There was only one way to increase the amount of ether Nua could pull from Anki’s source and hold at once, and that was constant practice. When it came to the Sapphire Leopard, the king felt that they still can make it in time. The ushumgar needed copious amounts of ether to operate properly, much more than Nua could handle right now, but only a little when it came to restarting the automatic procedures, and bit by bit, she was getting there.
However, the situation at the junkyard was slowly developing. Anki spied on the mage-engineer and his minions each day and watched their progress. At first, they set up camp, then propped up a makeshift fence around the goliath and started cleaning its surroundings. Clearly, the machine was too big for them to move, but they still poked and prodded around it, and the mage-engineer was seen inspecting it with two other, smartly dressed specialists (Anki wasn’t sure if officials, other engineers, or military, and Nua was not there to make sense of their uniforms). The number of minions increased after that inspection, from two servants to a small squad of armed grunts. Anki counted a dozen at the same time, but there must have been more of them working in shifts because the faces changed.
At the end of the week, they managed to lift the machine with a harness and a combination of levers, then turn it face up. That caused Anki to work himself up into a state of nervous agitation, but at the time, Nua wasn’t sympathetic to his plight. She had her own problems.
The atmosphere at the warehouse, compared to the previous week, got a lot worse. Nua thought that after she was acknowledged for her hard work, and even received a trinket, the rest of the crew will start to warm up to her, too. Instead, exactly the opposite happened.
It started when Hagne, one of the seasoned crew members, instructed her on how to get rid of a particularly stubborn stain. Nua listened and thanked her for the help. However, this was not the end. Several times until the end of the day, she would catch her making small errors and point them out. Sometimes Nua wasn’t even certain if the mistake was real, or if it was just her way of doing things.
“This is bullying.”, Anki remarked at some point.
“You sure? I am new and I am making mistakes. She isn’t even mean. Maybe she’s just a nitpicky person, trying to help me out.”
“We’ll see how it develops. Perhaps that is nothing.”, the spirit said, but he did not sound convinced.
On the next day, the nitpicking continued. Someone left the bucket full of bloodied water in the sun for too long, and Hagne came to ask Nua if that was her. Following their colleague’s example, others sent her to fetch supplies for the team far too often, and always when it involved carrying something heavy. The stock of soap – a grey liquid, usually brought in the ceramic container from the corner - was running out at the quay, and sure enough, she got informed, voice raised, that she should bring it immediately and that she was slowing down other people’s work. When Erish overheard that, Hagne complained.
“She took all the soap for herself and didn’t bring the new one.”, she said. “So I had to tell her.”
That left Nua wondering if she really was the last one using it. She did not exactly remember and she resolved to pay more attention.
Another time, Hagne referred to her as a piglet. On the surface, it sounded endearing, but that was as close as you could get to “beast-eyes” without being openly offensive. Sure enough, soon half of the crew was using the moniker when Erish wasn’t around. Especially Fabia.
From the look of it, Hagne was in with her. Nua caught them exchanging glances and sneering. Or was it just her imagination? Was she overly cautious?
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
After three days like that, Anki was certain.
“This really is bullying.”
“I don’t know, Anki.”, Nua was too tired to argue. She hid her face in her hands. “Maybe I’m just shit at this stuff. They don’t beat me up, and I do slow down the work. You know that sometimes I lose focus.”
“All of them do.”, he replied. “But they don’t get called out on it. At least not in that way.”
“But I’m new, so I get to be hazed, right?”
“Hazing is bullying.”, he answered. “They don’t need to beat you up to make you quit. Street kids may do that. Adults are more insidious. And for the record, when it comes to the focus, no one on the cleaning crew is exactly a scholar.”
“I can’t tell them off. It will get worse.”
Anki was mulling the thought for a while, then answered.
“You probably can’t. The disproportion of status is too much. But you can tell Erish.”
“What should I tell her?” Nua threw her hands up. “Things they do, they’re very… insidious.”
“Collect examples. She can think on her own, you know.”
Nua resolved to do just that, but on the Fourthday, among the imp seafood craze, nervous and distracted, she bumped into a worker carrying a container full of crabs. They both tripped, and live animals spilled on the floor, some of them upside down, others with broken pincers, aimlessly moving around. It was painful to watch.
Erish got furious. Confronting her now was out of the question. Fabia made sure to throw in a casual remark.
“If I were you, I’d fire her on the spot.”
She chose a bad moment, and she got yelled at as well, but Nua couldn’t stop wondering if the words were sinking in.
And so she dragged herself through the next two days, waiting for her supervisor’s anger to die down, perhaps with excessive caution. All her life experiences told her to avoid large, loud and scary people, so she just worked in silence, despite Anki’s encouragement. The only highlight of the time spent in the warehouse was the etheric reinforcement, and that also started failing as she was gradually losing confidence. At the end of the week, she was too exhausted to continue training, as the new Matrix designed for climbing required more variation, and thus, more repetition. She went home, ate the fish on her way, and curled up in her usual spot in the kitchen.
“This cannot be.” Anki judged. “At this point, your job is counterproductive. Either we think of something, or it’s better to quit and look for another one.”
Nua did not respond. She was fed up with the warehouse, the fish, ether, and Anki himself. Despair overcame her and she slept until mid-morning when everybody was already at their feet. Without enthusiasm, she propped herself up and looked for Hala. Maybe there was still some gruel left from the breakfast.
Auntie was around, preparing weekly laundry in a large pot. Catching the sight of Nua, she frowned.
“You were exhausted yesterday”, she said. “Are you sure this work isn’t too heavy for you?”
“…no.”, she mumbled.
Suspicion rose on Hala’s face.
“They did not talk you into drinking, did they? You know you can’t handle a drink. It’s also not smart to spend all your coppers on booze. We’ve had this talk before, Nua.”
The girl groaned. She didn’t need a reminder. Yes, she got drunk on stolen moonshine a long time ago – was it a year or two? - and she was violently sick afterward. Since then, she resolved to drink only local cheap beer, which had barely any alcoholic taste. Other choices were not available for the likes of her.
“No. But no coppers this week, too.”, she grumbled.
“Nua, dear. What is wrong?” Hala lowered her voice. “Does someone harass you at work?”
That one question stirred something in her. Nua felt pain well up her throat and eyes, and the next thing she knew, she was sobbing like a little kid, with her voice shaking, telling Hala the whole story. Well, almost all of it. She has conveniently omitted Anki’s participation, exercises at holding ether, and also the deal with Aton. That last thing was a problem for another time to solve.
Hala listened to her, hugged her, and didn’t give any advice until Nua asked if she should confront the boss.
“Yes.” Hala’s voice was severe. “Tell Erish. Or, believe me, I’ll go and tell her myself.”
Nua thought about the possibility and judged it the most humiliating thing in the world, but a quarter of an hourglass later, she devoured her gruel, went teaching her siblings where the best places to play hide-and-seek are, and helped Ursan arrange a torn leather jacket on a wooden bust, so he could start fixing it. She refused to answer Anki until they finished. Then she turned to him, her face still serious, but eyes bright again.
“Now”, she said. “I’m good. I’ll think of the work tomorrow. Today, let’s go fly.”
The next week marked the events none of them could predict.