Sitting at the dirtless extreme of his desk, Mirn the naturalist seeped on his tea with a pensive stare. He watched his lazy turtles bite onto the leaves of lettuce he had left inside the terrarium that comprised the remainder of said desk. Then, he glanced back at Gleur, sitting in front of him, on that creaking wooden chair that threatened to give up in any moment.
“So, Gleur, I assume you have something for me, something interesting, you found in the excursions, and it concerns not the other sages or their capabilities. Am I correct.
Gleur avoided looking at his littermate in the eyes. He and Mirn had fallen on the same rain. Yet he had a satisfied smile on his face as he sipped on his tea, and Gleur had a sour, defeated expression. “In the forest, about a league inland from the river shore, and one and a half from the western gate… excuse me, I’ll assume you remember the spot from the last time, if you don’t mind.”
“I do, I do. How to forget.” Mirn pointed across the room, where the iridescent and asymmetrical antlers of a misshapen were mounted on the wall. “That thing still scares me at night sometimes.”
“I find it extremely distasteful. Misshapen ones are our nieces and nephews. Sacrificing them for the great good is one thing. Pretending to enjoy it when a council is called in desperate times, another one of similar nature. But genuinely hanging parts of them in the walls of one’s home? I find it distasteful, brother.”
Mirn shrugged and caressed the black stubble in his long face. “You kill those I would study and you don’t see me complaining. Each rabbit to their own hole, Gleur. May I know, if you will, what waits for my boys and girls there?”
“Twenty-six misshapen that, by the time I left the forest yesterday, were still breathing. All in cages, safely secured. They are yours to study under a little condition, a little community service.”
Mirn’s eyes went wide and he left the tea cup over the table before losing his smile. “What are you doing here if Father wasn’t summoned?” He accused, baring his old and worn down teeth. “It’s not becoming of you to easily give up, Gleur.”
Gleur hit the desk with his right hand curled into a fist, startling the turtles and making them to extend their necks to see what the fuss was about. “Don’t tell me what is and isn’t becoming of me, Mirn! Father could not be summoned. I was going to tell this to everyone during tonight’s council, so we could decide how to inform the population, but it’s no harm telling you if that makes you acquiesce to my demands…”
Mirn crossed the fingers of his hands and averted his gaze to a side, towards the tranquil reptiles. “Well, Gleur… what, exactly, happened? A new Masterwork appeared?”
The old general closed his eyes and shook his head. “I suspect the only thing that could stop Father from accepting a tribute is either another summon, and we tried to call him for a bit more than an hour on end so that cannot be… or death,” he dropped, and Mirn went more pale than he naturally was.
After a moment of silence, and throwing a worried stare in his brother’s direction, Mirn said “I cannot accept that. Deities don’t merely go and die. That’s a thing of animals, plants and Felsians. The death of Father would need to be… impossible to miss.”
“We go and die like dogs and nobody ever finds us, we, his brothers! He is a son of mother as much as Felsians were!”
Raising a red and black eyebrow, Mirn asked. “Were? Felsians were?!”
“I don’t know if you have noticed, but we are manning a carcass of a city. No father, no Felsians, no Felsia. The favor I ask is a last attempt to raise the dead, to resuscitate our people before they realize they are walking cadavers. I cannot say I trust you will be able to do what I ask, but I must ask anyway.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“You truly believe Father died, then?”
Gleur nodded with a gravity Mirn had seldom seen, even in his face. Then, he remained silent, knowing Mirn’s mind was working at full speed to piece it all together.
“By Mother, you want me to study the captured misshapen to find a way to stop The Ratchet of Horror from spinning.”
A smile slowly creeped into Gleur’s face. “Precisely. If we have no father, we will have to be our own parents. We are not sterile; we just have this illness you need to heal. Halt The Ratchet, and from the corpse of Felsians a new civilization will rise. Different organization, different families, different government… different fate.”
“Fly, Gleur. Flap your arms and fly. Or breathe water like fishes do.” Mirn answered, slouching against the back of his chair. “The Ratchet is not a sick organ we can extirpate; it is not a sore or ache we can treat with herbs. The Ratchet It’s not in the skin we don or the muscles that move us. The Ratchet is in our very essence. Go, ask me to find what makes a cow into a cow and cure it next,” he said this with a dismissive hand gesture, indicating his brother to go away. “I cannot accept your deal in good faith. Even if there were a way to undo the effects of The Ratchet or stop it from acting, we would need years of intensive testing, thousands of misshapen, and…” he made a silence, waiting for Gelur to be the one to complete the thought this time.
“Thousands of healthy Felsians making more misshapen to see if their babies are born as trueshapen as we are.” Gleur began rubbing the ring on his left little finger, a memento from a friend that had long ago marched to meet the Celestial Mother. Then, he sighed. “There’s no saving this sunken ship, it seems. I cannot ask you to do that without being assured it would give us a solution. Do whatever with the twenty six misshapen, but do it today. Tomorrow you all will be pretty busy.”
“Busy? I have no plans for tomorrow, even if Father being dead… could change things a bit,” Mirn said in a quiet and casual tone, as if he had already accepted the tragedy, as if he had, long ago, realized that Felsia was a lost case.
“Choosing a new sage among the best warriors of Felsia is no quick task. You may want to hit the bed early today.”
Mirn kept his composure as he stood and walked around until he was next to gleur. Then, with his hands behind his back, he leaned in to inspect the general’s face up close. “You are not leaving us, Gleur. We will not accept no abdication on your part. You are a sage of Felsia until death.”
Gleur pushed him away and stood looming over his smaller brother. “There’s no Felsia anymore, fool, I am not leading a dead city onto the mouths of the scavengers. We inhabit a corpse, Mirn, a corpse!”
Mirn acted quickly and embraced his brother, closing his eyes as he did, while Gleur’s guard was still down. “As long as there is a single Felsian drawing breath, we have an oath to keep, even in hopeless times. Felsia may be dead: let us give it a proper funeral.”
Gleur finally embraced him back. “I did everything I could, and look where it has left us. Not only forlorn, but utterly hopeless. Allow me to leave, to find a way in nature and die to the misshapen, or to live in a poor man’s hut until old age. To preserve Felsia in my memory as it is today, before the decay accentuates. “
Mirn was debating if he should break the embrace prematurely or let Gleur do the same to his ribs. “You are a little… exaggerated with this display of affection, Gleur.” He finally said, and Gleur let him go.
“Apologies. All these years inhabiting this old body and I still forget my own strength from time to time.”
Dusting off his vest, Mirn continued. “Listen, give us a few weeks if today’s reunion isn’t convincing enough for you to stay. We need your knowledge if the misshapen try anything.”
“During years I defended this city, putting my life and my siblings’ on the line. But I cannot defend it anymore, knowing it mortally wound, its heart pierced by the lance of fate. I will grant you two weeks, and if you show me Felsia can be saved, I will fight for it until my last breath. Otherwise, its farewell for us.”
Mirn gave a respectful bow to his brother. “Me and my colleagues will try our best to find anything useful about The Ratchet in the study subjects you are gifting us. But know it’s, at best, a fool’s errand.”
Gleur smiled and palmed the shoulder of his equal. “Good, now, have you thought on how we will lie to the people so they don’t accelerate the fall?”
Mirn returned to his desk and gave his tea a long sip. “What a shame, it got tepid.” He swiped the cup apart and placed both elbows upon the desk, letting his hands hang in front of him like a rat’s.“My mind works in multiple lines. This is what I will propose in the council…”