Sakura

What makes a man a man?



The dragons bustled about, lining up neatly to grabb what they could and wolf it down. It was organized chaos, just as mealtimes always were. Even in such mayhem, some of the dragons managed to stop and thank the head chef. Sakura smiled warmly back at them, but she seemed absent. Truth be told, there was something more pressing on her mind. She scanned the crowd for a vibrant nocturne dragon dressed in brass and fluff, but saw nothing. He was never there. Was he still eating, she wondered? Sakura couldn’t stand the thought of one of the dragons under her care going hungry. Why did he avoid it? Did he dislike the food she made? Did he have a strange diet? Was he shy?

Meanwhile, Akira scurried around the laboratory, picking wires and cogs off of the shelves and tossing them onto his work bench. He laid out his blueprints next to the pile of junk, and then began to assemble his creation. It was a bird—or at least, it looked like one. It had metal instead of skin, and electricity instead of soul. He had heard about similar creatures acting as guardians to the Golem Workshop. His bird was created of their discarded parts and other miscellaneous objects, made to mirror the mechanical model from the workshop with a few tweaks towards his own purposes. In the end, it still had the same function; it was a security system. This one, however, would not peck anybody’s eyes out. It would just squawk if anybody other than him came in to mess with his experiments. He flipped the on switch, and the bird moved slowly to life. The metal feathers shifted and made a noise like sharpening blades. Its eyes lit up with a strange inhuman glow, and it stared blankly forward.

Akira frowned. This thing was actually really weird. Too far in the creepy valley range. Why did he make it look like a bird, again? And then, of course, the deity-forsaken thing leaned forward and opened its silver beak, letting out the most blood-curdling screech this side of Sornieth. He opened his mouth to scream some expletive at it, but someone else beat him to it.

“By the Stormcatcher’s wrinkled, ghastly hide, would you shut that blasted thing off this instant!” Akira spun around and saw a glimmering imperial wearing a painful grimace. He calmly shut off the bird and glared at her.

“It’s a security device,” he explained, “for keeping people from coming into my laboratory.” He looked at her pointedly. “I rather dislike people coming into my laboratory.”

“Well, never mind that, why does it have to make a sound that would scare away the very shade?” she said, completely ignoring his biting remark.

“So that if it ever comes back, we’ll be the last to be destroyed,” he joked. “You’re welcome.”


“I’m not sure if that’s worth it,” she mumbled. Akira laughed under his breath.

“But where are my manners? My name is Akira, and I’m the clan’s foremost engineer and inventor. I don’t believe I’ve seen you around.”

“That’s because you never poke your head out of this hovel,” she said. “My name is Sakura, and I’m the head chef of this clan. Now, when was the last time you ate?” Sakura approached him quickly. “You’re so scrawny!”

“Now, hold on—” Akira protested weakly, backed into the wall. She poked at his side.

“Goodness, you’re emaciated! Practically starved to death already!” she exclaimed.

“I do eat,” he said with a frown.

“Oh, do you?”

“Yes. Sometimes I alchemize myself a snack.”

Sakura curled her upper lip and repressed a shudder. “That trash can’t possibly be healthy to eat all the time.”

“Well, I’m still standing, aren’t I?”

“You’re thin as a twig!” she said. “If I were to blow on you, you’d fall right over!”

“It’s scientifically impossible for you to have that kind of lung capacity,” Akira replied. Sakura groaned.

“Listen, you’re going to come down to dinner tonight.”

“Why?”

“Why?!” she sputtered. “Because you’re going to starve to death if you don’t, that’s why!”

“But I’m busy with…important things,” Akira said, turning back to the bird and picking up a wrench.

“More important than eating?!”

“Look, if you don’t leave, I’m going to turn the bird back on,” he threatened. Sakura left in a hurry, muttering angrily the entire way.

When dinner time did come around, Akira paused. He looked up at the clock for a moment, and considered. If nothing else, he was flattered that someone had noticed his absence. Her concern likely wouldn’t last long. Everyone from before had eventually figured out he was a lost cause and left. Perhaps, this time, he could just come down once or twice to show he’d listened. But the bird’s wires were open and crackling at his feet. He had work to do.

