"Long ago, a man was living in a grassland with his windmill he just bought from the old owners of the plot. He was a long wanderer, travelling from town to town searching for a place to stay. He was a lone vagrant and a nomad."
"Each town he went to was worse than before, with each qualifying new kinds of troubles to his shoulders. Thus, he stayed on the plot farm. He has cows, sheeps, and animals he could nurture for as long as he could live on the hill unburdened by townsfolks nuisance."
"He wasn't an average man, but he does have a saving worth of billions if he tried harder than to live as a farmer. After all, who said one couldn't dream bigger?"
"Okay, stop right there." Eve mumbled.
The three wanderers were eating so good on the plate today, as they cleaned everything and left almost no traces of crumbles and stains except for Tin Man, who left his waffle with a few strawberry jam on the side. Unlike the two wanderers, his plate left the other two even hungrier just by seeing it.
"First of all, I asked you the origin of that wind-powered propeller, not some random guy story about crappy life." Eve grabs her knife.
"Second, are you going to eat that? Because I'm in need of a sweet."
"Can we share it in two already?"
Seeing the desperate soul, the Tin Man offered the librarian the remains of his treat for her. A perfect one-pan of waffle as a closing treat after a heavy one. The Tin Man didn't look so much hungry, as he was still indifferent and stuck within his sparkful of thought. But his story is what keeps the two wanderers hanging.
"Alright! I guess you really are that desperate...friend," Charger cuts.
"Then let me tell you the story about the invisible force. A force hidden beneath the ground, keeping the Earth moving and its inhabitant from dying."
"Yeah, life...I heard that. The forces of life are everywhere and still debatable, but that isn't something that I would say complex since many researchers have proven that they can identify lives through our skin." Eve intervenes.
"No, not life force. Not a force to create life—a force...to create movement and manipulate it. Both Earth and Sky are moving through its hands, keeping the inhabitants from annihilation."
"In fact, it was the force that controls winds and sky. The force that compels your foot on the ground, and the force that sets the clouds into a stormy one."
"They called it...Magnus force."
The Tin Man began to ease their desperation with a tale of a past—one that he hears from the back of human's ears. The secret and magic of the wind-powered propeller lying in his head could unveil the librarian's deepest curiosity about the world and its creation. But upon hearing the last mentioned name, the two wanderers couldn't hold their laughs.
"AHAHAHAHA!" The two laugh.
"What? What so funny?" Charger glances with disgust.
"Magnus? Really? You mean that metallic energy that attracted metals? That one?" Eve teases.
"Yes. And how's that funny for you?"
"Oh, Charger...you want me to believe electricity come out of that? Do you even know why whale oil works better than coal?" Cyrus commented.
"Yes, I do! It does more than you think it is!"
"Like what? The only thing it does well here is connecting some shitty pipes and forging bullets for soldiers. In my 10 years of experience in Frayfoil and library, I have never seen someone summoning even a spark out of that thing."
The three wanderers were so deep within their stories that they paid no attention to the sound of a marching storm outside. The people glanced at the horizon, but they showed no fear or hesitation like them. The sky darkens, and breezes start to blow around the coasts and metals. Yet, it catches no one's attention.
"Aww, you two! And here I thought two fleshy brains would align some intellect. But I guess you two are just one single conscience without a spark of adventure." Charger criticizes.
"That's not true! We're two independent minds with so much creativity. Right, Cyrus?" Eve teases.
"Yeah!" Cyrus replies passively. No emotion other than a supporting one.
"Yes..." Charger criticizes.
The two wanderers were stunned by this story—eyes were opened, and ears rang with disbelief. The librarian hears a story so absurd that she doesn't even notice the gust of the wind blowing through the town and people heading forward into the storm.
"But this power is so much more magnificent than you think it is! Nobody has ever tapped into its full knowledge. Nobody, but one man!"
"He was once a man of disgrace living in the windmill far beyond the mountains with nobody but himself. But when he thought abandonment would made him suffer, he was wrong..."
The librarian had never heard something so laughable. Her wisdom had given many years of consistent yet empirical support that the Tin Man merely uttered lies. The theory of an invisible force coming from metal-attracting energy had never sounded so significantly essential to her. But wisdom does have a wonder if things could be or not be.
