Ciel: 1

It was the first of the month of Kritr, and the luminous twin suns of Esper rose, as in any other senselessly glorious Orianan morning. There was a golden glimmer in the air that breathed life into the dead eyes of the sleeping and the dreaming, who avoided the hot air and the smell of sweet bread in favor of enormous towers that rose from dark water and high castles where angels swam in the purple sky.

 Children were imps, frolicking through muddy puddles and darting through the high grass. They chased the little rodents around imaginary circles with invisible swords, proclaiming their allegiance to the guilds for which their grandfathers fought. And merchants wandered around, pushing their wares (which ranged from colorful sea creatures to phantasmagorically useless trinkets,) and the regular postal messenger came to town with the regular daily mail, taping coupons and flyers from “Dr. Aricc’s Potion Warehouse” onto the door of each and every man and woman who really could have cared less about buying a vile of pink water from a man who’d been caught thieving gold from graves.

Professor Meryl’s metal fool pranced around the square like the anserine android that it was, bumping into the elderly, stomping Ms. Murdoc’s petunias, and being the general daily nuisance that the denizens had come to love (or loathe.) He was, as the inventor himself had put it, “a mechanical man, except, not so much a man as a liability.” Needless to say, the pompous professor gave himself far too much credit, and as the only chronomechanologist (That’s “kro-no-mek-an-ologist”) in town, specializing in the study of the relationship between the holes in space and time, good old robotics, and the magical art of alchemy, the plain people of the city—the fisherman, the cooks, the housewives—looked up at him with starry-eyed awe, perhaps because they realized how enormous of an asset he was to the development of modern science, or perhaps, and probably moreso, because they had no idea what a chronomechanologist actually studied- it just sounded smart.

Another old man, Arthur Kryl, a philosopher of sort from the days of old, sat upon the edge of a curious carp-shaped fountain, enthralling the young children in stories of legendary knights and mages and dragons and swords and guns and super duper time-bending machines; the fact that these tales were reiterated daily made no difference to the excited minds of the youths who grabbed onto the tales with tight-clasped ears and hungry imaginations. Some, taken by his musings, lied upon his long, cushioned beard that stretched out like the bushy tail of a stallion—“like a built-in pillow,” the children would describe it. His exploits among the outside world were either terrible or extraordinary, depending on the moral level of the listener, though his existence in Aldenie shadowed not his past, but rather, it molded a mysterious textbook of devious rantings into a playful tome of faery tales.

 In the marketplace, a frantic pace brushed through the air as slender, tan women shuttled jugs of salt back and forth from their cellars. In motions that recalled a rhythmic dance, they slid the containers to the ground, jiggled off the cork stopper, and dipped into them with thick brushes to marinate their husbands’ freshly caught fish in a brackish coat. An Aldenian specialty was salted slakfish; initially, it was the Eucradian, Lady Chevelle’s, claim to fame, and being that she never let the other women of the village, particularly Rheila Demitri, her bitter rival, live down her triumph in the department of inventive edibles, knock-offs and imitations arose almost immediately. She carried her large frame from door to door, daily, advertising the special lunch combo at her tiny eatery: more often than not, slakfish topped with red sea-potato skins. Children gagged in disgust at the pungent fish, which tasted bitter and nutty (but a moldy, sour nutty,) however adults pined for the acquired taste of the incredibly addictive seafood. No person in Aldenie truly ate anything other than fish or aquatic vegetation. Poultry was simply far too difficult to come by.    

Across from the fishermen’s huts sat the Aldenie Port, where ships from neighboring countries came to trade goods. The fleet of vessels, Aldenie’s Trading Division, was led by a man named Kross. He was a tall fellow, with a strong black stubble beard and long disheveled locks that had seen cleaner days since he’d last traded his prized harpoon collection for a tap of Repalion whisky the size of a small mule. Like the other people of this place, he had little, so he traded what he could scrounge up for the essence of his necessity and his vice. His was life in a spuriously jubilant, infinitively ephemeral world. A world where materialism was limited to living in the beauty of what his scarce money could procure him.

          “Mayor said you’d be here, you little aquaphile,” a girl giggled. Black hair and big, rusty ruby eyes. She had soft features. Her cheeks weren’t sharp, and she was more scrawny than fit. She looked even younger than seventeen. She plopped down next to him with a fair smile on her face. There was a sugary air about her.

Ciel shut tightly the black, leather-bound book, of which he seemed to be reading the same sentence, over and over, and turned his head; long silver tendrils followed his vision, swaying.

“Oh this? No, this is—“

She raised a blade-thin eyebrow and squinted. A strong gust of wind blew through her long, raven hair.

