CHAPTER THREE - GIVE US YOUR KINGS
The East Bank - the old city of Jovan, before it grew the prefix of 'Mahar' like an old and venerable house growing fuzzy with mould.
Though people in Mahar tended to think of it the other way around, Mahar acquiring some ugly little suffix-barnacle.
Tanner's parents were from both. Father was from the East, mother from the West. Not sure what that made her. Presumably some sort of fuzzy barnacle.
She'd never really engaged with the former half of her family - father had left the East bank to move West, to live on the docks where he could be closer to his work, and marry a West-bank girl without getting constant ugly looks from his family and friends. He'd left it all behind, and had been content to leave it that way. But once he was gone... mama didn't have much of a family, beyond a cousin she didn't really talk about, and... times were tough. Very tough.
So one day, she'd told Tanner to wear her best dress, to shine her boots, to use her best ribbons, and to head off with her to Jovan. They'd need to walk - no money for a horse-drawn cab, definitely no money for a train. Plenty of time to mull. Mahar was all Tanner had known up to that point, and she clung close to mama's side while they navigated the long, spidery system of bridges which linked the two cities. When Fidelizh kicked out their king, he came to Mahar, to be closer to his great friend, the king of Jovan. Even now the royal families were fond of one another, apparently. But Mahar swelled with citizens of Fidelizh who came to stay with their king, afraid of the governance of the Golden Parliament. Jovan, the city, never took that very well. To have another state grafted on in a matter of years, to suddenly be bound to someone else in the great striving of nations. Mahar was a city of domes and jewels, of purified voices and delicate gloves. A city which prided itself on being lucky. Filtering the bad, cultivating the good. Like eels filtering water - right, that helped. Tanner and her mama were both a pair of lovely eels wearing a huge mass of gills. Father would've appreciated that observation. But the domes faded into the distance, and Jovan swallowed the two of them. A place where luck was something else entirely. Even if she didn't quite understand how.
The bridges groaned as the wind rammed into them again and again. A complex spiderweb of structures, linking river-towers together. Sometimes they were walking on wide, well-paved roads, easily accommodating the crowds which used them. And sometimes they'd go down a winding staircase and emerge to a rickety wooden thing which creaked under their footsteps. Soldiers watched with mild interest, and a few shared comments on Tanner's appearance - each time they did, she hunched into herself, kept her eyes down, clenched her jaw until it hurt. Wanted to go back home. Father had been left with the nice old lady from across the street, but she... she still worried. Mama seemed to have aged by years in a span of months, and she hid her raw, red, scalded hands under her finest gloves. Another bridge, hard metal that clanked with their footsteps, echoing back and forth. A bell announcing their arrival. Another bridge, ancient wood reinforced with steel, carved with the initials of thousands of travellers. It shook as they crossed it - a ship was going by underneath. Tanner felt an irrational surge of petty anger. One of the mutant-hunters. Could hear the low rumbling song of the hunters on board, and the thundering engines made everything nearby vibrate. Could see glimmerings of bone and brass through the slats of wood, and she glared. Glared at the taut cables holding harpoons in place, at the bones they used to decorate their gruesome craft, at the trophies they mounted from the walls, at the barrels they used for burning the bodies of the dead, at the mottled, half-mutated skin of the hunters...
Her mother hissed.
"Tanner, hurry. We're not getting soaked in smoke before we arrive."
"Yes, mother."
She accelerated to a trot, crossing as quickly as she could to the next tower, just as a thick, black, oily mist began to ooze upwards, consuming the bridge in seconds. Smelled sweet, like something between rot and spice. She'd always liked the smell of the oil refineries, but... just calm down. She was fine. Just a boat. No need to be completely angry at it.
"Come."
"Hm."
"Don't be curt, Tanner. The lodge won't like that."
"Yes, mother."
"That's better. And don't slouch."
"...yes, mother."
They continued, the sound of their steps changing every other minute as they crossed from one bridge to another, shifting across river-towers which stank of water and fish. Each bridge was small, really. Small, and haphazard. By design, of course.
Jovan wasn't entirely eager to have visitors. Each bridge was a reluctant concession - and every little design flaw was a spiteful gesture. The rattling, the groaning, the winding, the shaking. All of it was a little spiteful grumble. A way of saying thou art not welcome here. If Mahar was a bold, intimidating, thundering youngster, then Jovan was a grumbling, hissing neighbour who complained about every scrap of noise past the hour of five-o-clock.
