“I’m afraid I’ve asked of your people more than you ever owed us.”

“It’s how the cookie crumbled, Prime Minister. Saying Geverde has a vested interest in...inconveniencing Vesmos is an understatement.”

Fault smiled, removing her reading glasses and rubbing her eyes. Elvera had watched her transition halfway into a skeleton over the previous few days. If there were any kindness left in the world, the coming night would bring with it no further complications.

“The cookie certainly crumbled, Marie.”

The Lieutenant-General jumped at the sound of her name. Fault seemed to be playing the role of ex-Prime Minister early. She stood up, taking in the room.

“Hardridge’s daughter shared with me some…choice words of wisdom during the S.H.I.A. crisis,” Fault began, bringing an awkward smile to Elvera’s face. “She criticised my cabinet. Words I probably should’ve listened to more. Who knew no one could get it as right as the dictator’s daughter?”

The Prime Minister bit her lip and reached for her jacket, facing the wall as she pulled it over her shoulders.

“She could see my cabinet for what it was. I did my best to be totally benevolent but…I don’t know. Soon enough I found myself trying to scrounge together enough resources to fight off terrorists. Half the time they were already bent, from the cops to the bureaucrats.”

She straightened her collar, turning around.

“Sorry…I think I’ve trained myself to talk more freely with outsiders than I should. A testament to my efforts in Sidos, the fact that I can trust you more than anyone in this building. So—”

“And as the Dictator’s colleague,” Elvera began, interrupting the Prime Minister’s downward spiral. “As his daughter’s godmother, as his wife’s closest friend, I cannot say I will know how you will go down in the history books. All I know is that some parts will be buried.”

Elvera straightened her posture and delivered a Sidosian salute, one that Percy Hardridge had taught her years before in the early hours of the morning. One of many moments that made up a now blurry recollection of after-parties and black-tie events that would die with her.

“And I don’t believe the good you did for this country will be buried. Your methods will be criticised, your character speculated, surely assassinated in the coming weeks.”

She recalled the astonishment on Elliot’s face as he walked into Sidos Town Square, Evalyn’s monthly update on the childhood stores she was too nervous to enter. Coats of paint allowed to age, brightly coloured signs pointing down streets that were still going to be there next week.

Graffiti. Street art. Music blaring from trumpeters allowed to carve out a small space for their own in the storied, yet forever brand-new metropolis.

“But your predecessor gave Sidos freedom to change, you showed Sidos the value of changing. Whatever shape it turns into, that much is undeniable. Prime Minister Dalena Fault.”

With the sound of the Sidosian Army retreating from the city came a part in the clouds. The grey that defined the city’s walls, both literal and figurative had long since been showing their cracks. Fault had forced them open too hard and too fast, but in the long history of any one nation, only time would tell how her rule would be remembered.

Fault, behind the closed doors of her once office, forgot her title and the broad shoulders that came with it, those capable of holding the weight a lone person could ever hope to match. She lowered her head, covering her mouth with her hand as her unwavering posture finally collapsed.

“Do you think so, Lieutenant-General?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

Fault recollected herself, if only halfway, and Elvera released her salute.

“Thank you. That means a great deal.”

“And although she may have disagreed with you, I assure you Evalyn Hardridge is a benefactor of the country you helped create. She’s protective of what she fought for thirteen years ago, so thank you for turning a blind eye to her language.”

“Certainly,” Fault said, collecting herself enough to look Elvera in the eye once more. “The country must owe her a great deal. I wish I could apologise to her for letting it come to this.”

“She doesn’t seek anything of the sort. Same as you, she just wants to put the past to rest.”

“I see…this must’ve been a sensitive case for her then.”

“As much as she doesn’t want to admit it, Ma’am.”

“…well. Perhaps she and I can watch what happens to Sidos next. Although she might intervene if she doesn’t like where it’s going.”

“If that were to happen, a smack across the back of her head would put her senses back into place.”

“Even if things with Vesmos turn for the worse?”

Elvera pursed her lips, letting breath escape her nose as she took a second to think instead of speak.

“Geverde must re-evaluate its position. But, if she gets payment, she’s free to act accordingly. I must warn you however that she is quite the expensive hire.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Fault chuckled, but her smile slowly faded.

“Things are going to change very quickly from now on. S.H.I.A. will take a hint, and start doing the rounds. There’ll be a scramble to see if those plans ever left the facility before it was destroyed.”

“Do you think they were?”

“The military are hardline loyalists. They dislike Vesmos more than us, let alone any other country we’re at odds with. I’m willing to bet it was a closely guarded secret. But…we shouldn’t make assumptions.”

