A Fallen Star

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...the Tin Man?"

"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 tins dominate the man, and the librarian soon realizes the Tin Man is no ordinary tin thief.

"Oh, crap. I should've brought a weapon here."

"The door was opened...maybe I could..."

She drew back silently while the Tin Man locked onto her disturbed face. With each step, she clanks harder to the door, slowly heading towards the light from each forsaken metal on the ground and ceiling. But then, the Tin Man came to his senses and felt a grief surge to stop her.

"Hello, young lady." Said the Tin Man.

"What are you doing in my Tin house?"

"Aah!"

"Oh, no, no, no..."

"Don't come any closer! No!"

The Tin Man calms no more, for he was gazed at and nailed to her body—the lively body of a human. Fear dominates the librarian as she is further from anticipation, left to fall on her back, and the Tin Man approaches her without a word. His silence is too loud because of his hostility towards her.

It was too confusing to ask herself which the outcomes of her encounter would matter now—the tin, the man, or the escape? It was all dazzling, and she only wanted nothing more but the answer right on her face. Yet, with all the time wasted thinking, the librarian eventually finds herself cornered at the Tin Man's house with his weapon raised above.

"What do I do? What do I do? Why did this happen to me?"

"God, I don't want to die! Please save me..."

The librarian stands firmly, gazing back at the Tin Man's lifeless eyes to dominate his dull dread. Her fists clenched tightly in front of her face, preparing to grasp against his weakest spot and turn the table with might. A face like this makes the Tin Man aware of his weaknesses and awed at her bravery.

"Hey! Hey!" The Tin Man yelled.

"I said what are you doing in my house? Close the door, at least!"

"Tin Man, NOO!! W-wait, what?" Eve cowers.

The Tin Man laughed at her at the mercy of her valor, never to be tempted by such a voice. For once, he felt a human soul within his tin wall and dropped his tin rod to the ground with a clank that never felt so relieving for her. But the Tin Man was a fool creature to the librarian's intellect.

"Why are you entering my house without my permission? Could you at least knock?" He yelled.

The Tin Man clanked the pipe into the ceiling, dropping several dusty tins into the ground to scare the librarian. Momentarily, it was clear to the librarian that the Tin Man was mad for her tins, not her flesh and bones. Tins scattered on the ground rang a bell, which she took as his voice.

"W-well, I didn't know there's a home here...?"

*Clank* *Clank* *Clank* "In a coast where there's only a tin house at a bright day? I suppose you should've thought about that first..."

"Invading people's property and expecting not one but two problems to be solved?" The Tin Man continues.

*Clank* *Clank* *Clank* "You think you can just arrive here because you knew nothing of your eyes, little one?"

The tins shrill across the houses, boasting the Tin Man in his empire of tins. From dust and scraps, only he speaks among the silenced stone. But as the tidal receded temporarily, the librarian's voice became free from the dominion of the Tin Man and regained her ground from the lost ones.

With a small window, the librarian seizes the Tin Man's ground with his tin sword. He shivers, and she pushes. She clanks the walls, leaving the tins shrilled for her instead of him.

"I think you can explain why are you stealing these tins first?" Eve grasped the Tin Man's rod from his hand.

"Stay put, young lady! This is no place to waste a precious alloy!" The Tin Man yelled back.

*Clank* *Clank*

"Tell me, Tin Man. What are you doing with all these tins?"

"You don't know what you're doing, lady!" said the Tin Man.

By the corner, the Tin Man was in the weak spot against the librarian—in his house with such disgrace. The tins couldn't help him, as they were all shivered like him for the new dominion. It was over that moment that he would have surrendered.

*Clank* *Clank* *Clank* *Clank*

"You hear that, Tin Man? The house screams for you, not me..." Eve charges her strike from above.

"Give it up, Tin Man. Tell me why are you using these tins now or I'll smack your round head and dragged you out on the street to clean those tin trails publicly."

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's triumph as she raises her sword upwards. Fall to the mischievous tins robber in his rust unless a miracle could shoot through.

"Did you call yourself Tin Man?" Eve pokes threateningly.

"Tin Man? Is that a name those people took gave to me because I took their precious tin alloys?" The Tin Man held an empty can like a phone.

"They didn't even use it—why would they be bothered if I stole it?"

"Maybe they wouldn't if you didn't litter those tins on the street. Have you seen where those tins had gone?" Eve quipped.

"Don't blame me, young lady. Blame these fleeting limbs of mine that couldn't hold a string tight. My name had never been known here, just like these tins' value..."

"Then what's your name, little one? So that I can keep a record of your scream in my library..."

"The name's Charger. Charger the Great."

Yet despite his fall, the Tin Man deemed himself a proud ruler. The arrogance in his voice reminds the librarian of the prince, with his shoulders raised above his neck upon introduction. But unlike him, the Tin Man proudly embraces death before disgrace, less the word and more the act than the prince.

"Charger? As in electrical socket?" Eve swung from above to the Tin Man's head.

"Charger as in your GREATEST surprise!!"

Just as the librarian was an inch closer to crushing his skull, the Tin Man pulled out a trump card behind his sleeves. A glimpse of spark reached out of the Tin Man's body and caught her eyes in a moment of judgment. Lifeless but potent, it slithered through like a snake towards his finger.