Jovan was a narrow, strange place. They did things differently here - very differently indeed.
Mahar was all expansive domes and broad windows. Jovan was narrow streets and clustering roofs, pointed and sloping. Windows were high-up, barred, easy to shutter - privacy was cherished. Strangers weren't. Gardens were concealed in courtyards, doors were sturdy and weighed down with locks, and the streets were illuminated by reluctant lamps - as if the city was begrudging anyone leaving their homes at all.
Mahar was full of rich clothes and gloves, the means by which people invited luck into their lives, cleansing the bad and leaving only the good. Jovan used buildings as a substitute. Each house was marked around the door and windows with little markings, little charms, small statues... anything to purify. People removed shoes before entering, clapped their hands softly and bowed their heads. Mahar was a city of clothes - Jovan was a city of shoes. Outside every house, locked up in small crates, the shoes of people who'd come to visit or stay. Little indicators that life endured, even if silence pervaded.
Mahar was a city where the gods lived in statues, lucky statues, clad in rich fabrics by worshippers. Hollow stomachs filled with burning incense, leaving scented smoke to course from the mouth, the ears, the nostrils of the statue - incense purified by silks wrapped around them. Mahar's gods exhaled nought but luck. Jovan's gods were hidden in their homes. Sometimes she saw metal eyes glaring out from dusty windows, or smelled the odd oils they used to anoint them. This place had different gods - and they disliked strangers.
Mahar was a city that remembered old splendour and cherished every detail. Mahar was a city that existed as defiance, and it wore that proudly - all wealth and beauty should be displayed, always. Mock the Fidelizhi cowards who'd banished them up here, all that time ago.
Jovan was a city that remembered standing alone, looking upon an empty western bank. Jovan was a city that remembered old wrongs, and had no desire to forgive them. Jovan remembered.
Jovan did not forget.
Tanner had clung close to her mother. Almost comical - she was much taller, and even while shrinking nervously she towered, she loomed. Could feel the weight of new expectations and restraints settling on her. A new web. A new life cycle. The bright ribbons which hung around the front of her dress were attracting looks from people who wore black, brown, with only the occasional tasteful flash of colour - purples, greens, all of it muted. The pointed roofs seemed to bear down on her, the sharp points at their corners seeming like the beaks of huge, dark birds. Even her mama seemed... nervous. Very nervous. The cobbled streets seemed designed to amplify sound, and it bounced around the cramped structures, from the overhanging roofs - any movement was known. Always known. People didn't act openly hostile, but they were silent, watchful, unwilling to lose track of the giant and her mother. Even the children seemed to be part of it, the severity of their stares matching the adults completely. This wasn't her home. But she wasn't sure if going back would do her any good, really.
It was... oddly bonding, really. Mother wasn't any more comfortable here. And when they arrived at a building equally as forbidding as all the others, they shared consolatory glances. First time since father's incident that Tanner had felt really close to her. Always felt embarrassed in some way, like she was... well, like she was a strain. Just something else weighing on her mother's mind. Contributed little and demanded too much. Never sure if her next request would be met with angry refusal, so the best thing to do was just... not request things. Tanner actually had a stomach ache at the moment, not a very pleasant one, but she wasn't going to say so. Wouldn't want to inconvenience her mother, not with all she was going through. Not with the money from the judges running low. The least she could do for the family was shutting up and soldiering on.
The lodge was before them.
Her father's family. The last real support structure they had left - Tanner didn't notice everything, but she was fairly confident that the money situation had been worsening. Been a while since she'd had any new clothes - and she needed new clothes constantly, with the rate she was growing. Tanner had been on one long growth spurt since she was a toddler, and there was no likelihood of it stopping. She felt like a parasite bloating herself on whatever her mother could provide, like some sort of fat sow sticking her snout into the trough over and over and over, while all the other piglets shrivelled and starved. The judges had helped. Speaking of which... a judge swept by, coming close to them. Barely seemed aware until he was a second away from running them over with his long, black-clad legs - he glared into mid-air, furrowed his brows until the entire canvas of his forehead was as wrinkled and rippled as the river during a storm. He looked rather like an enormous cricket, really - black clothes, with shiny dark hair, glittering dark eyes, and a perpetual hunch which his cape only emphasised. He paused a second before running into them, suddenly coughing uncomfortably, almost stumbling over his own feet, and generally appearing like someone suddenly dragged awake after a long reverie.
