#you just had to attack the divorced man with a locket of his ex wife and son. you HAD TO.

[torturingpeople]

Something Lost in the Zee

The King-In-Coral regards him with a brief incline of the head, zeeweed tipping over his forehead in a crude imitation of sickly green hair. Something curls within the suffocating jacket he wears, as he leans forward to peer at the Counsellor.

"I... er, present to you, um... this." Nervously, the Soothing Counsellor rummages in the travel-bag at his hip, and draws out with caution a spiny, almost zee urchin-like piece of coral, trying to avoid pricking himself with the thin needles protruding from its core.

Taking the gift from his hands with an ultimate gentleness, the King-In-Coral gazes upon it like a sweet creature, tilting his head to take it in from all angles. It splits down the middle as he presses his thumbs in, much like the careful motion one uses to peel an orange, and he opens it with the same giddiness young boys open presents with, on Christmas Day. Coral shards fall away like wrapping-paper, but the King-In-Coral frowns at what is inside. He does not seem disappointed, in any fashion, merely... surprised. The limbs within his coat do not jolt with excitement; he is entirely still.

"I remember," he starts.

The Soothing Counsellor's eyebrows twitch, as does his heart with anxiety. He wishes to enquire what, but the King-In-Coral does not withhold that from him.

"When this fell," he holds the locket out by its thin golden chain, "it was you who dropped it into the Zee, was it not?"

Again, there is a flurry of emotion that passes the Counsellor's face, like rippling thunder in a storm. "It couldn't— possibly be— you must be— mistaken—" his voice comes out in a melancholic staccato, and he disregards all social norms, pushing past attendant Drownies to reach the King-In-Coral.

Once the locket is lowered into his hands, he undoes the little latch closing it (just the way he remembers) and looks upon the weathering and scratches (painfully familiar) and he is met with the face of Julie (dearest Julie, his darling Julie) and that little boy, eyes brimming with innocence, with the hallmark buck front teeth and crooked canines of youth, his little Percy.

The Soothing Counsellor's mouth opens and closes and opens and closes and he looks very at-home in that little cove, among the beings of the Zee, fitting in perfectly well with the fish that gulp down water in the same manner. "How—? How did you—?" The corners of his mouth twitch downward, and his bottom lip shivers with woe. The Counsellor shakes his head, closes his eyes, lets tears fall into the sand below. "Where could you— I— I—"

"I saw it fall from a zubmarine, if I recall correctly," the King-In-Coral leans forward, and places a hand on the Counsellor's shoulder, leaving an imprint of salty dust on his deep navy-blue blazer. "I had the inclination that, perhaps, you would like to have it returned, in the condition you left it in." He retreats into his litter again. "I will admit to you that I had the little thing monitored — you were rather steadfast in seeking out coral, and it made me wonder if it was this," his finger falls to the locket, "that you sought."

Muted by tears, the Counsellor cannot think past looking down at the tiny thing in his hands, tiny and fragile like a hatched chick, yet as old as the hen that laid the egg. He lets one thumb wipe away some salt and dirt, to get a better look at Percy (his little Percy, that little boy, that round face, those misshapen teeth, that lopsided smile, the imperfections that made him so irrevocably perfect — Hell, he could almost hear him crying 'Papa! Papa!' through the daguerrotype), tears curling along the curve of his cheeks, forming paths down to his chin and ultimately dripping into the zee-soaked ground below.

"Thank you," whispers the Counsellor dolefully. He pushes a thumb to the locket's front and lets the latch snap shut, then tucks it into his breast pocket and turns out of the cove, heart sundered in twain, as raw as when he first left his Julie and his Percy.