What does it mean to be broken?
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Isse looked out of her carriage’s window. A city moved past her at a leisurely pace, people coming and going on the sidewalks. Their faces weren’t faces at all but blurs of ink with splotches of color. She could see them but she couldn’t see them, just like the background of an impressionist painting. She could imagine that they had lives of their own, with families, friends, lovers, everything, but her mind couldn’t connect the idea of those people with all those things having faces, or bodies, or anything that truly mattered.
Because what reason was there for anyone to have such things? They would leave sooner rather than later. Gone, forever, as if someone had taken a bottle of acetone and poured its contents on the canvas, watching the paint flow down in rivulets that mixed and matched together before the chemical removed even the concept of color, leaving behind nothing but a blank void.
Some would say that it was a good thing, that the void meant the canvas was ready for another painting, for a new piece: a new beginning.
But she was tired.
So, so, tired.
Twice already she’d had to start over. The first time when she’d been reborn, and the second after the Fire, the attack, the death of all her loved ones. Two times already she’d been forced to start over. The first time she’d been grateful: she’d been given a second chance after so much time spent in pain and suffering as her body slowly ate itself from the inside. The second, too, she’d felt grateful. Now? Now she wasn’t so sure anymore. Anything and everything reminded her of those she had lost.
That dream. That simple sentence said by Tiana when they’d touched down. The kids outside the carriage playing around. The [Merchants] down a street filled with stands hawking their merchandise. The snow on the ground.
Why did it all remind her of them? Why –
Hey, said Siidi.
Isse’s thoughts stopped upon hearing her soul half, but she didn’t answer her.
…I will never abandon you, Isse.
Silence.
Then: Well, not like I can leave in the first place, but still!
The words bounced around in her mind for a few moments before they registered. An involuntary snort climbed up her nose and came out with a puff of air that felt metallic. She half expected blood to spurt out but nothing came with it but the cloying smell of iron.
Thank you, sister.
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‘Tis an old question.
As old as a smile, as young as the fire, as frowned upon as the memory of them all.
You know, there’s a saying, of sorts, in this world. That one can understand clearly when someone’s reached Level 30 just by looking in their eyes. There, they’ll see the cracks: the flitting towards the corners, the constant searching for an exit, or the smile that doesn’t reach those two orbs.
As old as a smile, as trapped as the mire, as called upon as the blood of all the gods.
The saying doesn’t end there, of course, as most sayings do.
They also say that there is no difference between a Level 10 and a Level 50. Why? Because the latter will have learned to mask even their eyes.
It is a sad truth of this world. One I learned on my very skin and bones.
As old as a smile, as sang as the lyres, as cold as the stone where we buried them all.
Of course, as with any rule, there are exceptions. There have been people who reached such high Levels without going through some of the worst challenges this world had to offer. Some got there through sheer effort and strength of will. Like the [Sinful Dancer], or the [Innkeeper of Wondrous Feasts], or even the [Painter of Bones’ Mementoes] – in a way.
But still, these are exceptions, not rules, certainly not the norm.
As old as a smile, as wrapped as the dire, as holy as the call that gathered them all.
Ah, but we’re getting out of topic. So, what does it mean to be broken?
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Isse was still looking out the window, just… pondering, thinking without thought, her mind fogged with questions and memories.
The window, too, like her mind, was fogging up near her head, her breath ever so slowly forming a cloud that blurred the people and the city outside more and more.
And then the carriage stopped quite suddenly.
Isse felt herself being pulled forward by momentum but it was easy to resist with the strength of her spider half, so all that moved was her cheek on the glass, wiping some of the condensation off.
Why had they stopped? She didn’t know. Nor did she care. Maybe they’d lied to her, maybe someone knew she was an arachne here and was about to start hunting her. A small part of her even wished that’s what was going to happen: someone would open the door to the carriage, accusing her of being an arachne, and try to kill her. She’d kill them back and then she’d start running away, causing another massacre on her way out of the city. Getting out would’ve certainly been difficult, what with the walls of this city being much higher than Tedam’s, plus she wouldn’t have any allies here to help her but… she was sure she would survive, one way or another. After all, [Always, One Survived].
She was broken out of her reverie by someone knocking politely on the carriage’s door. She saw a hand, curled into fist, the index finger moved slightly forward as its knuckle was used to gently tap on the glass.
Then, a voice: “May I come in, young girl?”
There was something odd with the way he said those words, something she couldn’t put a pin on.
In the end, it was Siidi who found the answer: Did he just speak in Rodarion?
What?
