An: The chinese line: 眼一閉誰最狂, Yan yi bi Shei zui kuang, Once the eyes have closed, Who is the victor? Is from the song Moonlight (月光) by 胡彥斌Anson Hu YanBin. "Once the eyes have closed" is a euphemism for "once one is no longer alive."
The poem excerpt is from a poem called 'Falling Flowers' written by the poet Li Shang-Yin during the ninth century CE.
.
.
Tooth stared out at the setting sun sinking bellow the horizon, the wind brushing through her feathers in the silence.
The burning sun's golden light cast the world in gold, rendering the clouds in its precious light.
Tooth closed her eyes for a long moment, simply feeling the wind as it passed through her feathers. All was silent save for the breeze. Here seated high amidst the clouds, submerged in the silence a line Fang-Hua had once said to her came to mind.
'Once the eyes have closed, Who is the victor?'
In light of the events of recent years it felt ominously apt. Indeed amongst this sad play who could be called victorious.
As the faintest of disruptions in the playing of the wind betrayed the spirit in question moving to join her, here seated on the edge of one of the outermost ledges of the central most of her perilous towers, Tooth lifted her head to gaze at the Spirit of Autumn's approach, opening her eyes as she inhaled.
There was an inscrutable look on the willowy spirit's face as she gazed out at the dying sun, "so, you see it too..."
The words seemed to ring in her ears as she turned once more to face the sun.
As of eleven hundred hours November eighteenth the fighting had stopped. Only time would tell if it would be a lasting peace or merely the brief flicker between passing moments of dancing flame.
Europe smouldered and already even as the ashes had not yet settled renewed pockets of fighting were breaking out as old grudges ran their course, fuelled by the renewed hatred brought by the recent conflict.
Turkey, an emerging new state in particular was a hotbed for militant revolution as it fought to succeed from the dying remnants of the Ottoman Empire.
For many the war's end was in name only.
Even as countries the world over rejoiced the world tore itself apart. Time marches on and the unwavering paths of destiny and fate spiral ever onwards, and everything unravels at the seams. The world is stretched thin.
Tooth too is stretched thin. Here alone with the setting sun it feels like an ending, the last dying embers of an age.
Words from a poem long ago rang out in her mind.
'The guests are gone from the pavilion high, In the small garden flowers are whirling around. Along the winding path the petals lie; To greet the setting sun, they drift up from the ground...
And in the end nothing is left but a robe stained with tears.'
It is time, the teeth are sorted, each box carefully accounted for and painstakingly categorized and stored by a complex shifting system that makes locating particular sets of teeth impossible and memorising their locations useless.
Magic allows an infinity of them to be stored; it must to fit such treasures. So many precious memories cradled within these hallowed walls. Each box carefully crafted for the most precious memories of childhood.
The intricate mechanisms inherent in each box's design served to ensure the prevention of tampering. Stealing their container, possible? yes, but tampering, opening? Impossible.
A thief would soon find themselves burdened by pretty but ultimately useless treasures should some nefarious foe happen upon one, or manage to penetrate the active storage areas many of the towers held where, not yet locked behind the safety of the impenetrable and permanently sealed vaults reserved for generations past, the teeth of children who were still alive were housed.
The palace had not always been so protected, and once when the world was young the teeth had been stored in simply carved wooden boxes.
Running a hand along the cool stone halls of the inner chambers of the largest tower, feeling the mechanism grinding within, she remembered with fondness those days of endless plans and configurations during the early years of planning.
Arguing with North over the blueprints of the nebulous shifting designs of the inner workings of intricate mechanisms. The various nights spent consulting with Sandy how best to weave the magic needed to identify the recipients of the boxes, and how to interface the wards and thaumaturgical enchantments with the existing structure of the palace.
Days spent learning with Aster about workings of stone mechanisms like those that animated the stone guardians that guarded the warrens, and spending hours gnashing their teeth and pulling their ears and feathers while adapting the system used to sort his eggs.
Smiling to herself she recalled his frustrated shouts when, for the twentieth time, they failed to produce something workable that could interface with the intertwining, endless security systems, and still work without shutting the whole thing down.
Despite their initial failure somehow they had managed to work it out in the end. Perhaps ironically it had been the vessels designed for the teeth, with their ever shifting never repeating inner workings that had come together the easiest.
No two boxes were the same, with each box opening only with one of two 'keys,' Tooth herself, or the child whose teeth lay within.
A child could perhaps be forced or otherwise coerced into opening their own box, but not an another's, and persuading Tooth herself was of course an impossibility. There were no other way to gain entrance, there were only two solutions to the cryptex.
Either the child whose face adorned the box opened it or Tooth herself did.
Age was of course did not preclude a child or indeed adult from opening their own box. Every child was born with a 'key' lasting until their death; a corpse, or severed body part could not be used, for the box's locks required a whole and living body.
Each coming into existence possessing only two 'keys' and a time limit, forever locking out the one unique to that box upon its holder's death, further securing their contents.
