Chapter 25 - Juncture
Friedenau, 4. Herbstmond, 919 n. d. B.
Sehr geehrter Hoher Seher Alweiss,
Ich muss gestehen, dass ich höchst verwirrt war, als König Sansa mir befahl, hier in Friedenau zu bleiben und nicht mit der Dyade nach Neuengelstadt zurückzukehren. Dies gilt umso mehr, als mir Feldmarschall Pritchard mitteilte, dass seine Entscheidung offenbar auf Ihren Anwalt zurückzuführen sei.
Auch wenn ich keinen Blick in die Zukunft werfen kann, weiß ich doch genau, dass der Dyade nicht mehr lange auf seine jetzige Form warten wird. Er scheint sich dessen selbst bewusst zu sein, denn als wir ihn hier festnahmen, flehte er uns an, nachzugeben und ihn in Ruhe zu lassen, damit er seine Zeit als Frospino im Dorf verbringen könne. Ich gebe zu, dass die Episode meine Gefühle gestört hat. Vielleicht sprechen meine früheren Erfahrungen als Heiler, aber es gibt nur wenige Dinge, die so erbärmlich sind wie ein Kind, das unter Tränen fleht. Mein Oberstleutnant war weniger zurückhaltend als ich und erlaubte ihm in den letzten Tagen, sich frei im Dorf zu bewegen.
Das heißt aber nicht, dass wir ihm freie Hand lassen. Wo auch immer er hingeht, bleibt er unter den wachsamen Augen von mir und meinen Untergebenen und kehrt jeden Abend in unser Lager außerhalb des Dorfes zurück. Was auf dem Spiel steht und nach all den Schwierigkeiten, die er mir und meinen Truppen bereitet hat, als sie ihn durch das Reich jagten, haben wir nicht vor, diese Erfahrung zu wiederholen. Bisher war er kooperativ und die relative Freiheit scheint seine Stimmung merklich gehoben zu haben.
Ich weiß nicht warum König Sansa oder seine Vertrauten mich so lange ausgeschlossen haben, aber wenn es Ihnen gelingt, das Ohr des Königs zu gewinnen, lassen Sie ihn wissen, dass ich daran glaube, wenn die Dyade nicht nach Neuengelstadt gebracht werden soll es im Interesse des Reiches liegt, ihn hier zu behalten. Dies ist ein friedliches Dorf, weit genug von der Front entfernt, dass wir uns lange vor drohenden Unruhen an sicherere Orte zurückziehen können. Sie können einen Blick in die Zukunft werfen, nicht wahr? Wäre es nicht einfacher, auf diese Weise die Gunst der Kräfte zu gewinnen, die in ihm schlummern?
Aber ich verstehe, dass es nicht meine Aufgabe ist, diese Entscheidung zu treffen. Auch wenn ich meine eigene Meinung deutlich zum Ausdruck gebracht habe, werde ich als sein Diener treu an allem festhalten, was König Sansa beschließt.
Ich bitte ihn nur seine Wünsche mir gegenüber offen zu äußern.
- Brief des Oberst Kim Brutalandasohn an Hoher Seher Alweiss Fremdersohn
Much to Dalton's surprise, the journey from Shift Square back to the Administrative District was surprisingly uneventful. For all his worries about Pokémon from the Thieves' Guild, they had a single run-in near the bridge over the river which the scarf Igna and Ansel gave them quickly got them out of. Beyond that, there were a couple occasions where they made a point of giving approaching Gendarmen a wider berth just in case the student's scarf around his neck and the others they'd pilfered off that clothesline wasn't disguise enough for moving around, but the biggest headaches they'd had while going back to his old university had been the hurried bathing they'd done in that dingy communal chamber to try and tamp down their scents before leaving the Möbius, and simply navigating the crowds along the way.
It'd been years since Dalton had been back here, but everything was much as he'd remembered it. There were the same grounds and wood-and-stone built between and into the bases of ancient towers. There were the same streets on the ground which laid in the shade of the ones that were built on the remains of ancient bridges above.
And of course, there were the same Pokémon in university garb heading about their lives. Well, perhaps not truly the same since terms in University weren't indefinite, but even if younger, they did much the same things he and the Pokémon he remembered did: talking with companions, hurrying off to try and make it to lectures, or just stopping to take in the world passing around them amidst the reclaimed ruins. A little glimpse of everyday life that could almost make one forget that there was a war grinding the Kingdom down even from across an entire sea.
"Dalton, are all of these buildings part of the University?"
Dalton glanced back over his shoulder towards Irune staring up at him wide-eyed. She had an awed, curious look that Kate and Lyle shared, even if theirs were directed more towards their present surroundings.
He supposed that was one way to tell that the novelty of Newangle City hadn't worn off on them.
"Well, some of these are housing or shops catering to the students, but otherwise yes," the Heliolisk answered. "This is the Universität von Wahrheit, my old university before I had to leave it to help with… family matters."
He instantly felt a twinge of regret as soon as the words left his mouth. He could see the curious look in the others' eyes, and it was always a story that he hated retelling… precisely because it would get him thinking about how far away he was from having a chance of giving his story the conclusion a more idealistic part of him still yearned for.
He shook his head, eager to try and shift the topic of attention.
"But that's getting beside the point. The Royal Library we need to pay a visit to later is actually on the Upper Streets at the west end of the university," he explained. "It's a bit of a climb up, so naturally, we'd be better off searching for those books that Irune's looking for here at the university first before going to take care of that job Igna and Ansel gave us."
Kate cocked a brow and folded her arms in reply, giving an idle twitch of her ear feather.
"Really, Scales?" she asked. "With the way you've been holding onto that badge of yours all this time, you can go ahead and just admit that you're nostalgic for the hoity-toity life right now."
Dalton frowned at the Sneasel's remark. Even if he didn't like the way she characterized it, he couldn't say it was really wrong. Back in university, it was easy to think one was a world away from the war and all the troubles afflicting the Kingdom, much less from the life he'd been living the past few years.
The rational part of him knew full well that those feelings would've ultimately been fleeting, even if everything with his parents and their textile mill hadn't happened…
"Well, maybe I am. But I was serious about it being better to start searching here in the university," he insisted. "I can think of a few places where we can look around for the sorts of myth and folklore texts that Irune was looking for."
"Yeah, well can you hurry it up a bit?" Lyle asked. "Since I'm not really liking the look of those clouds above us."
Dalton turned his head up and noticed that the skies above were gray and overcast, noticeably moreso than when they'd first left the Möbius in the morning. He supposed that was a sign that rain Ansel told them about would arrive soon, so of course a Fire-type like Lyle would be particularly eager to hurry along.
Fortunately, based on the ancient tower coming up just on their left, it didn't look like he'd have to keep Lyle waiting for long. Dalton followed it down with his eyes to a stone and timber building built into its base, and raised his unsplinted arm up to point off at it.
"We'll want to go through there then," he said. "The first place that I had in mind was a set of bookstores, and it'll be quicker to cut through that building over there to get to them."
Dalton went up the steps and through a set of open doors. He let his eyes adjust to the light as his surroundings gave way to a hallway with wooden columns that suddenly opened up into a large shaft that looked like it was taller than the Möbius itself inside. Its contents made no secret of the building's age, with walls that were a mishmash of ancient concrete and wood and mortar balconies and extensions built on top of them or else to fill gaps.
