Pinocchio, tucked under the caravan, saw the feet of Adone violently thrust into the earth as they made their way back to the main mobile inn on clockwork spider legs. All of the cogs in his system jaggedly twisted, trying his hardest to process all of the information he just heard. The cricket was unable to convey to Pinocchio how he should feel in that situation, so Celso tweaked some cogs to send the message that told Pinocchio the rudimentary rules of ethics that were disrespected in that situation. While he crawls on his elbows and knees to get out from under the caravan, he hears the woman’s muffled sobs from under the caravan. Empathy was still a foreign concept to Pinocchio, but the essence of it tainted his mind in some inconspicuous way even though he knew what she did and said was wrong at certain points. Things that the cricket didn’t communicate to him began to emerge, but they were undeveloped and faint.

The wooden boy sneakily crawled from one caravan to another, trying to find out where Adone ran off to. An orchestra of crickets chirped throughout the night, but the one inside of him remained silent, for he had no need to join them. Traveling through the field felt like being in another place entirely. Fireflies danced in the air, illuminating the ornate caravans of the members and other caravans that housed foreign animals and other equipment. As the fireflies drifted through the ether, an innumerable amount of stars scintillated above him enveloping the earth.

Pinocchio heard the groans of people, two people, from one of the caravans he thought was supposed to be for animals. He climbed up the spokes of one of the large wooden wheels and jumped to hang from a window sill. With all his might, he pulled himself up to see a horrible sight: two people were bloodied and bound to chairs facing each other. One, a woman, had a blindfold over her eyes with two dried rivers of blood streamed down from her cheeks before hardening. The other one, a man, was missing his left leg up to his knee. Stained wrappings and blood covered the wound, but it still seemed to ache as if it were fresh, judging from his moans. The bruised and battered individuals drowned in shadows radiated a similar feeling from that of the wooden boy who gazed at them with hurt in his heart. Yet that part of him still remained as nothing more than a distant dream’s residue.

The man whispered sounds of ease to the blinded woman, her head perking up in response. A gruff hum echoed out of her parched throat, which was enough to calm the nerves of the man. Like crunching glass, he spoke.

“Curse that god-forsaken harlequin. That bastard! Treating us like garbage and almost killing us. I’ll show him. We’ll show him not to mess with people like us! We’ll get out of here and we’ll wreck this place. We should’ve never agreed to this stupid assignment and just stay in Ryugu to enjoy some fried squid; man how I would die for some right now…”

“We? You were the one who came up with this stupid idea. ‘Prophecy’ this and ‘prophecy’ that, you couldn’t shut your mouth about it.” She hissed.

“My spirit isn’t my own; it whispers its newfound discovery to our master too, who obviously couldn’t get enough when he heard it. We were destined to come here and seek out the Field of Miracles.”

“Yet you still insisted on going!”

“I refused at first but he wouldn’t stop badgering me about it! You agreed too, you believed it as well. So don’t blame me, okay?”

The light tone of the man held an air of tenderness, even when he was frustrated. Pinocchio could tell that he cared for her, even if she antagonized him a bit. The woman settled down and lost her hostility, allowing a sorrowful silence to pass between the two. A tender apology and its acceptance accompanied the silence as they sat there with revenge and redemption in their hearts.

Slowly, the doll made his way down the caravan and searched with even more haste for the harlequin he hoped was not the same one as he just heard about. His imagination cruelly constructed a myriad of disturbing images of what he could have done to him based on their observable condition, arousing a sense of nausea from the doll. In that state, he felt as if every wheel in his body ran with the speed of intense wind, each spinning mechanism producing polyphonous howling that deafened him of all other things. The same man whose radiant heart he graced the warm beams of light from could not have been the same that inflicted such horrific wounds to those two he just encountered. Two wildly opposing images of the same man flashed before his eyes, blinding him of any proper sense. Only by finding him could his mind be cleared of the disorderly thoughts waging war with one another.

After what felt like hours of searching, he finally spotted the harlequin sitting on an empty patch of grass, gazing up at the full moon whose silver light washed over everything. Pinocchio pressed his wooden hand on the back of the harlequin, startling him.

“P-Pinocchio! What are you doing here?” he whispered, “You should be in bed by now; young boys need their sleep to grow big and strong.” he mockingly said. The smile he gave afterwards definitely highlighted his act of mocking, but Pinocchio didn’t mind. He treated it as if he was being considerate.

“Thank you but I’m okay. I don’t like to sleep; I get bad dreams often.”

A soft sound of sympathy descended from his voice as he repositions himself in a way to allow Pinocchio to sit next to him for a proper conversation.

“What kind of dreams do you have?” Adone asked, softer than moonlight.

