“Once again, the Sun rises. What a night huh? Save for an old fashioned democratic vote, it sounds like Last Kunlun decided who’s going to make up for the Old Man’s departure, may his soul find the rest he needed. Majority, sure, I was there after all, I heard it all. Maybe one of you stood right beside me looking up at the altar and you didn’t even know it! Majority, sure, sure, the voices were loud, as if everyone was just desperate to scream something! You noticed it didn’t you? Her shadow wasn’t here again, like she discarded her shell. I’ll leave it to you all to decide what to think about the Pillar of Order’s ascendance. Regardless of the Capitán, it’s good that we gathered our little selves around him, hm? A real convergence of generations like I’ve never seen before. Me? I find myself… Weary. I couldn’t join my voice to yours, in approval or otherwise. There isn’t much that can rattle me aside from an interview not going the way I wanted it to, but you know that now. Still, I’m only human, and today I have something else on my mind, something the Knight won’t share. We all need our secrets, don’t we? As long as they don’t hurt, be it you or anyone else. I leave you all with parting words from me and the Sun. Talk to those you’ve avoided talking to, I don’t need to be the one reminding you of seizing the day as it comes to you. Break a leg.”
“What ails you, my dear friend?” The Capitán whispered to herself, smiling slyly.
The Old Man hadn’t kept a radio at the Aery, his routine would make sure he only showed up after the Knightcall, he hadn’t ever needed one during his endless days of woodworking. The Capitán then, in the spirit of renewed efficiency, carried a portable radio of Armageddon’s design to her trip to the now abandoned Aery. The Capitán hadn’t expected the Knight to congratulate her in earnest, but it only sounded like their mind was elsewhere. What a shame, she would have loved to hear their attempt at destabilizing her newfound position of power. She would have adored even more having someone else come to the altar to try and take her down, having the city come together to protect her as the Old Man’s only legitimate successor. Volantis or not, Last Kunlun had spoken. Once she had extorted herself out of the crowd, her first destination had been the Aery. The Capitán had sworn that she wouldn’t come back to this place again, but despite it still smelling like freshly cut wood, everything was now silent. Now out of the mire of the Marrow Gardens sidewalks, the Capitán had stowed her cane under her arm and her hands carefully advanced through the tables, finding blunt edges of knives, carving tools and the statues he had left where she remembered them standing.
She found it again, the robin she had felt in her hands. Not one more etching than when she’d inspected it last. Her visit could seem like an exercise in futility. She would find nothing here, the Old Man had left only pointless statues behind for the last fifty years of his life. But not every building in Last Kunlun needed to serve a grander purpose. Even if he had only left Volantis’s location to an unknown entity in the Hull, there would be others who would find their way to the Aery. Thus, the Capitán sat. She could have waited a while, she could have waited forever, but she knew her little act on the altar had sent waves where she wanted it to. The clouds were parting and those hiding behind them would need to choose another course of action. Her smile must have gotten out of hand, as the edges of her mouth started feeling the sting. No reason to overpraise herself, but as she started hearing someone reach the gates of the Aery, it was hard not to. Now, to find out which individual those steps belonged to. It wouldn’t be just anyone, most of the city, even as the Sun rose, was still feeling the excitement of the night within them and those people wouldn’t randomly find their way to the dead ends of the Marrow Garden. A vain wish would be that the Old Man’s confident of the Hull would find their way back to this place, but there were no guarantee that this person even stepped foot in the Aery. Unfortunately, Raime would still be her best chance at uprooting this mysterious individual. Now then, the visitor currently making their way to her would only be one of the three that stood the most apart from the common people. The Pillar of Education would have stopped his stride the instant he recognized her. The Pillar of Life would need to be wrenched out of his chair to be able to leave City Hall, but he would have wanted to come, he would have begged someone to go in his stead.
“Enough free time to run errands for Van Kalkain now, Iorice?”
The Capitán heard her click her tongue and snickered to herself. Lovely bunch.
“He did say you would be here.”
The Pillar of Architecture’s voice had been raspy, on the verge of breaking, since the Capitán knew her. Despite the frail sounds that came out of her mouth, her words would never waver, not one sentence clashing against the next. A skeptic could have argued that she only kept her post for this long thanks to that charisma but the truth was that Pillars weren’t a very contested station in this day and age. Hence why San Carlo still kept his title despite doing an exceptional amount of nothing, jerking off his melancholy in the shadow of his old life.
“And what? He urged you to hurry while not even bothering to get up from his chair? I hope you didn’t break a sweat on his behalf ma chère.”
“It’s depressing how well you two came to know each other,” Iorice sighed, passing by the Capitán’s seat and heading deeper into the workshop.
“Looking for something?”
“Traces of “foul play”, you’re the last one who saw him alive aside from his neighbors.”
“Oh? You monitor my movements? Van Kalkain does?”
“Word goes around, the Knight and your death fridge aren’t the only ones with ears to the ground.”