That was certainly the History Department's atrium that he'd remembered from his university days, yes. And the hallways splintering off also looked familiar to him, too.
"That one," he said. "We want to go north right now."
After briefly pointing out one of the hallways, he and the rest of Team Forager set off pattering their feet against wooden flooring. Judging from how quiet things were, they had come in between lectures, as the hall was barren aside from the occasional Pokémon or two seated near a door in a hallway reviewing books or papers—students still got in last-minute cramming, he saw.
The snippets of chatter he overheard coming from doors left ajar sounded familiar, too. There was one where he lingered long enough to peek past the door, where he glimpsed a lecture about the remains of a human machine that resembled a modern Stückofen¹ used to smelt iron and other metals. The Heliolisk vaguely recalled from an old Anthropology course that they those Stückofen-resemblings machines had a curious tendency to be found with crystalized Ether inside them—'Gems', as they were called. He'd forgotten much of what he learned about them, but he distinctly remembered that they were rarely encountered in nature, outside of some tales of how they allegedly turned up relatively frequently in caves from the mythical land of Annal.
He couldn't help but smile as memories of happier times came to him, and before he knew it, Dalton and the rest of Team Forager reached the end of the hall. There was another set of doors in an entrance hall built in a more modern style with timber and stone fittings. The push-pad gave way after leaning into it with his good arm, letting him and his companions step out into the fresh air outside.
The university really was much the same as he remembered it—
"How are you all not just tired of this?!"
Dalton jerked his head up after hearing a harsh shout come from beyond the door before it'd opened more than a crack. There was a flash of worry amongst his teammates, with Kate in particular seeming particularly uneasy as they followed him out, with Lyle brushing past him and rearing up just beside to try to get a better view.
"Huh? What's-?"
"Every day for years, we've been told that victory is just around the corner! That if we bleed and sacrifice a little more, that next year we'll be in Lumena!"
Dalton let the door close behind them and looked down the steps for the source of the voice: it was a golden-furred Ninetales perched on an outcropping in front of a small crowd of onlookers. She was wearing a student's scarf like him, and stamped the pedestal and flared her tails in visible agitation.
"There's a levy going around this city right now! I say that I don't give a damn about whatever fields are captured in Edialeigh, the fastest way that this madness ends is if we just say 'no'. To tell the army and whoever wants to keep this going that we're done! To tell them that we won't go!"
Dalton averted his gaze as a few scattered cries came in affirmation from the crowd, which were more than drowned out by worried murmurs in it.
He supposed that some things had changed from when he was here as a student. When he was there, the kingdom's present invasion of Edialeigh was still relatively young, and even if Pokémon were tired, there was still enough hope for progress that sentiments like this against the war were kept in the realm of quiet grumbles or posters that could be quietly put up while nobody was watching.
There were times after Dieter's death when he wanted to scream out his feelings to the world. That those green-plated Mistkerle had taken his brother's loyalty to Truth and Kingdom and wasted it for nothing.
And yet, he always shrank back at every moment of truth. There was always too much to lose from going outside the boundaries expected of a future Edler. For himself and his parents…
Until there suddenly weren't.
"Scales, I think that we should get going."
Dalton turned his head after Kate gave a sharp tug at his shoulder. He looked off after her where he saw an Amoonguss and a Poliwrath in green plates approaching from the edge of the crowd, with others in similar attire prowling forward elsewhere on the street.
He already knew what would come next, and that even if they weren't presently wanted 'mon, that it was best for them to stay out of things and not get involved.
"Right, this way."
Dalton led them down a set of side steps and briskly walked away from the Ninetales and the rest of the crowd. They had scarcely made it to the end of the blocks when shouting and the sounds of a general disturbance rang out from behind him. Dalton glanced back towards his teammates and saw Lyle tugging Irune along, who looked visibly drained of color, while Kate kept her ears pinned and her teeth set on edge.
Dalton turned his head back and held his gaze low, deciding that he didn't want to know what was going on back in front of the History Department. A part of him felt disgusted with himself for just turning away and ignoring things when the difference between him as a student and the Ninetales was that the fox had merely been braver about voicing her ideals publicly.
He supposed that was a freedom that Mystery Dungeons and the hinterlands offered to those who were at odds with 'normal' life. He must've adjusted to the change of lifestyle more than he thought if he was finding himself yearning for it barely even a day away from those places where he could just melt away.
No matter. With a little luck, they'd be back there and free to worry about their next leg to the Divine Roost come sunup—
"Hold it."
Dalton's heart skipped a beat as he raised his head and saw a Skuntank and Ludicolo approach from the left and cut them off. There was a moment of tense silence as the guards studied them closely, before the Skuntank swayed his tail back and forth with a sharp frown.
"We saw you four skulking around the History building," the Skuntank said. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
Dalton held his breath as the Skuntank's pungent musk pricked his nose and stole glances at his teammates. They had been caught about as off-guard as he had. It wouldn't be hard to get away from these two, but how many of their companions were nearby? How many more would be coming in light of the disturbance up the street?
Dalton hurriedly went through his satchel and passed his university badge over. He didn't know if those bookstores would still work out, but right now, they just needed to get the hell away from these two guards.
"Ich bin Dieter, ein Absolvent von hier. Ich hatte gehofft ein paar Freunden hier rum zeigen zu können, bevor ich die Königliche Bibliothek besuche."ᴰ¹
Dalton swallowed down a lump as Dieter's name left his throat. It wasn't the first time he'd used his brother's name as an alias, but every time he did always made a part of him feel unwell hiding behind him like that. He tried to block out those feelings and keep his attention on the guards as the Ludicolo took the badge and sized it up, but still felt a flash of heat behind him. … Lyle must have been venting fire from stress again.
The Ludicolo briefly played around with his badge before tossing it back with a sour grunt.
"You can spare me your frilly Hightongue," the Ludicolo scoffed. "Though don't waste your time with that trip up to the Royal Library. It's closed to the public today, including for students."
Dalton briefly flared his frill in surprise only to fight it back with a wince as his teeth set on edge. Closed? The Royal Library?
"Wh-What?!" he protested. "But it's the middle of the day! Why on earth would the Royal Library be closed right now?!"
"Hell if I know," the Skuntank said. "A bunch of soldiers apparently went through it right before it shut for the day, so your guess is as good as mine."
Dalton blinked for a moment at the Skuntank's reply. Soldiers went to the library earlier? As in the Pokémon from the Army and not just the city Gendarmen?
What on earth would ever compel them to do that? He felt cool fur brush past his flank and saw Kate slipping past. She had her ears pinned back, and her mouth hung open with an incredulous frown.
"Really? The army has nothing better to do than to mess around with a library?"
"You're welcome to not believe me if you want, but the point is that you're not getting in there today," the Ludicolo chimed in. "It's not going to kill you to wait a day and come back tomorrow."
It… honestly just might. The four of them couldn't afford to go back to Igna and Ansel without those books from the Royal Library. Especially if they didn't feel like getting their hides tanned by those two and the Thieves' Guild, potentially literally. Not that their predicament was something to go blurting out loud to these two at the moment.
"... Right, thanks for the advice," Dalton sighed.
Dalton started to head off and noted his companions shadowing him. He walked along, his paces coming tense and calculated, if consciously avoiding going too fast just yet.