*Zap*

"AAH!"

From within, a magic unheard is summoned. The Tin Man charged a jolt of thunder from his body for the librarian's waist in a twist. It was merely a touch, but she could not expect as few whiplash came pushing her upwards like a gale and into the door.

The librarian fell from her back, watching as the Tin Man approached her with a thunder fist. With a glow equal to a torch, sparks spread across metals, and one discovery found in the librarian's eyes as perhaps the least comprehensible event to swallow.

"No, no, no, no!" Eve quickly kneels at the Tin Man.

"Please, don't kill me! Please, don't kill me! I'm only trying to find an answer! Please, please..."

*Zap* The Tin Man spread a spark beside her, turning the sand to rise as a glass like a frozen wave.

*Zap*"Who do you think you are?"

So, fell to all on the ground, as sands vanished, and thunders shriek into a glass. The librarian was encased into this soft, heating confinement like a pre-destined coffin to her demise. The Tin Man stood calmly, waiting for her answer while more thunders were ready to shake the Earth again.

"Eve. Eve Ainsley..." She stutters.

*Zap* "Then answer me or perish!" The Tin Man stirs the sand into a narrower coffin for Eve to breathe.

"Aaah! Okay! Okay! Wait, I can explain! I can explain!" She yelled in mercy.

She held her right arm tight, watching every hair on her skin rise to the spark as well. But that feeling was not something to fear, as what came out of her head was awestruck. There's no point in denying the stars anymore! The librarian is on a path to something big in her life. A discovery she couldn't leave to wait if she could survive the coffin.

"I'm not a police or anything, okay? I was just curious and thought I could find this 'Tin Man' instead! I didn't even bring a weapon or an anti-electric device! I promise!" She drops her pen and book to the Tin Man.

"I'm a librarian! I can't even use a bludgeon! I didn't know the Tin Man could be an actual Tin, okay? Okay?"

"Please, I won't tell anyone about you ever! Heck, if I did, that'll ruin my story with unnecessary scenes. I only want to know you!"

"And then what?" The Tin Man steps above her chest, with bolts still locking through.

"Being able to write my own story in this Universe...? You must have a dream for one, right?"

The Tin Man retreats, loosening his grasp on the thunders before sparing the librarian's life. Drawn by her words, he was awed to hear further about the 'story' she was working with. He sat on the sand he hadn't turned into a glass and watched as the librarian tore her prison with a fist.

She stood relished—never had been better since morning. The librarian humbly reached for a truce before the Tin Man, speaking four-eyed across the hazy storms. She blinked twice at the horizon and saw the kingdom of rust still standing against wave after wave.

"Well, glad to see not all of us are hopeless in this Universe!" He cheered.

"I was so scared, I thought I was the only one!"

"Uhm...yeah, right..." Eve thought.

The Tin Man turned from his menacing judgment into a welcoming greeting, touring the wondrous librarian across his house. All tins and scraps molded into an art she had never seen in the town—All behind the curtains of his mere house. The librarian was enamored, but not him.

The guilty Tin Man grabs his tin broom and quickly sweeps the librarian's clothes from sand and glass shards. He tried his best to clean up his past mistakes, but the librarian only cared about his presence. The heavy winds only blow his mess back to her, becoming worse than just a mess.

"Sorry for intervening you, human. My survival instinct went sharp with your presence back there." Charger mumbled as he grasped a tin broom.

"Did you cause this storm? Because I've never seen autumn this heavy before..." Eve wipes the sand off her face.

"Forgive me. It must have been my negligence that led this mess since morning, isn't it?"

"You may have a look around the back of my house while I prepare you a cup of tea."

The sand buried a lot of relics from her eyes, all of which tempted the librarian by its design. The Tin Man is an exceptional artisan carving through these metals like a sculptor to a marble. From a cheap heap to a goddess modesty, every piece of art erected near the ocean arouses the side of craft within the librarian.

From a figure of goddesses and gods to the Tin Man's face, proficiency was fueled by an aspiration where the librarian would have given up. But each face looks incomplete with rust and tear, marking its time here since the librarian had seen it. Those who appeared perfect may have been lower than the others—possibly due to Tin Man's size.

The Tin Man glared from the window, shrugging himself as if he could sense her compliments from a distance. But when he thought the librarian was awing him, he saw that hope cut off when she appeared distasteful with his own face.

The librarian wished to seek more. She wanted to learn about the sculptor's inspiration and how it made the very will of him. The Tin Man calmly gestured to her answer, showing he was more than just a 'Tin Man' in this world. His story began long away from this land or even the ground.

"Can you tell me more about yourself? Are you from another space? An alien or somewhat? I need to know if I could go there and see for myself." Eve's questions led Charger to a chuckle.

"Alien? Haha! Oh, you silly...do you even knew what makes an alien?"

"Not being from this planet?" Eve raises her eyebrow.

"Oh, I guess that makes me an alien. But I'm not."

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 with a bucket head and a rusty joint, he was shunned and cast for his lack of flesh. And now, the last thing he had in the Universe was the tins thrown and wasted like him.

