[This is a sequel to "Ash on Wool" but can also be read as a stand alone]
Dreams Daze Duty
Force of habit made Mewe almost sprint when the patrol warden waved at him across the street.
This area of Piltover was filled with stores known as cafés and bistros, where a cup of boiled water with some dried leaves in a dainty cup cost more than a bowl of hearty fish slop. The Pilties here all had shiny hair and spotless clothes and they never ran. People promenaded in Mainspring Crescent, preferably while holding a laced umbrella under a cloudless sky.
Mewe was nothing like that, with his stray-cat hair and tattered coat too big for his skinny frame. He wasn't even a Pilty. So when the warden approached, he didn't notice that she was a woman with a polite smile. He only saw the truncheon resting on her belt and the long limbs under the blue uniform hinting of a fast runner.
"Evening, officer," Mewe said, clutching a parcel tight to his chest.
"Bit of a hurry, aren't we?" The officer scanned Mewe up and down. "Where are you heading?"
"To the Drawsmith Arcade. I was down at Zalie's to pick up a package."
"Zalie's?" The officer blinked. "As in Zalie's Expeditionary Outfitters & Haberdashery? You ran all the way from south Pilts to here?"
Mewe pressed out a sheepish smile. "Yes?"
The officer's face scrunched into a frown. "Do you have a receipt?"
He dug into his inner coat pocket and handed over a folded paper. The warden wouldn't find any faults in the receipt since Mewe had been all proper and paid for the outfit.
"You're from Zaun, right?" she asked. "Can you show me your travel documents?"
Mewe fished up another folded sheet. This one he hadn't paid any coins for. In fact, he'd written it himself. His forgery skills had been the only reason Baron Takeda had kept him alive after all. But after Mewe forgot to cross some t's in a document which resulted in the sheriff confiscating a whole shipment of smuggled goods from Shurima, Mewe decided to try out the air in Piltover for a while.
"Oi," the warden said, "You hear me?"
Mewe jerked awake. "Sorry?" He was finding himself in dazes here and there, possibly a mix of the different air and fatigue. He had cut down on his sleep these last days in preparation for the big concert.
"I said that I hope you have a great experience." The warden handed back the receipt and travel document. "If you're going to the Drawsmith Arcade, it means you're here for Pearl's concert at the Crystal, aren't you?". She slapped Mewe on the back. "Off you go and have fun!"
When the blue suit disappeared from his periphery, Mewe let out a small sigh of relief. His forgeries weren't fool-proof and if someone with a more acute eye for details like an investigator had looked through his papers, they might've sniffed him out. He shouldn't have insisted on picking up the bundle himself, but he didn't trust anyone else.
The sun was setting when Mewe arrived at the Crystal Theater, a fancy establishment known for its beautiful entrance and windows made out of stained glass. A crowd gathered at the front, sorted into several queues for the different floors and seats.
Mewe's hope rose by the number of people in rich attires. He scuttled to the back of the building, knocked on a secret door, and showed his staff badge to a gruff-looking guard before he sprinted up the stairs to the make-up room.
"Sorry for the wait, Pearl," he said excitedly." I have your outfit!"
Cloven hooves tapped against floor tiles and a white figure in a dark cloak greeted Mewe. Pale hair framed her face like a lion's mane, and her flat ears flopped by the side, reaching her collarbones. She had a snout instead of a nose and lips that spoke few words, but her eyes of winter blue were prettier than any stained glass.
"An outfit?" Pearl asked, her soft voice prickling Mewe's skin with goosebumps.
"An artist needs an outfit," Mewe said, "especially for a big stage like this. The prettier you look, the bigger the odds that you get a sponsor." He handed over the bundle to Pearl and pushed her behind a dressing screen. Not trusting himself, he also stepped out of the make-up room. "Let me know when you're done."
Before the door closed shut, Pearl's voice seeped out. "Thank you, Mewe."
The same gruff guard who had let Mewe in had climbed up the stairs to see the Zaunite stand outside the make-up room with a silly smile plastered on his face.
