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A clank then a bang.
Glass breaking and shoulders shaking.
Eyes overflowing with unshed tears, mouth wailing cries that should have never escaped.
Saparata was now a broken man.
Now missing the one part of him he had never thought he’d lose.
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The visit had been more out of concern for a friend rather than a formality, really. Their friend has not been since after the colosseum – not at the traitor’s burial, not at his comrade’s execution, not even when they had celebrated the new era of peace brought to the islands.
They had won, yet why was Saparata still hiding himself away from the world?
“I hope he is alright,” Madzvie remarked, eyes heavy with concern as she anxiously played with the engagement ring on her finger. The rest shared the same sentiment: Schpood, Cass, Legacy and Gabory — three of the mentioned being prominent figureheads of the second island, and the last, a well-respected Emperor of the first.
Schpood sat in the corner of the vast wooden ship they ventured on, mind cloudy with fear and worry as his thoughts fixed on a man he had grown to call his best friend.
The same man who they found, teary-eyed and drunk out of his mind, whispering nothings to a make-shift grave, one adorned with a name Schpood wished he could erase from history.
“Saps!” both Cass and Madzvie exclaimed in unison as they rushed to their friend’s side. It was late in the night, so late that the group could only speculate in horror just how long Saparata had been out here, lying on the hard, cold dirt floor with only the sea of stars as the only light source.
“Oh my, Saps,” Madzvie murmured, voice soft and upset, “Why are you doing this to yourself?” she asked as she and Cass tried to raise their friend from where he lay on the ground.
“No…” the drunk man slurred, “I don’t want to leave him.”
Those words sent a jolt of unease through the group, because they did not want to know whom exactly the man was talking about.
“But Saps,” Cass started slowly, voice equally as soft, “He’s… he’s gon—”
“No!” the response came immediately, the white-haired man squirming against his friends’ help. “He wouldn’t leave me, he— he said he would never leave me… why would he leave me?”
Seeing the man in this state was crushing, even for the two who had not known him for long.
Here was this hardened warrior.
A man framed by his so-called ‘best friend’ for the deaths of so many, their blood flowed in rivers.
A man who — at a point — had his entire world turned against him.
And here he was, mourning a man who would have probably never mourned him.
“Gabory, Legacy,” Schpood called out to the pair, who turned to him, concern painting their faces. “Please go inside his home and see if you can get his bed ready, he needs to sleep, he has eye bags.”
Slowly, they each gave a nod and left, eyes still carrying the overwhelming worry they felt over the still squirming man.
“Cass,” they heard him mutter under his breath, voice quiet and miserable, “Why would he leave me?”
The question struck the Coalition’s ruler, causing her to pause in her step as they raised the man to his feet.
What answer could she possibly give?
What answer could she have to console this grieving man?
A man who grieves a traitor.
With time, they got Saps to his feet, the two ladies at his sides, and Schpood aiding from behind. They helped him into his home, the Pantheon glowing brightly — a stark contrast to the demeanor of its owner.
They found Gabory in the kitchen, cooking up a meal for the travel group while Legacy arranged the living space, repositioning the chairs and disposing of the many bottles littering the hall.
In their minds, they questioned: Why?
Why mourn a traitor?
Why mourn a man who had no issue killing thousands?
Why mourn a man who ruined his best friend’s life over his twisted version of obtaining peace?
Why mourn a fool?
The space was quiet as the girls laid him to rest against one of the maroon couches. Under the bright lights, the redness of his eyes and the paleness of his skin were very visible.
It broke their hearts to see their friend like this.
“Drink this,” Gabory whispered as he pressed a glass of water to the drunk man. Body still heavy, Saparata was unable to hold the glass steady, leaving Madzvie to help him as he slowly took in the liquid.
“We need to talk,” Cass said in a firm tone, standing up from where she had crouched as she stared at Schpood, “Outside.”
All the leaders — save for Madzvie, who stayed at Saps’ side — left the Pantheon, heading in the direction the Barbieland ruler remembered led to the flower garden.
