind looks through the apple, but the answer remains none. The librarian's doubt for the man was ready to be closed, with nothing more to question but the time passing between them.
But just as she thought the Tin Man was giving up, her eyes pointed out something noteworthy about the man. The Tin Man suddenly dropped his limestone in desperation, which not only proved her wrong about him but also stood out as a breakthrough.
Charger spends half an hour trying to find out how to put the apple down, which resigns Eve's doubt that it was off.
"You're not a human, aren't you?"
"I am! I am sentient! I promise you! Look, I'll just throw it out like!"
"*Sigh* That breaks the rules, cretin. I guess you are a machine, after all."
"No, wait! I know how to throw it! I know! Let me just—" Charger pauses.
"Wait, why should I do all of this? You really tested my own sentience for your little help?"
"You know what? I can do more than that! More than just listening to your nonsense and actually productive like fishing or making a tin friend! The only thing a sentient person would do!"
"Am I not human enough for you??"
Eve stood silently in disbelief, now fully aware of the Tin Man's human identity. She stood up with pupils shrinking as she watched the Tin Man glancing back at her with its lifeless eyes.
"That's—surprising." She uttered.
"Machine's really is alive."
By the coastly gravel and warm salt scattered within the beach, the warm wind exudes from the ocean against the hill breeze and shivers every piece of tin as a song to the librarian and the Tin Man, as their conflicting interest finally come to an end. The librarian was still in disbelief at what she had seen.
The Tin Man and Eve stand out at the coast while he grabs her a cup of tea made of tin. She refuses the offer while waiting for him to return with grape jam biscuits.
"Why are you here?" He asked her.
"I need your help! Help me get out of this island so I can save my library from being taken down." Eve gestures a sophisticated hand movement while talking.
"And why should I help a stranger like you for something I will not be benefitted?"
"What's your name, little one? So that I can keep a record of you in my library..."
"The name's Charger. Charger the Great. But that won't help, either."
"Eve Ainsley. Great Stone part-time librarian."
Eve decided to dig deeper into Charger's personal life, which he didn't take long to spill for her. She began preparing an empty page to record the story.
"Who are you, then? Why and how are you here if you're not a machine?"
"You really wanted to know everything, dear?" Charger sips his tea.
"Yes. I don't come out from the town just to see you here without an answer. I need to know why and how I can convince you to help me out."
"Very well. Put your ears straight because I'll make this a long story.
"It all began when I lived in a distant star from this planet. A star where people like me would have icked you as you did to me."
"They called it Quasor. And I, as its dweller, is called Quasarian."
Far a wanderer in a land of dust and sparks—long before the librarian was alive, the Tin Man lay hopeless as anything but a human. Cursed from his flesh and into a waste of industry, he was an outcast to humans. And now, the last thing he had in the Universe was his flesh thrown into the sewer like him.
From dust and sparks, now risen with the conscience of a human, the Tin Man sought the stars as an answer to his long-forgotten face. But the sky was dim and silent for years with him, only for the little hope he had now turned into a petty will in Gold Creek.
Charger offers a treat of unknown meat at Eve. But not even he ate it.
"Quasor is a world above the stars where stones and metals could live by a touch of lightning. One that currently touches you!"
"Eek! Get that off of me! You want to kill me?" Eve backed off.
"My home was a fragment of greatness with only a stone, filled with people that also look, think, and act together with the tin alloys we called limbs to make us alive."
"People of limbs..."
"But my world was gone. Taken by a dominion of Light empire as my people had vanished in the specks of dust in search of a new home. Like me, they may or may not have made one out of trashes..."
"Light Empire."
For long, he had wandered through a desert of vast emptiness and eternal night, gifted with a spark that keeps him as a living. With a dim light beside him, the darkness tears through his numb skin, and the star sets him through the void of the Universe until he is sheltered where the sun shines brightly, and the warmth is endless.
"That darn man. If only I could lay a hit on him, I could've saved my people away from this terrible nightmare."
"And how do you sleep every day knowing a man like him still wandering out there? Don't you ever wish to fight back and claim the glory that he stripped unjustly? Maybe I could offer you that."