'The wind is moving in a pattern. And in that pattern came thunder...but always...there's winds before thunder, and when the wind was stronger, the thunder came."
"He realizes that the winds do not come from nowhere. Something is creating them—compelling this breeze to exist out of nowhere and left into the nowhere to carry out the thunders alongside."
"Then, something tapped into him. Something like a spark, bursting out of the ground and nearly killed him before his eyes. But instead of hate, he find an idea. He find the secret..."
"A string that made Earth a puppet. A string that kept everything in the world balanced and controlled, and a string that makes the sky calm and angry."
"And thus, he wanted to control it. He wanted the wind to be controlled."
The Tin Man persists on the ground of this invisible force—still confident that he is ushering a gift of wisdom to the librarian. But his story suddenly went so exciting that the three wanderers failed to see the people noticing the eye of the storm coming from a distance. Soon enough, people are leaving this place. Many metal-bearers wanted to be closer to the eye than the three did.
"So he made a propeller that could catch the wind's movement and absorb their sparks—absorb their magnetic energy to create his own. A medium device that can turn energy out of anything that moves it."
"Suddenly, his engine was proven effective. His works, it was finally fruiting a new truth! Perhaps he could change the world..."
"H-how do you know this? How in the land of humans...you—a creature of a star—knows something from past of Earth?" Cyrus stares in confusion with his other hand raised.
"Well, I wasn't too far from the past of Earth. My world was shattered many, many years prior to the day you were born. Even as far as centuries! I am a wanderer of this world for long in my blue skin, trying to...blend in..." Charger smokes one out with a sugary smoke from his sugary cigar.
"But I heard this man's plea, for he whose name I forgot and face I have lost during my time. But he wasn't that old! In fact, I remember him only by this story we've made along..."
The story brings comfort to the wanderers yet again, but the troubled ones can only question the validity of the Tin Man's words. Nobody could say he was believable, but they couldn't say he was right. The librarian could only imagine this scroll of truth insignificant to her research for the sky, knowing she wouldn't be able to make a difference with it.
To her thought, the man might have earned himself leverage from truth thanks to his research. Maybe the wind turbine had finally won against her literatures, and she had nothing but denial in her head.
"You sounds funny, Charger. But I believe you, only because you looked like someone terrible to lie." Eve finishes writing.
"Even if it was true, then what's the point of trying to tell us something that he could've told us instead? Or his creation? Or invention? Or his accomplice..."
"I wish I could...but the man was not here...nor his creation could ever be..."
"How's so? We've seen what he did here..."
"No, it's not his. He had a different model than others, and he was not the one being noticed among the people. His creation has always been left out. Wonder what happened to him now?"
The librarian sat dissatisfied, even more desperate than before. But when she hears that the invention of wind-powered machinery hasn't yet been known by eyes, she realizes that she isn't too far-fetched from defending the truth. In fact, maybe the truth hasn't yet been made here.
"S-so...nobody has this turbine...y-yet? It's still debatable..." Eve's eyes twitched with rhapsodic.
"Yep. Steam and coals...in fact, it was heavily a laughing topic out there. But somewhere, his project still lies within Britannia."
The librarian was filled with euphoria—one more discovery to open her eyes to that story. But the thought of this wisdom buried and not revealed like many others excites her even more, almost like she was destined to dig it out of the world and set the old ways in a new one. Perhaps she could instead make it into her truth, and then she could be firm with the idea.
"Really? We are going to??" Charger finds himself way too excited.
The librarian's words immediately put everyone in silence, and the Tin Man was the happiest face on this table. Seeing his friend supporting his cause for the greater 'desire' fueled him with excitement and motivation in the librarian's journey further.
"Cyrus, you're thinking what I'm thinking?" Eve spins her head ninety degrees to Cyrus.
"Yeah. Think we should get ourselves some dessert before we leave? I think of sweet perseverance with some delicate populace from the tropical island." Cyrus perched his eyes on the menu.
"That, too! But I'm thinking more about solving our town's problem with some invisible knowledge instead! Think about it! How do you think people would see the two of us now?"
"I'm not thinking of straying our path, but if you think this could give us a chance to save our town, then..."
"Maybe we could alter the winds and reset everything that happened in the town? Think of it as nothing ever happened...woosh..." Charger suggested.
"Ridiculous! But who's to say we couldn't try?" Eve commented.
