JustPrompts -- Where's your happy place?

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:24:08 GMT

It’s been two months, not very long at all for the scientist to reunite with his most desired creation once more. Wonder, as always, was happy to see him. Out among the ruins on Kukkori Island, the robot flickered to life once she heard her young master’s voice say her name.

Tarlant smiled up at her big vase-shaped head. The light behind the glass of her curved square eyepiece blinked once. “Ready to go flying, Wonder?”

“Hroo-hooo,” she replied, as usual. Her low and incoherent answer was soothing and welcoming. Sure, he could have meddled within the circuitry to make her speak actual words—in which was no easy task. Back then, exploring the Zone with his friends and colleagues, a dimension as to where the dead went, was much more important. Building and working out the incredible things on Wonder had become only a pet project. Up until the terrible tragedy of destruction and what had been done to the princess on his home planet, Greecia, Wonder was needed to operate sooner than expected to help find her soul, in which had been transferred far from the evil Lord Georca’s clutches to a similar blue watered planet known as Earth.

For over the past three hundred years—in Greecian years it would be twenty-one—Wonder and Tarlant were so far from home. There was no going home until Princess Tina was found. He’d seen King Titus furious at his group twice, and twice was plenty enough. Besides that, he would not want to cause him any more grief. Yes, he would lay down his life for his king. It was his civil duty and honor to serve him. Science, and working with his friends in the Tanatulum—a technologically advanced laboratory within the palace that once stood—was his life too.

Of times in which the mission was too much, or whenever Tarlant felt like it, he’d climb aboard his loyal reliable robot and take off.

This time around was certainly not any different. He lowered himself, and then jumped into the air. The excess air coming out from the bottom of his gray boots helped to lift him up and hover down onto Wonder’s big broad back. “Let’s go, Wonder!”

“Hroo-hooo,” complied his friend. He could hear the jet-like engine on Wonder's lower part of her back roar to life as she rapidly ascended. Higher and higher they went, far above the giant old statues and the spacious but worn temples. Tarlant could see the area shrinking quickly before his eyes as he glanced down. Then he looked up as they flew skyward a little further. If he looked down again, he would barely see Kukkori Island. The fluffy clouds in the night sky, stars all around—this setting couldn’t possibly be anymore beautiful for him.

Tarlant was very sure that Wonder was pleased to go out on another joy ride as he was. Any time that he could spare to go see her again pleased Wonder, but flying across a starry night sky was the most fun. This time and setting was their secret paradise; nothing and no one could ever threaten that.

Flying with Wonder released the kid inside him, and this seemed to fit along with his current small body. To more or less blend in with the rest of Earth’s people, he had to move around in this body. His true form would tower over them all, and possibly frighten them. It was an unanimous decision to go to Earth more down to their size; it was a very sensible thing to do. Arriving to Earth in their original bodies would not help them in any way.

“Wonder! Nose dive into those clouds,” Tarlant voiced, and Wonder gave her usual response. He held on, smiling, beaming in excitement. He could feel an adrenaline rush as she sharply dove into the sea of clouds below them. The moist, cool air was refreshing. Tarlant leaned forward, closer to the side of the top of her bulb-shaped head.

As they were out of those clouds, he told Wonder to go through some more. He’d reach out and brush his fingers up against the whitened moisture under the moonlight, leaving a thin line on them as they flew on through. In passing through their fourth cloud, he spoke no other commands to her as he gazed at the stars. The view of the sky of Earth was very similar as to how it was on Greecia. With wide blue eyes, he spotted some of the constellations he knew, such as Orion, and the large sea hawk one that most Greecians were familiar with. Seeing the sea hawk constellation for the third time since his arrival, he still felt amazed that it could be seen from here on Earth. He also felt little homesick.

Hope and determination was strongly present within him. There was no despair or giving up, for one day the princess would be found, and then everyone would be able to go back home. Everything would be fine, no matter what Tina decided on what she wanted to do. Her father was desperate and pleading to have her back the last time Tarlant had saw him, but no father should have his daughter do something she didn’t want to do, not unless it was necessarily for her own good.

Tarlant mentally shook himself out of those worries, and told himself again to enjoy his time with Wonder, to break free from the mission. If he couldn’t have time to take these brief separations from the harsh reality, frustration, and suffering he’s experienced (dying, reborn into a different family years later, dying again at eleven years of age), then how could he ever get by? How did Agi, Soreto, Hasmodye, and Hiisuma get by? That, Tarlant may never know.

No matter what, he confided to himself, I won’t give in. Not ever. If I do, then I might as well fall into the fear and try to escape the mission, just as poor Palza had.

On the memory of the kind and gentle man known Palza, Tarlant felt himself smile a little. He might have lived and died as Earth physicist Conrad Rugen, but he wasn’t going to be forgotten. And Mel, a sweet young woman who recently lost sign of her memories and was captured by Dumas, she wasn’t going to be forgotten either. Mel and Palza were once betrothed, but if anything, there had to be another chance in which they could be truly together, another lifetime perhaps. That’s what Tarlant liked to think, to hope for.

We should go back, said his inward voice of reason. Spending too much time up here would only have Agi and the others think that something may have happened to him.

“Let’s go back now, Wonder.”

In her response, to Tarlant she seemed to agree with him. Artificial intelligence could only be expected of so much, but maybe she actually understood that he’d get into some serious trouble for joy riding too long.

Wonder stopped and turned around to start soaring off to Kukkori Island. As always, she’d go back to her hiding place, and Tarlant would quietly rejoin his friends without them noticing. Tomorrow was to be another day of hard work and searching, so he’d better turn in for the night.

Tarlant's Comm Link Device

JustPrompts -- Where's your happy place?