"Sepp, are you sure that we should just let them go like that?" the Ludicolo's voice asked from behind. "Since I could've sworn that I saw those four somewhere, especially the Axew."
Dalton picked up the pace and fought the urge to break into a run until he lost sight of the guards. He dropped all pretense of hiding and then ran ahead like his life depended on it. His mind spun as the streets flew by and he heard footfalls mixed in with the sounds of passersby.
There was no way in hell they were just going to be able to walk up to those bookstores, and right then, he didn't know if it was even safe to go looking around the university at all.
He led his teammates up the street and then right, then left, then right again down a back alley lined with bins and then past a little alcove where there was a door to a concrete shaft up to a bridge running through an ancient ruin above. The metal door and frame caked in rust were the same, and so was the wall that was clearly much, much older than them.
The padlock wasn't. That was certainly new to him.
He paused to catch his breath, as Irune went up to him worriedly.
"Dalton, where are we?" she asked. "This doesn't look like a set of bookstores at all."
"It's not. It's a stairwell that leads up to the Upper Streets near the Royal Library," he replied.
He turned to his teammates as they gathered around with puzzled frowns, and shook his head with a low sigh.
"We're in a bit of a tight spot and are going to need to make some hard decisions," he said. "So let's take a moment to try talk through our options."
"I mean, is it too late just to go through the Undercity and get out of here?" Kate asked.
A grave silence hung in the air. Even if Dalton didn't trust the two further than he could throw them, perhaps they'd been a bit hasty blowing off Igna and Ansel when they insisted on going through the Undercity. But how would they ever explain going through there without ever setting foot into the Royal Library?
"I'm not sure if we'll ever see the light of day again if we try that, Kate," Lyle said. "If some random Grünhäuter have been tipped off about us, what are the odds that we'd make it through the gates without getting caught?"
That was right. If the Gendarmen here had been informed of their identities, someone had surely put two and two together that they'd likely been smuggled in through one of the main gates.
… All the more reason why they would want to be able to travel the Undercity without worrying about constantly fighting off ambushes.
"But we can't just leave without trying to find out about those powers in me!" Irune protested. "We'll never get another chance if we do!"
Dalton raised his head and saw Irune's expression had taken on a desperate tinge. It made him a bit uncomfortable to see like that, and he didn't want to leave her dangling like this, but it was hard to see how abandoning the Axew's effort wasn't the lesser of two evils.
Heavy footsteps came from the far end of the alley, prompting Dalton and his companions to freeze and duck behind a bin. An armored Hariyama walked past the alley's mouth and briefly scanned it before moving along. Dalton held his breath and waited until the guard moved along, when he cautiously emerged along with his teammates and turned his attention back to the padlock.
"Let's go someplace else. Someplace a bit further where we can talk a bit more freely," he said, before running the padlock between the fingers of his left hand.
"Kate, can you-?"
"Way ahead of you there, Scales."
Kate went up to the lock and fished out her Iron Thorn from her belongings, fishing around for its pin before it gave way and the padlock came undone. The chain was easy for them to pull off afterwards, along with the door, with Lyle doing the honors of using his natural fire to lead the group up the ancient stairs until they reached the top. Dalton waited for the Quilava to step out first before following along with the others into a tunnel with flat walls and a roof, along with a raised walkway that overlooking a road about an Aggron's height below them. The place was just as Dalton had remembered from his time at University. Why, it was even still dimly lit by Luminous Moss lanterns hung from the center.
"Dalton, what on earth is this place?" Lyle asked.
"It's a tunnel that's part of an ancient ramp up to the Upper Streets," Dalton explained. "It's still relatively intact, so Pullers use it to bring cargo up to the portions of the Upper Streets that are still accessible. More importantly for us, the rest of the stairs up towards the Royal Library are just a ways down from here."
Dalton began to look off down the tunnel when a loud clatter rang out and suddenly filled it. Amidst the dim lighting, he briefly saw a Camerupt pulling along an open-backed cart laden with hay, the Heliolisk just making out a low grumble as the Camerupt passed.
"Ach, du lieber Himmel², since when were there checkpoints around here?"
Dalton blinked and tilted his head after the Camerupt as the Puller lumbered along with his hay cart. Maybe he was just still on-edge from running into those two Gendarmen earlier, but 'checkpoints'?
A sharp tug at his scales reminded him of Irune's presence. She was staring at him now, visibly fidgeting her claws nervously.
"Dalton, if we're not looking around in the university, how are we supposed to find those mythology books?"
The Heliolisk paused briefly. He was a bit iffy about the idea, but he supposed there was still one way to try and help Irune with her search…
"... We'd have to try and find them the library," he said. "One of the books on the list that Igna and Ansel gave us was The Collected Legends of Wander. We'd naturally find it shelved with other books about myths and folklore, so there's a good chance that something about these powers of yours will turn up."
Or at least it ought to be a good chance, anyways. The Royal Library wasn't small, but they were putting a lot of eggs all into one basket right now. He studied his teammates' reactions and while Kate didn't seem bothered by the suggestion, Lyle looked tense and had his ears pinned firmly back against his head.
"Dalton, I don't like this. We get here, the place is swarming with guards, and now the Royal Library's closed on top of things?" the Quilava asked. "Did Igna and Ansel know about this? If they did, why didn't they tell us?"
The Heliolisk sucked in a breath and set his teeth on edge. Maybe it was all just a coincidence, but Lyle was onto something, and things weren't adding up here. If Igna and Ansel really needed these books on such short notice, wouldn't they have brought up a detail this significant so they could better prepare and increase their chances of successfully bringing those books back?
"But this is the only chance that I'll have to know for sure what my power is!" Irune insisted. "And what are we supposed to do if we go back to Igna and Ansel empty-handed?"
Dalton caught and thought back to the threats that the Marowak and Fearow made the other day… along with the ones they made just before sending them off. Whatever the story was behind Igna and Ansel not telling them about the library being closed, it didn't matter. Unless they were going to try and flee Newangle City right here and now with the inadequate supplies they'd gathered in the past day, they had to bring those books back to them.
He studied his teammates' reactions and saw that they were on-edge like him… aside from Kate, who still seemed unfazed all this time as she tapped a foot and folded her arms with a skeptical frown.
"Wait, but what exactly is the problem here? If this library's closed, shouldn't it just be a matter of breaking in without getting spotted?" Kate asked. "I mean, I get that it's not some random shack, but I made my way through an army base on my own once. It can't be harder than that, right?"
Dalton had to fight not to roll his eyes at the Sneasel's remark. Lyle seemed like he was similarly unimpressed as he turned to the Sneasel with a sharp harrumph.
"Kate, this is a place that's run by the King and the Hofstaat. Be realistic," the Quilava huffed. "I don't know what we're supposed to expect there, but I doubt we're going to be able to get in just by breaking a window."
Dalton paused as his mind turned back to what he remembered of the Royal Library and its surroundings. It was certainly true that they wouldn't be breaking in through any windows around its main entrances, but…
"Actually… that might not be as impossible as you think," Dalton said. "It'll be a bit risky, but if things haven't changed much since the last time I was in this city, it's at least theoretically doable as long as we're quick about it."
Everyone else perked up to attention after that. Maybe he should've talked a bit more about the risks, but it was too late now. They were all staring at him with incredulous gapes, and it was obvious that they all wanted to know more.