It was less than an hour later that the bird went off again. The unholy screech from before was replaced by a single elongated note. This time, Sakura didn’t jump. She just set the platter down on a mostly empty table and looked at Akira expectantly. He stared back at her for a moment, mind blanking. He opened his mouth to speak—What are you doing here? Don’t you know I have important things to work on?—but nothing came out. It was Sakura who eventually broke the silence.

“Eat,” she said, nodding down at the platter. It was a brilliant array of different slices of meat artfully curled to look like flowers, lined with bees and butterflies in all different colors. “I made it special for me, so eat.”

“You made it… for me?” he mumbled.

“Yes, I made if for you!” Sakura replied angrily. “I’m not going to let you starve! So, eat.”

Akira looked at her blankly for another moment, graditude swelling up in his chest and almost forcing him to say something ridiculous like “thank you” or “please come again tomorrow”. Instead, he gathered himself and looked coldly down at the plate. “Well, I’m not going to eat with you looming over me. You can come back to get the platter in the morning, if you want.”

“Fine,” Sakura said, turning on her heel. “You better actually eat it and not just use it for some weird experiment.” Akira rolled his eyes. He was a mechanical engineer, not a biological one.

But he ate. The next day, true to her word, she came to retrieve the plate. Akira was surprised to see she brought a bowl with her, as well. It was filled with fresh pink shrimp. “It’s a light meal,” she explained. “For breakfast.” She came again at lunch. Then at dinner. And then the next day. And the next. Each day, he tried to make her stay longer. At first, he told himself it was like a game. Yet another puzzle to solve. Eventually he admitted to himself that he had been deprived of the company of others for far too long. It was nice, having someone to talk to. He thought he bored her with his rambles of his progress, but she sat and smiled through it, and even offered stories from the kitchen. A few hatchlings had just grown up enough to help in the kitchen, and they were making quite the mess, apparently. She had plenty to say about them. He laughed until tears appeared in the corners of his eyes. It wasn’t until long after she had left that he realized that was the first time he had genuinely laughed in a very, very long time.

He had to do something for her. It was unfair for her to sit through his company to see nothing in return. Akira considered going down with the others for mealtime, but that was too risky. If she saw too much progress, she might not come back. Instead, he opted to make her a gift. It was simple enough to make, though he had spent days deciding what it should be. He knew the mechanics necessary to make something like this since he was a hatchling. No, this wasn’t so much a work of science; it was a labor of art. Laced with silver and blue with a delicate golden beak, he had created a songbird that could chirp out gentle tunes. Unlike the bulky, almost goose-like security bird, it was small and lovely.

Sakura came in the next morning with a platter of foreign meat, likely from the jungle. Usually, when she entered, Akira was busy with something, giving her only a cursory glance before finishing what he was doing. Today, however, he stood at the other end of his lab, watching her. He looked… almost nervous. Sakura waited. He didn’t say anything.

“I brought you some breakfast,” she offered, pushing the platter towards him. Akira looked down at it, then up at her. He took a deep breath in.

“I got you something, too,” he said. The words rushed out of him, almost accidentally. “I mean, I made you something.” Sakura cocked her head.

“You did?” she asked, hints of genuine surprise in her voice. He nodded hurriedly and turned.

“It’s something simple, nothing like what I usually do, but I… I thought you’d like it,” Akira said. He set the mechanical bird on the table between them. “This one doesn’t screech,” he smiled, pressing a claw down on it. Immediately, it began to chirp out a melody. “An old arcanian lullaby. From my home clan,” he explained.

“Thank you,” Sakura said reverently, smile tugging up the corners of her mouth. Akira felt his heart stop for a moment, then come back beating double time.

“It’s just… a thank you,” he mumbled.

Years later, when they were comfortable and settled together, Akira would call this night “the beginning of the end”. From that point on, he said, he knew that there would be no more quiet nights alone in his laboratory, or silent study sessions that went on for days. He would trade that for something new. The warmth of company, of compassion. He would trade it for her.

Short story by resplendentChaos.