“I remember that time in the arena, where I saw Martino fight this person. The brutality of it all invades my mind to the point where I can only think of the fear and dread that that gladiator must be feeling. In fact, I momentarily peered into his heart and saw his life through his eyes within me. Every detail imprinted itself in me, from his greatest joys to his worst moments of despair. That despair just… I fear sleeping again after such a horrible dream. Dolls don’t need sleep anyway. I’m fine for now, so that’s all that matters.”

The harlequin hummed in agreement as they both gazed up at the moon while the fireflies decorated the air. Words remain bound to Pinocchio’s clockwork heart while he himself wanted them to desperately exit his mind and mouth, to purge himself of their weight. Cogs and wires disobeyed his will to speak about all that he has heard.

Scenes started to replay in his mind; from the incident at Cecilia’s caravan to the two beaten individuals that cursed his name. War raged in Pinocchio’s sensitive soul, unable to understand how he should feel about Adone. The cricket seemed to gently coerce him into distancing himself from him, but his heart still managed to find comfort in Adone’s company. The war temporarily dissipated as Pinocchio spread out on the grass and let out a deep sigh before asking, “Why did you hurt those two?”

Confusion twisted Adone’s face when he heard the question. A darkness slithered its way into his face which got quickly washed away.

“Oh… There are multiple harlequins. Those two poor souls must’ve been at the wrong place at the wrong time.” he said with a straight face. Each second in silence slowly made his conscience crack and crumble.

“I never wanted to do such things,” Adone replied, wringing his hand like a wet rag as he bit his lip. Pinocchio saw in his eyes a history of horrors which dimmed the light within him. But the glow persisted, and the doll relished in every part of its beautiful incandescence in spite of the web of shadows that ensnared his virtues.

“We have to get our hands dirty frequently, per Mangiafuoco’s command. It’s a gruelling existence to betray your heart a million times. I’m really happy that you don’t need to get your hands bloody. Not like us…”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

In spite of his culpability radiating out of every part of him, a lingering feeling of disgust for him continued. Not wanting to be disgusted with the person he adored, he redirected it into himself, becoming disgusted with himself for still enjoying his company. The contagious nature of self-loathing ended when Pinocchio took a deep breath and cleared his mind, channeling his conflicting emotions into the pure desire to understand more.

“Are you a bad person?” Pinocchio blatantly blurts out in full sincerity. He had an inkling that Adone wasn’t telling him the full story, but didn’t mind as he grew to realize that people often lie to protect the other person in some way. No offense was taken, only a lingering question and longing for understanding that made his cogs twist in awkward ways.

Adone however, aback by the question, took a moment to fully process it. An acute pain crawled its way deeply inside of him the more he thought about it. Anger was never the first emotion to come out of Adone. The wooden boy knew that he could swallow the sharpest, most painful truths of himself which Pinocchio admired him for. After a long break, he came up with a response.

“You can’t simply lump people into categories like that. No one is truly good and no one is truly bad either. I do my best to make others happy sometimes, but deep down I know it comes from a selfish place. Everyone is like that to some degree. It just depends how destructive it is for others and yourself which deems it as a good or bad thing. One who destroys themselves for the salvation of a group is good, but one who enjoys themselves fully while hurting others is bad. Good and evil isn’t measured in numbers, it’s measured in actions which take on a variety of unique characteristics.”

His turquoise eyes glowed like stars as he stared at Adone with complete concentration. All of his attention rooted itself deeply into his every word, absorbing all of its wisdoms that dripped from his bleeding heart.

“Actions naturally flow from the voices of the heart. But judging from my actions, it would seem impossible to truly know what my heart is asking me for. Even though I don't fully understand it myself, I can only tell you that it is weak and brittle, afraid of getting burned by the light of the good and only finds solace in the dark shadows of others. I am sometimes afraid of my own light, worried that I will just crumble to dust if I ever truly confront myself. There is no such thing as a good or a bad person, only those who are and are not afraid of their inner light.”

“What kind of light?” Pinocchio asked, eager to know more about his strange mind. He already understood a bit of what he was saying, learning from his own perspective, but wanted to know how he interpreted the glow he saw in him.

“It’s more akin to a fire, maybe. Yeah, a fire. Something that illuminates all the things in the dark and offers soothing warmth, but burns you when you are too close to it. In fact, all the little things you notice and seek comfort in can get devoured by those flames, leaving you with ashes. Its glow promises illumination and life but its most intimate nature promises death. This wicked spirit of fire swallowed my conscience and my heart, leaving me with embers and ash. But it's not simply fire, or water, or any element of earthly origin. The light I’m referring to can take on every metaphor imaginable, being beyond all of them.”

Eyes like lead, Adone turned his head to Pinocchio and met his gaze with great effort. Under the darkness of night, his turquoise eyes shone brighter than any star in the sky and any firefly in the field. And even in the realm of the harlequin’s mind, his eyes outshone the makeshift joy he constructed for himself, undeveloped and immature. Adone lost himself in the sanctuary of his gaze, and became surprised with the sudden surge of warmth his fire acquired.