"Wait, we can?" Irune asked. "Dalton, just how would that work?"
Sophia lowered her head into the pool's water and threw it back, letting the beads of water roll down her feathers. As odd as it felt to be bathing deep within the bowels of a human ruin, much less one which housed quarters for nobles when they were summoned by the Hofstaat, in some respects it was just like any other bath she'd taken before in her life.
Just like every other time she got this wet, her plumage was everywhere. The Corvisquire could already tell from the water still dripping from her beak and wingtips that she'd need to spend some time preening the vanes of her feathers before she'd be optimally flightworthy again. She made her way up to the edge of the basin, and brought her beak up to her flight feathers to begin to tend to them.
And as she always did whenever she preened herself, she could see those ugly gouges in her chest plumage and under her left wing that she'd picked up during the homefront campaign. How long had it been since then? Almost a decade? And yet here they still were, an uncomfortable reminder of that first brush with death. And of the trials she'd endured undergoing muscle therapy to fly again afterwards.
At the same time, there were things that were different about this bath. Even while preening, it was hard to not notice how the light of lanterns hung up around the chamber was the only thing illuminating the white-and-gray tiling placed over ancient walls underneath—the chamber was too deep inside the ancient tower around it to see natural sunlight. The water in the pool she'd just exited had been warm to the touch much as if it were a hot spring. According to Lacan,the water for nobles' quarters built in towers like this one in the Administrative District was heated by furnaces that heated air vented underneath the floors, much like they would be in some more elaborate countryside manors. As incredible as it first sounded when it was explained to her, there were apparently a set of ancient internal cisterns which fed pools like these through piping which had been patched up and rebuilt with the ages.
In the time of the Founder, a set of pumps driven by tamed thunder brought the water up all the way from the base of the tower. They had worn out centuries ago and nobody knew how to repair or replace them, while all the alternatives driven by Pokémon or wind had proven wholly inadequate to move the water up so many metri above the ground. In modern times, the cisterns were fed from rainwater captured on unused rooftops or blocks of ice brought in from ice houses which melted above the topmost cistern to cascade down to the others below.
Sophia had heard of the needs of the war forcing even nobles to do without in some cases, but she never imagined something as simple as water would ever be one of them. And yet, here in this tower where Lacan's visiting quarters in the city were, the cisterns' water was strictly rationed to the point that the bathing pool she was in was filled for just a few hours a day. And precious enough that it was set aside for communal usage by all the Pokémon that were housed in this sliver of floors far above the ground…
"Frau Kranoviz?"
… including for the garrison of soldiers who posted to keep watch over those nobles' quarters, which Sophia had completely forgotten about. The Corvisquire let out a startled caw and reflexively shielded her scars on her chest with her wings. She always hated it when she didn't have her breastplate on and other Pokémon saw those ugly, lingering gouges in her feathers. It was why Lacan had suggested coming to bathe while the pool was still in the process of filling up and it'd be mostly empty.
Not as empty as she'd wished, it seemed.
Sophia sucked in a breath and turned her head up towards the voice only to freeze with a surprised blink. There, waiting further down the edge of the pool were a Raichu and Haxorus in green armor plates who hastily saluted with paw and claw over their hearts. The same ones who had guided them through Heldenschloss to the King's quarters the other day.
"Graf Brutalanda sent us to fetch you and help prepare you to head out," the Raichu said, his gait and demeanor visibly strained. "He says that you have a mission of some sort to get to."
… What on earth were those two doing here anyways? Guards usually had regular assignments at specific posts even in settlements far smaller than Newangle City. King Siegmund's palace was on a whole different tower hundreds of metri further up into the sky, hardly a post these two could just conveniently go back to on their own…
"... Aren't you two a bit far from the gates of Heldenschloss right now?"
The Haxorus pawed at the back of his neck uneasily, and looked aside with an uneasy hem and haw.
"Erm… w-well, we are, but King Siegmund thought we didn't put our best foot forward when dealing with you and that Graf," he explained. "He… uh… strongly insisted that we take a break from our normal duties to make a better impression on you two before you left the city."
"Max, you can just tell her that we're being punished," the Raichu harrumphed. "Really, what else are you supposed to call suddenly doing the work of servants and being stuck getting snapped at by a bitter pill of a Salamence-?"
The Raichu was cut off by a small swat from the Haxorus' tail along with a sharp glare. The Haxorus turned back to the Corvisquire, as she noticed the dragon force an overeager smile onto his face.
"I-I assure you, we didn't mean any offense, Frau Kranoviz," he insisted. "Being able to protect His Majesty is just a high honor a-and we were just trying to do our utmost to live up to it."
Sophia narrowed her eyes and noted for a moment that the pair seemed to be strangely on-edge. The Haxorus for whatever reason seemed almost frightened and was nervously pawing at the armor plate over his belly. Just what sort of warning could the King have given the pair to make them this uneasy?
It then occurred to her that this was around the time of the year that the last levies went out for soldiers to deploy to Edialeigh before winter set in. The King hadn't gone so far as to threaten these two with that, had he…?
She decided that it was best not to wonder too much about whatever King Siegmund had told the pair. Whatever had happened, it wasn't her place to interfere, and the sooner she could finish preening her feathers and get into the air again, the better.
"I understand, Herr Maxax," she sighed. "I will dry myself off and report to him immediately-"
"A-At least let us help you put on your armor!" the Haxorus insisted. "Graf Brutalanda told us we were supposed to help you, and it's not like you can put those plates on all by yourself with just wings and a beak, right?"
The Haxorus' Raichu counterpart shot him a sideways look briefly, before pausing and shaking his head.
"It would go by faster for us to take care of your straps, Frau Kranoviz," the Raichu said. "We just figured that since it sounds like Graf Wellenhafen is in a hurry to meet you, that it'd be a bit better for all of us if we didn't give him more things to be giving us earfuls over."
Sophia paused at the Raichu's response. Had Lacan gotten a lead as to where the Dyad and her companions were? Though if he were in such a rush, why didn't he come and fetch her himself? Did something happen?
Sophia glanced off at her armor and belongings sitting by the pool, along with a purple Eviolite necklace sitting on top of it along with her scarf… and the notes she'd taken from reviewing the records at the Royal Reliquary barely tucked away in her satchel. Gods, she had been such a fool to not put that away before bathing. What if one of the papers had gotten loose in front of those two?
She glanced over at the two guards and noted that they seemed every bit as on edge as her. Perhaps it was a bit daft, but maybe it'd be for the best to try and soothe the two's nerves a bit before leaving. Especially if it'd help keep them safely ignorant about any of those findings about Operation Avalanche she'd spent most of the past days gathering.
"That's fine," she sighed. "Just let me do the hard work of slipping my breastplate on."
The Haxorus and Raichu traded puzzled glances with each other but otherwise didn't contest things. Sophia beat her wings out and ruffled her feathers to try and shake some of the lingering moisture off, before hurriedly shoving the contents of her satchel deeper and turning to her effects. She stooped down and nudged her head into the loop of her Eviolite necklace. Then came the hole for her breastplate, and then finally her scarf.
The crow lowered her head and pinned her beak against her breastplate, before approaching the Haxorus and Raichu. Perhaps it was paranoia of hers, but she felt more comfortable with it the plate hugging up against her, where no one could see those ugly wounds on her body...