—————————————————————————————————
Woosh...woosh...woosh...
Together, the three wanderers prepare to set sail again after knowing their new destination—not just a new adventure, but perhaps an answer to a question no one asked. Like a treasure, one could have been desperate for an answer in the form of gold.
The wind propeller—the mechanical medium between a mere wind and renewable energy—almost had the librarian's head on the cloud just by thinking of it. But the imagination could be deceiving, as darkness lies on the other side of the curtain—like a storm running the sky black.
But if there's something that may dance above her head like a cloud, it would've been the unusual breeze that soon took notice by the wanderers from the outside. Wind is blowing as the past calls, as the sky darkens in another chaos and cataclysm.
"Uhm...?"
"Yeah, I know! You people are ungrateful, aren't you? At least gave me some pennies." Charger pulls out a sack from his head. Deep inside, he was looking for something to trade with the cook over that delicious treat they had.
"No, creature. I think that's not what we are being concerned right now."
Wind guzzling, drizzles falling, and thunders striking precisely. Alphiore was yet another victim of past turmoil, and now it was heading towards them with a scent of destruction. But surprisingly, the citizens here were reaching over the clouds with joy as if they were waiting for a gift from the eye.
"What are they doing...? Do they know the storm is heading that way?" Cyrus walked out of the food court.
"I don't know, but they're mad mad! So I don't think I'm surprised. Are you two?" Eve grabs her book and uses it to cover her face.
"No!" Cyrus and Charger mumbled.
The wanderers watched as the sea unfolded and the sand flew across the sky. Yet the citizens were waiting for its arrival despite the pain. Even the librarian couldn't escape delusion, but she knew these people did not offer much thought in their heads but false hope.
"Come on, the boat's right there!"
"We need to help them! These people are going to die!"
While the librarian and the Tin Man are heading for safety, the cleric follows the crowd of madness into the eye of the storm itself. With hopes that somehow he could ignite conscience into these metal-bearers, he finds himself separated yet entangled by the librarian's virtue. It was a kindness he gave to these people, but not as kind and understanding as the librarian.
"Cyrus! No! Get back here!"
"No, save them! Save these people now!" Cyrus drags a few tables out.
"Where's the others? Where's mom and dad? We need to find them!"
"No! Get back here, kids!"
Barricades by barricades, the cleric toils with the windy demise of another soul. Children of the wind and freedom, have they fallen into his arms to be saved from this terrible fate. Yet when they were offered a second chance by his hands, they let out a dismissive refusal that even the librarian couldn't help.
"Hey, get to the other side! Find a boat now!"
"No! We don't want to! Leave us alone, sir!"
"What? No! Get back here!"
The librarian and the cleric tried as hard as they could to save these people. Yet the librarian focused only on one important soul before her to be saved—the faithful one. But the one faithful does not want to be saved, but rather to save others. How selflessly a fool he was, trying to uplift senses and reason in a world of reasonless.
"What are you doing? Leave them! They don't want this! Can't you see?" Eve yelled.
"So, why? You wanted them to die! Because I don't and I think it's stupid you're asking me that!" Cyrus dragged one kid away with his arm—still resistant, he and the child are.
"Cyrus! Watch out!!" Eve grabs her away.
BWOOSH!
The wind blows as fierce as a fist of a god, raising the ground and sending humans afloat in the sky. The two watched as not only walls that were flying but also humans who were showing a face of contentment in their confrontation with the storm.
"Yeah! Yeah! Free! Free!"
"Set us free!"
"What are they doing...?" Eve muttered in confusion.
Woosh...Gush!
They hurled themselves into the wind, spiralling at the vortex of this hurricane where they rained upon sands, salt, and especially rocks. Yet all they have for the storm is happiness and admiration. But these people do not believe in the storm, as faith does not sacrifice this irrationally.
"Eve? Cyrus? You're alright, friend?" Charger arrives from behind with a sack of scraps.
"I think we can leave now because I just hit a jackpot on the old man's house!"
Boom! Woosh...!
No setup, no offering, and no papers as to why they were doing this. Yet the two wanderers could only watch as children sang alongside the participating souls for their senseless joy. And the storm was not moving around them any further.
"Uh, are you guys listening?" Charger pulls out a broken gun from his sack.
"What is wrong with these people??" Cyrus yelled.