The two shared understanding glances. Whether the military were hardline loyalists or not, an entire contingent of the 42nd and H.O.A. divisions betrayed them in service of some other entity. Where their loyalties lay was another matter entirely.

“I’m sorry that this is what I leave you with, Marie.”

Elvera shook her head. “No hard feelings. I look forward to seeing what you do from here on.”

“I won’t let you down then.”

“Feels like I haven’t seen your mug in years.”

“I’m starting to think I never wanted to see yours again,” Elliot replied, crossing his arms and scowling, one eyebrow raised as though signalling an apology.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Marie walked up to the platform’s edge, flying under the radar of the other pilots absorbed in their discourse. She placed her briefcase down beside her and grabbed Elliot by his shoulders. Hanging her head, she spoke.

“I am very, very sorry Elly I promise I won’t make you go through whatever you went through again.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“And you’ll promise to listen to me next time I tell you something is clearly a bad idea.”

“I don’t promise that. You’re wrong half the time—”

“Hey!”

“I promise that I’ll listen to you next time. Happy?”

“Never.”

Marie sighed through her weak smile as her weighty eyes met his. She ruffled his hair before pulling him into a hug.

“I take it you didn’t make any new friends.”

“I don’t like how you can say something so cruel so easily,” he answered, returning the gesture. Elliot wanted to be mad: if not mad then as petty as possible. But he couldn’t help feeling some relief at seeing a familiar face, especially one he could trust.

Hauling his head out of the clouds over the years had made him more approachable, but he’d kept his borders. It was thanks to a keen memory he even remembered any of the other pilots’ names.

Marie stuck around—whether by choice or by familial obligation—long enough for him to care about seeing her after returning from a flight.

She was still around. The world had some semblance of stability.

“I uh…missed you. Marie.”

“What’s gotten into you, huh?”

She pulled away, and Elliot watched as her eyebrows furrowed and her smile drooped.

“Hey, Elliot? What happened?”

Elliot’s vision began to lose focus, the lines between Marie’s figure and the morning foot traffic blurring ever so slightly.

“Was almost KIA…this wasn’t, you know, by a hair’s breadth. I know what that feels like real well and I know that won’t kill me. But….”

Marie held his head against her shoulder, hiding his tears before they made it down his face. She knew what soldiers were like; what the uniform meant. In their own way, between two like minds, it was a mercy.

“I saw down that bastard’s barrel, Marie,” Elliot said. “I saw those two without me, and I thought, ‘all this for some selfish morons.’”

“All that for people who owe you their livelihoods, Elliot. Right behind you is a town square full of people who wouldn’t be there next week if it weren’t for what you did.”

“And what if I said I couldn’t care less?”

“You know that isn’t true Elliot.”

“All I know...is that I almost died for people I don’t care about, Marie. I’m getting slower, and I’ve got things to come home to.”

“You and Evalyn made a promise, didn’t you? You’d watch her back, she’d watch yours.”

A train whistle blared nearby as the laboured motions of a steam engine approached. “You don’t feel invincible anymore Elliot, I know that. Welcome to planet Earth, hey? You did well. Better than anyone could’ve asked for.”

She pushed him back, forcing him onto his own two feet, a thin smile stretched across her lip. She was tired. He’d picked the worst time to start the waterworks, but he couldn’t help it.

“There’s a twenty-year-old you who made a promise to his wife and the people he stopped a war for. You kept it. Now, I understand if you want to throw in the towel for real, but I don’t want you of all people to lose confidence in yourself. You’re a stuck-up prick and I like it that way.”

Elliot hung his head, the good of the message fighting against the bad that came with knowing he needed it in the first place.

“You’ll never let me off without a hit in?”

“Till hell freezes over, kid. You see these eyes? I’ve already had to career counsel one person today on three hours of sleep.”

“Who was that?” Elliot asked as the train pulled into the station and the scattered movements of commuters morphed into a homogenous flow towards the carriage doors.

“Long story,” Marie scoffed, picking up her briefcase. “The whole family has a debrief waiting for them. Better told over a drink and some more damn sleep.”

A Witch like her had less leeway in a city like Excala. The protest had been the perfect opportunity: her Aether draw was low, but not completely zero. Committing a crime—even under the cover of invisibility—wouldn’t go very far if a Beak was given more than a few seconds to focus on her.

It was death if she was caught. Queen Amestris herself had stressed the point ad nauseum, all while Colte insisted it was as good of a deal as she could hope for.