"... I'm ready."
The pair set to work at once, the Haxorus tending to her helmet, while the Raichu set about setting her back plate into place. The Corvisquire remained still as the straps came together, and raised her right wing when prompted. She then saw the Haxorus circle around to her left and stoop down only to pause and awkwardly clear his throat.
"Frau Kranoviz, I need you to lift your other wing for me in order to finish putting on your straps."
Sophia stiffened up and grimaced. There were also those scars on her left side of her body as well. They weren't as noticeable as the ones on her chest, but…
"I don't suppose it'd be possible for you to put those on without looking, would it?"
"I… don't think I can do that, Frau Kranoviz," the Haxorus said. "These straps a bit more involved, and I kinda need to see what I'm doing to make sure your armor is securely fastened."
Sophia knew that, but she always hated getting that answer. It was just a reality that she would have to bear for as long as she was still a Corvisquire, even if it didn't make it any more pleasant to face.
"... Just make it quick," she sighed.
Sophia raised her wing and felt the Haxorus link up her straps. He hesitated a moment, before hurriedly finishing and tightening them. She clamped her wing against her body the moment the drake's claws left her side.
Sophia stepped forward, looking up to see the Haxorus visibly squirming. She hardened her features into a frown, only to pause after she noticed a streaking scar poking out from the right of his armor plate over his belly. From how much it widened before his cloth armor covered the rest, it must've continued into a large gouge. One that would be hard to miss on the Haxorus' bare hide.
… Sophia looked aside with an uncomfortable ruffle of her feathers. A part of her felt selfish and childish for having been so insistent with the soldier earlier. It hadn't even occurred to her that the Dragon-type would also be able to relate to having an ugly wound lingering on his body, let alone one that he didn't have a hope of shedding upon another evolution as she did.
"Thank you for your patience with me, Herr Maxax," she said. "You got things done faster than I would've managed."
The Haxorus let out a sigh of relief. Sophia smiled back briefly before hastily gathering up her satchel, or at least she hoped it was a smile. It had been hard to derive much joy from her efforts as part of Operation Spark lately. Those readings at the Royal Reliquary the other day certainly didn't do anything to change that….
"... Something else on your mind, Frau Kranoviz?"
Sophia turned and saw the Raichu soldier staring at her, uneasily pawing at his shoulder. She faltered a moment and wondered if she should say something, before deciding against it. She slung her satchel across her back with a cawing sigh, taking a moment to inspect her wings for stray moisture.
"Just work matters. Nothing you need to be concerned about," she said. "Take your time with returning to Graf Wellenhafen's quarters. I understand that it's a bit more difficult to reach for Pokémon that can't fly."
She stopped and ran her beak over a few stray spots on her wings, before making her way to the door where the bathing chamber's exit was. The hallways of the ancient space seemed to blur together as the Corvisquire retraced her steps, and she all but ignored the decorative friezes and mosaics as troubled thoughts swirled in her mind:
Ever since leaving the Royal Reliquary, she'd had trouble getting Kim and Elly's letters out of her mind. She knew that she'd been ordered to review them and that learning from their mistakes could very well be the key for Operation Spark to succeed where Operation Avalanche had gone so horribly wrong in the past. Why, it was already a small miracle that the Dyad's trail provided them an opportunity to stop and review them.
Sophia had to stop partway through yesterday and then again a little past noon after returning in the morning, which a part of her was quietly thankful for. The last letter she'd been able to review before leaving the Royal Reliquary was one sent after Kim and Elly penned the past Dyad in Freeden Village. It mentioned some surprising details about how the two had dealt with that Dyad, but what struck her the most was how similar it all sounded. Yes, Kim and Elly were different, they were both of commoner stock and Kim apparently had a background as a healer, but the whole time, she just couldn't help but keep thinking of just how much the two's situation sounded like their own. Why, it was almost as if she were reading something from a prior life!
That was what made it all the worse, since that last letter had been written roughly just a couple weeks before the destruction of Freeden Village. The time and place of the great disaster that cowed Edialeigh into making peace and ended the Advent War.
A part of her hoped that they'd be forced to chase after the Dyad again away from this place. That she wouldn't get the chance to read the rest.
Just from what she read so far, she was already afraid of what she would find in the letters she hadn't gotten to yet.
"Gottverdammt, since when does it rain like this in Herbstmond?!"
Kate supposed that it was only natural that their luck would run out at some point. The climb up from the ancient tunnel Dalton led them through brought her and the rest of Team Forager to a second stairwell that passed a series of doors that all refused to budge no matter how much they were pushed. When they finally found a way out onto the Upper Streets, they emerged into an alleyway formed from the alcove of an ancient tower… along with a gray, overcast sky that was still pouring buckets of rain onto them.
They'd at least found an awning further down the alley to hide from the elements, but as the droplets of water she recoiled from reminded her, it was an imperfect shelter, to say the least.
She brushed the droplets from her pelt and moved away from the edge of the awning to get a better view of what lay ahead past its mouth. There, on the other end of a crumbling concrete bridge just off to their right, was their destination: a facade with a pillared portico and steps made of gray-and-white stone sprouting out from a place where the Upper Streets intersected with an ancient tower that continued up skywards. Except, even with her muddy farvision, she could already see a number of things ahead aside from the awful weather that were going to make the walk over difficult.
"Scales, are there normally that many guards posted around the Royal Library?" she asked. "I thought that Igna and Ansel said that they were hanging around university recently."
Kate originally hoped that it was her vision playing tricks on her, but a longer examination quickly brought them back to earth. At every corner around the library, there were green-plated guards posted keeping watch and occasionally milling about. Really, the only silver lining was that there didn't seem to be many fliers keeping tabs from the heights above. Probably because the weather would bog down anyone who couldn't stay in the air after inevitably getting soaked.
This… was definitely going to be harder than that army base she'd snuck into back in the day. She looked over at Dalton, who quietly sucked in a breath before shaking his head.
"That's admittedly more guards than I was expecting to be on-duty," he said. "Especially if the library really is closed."
Well, that certainly sounded promising. Not. At this rate, they'd probably have had better luck trying to swipe armor from Arsenal Avenue and then bluff their way into the guards' rotation!
Kate flattened her ears and looked back, seeing Irune casting anxious glances around. Right, this was their last shot at finding out whatever Irune wanted to about those freaky powers of hers. Of course the Axew would be cagey about the idea of sneaking past even more Grünhäuter than back on the Lower Streets.
"Dalton, weren't we supposed to get in by breaking a window?" Irune asked. "How on earth are we supposed to manage that when all the entrances are on the same streets as those guards?"
"By entering from below."
Dalton raised a hand and pointed off just below the ancient bridges. It took a moment to make things out from the distance, but there was a patch of wooden scaffolding and tarps that had been built along the side of the ancient ruins. Why, there was even a ropeway that headed off somewhere a couple floors below them on their present tower. Kate squinted to get a better view, when she suddenly noticed something weird about the construction site:
All the scaffolding and tarps looked downright ratty, like they'd just been rotting there for some time.
"... Just how long has all of that been down there anyways?" the Sneasel asked.
"Since before I first went to university," the Heliolisk explained. "The tower the Royal Library is in and the ones nearby were apparently in the process of being recladded a few years before the Benzen Revolt. For obvious reasons, the project's been in limbo since then."
