3 Chapter 3: Paint It Red
Rowan stopped the skoolie at the sight of a kneeling figure who, from a distance, looked like a heap of laundry discarded in the white desert. I had noticed a look would come over the king’s face every time he found a new stranger in this Land of Night - a look of determination and compassion, all in one, like a hero. Yet, his widened eyes lent an inherent expression of confusion or surprise to his every emotion.
He pushed the lever to open the skoolie door, having a straight path to the stranger in the sand. “This should be the last one for today,” he told me as he stood. “We’re almost there.”
“Where?” I asked, as if any city name would mean anything to me. If it wasn’t the Crimson Kingdom, I didn’t know anything about it.
“You’ll see. But first…” He twitched a grin at me before stepping down the bus steps.
He approached the stranger cautiously, landing a gentle touch to their back - and suddenly he jerked away at the ‘tsst' of torn fabric. While Rowan's buttons were still fastened, his slim black shirt was open in a line from the ribs down.
I jolted toward them, then spun around at a new thought. Not trusting any madmen, I took the bus keys from the ignition, then hurried out.
“Stay back!” Rowan warned, holding a hand out my direction - and never looking away from the stranger.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Rowan told him.
“You disturbed the loop!” cried the crouching figure - a man with a raspy voice and a dagger.
“My deepest apologies,” Rowan replied. “Was it a happy one?”
“No!”
“Well, then, isn’t it better that I disturbed it?”
“No!”
“Ah, so this is a guilt-trip.” It didn’t seem like he meant it in the same way that other people would when referring to a guilt-trip.
“No!” wailed the increasingly dissatisfied stranger.
“Should I leave you to it?” asked the king.
Louder and louder, like an insulted toddler, the man shrieked, “No, no, no, no, no!”
Rowan stayed put, perfectly still. He and the stranger were cats in a standoff.
Slowly, Rowan lowered his hand from my direction and eased his stance into one more relaxed. “As your king, I should clarify that I’m not ordering you to do anything. Now, come with me if you wish to keep what’s left of your wits.” Apparently he had delivered this line before meeting me, and he would continue to do so after.
“Stop the loop,” the man demanded, “or die.”
“I thought I did stop the loop.”
“You disturbed it! It’s disturbed! Disturbed - You didn’t do squit!” While it wasn’t quite a word, his consonants hit more harshly than any standalone swear could.
I didn’t see any logic to his anger at the king, but I’d seen this behavior before. He didn’t need or want logic to calm him or ground him. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to fight.
The stranger’s eyes locked on mine, and my gut twisted. I knew this look, too. He couldn’t crack Rowan - his first target - so he moved on to the next. Me.
“What are you looking at!” the stranger gargled, proceeding to string together the most threatening, ugliest series of derogatory insults a man could scream at a woman while knowing nothing about her.
I was frozen. I knew the best thing to do was to not respond, but if silence didn’t work, I didn’t know how else to deescalate this.
Rowan took no visible offense to the stranger’s tirade, but remained watching him, unmoving - waiting. Finally he interrupted with, “I’ll come back for you later.”
The stranger glanced at Rowan then just as quickly lunged my direction.
I flinched and gasped. Rowan grabbed the man’s wrist before I could think to run.
“I cannot allow that,” said the king.
The man swung his dagger at Rowan.
Rowan grabbed the stranger’s grip around the weapon, effectively restraining the him by both hands.
The man threw his weight, pulling Rowan off balance so they both rolled into the sand, and kept tumbling. Their movements were frantic, blocked by their bodies and obscured by the sand so that I couldn’t entirely tell what was happening anymore.
“NO!” screamed a voice I hadn’t yet heard at this octave, confusing my ear.
The stranger straddled the king, slumped. He slumped lower.
“No,” said Rowan, and now I knew he was the one who had screamed. “No, no, no…”
The stranger didn’t move.
Wanting to help even though I didn’t know how, I ran closer.
Blood seeped from between their bodies, to the sand. My reaction felt suspended until I could interpret what this meant.
“The loops ends now,” growled the stranger. He chuckled weakly. “It’s over.”
Rowan lay on his back, pale and wide-eyed with shock. The stranger was pale as well, the dagger panted in his chest.