He was right. But that made it all the more crushing.

Main Street’s bustle faded into obscurity. The briefcase in her off-hand was weighing too heavy to bear. Down a residential street in a corner of the city twice removed from its beating heart, Trysha, for the first time that day, saw no faces.

Sheer walls hid a tapestry of personal lives and stories under an infinite wallpaper of an all-equalising sky. She was to be just another brick in the wall, another unremarkable note, a stitch in the tapestry, the same as untold millions.

That was her final mission decreed onto her by the state of Geverde.

She’d have to grow out her hair at the very least, augment her features slightly with makeup or magic.

Letting go of her name was a given. Things that, until she was to part with them, she never realised she was particularly attached to.

Her name was more than a set of syllables, her face more than a mishmash of moulded shapes: they were the title and cover art to a book she’d been forced to stop writing part-way.

She should’ve been happy, but being happy was exactly what she’d tried the last time she’d played pretend.

Men in uniform had kicked down the door to her pillow fort, and there the dream had ended, with little fanfare or sympathy. If there had been applause, she hadn’t stuck around for it.

Colte’s tired smile had proven something more than that. Something that, if given to her when she was still young, could’ve taken her life in a different direction.

Now, it was nothing more than a sympathy; a hope towards the pillow fort holding the second time around.

The new pillow fort was named ‘Room 15, 26 Janeview Street, Roukland’. Brick and mortar, one bedroom, one bathroom, and a view that required a healthy dose of imagination. It wasn’t a cupboard, but social housing had its limits.

Like the beginning of a board game, the idea was she was meant to go up from there. Fresh start.

Colte had recommended university. Make use of a government program, boost employability. Frankly, he spoke in tongues, but Trysha found it hard to hate. It was her faith in the idea that kept her from setting foot through the door.

A set of keys had been jangling in her free hand her entire journey, their rattle bouncing around in her head as she followed them like compass needles. They’d dragged her most of the way but had lost their magic as she’d come to the door.

Beyond the fading blue threshold were another few flights of stairs, not to mention another door.

But it was the one before her that loomed the largest; the point the sky disappeared and the tapestry of ordinary lives no longer presented itself to her as something wholly detached, but as something she was just another stitch in.

Just another stitch—a few frays different from the next. Nothing in comparison to the past life she couldn’t find pride in.

Her black dress shoes lined up one step removed from the blue door was where she stopped and stood. The briefcase weighed on her arm, but it had grown numb given enough time. The sun’s rays ate at her exposed neck, leaving a mark knowing what she intended to do with her hair. The urge to run away and try again in a few hours tempted her, filling the space the jangling keys had occupied until a moment ago.

The door opened.

“Oh, hello,” a woman said, an excitable Spirit whizzing past Trysha’s head the moment the was open. “Sorry about him,” came the polite apology, “he gets excited.”

The ‘he’ in question circled her head, its oval wingspan pulsing in alternating shades of mellow green as a head extended out of the main body like a protruding antenna, eyes and mouth reminiscent of a toddler’s crayon drawing.

They left before she could get a word in—a brief stutter being about all she could manage before they were off on their way again, paying her no heed.

No heed, because she didn’t deserve any. That woman may have wondered for a second if she was a new tenant.

A second. The longest a complete stranger had acknowledged her for, and yet it was still totally insignificant.

She was just another person. She’d been given permission to be such.

But the reversal of that could come in an instant. That thought still weighed on her two dress shoes like cinder blocks, stopping her from lifting them over the edge.

The keys refused to jangle in her head again. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow they’d carry her over and into the tapestry.

The two dress shoes turned to face the other direction.

And they stopped, unable to leave the same step they’d reached.

The Spirit that had taken a passing interest in her had decided to next bother a man in his late twenties, with features too young for his age, hair parted down the middle after he’d been told his comb-over wasn’t doing him any favours, and circular glasses clouding from the moisture in his tears.

The keys started to jangle, pointing not at her new house but at him, at the other resident who had made the pillow fort home. The man who’d never thought of his life with her as something meant to be ridiculed as fake, had seen her life behind society’s curtain and had called it on its worthlessness.

The man who had given her permission to be human. To feel human.

“Damian?”

“Who else?”

“Stop.”

“Never.”

“Please….”

“No.”

“Please—”

He muffled her next words with his chest and pulled her so close neither of them would ever forget the feeling.

The keys ceased their rattling, and the main street just beyond the block faintly played a tune to welcome another unremarkable life to a long, long tapestry of souls who simply lived day by day.