Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Doctor. I have some concerns regarding young Sin”

Dr. Paradigm rudely grunted in acknowledgement, waving a hand to assure the lion-like gear he’d heard him, he’d heard him, but he needed a second to reply with a modicum of courtesy.

After all, he found himself at odds with years of uncategorized documents strewn across his former office, all sporting such indiscernible chicken scratch that it implied they were written by a madman.

Rather… A madwoman. Paradigm hummed to himself, thoughtfully. It was not as if he regretted giving his old office in Ganymede to his eldest daughter, seeing as he spent most of his time in the Illyrian Palace libraries, in any case… Yet, where fate and his attentive education had given her brilliance and wit in spades, somewhere along the line the importance of organization and clear calligraphy had been entirely jettisoned.

“Or Izuna has been a dreadful influence on her”, murmured Paradigm to himself, sorting through loosely held-together sheets of parchment that may once have been categorized by reverse alphabetical order.

“Doctor?”

Paradigm dismissed the visiting gear once more, gesturing with the assurance it would only take a minute, have patience. Patience he was sorely lacking at the moment.

This visit to Ganymede was meant as a time of reprieve and relaxation from the duties ever so often discarded onto him, back in the cockles of the Illyrian Palace. Paradigm was practically ecstatic - in his own way of being so - when his daughter had suggested trading places for a few months, as she had always wanted to investigate the kingdom for herself, not to mention review the drafts for the gear citizen legislation, even if their officials had just begun to pen them.

Privy to his first-hatched’s fastidious and caviling nature in the way only a dedicated father could be, the Doctor could not help but feel a certain schadenfreude at the thought of her giving the persnickety human officials a taste of their own medicine. Perhaps when he returned, they would stop demanding he correct and review all their documents, or give a hand in completing the reports they should’ve finished, King Whitefang.

What Dr. Paradigm did not expect was to be met with the very same situation back in the archipelago. He admitted it was presumptuous and careless of him to expect leadership of the isles was a proverbial walk in the park while he skipped unhealthy hours of sleep in the mainland, but goodness. Gears and humans truly were alike - clamoring to any perceived figure of intellect to solve the problems they could have solved by themselves…

With a sigh, the elderly dragon emerged from books that were either organized according to tact-feel of the cover, thickness of the binding, or material of the paper, deciding a pause from archival frustration was in order.

He gave the lion a curt nod, finally acknowledging him. The other gear was dressed in rather stern clothing, as was rather customary of Leonards (name given to his kind of gear) regardless of job description. Though as a rule they craved the honor and glory of fair battle, some had found their place among occupations with lighter stakes. Thus, you’d find Leonards dressed for a royal parade working for bakeries. Carrying himself with the poise and gait of a general, the lion cleared his throat.

“As you are aware, Doctor, it was tasked to us that we pay close attention to the Illyrian prince’s, that is, Sin’s, wellbeing. For the past twenty seven days we have done so, inquiring him every morning how he felt and making sure he has a balanced and nutritious diet, adjusted to a growing part-commander megadeath as he”

Dr. Paradigm combed his beard with his fingers, humming in reminiscence, ignoring for the moment how the clinical description of ‘part-commander megadeath’ did not seem to fit the jovial, blithe Sin.

Yes, Sin, Sin… The date on the calendar read November 6th and ever since the beginning of September - making it around two months now - had the prince been behaving… Oddly. Loss of appetite, frequent fevers, erratic movements and pacing about the castle grounds, occasional collapses, lapses of memory… Yet, no matter who looked into his health, they could not find a conclusive diagnosis. Measuring any quality of his blood was inconclusive, his reflexes were either precognitive or far too sluggish depending on the day. Worst yet - all of this had no reason to occur, no warning either. The medics were at odds, his family greatly concerned.

“Could it perhaps be stress?”, once suggested Doctor Paradigm, rather shocked that no medical doctor had suggested it before, as they were wont to do.

After all, Sin had spent his early formative years au plein air, camping out with the faux-late Sol Badguy wherever they could, an environment much different from the hustle and bustle, always busy daily life of the castle. Though only fate could know what was happening in his bodily systems, reason posited that this change of ambiance for such a long time - nigh three years now? - might be prejudicial to him. Moreover, his time had been so occupied by forms of inculcating onto him an education his foster father hadn’t bothered to teach him, that every free moment Sin had left was spent doing things he thought were fun… Rather than resting.

Though Sin did not show signs of anxiety, worry or fatigue, besides the mysterious symptoms he presented. The truth evaded everyone for the time being, a conclusion was reached: it wasn’t like a vacation was going to do him any worse, now was it?

Thusly, Dr. Paradigm, Sin, and a few other gears left for some well-earned time away in Ganymede. Finding himself as occupied as he did, Paradigm had delegated being the prince’s caretaker to a transmission(*) of his capable companions…

(* Group of gears)

“Yes, yes… Alack, I haven’t had much time to check on him. How does he fare?”

The lion gear grimaced uncomfortably, never looking away from the far window in his back-straight at-attention stance.

“Yes, well… As my comrades have logged before…” the gear eyed the parchment forgotten and strewn across the floor of the quaint, messy cottage “We’ve seen firm improvement since he arrived here. In the past few weeks he hadn’t shown any of the symptoms he was described to have. Were it not for the past day, Doctor, I would argue this abrupt mallady of his was a thing of the past”

Paradigm’s brows furrowed in concern, hand gripping at his chin as he nodded at the lion to continue.