He'd met Pearl when he was ambling around Boundary Market, the blurred border of Zaun and Piltover, worrying about the reach of the Chem-Barons. Her voice had cut through the thrums and ratchets of the hexdraulic conveyors and pierced Mewe like an arrow. He'd found her sitting on top of a crater with her face hidden under a hood, singing in an unknown language. Joining the small crowd, Mewe had listened to Pearl's performance with an open mouth.
An officer soon came by, asking if she had a busking permit. When she'd pulled down her hood and revealed her foreign face, the warden also inquired about some other documents. She didn't have any and things might've turned out differently if Mewe hadn't jumped in and saved the day.
Busking with Pearl all over Piltover had been nothing short of wonderful. The whole city seemed to stop and listen whenever she sang. A moment of rest which everyone needed, especially Mewe who was constantly moving and worrying about. But her songs had grabbed the wardens' attention. They've become more thorough when checking Mewe's handmade permits and documents and it was just a matter of time before Mewe would make a mistake. When he would forget to cross the t's again and the sheriff would throw them both in jail.
Mewe caught himself in another daze and slapped his cheeks until they stung with a biting red. He can sleep after securing a sponsor.
The floor rumbled underneath. The guests were taking their seats.
"Pearl?" he asked, knocking on the door. "How's it going? Have you put on your outfit?"
"Yes."
He opened the door and was stunned by the sight.
The black dress worked great with her white fur. The fabric had gone through some treatment and it glimmered like a starry sky. Pearl had also put on a necklace, matching the color of her eyes. The wolf mask on her shoulder clashed a bit with the overall impression but Mewe didn't say anything since he assumed it was like a lucky charm to Pearl.
"Is it too tight?" Mewe asked. "Too loose? Is it too flashy? Maybe it's too revealing? I was thinking —"
Pearl held out a finger, almost touching Mewe's lips. A gesture she did when his worries spilled over. "One question, please."
The Zaunite took a deep breath. "Do you like it?"
"Yes." She spun around, sending the dress and Mewe's heart fluttering.
"They're going to love you," he said with a big smile.
"They might only love the new mask."
Mewe scrunched his brow in confusion. The wolf mask on her shoulder looked quite old.
The air was thick with anticipation, like a mob waiting for a hanging.
Lamb stood by the west wing, staring at the lit-up stage where everyone would see her. The tuning from the orchestra pit blended with the murmurs of the guests. It was a small sound but to Lamb, it was louder than the waterfalls in the Well of the Mother Serpent.
She'd seen many musicians around the world perform to whoever wished to listen. Children and elders would stop and enjoy the tunes, often cheering on with bright smiles. They wouldn't gasp in fear and run away.
Her last visit to Piltover taught her of the obsession humans had for papers. She still remembered the amusing experience of being interrogated by the long-haired warden and her rough-looking partner.
She'd thought the markets would be far enough from the library and the Piltover Police Department, yet she had still been asked for documents.
Lamb glanced to her side, catching Mewe staring at her with a dazed look. When their eyes met, the Zaunite cleared his throat and hurried to the stage director to talk about some last details before the show.
The moment we stop fearing you. That's the moment we stop living.
When Mewe had found her, there had been no fear in the man's eyes. But that was because he had seen Pearl, a sheep Vastaya hoping to become a famous singer in the City of Progress, not Lamb, one of the Eternal Hunters.
Music began to play from the orchestra pit, a drawn-out note which rose and fell.
The guests stopped their chattering as more instruments joined in and the lights focused on the left side of the stage.
It was time.
The stage lights were so bright that the audience looked like shadows when Lamb walked to the center. Small gasps punctuated the orchestra's intro and she could smell the air change from eagerness to shock with a hint of fear.
Will the fear grow heavier or will it dissipate?
She'll soon have her answer.
Wolf had never liked her singing, he'd been tolerant of hummings and a few tunes but songs with words were too close to poetry for him. But Wolf wasn't here.
The language Lamb sang in was from a dead age the humans no longer knew about. Her voice was not the soft hums she'd use for her other half, but a clear aria climbing up the ceiling.
