"Obsession"
by Blackjack Gabbiani
Chapter SixThe next few weeks passed, strangely uneventful, given my acclimation. It was most peculiar, for I do not recall anything of those weeks clearly.
I know I spent a great deal of time in my room, looking out the window. Seafoam is a pleasant enough town for others, but for me it was like being in another world.
But the sky...the sky was the same, and it brought comfort. The sky would be always as it was at home. And it was safe, as home had been, as the wings of the white bird had been.
I would see it again, where the sky met the ocean. But that day would be a long way off, and I still had much to happen in my life.
One thing I know only from the stories of my father and his assistant Helen was that I would do things that startled the both of them greatly. I have no memory of this incident, but he would tell me that I insisted on drawing angels. I do not doubt him, as I dreamed of angels and white wings nearly every night.
After a particularly disturbing day, to hear him tell it, wherein I had locked myself in my room and covered every inch of paper with images of angels, he decided something had to change.
Hoping to play on my artistic nature, he began taking me to his workshop. He would show me sketches and models of the ships he was constructing, and how they were made. I took to them quickly; it seems I was eager for an outlet.
This part I remember with considerably more clarity than the weeks before it.
Most of the patrons came to know me by name, but did not pay me much mind. But I learned to read people from my dealings with them. I could tell much about a person from the things I saw. Most people were the idle rich, those wishing to show off their wealth with a custom-made token from the famous airship engineer Corbin.
But one man stood out from the rest. He had a regal bearing, and an air of eternal calm, as though he knew how to take exactly what he wanted from life. He would smile kindly at me during his conversations with my father and the other engineers, but we had never spoken until one day.
Had that day never come, I cannot imagine where fate would have taken me.
Father had set up a station for me to work on my drawings, and I had an idea for that day's project. I would sketch my Ancient Mew card; see if I could capture its essence on paper.
I had barely gotten set up when I heard a sharp gasp from behind me. The regal man was there, wide green eyes fixated on the card. "M...my boy!" he stammered. "Wherever did you get that card?"
I looked at it, then at him. "My mother gave it to me," I said simply as I returned to the picture.
"I see...You know, it's not often that you see one of those, much less in the hands of one as young as you."
"Not often," I repeated, only to find his extended hand between me and the paper.
"My name is Asaph," he introduced.
"Jirarudan." I shook his hand firmly and tried to turn my attention back to the picture.
"Do you think I...could get a closer look?" That calm of his was rapidly fading, so I nodded.
"Be careful with it," I added, very close to my mother's own tone when she had issued such a warning to me.
He turned the thin card over in his hands, the gold sheet and gemstones glinting in the half-light. "Incredible. Do you know where she got this?"
"From her parents, I presume." My short answers sufficed for most people, but I could tell Asaph wanted to know more. "She only told me that it was a family heirloom."
A slow nod of his head. "I see..."
I started shading in a part I had already drawn. "Why do you take such interest in it?"
He set the card back next to me and drew himself up to full height, like a regal speaker about to deliver an address. "Well, my boy, I...am a Collector."