“Why did you attack me?” Rowan whispered. “You could’ve come back with us.”
The stranger’s chuckle found a second wind. “Why would I?”
“Fuel. For better loops.”
I began to understand loops were a mental thing - maybe a memory, or a vision, on repeat.
The stranger wheezed some genuine laughs. “This is a fine new loop. Knowing it will end, with someone who cares. And why do you care? Why do you…care…” The inflection implied there was more, but he never finished.
After a long silence, Rowan spoke with some strength to his voice. “I… I don’t…” Starting over, his face pinched and he asked, “Do I need a reason?”
No response.
“Hey,” I said, kneeling beside him.
“Hey,” he echoed in rote, dazed.
“You didn’t mean to.”
“I know.” He stared straight at the raven sky, unmoving, still with the stranger’s body on top of his.
I felt surprisingly calm, despite everything. Yet my arms felt like noodles when I tried to shove the stranger’s body off of his. I leaned my bodyweight into it, and with minimal help from the Crimson King himself, the stranger lay beside him, on his back. Dead.
“Perhaps he wanted to be bested, at first,” Rowan said with careful articulation, voice light. “But then the exposed blade was… It might be dark to say, but it was conveniently placed for one who wanted to make a fast decision. I thought… I didn’t know he…”
I found the king's hand with mine with the excuse of needing to eventually seduce him into taking me to his castle, but the urge in me felt genuine. I wanted to comfort him.
He returned the hold, his rings pinching my fingers.
“Ow,” I said.
He released. “I would remove my own hands.”
“Don’t do that.” I doubted he meant he would really chop off his hands, but this was a safe response in either case.
He sat up. “I wouldn’t.” He held his hands out before his eyes, as if debating the statement. “Well… We’ll see what happens.”
“Please don’t.”
With a small trilling laugh, he stood. He held out a hand to help me up, and once I was standing, he shook the sand from his clothes. I did the same.
“The Land will bury him faster than we can,” he said. “Come.”
We returned to the skoolie and I handed him the keys. He squinted.
“I didn’t want the bus to drive away without us,” I explained.
Looking from me, to the ignition, and back again, he said, “So you’re a visual learner.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I kept the confusion from my face. Perhaps automobiles weren’t common here, or it wasn’t common for a commoner to know how to drive.
“So bright,” he musically sighed, taking his seat. The keys shook in his hands as he tried to find the ignition.
“Shower,” I suggested.
“It’s behind the door,” he answered, never ceasing his attempts.
I touched his hand so that he paused. A temptress would do this - but again, I genuinely wished to comfort him.
“Oh,” he said. “You meant me.” He stared at my hand, presumably considering my suggestion. “Are you not shaken?”
Physically, I felt detached. Mentally, I felt numb. “None of this feels real,” I answered. “I could be in shock. There’s a chance it’ll catch up to me later.”
“It’s a good skill to have. Keeping your wits in times of crisis. I’m usually much better at this.”
“You had a different experience than I did just now. And now it’s over. You’re allowed to feel.”
He nodded, then glanced toward the back of the bus where the middle aged stranger was asleep in the bed nook. “It isn’t over until I get us to civilization,” Rowan said. “I’ll get us to safety, ‘then’ I will…shower.” He continued his attempts at getting the keys in the ignition, then asked, “Would you mind just getting that in there?”
I did it for him, and he nodded in thanks.
“Feel free to shower yourself,” he offered.
“I don’t have a change of clothes.”
“Ah. Later, then.”
I sat in the diner booth that had been installed behind his seat.
As he drove, I watched his face through the wide rearview mirror. I couldn’t see traces of madness anymore. He stared intensely through the windshield, his eyes glossy as he occasionally forced deep breaths.
The quiet stranger emerged from the back, walking slowly and carefully as the bus moved. When he caught my gaze, he didn’t immediately look away like he did last time, but offered me a reassuring grin. After allowing the beat to land, he continued to Rowan, who glanced at him before returning his attention to the world outside.
“Hello,” said Rowan. “Did you sleep well?”
The man held Rowan’s shoulder, standing beside him like a friend to literally lean on.
Rowan weakly smiled. “Thank you.”
None of us moved for a long while after that.
I never anticipated meeting a king that cared.