The silence was deafening as the drunk man continued to drink, with Madzvie assisting his hold while steadily rubbing his back in slow, deliberate circles.
Then she heard them — quiet at first, sniffles accompanied by glistening tears that trickled down a pale face, lips that quivered as his breathing paced faster with every passing second.
“Why?” Saparata questioned, to whom exactly — Madzvie would never know. “Why would you do this? Why would he do this?” The last question was directed towards Madzvie with devastated, dark-opal eyes.
“Why? Why? Why? Didn’t I do enough? Didn’t I do enough for him to love me?!” Saparata’s voice cracked with each question, his voice growing more panicked at every word.
His breathing strained as he cried, silent tears from just minutes ago now distressed him as his body shook vigorously.
“He didn’t feel guilty, not once,” Saparata cried out, voice now muffled against a shoulder as Madzvie pulled him into a fierce hug. “He didn’t feel anything, so why am I the one feeling everything?!”
A loud rush of footsteps echoed in Madzvie’s ears, but were quickly overshadowed by the anxious hiccups Saparata made as he tried to speak.
Walking into Saparata in the midst of a breakdown was something the leaders had expected on their way to the isolated island. But knowing the true reason for it had them both confused and sceptical.
The other leaders had been discussing ways to persuade Saps to come and reside in one of their nations — and maybe understand the real depth of the situation — when a loud, familiar wail dragged their attention, the thuds of their feet against sandstone following the cries as they grew larger.
“Why did it have to be me?!” The anger in his tone was something none of them had ever heard from their usually neutral-toned ambassador, but only a few could tell it wasn’t simply anger. “Out of all the people on this fucking Island, why did it have to be me?!”
Madzvie somehow tightened her hug after that, humming softly against snow-fallen hair as she continued to rub the other’s back.
“Why couldn’t he like me?”
“Why couldn’t he leave me?”
“Why couldn’t he love me?!”
The words bounced off the walls like an ear-piercing scream, holding the head figures in place as they watched their friend dissolve into a panicked and tear-stained mess. The quiet that passed let them truly hear the extent to which Saparata mourned the man, as if he were a lifeline, a piece of him that could never be replaced, a… lover.
“But,” Gabory finally stuttered out, brows knit together in obvious confusion as he looked between the others in the room, “Is he not a traitor! Why are—”
“Don’t,” Madzvie’s voice was sharp as she spoke, eyes shifting slightly as she looked over snow-toned hair to glared at the Tricolor King.
“Don’t what?” Schpood responded, voice equal with the level of hostility the Barbieland head had shown, “State the obvious? That the man was a traitor?”
“So?"
“So? You’re asking me so? Why are we shedding tears over that measly bastard?!” Schpood’s voice was raised, fury evident in his tone as the Tricolor representative nodded along. “He was nothing but a moron, a traitor, a– a terrorist!”
“That’s not the point—”
“Then what is the point?” Legacy asked, voice calmer but still carrying the same authority as the other two. “Because the way I see it, we are encouraging our friend to cry his way to liver failure over a man who wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about him.”
“It’s true,” Cass added, arms crossed as she walked towards the two still crouched on the ground. “We need to—”
“No.”
…no?
“No?” Legacy asked, eyes widening as they stared at the Barbieland head. “Madzvie, this is not hea—”
“I said no, why? Because you all are missing the fucking point!”
“Missing…? Ha! We’re the ones missing the point?” Schpood laughed darkly as he glared, “You’re the one letting him rue over a stranger!”
“Stranger? Stranger?!” Madzvie responded, voice mocking and angered as she stood up to face the opposing panel — not before making sure the now-sleepy Saparata lay comfortably along the plush couch.
“Yes, a fucking stranger. Because, frankly, that was not the man Saparata grew up with!”
“Exactly! And that’s where you are missing the point!”
"What point?"
“He was his friend!”
“He was a traitor.”
“He was his fucking friend!!” The yell resonated so loudly that it had them reeling back. Madzvie’s face is red with rage and frustration as she points at them.
