There’s a small kingdom by the sea. Atop the sea cliffs is the castle, windows alight with candles and torches. The night is alive and so is the ocean, crashing against the rocks of the cliffs. The beginning of a stormy rage. 

Along the ridge of the cliff, obscured by the overgrown grass and the protective darkness, there stands a boy no older than eighteen. From the untrained eye, he looks like someone high born, possibly a noble of the kingdom, rather handsome, too. If one were to come closer, maybe within breath’s reach, you’d be able to see the glow of the text in the corner of his eye—automated text from his interface, updates about his system processing. One could notice from so close how smooth his face is—almost unnaturally smooth and just a little bit rubbery, an uncanny version of skin—or if were one to feel his hand for long enough, one could notice the warmth of the palm only residing there, in the palm, leading to colder fingertips that leaves a girl shivering on a chilly night of a balcony. The cold fingertips would be enough for the boy to tuck his hands away and the girl to wrap her arms around her, unsure of what to do other than walk inside. 

The boy robot feels the wind on his face, something tangible for him to react to: the force of the air pushing against him, the cold temperature cooling his skin. He supposes it’s more of a thin layer of whatever skin-like material his maker had used for him. 

He looks down to the rocks. 

The storm grows stronger as the boy stands along the cliff. There’s something quite still in the air around him, despite the winds beginning to whip up and the frenzy of the waves beneath his feet. The boy takes a step back away from the edge. His eyes look over to a tower that sits higher than the rest, and the small bead of light that spirals from the princess’s bedroom downward, a torchlight racing downwards. The boy’s feet instinctively take another step back, a pivot, and he’s ten feet further from the cliff and ten feet closer to the princess before his mind finally catches up with him. 

The boy doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing at all. Then, from the front pocket of his shirt, close to where his heart is meant to be, he pulls out a white, small cloth. The cloth is thin and delicate with gold embroidery. E. 

It had been given to the boy by the princess so long ago, but he remembers it so clearly. Of course he does, his mind isn’t flawed like a man’s. He remembers everything so clearly it hurts him. That beautiful day in the castle gardens and how brightly her hair was shining. He feels the warmth in his chest from the sunlight that day, growing by the second. Beside that wondrous E it is the faintest stain of a strawberry in the shape of a girl’s lips. The memory keeps him warmer than ever on this stormy night. But the image of the robot soldiers that had been marching by that day flashes into his head—the general bellowing at them, the broken leg of one of the robot soldiers that day who was not alive enough to feel the pain of the general shocking it and oh how easily that could be him, it would be him because he is a robot and he is not alive and he cannot eat or feel or love—

A laugh. Eloise.

The handkerchief slips from his grasp, blown from the racing wind around him and the looseness of his grasp. 

The robot boy shoots up, and leaps toward the edge before the princess’s gift falls over the seacliff. He lands with his chest to the ground, hand outstretched and Princess Eloise’s gift to him firm in the warmest part of his hand. Somewhere in the distance, his audio receptors flash white—a name only the princess calls him echoes in the distance. The robot boy stands then, and something flickers on his face. 

He takes his position on the edge of the cliff once more, warmth retreating. 

The boy holds the handkerchief tight. He brings it close to his nose, his mouth. He can’t breathe it in. He knows he doesn’t have the function, but he tries to anyway. It’s hard to imagine what it must taste like—the strawberry upon the princess’s lips. But the robot was not built for these things, not for things he was never meant to know.

Inside the castle, the kingdom’s princess runs along the castle grounds. Her sea-green dress billows behind her as she scours the hall. The front of her skirt is bunched in her hands, but there’s a crumpled piece of paper in one of them. A letter. The letter has dried tear stains and the opening words Dearest Eloise, I’m sorry and that’s all it has taken for the princess to come racing down from her tower. 

She’s searching for someone, calling their name. She seems panicked, wild, unable to hear anything but the roaring of the brewing storm and the crashing waves. The royal guard follows close behind, the head calling after his Royal Highness to come inside, to let the robots find her little friend. A few paces behind come foot soldiers. Machines unable to stop following. They will follow until their general tells them to halt. The princess pretends not to hear the general. She pretends not to see the soldiers following her. 

The day the princess found the robot washed up and in disrepair right where sand met the rocks of the shore, she’d been walking fast. Fast enough to leave behind her maids and ladies-in-waiting who were chasing after her with fans and calling out to her about her skin burning. She couldn’t stand another second of this life. Where she was judged and cared for based on her appearance. Where the people closest to her were employed by her father and mother—people meant to serve her. Eloise had tried before. She’d tried to become friends with her ladies-in-waiting, but they’d made it quite clear they did not see Eloise as a friend, but their princess, their soon-to-be queen, their duty bestowed upon them by their families. And so amidst a dreadful conversation, Eloise had suddenly run off. 

Eloise hadn’t expected to find him there, by the rocks. She’d never been so far from the path before, but he looked like a boy in need of help from the distance she’d come from, and upon coming closer, his face looked so peaceful and so, so human. 

The day he woke up, fixed and alive, Eloise was in awe, and she knew he wasn’t just a robot. The boy is nothing like any machine here. More boy than machine.

The princess crosses the castle garden, but it’s now raining. Her ladies-in-waiting come out into the rain too, fussing about her dress and catching a cold and how it’s improper for her to be running out like this. 

More machine soldiers follow the princess, but she pays them no mind. Her ears have begun to hurt from the cold and she’s now become soaked to the bone the closer she gets to the cliffs. She’s calling his name. Her fingertips have gone numb. 

As the princess searches farther, she finds herself arriving near the cliff line where she had spotted her friend. Something gathers at the pit of the princess’s stomach as she reaches the beginning of the cliffs, something rising in her akin to a scream. The general’s complaints have turned into bellows, and she wants them all to quiet. For this raging thunder to quiet, but there is nothing compared to the storm within her. She can feel the dreadful fear right in her heart. 

If the princess was not a princess and was just Eloise, she would be inclined to tell them that she loves the boy. But she was a princess and she cannot love a robot who is not just a robot so she doesn’t tell them. Eloise did not even realize it until that night on the balcony. 

The boy robot watches the waves crash into the cliffline, letting the wind sway him. The sweet voice of the girl grows closer, and following her is the bustle of royal guards and other people then begin to drown out the sound of the roaring wind. She’s calling his name—her name—

The robot thinks he must be so cold now. No warmth left to mimic a human’s body temperature. The wind pushes harder against him, and so does he against the wind. The tips of his toes feel the weight of the open air below. He wonders if the girl is as cold as him now—if maybe, just in this moment, they are the same.

He folds the handkerchief neatly in a square, reopens the little hollow part of his chest, and tucks it back inside of him, where it could stay warm. At least for a little while. 

The boy reaches out, and he sees the smooth back of his hand. The fake fingernails that will never grow and the icy blue tips of his fingers—not because of a lack of blood flow, but a color changing program used to alert him to severe temperatures. 

The wind pushes, and he pushes too far.

The princess is close now, calling a name she had given him, but he’s already away. 

The boy wonders if he had registered the warmth of her hand when he’d touched it that night on the balcony. It was cold, but the moon was shining and she was beautiful and the sky was clear and the stars were bright and if he had a heart it would have been racing out of his chest toward her.