Charity lay back in a chair dozing when Ambrose walked into the already-familiar room off the side of the invention floor. She looked so tired, even in sleep. He didn’t want to wake her up. So, of course, when he went to take another step, he slipped on a piece of paper that had spilled off the collapsed pile still sitting on the desk. His weight went forward and his legs went back, crashing to the floor and knocking the wind out of him. Charity bolted upright in her chair, right hand instinctively reaching for her pocket. She shook her head and blinked her eyes before staring down at him. “Are you okay?”
Ambrose rolled over and caught his breath before sitting up. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, good.” Charity paused. “Did I fall asleep?”
“Maybe just a little bit. But it’s okay. I just got here. And you look like you need it.”
“Do I? Is it really that bad?” Charity turned to a shiny metal panel on the wall and scrunched up her face. “Eek. That’s really bad.” She turned back to Ambrose. “I’ll try to fix that more tonight. I’m not going to be a very good teacher if I keep falling asleep when I should be teaching.”
“It’s okay, really.” Ambrose looked over at the table. “You said you’d have some things for me?”
“Right.” Charity pulled a bag from off the table and opened it. She pulled out a set of bracers, shorter than those he’d seen for archery. “Go ahead, put them on.” He slipped them over his wrists and clicked them into place. They were thin on the inside, but the outside reached from his wrist to halfway up his forearm. “Look at the one on your left.”
Ambrose tapped at the left bracer, turning it around. The outside had a squared-off rectangle with four digits on rotating dials. “That’s your chrono. Every so often you’ll want to sync it with the main clock, which is tied to the Central Pillar. As long as there’s a vital in the Pillar, it’ll keep time. This system uses an oscillator of some sort. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but it does.”
Ambrose tapped on the clear screen above the dials with the numbers. “How durable is this? I saw you hitting the signal rope on the pulleys with it.”
“Watch the screen for cracks, but the metal part can take a beating. But it’s not meant for that kind of beating. That brings us to the right side.” Ambrose looked at the bracer on his right arm. It didn’t have any clear pieces or obvious switches or dials. “This is your signal bracer. It has that name for two reasons. One, you can hit the signal ropes with it. That’ll be the thing you do most with it.”
“Figures. What’s the other reason?”
Charity flipped up a panel on the edge of the bracer. There were three tiny switches underneath. “It can act as a signal flare. The first switch is spring-loaded. If you’re not holding it in the on position, the others won’t do anything. The second is the arming switch. The tiny bit of explosive inside can be lit after you flip this one. And the third switch detonates the flare on a five second delay. Once you flip the third switch, throw the bracer as high as you can and find some cover.”
“So you regularly hit things with something that has an explosive inside?”
Charity nodded. “Yep. We’ve never had a malfunction. Perfectly safe.”
“Like most things around here?”
She thought about it for a second. “Yeah, pretty much.” She perked up. “Oh, and one more thing about it.” She pressed on a specific spot towards the front. The top of the bracer popped up at an angle, a rack of small tools ready to use. “If you ever find yourself in need of some really small tools, these will do the trick. Screwdriver, tweezers, knife blade, about all the things you could really want as an Engineer.”
“Wow. This little thing packs a punch.”
“Literally. Please don’t hit anyone with it.” Charity reached into her bag again, this time drawing out a book. The pages looked worn with use. “Here’s your manual. No, you’re not the first one to use it. But it’s practically like new.” She paused. “As new as you need it to be.”
Ambrose flipped through some of the pages. Lots of diagrams and notes in the margins and under the pictures. He wasn’t sure which ones were meant to be there and which ones were added afterwards by the book’s previous owners. “Alright. I guess this means I’ll have some work to do on my own time.”
“Not too much. You’ll be up here training with me for most of your day. Sometimes you'll find other Engineer-trainee pairs and practice with them. Or, in your case, maybe even other Engineer pairs.”
“It sounds like I’m going to be tired by the end of the day. Especially if you’re any indication.” He winced. That hadn’t sounded as offensive in his head.
Charity went slightly red. “Hey, not fair. I have to work and teach. Not easy.”
“Sorry. I’ll try to sleep enough.” Ambrose looked over his new equipment, twisting the bracers on his arm to find the right fit. Charity hesitated before pulling out a small case from her bag.
“That’s all the regulation gear.” She leaned a little closer. “But do you want something that’s not in the regulations?”
“Won’t I get in trouble for that?” Ambrose looked warily at the box.
“Nope. At least, not as far as I know.”
“Fine. What is it?”
Charity opened the box and pulled out a roughly cylindrical object, hollow on the inside with something over the end. She clipped it to the side of Ambrose’s goggles, over the left lens. He slid them down over his eyes, trying to see the difference between the two sides. “Is it supposed to do something?”