Tanner immediately bowed her head, smiling widely. Her mother did the same, albeit with slightly more restraint.
"Good afternoon, honoured judge."
Her voice was perkier than it'd been all day. Even if her stomach ached, even if her clothes were uncomfortable, even if her day had little prospect of getting better...
She always acted kindly towards judges.
The man nodded a few times in rapid succession, jerky and stiffly articulated. His smile was small and nervous, and his hands gripped a bundle of papers with rigid force.
"Ah. Good... afternoon, citizen."
He nodded again, for good measure. Tanner kept smiling while her mother spoke.
"I apologise, honoured judge, my daughter is... excitable. Please, we won't keep you."
Tanner spoke suddenly.
"Hope you have a wonderful day, honoured judge."
The judge seemed distinctly uncomfortable with all the attention, and he seemed incapable of not nodding. A wonder that his head had managed to stay anchored to his neck, if he nodded like this in every social situation.
"Ah. Well. Thank you. Very kind, miss, ma'am. And, uh, the same. Wonderful day, and all that. Good day."
And he was off, striding rapidly down the street, cape flapping behind him.
Tanner was always polite to judges. They were the only reason it'd taken months to come to this lodge. After the accident, a judge much like this one had... well, sorted out compensation. Didn't ask for payment, only took payment when it was considered possible to give some. Judge had hauled a bunch of embarrassed mutant-hunters and associated crewmembers along, probed them until they bled facts and sweated confessions, not to mention a little packet of money for the family of the wronged. It hadn't been perfect, but... well, when her father had had his accident, the lodge hadn't really come forward, had they? No-one had, no-one but a judge in a cape, who just... sorted things out with polite determination.
A cough brought her attention back to the present, and her smile closed like a mussel at low tide.
Right.
The lodge.
"Now, Tanner, darling, this is your father's family, and you're to treat them with respect."
"Yes, mama."
"Call me mother while we're in there, it's more proper."
"Yes, mother."
"Their ways might come across as strange, maybe even crude, but you're not to judge them for any of this, and you're not to make any comments on their way of doing things, alright? Best behaviour. Tip-top shape."
"Yes, mother."
"Not even if they're truly bizarre."
"Yes, mother."
"...don't speak unless spoken to, really."
"Yes, mother."
A sharp look, undercut by the fact that she only came up to her daughter's chin.
"Are you capable of saying anything else, Tanner? Anything else in the eyes of someone who isn't a judge?"
Silence.
"Yes, mother."
"Say something else."
"Yes, mother."
"Tanner, please don't try and be funny in there. I don't think they take kindly to humour. They're from Jovan, I think they consider laughter a sin. So, don't try and be funny. It won't go down well."
"No, mother."
"Ah, splendid, you can speak."
"Yes, m-"
"Shush."
Silence. They were just outside an ominous wooden door, studded with reinforced bolts of metal. They ought to knock. Ought to go in. But... Tanner's mother just stood there. She looked old. More grey in her hair. Kept checking her gloves to make sure they didn't show off her reddened hands, scoured by her work. Tanner checked her dress, arranged her ribbons - she still needed them, until she got a dress that fit. Mother adjusted her hair, flinching at the sight of grey strands. Mumbled to herself. Little reassurances that they'd be fine, that Tanner shouldn't worry, that everything was going to be just fine. Reassurances clearly intended for herself more than anyone else. Jovan was many things - welcoming wasn't one of them. And they were here to beg for charity. There was a tinge of humiliation to it all. Incapable of getting by on their own, and Tanner felt partially responsible. She couldn't work like mother did, not with school. She already did all the work she could while taking half-days, but mother was uncomfortable with her flesh and blood running off to the docks to gut fish and mend nets while she 'should' be studying. Kept muttering at dinner that the only way to get ahead was a proper education, luxury that she and Father hadn't received. Tanner paused, and winced as she had to tie her dress a little, little tighter. Getting thinner. Trying to eat less. Hesitated, and adjusted her ribbons until they covered up the torn section she'd never gotten round to repairing.