A quiet chill went up Kate's spine at Dalton's mention of the 'Benzen Revolt'—the first of a series of uprisings that happened right before the last invasion of the Varhyde by Edialeigh. Kate hadn't been alive to see any of them herself, but her parents had told her that that was the point at which they'd been forced to leave their old lives behind.
Neither mom nor dad liked talking about what had happened during the Benzen Revolt or the years immediately following it much. And from the little she'd been able to glean from them while they were still around and from the stories she'd heard from others, Kate didn't blame them.
She shook her head to try and push those thoughts aside, before turning and seeing Lyle quietly frowning at the Heliolisk.
"Wait, but how would that help us get in, Dalton?" he asked.
"Because a number of windows and partitions which were put up where that scaffolding is are temporary panels that were never properly replaced by stone cladding," Dalton explained. "They're both further out of sight from where those guards are posted and would likely be easier to break into. Back when I was back in university, a number of the ones with windows didn't have proper glass panes on them."
Well, that would certainly make things a bit easier, since it'd be nice to not have to worry about getting cut up by glass shards after breaking in. There was just one problem: the scaffolds Scales pointed out were well below the height of the Upper Streets that they were presently on. Looking around, Kate could see a couple cantilevered platforms sprouting from ancient supports coming off the bridges—probably meant for objects to be lowered onto them by winches or pulleys—but no obvious stairs down.
"Oookay, and just how are we supposed to get there again?" the Sneasel asked. "Since that looks like a hell of a jump down there."
"By getting to that ropeway," Dalton explained. "It looks like it should be accessible just a few floors below us."
Kate tilted her head and looked back towards the platforms. It was a bit hard to make out since most of it was blocked from view by chunks of the Upper Street, but there really was some sort of rope bridge down there. There was a wordless moment where there was no sound but the rain pouring in the background as Kate tried to size up the odds in her mind. Irune must've been doing the same herself judging from that puzzled tilt of her head she was giving Scales right now.
"Wait, but then we had to have passed that floor on our way up," Irune said. "Why didn't we try breaking in through one of the doors in the stairwell?"
"One, those doors are sturdier than they look. Two, I don't know what exactly is on the other side of them, so it wouldn't make sense to alert any Pokémon that might be nearby," Dalton explained. "And most importantly…"
The Heliolisk trailed off as he peeked his head around a corner and motioned leftward. Kate crept up and stole a glance around the corner, flicking her ears impatiently.
"Scales, what are you-?"
She saw it almost immediately: the ancient concrete span just outside the alley had a sudden break with a pair of wooden spans built over them… along with one that hugged the side of the attached tower that was noticeably lower.
"There's a way onto that scaffolding from here that's much easier to reach. We just need to make it over and not get spotted."
Kate stared out at the pouring rain as a soft thunderclap rang out. She looked at her teammates and saw that everyone other than Dalton didn't look particularly enthused about the idea. Irune was warily putting a hand out to test the falling rain, while Lyle's vents were pouring fire with his face sporting an expression like a Grünhäuter had just walked in on them.
She flattened her ears and clicked her tongue with a low sigh.
"If it's really our best shot, I suppose we might as well get this over with," Kate said. "Lead the way."
Dalton waited a moment as a Pidgeot flew past the sky past the alley's mouth, before poking his head out and then hurrying left. Kate followed after him along with her teammates followed one by one. The street was fortunately on the quieter side and looked like it was taken up with offices for bookkeeping or something frilly like that rather than the bustling shops and dwellings they'd encountered on their way to the overlook with the Reshiram shrine… not that this seemed like great weather for going out and about in general.
Another peal of thunder rang out as Kate gave an involuntary shudder. She wasn't one for getting rained on like this, but why was this bothering her so much? She felt water under her feet and heard a splash, as the reason suddenly dawned on her:
It brought back bad memories.
Of frantically running away in the refugee camp as shouts rang out on a night which poured rain much like it was right now. The night when the Grünhäuter finally caught up with her mother and took her away.
"Kate, hurry up already!"
The Sneasel snapped to attention at Lyle's voice and saw him staring at her from the top of the lowered walkway. She hurriedly vaulted over the ledge and landed with a thump and looked down to see she was on the top of a set of scaffolding. She hurriedly scooted under the concrete of the ancient street overhead, just in time judging from the sound of approaching footsteps. She held her breath as the footsteps grew louder and then slowed to a stop, when a pair of voices rang out from above.
"That's strange, I thought that I saw someone down here," the first voice said.
"It's probably nothing. Just have Otto do a flyby to do a check."
Kate quietly set her teeth on edge as her heart pounded in her chest. She hadn't realized that they were that close to being discovered. She didn't dare to move a muscle as she waited for the voices to leave, only turning her head when they sounded suitably far away. Her teammates seemed shaken themselves, and were similarly panting and stealing tense looks around. She brushed water off her fur, as Lyle shook himself dry vigorously and warily glanced up.
"I don't think it's a good idea to hang around here and wait for that 'flyby' to happen," Lyle murmured. "Where are we supposed to go now?"
Kate looked down the length of the scaffolding, when she noticed that there were a set of ratty tarps up ahead, along with a ramp headed downwards.
"Well, heading down seems like as good a place to start as any," she said. "Will that help us get in, Scales?"
"... It's worth a shot, at least."
Dalton got up, taking a moment to carefully adjust his weight and avoid brushing his splinted arm as he led them down along the ramp. When they reached the next level down, they saw there was another ramp laid out in a switchback. And then another, and another. Though Kate supposed it made sense: after all, stairwells in buildings usually went up and down multiple levels in one place, so why wouldn't the Pokémon that made these scaffolds have the same idea?
The walls beside them also seemed to change as they went further down, going from crude panels with windows and shutters where Pokémon obviously lived and worked to vacant gaps starting around five levels down, and what looked like a black abyss further within. Dalton stopped at one of the gaps, before motioning along at the others to follow.
"Come on," he said. "I think we can make the rest of the way down from here."
After exiting the bathhouse, Sophia emerged into a towering shaft where rain was pouring down in heavy drops. She hesitated a bit and looked upwards towards the rain, seeing the entire circular shaft was ringed with balconies that stretched up floor after floor to a large hole where large windows might have once been present in ancient times.
She braced herself and sprang up, beating her wings. Lacan's quarters thankfully weren't that far above her in the grand scheme of things. While the height gave her a much-needed chance to spread her wings from the cramped corridors, this rain definitely made the flight up more of a chore than it normally would have been.
The floors' layouts and their balconies changed as she ascended, the spacious floors fitted with nobles' quarters giving way to closely-spaced housing for servants and guards, and then to gutted levels with exposed concrete and steel. It was apparently common for floors that were too far away from water or practical access for terrestrial Pokémon to be left in a derelict state, and with no sign of use beyond a few ladders and service entrances for the occasional cargo lift here or there, these were hardly exceptions. Not that one would ever know looking from the outside in: the stone cladding on the tower's exterior hid their decrepit state from the world. Sophia didn't know if King Agarez's efforts to beautify the Administrative District's spires had ever extended to interior chambers like these, but if so, they'd clearly rotted away centuries ago.
And eventually, as she began to approach the ceiling the floors began to show signs of being settled again. This time, the quarters for commoners came first, with the nobles whom they waited on being built above them, likely because they were closer to the access on the roof. Lacan's quarters lay in the middle of the settled band, and before she knew it, Sophia was coming to a stop on a wooden railing that filled in a missing patch of ancient concrete just in front of it.
