//------------------------------// // #5 // Story: Bits and pieces // by Cackling Moron //------------------------------// When Paul got back home he threw his stick into one corner, Cozy’s hat into another corner, surged upstairs to strap the frame back onto himself and then furiously started packing, approaching the task with more speed and aggression than was perhaps helpful. His mood was not improved by someone knocking at the door perhaps five minutes after he’d started doing this. At first he was content to ignore whoever they were, in the hopes they’d get the hint and go away. When the knocking persisted his foul mood got the better of him and he went to go and see who it was, perhaps so he could then yell at them. “Whoreson bast-” he snarled, stomping to the door with all the weight and force he could muster, flinging it open violently enough that the handle cracked the wood on the inside wall. It was the small princess again, the purple one. She’d flinched on having the door smashed open and was doing her best to reaffix her friendly smile. Paul’s smile was not friendly. It was non-existent. “You. Why here?” He said. “Oh, hello! Well, I was just in Canterlot again, you see, so I thought-” Paul had stopped caring before he’d even asked her the question and had walked off by this point to continue what he’d been doing before, leaving the door open behind him and leaving Twilight standing there stranded. “Can I - can I come in?” She asked, but Paul was already deep enough into the house that he didn’t even have to pretend not to have heard her.  With him, a lack of response could have meant anything, really, so in this instance Twilight took it to mean yes and gingerly stepped inside. Once across the threshold (and having been conscientious enough to pull the door to, unsure if Paul might have wanted it open for some reason but unwilling to leave it wide open), she followed the noises. They led her to the kitchen. There she found Paul with a bag open on the table, shoving things into the bag. Most of a loaf of bread wrapped in paper. A water canteen. He slammed open a drawer looking for something but, judging from the stream of muttering that came out of him, not finding it. He stomped around some more, heading in Twilight’s direction. “Small one. Out of way. Busy,” he snapped, shoving past her and carrying on. “Um, don’t mean to interrupt but, ah, Is Cozy Glow around?” She asked, innocently enough. Her popping by had been entirely about maybe catching Cozy for talk anyway, just on the off-chance, just to catch up and all that, friendly-like.  “Cozy is gone,” Paul grunted, continuing to look through drawers and continuing to mutter as whatever he was looking for continued to elude him. Had Twilight been able to understand him (and hear him, he was muttering under his breath after all) she would have learnt both some new rude words and also that Paul disliked it when Cozy moved things without telling him. Since she did not understand him though she got none of that. “Gone?” Twilight asked. Odd choice of words, but she put it down to the just-alluded-to language barrier. Maybe she’d stepped out for a second. Paul was glowering and scratching his chin, trying to think of where what he wanted might have ended up. “Went to friends. Then left. Don’t know why. North, they say. Crystal place. I go.” This one took Twilight a moment or two to properly digest.  “The Crystal Empire?” “Hmph.” “Why?” She asked. Paul spared her a glare before limping off. He’d remembered a place to look. “Do not know. Children do not know. Or did not say. Did not ask. Does not matter. I go, find, bring back,” he said. “What?!” He ignored her. Couldn’t see a whole lot of point engaging further. He had things to do and not a lot of time to do them in, he had to go up north. He’d probably need a coat. He’d get that in a second, after checking this cupboard over here. “She just left?” “Hmph.” “Why?” “I tell you, I do not know. Friends not know. Does not matter.” “What are you going to do?” “Go. Find Cozy. Come back,” he said. A simple and direct plan. So simple and direct that it apparently couldn’t be accepted by the small one, who just goggled at him. “What? But you don’t - you don’t even know where she’ll be! The Crystal Empire is a big place!” Paul really doubted this. He’d seen the map, it didn’t look that big at all. What’s more it looked to be a single city, which did not really fit what his understanding of how an empire worked.  