"If only you could fought like you speak. But he isn't called Star Above for no reason. Have you ever seen a man in a shroud of a god before?"
"No. But I doubt that a man is unkillable. Which is why I planned to look after him and found out."
"And here I was questioned with whom had more sentience. You're quite ludicrous for your age." He opens a cold one.
"I can tell you're not on your prime yet. 20, perhaps?"
"Nineteen. But I'll give you that..." She asks for one beer.
Without a purpose or a place, the Tin Man rests distant from people in a home made of tin. With no hopes and push to his curse, only the time remains for him to wait until the end. The tins were his only friends, which kept him warm and cosy from the darkness of the night while he sought a way to undo his affliction.
But that was when the opportunity hit between them. With the librarian being on the edge of the coast with the Tin Man, she was ready to help him from that misery in the safe haven. A task of two birds with a stone, which could benefit the two of them.
"Look, I know what I'm doing may not helped you much, but I really needed your help." Eve uttered.
"My library is in trouble and I need you to help me take it back from him. And I'm not going to revolt against a man as someone who had a power to weaken this town further."
"The prince wanted to close my library because all the literature are outdated. So the only way for me to keep it open, is if I could shelved a updated one, which I specifically intend to write for myself."
"I see your tin house and I think you can help me. I only needed you to bring me to this magical place to complete my business. I'll pay you with anything if you can help me."
Charger pauses with a consideration in his head.
"Anything?"
Charger walks out of the conversation as he guides Eve to the coast. Something was covered under a long sheet floating on the water, which tempted Eve as she had already guessed the answer from the shape of a boat.
"What kind of payment do you take? Money, beers, tins? I'll give it to you..." Eve follows.
"Well, I suppose what you were looking at might have been my interest. Let's just say I have something owe on the other land to deal with..." Charger unveils the sheet to reveal a broken boat.
"The only problem? I have no one bold and tall enough to help me with it because—well? Not sentient for them..."
"You want a story? I want a business done. There are numerous realms I have to visit to pay some debts with. Help me settle it done, and I'll give you some bedtime stories on the way."
"As I suspect. But that boat won't do the job, you know?"
Charger looks at the tin boat he made, which has many flaws in the hull and engines. Not to mention, there's no place for Eve's foot to step into the deck without her falling into the water. But it floats for as long as nothing hasn't stepped on it.
"Buttleboo." He mumbled to the boat.
"What's that?"
"Quasarian phrase. You're too young to understand." Charger taps the machine again, only to find it janky.
"We need an engine. But not just an average one. We need a stronger one. One that could hold the two of us to the Isles of Man."
Charger pauses momentarily, grabbing a tin toothpick to be put at his hollow head.
"What did you say about the prince again? A sentient machine?"
"He might have the engine. He said he's making more of those 'sentient puppets' during his visit and he's not leaving anytime." She replies.
Eve realises that she forgot about Cyrus, who had been staying off the plaza without her. As soon as she hears a loud cymbal coming from the town, she quickly rushes to help Charger out of the house as soon as possible.
"Aah! Cyrus! Cursed flame..." Eve mumbled.
"Charger, come out now! I need your help!"
"Don't worry. That boat can last for three people. THREE people." Charger pulls out a cart.
"We need to bring him! He can't be let out of this problem alone! If that man stayed here while I'm out, who knows what danger he put himself into."
"Gosh, he was such a soft-spot."
"Aren't we all, young lady?"
Together, the Tin Man left his home and joined the librarian away from the coast, leaving the tins into shred as he embark towards the cave where ocean will swept his house. The ocean is not to be mourned, but its expanding knowledge and lives are to be found away from this island.
Eve pushed the cart while giving Charger the ride from the cave to the town from where she came from.
"How long have you been here, anyway? Sounds like you've been here for like—months."
"Something like 3 days? I was just washed ashored here on my way to Isle of Man. Somehow, you couldn't expect that a storm could be so—fierce at you."
"Do you have a torch? Could you light that cave out for me?"
"Why? You're scared of the dark?"
Eve lighted out a torch. It is a portable device using whale oil which can be activated with a flick of the switch.
"Yes. And that's normal. Creatures always feared the dark."