Avril never had a schedule. Maybe to someone else it looked like she had one. No, she knew that Raime at least thought she had one. It wasn’t a high grade myth, not a great secret to hold like their lives depended on it, yet she never clarified it to them. Back then, Raime wouldn’t ask any questions either. If they had asked now, what could she even say? It came to her, as she passed the gates of City Hall, lanterns of warm colors guiding her way, what she would respond. The same tenet all of her peers followed, the only guidance left by Van Kalkain. “Do your best.”. Because she was, wasn’t she? The main atrium was more full than usual at this hour, it was likely that the Capitán’s visit had sparked the curiosity of many that otherwise would’ve been scouring bars now that the Sun had set. No mere tourists however, she recognized helping hands of Iorice or even some teachers from Universalis. Some debates seemed heated, voices rising to echo under the pagoda. Why had she come here in the first place, even though her legs only begged for a moment of respite? Avril didn’t try too hard to convince herself that it was all out of worry for Raime’s well-being. There was some morbid curiosity that drove her to City Hall, and the real worry was directed to the well-being of those around them.
Avril glanced quickly between the faces around her, trying to find someone that she could easily engage a conversation with. She rose the wide steps to the first floor, which served only as higher ground to watch over the atrium. Against the railing overlooking the crowd underneath, she recognized two of her peers. The Suit of Byzance recognized her before she could sneak up on them.
“Hey, Avril.”
Miste’s voice was low, her black and beige suit far from the proper state she used to keep it in. The one to her left didn’t need to introduce himself either, even if Avril had rarely crossed paths with him. Pryce was the Suit affected to Freeway, not looking more refreshed than Miste but having at least the light in his eyes of someone who had been afforded a full night of sleep. He must’ve been the polar opposite of her in their respective field, Avril never dreaming of reaching the bottom of the Hull’s demands and him seemingly always scrounging to find himself something to do. She wouldn’t confront him on this, even as a joke, not here, not now. They were all young, even the oldest of them in the Caldera was only thirty-one of age, so Avril being one of the last children born had never been a topic of discussion between them. Now that the thought had crossed her mind, she wondered if maybe it was part of the reason she had felt a sense of belonging between them that she never found while interacting with the old guard of the Hull.
“You saw her come?” Avril asked leaning an arm against the railing to Miste’s right.
Miste shook her head slowly, “The Cors’s quarters are quiet, even if some are trying to get a peek inside from afar… Pryce is the only one who crossed her path today.”
Avril remembered that Miste used to apply some makeup around her face, nothing too eye-catching but expertly used to shine in ever room she entered. Nowadays it was rare that she even tied her light hair back, as if her suit was the only thing keeping her standing. Even if Pryce appeared less disheveled, Avril noticed that the bottom of his pants and the sole of his shoes were dirty with soil he must’ve brought in from the Marrow Garden. She doubted he would ever mention having this much free time on his hands in front of the two of them.
“She went to the station again,” Pryce said, lifting three fingers up in the air, “That makes thrice in one Scavenger visit. It’s not my place to investigate her or whatever but the fact they’re still waiting in there is also weird.”
“You can’t ask the Scavs?”
“Feel free to try,” Pryce scoffed lightly, “Only 3 knows what the hell they’re up to and that guy is scary as fuck.”
“What would they even do?” Miste asked absentmindedly, “They’re not different from the Doctors, they just sit outside of Last Kunlun, minding their own business.”
“Yeah that’s what she was asking me as you arrived,” Pryce addressed Avril, “Clearly the Capitán was making moves even before the Old Man passed.”
The three of them looked below, several clusters of people were still actively debating amongst themselves. The long table meant to sit the Pillars was still dressed, the Old Man’s empty seat ominously overlooking the atrium.
“Is anyone reaching a consensus about her?” Avril asked.
“Not really,” Miste sighed, “Most of the real old folks hate her guts and everyone born after the False Dusk is ambivalent at worst, even the skeptics aren’t nearly motivated enough to care about whether or not she ends up sitting in the Old Man’s seat.”
Avril furrowed her brow. Even if the political standstill was frustrating to see from above, she couldn’t blame anyone that didn’t have an opinion on the Capitán, because she didn’t either. Raime and her grew up in a world far from the Cors’s shadow, Avril could likely wait until the Sun took her without having to confront the Capitán as an entity. But she was now trying to get in, claiming that she already had two feet on the Hull’s ground. There was a possibility, something gnawing at Avril’s mind, that bothered her enough to start understanding the fear of those who opposed her.
“Totally unrelated, have you heard about any of the other Pillars getting a new young recruit? Someone around my age?”
Miste and Pryce looked between each other and shrugged.
“Definitely not Iorice, her youngest architect is like, seventy.”
“And Universalis is already falling apart on its own, I doubt San Carlo found it in himself to go headhunting… but…” Miste bobbed her head from side to side, only seeming to conjure a mild headache, “Trina was here earlier, told me that she saw the Major without the Capitán, instead sharing a bottle with a human wearing a suit not too different from ours.”
“Van Kalkain got a new one to help Trina in Versal?” Pryce asked.