The crowd reacted with eagerness, leaning forward with faces filled with wonder. Their expressions spurred Lamb and she let herself go. As the music turned to the final chorus, her clear aria turned into a deep wail of the dead, wrapping around each guest and gripping their hearts. As she held onto the last note, she felt the audience sink into their chairs as their consciousness drowned in her presence.
The theater was silent as a grave.
The lights dimmed and Lamb saw her audience. They were pale-faced with vacant eyes and swaying like corpses underwater Slowly, they resurfaced, their heaving breaths breaking the silence as they blinked awake.
Shouts cut through the theater.
Then came the applause, falling onto Lamb like heavy rain.
They didn't fear her.
And she'd never seen a crowd so filled with life.
Mewe couldn't believe their luck as the carriage rolled through Bluewind Court. Pearl's show had been a huge success, even the famous songstress Seraphine had acknowledged Pearl's talent in a news article. Most importantly, letters from potential patrons had flooded in.
"An invitation from Albus Ferros himself!" Mewe said, waving the letter. "Can you believe it, Pearl? He's one of the big shots in Piltover. He outbid everyone to sponsor Jayce with his hexgates. That same man has invited you over for tea!"
Sitting across him, Pearl smiled. "That sounds wonderful."
Ever since the performance, Pearl had become more expressive as if a big weight had lifted from her chest. Mewe didn't know what it had been but he was happy for her, happy that things were going well. Soon, the forged checks he used to pay for the Crystal Theater would bounce back and the trail would lead the wardens to him, but by then Pearl should be protected by the Ferros.
The Ferros mansion was bigger than the Crystal Theater but it lacked the stained glass. Rows of servants opened the doors for Mewe and Pearl, greeting and leading them through echoing halls and rows of paintings. They were ushered into a small room with velvet chairs on top of an expensive-looking rug. Glass bulbs on the ceiling cast a pale light on a table filled with an assortment of cakes and snacks and a porcelain tea set .
Standing next to a fireplace was a woman with her back turned. She was taller than most men and her clothes looked like the uniform of the wardens, but instead of blue it was a mix of black, green, and white. Mewe was about to greet her when his tongue froze from what his eyes had registered. The woman's legs were long sharp blades.
"Welcome." Her face was elegant with high cheekbones and spotless skin. She was similar to Pearl in that she had white hair and blue eyes, but the difference was that this woman's hair looked like porcelain and her eyes sent shivers down Mewe's spine. "I'm Camille Ferros, please take a seat."
Lamb could hear Mewe's heartbeats slam against his chest and smell the sweat pouring out from him. Mewe was afraid, but it was a strange experience to know that she wasn't the source of the man's fear.
The handsome woman across the table poured two cups of tea and slid them over. "I can vouch for the lemon tart. It goes well with the tea." She nudged to a tong next to the four-stacked levels of pastries.
Lamb ignored the tong and took one of the cream puffs with her bare hands. She swiped a finger on the whipped custard and tasted the cream, all the while holding eye-contact with the woman across.
"Pearl, is it?" Camille asked. "I didn't attend the concert personally, but I've heard many praises of your performance. It's surprising I've never heard of a gem like you until now, especially a Vastaya."
"S-she… she's new in the city," Mewe stammered.
"I see," Camille said. "Would you like to share where you're from, Pearl? Might I say that it's a beautiful name too. Is it your artist name or your real name?"
The lady had not blinked once since Lamb and Mewe entered the room, her eyes seemed to shine with its own light source. Lamb also found it fascinating how slow and precise the woman's heartbeats were, never straying from its set rhythm.
"I'm sorry," Mewe blurted out. "I don't think this will work out. Thank you for the invitation but we'll have to decline."
"But you haven't even tried the tea," Camille said smoothly. "And I haven't given my offer yet."
Mewe downed his cup of tea and grabbed Lamb's hand. "Come, Pearl. Let's go." His fingers trembled.
"Careful, Mister Mewe," The lady's voice turned cold. "Rudeness is a sure way to an ugly death."
