Nearly three days and nights straight had passed by in Celesteville, nothing but paperwork for hours on end, and still to Cornelius's disappointment, the huge stacks of documents and protocols and palace legislation seemed to have stayed the same size as they were when he had originally started. His blue and red uniform felt heavy and unkempt, his glasses smudged with dust, and still the work kept coming, piling up in higher and higher amounts. It wasn't surprising; with Lord Rataxes sticking tariffs on goods and disturbing treaties, the sheer amount of items to be processed, reviewed and filed was getting ridiculous. King Babar, disputing with the rhinos, was out of town for the day, making things even more tedious and slow to go through. Cornelius would have killed right then and there for a quiet stroll in the garden, the smell of the summer rain or a cool breeze gusting through the air. Being in the palace day and night without a break was getting to be horribly confining and dull.

Babar's minister of protocol, Pompadour, was still working at a feverish pace, filing and sorting forms and paperwork and reading over one document to the next without any sign of stopping. The younger elephant puzzled Cornelius a great deal. His long orange coat looked pristine and formal as ever, and as usual he was wearing his monocle and powdered wig with all the proper conservative style that he always kept, although nobody was really there who would take notice. He was habitually performing his tasks like a robot, and he hadn't spoken a word all day, which was unusual for him. Still, Cornelius was glad to have the extra help. He really couldn't recall a time where Pompadour wasn't by his side to keep things at the palace running smoothly, although he could get overzealous at times.

It was getting so stuffy in the office that Cornelius could barely breathe, the smell of dry papers swimming in his head. "Do you mind if I open a window?" he asked in his usual husky voice, trying to suppress a building yawn from the exhaustion of the day. "It's too dry in this room."

Pompadour nodded his head in response, lifting a stack of stapled papers, but he paused suddenly, leaning against the cool steel of the filing cabinets with his eyes shut, shivering and looking terribly pale in the thin light streaming in through the clouds of the afternoon sky outside. For a moment he looked as though he were going to fall unconscious, but holding onto the papers to steady them, he just pulled the file drawer open and began to sort things in their proper order as usual.

Worried, Cornelius stepped away from the window to help his colleague with the filing, carefully grabbing some papers from the top of the stack. Setting them down on the desk, he turned around to offer a warm smile. "Pompadour, I think we need to take a break," he declared, motioning towards the tall leafy trees outside. "We'll have some tea in the garden, what do you say?"

Pompadour smiled back very briefly, on the verge of agreeing, only to go right back to his work, digging through file folders to locate the correct place for his latest protocol document. "If we don't finish this work now, it won't ever get done, Cornelius. I was thinking we'd be finished a lot earlier than this, I haven't slept in three days because I've been sorting some of it at night, but there still must be at least twenty stacks to go through, and King Babar's bringing more back from his latest compromise with Lord Rataxes no doubt, and…"

Cornelius abruptly cut him off, looking deeply concerned. "You haven't slept in three days? You mean after I and everybody else have gone to our rooms for the night, you've been sneaking out here to work? You're going to make yourself sick doing that! …Have you even taken any time these past few days to rest a bit, or to eat or do anything besides work?"

Taken aback by Cornelius's reply, Pompadour exclaimed, "I certainly wasn't sneaking around as you put it, and in any case, it's my job."

That much was true; it was Pompadour's job to do that type of work, to keep the palace efficient and up to the standards of proper procedure, to ensure that the tools and precedents for diplomacy were all in place whenever Celesteville needed them to be there. Cornelius didn't like it, though. He himself really didn't mind monotonous work, but nonetheless his colleague's behavior was troubling him. Cornelius had seen him behave the same way multiple times before, working constantly, not sleeping or eating for days on end until everything was completed, as if he owed his own life to the palace. Anxiously Cornelius reached forward, holding the younger elephant close in an affectionate hug. "Poor Pompadour, my dear old friend," he sighed, shaking his head. "Why do you always have to work so hard all the time?"

Even Pompadour himself seemed confused by this question as he stood there weakly, shivering with his head resting on his older colleague's shoulder. "…I don't really know," he answered finally with a great deal of reluctance. "…I like to work… I like protocols and diplomacy, I like stability… I apologize if I've worried you, Cornelius."