Mother glanced over.
Tanner kept her eyes away from hers.
Felt too guilty.
"All quite necessary, Tanner. Even if it's... not the most pleasant, sometimes one must... make concessions. Your father would understand."
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Will understand. He was still alive. Her jaw clenched slightly, took a second to relax. Mother noticed. She knew what it looked like when Tanner was angry.
Said nothing, though. The next sound was the muffled knock of a gloved hand on a wooden door. And her mother yelling out.
"It's Tonrana Magg! I'm here to talk with-"
It swung open.
And the first of many aunts glowered at them.
"In."
* * *
The barge snapped back.
Right. She was... yes, she was calm. Thinking of the lodge, the aunts, the uncles, the secrecy of it all... it helped. The lodge had very strict expectations of its members. Loyalty to the lodge, and to the secrets it carried, to the spirits it revered. Opposition to all other lodges of Jovan, and to the great urban mass of Mahar. She remembered years of flickering back and forth every week, heading to the lodge to perform her rites, to reacquaint herself with her relatives, become Jovanite again. Cleanse herself of the impurities of the Other Place. The world was a dangerous place, the lodge said. Full of strangers and witches. Witches were people who frothed with natural malevolence, projected it outwards in an aura. They drank luck like a horse drank water from a trough, like a mosquito drank blood. Witches sapped. It was... funny, the contrast. Mahar was all about filtering bad luck out and allowing the good luck to flow in. Luck was an individual pursuit. Jovan was more... collective. Fortune was found in the lodges, nowhere else. Fortune was something only the group could cultivate for its members, and bad fortune was something witches were constantly trying to inflict. Indeed, they sometimes performed rites of their own, to direct the malevolence of witches elsewhere. Confident that all the other lodges were doing the same thing.
The expectations calmed her. The world aligned to ritual significance, a second, unreal landscape impressed itself over the first... she stopped being Tanner, and became just another player in an established role.
Good. That was good. That was safe.
She was... fine. Her breathing had steadied. And Fidelizh was close. The journey wasn't an especially long one, but it'd... there was nothing familiar now. Mahar and Jovan were both gone. Those cities had raised her, and... gone. She was a foreigner in a foreign land. Like Mr. Pocket, really. Just like Mr. Pocket, maybe he'd been driven peculiar by leaving his home behind. Maybe she'd be talking about what it was like cleaning the blood from her father's paralysed face, spooning mushy food into his mouth, helping move him around so he didn't get bed sores... no, she'd never be like that. She was much too polite for it. She wound up sitting down on one of the many benches scattered around the place, resting her legs, staring out at the landscape. They passed from the river to a lake, surrounded by little filaments of irrigation heading outwards to distant colonies. Not close enough to really see them. Probably for the best, she... didn't really want to acknowledge other people at the moment. The other passengers were drifting vaguely, eager to get things over with. The barge from Mahar Jovan to Fidelizh was fast - the river was swift, swollen with new rains, they were going downstream, downhill too, and this barge had one of those newfangled engines keeping it going. Sort of thing they used to only give out to soldiers. Going back home would be much harder - pushing against the current and all.
Probably a parable in that.
Hours passed, and she dozed. Felt relaxed. She was on a path chosen for her, she had her little means of dealing with stress, she was fine. Just... well, thinking about her father, and having to talk with a stranger, and embarrassing herself completely by splintering that rail, it... anyway. Anyway. She was just fine. The water was clear, she could imagine all sorts of lovely little lifeforms living in the deeps, and the gentle rocking of the barge made her think of a cradle being tipped back and forth. She was fine. Mother was better-off without Tanner around, the lodge would be happy to see her making something of herself, and there were much worse fates than becoming a judge. Much, much worse fates. Plus, push came to shove, if it turned out that she was a complete dolt who couldn't understand hide nor hair of the law, she could... well, Fidelizh had other opportunities. For now, she was fine. There were worse careers than becoming a Judge of the Golden Door.
...they did have some lovely capes.
And they never really looked hungry, now did they?
Hours flew by as she imagined what her cape might be like, what the work might be like, how difficult it might be... she knew very little going in, none of her family had come from Fidelizh, and she'd never visited.