“I didn’t ask about your book,” her voice was riddled with curiosity. “Guilty conscience?”

She glanced at the cover; there was a strange diagram that looked like a star constellation. Lines intersected upon graphs and circles, and half-circles, and runes, and all sorts of bizarre designs. She couldn’t see the title, but the author’s name was “something Tiberius.”

He stared at her, yellow, almond-shaped eyes and mouth of rivaling width.

“The book!” She pointed at it. “What is it?”

He blinked heavily.

“Oh, this—“ he flipped it from cover to back, twice,” –it’s just about, like galaxies and things like that.”

She nodded, almost impressed, “paraluminology, marine biology and astronomy? You’re something else, duckling.”

Ciel rolled his eyes and moaned, “please, please, please don’t call me that. How many times do I h—“

“So did you sleep last night?”

She started to crack her fingers. He hated it, and he cringed with every snap.

A pause. His speech was garbled by a yawn, “don’t talk about sleep.”

The sun blared down upon his arm. He rubbed it.

“The scars bothering you again?” She’d reached her ring finger: crack.

“They’re not scars, Dalsha,” he muttered, annoyed, “I don’t know what they are.”

“They look like shooting stars.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

A tiny vessel named “The Sordid Stallion,” as evidenced by the shoddy tag that lined its side, passed by the dock—not too close, but close enough to blow salt water into their faces. Dalsha covered her eyes from the bothersome spray, and Ciel, writhing in laughable woe, wiped his brow, which he’d neglected to shield only seconds ago, with the bottom of his white v-neck t-shirt. Kross Sepulveda, the silly drunk, waved dangerously from the side of his ship. He nearly collapsed into the water, but luckily, he’d grabbed onto a ledge, just in time to keep his balance. He laughed uncontrollably—a master of self-mockery. They leased temporary smiles and waved in return.

He was far-off, now. Dalsha turned back to Ciel and scoffed, “well, someone’s grumpy today.”

“Spare me, please. You know I haven’t been getting sleep lately.”

She pulled at his silky hair. He didn’t flinch.

“Bad dreams?” she seemed genuinely concerned. She rested her head against his shoulder and continued to pull at his silvery locks.

He inhaled and shook her hand from his head, “No. More like: I just lie awake and I can’t sleep. I’ll fall asleep for an hour or two at most,” he glanced at her, irritated “and you, with that flute—how do you expect me to sleep past six?”

She cackled sadistically, speaking into his ear, “so what, Ciel? Do you expect me to simply ignore my duties to the village?”

He sneered at her, “So now you’re the village alarm clock? I’m sure that everyone loves your work.”

“I’ll have you know,” she pulled away and pointed at him, sharply, pressing her finger against his forehead, “that if I hadn’t volunteered to wake the village last week, Meryl’s robot would still be blaring his siren like the madman that he is.”

He shook away her hand, again, “Meryl, or the robot?”

“Both!”

Ciel snickered. Dalsha cracked her neck, from side to side and returned to his shoulder. Ciel’s feet banged rhythmically against the water-swollen dock. There was a brief silence, and he could hear the ethereal song of a harpist drifting from the village square.

“So, Doro workin’ ya hard?” She grinned cheekily.

“Is he ever not?”

“I’ll take it easy—maybe paraluminology! Yeah, that stuff is so simple!” her voice was exaggerated—deep and mocking. “Weren’t those your words, Ciel?”

He groaned, “I swear: I wouldn’t be surprised if Doro were the last paraluminologist on Esper who still graphed spectrum bends with a ruler and a pencil.”

Dalsha’s small, naked feet kicked through the rising waves. The water felt cold and refreshing and a few drops escaped onto Ciel.

“Well, be glad that he’s not just spoon-feeding you,” she raised her hands in the air and shook her head, “heaven forbid you actually have to work for this.”

He rubbed his temples softly and leaned back, falling against the dock with a thud. It was wet. His back was somewhat uncomfortable, but he didn’t really mind it that much. Dalsha fell back next to him, and he felt her cold arm against his. She sighed, dreamily.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said, holding his aching arm, eyes tightly closed. The heavy, bright suns were prying through his eyelids. “Heaven forbid I learn something.”

A seagull croaked overhead.

Dalsha turned to Ciel and yawned. “By the way—“

Ciel turned to her. He could feel her breath against his cheek.

“—Nox is back.”

“Oh, cool.” He propped himself up on his elbow. “In Troika?”

“Yeah. He’s back from one of his super secret “too-cool-for-Oriana” mission.”

“I miss Troika and it’s seizure-inducing lights. We’ll have to visit him soon.”

Dalsha pushed a lock of hair, that had fallen before her eyes, behind her ear. “We definitely will."