#i was expectied to be when i was 9 and i tried to be and now i cant rlly be bc i didnt get to be a kid for as long as others rlly

[carpthecarp]

Like you all told me i was crazy and the problem for 4 months and then finally told me "sorry i was actually gaslighting you" ??? and you just expect me to be normal

[askaphmaine]

A Mechanical Sort Of Puzzle

By @flyingsassysaddles

(As promised, here’s the completed version!! Warning, everyone is adorable and perhaps just a tad bit silly! Enjoy! P.S, you can publish this one!!) 

IM DEAD THIS IS FUCKING HILARIOUS

I really need to write more with this AU. It’s one of, if not my absolute, favorites. Especially poor Michael.

A Mechanical Sort Of Puzzle

Michael liked to think he was an intelligent man. He was one of the strongest magicians in Azrail, second only to the royal family, and even then he thought he might still come on top if he really tried. He owned books too, an entire library filled with the knowledge that the Azrailans had gathered over the centuries, and he could use all of that twisted, dark magic to do what he wanted, even if it was only to grab something from a high shelf. He could read many languages, he could talk to snow beasts, he knew how to summon great storms of old and bend them to his will. He was almost invincible in battle, for Thana’s sake! And yet, he scowled internally, he was being fooled by a lump of metal. It had started innocent enough. Mary, his new apprentice, had become a star pupil in every sense of the word, reaching his lofty expectations and then some, and truly had the makings of a brilliant ice or water magician, not that he would ever tell her that. No, it wasn’t really Mary’s fault, though the problem could be traced back to her. It all started when he asked about the letters. “Mary, what are those?” Michael had asked with what he hoped was a curious tone and not a snotty one. There were letters littered all over his apprentice’s desk, contrasting the dark pine wood sharply with crumpled white paper and the hasty Sacchan writing along with only an inked version of a cheap stamp. Mary received one of these sloppy letters every week, maybe more, and Michael, like any good mentor, was trying to find out what exactly they said; it could be harmful to her health or distract her from her studies, after all! Certainly not that his mind had been burning with curiosity ever since he saw a strange metal contraption show up in the mail and proceed to turn into a metal flower, or that he wanted to know who was making these expertly crafted metal machines if they could be called that. No, purely a mentor being concerned, that’s all. “Hmm?” Mary had replied, looking up from the newest smudged letter and raising an eyebrow. “These are letters, sir.” “Obviously. But who are they from?” He must know for her own protection, after all. “My brother, Warren. I thought you knew about him?” Mary cocked her head to the side and looked at him with questioning eyes. “You do know him, right?” “Er, of course!” “Alright, what’s his job?” “Um, he’s a royal advisor, correct?” “And?” “And what?” Michael fidgeted with the end of his cloak, feeling particularly stupid at that moment, and scouring his mind for any other scraps of information about the Sacchan Advisor. “My brother’s a mechanic, sir,” she sighed, looking at the roof of the ice palace as if completely done with her dim-witted mentor. Michael’s eyes lit up at that, and he leaned in close with excited eyes. “A real mechanic? Like with metal?” “No, he works with dragon stone, sir.” “Really?” “No! Of course, he uses metal!” Mary picked up an odd box that came with the letters from this week. While Michael stuttered and tried to get his face somewhere not as close to a tomato, Mary’s eyebrows shot up. “Huh. He sent one of those.” “One of those?” Michael peered over Mary’s shoulder at the box. His curiosity, the very thing that led him to become an expert magician and scholar, pricked his mind until he wanted to open the box himself. “What do you mean by that?” Mary shot him an odd look. Her mentor had been pestering her all week about how she had to keep her hands straight and feet planted while doing triple helix ice blast spells, and how she had to keep a calm face while doing magic instead of looking like she was killing a beluga wolf, as he so eloquently put it. Studying every week, having to please this man and his endless expectations, Mary found a corner of her mouth growing. She was sure Warren wouldn’t mind if she gave one of his infamous little presents to her perfect, never incorrect teacher. Yes, he wouldn’t mind one bit. “Oh, this.” She opened the box and picked out a strange looking cube with 9 corners and chunks of blue sitting in the metal, not to mention the weird glow. There were gears somewhere in there, Warren never made any without them, and when she hit the top left most corner of the weird shape, it clicked and glowed red, having it creak into a different position. Her eyes lit up. She knew this puzzle. She turned to her mentor and said, “Oh, it’s just these puzzles my brother loves to make. They’re famed throughout the kingdom you know.” They were actually play-things Warren made during mandatory breaks ordered by the king and queen once they saw him stay shut in his workshop for 34 hours, but her dear mentor didn’t need to know that. She offered it to him, eyebrows raised. “You want it? I already have some.” Michael already felt his hands fidget when he heard about the famous puzzle, his mind clinking a thousand different ways and directions that could pull it apart and pull the cranks in different directions. He practically grabbed it out of her hand and said hurriedly, “I would love to receive it, thank you very much!” He had clicked two corners and saw the thing turned purple and blue before it stopped moving. What could it mean? How fascinating! Clearly this mechanic had put much effort into creating such a puzzle! Mary finally caught Michael’s attention by tapping his shoulder. Once