And as the first structures slid into sight, as they reached the great urban sprawl, as the land suddenly bulged upwards like a pimple by the reservoirs of foundation stone...
Time to find out, then.
It was... interesting, comparing Fidelizh to the other places. Mahar and Jovan, that is. Mahar was bright and full of domes. Jovan was narrow and full of closed-off houses where lodges practised witchcraft to stay ahead of the game. Fidelizh...
Fidelizh felt like staring at a knife.
Everything seemed to have blades to it. The towers were tall, nearly conical, each one surmounted by a long, sharp needle that must've had some sort of ritual purpose. Many of the towers had long windmills attached, rotating gently in the slight breeze. No idea what for. Not sure if there was a reason - but there was an armada of slowly turning blades, many of them lavishly decorated with swirls of conflicting colours. One of the towers passed by, lying on the outskirts of the city, just beyond the furthest protective wall. Huge, spiralling, like some sort of enormous termite mound or exotic seashell. Or a stinger. A huge, coiling stinger. The windows in the sides of the tower were long, thin slits, like small wounds, and each one was shuttered with sharp blinds. The blades of the tower's windmill were decorated with looming faces, painted in vivid shades of green and grey. Frowning men and frowning women, eyes shut and brows furrowed. The main door to the tower was, likewise, long and thin and... decorated. The doors, both of them made of heavy wood, were painted gaudily with something she... wasn't quite sure about. Not sure what it represented, or why it was so eerily flesh-coloured and-
...oh.
Oh.
Oh.
Fidelizh was a degenerate city and she was already terrified of it, while doing her best not to shatter another railing. The towers were people. The faces on the windmills. The long, conical shapes, sculpted to look almost organic. And the doors, the huge doors at the front, were... well... there was something distinctly reproductive about them. The smooth curves of the decorations, the pinkish shades giving way to black, the positioning in the widening bulb of the tower...
She'd heard that Fidelizh wore their gods. Let them ride on their backs by incarnating them via clothes, actions, accents.
Didn't realise they extended that privilege to their buildings as well.
One thing she was glad hadn't been carried over to Mahar, honestly.
The river was increasingly crowded, full to bursting with barges, cargo ships, gunboats with grim-faced soldiers... the river was choked with trash again. And she saw new brands. Unfamiliar brands. Bottles of liquor she didn't know existed, some still leaking strangely-coloured liquid into the river around them. The unpleasantly anatomical towers rose high around them as they proceeded inwards, and she found herself craving even the cloistered hostility of Jovan. Might've been dark and strange and not enormously friendly, but... she knew it. She understood it. At least one house in that mass of buildings was friendly to her, mostly. This place... and the bones. The boneyards. The city walls were clustered with them. Mounted like trophies on the smooth, grey stone - the bones of mutants from the Great War. Monstrous shapes, each one completely unique, mottled with strange nodules and with sockets allowing for far too many eyes. She didn't even know that Fidelizh was besieged, but... maybe they just felt like some morbid trophies. She felt like she was descending into a crowd, the towers looming and the faces on the windmills glaring sightlessly down. Surrounded by giants taller than even her. She shrank into her dress, pulled her little rain-cape closer, resisted the urge to hug herself.
She still had some lucky clothes, though. Remember that. And the lodge was protecting her from any hostile witchcraft, she knew that much. They'd be keeping up the highest protections until she was settled and had sent a letter to confirm her arrival. Must be ringing so many bells, so many, just to keep her safe from all the malevolence of the strangers in the world. Her face was painfully flat - and that meant she was more nervous than ever.
This place was crowded. Beyond crowded. There were so very many people here, crammed between the tall, tall buildings, wearing brightly-coloured clothes. The earth trembled, and a train screamed past them on the shore, entering the city via one of many little steel-grey veins, pumping goods and people into something that was...
A sudden clunk.
And the barge came to a stop.
She shuffled forwards, staring outwards hesitantly, feeling like an absolute country bumpkin.
...dam.
The river had been... been dammed. She'd heard about this, but didn't quite...
No wonder there was a massive lake behind them. All that water had to go somewhere.
