An Unmentionable Event, part 1

Miss Winchester had found herself in quite a conundrum. It appeared that she didn't have anything to wear, which was perhaps an ordinary problem for a young lady in the finer circles of Eisenkrone Academy; but in this particular instance, the conundrum pertained less to the shifting fancies of fashion, and more to the fact that her wardrobe appeared to have disappeared into thin air while she slept.

“Oh my,” was Miss Winchester's expert assessment of the situation, “Oh dear me, my wardrobe seems to have vanished.”

It was an astute observation, owing to the fact that she was a well educated lady with a keen eye for detail; it was also, fortunately, an observation she made to herself, being dressed only in her night-gown, beneath which she wore very little in the ways of modesty, and above which she was similarly undressed. This left her in the precarious state of having only a single layer of clothing between her and the world at large, which was, of course, a dreadful dilemma.

Had the matter vexing Miss Winchester been something other than a matter of acute embarrassment, she should of course have summoned her loyal butler Ralph; or failing that, her close friend Cecil. Alas, she knew they were both quite passionate young men, prone to shock and – in Cecil's case – behavior he might later regret. Given that the situation presented a mystery, her good friend Mr. “Sherlock” Lloyd Wilder might perhaps have suited the situation – but Miss Winchester wouldn't dream of calling on a friend whilst improperly dressed. Indeed, it seemed she must solve this situation by her own accord.

Miss Winchester leaned forwards, taking good care that her backside wasn't pointing toward a person, depiction of a person, or anything that might with a helping of imagination resemble a person. She knelt down towards the ground, narrowing her eyes, and nodded solemnly to herself.

“I say! A clue!” she said, to herself. For indeed, there where the wardrobe had been was instead positioned on the floor a small copper coin, valued at five Teutonian pfennigs. Miss Winchester stood up, straightening her back. It seemed perfectly clear to her that the culprit must have left the coin there as some kind of calling card; she imagined some manner of gentleman thief, calling himself Monsieur Five-Pfennig, who no doubt crept about at night like a dreadful rapscallion and made away with extremely heavy wardrobes. Presently her eyes swept over the floor to see if the thief had left some other manner of clue.

“I say!” said Alice, indeed saying it, as she spied something sticking out from underneath her door. It appeared to be one of her unmentionables, wedged between the door and the door-frame. “A trail!”

Regrettably, the trail led out into the corridor. Miss Winchester was getting quite excited about pursuing this dastardly thief, but not so excited that she would even in her wildest dreams burst out into the hallway whilst naked both beneath and above her clothes. That would be dreadfully rude to her fellow club members, who after all even now had nothing but a few dozen feet of solid stone between their virgin eyes and her own indecent state of dress. But! What if some of her unmentionables were likewise scattered in the corridor? Why, she should die of embarrassment!

“I daresay,” she said, indeed daring to say it, “I shall quickly have to formulate a plan!”

 And so, grabbing needle and thread from her dresser, she began her work.  

Facets of Fantasy: Legacy

“You will live as long as I. Maybe even longer. You know that, right?”

“Yes, Teacher.”

The street was full of noise. All around them Kyoto rose, with its face of glass and steel and concrete, and its voice of bicycle bells and street vendors and bustling crowds. A city more than one million strong, a city that dwarfed the city of his youth – the same city, the same Kyoto as it had been then. But his youth seemed a million years ago now. In reality, it was scarcely more than a century.

“I'm barely an old man. If the cycle had not begun... Who knows how long I would have lived?”

His student nodded. A giant of a man, a blond foreigner from a land he'd barely known in his youth; the land of the Eagle. A strange man to inherit the Sword. A strange man to guard the Book of Truth. But he had been the best choice; he had humility, despite his strength. And he was skilled, moreso than any of his other students. It had been the best choice.

“How old are you really, Teacher?”

He thought.

“I was born in the Edo era. I am one-hundred and sixty-two years old. My body is perhaps sixty.”

“How does that happen, Teacher?”

His voice was like a child's. He barely spoke Japanese, and his words were simple, clumsy. David. Like the small man from the Christian Bible. Though he wasn't small. Or Christian, at least as far as the Teacher knew.

“The Sword keeps you alive. The doctor... Your friend, he says it does something to DNA. Rewrites it. The old ones said it rewrites your destiny; maybe that is what they meant. Listen carefully: Now that you have inherited it... I am going to die. Every day I go without it, it's as if I age a year.”

“But Teacher – you said nothing-”

“Draw the Sword.”

“But-”

“Draw it.”