"I'm a Quasarian, young lady."

"You're from that tech company? So are you a runaway machine or something?"

"What? No! Not that Quasar. Quasarian as in subclass of galactic nuclei...! That's why they called it Quasor!"

"Ehm...?" Eve blinks awkwardly.

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.

"Quasor is a world above the stars where stones and metals could live by a touch of lightning. One that currently touches you!" Charger scatters every tin from his house to show over at Eve.

"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..." Eve noted.

"But my world was gone. Taken by a dominion of Light empire as my people had vanished in the specks of dust in search for a new home. Like me, they may or may not had 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 a living. With a dim light beside him, the darkness comforts the cold, and the star guides 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."

"You know a lot of things I didn't imp. Maybe you should consider having a counsel like me to speak so we can learn more about your planet and uhm...people?" Eve rolls her eyes up, trying to stir the convo to her liking.

"Perhaps the more you share, the more you can settle down from this unhealthy thought about your past?"

The Tin Man was lucky to meet the librarian, who managed to break those years of silence with her presence alone. Calamity always calls for the fortunate reach of a hand, as she was even more than flesh—she was here to deliver one good news during their conversation.

"It was a long sail since I arrived on Earth after a few weeks strolling from Elysian. Rowing up your raft when you're stuck on a sea is far more challenging than I imagined."

"I imagine it would've been easier without the storm?"

"Kind of. But the ocean always surges no matter where you are." Charger covers himself with a tinfoil robe.

"When I ended up here. I was strayed and I could barely contacted anyone here but you since ten days."

"Tragic. But you're in the right place to contact me..."

The Tin Man's burden alleviates slightly but surely away. As the librarian continued hearing his stories from the beginning, she had already anticipated a door to his dead end. What was seemingly lost to the Tin Man is now left in a memory of a metal sheet.

The tin warms the Tin Man. It comforts the missing heart with its clanks, warding off the darkness from the outside. The curse scarred his skin and left him stoic every day, only being able to rely on a tin to ease his pain for both mind and body. For each rub he makes into his skin, a rust is delayed for a day.

He wanders in a deep sea of his own thoughts, trying to retain every spark of his conscience that could not grow past his skull. The cursed metals outgrew at his best like a beast that could soon claim over him. But he persisted every day, even during the darkest and deepest water he had been drowned.

*Clank* *Clank* *Clank*

"The tins in your town remind me of mine. It has been years since the Light empire had dethroned my home and turned it into ashes..." Charger peels his skin with metal sheets

"Maybe an ash if he was that ruthless. But I would rather be burnt than to be drowned..."

"Then why don't you stop him yet? He's a big man out there!" Eve writes furiously on her paper.

"It was a suicide, Eve. You don't even knew who he is!"

"He? So it's a king...ugh, now that reminds me of—him..."

From the depth of his silence, the librarian reaches out for his name. Through his tin-foiled skin, rise a light in desperation to his eyes. The Tin Man was no longer alone—for a helping hand came to his aid and offered him a surface from the dead land he called home.

"Then you have me! We can take down this king together! Like a hero! Yeah...that'll make us, isn't it?" Eve stops writing and twitches.

"Us? Like just the two of us? How?" Charger stops and ponders.

"With a way. There's always a way, you imp! I can help you, I can guide you! I can do much as a human this tall for you if you wished." Eve stutters, yet her answer continues in hesitation. Hard to answer with little to knowledge about an adventure.

"All I asked was only you to help me uncover the whole world. A voice for an arm, okay?" Eve stands up, waiting for his answer without a handshake.

"I don't know, Eve. I don't think you can..." He pauses.

The Tin Man blinked once, and the light remains in the sky. He grasped the hand that helped him from the ocean of hopelessness and found the librarian standing there calmly. That's when he knew he had found hope again. His legs stood sturdy and he began moving towards his home, grabbing his tin rod with confidence.

"Wait. Maybe you can...Yes...I think so..." Charger stand up near her feet.

"There is one thing I need you to help me for. It was somewhere far from this world, so I expect we walked far elsewhere."

*Thought* "Yes!" Eve jumps in the air.

"Ehem! I mean, I won't force you if I can't. But, if it is important for you, then..."

"Please help me for this one! Please!" Charger kneel.

"I cannot be free if I stayed here! There's a deed I must commit so I can ease myself! Please!"

The Tin Man was desperate, not wanting to be left a tin no more. Raising his tin arms for the librarian, he reaches the coast once more in solitude and pleads for her voice to guide him from the silence. The librarian agrees, trading her limbs for the lifeless metals' knowledge.

"I see. Then I guess we should waste no time and find" Eve teases.

"R-really? We do? I mean—yeah! We are!" Charger leaps with excitement.

"Now, where should we start?" Eve impatiently awaits.

"Yeah! Oww, uhm..." Charger stops.

"You don't know where to go, aren't you?"

"Actually, I do...I just don't expect this to happen..."

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. As the storm was severe across the clouds, the only sound the librarian could hear before entering the cave was nothing but a clank of a thousand tins falling by a wave.

"Aww..." Charger glares with pity. Gone for his house.