She hopped off under the cover of the balcony and ruffled her feathers dry, before hopping down to the balcony. Her destination was not particularly hard to find: a set of double doors left open for her in waiting marked the site of Lacan's quarters.
She hurriedly preened her feathers of undue moisture before making her way into the apartment's entrance hall. These quarters, and most others of their ilk in Newangle City, were allocated to nobles and their families by the King and Hofstaat, as it was the law of the land that any noble was to appear before the ruling monarch of Varhyde when given a summons as soon as reasonably possible. As such, the interiors of these apartments lacked the personal touches of manors in the countryside, and tended to look much the same beyond any decorations their owners had brought in…
Which much to Sophia's surprise, Lacan's chosen decorations consisted of paintings hung along the wall. The entrance to a darkened canyon at sunset, a path running through a forest with mountains in the distance, a stripped tree on a grassy knoll… she didn't remember seeing any of these hung up the last time she had come to the Salamence's quarters before they were brought on to Operation Spark. She supposed that with his familial manor still in ruins that Lacan would've paid more attention to differentiating this apartment, but how on earth had he found the time to commission all these paintings?
Sophia turned her head and stared briefly at one painting that looked like a bunch of chaotic, fiery swirls that she wasn't sure what it supposed to be, when she suddenly bumped into a hard surface bump with her right wing. She batted it out in surprise when a loud clatter followed that made her flinch.
Corvisquire set her beak on edge and looked down and to her right. She'd stumbled into a small bureau… and knocked over a case with a pad set on top along with a small, ornamental box.
"A-Ack!"
Sophia grimaced and looked over the case and the small box with a lifting strap. The pad looked like the writing pads that Pokémon like her used to hold the likes of charcoal nubs with their feet to write runes, except there were curious small straps around it. A quick glance at the case revealed brushes and little jars spilling out of it… right, Lacan's father had apparently been a hobbyist painter, so the case was likely a paint set. Given how prominently they were displayed, the box and case were likely family heirlooms.
Except, she didn't remember ever seeing Lacan with any of these after he came to live in Errberk Village. Sophia supposed that Lacan not using the paint set would make sense at least, since it would've been too large for him to use back then as a little Bagon. But she would've thought that little box would've stood out more.
The Corvisquire stooped down to gather up the belongings when she couldn't help but wince after noticing a scratch on one of the small box's sides. She braced herself and nervously opened the box, dreading whatever smashed-up contents she'd find inside that she'd have to explain to Lacan when he found it.
When she did, she discovered some sort of contraption with gears, metal pins lined up with each other, and a small cylinder with bumps on it, which much to her astonishment, began to rotate. Human machinery. From how finely made the components were, it had to have been made from scavenged parts, since she wasn't sure if there were artisans anywhere in all of Wander who could still make them this cleanly and precisely in modern times.
Sophia abruptly stiffened up after hearing soft chiming coming from the box. After a few chimes, she realized it was a familiar melody coming from the box itself. It was a song in Hightongue she remembered her parents singing on a couple occasions when she was younger, about a great tree and the flowering earth reaching out for the sky for a loved one…
Wenn der Baum dort die Wurzeln breitet aus…
Trägt er meine Seele und Erinnerung…ᴰ²
She trailed off as the box continued to chime. The song had always struck her as sounding sad even when her parents were still alive, and the crow couldn't help but feel her eyes grow damp thinking back to those bygone times together.
Times she'd never experience again in this life.
"Oh," a rough voice harrumphed. "You found my paints."
Sophia jolted upright before she saw a set of claws shoot in and unceremoniously clamp the music box's lid closed. The Corvisquire blinked as she looked up and saw Lacan frowning at her, and squirmed, lowering her head out of shame. The Salamence remained silent, before he turned away with a low sigh and bent down to lift the box with its strap with his mouth. He carefully returned it back onto the top of the bureau, before turning to the case with brushes and paints and slipping a set of claws into the pad to pick it up.
Sophia noticed that the pad fit the Salamence's claws perfectly, and between that and his passing comment, it dawned on her that he'd called them his paints…
"Wait, those are your brushes?" the Corvisquire asked. "I always thought that they were your father's."
"No, they're mine, even if I haven't used them lately," Lacan tersely corrected. "Father's equipment was destroyed when I was a child during the last sack of Port Velhen. As were his works."
Sophia set her beak on edge. Right, Lacan's title as Graf von Wellenhafen was inherited from his parents, who had stayed behind during Edialeigh's last invasion of Varhyde to defend their Grafschaft on behalf of their subjects… and paid with their lives for it it. Now that she thought of it, Lacan always did seem to spend quite a bit of time fretting over the state of his Grafschaft when he wasn't preoccupied with campaigning. She'd walked in on him sending messages relating to rebuilding the town's squares and houses, but curiously enough, never his parents' manor he always spoke so fondly of.
It suddenly dawned on her: if Lacan wouldn't put his own pleasures ahead of the rest of his Grafschaft, there was only one Pokémon the Salamence would've entrusted to make those paintings. She even knew that Lacan played with paints when he was younger, but somehow the thought had never crossed her mind earlier that…
"Then… you made those paintings?"
"If you can call them that," the drake scoffed. "I mostly keep them around for sentiment. Especially the ones I made while recovering from that wing injury during our last deployment."
Sophia nudged over at one of the loose brushes as Lacan stooped to shove it back into the case. That injury had been… a little over two years ago, was it? She remembered like it was yesterday how Lacan had gotten his left wing torn up while shielding her during that ambush. It was bad enough that he was sent back here and spent much of the following year in physical therapy just regaining his flight.
It had been a small miracle that she was able to convince their superiors to let her return from the frontlines to help watch out for him. Sophia remembered that he was deeply depressed and stir-crazy when they met again, and vaguely remembered encouraging him to do something during quieter moments to keep his sanity.
She thought from the way he'd shut himself up for long stretches of time, that Lacan spent it catching up on the studies required of members of the Generalstab he'd had to skip due to the war. She supposed that it explained the paintings that would occasionally pop up in the hallway back then, and how Lacan's mood always seemed to improve whenever a new one was added.
Though when on earth did he ever become this skilled at painting? It was certainly a far cry from the scrawls she remembered him making as a Bagon. But he was proud of his work back then and would show off while his present efforts were a massive progression. So why did he regard them so harshly?
"You shouldn't talk yourself down like that, Lacan," Sophia insisted. "They're very well-made, enough that I'd offer one to my Ritterorden for public display if you were comfortable with it. I never would've guessed they were made by a Pokémon with a bodyplan like yours."
Lacan paused and looked up from his brush case briefly, before letting out a low harrumph.
"No, they're all quite deeply flawed, really," he remarked. "The perspectives on most of them are faulty, the brushwork is a mess, and the less said about their lighting and shadows, the better."
Sophia blinked as the Salamence carefully set the case and pad back on the bureau next to his other mementos. He sighed before glancing away with a shake of his head.
"They're just my attempts at matching what my father used to be capable of," Lacan said. "Except these paintings don't do any good for this Kingdom other than to waste paint and gather dust on a wall."