"It's even more rude that the person who invited us isn't here," Mewe retorted. "I'll have you know that there are more patrons… waiting…" He couldn't finish his sentence. His eyes unfocused and he let go of Lamb's hand. His knees hit the carpet with a muffled thump and he would've planted his face on the ground if not for Camille catching his forehead with the flat side of her bladed leg.
"I never expected him to drink it all at once." Camille twisted her leg and spun a snoring Mewe onto his back. Her electrical eyes turned back to Lamb. "Now we can talk more comfortably. Don't worry. Nothing in this room will be documented."
Lamb took another cream puff.
"Only you and I will know about this meeting," Camille continued, resting her chin on top of her hand. "And I assure you that no one has managed to extract any vital information out of me, though many have tried."
"I don't know what you mean," Lamb replied.
"An unknown Vastaya appears out of nowhere and pulls people's attention like that pink-haired songstress? A bit odd, isn't it?"
"People come all the time to the City of Progress to try and fulfill their dreams."
"Dreams." Camille tasted the word and a small frown appeared on her perfect skin. "Duty comes before dreams."
"Whichever path chosen, they still head towards the same end."
"Same end, you say?" Camille leaned back in her chair and took a sip of her tea. "Did you know you're not the first sheep Vastaya here in Piltover? Not long ago, the sheriff and her knuckles caught an illegal immigrant working at a local library. It turned out that the person in question was also a sheep Vastaya just like you." She put down her cup with a small clink. "How do you think that ended?"
"I don't know."
"What a coincidence. I have no idea either." Camille said. "You see, there was nothing in the written reports. I suspect Vi personally shredded that report and Caitlyn burned the remains. They can be quite tight-lipped, that duo. I would have a better chance to make a stone talk." She drummed her fingers on the table. "Thankfully, instead of a stone, I found the head librarian who hired the Vastaya."
Lamb hesitated for a split second, but it was enough to put a smile on Camille's face.
"He had the weirdest things to say," Camille continued, "He claimed that the Vastaya was one of the Eternal Hunters. Can you believe Death working as a librarian?"
"Almost as folly as those who strip off their humanity for duty."
The smile on Camille's face thinned to a line. "So you have no connection with that part-time librarian?"
Lamb shook her head.
"And I take it that the mask on your hip is just another coincidence?"
"I like the shape of it."
Camille drummed her fingers on the table, then sighed. "This is a waste of time." She turned her chair away from the table and raised her leg above her head, then let it fall, the blade closing in on Mewe's neck like a guillotine.
An arrow pierced the metal leg, sending Camille crashing onto the wall and the chair tumbling.
Lamb put down her bow and took another pastry cream. "Was that necessary?"
"More efficient than trying to catch you in a lie." Camille said, rising from the rubble and wiping a dark smear from her lips. She set the chair upright before taking a seat again. "Although too crude for my style. Where's your toothy partner?"
"Playing with a new toy at the bottom of Zaun," Lamb replied. "He likes how it squeaks whenever he chews on it."
"First a librarian, and now a singer," Camille shook her head. "You don't make much sense."
"Death seldom does."
"Still," Camille adjusted her hair. "As the singer Pearl, you've trespassed into Piltover and performed without any permits. A few investigators have also found out that mister Mewe over there is a master of forgeries who previously worked for Baron Takeda."
"Are you forbidding death to enter Piltover?" Lamb asked in an amused tone.
Camille scoffed. "I'd have a better chance of catching the moon. But I do have some information I wish you to see." She pulled out a document from an inner pocket. "A strange phenomenon has been on the rise in Piltover. People seem to zone out without any reason. Unmoving and glassy-eyed. We thought it was a new side-effect of the Gray but it's even affecting people who live far from the smogs.
"We found no correlations that fit until three days ago, when you had your performance at the Crystal Theater." Camille looked up. "Almost all the guests who watched you perform showed the same dazed symptoms, but with a higher frequency and lasting much longer."
Lamb glanced through the documents with a sinking feeling. "They're stunned by my songs?"
"They're affected by your presence," Camille said, "Those who have heard your songs just succumb to it more quickly. They stop whatever they're doing, frozen for a few seconds. For a single person it might not seem like much, but imagine it happening throughout the city. An engineer who fails to notice the increasingly high pressure in a steam vault, a scientist experimenting with dangerous chemicals. Those small blanks can lead to disastrous events. To stop, even for a moment, means death for the City of Progress."