Charity fiddled with a flat knob on the side, and the one side of Ambrose’s vision suddenly zoomed in on her face. He jumped, surprised by the sudden magnification. She smiled, clapping her hands lightly. “So it does work! Messing with the lenses in that thing was a lot of fun. For the first two days, that is. After that, it was an absolute chore.”
“This could actually come in really handy.” Ambrose looked around, blinking his eyes closed at different times to see how his vision changed. Charity waved a hand in front of his face.
“Alright, wonderful. That works. But that’s not the reason I built these. Any Engineer could theoretically build a magnifier.” She turned the dial a little more, fine-tuning the distance between the two lenses inside her device. “Okay, this is going to sound odd, but I want you to push a little bit of power into the side of this device. Nothing major, because I don’t want it to blow up in my face.”
Ambrose looked for his core, which still felt sluggish from activating the vital. He took some of the gas that misted off the point of light and funnelled it down his left arm to the device. The lens darkened, taking on a dark amber shade.
“You can stop pushing now. It’ll last for a minute.” Ambrose looked around, trying to figure out what was different other than the fact that the room was suddenly darker in one eye.
“I don’t see anything.”
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Charity pulled out a small round ball with various panels around the surface. “Watch this ball and see if anything changes.”
Ambrose fixed both his eyes on the ball. At first, nothing happened. Then, almost imperceptibly, the ball began to glow. It was dim at first, but quickly grew to the brightness of the overhead lighting. He blinked his eyes and saw that the glow only registered in his left eye.
“It’s glowing. Really bright now. But it started off dim.”
Charity actually jumped for joy. “It works!”
Ambrose slid the goggles back up onto his head. “What did that do?”
“Because you powered it yourself, I think it allowed you to see other things around you that people have powered with their core energy. My eyes are so bad that I could never tell. I haven’t figured out how to fix the vision and use the powered lens at the same time.”
“Well, it definitely works.” Ambrose reached up to his goggles. “Did you want this back?”
“No, you keep it. I’m going to keep working on a few things, but it doesn’t help me right now.”
Ambrose looked down at the uniform he wore. “Hey, what do I need to do with this? Do I just go give it to the quartermaster?”
Charity rifled through her bag. “You can just give it to me. I’ll get it washed and then return it. You’ll want to change into that new one now that you have the rest of your uniform.”
Ambrose looked out at the invention floor. “Where do I do that?”
“Well, you could either do it in here while I turn my back, or you could go down the hall to the right. There’s a waste station there with some closable doors.”
“Sounds great. I’ll be right back.” Ambrose grabbed his bag from the floor and stood up, heading out of the training room and into the circular hallway around the invention floor. Sure enough, down the hallway to the right of the room stood a set of doors, slightly ajar. They didn’t appear to have any signs on them, so Ambrose chose the one closest to the invention floor and locked himself inside. Out of the old jumpsuit still so new that the creases snapped back together the instant he laid it down. Into an equally new jumpsuit that at least seemed slightly softer. He clipped his belt around it and added the vest and goggles back. A piece of metal hung on the wall, shiny enough that he could see himself in full uniform. He had to admit, it did look pretty cool.
Ambrose returned to the training room, tossing his old jumpsuit over the back of a chair. Charity looked up at him from where she’d been slowly nodding off. “Oh, you’re back. That was fast.” She looked down at her chrono. “It’s barely lunchtime, and already I have nothing else for you. It looks like I’m going to be up late tonight trying to figure out what to teach you tomorrow. Oh, and I need that pin back.” Ambrose felt around in his bag for the black box and handed it to her. “I wasn’t actually supposed to give it to you until the ceremony tonight, so you’ll get it back then. Maybe just don’t mention this to anybody?”
“Sounds good to me.” Ambrose looked at his chrono as well. “Lunch then?”
Charity nodded. “Maybe a little food will wake me up. And then after lunch, I’ll show you around my workstation. You won’t get one for a while until you can prove that you’re safe enough with your tinkering. All the marks in here are from people who did not have stations. You’ll likely add to these before you move on to bigger things.”
Charity stood up and wobbled dangerously, head tilting. Ambrose held out his arm. She grabbed onto it and steadied herself. “Thanks. Now, food.” He followed her out of the training room and into the chaos of the invention floor once again. At some point he’d get used to that. Not today though. For now, he’d just watch and learn.
Something in the deep recesses of Akio’s mind stirred, pulling her from fitful sleep to the land of the living. Above her, lines of blue light shimmered, crossing around her like… like… she couldn’t remember which word she wanted. The sky looked beautiful. The moon shone down on everything, creating the look that snow blanketed the countryside…
Someone tapped on her shoulder. Who would possibly be trying to pull her from this bliss, this perfectness? Slowly as the tapping grew harder, pain started to course through her, just a little pinch at first but growing until her eyes filled with tears. The pain kept building and building, relentless. She screamed in agony, choking and sobbing. Even the tears hurt as they slid down her cheeks. Why couldn’t she have stayed in the perfectness?