She had forgotten about this simple ability granted to her upon arriving in this world: understanding all the spoken languages. It had never occurred to her since she’d spent all of her new life on a single continent filled with people who spoke only one language and, even in the rare cases when she’d encountered people from elsewhere, they’d all spoken Irevian – apparently with an accent, but her translating ability didn’t allow her to perceive them.
Encountering someone who spoke another language was jarring, because for all that she understood them, she could clearly feel a difference, especially after so long spent listening to just the one.
So surprised was she that she nearly missed what the [Driver] was telling her through a small hole at the front of the carriage. Luckily Siidi was there to remind her to listen.
“Miss, would you terribly mind if we let Mr Henricks ride with us? It is… extremely unusual, but I can assure you, he won’t be a nuisance. I think.”
Her voice sounded nervous, something Isse confirmed with her Skill [Perceive Emotion]. The woman was anxious, her tone strained, and her soul half confirmed that she was tense, but not overly so. As if she were uncertain of the situation, scared more of her possible reaction than the individual on the other side of the door.
She sighed.
Might as well.
“Come on in,” she said. She realized that her tone was tired and… gray. Empty. When had she started to speak like that? And why did it sound so… new? As if she’d never spoken like this. But she had, right? Right after the Fire. She’d been speaking like this. Right? Right?!
No, you weren’t, said Siidi, her voice grave, worried.
You were suspicious, scared, angry, discouraged, ravaged by sadness, but not like this. Not even close.
She wanted to say something else, something more, to say that she was clearly wrong, but then the door opened and her human half dipped outside since she hadn’t moved away from the window. Still, again, her spider half saved the day! She had enough mass there to just stand back up without falling.
A memory resurfaced, of the day she’d been reborn, of the moment she’d broken out of her egg, of how she’d rolled up into a ball and, well, rolled all the way up against a tree. She thought about how much time had passed since that day, and how much she’d changed. Had her newborn self been in this carriage she would’ve fallen out as the door opened, rolling around in the snow. She would’ve also probably snickered all the way down.
“Got a lively one!” said Makira, looking down at her over a small stretch of blue, cloudless, sky. Then she reached down a hand, closing Isse’s gaping mouth: “Don’t want your first meal to be a fly now, do you?”
Her heart ached as the memory hit her harder than a sledgehammer wielded by a bodybuilder.
Her eyes landed on the man who’d opened the door and, immediately, she was struck by a strange sense of… belonging, yes, that’s what it was. It was as if the being in front of her had every right to be where he was and, in truth, there was nothing to worry about, because he was meaningless, like a little stain on the wall. He didn’t matter, there was no need to care about his presence.
So Isse didn’t care at all and instead moved slightly away, giving this nobody the space he needed to sit down.
She didn’t even look at him, instead deciding to look back out the other window.
Why did the [Driver] sound so preoccupied? There’s nothing to this man.
Siidi agreed with her.
Then the little nobody spoke to her: “Good afternoon, young lady.”
Again with that strange sense of ‘off’ when he spoke those words in Rodarion, as if her mind wasn’t meant to understand them.
That alone seemed to pierce the strange sense of ‘nobodiness’ as she lifted her head from the glass and finally looked at him.
He was a middle aged man, a human with bright blue eyes and contrastingly simple salt and pepper brown hair. He was clean shaven and his thin lips were set in a stoic expression that made him look almost half bored. He was thin in the way of someone who couldn’t gain weight, certainly not malnourished if the slight muscles in his arms were anything to go by.
A smile creased his lips the moment she looked up at him, making him look like a benevolent uncle instead of a bored school janitor.
…
Huh. Strange. Why did she get that specific image out of them all? It wasn’t what she would’ve gone for.
“Hello,” she said, her voice as empty as it had been not even a minute ago when she’d answered the [Driver].
The man’s smile didn’t change, but he did raise an eyebrow slightly. For some reason she felt that was one of the greatest demonstrations of emotions he’d had in a very long time.
“The name’s Henricks, Mr Henricks. I’m the local [Cleaner].”
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Rodar wasn’t a nice place to live in at the best of times.
But then, there were worse places to live in. Places like the city he had been born in. Its name was Guran but people knew it better by its nickname, the City of Adventurers. Or, if one was feeling less… shall we say complimentary, the City of the Insane. It was understandable, really: who would want to be an adventurer on the Continent of Misfortune, where literally everything could and did go wrong.
To that, add the fact that this city in particular had been built literally next to the Mountains of Madness. Yes, that was their actual name. Or rather, it had become their actual name.