What keeps a man afloat? His limbs? His lungs? No. It's his fear of drowning.
Illaoi's booming proclamation returned in full strength. The Truth Bearer had spoken of life's motion and how people moved due to their fear of death. If that fear disappeared, the world would stand still, and the humans' will to live would fade.
Lamb turned to the snoring Mewe on the ground. She'd thought it had been the Zaunite's own whims and fate to be reckless and daring with the forged checks to pay the Crystal Theater, to run through streets filled with patrol wardens just to pick up an outfit. But it had all been due to his lack of fear for her.
"Duty comes before dreams," Camille repeated, pouring herself another cup of tea. "I wouldn't dare to forbid Death from anything. I would however recommend performing with longer breaks in between."
"What about Mewe?" Lamb asked.
"The Ferros clan can protect him from Baron Takeda," Camille said, " and also bail him out of the payment for the Crystal Theater. We have use for people of his talent." She slid a card over the table. It had the mark of the Ferros clan. "Next time you wish to visit Piltover as Pearl or another alias, do pay us a visit. I promise we'll make your stay here much more comfortable."
"I'm so sorry Pearl," Mewe spluttered. "It must've been so embarrassing that I fell asleep in the middle of everything. I guess the sleepless nights finally caught up to me. What a manager I turned out to be, eh?"
They were walking down the Boundary Markets again, where everything had started. Pearl was in veil and robes, hiding her features even more than before. It might be for the best to not get swarmed by unsuspecting fans.
He'd woken up outside the Ferros Manor, sitting on a bench next to Pearl. She'd said Camille had been there just to entertain the duo since Albus Ferros was running late. According to Pearl, the man who invited them had arrived a few minutes after Mewe dozed off and she managed to strike a deal with him.
Mewe was deeply embarrassed over his assumption that the Gray Lady of Ferros had other sinister things in mind and profusely apologized to Pearl as they strolled past crates and stalls accompanied by the cranks and whistles of the hexdraulic conveyors.
"I'll have to leave Piltover for a while."
It took a moment for Mewe to register Pearl's words but when it hit him, his jaw dropped and the words flooded. "What? Why? Did the Ferros threaten you? Is it me? Did the wardens ask you questions? Is it a creepy fan? Oh no, what if it's —"
Pearl held out a finger. The same gesture she did whenever his worries spilled out, but this time her finger touched his lips.
"One question, please," she said.
His mind gave him a headache from all the questions fighting to be asked, but one came out undefeated. "Will you come back?"
"Yes."
She returned to her walk and Mewe followed promptly next to her. He glanced down at her fingers poking out from the long robe sleeve. He'd played with the thought now and then but never imagined for her finger to really touch his lips. It had felt surprisingly cold.
"Mewe, I have a question."
"Hmm?" He looked up to see Pearl staring at him. Her eyes seemed to glow under the hood. "What, oh sure. Ask away!"
"Have there been any moments where you have feared me?"
"Never," Mewe said instantly, then feeling it wasn't enough, he added, "Never, ever, ever. I have feared for you but never of you. How could I? The first time we met, when I saw you sitting on that crater singing to whoever listened, it was so captivating. When I'm with you, the city seems to slow to a halt."
His ears and cheeks prickled with heat and he looked away. He'd taken the line from a play, but that was how he felt when he was with Pearl. When they were together, he didn't worry about his troubling past or dream of a hopeful future. He just enjoyed the lovely present.
"Thank you, Mewe."
Pearl's voice pierced through his ears. It was soft and warm and wrapped around his mind like a blanket. His vision blurred as she uttered another word.
"Farewell."
When Mewe snapped out of his daze, Pearl was nowhere to be seen. Vendors shouted out their goods over the hissing and cranks from Piltover's machinery. The scent of oil and soot lay heavy in the air. Crowds pushed past, hurrying towards their destinations with sweat dripping from their skin due to the cloudless sky.
The City of Progress was moving.