Knowingly, Cornelius gripped Pompadour's shoulders, staring into his eyes. "I know you enjoy your career, Pompadour… but I also know that for you, that it's not really what this is all about, this addiction you've developed for non-stop working all the time… oh Pompadour, you still blame yourself, don't you?"

Abruptly with a startled jolt, Pompadour tore himself away from Cornelius to move towards the fresh air pouring in through the open window, nostalgic for the times where he would be outside with Babar and Celeste, with the children, keeping everything in order, feeling useful… feeling like a part of the family rather than just an employee, something which lately had been leading him to wonder what his purpose was in the palace hierarchy.

Cornelius stomped sternly towards him, not out of anger or malice but out of desperation, lifting him by the rose-gold collar of his coat. "I want you to listen to me!" he ordered in a deep voice, not bothering to regain any sort of composure. "You think you've hidden it but I know, I see it… you blame yourself for the Hunter, for the collapse of our old jungle kingdom, for the chaos, the terror, the killing of Babar's mother…"

"It was my duty to protect them and I failed!" Pompadour cried out in a sudden outpour of guilt and self-loathing, glaring back at Cornelius, his usual courtly demeanour dissipating like melted snow. "I knew something was wrong, even before she was shot, I knew…"

"We all knew, but we didn't want to believe," said Cornelius solemnly. "We never had to think about cruelty or death until that day."

"I could have done more to warn her though, or protect her, and maybe then she'd still be here… and when she died, I could have helped, but I was such a coward! I wanted to run away! That was all I cared about, getting away from that place and… and…"

"And taking Babar and the others to a safer and more peaceful spot to live?" Cornelius filled in, so calmly and quietly that his voice sounded like the same breeze that drifted through the air outside over the palace garden. "…After such a tragedy, we were all cowards, we all wanted to run away… but you've held Celesteville together, you and I both, and I could never do it without you here by my side every day. What happened in the past wasn't your fault, Pompadour. It never was… I wish I'd told you that a long time ago, back when it would have made a difference in how you've chosen to live. You're so fixated on diplomacy, and I worry about you sometimes, I worry that you're backing away from life. In my lifetime I've led the army, I've performed a noble, respected duty that elephants all through Celesteville will remember long after I'm dead and gone, but will they remember me? Not what I did, but who I was?"

"…I'll remember you, Cornelius," replied Pompadour in a loyal vow, "always."

They found themselves standing there staring at each other in total silence, Cornelius still holding onto Pompadour's coat, the papers still sitting there in organized heaps atop the desk. Pompadour looked as though he wanted to say something else, tears sparkling in his tired eyes. "…I don't want you to die," he confessed, although he was sure that much was an obvious enough statement. Cornelius was old. Not so old that he was oblivious to life around him, but old enough that he'd been reflecting on his own age and possible impending death recently on many occasions. Pompadour hated the idea of it, of losing his oldest and closest friend without any warning.

Cornelius shook his head, a bittersweet expression on his wise old face. "Light bulbs and car batteries and outmoded refrigerators die, dear Pompadour. I'll simply move on, on to that great kingdom where all elephants go when they've finished their purpose here and need to rest… and you'll see someday that your own purpose was always as plain as day and right in front of you, but you won't find it by blatantly looking for it… you can only find it by living. Take chances, take risks, get hurt even, and you'll see that one day the meaning of it all was right here with you all along. That's all I want for you, for you to stop feeling lost in a world where you've always belonged. You know you have a place here, you know Babar and his family care about you even if they don't say it... and you know I wouldn't ever really leave you, even if I died tomorrow... I'd still be with you, just in a different way."

Too exhausted to control himself from crying, Pompadour replied, "I love you."

"…I love you too," said Cornelius, wrapping his trunk around Pompadour's before kissing him gently. "Don't cry. All stories, even the ones we love the most, they eventually come to an end and when they do, it's only an opportunity for another story to begin… now then, let's go for a walk in the garden, watch the clouds and have some tea. The paperwork will still be here when we get back."