How? Well, once upon a time, apparently, over a thousand years ago, a man, a [Musician], had gone insane in the dungeon that lay in the depths of those mountains. The man had become a true nightmare, killing anything that moved using his songs and, somehow, damaging reality in doing so. The details were probably exaggerated but people said that every time he played his instrument the notes could be heard even down here, dozens upon dozens of kilometers away from the dungeon’s main entrance, and that the world changed into horrifying sights every time they did.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
But that, again, must’ve been an exaggeration: nothing under Level 70 could do something like that, and certainly someone of that Level wouldn’t just go insane, even in a dungeon as dangerous as Skabd.
It was thanks to that man that those mountains gained their nickname and, over a thousand years later, the common folk had forgotten their actual name. It was probably still written around on some dusty book, but nobody cared enough to check: life was hard as is and no one would’ve appreciated their neighbor correcting them every time someone used the wrong name.
Heinricks was an orphan. Or, well, it would’ve been more accurate to say that he’d been abandoned as a child in front of the orphanage he called home. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence, really: two adventurers fooled around, they didn’t want to put an end to their careers for one reason or another, so they did the sensible thing and they left their newborn child at the doorstep of one of the city’s many orphanages. Henricks had been luckier than most – that is, in a world where luck didn’t exist – in that he’d ended up in one of the relatively good ones.
Still, he’d had to start learning a trade, something the matrons at the orphanage forced upon all of them. They said it was to make sure that, one day, when they left, they’d have a way to earn themselves some coin. They even helped set them up for jobs and allowed them to keep the meager money they were paid for them. Because yes, no matter where you were, children were always underpaid (if they were paid at all to begin with).
He’d tried many things in the years but, in the end, he’d understood that he wasn’t particularly good at anything. Not in the sense that he was a Jack-of-all-Trades, no, the exact opposite. He wasn’ good at anything.
He’d attempted carpenting, but he always ended up hurting himself enough to require a healing potion; he’d tried sewing, but his work was abysmal at best, while normally it resulted in garments that literally fell apart the moment one tried to wear them; next had come smithing, but he didn’t have the body for it (and, again, more often than not he hurt himself); and so on and so forth.
So now here he stood, a broom in hand as he cleaned up the floors of the orphanage. That… that he was good at. It was a slow, methodical, work that required little skill and even less thinking. For him, it was nearly rhythmic: breathe, stop, sweep; breathe, stop, sweep; breathe, stop, sweep. And like that for the whole room, and then for the next, and the next, and the next.
He enjoyed it, to the point where he was a Level 12 [Methodic Cleaner]. His Skills weren’t that cool, but they helped him with his pastime, allowing him to keep his timing perfect for long periods of time, letting his broom pick up a bit more dust than it should; things like that. Simple things for a simple job.
In this city of heroes and cowards he was a little nobody with nothing to his name but the clothes on his body and the few silvers he’d gained in the last few months by cleaning up a few of the houses neighboring the orphanage. He didn’t matter, he wasn’t important, people didn’t notice him… and he was alright with that. He cared not for things like fame and fortune. He just wanted a quiet life with enough money to live by and have fun some evenings. Maybe a few friends to spend those evenings with, a small group of trusted people who would ask him to clean their homes at a discount he would gladly give. He wasn’t interested in looking for a girlfriend – or boyfriend, for the matter, he’d looked into that – he just didn’t seem to be capable of feeling that attraction so many other boys his age talked about. Some of them thought it was weird, but then, they lived on Rodar in the City of Adventurers: they’d seen, heard and done weirder.
It was as he was cleaning the last room of the orphanage left, the basement, that it happened: an earthquake.
It wasn’t anything new: sometimes the seemingly endless dungeon under the mountains moved around, shifting like a great sleeping beast for some unknown reason and causing localized earthquakes. People were used to it at this point: sure, the why of these movements was still unknown, but then, there were still so many things about the dungeon of Skabd that weren’t understood.
Still, this time something different happened. Something… new, unexpected.
As Henricks stood in place, having already been cleaning under one of the main supporting pillars and therefore being safe even in the improbable – but not impossible, because Rodar – case that the extremely well built orphanage chose to fall over his head.
Then something fell.
Something near his feet.
A section of floor, crumbling to pieces and falling several meters down. He lost his footing, because of course he did, and suddenly he found himself in the air, flying downwards and unable to grasp at anything. He screamed, naturally: what child wouldn’t? Yet his screams went unheard and, even had they been, it was already too late.