As despicable as it was their were certainly those who would have tried to use that loophole.
Of course even the most secure of magic and mechanism alike did not equal with perfect certainty that there would never be someone who would not find a way to trick or work around them in some way, extremely unlikely to the point of being impossible that it was there always stood the chance.
Some kind of enthrallment or possession could make children open their own boxes, as could coercion, such 'tender' ways were unlikely to exist as the only loophole.
Within the boxes themselves remained one last failsafe to ensure that even if the impossible were to happen the teeth would not fall into the wrong hands.
Should someone ever manage not only to acquire the boxes of teeth they were not meant to have, but to manage to be open or otherwise gain entrance without the appropriate 'answer' the glass chambers that housed the teeth would break and the acid filling the unseen hollow chambers running through the box would flood the box, and also potentially take off the hand of whoever was holding it; a precaution against those who would use them for harm.
Most importantly it like all of the palace's protections and defences would continue to run even if she was slain. A morbid but reassuring thought, but necessary.
In the event of her death the silent churning of the invisible mechanisms would grind to a halt as the wards went into lockdown, the palace's halls echoing with the sound of the locking of hidden bolts, and frantic whirling of gears, and ratcheting and clicking of locks.
The perpetually shifting boxes would lock shut permanently, forever being shifted silently within the now locked vaults.
Even in Death she would protect the teeth.
Sighing Tooth's gaze lingered on the box in her hand, tracing the delicate swirls and curling veins of metal with tender fingers. Silently sensing the numerous veins of corrosive poison and twisting locks beneath the surface.
'Delicate, intricate, beautiful, and dangerous,' as Bunny had once said. It was a description that had been applied to her many times as well.
'Perhaps it's only natural that creators be reflected in their creations,' she mused, a slightly wistful smile forming, her fairies certainly served as reflections of self, perhaps is wasn't so strange to think of the many of the far less animate guardians of the teeth as such as well.
There was a touch of self depreciating irony that came with that thought as she noted the emerald and sapphire crystal adorning the surface of the box in her hands, mirroring the colouring of her feathers, 'some might call it vain though.'
With a sigh she ceased running her fingers over the box in her hands to hold it limply against her chest as she made her way through the twisting halls.
It's been a very long time, an age, and really she was very tired.
The others would have to take up the slack, her mice would do admirably as they always had for a very long time, and the fairies were capable enough to organize themselves on their own. She was going to sleep for months.
Their reduced numbers would no doubt present a problem but it couldn't be helped, she was not the only one who needed a break, switching them out in rotating shifts should minimise any problems but it would still be a stretch to make it all work.
Unlike Frost she suffered directly from the massive loss of believers, and unpredictable belief fluctuations.
Gently cradling the fragile treasures the box she was holding usually contained she examined them one by one before gently placing them back inside.
Fingering the latest edition softly she eased it into place.
Cradling the box in her hands Tooth gently flew to the wall in the mountain's bedrock that represented the place where the living stone met the walls of the palace that had once housed the Sisters of Flight, and where the door to the vaults lay.
Gently she placed a hand against the seal inscribed upon the stone with scrawling characters that ran along the edges of the of the centremost of the circular rings that sat within the stone edifice like those of some ancient ruin that only she could read.
Leaving her palm pressed against the cool stone she closed her eyes for several long moments, listening as mechanisms clicked into place, and seeing without looking the whirling and shifting of wheels and levers.
The door constantly shifted below the surface, major pieces shifting positions every few hours, many smaller portions shifting every few minutes, or occasionally several times a minute as the door constantly reset.
Opening her eyes she took a deep breath, pressing her hand forwards and twisting the round seal into place, the ancient stone giving as easily as if it's edges were made of oiled silk.
The stone silently sinking to a depth of a good few centimetres, four rectangular bars sliding from each wall to partially cover it.
Slowly the successive rings began to follow, spinning with growing grinding sounds as stone bars slid into place and various sub-locks came undone.
Audible vibrations could be felt as unseen wheels turned, and the whole circular face began to shift.
Opening her eyes she let out the breath she had unconsciously been holding, stepping back and watching the whirling of interlocking pieces
Slowly as the whole process ground to a halt several large blocks of slotted stone slid forward from the 'corners' of several of the middling and outer rings to protrude from the rock face.
Fluttering slightly Tooth gently placed the box into one of the pillars, sending it back into the stone with a gentle push as the other stone pillars receded, locking into place, and the shifting of unseen levers begun again. Really she was very tired.
.
.
.
An: The idea for the mechanisms behind the Teeth boxes came from the Cryptex from 'The Da Vinci Code'
In the inner compartment of the cryptex, secret information could be hidden, written on a scroll of thin papyrus wrapped around a fragile vial of vinegar as a security measure: if one does not know the password but tries to force the cryptex open, the vial will break and the vinegar will dissolve the papyrus before it can be read.
Next chapter there'll be some interaction between Jack and Tooth, as well as a whole bunch of characters.