Chapter 3: Introspection

"I think I get it," the King said finally, letting his breath out in a puffed-out sigh. "Someone stole his wand, didn't they? And now they're... using it..." He started gnawing on his fingernails. "Kid... what exactly happened when you got here?"

Innocent sighed - he'd known this was coming at some point - and did the best he could in mime. When he was finished, all three of the clowns, and the dog, were staring at him.

"My goodness," said the King.

"It's like the time when you and - !" possibly-Pete started, but the King cut him off. "Shut up. No, I don't get it. I mean, I think I understand you, kid," he said hurriedly as the Innocent groaned, "but I don't get how that could happen. How anyone could knock him out, I mean. I wonder if..." He bit his lip. "It's weird."

The Innocent nodded. He would have said it was a bit more than that, but 'weird' was an okay starting point.

"So," said the King, and grinned. "Suspicious circumstances time!" What weird things happened today, you two?" he addressed Sergei and possibly-Pete.

"There were some weird big bird things!" Sergei squeaked, happy to be helpful.

"No, you idiot! We know that! Other than that!"

"The kid showed up again and something's wrong with pointy-hat man," possibly-Pete put in. The King threw his hands up in the air. "NO! Other than that! Other suspicious circumstances than the ones we talked about already!

"Ohh," the other two clowns said simultaneously. "Huh," said possibly-Pete. "That lady who came in earlier was nice to Sergei. I call that suspicious."

"What lady?" the King asked, as Sergei glared at possibly-Pete.

"Dunno. She came in earlier today. She was kinda pretty, but too old f'r me. She gave us candy."

"Was she a stagehand or something?" the King asked. Possibly-Pete shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe."

The King rolled his eyes. "A stagehand. How suspicious. The only weird thing about that is that she was nice to you two idiots."

"Humph," said Sergei, and went off to sulk.

"Heyyy," possibly-Pete the easily distracted said suddenly, an evil grin spreading across his face. "If he's outta commission... does your remote control thingy still work, King?"

The King blinked at him, and pulled something that looked like a retro alien's idea of a remote control out of his pocket. He pointed it straight up at the top of the tent, and pressed a button. There was a noise like an electrical short, and one of the lighting scaffolds turned bright pink.

"All right!" possibly-Pete shouted, and the King grinned and started turning different parts of the tent different colors and doing some very odd things with some of the seats. The Innocent left them to it, and went back into the tower.

The Trickster was approximately where he'd left him, sitting with his eyes half-closed in one of the musicians' chairs. Innocent went and sat by him in another of the wooden chairs - he didn't know what else to do.

As he stared at Trickster, he noticed something odd - he wasn't a hundred percent sure, in this clown-induced lighting, but it looked like the markings around Trickster's eyes were fading around the centers, from their usual reds and golds to something almost like a negative coloring, shades of shadowy, monochromatic blue and whitish. Innocent blinked.

Trickster gave him a quizzical, interrogative look, nodding toward the outside of the tower, where the King and his cronies appeared to be electrocuting their dog, though probably not on purpose. The Innocent shrugged. He was pretty sure that the Trickster knew at least as well as he did that the clowns were insane. He was actually surprised he'd been able to get anything at all out of the King.

Trickster sighed, and stared at his own hands as if he'd never seen them before. His eyes were still doing the strange focusing and unfocusing thing. Innocent was starting to get really worried about him - even more really worried, that was.

Where is your wand, Trickster? What happened to you?

And then he wondered if the Trickster wasn't wondering the same things himself.

He had the feeling that he needed to do something. The problem was,he didn't have a clue what that something was. He drummed his feet on the floor. Trickster gave him a look. He stopped, and gave him a sheepish smile. Trickster smiled sleepily back at him in a shadowy version of his usual smirk.

At this point, the Innocent realized that his kite was missing and he had no idea where it was.

He couldn't believe that he'd forgotten about it all this time. Even when the skeletons had come last time, he'd held onto it until they had pinned him to the floor and ripped it off his back. He didn't let go of his kite for anything or anyone. Except that he had. And now he'd lost it.

He looked up. Trickster was watching. He was pretty positive now that the markings around his eyes were losing their colors.

The Innocent blinked. Oh, what the heck.

He jumped up and ran down the stairs to look for his kite, pausing on the bottom step with his hand on the rail to look around the bottom level of the tower.

His kite was where he'd left it, lying by the entrance to the tower and a little to the side. He remembered now - he'd dropped it when he'd first seen Trickster.

He crossed the tower and picked it up, brushed it off, slung it over his back again. It was comforting to feel it against his body. He wasn't actually sure if when Trickster had refinished it with his colors he'd just redyed it or actually changed the cloth - he had a feeling that the cloth had been changed, it felt silkier and lighter than it used to. But either way, the frame was still the same.

You could depend on a kite the way you couldn't depend on a person. If you kept it with you, it would never disappear on you. And if you knew how to fly it, and the wind was good, it wouldn't let you down.

But now his kite was connected to Kooza. And he couldn't walk away from the Trickster now. Even though the man had teased him, scared him, laughed at him, and confused him horribly the last time he had been in Kooza, he had still... been on Innocent's side in a weird way that felt quite unique from the way anyone had ever been with him before. And now he, the Trickster, seemed suddenly horribly vulnerable and weak, and Innocent got the feeling that though Trickster wasn't saying anything, the creator of Kooza really did need him.

He sighed, adjusted his kite on his back, and headed back up the stairs.

A/N: This was a wee bit of a filler chapter, but it's still necessary... so sorry for the shortness.