Sophia cracked her beak open to protest, only to swallow her words. While it bothered her to hear Lacan tear his own hard work down, he didn't sound like he was in the mood to change his mind at the moment. Perhaps it was best to just let things be for now. After all, Lacan was more familiar with painting techniques than she was, perhaps they really were more flawed than she thought.
The Corvisquire perked up after hearing a loud clatter, and looked over to see Lacan had gone over and pulled open a set of wooden shutters over a portion of the wall, creating an open gap with a balcony with an unobstructed ledge that looked out over Newangle City and its ramparts as the dull roar of rain outside came filtering in. The Salamence turned his head, and gave a stern glance back at her as he took his place at the edge.
"Fähnrich Rank and the others should have finally made it past the gates with the rest of the Fähnlein," he said. "We should hurry along if we were planning on going to the Royal Library ourselves. The weather's been deteriorating faster than I thought it would."
Sophia warily made her way forward onto the balcony with the Salamence, looking out at the overcast skyline. This was it, the moment of truth when the snare they'd set for the Dyad would either work or fail.
And yet, she couldn't help but hesitate as her mind kept turning back to the letters she'd read at the Reliquary.
A clattering noise rang out as Lacan was back at his shutters and tugging a pull cord with his mouth to slide them shut along their track. The Corvisquire faltered a moment over whether or not now was appropriate to speak up, before she warily raised her voice.
"Lacan, I realize that our mission for Operation Spark is still focused on recovering the Dyad, but… are we sure that we haven't been overlooking anything?" the Corvisquire asked.
Lacan quirked a brow, before turning from his shutters to face her.
"What are you getting at, Sophia?" the Salamence asked.
"It's just… using the Dyad and the powers that slumber within her as a weapon is already a desperate solution as it is," the Corvisquire murmured. "And when we can't even be frank about it with our own subordinates…."
"Wasn't that why I asked you to review the records for Operation Avalanche?" the Salamence asked. "Precisely so we could avoid any unexpected surprises in our mission."
The drake beat his wings, and turned a stern, expectant gaze down at the Corvisquire.
"Sophia, did you come across something in your readings at the Reliquary that I should know about?"
Sophia hesitated. She didn't know the full details of how Operation Spark was supposed to work, just that it involved using the Dyad's powers to mount a decapitation strike on Edialeigh's crown. But there was one line in particular from Kim and Elly's correspondence that had stuck with her:
The two had been worried back then that they were toying with powers that weren't theirs to interfere with.
She hesitated, before turning her beak up. Years ago, she had promised to be at Lacan's side. If she really was to do that, surely it was her duty as a Ritterin, as a friend, to be open about those lingering misgivings she had…
"... It's about the Dyad that Operation Avalanche was focused on. The last letter that I was able to review today said that the Oberst who was tasked with tracking him down allowed him to go to Freeden Village. Peacefully."
A lingering pause hung in the air, as the rain continued to pour outside the window and the autumn wind blew with a nipping chill. Sophia ruffled her feathers and hesitated a moment, before looking up at the Salamence Graf with a worried stare.
"Lacan, are we sure that the Dyad couldn't have already found out about her nature and how to control it some other way?" the Corvisquire asked. "If the power that the Dyad has had something to do with what happened because of Operation Avalanche so many years ago..."
"It's not safe to assume anything, Sophia. That's why Rank and Helmholtz are helping to coordinate the checkpoints around the city just in case the Dyad and her companions attempt to flee," Lacan answered. "But she isn't exactly familiar with Newangle City, and King Siegmund arranged for the other libraries in the cities to transfer the copies of all the books on that list he drew up of titles the Dyad would likely find topical to the Royal Library."
Lacan shook his head, and walked up to the ledge. He dug his claws against the floor's tiles at the edge of the platform. He glanced out at the surrounding cityscape for a moment, before giving a low grunt.
"If we've learned nothing else about the Dyad from the past year, Sophia, it's that she's stubborn. Just as one would expect from a dragon, and of a being of her true nature," he said. "We might as well try to use that stubbornness of hers to our advantage."
The Salamence leapt forward and spread his wings, flying off through the rain and into the cluster of ruined spires. After a moment's hesitation, Sophia did much the same, beating her wings against the rain and chilly air as she flew off among the towers of the Administrative District.
Whatever her misgivings, there was no fretting about Operation Spark when it couldn't proceed in the first place at the moment. Even if part of her was growing worried over what it might entail, it was hardly right to deny succor to a land that had bled for 70 years. Not when this was their only hope.
The future was not yet written, not when the present still hung in the balance. She just hoped that with how much the past had felt like prologue, that they'd only have to consider those tragedies in the past from a far distance.
Author's Notes
Words and Phrases
1. Stückofen - A type of bloomery used for smelting metal utilizing water-driven bellows to save labor. A more general bloomery would be referred to as a 'Rennofen'.
2. Ach, du lieber Himmel - Interjection of surprise / exasperation analogous to "(Good) Heavens!" or "Goodness gracious!"
Dialogue
D1. "Ich bin Dieter, ein Absolvent von hier. Ich hatte gehofft ein paar Freunden hier rum zeigen zu können, bevor ich die Königliche Bibliothek besuche." - "I'm Dieter, an alumnus from here. I was hoping to show some friends around before visiting the Royal Library."
D2. "Wenn der Baum dort die Wurzeln breitet aus… Trägt er meine Seele und Erinnerung…" - "When the tree spreads its roots there… it bears my soul and memory…"
Teaser Text - Special thanks to TorchicBellow for Translation
Freeden Villageᵃ, 4. Herbstmond, 919 n. d. B.
To High Seer Allweiss,
I must confess that when King Sansa ordered me to remain here in Freeden Village and not return to Newangle City with the Dyad, that I was most confused. Even more so when Feldmarschall Pritchard informed me that his decision was apparently due to your counsel.
Even if I cannot glimpse into the future, I know well enough that the Dyad is not long for his present form. He seems to be cognizant of it himself, since when we apprehended him here, he beseeched us to yield and leave him be that he might live out his time as a Frigibax in the village. I'll admit that it bothered my sentiments, perhaps it is my past experiences as a healer speaking, but there are few things as pitiful as a child pleading in tears. My Oberstleutnant was less restrained than I, and in recent days began to allow him to freely traffick the village.
That is not to say that we are letting him have free reign. He remains under the watchful eye of me and my subordinates wherever he goes, and he returns to our camp outside the village every evening. With the stakes involved and after all the trouble he has given me and my forces chasing him about the realm, we don't intend to repeat that experience. Thus far, he has been cooperative and the relative freedom seems to have noticeably lifted his spirits.
I don't know why King Sansa or his confidantes have been shutting me out for so long, but if you are able to gain the King's ear, let him know that if the Dyad is not to be brought to Newangle City, that I believe it is in the realm's interest to keep him here. This is a peaceful village, far enough from the frontlines that we should be able to withdraw to safer places well in advance of any oncoming trouble. You are able to glimpse into the future, are you not? Would it not be easier to win the favor of the powers that slumber in him this way?
But I understand that it is not my place to make that decision. While I have made my own opinions clear, I will uphold whatever King Sansa decrees faithfully as his servant.
I just ask him to be forthright with his wishes to me.
- Letter from Oberst Kim Brutalandas to High Seer Allweiss Fremders
a. Derived by phonetic corruption. A more semantically accurate translation would be "Peace Village (by a River)"