The dam was vast. Barely visible, though - there was just a low thump, and they came to a stop as an alarmingly small stone barrier prevented them from going any further. It stretched from bank to bank, curving into something like a gentle smile, with a conical tower at each end. And from there... it soared downwards. A stone waterfall, locking back the entire river's flow. And at the bottom, amidst dust and confusion, she could vaguely see a few feeble trickles easing their way through, glittering like snail trails. And there were... there were people at the bottom, scuttling around in the dust, around a whole... a whole shantytown, stinking and steaming, built into the strangely-shaped bed of the old river. A branch of the mighty Tulavanta, just... squeezed shut. Commanded to stop. The dam made the city seem even vaster, gave it a valley to occupy, a deep, deep valley, worn into the foundation stone of the city. And the shantytown at the bottom was... eerie to look at, with its little brown structures, the seething mass of people, the low roar of a crowd which echoed upwards even from below. Saw a whole mass of black mud from which structures grew like outcroppings of coral. The crowds which moved through it were uniform from this height, and it made it look like the river's life had just... adapted to breathing air once the water was gone. She was in a boat, and she could look down at an entire town. A whole seething ecosystem of mud and shacks and wriggling crowds.
The world was...
There was quite a lot of it, wasn't there?
Tanner gripped her hands together tightly, and tried to invite as much luck as she possibly could. She wasn't even sure if she believed in any of it, but... it was something. Right now, it was all she had, really. All she had that she understood and could do.
Home.
This was home now.
No going back. Either she kept going forwards willingly, or she went forwards unwillingly. The river crashed around them, driving the barge inexorably towards the city, towards locks which would direct them to the right areas, the right offices. Already there were guards watching the barge carefully, hands on their rifles. Veterans with hollow eyes and downturned lips, next to new recruits who were just eager to be holding a weapon. Complaining wasn't an option, now. Nor was retreat.
Just had to endure. And accept that this... strange place, full of people, with a shantytown built into the bed of a drained river and towers with unpleasant anatomical shapes was...
Was home.
Home.
Still didn't sound right.
* * *
"Reason for travelling?"
A large man (still smaller than her) with a waxed moustache stared up at her disinterestedly. Tanner coughed, and forced a nice big welcoming smile onto her face. Tried to avoid looking at his hands - no gloves. All officials back home wore gloves, it was lucky, you didn't want some unlucky person pasting their bad luck all over your documents, those things had to be lucky. It wasn't a taboo or anything, but... but still, it was a bit like meeting someone in a suit which lacked a tie, you immediately wondered 'oh goodness what happened to their tie' and 'oh goodness am I dressed too formally' or 'oh goodness this much be a lecher of the highest order and a bum and a swindler and he probably used his tie to strangle someone to death'.
Or something along those lines, anyway.
The immigration office stank of travel. The accumulated residue from thousands of unwashed mouths, clothes stiff with stressed sweat, the warmth of a hundred thousand yawns from a hundred thousand travellers. There were no windows, only vents filled with metallic fans. Paintings of strange figures hung on the walls. The air was hot. Much too hot. She could feel how unkempt her hair was, how much she needed to splash some water on her face. Like she was wearing a thick layer of makeup. People behind her. People ahead of her. Guards in crisp green uniforms, impossibly well-kept despite the heat, the smell, the unyielding lights which turned everything into universal noon, killed shadows were they stood. A tiny trickle of sweat was easing out of her hair like a small glass eel, slithering with painful slowness down her neck, a little trail that she ached to wipe away, ached to, but... but she could see the revolvers the officials had, the rifles held by the larger guards stationed here and there. Didn't want to alarm them by moving too quickly. They looked at the pulsing mass of humanity with disinterest. How many humans did you need to see in one day before they all blended together, became as trite and boring as pigs in a slaughterhouse?
Stop being morbid.
Stop being morbid. Mr. Pocket was morbid, and if she was morbid, then...
Come on, keep smiling.
"Joining the Judges of the Golden Door, sir. Travelling from Mahar Jovan to do it. Sir."
Oh, wait, she had a tactic for this! Hated annoying people. She picked out the special little thing of mints she'd bought before coming here, nice little droplet-things, very refreshing. The man looked at them strangely as she placed them gently on his cluttered desk.
"...are you bribing me?"
Oh no.
"No, no, sir, not bribing. Just... thought you might like some mints."
She should've brought cigars, absolute dolt. The man grunted hoggishly.
"Uh-huh. Alright. Do you have a letter of introduction, Miss... Magg?"