the excited man looked at his apprentice, she said, “The object of the puzzle is to make it turn yellow.” Michael cocked his head. “That’s it?” She nodded. “Yup.” “How do I do that?” “No clue. That’s the puzzle.” “What’s the pattern?” “You’ll have to find that out for yourself sir.” She had to hide a smirk as the man immediately set upon clicking as many corners as possible, red, blue, green, purple, violet, dark blue, then back to red. He huddled over the puzzle and waved Mary in the direction of the training area. “Go, er, practice some helixes. I have something to do.” “Of course sir.” He would never guess the real solution, she snickered. __ Michael put his head in his hands and admitted defeat. He would never open the puzzle! It was impossible! It seemed that it could turn every color BUT yellow, it even turned into a color known only to griffins and dragons after a long 34 long combination, but no matter what he tried, or how close he came, there was no yellow. He grabbed the thing and held it delicately in his hands. He was always sure to be delicate, to never harm the puzzle lest it breaks. God, then he would never find the answer! A knock on the door. A blob of long hair peeked into his study. “Sir?” “Mary? Oh, come in.” He hastily grew a chair with a flick of his fingers. She sat down on the thing, shifting on the block of ice uncomfortably. In her hands, she held a rough, oiled stained letter, which she fingered nervously. “What is it?” He picked up a paper of some sort, something about a trade agreement with Sacch, and pretended to look busy. “Um, sir,” Mary stumbled, taking a deep breath and saying, “Can my brother come visit?” Michael blinked. Normally an advisor from another kingdom wouldn’t be allowed to just stroll in, but Sacch was special, right? Plus, he looked at the lump of metal, forever taunting him with it’s non-yellowness, the mechanic could help him. Or at least give him a hint. Just one! As long as he only came as Mary’s brother…Mack couldn’t say no, right? “I’ll ask the queen.” Mary’s eyes lit up and she jumped from the chair and tackled him. “Thank you thank you thank you!” She squeezed him tight and bolted out of the room, leaving Michael to rearrange his glasses from the sudden attack. Who knew Mary cared for her brother like that? ___ “Where the heck is Mack-aroni and can a Sacchian get a jacket?” Michael stood agape as the scrawniest, shortest man he ever seen, no, teenager, waddled into the palace with a pile of junk in his hands. Gears, pipes, cranks, some odd barbell-shaped thing, all in his arms as a 6-foot tall piece of metal shaped like a suitcase rolled beside him on wheels. His boots tracked mud into the ice palace, but the wide smile on the kid’s face made it clear he didn’t care. “Wow, Mary, you weren’t kidding! This place is HUGE! Make me wish I brought-” “You already have enough stuff Warren,” Mary said, raising the stuff out of the boy’s hands with her magic. “Servants could have taken your stuff you know.” “Stop talking like that, your face will become contorted in a permanent expression of snobbery and your hands will lose its calluses,” he huffed. He looked at Michael, the elegantly dressed man with the strongest magical arua in the kingdom besides the queen, and said, “Magicians, am I right?” He opened his mouth to say something but closed it. He didn’t know what he expected. Maybe a young stoic engineer or an old man with a beard, but this? The servants carried the rest of what seemed like Warren’s shop into the castle and soon he was left outside. His mouth dried. Should he ask this young man for help? He didn’t seem like a kind of person who could solve his way out of a paper bag. He fiddled with the puzzle in his pocket though, pressing it lightly. No, he must know. He followed them inside. __ “Hey Mike, you wanted to see me?” Michael bristled at Warren’s nickname, but let it slide. Even now, with the teenager fiddling with a random assemblage of metals and wheels, he still studied the room and every paper on every wall, including Michael’s many certificates, awards, and trophies. “Whoa, you’re a magician?” His eye twitched. “Never mind that, I need your assistance with something.” He started to bring out the puzzle. Warren sat there in anticipation, expecting some blueprint or magic doo daddle one of the Royals wanted him to build. Well then, no can do. He would never work with magic. The stuff made his nose itchy. His eyebrows jumped when the elegant brought out one of those puzzles he gave Mary. “Can you help me solve this?” Michael held his breath. Would the master say no, would he force him to solve it on his own?! Waren just raised a singular eyebrow. “Sure.” He picked it out of his hands and looked at it, smiling when he saw what kind it was. “Ah, these ones are my favorites. Great for stress.” Michael screamed internally. Great for stress?! Was it supposed to give you nightmares about lumps of metal looking disappointed at you while you failed to do an ice spell or get a task done?! Stress relief indeed. Warren then did something that made Michael scream. He chucked the puzzle onto the floor. The puzzle made a harsh dent on the ice, his cracked screams in the air as he rushed to see if he could save the delicate thing. But as he was about to pick it up, he saw something. Yellow. The puzzle was glowing yellow. Michael’s eyes grew wide, yellow light bouncing off the walls and filling the room with a holy light, with Warren boredly scratching his ears in the corner. “I get it now. The solution requires brute force instead of over thinking. Sometimes the best solution is the easiest solution and the worst solution is to fret over every single detail.” He picked it up tenderly. “This puzzle is a metaphor for life.” “Nah dude, I just love throwing that thing at walls, the light shines through walls and scares the crap out of everyone. Nice metaphor though,” Warren said as he picked at his nails. And somewhere in the castle, a young apprentice loud laughter could be heard.