“But still… Foul play? Don’t you think it’s ridiculous that I would harm him in any way? No mentor, no successor… Maybe the Pillar of Life should consider hanging up his own mantle as well, and hang something else in the process…”
Iorice ignored her, surely thoroughly digging through whatever the Aery had to show her. She could have spent that time appreciating the sculptures, but one could hardly consider them pieces of evidence. Finding it difficult to keep track of Iorice’s movements around her without having her interlocutor speak aloud, the Capitán passed her nails through the small etches in the robins wings. A work of such fine detail it was as if she held the animal itself, like she could imagine it squirming between her palms. Would birds even squirm? The Capitán found the thought unpleasant, surely such a noble animal wouldn’t debase itself like so. One such bird adorned the Last Kunlun flag after all, not one of Willow’s worms.
“Not even a portable fridge that could have been poisoned…” Iorice sighed.
“Say, you heard the Knightcall?” The Capitán swung her chair around to keep Iorice in earshot, fidgeting the Old Man’s robin statue between her fingers, “Sounds like they have it tough, kids these days and their priorities… Where do they even find reasons to be depressed about, hm?”
“I’m still going to be efficient, no matter how much you try to distract me.”
“Come on, what distractions? You see around here better than me, Iorice. The Old Man just decided he had enough, is that so unbelievable?”
“It’s perfectly believable, he became a shell of his former self since his wife died.”
“Hard to know how he kept going this long by carving extinct birds…”
“Only because of you.”
“Pardon?”
“Van Kalkain would never admit it even if you pulled out all of his nails but you’re the only reason the Old Man stayed this long in the Aery. His son made his own life away from him, noone else aside from you ever visited him. Be it from spite or something else, your visits trying to wrench all of his secrets out of his hands must’ve kept him entertained.”
The Capitán’s smile dropped. Years of unknowing yet diligent elder care and in the end she didn’t even get rewarded with Volantis. She hoped the Old Man died without realizing this. She heard Iorice clap her hands, likely to get rid of sawdust she’d accumulated while rummaging through the atelier.
“Satisfied?”
“Sure.”
“Send in a good word for me then, will you? That no matter how influential I become, I’m always ready to oblige to any of the illustrous Van Kalkain’s needs.”
Iorice sighed loudly.
“You really overestimate how much this stunt of yours is going to change the status quo around here. All of the people who cheered you were likely born after the False Dusk. They don’t remember the Old Man, they have no idea what he held together compared to… the Cors.”
“But they remember me.”
“For what that’s worth.”
“Enough about my accomplishments then, before you scamper away I wanted to run something by you.”
“I’m already on the way out, make it fast.”
“I have a foot in the Hull now, your predecessor and the Old Man gave the district their management independence but the place ins’t immutable to change. Their numbers are also thinning, buildings collapsing on themselves, some dark fluid slowly making its way to devour the strata whole. These old adages can’t matter more than the Hull rotting away while they watch. If I were to give you a way in, would you follow?”
The Capitán never had a chance to study Iorice’s features. The extent of her doubts, insecurities and resolve were concealed with more effort than both San Carlo and Van Kalkain. Despite everything, this is where her personal grievance with her should end. Helping the Hull from drowning in its own garbage should be a matter of greater importance. Appealing to basic empathy hadn’t worked with the Old Man but there was no harm in trying again.
“Fancy yourself a diplomat now? That’s why you’ve been stashing your war machine away? Got bored of fear mongering?”
“Would you follow?” The Capitán replied dryly.
“The Hull’s maintenance congregation has kept to themselves all this time, you think I never tried reaching out? You think because you made a good show of yourself they’re going to keel over and welcome me in because you said so?”
“I respect your intelligence and your strength of will, Iorice, and that’s why I’m not asking you to overthink this. All I need is an answer, I’m the one who will bring the results to you. I ask you again, would you follow?”
The Capitán heard the Pillar snap her tongue. She had made good progress towards the exit, their conversation had turned louder and louder with every sentence. The tension now remained at a standstill.
“Bring in results then,” Iorice scoffed before storming out of the Aery.
The Capitán chuckled to herself. The walls are crumbling, the old guard is withering away in the wake of their dead king. Could World-Eater even comprehend this? Could it understand that she was overpowering it, reshaping the last city in the system to uproot this aberration? The anomaly, the shard of a tale made manifest, would only need to feast once more, to take into itself the whole of what is and put an end to Last Kunlun. But the Aery was as silent as the crowd that had waited for her to talk. Words that came out of her mouth that she had begun to forget as soon as they left her throat. If World-Eater would refuse to make sense of this madness, then the Capitán would.
She planted her cane on the ground, slipping the robin in the pocket of her coat. Making her way out of the Aery, the Capitán started feeling the weight of her sleepless night. It had been more than a week since she’d allowed herself a full rest and it was catching up to her. The smell of wet grass only further soured her mood and she swung her cane violently to catch her ankle. The impact almost made her fall to her knees but she kept walking, feeling her heart pulse in her chest and gritting her teeth to prevent her from groaning. She still had to reach Byzance, and no matter how much the city had raised its hands towards her, she would not let them see her eyes close.