But it passed as quickly as it came. His leadlike gaze rolled back to the ground as he shook his head with the miserable shadow of a smile. In spite of its ephemerality, the fact that that warmth was at one point present again invigorated his spirits greatly, washing away the shadow to brighten his smile. In all his years trying to make the connection between him and Cecilia spark flame only lead to destruction on both ends, never learning and always getting too close to the fire that grew far too much and far too little. He bit his lips as he felt its burning embrace.

A shrill laugh sputtered out of him as his head sagged down, making strands on his long black hair fall and swing in the gentle wind. He whips his head back up and runs his fingers through his hair to comb it back.

“It’s funny how a doll like you has more of a heart than me. Maybe I am the doll and you are the human being!” he said as he cackled and fell on his side, rolling in the grass before looking up at the stars with Pinocchio lying beside him. The moonlight washed over them as the orchestra of crickets chirped to bury the silence. Adone decided to fill the air with more than just the light of fireflies and the cacophony of chirps.

“Anyone can be seen as evil or good, so what do you see in me? Am I a bad person to you?”

Pinocchio’s eyes attached themselves to the stars in the sky, methodically giving every star the same attention and adoration. The answers felt as if they were far, far away from him, as if the stars stole his words. He gazed intently at the night sky and at the way the stars twinkled, searching for the answers he was looking for. He voiced his answer to hem in an attempt to channel their beauty through his words.

“I can only look at the world through heaven’s eyes. I’ve seen the beauty of life and how rotten it can be. How people aggrandize themselves despite them being as simple as bugs from nature’s point of view. That chaos seems to seep into you, but in ways I can’t seem to be frightened about. Anyone can be anything, but everyone seems to be confused with themselves. You are no different. You are not bad, you are simply you. Satisfied?”

They maintained their gaze before Adone turned his chin to the sky to see the stars. There, he rediscovered old words once spoken by the person he wished he could have loved properly.

“You have been through some bad things, just like me, but that doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Cecilia’s simple sentiment bloomed in his mind as the stars ushered in the spring of his spirit, where new life would bloom from the gray wrath of winter. He welcomed the bittersweet fragrance bleeding from his memories along with its promise of change.

The side of the harlequin’s lips curled up without his consent as the nocturnal lights surrounded them. Adone tilted his head to the side to look at Pinocchio lying next to him; his white mohair hair glowing with the moonlight and the turquoise in his eyes flickering like the stars above. An indescribable feeling of awe struck him, fortifying his resolve to go through with his plans. He also began to scrupulously study the stars in search of the right words to convince the young Pinocchio to join him.

“Have you ever thought of what lies beyond the stars? Ever wondered why we exist?”

Pinocchio’s turquoise eyes glowed even brighter when they were directed to the sea of stars. Both confusion and profound intrigue found their way into his mind which slowed his internal clockwork to a brisk tempo to fully accept what he just heard. He could tell that Adone was about to go into something deeper, so he waited in thoughtful silence to hear what he had to say further.

“I don’t mean how we exist; science can try to explain that. I mean why you and I exist. Why vegetation grows, why the birds sing and the sun rises and falls, why… Why such godly power is placed in the hands of such lowly creatures. Simply turning an intricately designed music box can manipulate the laws of the cosmos. It’s what made you, but some say that the whole universe is the result of a melody from some primordial music.”

After Adone’s performance of languid gesticulations into nothingness, he slumps back down to lie on the dirt and grass again, turning towards Pinocchio’s attentive expression.

“... I’ll stop playing around. I know you were listening in on the conversation I had with Cecilia; I can recognise those bright turquoise eyes anywhere. I… Honestly, I don’t even know the name of this ‘true love’ of mine. That I was a knight in a distant kingdom… It just feels right. It could even be a past life for all I know. But Celeste… They're just… A concept to me. I don’t want to get out of here for that person, I want to get out of here to discover what “Celeste” could possibly mean. Maybe I’m madly in love with that ‘princess’ because I’m madly in love with the distant mystery. Maybe she’s just a metaphor for undiscovered truth and is the key to understanding the world and myself.

With his elbow pressed into the soil, Adone curved his upper body to face Pinocchio more personally.

“I need your help with that, Pinocchio. Truth be told, I’m really jealous of you. To be a puppet without strings… Every being with a heart is bound to its strings, and Mangiafuoco controls the hearts of all of us. The idea of a free will means that our free will is limiting us from experiencing true freedom. We’re constantly doing things and thinking about things we think we want to do or think about. We’re blinded by our desire for things which gives us the illusion of freedom, while in actuality we’re simply listening to our hearts’ whims. We are prisoners to the will of our heart’s desire. But if our hearts aren’t our own… then whose are they? Who's in control of our hearts if not us? That, my wooden friend, is what I want to uncover the secrets of! And you’re the only one who can help me; the only one that isn’t bound by the whims of the heart.”