"Yes, sir. Passed the preliminaries in Mahar Jovan, heading here to start a foundation course. Sir."
A small pause. The man stared up, nonplussed. She smiled continuously, feeling her cheeks straining. Mother said to smile when being polite, her usual flat face made her look insane. And always give nice little mints. Always. In Mahar Jovan, it was because the lodge was always watching, always. And they didn't take kindly to bad behaviour. And in Fidelizh it was... well, it was nice to be nice.
"...may I see the letter of introduction?"
Crumbs.
"Sir, yes, sir, sorry. Sorry. Just a moment. Just... sorry, just getting it from... alright, here we are. Sorry, sir. Thank you, sir."
Steady on, Tanner. And... oh, she did a little head-bow. No, no, better to be too polite than remotely rude. She needed bigger pockets, hated that feeling of struggling to get a too-large letter out of a too-small pocket, made her feel clumsy.
And she wasn't clumsy.
Just... well, large.
The man looked increasingly uncomfortable, and scanned the letter as quickly as he could, pausing to struggle with a few of the unfamiliar shapes. His accent had been fine thus far - Fidelizhi and Diarchic were similar languages, but... well... Fidelizhi sounded like you were speaking Diarchic through a mouthful of corks. And written Diarchic looked like written Fidelizhi but with very subtle changes in grammar and vocabulary, a bunch of random loan-words from other places too. Thus far she'd been fine. She was very worried about the future, though. Hell, she was very worried about a lot of things, this was really no different. The thunder of the immigration office was damn near deafening, and she found sweat prickling at the back of her neck. How many people wanted to get into Fidelizh? How many did they process each day? Where were all these pepole coming from? For her, moving was a massive deal, the second-biggest thing to ever happen in her life, she couldn't imagine doing this if a bunch of random events hadn't lined up perfectly, and yet... apparently hundreds of people today alone were making similarly vast choices. What was the likelihood that hundreds of people would all have a once-in-a-lifetime moment leading them here on this exact day?
Just seem... a bit unlikely? No, she was just missing something. Stop being a dolt.
"...right, all seems in order. Any luggage being sent down behind you?"
"No, sir."
"...that's all you're bringing?"
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."
He snorted suddenly.
"What are you apologising for? Not my luggage you're leaving behind."
"Right. Sir. Sorry."
She should've brought more mints, then she could just keep offering them to him in lieu of conversation. She tried to at least put some more teeth in her smile. That might work.
"Sure you can get by on your own?"
No.
"Yes, sir. I think so."
"Hm. Well. Mahar Jovan... are you familiar with any reactionary groups within that city?"
"Which one?"
She spoke automatically, and realised her mistake a moment later.
"...which group? You know multiple?"
"No, no, no, I meant, I meant which city. Mahar or Jovan. Sorry, sir. Sorry."
The guard leaned backwards in his chair, straining the old, slightly damp wood. His fingers drummed a little rhythm on the surface, and she could see where the ink from his work had stained the skin deeply. Made him look almost diseased, like all the blood had stopped flowing to the tips of his fingers and they were starting to turn black. Another reason why gloves were nice, they stopped... no, maintain eye contact, keep smiling, be calm. She had all her documents, didn't she?
"Either. Any reactionary elements, those advocating for monarchy restoration, retribution, anything of the sort?"
"No, sir. None."
"Never been part of any?"
"None."
"Do you know anyone connected to any?"
"I... don't think so. No. Sir."
...reactionaries? Monarchy restoration? Did... Fidelizh really worry about that? About Mahar coming back to set up the king on the empty throne in the Golden Parliament? Why? Mahar and Jovan combined couldn't even keep Krodaw, that colony had fallen years and years ago, and that was a little outpost surrounded by people her mother called savages, barely able to read, let alone fight. How could the king come back to a place as large as Fidelizh when his city could barely hold onto a little colony? No, best not to raise any objections. Just be innocent.
"Hm. Alright. As an émigré to Fidelizh, do you accept the restriction of the right to vote in the Golden Parliament?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you consent to being monitored and interviewed by members of the Erlize in the interest of preserving the republic's security?"
Who?
"Yes, sir."
"And do you agree to remain apolitical, recognising that any engagement with domestic political associations is to be considered tantamount to agitation by a foreign element, and will be treated accordingly?