But now wasn’t the time to poke holes. “Don’t care,” he said, rooting about in the cupboard and finally finding what it was he’d actually been looking for - a picture of Cozy he could use when he arrived, to help find her. He looked at the picture. He’d find her. Twilight was continuing to reel at these developments and their consequences. “I think there have been a lot of hasty decisions and we should slow things down, just take a minute to think. If Cozy’s gone to the Crystal Empire - if! - then she probably hasn’t even arrived yet. We can send a message ahead, we can tell Cadence! Then they’ll keep a look out for her. There’s no need-” Paul did not know who or what ‘Cadence’ was but, again, he didn’t care. He didn’t really want to hear anymore, either, as the sound of her voice was grating on his ears. “No. No messages, no help. My child. I find.” “But-!” “No,” he said. He was still looking at the picture. Much as before when Cozy had allowed her lust for a scheme to get the better of her judgement, here Paul was having his own moment of impairment. Where Cozy was blindsided by what appeared to be a canny and cunning scheme she could execute flawlessly just like in the good old days when she was given to scheming, Paul was taken entirely unawares by the thought-terminating terror of Cozy just upping and leaving. Had this been anything else, anything at all, he likely would have been able to think more calmly about it. If it had been some disaster, say, or some encroaching hostile force or the looming threat of physical harm. Those he had experience of and gave some sort of context, he could picture in his head the steps needed to get ahead, around and away from them. Those didn’t really move him all that much, and he could react at leisure. But this was different, and skipped merrily past everything to prod him right in some deep, vulnerable, animal portion of his brain, a portion that reacted instinctually and immediately. Everyone has those little weaknesses and soft spots that make them do the sorts of things that, if they saw someone else doing them, would have them calling that someone else a massive idiot. The problem is we rarely notice them in ourselves except in hindsight which is, rather by definition, too late. So rather than focusing on the flaws in his rapidly-forming plan, Paul was instead focusing solely on the sucking sense of dread he felt in the pit of his stomach and which was sending out icy, grasping feelers to fill every other inch of him. This was Cozy! The child! Gone! Somewhere! All on her own! Smart child, yes, but still just a child! The child he looked after! He’d comforted her when she’d had nightmares, for God’s sake! Or tried to! He’d let her get into the bathtub with him so she could get back to sleep easier, much against his better judgement! He’d painted her room with her! Twice, when she’d changed her mind on the colour! He’d tried to teach her the fami- the business! Told her about home! He hadn’t told anyone about home in years! Just her! And if something happened to her while she was out there… He faltered, brain fizzing, gut hitching at the thought. If something happened to her... ...well he’d probably get in trouble, that was it. If she did something dumb or if she got hurt he’d be the one catching it in the neck. That was why he had to go get her. Enlightened self-interest, story of his life. Just like everything else. Exactly like everything else. That, and he was really the only one he trusted to do it properly anyway. Had to be him, and had to be right this second. No time to waste. The longer spent dawdling the further away she’d get, the more trouble she could get into and the higher the chance of someone else sticking their oar in and fucking it up. Had to go now, right now. The small one was still burbling on about something but Paul had given up even trying to block it out and was now just letting it wash around him like the sound of the ocean surf. He was thinking about the journey ahead. Having looked at the map - and having listened to Cozy’s friends, albeit briefly - he’d seen and knew that this crystal place was North, and getting there commonly required a train journey. He was not going to go by train. For one, he wasn’t sitting around waiting for one to arrive, he didn’t have that sort of time to waste. For another, he bet he could go faster anyway, or if not faster, smarter. Could cut the corners a train could not. He had machines for that. The wagon-pulling machine would do fine in a pinch, it had the power, he knew it was up to the task. That part was fine. He could make that work. His mind wandered despite his attempts to keep it on the task at hand. It kept sliding on over into speculation about the why of why Cozy had apparently decided to just run away all of a sudden. Was she unhappy? Was she unhappy and had he just not noticed? Had it been obvious? If he’d been paying closer attention could he have done something about it? Could this have been avoided? Or was it something that he’d done that had made her run? Was this his fault in the first place? And if so, what was it that he’d done? He wracked his brains and thought of a wealth of things he’d done that looked to have annoyed her - which one was it? Or was it none of them? Or all of them together? Or was this what it had all been building up to? Had this been the goal from the very beginning? Her patience