Down and down he fell, the fall that had initially looked of just a few meters now seemed endless, and maybe it was. Maybe the hole led down to Airm itself. Soon he’d feel the temperature rise as the fires of that place of the damned came into view before a demon came in to sweep him out of the air, only to toss him into a pit of suffering.
He wondered, in those moments, what he had done wrong. Had his inability to do anything that mattered somehow angered the gods? His uselessness so blatant, so glaring, that it had offended their delicate moods, because there was no way someone could be this unlucky, even on the Continent of Misfortune.
Then he hit the ground.
And agony was all he knew.
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“My name is Issekina, but everybody calls me Isse,” she said back to the man. Her mind kept on telling her that he was nobody of importance, that there was no reason to be wary of him. She and Siidi fought off that sensation with all their might. There was clearly something to him.
“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Issekina. And, may I ask, if I am not being too nosy, who your companions might be?”
And at that the carriage fell silent, as if someone had thrown a wet blanket on top of them, suffocating any sound.
Oh fuck how does he know? asked Siidi, her voice panic stricken.
“What?” she asked, dumbfounded.
The man slowly moved pointed at her spider half, hidden underneath the guise of a simple gown.
“Why, I’m talking about the five spiders on your spider half, of course.”
Both arachne calmed down as they understood that Siidi’s presence hadn’t been discovered.
Then the words registered and they started to panic again, an emotion that was further enhanced by the older arachne accidentally activating [A Minute, United].
“You can see it?” they shouted, accidentally climbing onto the back wall of the carriage.
The man’s smile never left his lips as he lowered his finger, his hands settling on his lap as he interwove his fingers, apparently not at all perturbed by the presence of what was supposed to be one of the greatest predators in history.
…Just like Albert.
The moment that thought crossed their minds all the fear, anger and… whatever it was they were feeling, it all disappeared. They felt empty again as memories of the first time they’d met the old [Spymaster] flooded them.
Slowly they fell back down to the floor, the illusion covering their spider half dissipating.
They did, though, ask him: “What do you mean, ‘four spiders on u – me’?” they corrected themselves, lest they give away that Isse wasn’t the only one in their body.
That was when they noticed that the smile on Henricks’ face had disappeared, a small frown taking its place. Was it the sight of her spider half? Or was it the way she’d reacted to his question.
Still, he answered her: “There are five spiders hiding in the fur of your spider half, young lady. And as for how I saw through your illusion,” his hands separated, an index finger rising to beat beside his right eye, “I’ve seen a lot. Tricks like this, they are nothing.”
Isse looked down at her spider half, at the soft chestnut fur that covered it, and there, for the first time, she noticed movement, as if the man noticing their presence had caused the unexpected passengers to come to life.
Five little spiders. One of them white, the other four in varying degrees of brown, plus a reddish one. Five spiders she’d found in Albert’s home and had befriended (unsurprisingly spiders and arachne got along very well).
Five little spiders she thought she’d left behind in her haste to escape.
Grandmother, Red, Cat, Aru and Iada. She had not named any of them after Makira and Anda: it would’ve hurt too much. They were all there, all five of them. A cute little chitter left Red’s pedipalps, a sound only she could hear with her enhanced hearing. She placed her hand beside her little reddish pet, all five of the spiders ‘climbing aboard’ instead of the single one she’d intended. They skittered up her arm, then decided to go back to her palm as she raised her hand, seeing that that was going to be the fastest route to their objective: mainly, her cheek.
She was sure that, once upon a time, back on Earth, she would’ve at least shivered, finding the sensation of so many little legs moving around on her at least slightly disgusting. Now though? It was reassuring. Calming.
A little chuckle escaped her lips as she finally brought her little pets up to her face, where they all snuggled underneath her chin or against her cheeks, showing her their love. They’d grown again in the last week. How had she not noticed nor felt them?
Who cares? They’re alive! And with us!
Indeed, and now they’d reached the size of the thumb’s last phalanx… which admittedly wasn’t that big, what with her hands being very slim and dainty, but for spiders that had started with their bodies being no larger than a nail clipping it was quite the growth boost.
Henricks sighed in slight exasperation – although the smile returned to his lips – and said: “Spiders, damned things. I see I’ll have to get over them.”
The coach stopped again, Isse noticing only tangentially as she dedicated all of herself at playing with her little pets, giggling as they climbed in her hair and started to braid it, using silk to fix it in place. It frankly looked horrible, and it was mortifying but… it helped her spiraling thoughts stop, so she just enjoyed the silliness and the giddiness that was brought about by the knowledge that, at least, she had someone left.