She had no idea what was happening.
"Yes, sir?"
"You don't sound confident."
Her back stiffened.
"Sorry. Yes, sir."
He sized her up carefully. What kind of a place was Fidelizh? Seemed to be lots of soldiers scattered around, and... why were they so paranoid about her being an agitator? She just wanted to judge things, agitating was really the last thing on her mind. And who on earth were the Erlize? The official drummed his fingers a few more times, the mass of papers in front of him filled with all the details of Tanner's life. Age, name, date of birth, family history, employment, all that business. She'd had to already declare seven different times that she wasn't a revolutionary in any sense of the word. Fidelizh was... it was much larger than Mahar Jovan. Felt like everything was magnified somehow. The buildings a bit too tall, the people a little too loud, the paranoia a little too intense. Anyway. The official grunted, stamping a few papers with the empty throne seal of Fidelizh. Taken pity on her.
"Hm. Well. Any foreign currency to declare?"
"...yes, sir."
"Illegal to bring into Fidelizh. No foreign currency, understand? Keep that in mind while you're here, it'll keep you out of trouble. Give it over, I'll give you a slip, you go and give it to the office over there, they'll work out what you're owed. Welcome to Fidelizh, incidentally. Hope you have a pleasant stay."
Felt oddly emotional, giving up her crisp notes and coins, printed with the twin faces of the twin monarchs. Ooh, she even had a Krodaw coin, those were rare these days, once the colony went up in flames and everyone ran away shamefully. The lodge still grumbled about losing Krodaw, that was a collectible coin, could get... no, it was gone. Deposited in a box, added to a mental tally. A little scribbling, and she had her receipt. A few minutes later, and she had local money. No king on the notes, just an empty throne, and the seal of the Golden Parliament. No landscapes, just the strange image of a stylised figure dancing on the other side - a man, limbs flying in all directions, head tilted backwards and mouth wide open. Each finger splayed so far apart it looked almost painful. Unsure what it meant, what it symbolised... so much here seemed stranger. Just a little off. And when she was ushered out of the office, into the bustling city beyond, nothing but some vague directions to guide her to the central temple for the judges...
An avalanche of new sensations.
Voices speaking in a language she struggled to understand.
Hair pushed by the breeze of dozens of enormous windmills whirring at once.
Nose assaulted by the stench of the lakebed shantytown in the distance.
Eyes strained by the bright, gaudy clothes, chosen without reference to anything so crude as fashion, but clearly with some logic behind it all, some reasoning moving on the surface of the chaos.
Her skin prickled with unfamiliar gazes. Her clothes felt wrong, she felt like she was arriving at a funeral in a clown costume. The lodge's lessons spilled through her mind - witchcraft, she was surrounded by witchcraft, the city was hungry and it was trying to drink away every hint of her fortune.
She gripped her bag harder, straining slightly with the weight. Every worldly possession. Every last one.
She glanced around nervously, wondering if... well, if maybe she could go back, or rest inside the office for a little longer, or simply...
A large sign glared back at her. No Returning This Way. A guard glowered at her, his mutton chops tipped with tiny beads of sweat, like morning dew on some black-and-grey shrub. His eyes remained fixed on her as she shuffled away, almost trying to hold her breath as long as she could. Could see Mr. Pocket inside the office, too, and a flush of embarrassment made her want to move as quickly as possible. He looked up from the official interviewing him, and his dark, shadowed eyes caught a sudden glimpse of a very nervous Tanner standing on the fringe of the street, preparing to dive into the churning human mass of Fidelizh. The two locked eyes for a second, and he waved cheerily, his long fingers almost like the twitching antennae of some enormous insect. Tanner froze. He was almost through processing. He'd be out soon. Might want to keep the conversation going. Might not. Both possibilities were equally unpleasant, even the latter, because it meant she'd really offended him adn elft a terrible impression and oh goodness-
Move, move, move, move, move, move, do anything to avoid the discomfort of an awkward interaction, just move move move move move move move-
And in a city of coiling towers, windmills with the faces of gods, doors shaped like birthing canals, and a river drained and stuffed with tottering buildings, where each civilian was both human and god at once, and driven by the force of social embarrassment...
Tanner Magg came home. Whether she liked it or not.