“If that’s the case, she didn’t get the memo and neither did he…”
Avril left the both of them with a curt nod and a weak smile. The rising lights of Last Kunlun illuminated her back as the elevator car brought her to the summit of City Hall. The higher the car rose, fewer and fewer people populated the floors, leaving half of the rise in eerie silence. A fleeting ray of light reflected into Avril’s eyes, making her blink. She turned, watching Yama and Freeway regain their colors between the steel grates. As the elevator rose and behind the grid, there wasn’t much scenery to really appreciate, only an uncertain mesh of lights, turned towards the sky. There were more where she couldn’t see, coming from all over the city, painting her lonely cage in a rainbow of shifting gradients, rippling across her body to disappear as soon as they came. Avril thought of the Capitán, her arms stretched towards the sky above the Old Man’s altar. What could she think of this city, of its people, if she couldn’t even see this for herself? Maybe she felt it, maybe it burned against her skin, maybe the answer behind her actions were that she experienced everything in a more visceral way that noone else could even fathom. The rays culminated in a single, blinding shot as she reached the top of City Hall, meshing all of this half of Last Kunlun into its own sunrise. Avril pursed her lips instinctively. Was this what she missed with Raime all this time as well? Had they found this connection with the Pillar of Order that she couldn’t have hoped to offer herself?
Van Kalkain’s office was as empty as it ever was, the only sounds echoing beneath the roof of the pagoda were the massive clock behind the Pillar of Life’s desk, completely drowning what little sound the arched human could have made himself. Avril saw that he had noticed her entrance, but his face barely lifted from his papers and tablets. Stepping out of the elevator, Avril found herself staggering over her own feet, if only for a moment. She stopped, closing her eyes, finding that Last Kunlun’s lights had burned themselves beneath her eyelids. She walked, slowly, still blind to her surroundings, where she knew her quarry was laid for her to find. The Capitán likely wasn’t even afforded those immaterial specks of light, as far as Avril knew she had navigated her entire life as hand of the Cors like this, step by step, carefully and methodically. Avril remembered her face as the voices of Last Kunlun rose together. Her hand found a shelf, she tried to navigate its edges, attempting to find the Hull’s tablets by memory of the movement of her fingers. She only reached the end of the furniture, her hand falling to the side. Avril opened her eyes again and she found them hurting. Was this the Capitán’s reward after living crippled for all this time? Knowing what people lack instead of those who lived with them for years? Raime wasn’t greedy, they were barely cognizant enough of their own worth as a living being to talk back to those who wronged them. What had the Capitán offered them that she couldn’t? Eyes that see are not always eyes that understand. Where had she read this? Her mind was blanking, tightly gripping the full folder that she had managed to find now that her vision was clear.
“Avril?”
She looked to her left, the lights peering through the giant clock’s opaque shell bathed him in shadows but she could see that Van Kalkain was looking up at her. Avril didn’t answer immediately, taken aback from getting addressed in the first place. In the multiple years that she had visited this office she had only heard him speak a handful of times, and even fewer instances had these words been towards her.
“It will end,” Van Kalkain said slowly, “You can put down the tablet, you can say this to Miste… to everyone.”
“Sir?”
“I will keep going, I have to keep going. Everyone who lived, born before or after, had their blood drawn in these halls. It’s all under my nails, I have every proof of them right here. I won’t leave them alone.”
The dancing shadows obscured his face but Avril heard the tremor in his voice, as if he was speaking to someone else other than her.
“We have to lay them to rest, sir…” Avril replied, her own voice not finding its own purpose, “We have to keep going or noone else will-”
“I’m not him,” Van Kalkain interrupted her, “I’m too small, I can only look down, I can only look down.”
Was this the Capitán’s doing? Avril felt a chill going down her spine, taking her back to when she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the elevator of their complex. The Pillar was losing grip.
“We’re all right! If anyone of us wanted to leave we would’ve done so, I talked to Miste and Pryce on the way in, we can still keep going, you don’t have to worry about us…”
“I can’t promise you… that everything will end, now or later or even later then…”
Avril saw Van Kalkain’s posture weaken.
“If he couldn’t hold his promise…”
What had she said to him?
“It’s alright! I know how it must feel to lose the Old Man since you’ve all known him for so long but we’ll be okay! It doesn’t have to be, the Capitán, we can make our own decisions about her, even if a lot of people don’t seem to care right now. We’ll keep going, sir.”
Who was she trying to convince? Him? The ones she met like Lana? The ones she hadn’t managed to meet? Her mother? Avril’s throat felt clogged. She couldn’t hope to convince Raime, she only told them to be careful after all. Van Kalkain had kept going, after the bridge had been cut, after the Sun had refused to set for the final time, after Last Kunlun had birthed its last children, he had kept going. Why now, then? Why was she the one to hold him above water?
“I will stay with with them…” Van Kalkain whispered, slumping over his desk and hold tightly unto everything he could wrap his hands around, “They won’t be alone…”
Avril hadn’t approached his desk since he had called her by name. She stayed motionless, on the far side of the room, tablet in hand.
“I’m sorry…” Van Kalkain hushed between sobs, “I’m sorry…”
She wasn’t sure the words were meant for her.