Henricks opened the door himself, his slow, nearly mechanical movements further helping to calm her down, somehow, before he stepped down, a hand rising to meet her as she skittered towards the world outside.
“May I, young lady?”
She gingerly took his hand, all thoughts of his weirdness forgotten, and stepped down, her dress already beginning to form the illusion of legs.
“Ah ah ah, young lady. Do away with the false pretenses.”
She stopped: “What?”
“There is no need to hide your true nature here, young lady Issekina,” her name felt strange coming out of his mouth, that strange ‘accent’ of his seemingly infecting it with that strangeness that made him stand out every time he spoke, removing the veil of non-importance, of nobodiness.
“This is a kingdom for the broken, like me, like so many others. One cannot repair the cracks if they’re hidden from sight.”
She didn’t know why but it made a surprising amount of sense.
But…
“They’ll hunt me down and try to kill me.”
That’s what had happened all the other times. That’s wha –
Her thoughts were stopped again by a strange sound that didn’t fit the situation. A chuckle. A dark sound filled with barely contained merriment and promises of violence: “They can certainly try, young miss. Whoever the poor sod might be, they’ll soon find out that there are many, many, many destinies worse than death.”
He took a step forward, his hand never leaving hers as his voice went back to normal: “My [King] has taken you under his wing, Issekina, and that means you are safe. Safe from harm, safe from hate, safe from persecution and, if the Stars allow it, Death himself. We will make sure that is true.”
His smile, too, went back to its normal, calm, self, to the meaningless small smirk that revealed nothing and would make anyone dismiss him after but a glance, if even that was spared for him. He stepped back again, his surprisingly long arm completely extending, the gesture, no, the question, clear: ‘Will you follow me?’
She hesitated a moment more but, really, there was nothing to doubt: she’d checked with both [Detect Truth] and [Detect Lie], she’d read his emotions – or rather, tried to, but he came back to her as completely emotionless – and tried to read his face the way Pochi had taught her when they’d gone that one time to that town near their forest. All of it told her that he could be trusted.
What do you say? she asked her soul half.
I say we go with him and see what happens. Hopefully he’s right. Otherwise… well, we’ll see afterwards.
She took a step out.
And, for the first time since she’d left her home in the forest – not counting the time spent on the airship – she did it without hiding her nature.
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What does it mean to be broken?
The answer is not simple, mainly because there are many, and they’re all correct.
The definition of ‘broken’ varies from person to person.
Some, like Isse, will crack like a vase left too long in an oven, slowly beginning to crumble to dust, leaving behind nothing to rebuild, nothing to remind an outside observer who the person had been before the catastrophic incident.
Others, like Albert, will crack and crack and crack, they will lose pieces, so many of them that the object they are will become useless, like a vase with a hole, unable to keep the water in, but then they’ll start rebuilding themselves, putting together what is left, gluing themselves back into a semblance of function that could make most people overlook the evident fracture lines.
Others still… others still will just keep going. They won’t care about the damage, they won’t care about the price, the risk, anything. They’ll just keep moving onward and either the world will meld to their will or they’ll crumble trying to force it.
And many, many, more.
Being broken means losing pieces of oneself.
That, in itself, is easy to understand. It’s in the word, after all. Broken. Damaged, no longer able to work. That is what is written in the dictionaries.
No, the complexity stems from trying to understand what the lost pieces are. Memories? People? Body parts? Sanity? All of the above? Maybe some inexplicable component of the soul?
That is the problem with us living beings: there is so much of us that can be damaged.
Broken.
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The door to the throne room opened and everyone inside – and at the window – perked up, ready to greet their new guest, the young arachne.
Then they deflated as they saw Henrick walk in. Alone.
“Henrick,” greeted the man sitting on the small throne, “I’m glad to see you.”
Fred, the [Assassin] turned [Prime Minister], stepped forward, a brow rising questioningly: “Wasn’t our guest meant to be with you? I clearly saw you get out of the carriage bringing her here.”
The [Cleaner] nodded his head in greeting and as an answer to the man’s question.
“Yes, she was with me, young minister. She is now in the rooms you assigned to her.”
Everyone in the room stared at him with a wide variety of emotions, from confused to amused to offended to plain nonplussed.
“...Why didn’t you bring her here first?” asked the alraune in the end, her gorgeous voice calm as could be.
“She needs time. Rest. Like we all did, at first.”
And that was that, for they trusted his judgment.
As for Isse? She was in her new room, playing with her spiders, desperately clinging to them and the little joy they were bringing to her, trying to stave off the memories.