The Sword unfolded from David's arm, shining, living metal, from the ancient times. From the previous cycle. If the Teacher was old, then the Sword was – how old? How many guardians had held it? How many bodies had it bonded to, like it now bonded to David's? The thick strands of biomass flowed from his powerful forearm, intertwined at the hand, forming the hilt. The weapon purified, intensified, distilled into liquid metal and poured out to form the glinting blade, the blade that could cut through anything. A symbiont, the doctor had called it. A living creature, bonded with the host.

He admired it. He had never seen it like this before, in another man's hands – not since his own Teacher drew it that fateful night in Satsuma.

“This blade will be your life, David Blaze.”

“Yes, Teacher.”

“You will use it to guard the Book of Truth. Until it passes to another. Until you die. Only then will the Sword move on. Only then will your duty end. It is not seemly for a Guardian to grow old in peace.”

The student caught on. His clear blue eyes searched the old man's face, searched for a clue beneath the snow-white eyebrows, between the crow's feet that lined his ancient eyes.

 “This blade will be your life, David Blaze. And yes. When your teaching is complete... it will also be my death.”

Facets of Fantasy: Empire

Salt water splashed her face, and the smell of the ocean lingered around her. She wrapped the brown cloak tighter about herself, frowning at the fabric – so rough, and so dark, not at all the garb she was used to. When they arrived, in that strange northern country, she'd wear what she wanted to. This she swore.

“Naimitsu.”

She was there. She was always there.

“How long will the trip be?”

“Eight days. This is a fast ship, but the crew is Nipponese, Miss Tsuru, and-”

She hated the name. "Tsuru". It was a necessary name, a disguise like the rags she was wearing, but she hated it still - a common name, a mere animal. Noble, perhaps, but not suited for her. 

“And I must stay hidden for now. I know. Not that I care.”

“There are many Nipponese students at the Academy as well. If they find out-”

“Do what you must.”

Naimitsu bowed. It was hard to read her body language, but a lifetime with her had taught Akane plenty. This was the solemn bow, the bow of regret. The bow that told Akane just what Naimitsu was willing to do, in the name of the Empire. In the name of the Empress.

“I will act as I choose when we reach the shore. I don't care about the daimyo's warnings. If there are threats, you remove them. Is that understood, Naimitsu?”

“Yes, Miss Tsuru.”

There was darkness in her eyes. Akane didn't know what became of those Naimitsu called 'threats'.

Not that she cared.

Facets of Fantasy: Sea

Once, when he was very young, he had gone out to see the ocean. He couldn't remember how old he was, but even now, it seemed to him as though it was his very earliest memory that still dwelt in his brain. He had gone to the sea with someone – an adult, perhaps a priest, perhaps even his father. It had been a man, nonetheless. The man had showed him the great ocean, and the ships sailing upon it, and he had spoken.

“Son-” he had probably said, or maybe “Young man”, or possibly even “Aust” - Aust couldn't remember the exact words. “Son – I think the only way you can understand Creation is by looking at the sea. It's perfect. It's so smooth, and flat, and beautiful, and untouched – and yet it hides so many secrets. Some are beneficent – people to meet, beautiful sights to see – but some are dreadful: Storms, whirlpools, terrible monsters. Always remember, though, that there is someone responsible for everything. Someone is causing everything in the world – nothing “just happens.” Just as every island has its ruler and every storm has its port, someone cares for everything in this world, and when you grow up, you will be responsible for something too. Maybe one day, you'll have your own island.”

But then again, he thought, what is the sea? Water. He had mastered water long ago. The sea meant nothing to him, now. Salt water. He could rule water, make it bend to his will, make it sing and dance if he wanted to – but sometimes, when he looked at the sea, a little of it splashed his face, and he could have sworn it came from his eyes.

Facets of Fantasy: Tears

The man's breath was heavy with alcohol, his accent stained by the tongue of Those-We-Raid. He raised a hammer high. He spat. He said, “This is what we do with rebels.” The hammer fell. The shoulder broke.

He woke up, sweating. Long hair tangled in his face, blinded, but he could feel the pain shoot up and down his useless arm again. The bedroll stank of urine. The young'uns said Varro wet himself from fear, in his nightmares. The truth was more prosaic; age. His bladder played tricks on him, had been for a few years now. Probably some sickness he'd caught in his youth... back in the slave days. Back when they broke his shoulder.

He couldn't sleep. Rolling out of the cloth, he climbed to his feet with his good arm, grunting as he went. The camp was silent.