“Before all of this, before all of this political bullshit, what were they? What were they to each other?!”
“…friends,” Gabory supplied quietly.
“Ex-fucking-actly! They weren’t enemies or frenemies or strangers, they were fucking best friends! Childhood best friends— are you even trying to understand?"
The leaders remained in stunned silence.
“Of course you don’t, because none of you have been paying attention! None of you have been listening! It’s never been about the person he became, it was about who he’d been before all this — his best friend!”
“He was there for everything; every birthday, every scrap, every adventure, every build. They were together for everything! So do you think that the memories of all those good times would suddenly amount to nothing?!”
The sheer ferocity and disappointment in her tone had some of them feeling ashamed. Both during and after the war, it was hard to imagine, or even remember, any good the traitor had done — because it felt like betraying those on their side who had died fighting against the treacherous man.
“It’s like you don’t even want to understand! Because if you were, you wouldn’t be spitting this — absolute bullshit in front of me! In front of him!” she pointed towards a still-sleeping Saparata.
The heads could only stare as she spat every word out; tough pills to swallow because they knew they were true.
Before the mad dictator, there was the quiet library boy.
Before the manipulative snake, there was the attentive friend.
Before the traitor, there was… someone whom Saparata cared for deeply, and they could only ever wonder if the sentiment was mutual.
“But are we just going to ignore what he did?” Schpood said after a few seconds of silence. “Are we just going to ignore how he planned to kill all of you, not just the people of island one — every single one of you?”
“It’s not ignoring it — we are not letting Saparata grieve over a terrorist. We’re helping him get over someone who he once considered a friend.”
“Even if that friend was a terrorist?”
A charged bolt zapped through the room, carrying an air of tension and discomfort. The looks between the Westhelm Emperor and the Barbieland figurehead were identically stubborn, both sides firm in their choice of words and ideals. The remaining three watched intensely, not sure whether to pick sides or just observe from the sidelines.
Both sides were, in some way, correct. The traitor was someone none of them ever wanted to reminisce on, even the Barbieland ruler had her own distaste for the man, but — from what she had observed — that was not the same man they were talking about right now.
If only the others could understand that as well.
“Schpood,” Madzvie began lightly, all the anger from earlier gone but still filled with a tense frustration. “If Spyder—“
The Westhelm Emperor gasped sharply.
“—had betrayed you, framed you…dethroned you from your post, and you had to fight him to the death in your very own colosseum, in front of hundreds— no, thousands. Your other half, your right-hand…someone you trusted with your life…”
The Emperor's face paled at her words, his stiffened body relaxing subconsciously as the words finally seemed to sink in.
“You can’t tell me you’d…Cass,” she turns to the others in the room, who look as pale as the Emperor, “Legacy, Gabory…you can’t tell me it wouldn’t do something to you. I know if one of my friends ever did something like that to me, I would probably be worse than Saps here.”
Standing there, it finally clicked for them.
They had been thinking about the wrong person this entire time.
Saparata was not grieving a traitor.
He was grieving his Fluixon.
“We…shouldn’t have let Saps kill him in that colosseum,” Madzvie said, releasing a sigh as her body slumped on the couch. “I would never be able to kill one of my closest friends, no matter how terrible our relationship was.”
That was their greatest mistake.
Letting this angel of a man kill the devil he once loved more heaven itself.
“I’ll take him to his room,” the Barbieland ruler settled on after a harsh silence. She leaned over to pick up the slumbering Saparata from the floor — internally glad he was asleep because she never wanted him to hear what the others had said — and, with a newfound strength, hauled him to lean along her shoulders and stood on her feet.
With the aid of Legacy, who walked to her to stabilise the heavy man, they steadily moved in the direction of the bedroom.
Eyes following the retreating backs, the three were left to reflect on their own morals and thoughts. It felt shameful that they couldn’t truly understand their friend, even after all of these years.
At the end of the day, it seemed that they hadn’t thought of the most important question:
Why would he not mourn his person?