Water swirled around her. Where was she? The manor didn’t have any place in it with this much water. Maybe a stream? Yes, a stream. Had she fallen in? And was she alone? No, someone had been tapping on her arm. Unless it had been Yukima. That was possible…
Someone appeared in her field of vision, but she couldn’t tell who it was through the tears. She blinked several times, her vision focusing more and more each time. The ringing in her ears started to fade too. She started to hear a voice. “Akio. Akio, can you hear me? Akio!” A singed hand waved in front of her face. She turned her head, trying to get the last few drops out of her eyes. Black hair. Sharp features. Sora. Sora! The tears returned, although this time they were tears of relief.
He asked her something, but his voice still sounded far off. She tried to listen for the voice, willing it to grow louder. “Akio, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
“I can h-hear you.” Her mouth felt wet and dry at the same time, a smoky taste clinging to the top of her mouth.
“Do you feel okay?” He took her hand. That didn’t seem to hurt too much.
She smiled, the movement triggering a small wave of pain. “No.”
Sora looked over at something. Maybe the way they’d come. “Akio, listen. The duke is going to figure out soon that we didn’t die in his grain field death trap. When he does, he’ll send out all his forces to try and find us.” He looked down at her again. “Can you move at all?”
She tried to move her left arm, the one closer to Sora. As soon as it moved more than a few centimeters, the pain triggered a new round of tears. Sora pulled her arm a little farther. She whimpered, the sound coming out of her mouth before she could stop it. Sora stopped trying to move her arm, releasing his grip on her hand. Fear spiked inside her. “Don’t go!”
“I’m not going anywhere, Akio. Don’t worry.” Sora placed a hand on her back, guiding her through the water to the deeper part of the stream. The slow movement of the water on her burns felt soothing. Kind of like hearing Sora’s voice, but a physical feeling.
Once the two were far away from the glassy-pebbled bank, Sora let go of Akio and let her sink a little in the water. He placed his hand on the back of her head when she started to panic. “Don’t worry. Just let your legs sink. I’ve got you.” Akio laid back and let her bottom half sink until her head popped out of the water and she stood on numb, burned soles. As good as the water felt, she was starting to notice how cold it was. “Are you feeling a little bit better?” He locked eyes with her, his gaze full of concern.
Akio ignored the pain in her arms and surged forward wrapping her arms around Sora. She set her head on his shoulder and let her tears flow freely, salt mixing with the freshwater. She felt him stiffen in pain momentarily, but he quickly relaxed and wrapped his arms around her. She whispered her next words. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Sora turned his head slightly. “I don’t want to lose you either.”
Akio pulled back slightly from the embrace and pressed her lips to his, forcing the pain in her burned face to subside. The river stole her warmth, but for the moment, she had a fire on her lips and in her heart that no river could quench.
She pulled back from the kiss, cheeks blushing even redder than her burns. “Sorry! I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking…”
Sora leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Shhh. Let the moment last.”
Akio didn’t know how long they stood there, freezing water chilling her until she couldn’t feel her feet at all. Finally, Sora waded over to the opposite bank of the stream and climbed out, shivering violently. He knelt down and offered her his hand. “It’s going to be cold, but you can do it.” She closed her eyes and let him pull her from the snowmelt stream. The breeze from before that had felt so nice now became her worst enemy, taking her heat almost as much as the stream had. Akio gasped and huddled close to Sora, trying to conserve her warmth. Now that the stream was no longer numbing her burns, the pain of the red splotches started to return. The ones on the bottom of her feet were the worst, the blades of thin grass on the edge of the streambed feeling like tiny knives.
“The closest town is a little ways away. It’s going to take longer than normal in our condition, but I think we can still make it there by midday or early afternoon.”
“Is walking going to make me colder? Akio looked up at Sora. For all his burns and cuts, he seemed remarkably unperturbed and calm. How did he do it?
“Unfortunately, yes.” Sora brushed back some of the wet hair on her forehead. “But the faster we walk, the faster we’ll dry out. It’s going to be cold for a while. We might as well take the first steps anyway.”
The moon had just touched the horizon as the two started away from the stream, hand in hand, huddling close to conserve heat. Akio glanced back at the manor on the hill, just behind the burned field of grain. It seemed… defeated. Like she’d won some great victory by escaping. And she had. Whatever it took, she’d would ever go back there again. That chapter had ended. She pulled her gaze away from the past and set it on the road ahead. Whatever happened, this was a new story. And it had just begun. She glanced up at Sora and smiled. A new story for both of them.