Except, of course, for the newcomers. They were sleeping nearby. He wondered if Harkon knew about it, the way he spoke in his sleep. His tongue was thick and strange, the language of the Far West, where a mighty Empress had a fleet of a thousand ships. Varro didn't speak it, not a lick, but he understood the feelings well enough. Was it a greater shame to piss or to weep in one's sleep? Varro didn't know, and he was too old to let shame rule him.

The old man had lost his clan. Let him sleep and not feel shame.

There would come a time when he'd weep while awake, not giving a damn who saw.

Facets of Fantasy: Sisters

Agnes rolled up her sleeve and stuck a bare, grease-spattered arm into the machinery. Fingers closed around the misplaced wrench – a critical moment. Yank too hard, the cogs would break. Move too slow, she'd lose a hand. One.

Two.

Three.

With a grating metallic noise, wrench and arm and girl pulled free of the machinery, and the cogs began their slow, halting grind. The clock was running again.

“That looked dangerous.”

She turned around, startled, dropping the wrench. A tall apparition appeared before her, a terrifying woman in a charred school uniform. The skirt was riddled with holes, the blouse stained with something yellow and vaguely fluorescent. The stockings sagged in tatters around legs that seemed to have been viciously seared, and the same went for the arms, wrapped in bandages.

“Sis. You scared me.”

“That's why I waited.”

The taller girl sat down, looking into the gears as the clock went back up to speed, automatically adjusting itself with the Storm Astrolabe. It would soon have made up for lost time.

“You won an award, Agnes. Top of the class in Storm Lore.”

“This year too? Huh.”

Agnes wiped her hands on a piece of rough sackcloth, leaving only the rest of her completely covered in grease, from her round glasses to her shoes. She was dressed more practically, in worker's coveralls, with her hair cropped. Skirts and long hair were for people who didn't have to worry about getting dragged into the clockwork's innards. Like her sister.

“I couldn't make it. Clock needed fixing.”

“Right away?”

“It runs almost everything in Eisenkrone, you know. Including the scheduling. Somehow.” She paused, looking Amanda over. “...what happened to you?”

“Alchemy accident. I won an award too, but I didn't want to go there like this.”

“Which one?”

“Top of the class in Storm Lore.”

“This year too?”

“Mm.”

 They sat at the door of the clocktower, gazing out over the school. They didn't sit too close together. They both knew how the chemicals would react with the grease.  

Facets of Fantasy: An Ugly City

The skyline of New York twinkled, each little light bursting like a supernova straight into his eyes. Distant cars roared and honked in his ears, the exhaust mingling with the smell of sex in his nostrils, drifting from the apartment right behind him – from his own skin. He closed his eyes. New York wouldn't go away. It never did.

Three apartments over, a man hit his wife. Six apartments over, someone dropped their cellphone in the toilet, and swore. Thirteen apartments over a woman was crying. In Brooklyn, a cop shot a kid.

She came up behind him, a hand on his back. A jolt went through him, as he made his blood course through his body again. He hadn't heard her. Too busy taking in New York.

Now she was there, and he turned towards her. Brown tangled hair around an asymmetrical face, with a mouth that seemed twisted into a perpetual sneer. Dry lips, goop in her eyes, remnants of mascara clinging to her lashes. He smelled her breath, and with it, her six last meals and the exact time she'd been sleeping. He smelled what had become of those meals. And, of course, he smelled her blood, just beneath her skin.

“Harper. Moping again?”

“I'm afraid so, Miss Lennox. New York is such an ugly city, full of ugly people.”

She read his mind. He turned away, but too late. She was hurt.

“Do I really look like that?”

“All humans do.”

They were silent. He was naked, aware of the cold winter wind playing over his body but seeing no reason to care. She was wrapped in a sheet, her feet bare and cold on the balcony.

“What the fuck's the point, then? Why sleep with a stinking bag of body fluids, when you could be banging the Queen?”

Harper laughed. “First of all, one doesn't 'bang' the Queen of Vampires. But you have a valid point.”

He turned around to face her. His pale chiseled face sank into an expression of utter melancholy, his deep eyes searching hers. Licking his dry lips with a dry tongue, dry, always dry except when he had fed, he began to speak:

“-in all my endless years, haunted, tormented by my undying state, I've walked the Earth, in search of true love, in search of-”

She burst out laughing. It exploded in his ears, shattering the sounds of New York and any illusion of a romantic, immortal vampire. Suddenly he was just a naked guy on a balcony, looking rather stupid in the chilly night. Harper Anderson smiled, not the cool, sexy smile of an undying predator – but the awkward smile of a man being laughed at by his girlfriend.

“And that's why. I'm, uh... going to put some trousers on. Fetch me a beer, would you? Anything but that American stuff. I swear it tastes exactly like piss.”