paying off, her taking a perfect opportunity to slip away and get started on another grand, meticulously planned (if ultimately rather poorly thought out) plan? Like the last time? Had she been pretending the whole time? That one got him to stop in his tracks. She wouldn’t do that, would she? No, not Cozy, she was better than that now - he’d seen it! Or had she really managed to get around him? Work him down? Fool him? No, no. He was better than that, he knew, and so was she. She was better than that. It wasn’t that. Not anymore, not again. She wouldn’t do that. Not his Cozy. It had to be his fault. Had to be. Something he’d done - or not done - that was it. This was his fault. And that was why - one of the many whys - it was up to him to go and get her back and fix it. “Are you alright, Paul?” Twilight asked, delicately, approaching him cautiously as one might approach something that might collapse on you if you moved too suddenly. He’d just been stood there for nearly a solid minute now, picture in hand. “Fine.” “You don’t look fine.” Damn tiny horses and their damn stupid questions and pointless statements about things he already knew full well. Paul’s patience, already taut, snapped, and he rounded on her. “Look at the brains on you! What you princess of? The blind-ding-lee obvious? No I am not fine! Cozy run off! The child, gone, fucking gone,  left! My - the child my responsibility! If she hurt then - if she make mistake I will be blamed! My responsibility, my child, my responsibility. I have to look after Cozy! Keep safe. Look after. Is any of this getting through to you? Now get out of way.” That shut her up. Picture of Cozy clutched in one hand he raised the other and slowly, warningly, pointed at her. “I go. Me. No-one else. I go.” He then stalked back off to the kitchen, shoved the picture in the bag and stalked upstairs to find where he’d put his coat. He was sure he’d put it upstairs somewhere. He had. He came back down wearing it and headed past a still-stunned Twilight, through the kitchen and into the garden, thence across the garden and to the outbuilding. They’d brought that with them when they’d moved his house, too. As well they bloody should. Opening up the outbuilding revealed the dusty, disassembled wagon, a multitude of bits and pieces most of which he’d forgotten the original purpose of, and something underneath a sheet. Paul whipped the sheet aside and the wagon-pulling machine - long having stood idle - stirred. A quiet ticking starting and quickly building up to speed.  “You. Machine. We’re going on a little trip.” Grunting and heaving he hauled it out into the open and gave it the once over. Still looked to be in reasonable condition. If there was at least one thing Paul could say about his own work it was that he made it to last. Of course, It hadn’t been designed to accommodate a rider but Paul was going to make it work. Lots of things could be made to do things they weren’t actually meant to do, what was another one? “Stretch your legs,” he said to the machine before going back inside for his bag. He had no idea what he needed to take, really, so had just grabbed what seemed appropriate. The picture was the important thing, that and the map. The water and bread were afterthoughts. He’d make the trip just fine, he was sure. Be back in time for dinner, Cozy tucked under one arm, safe and in one piece. Anything less was unacceptable. “Shut door behind you on way out,” Paul grunted to Twilight as he swiped the bag off the table. This jerked her out of whatever mind hole she’d fallen into and she trotted urgently after him. “Paul, I know you’re worried but this is really something you should maybe consider for a moment,” she said, trying to sound diplomatic, trying to find some way of reaching him before he did something rash. Too late, he was set. No turning back. “You consider,” he said, setting the bag across his shoulder so it hung comfortably and then, rather awkwardly, heaving himself onto the wagon-pulling machine. For a ticking clockwork contraption with no face and questionable sapience it did a pretty good job of conveying a sense of being hard done by. Took the weight though, and stayed balanced even Paul shifted himself about. “Good work, machine. Got a road ahead of us. Take a step,” he said. The machine obligingly took a step. Balance remained alright, not wobbling. This would work. “Alright, get going.” The machine did, starting at a trot. “Paul! Wait!” Twilight said, trotting alongside and increasingly frazzled. “Get in a ditch. You wait. I go.” And go he did, knocking the machine’s speed up a few notches and not waiting for her to reply and not looking back. Had he looked back, he would have seen her hesitating, vacillating, fretting and then, finally, leaping into the air and taking off for the palace as fast she could. But Paul wasn’t looking back, he was heading out and North as fast as he could make the machine go.