“His recovery made us complacent… We did not guard him last night and this morning, we found him sitting in the nearby clearing” The gear’s eyes closed in shame, as he pointed towards the far window. It lead towards the aforementioned clearing. “Catatonic. Alive, awake and breathing, but not responding nor budging. His pupils are dilated as well, and his heartbeat seems to have slowed down to forty or fifty beats per minute. We’ve attempted to relocate him, at the very least, though… It seems as though he is five times the weight he should be - not even the Bonebiters could move him, Doctor”

His worries had grown so frantic they were now clear through the body language of the steely gear, concerning Paradigm in turn.

“The Dual Horns warn that a storm is incoming. As disquieting as his state is, our top priority is to move him before-”

A flash of light flooded the cottage, interrupting him. Both gears had only time to turn their gazes towards the far window, before it hit.

An ear splitting roar of thunder.

Louder than anything they had ever experienced, louder than anything they could have imagined, to the point of causing them physical agony, of shaking the earth and throwing nearly everything to the floor, both gears included. Paradigm weakly raised his head from beneath the piles and piles of parchments that had fallen and covered him, to see that the window facing the clearing had been launched clear from its sill and shattered against the wall.

“HOLY MACKEREL, DOC!”, came the panicked shouting of Izuna, deciding in his panic that the now-unoccupied window hole was the best way to make his way inside the cottage. “You gotta get outside quick! A huge lightning bolt just struck Sin!”

Nary had he time to end his sentence, a flash of brilliant red light blinded them. Once it faded, their hearts racing against their chests and their breaths caught in their throats, the three gears rushed towards the opening in the wall, unable to do more than gawk at the sight before them.

A massive dragon gear sat in a charred, destroyed crater, where once the clearing had been.

Chapter Text

“So, er… Any ideas on what to do next, Doc?”

Paradigm graced Izuna with an unamused glare before casting it towards the perplexed behemoth before them.

They had carefully shuffled their way closer to the crater, keeping their distance from the possible exclusion zone of static electricity. Sparks were flying and dancing in the air around this dragon - Sin?- and no gear nor Yokai present felt too compelled to check if they’d get the shock of their lives, had they decided to take a closer step.

The dragon -Sin??- followed the sparks as they rose and weaved, going cross eyed trying to follow them. Though he seemed… Aware enough, a far cry from the catatonic state the lion had described, a few minutes earlier. He was trying to stand up on two legs, but his height made him clumsily fall back down on his rear. He eventually decided on sitting on his rump, legs spread out from under him, as he looked, with grave shock and confusion, at his paws, then at the rest of his body, turning his head this way and that.

His tail thumped on the ground with growing worries, hardly noticing the crowd laying flat on the ground or scrounging the streets for anything made of rubber, each one misremembering thunderstorm advice in their own special, unique way. Not that Paradigm could criticize them, as he, Izuna and the lion gear had thrown themselves to the ground as soon as a bolt flew from the crater and hit the ground right beside them.

The elderly dragon was sweating bullets, his glasses fogged up as he did. He remembered, seeing as the sections of his mind outside the jurisdiction of panic had little else to concern themselves with, a conversation he had once had with the Royal Couple and Frederick Bulsara…

Could Sin potentially have a Dragon Install of his own?

They had reached the definitive conclusion of maybe, but we would rather not find out. If Ky Kiske had one, as infinitesimal as his gear cells could be, from… Whatever mysterious origin they could have (Ky would look away, embarrassed)... Then it stood to reason Sin, with certainly more cells than his father, had to have one as well. It was needless to mention the flashes of red from behind his eyepatch.

Eyepatch… Which had been placed there, precisely, for Sin could not control whatever power manifested itself from that eye. For the pain it brought was sheer agony. Thus, Paradigm panicked. To have a megadeath gear in your hands is one thing - one he studied to handle - to have a megadeath gear who could not control its powers was another… To have an out of control megadeath gear who was scared, confused and in agony was a death sentence.

The massive dragon - Sin??? - raised one clawed foot, grabbing it with his hands and inspecting it closer, turning it as much as he could without causing himself pain. He wiggled his toe-claws, stretched them, generally appeared to be testing what this transformed limb could do. Yet the closer he brought his foot to his eyes, the more the tilted back, eventually losing balance and falling flat on his back. Sin let out a surprised squeak as he did, flailing his limbs in the air in a struggle to right himself, interrupted by the distraction of sea-faring birds flying overhead, distracting him.

Dr. Paradigm reconsidered his threat assessment. A clumsy behemoth chirped, entertained, before him; laying on his back in a crater of his own, accidental making. The potential risk for anyone with eyes to see and enough brain tissue to make them work, though… He wasn’t in pain - how could he be? Humanoid gears were still so flummoxing and daedal in the doctor’s mind, prone to their crotchets, their quirks, their idiosyncrasies - but one thing was as clear as glass; a megadeath gear could not hide agony, not with this size! Two tons of body, two tons to control and suffocate - how could they?

This was a slight relief. Clinical strategist mind aside, Dr. Paradigm could not help but grow fond of the young prince as the years rolled by. At points, he would consider the sprightly young gear as something akin to a nephew or perhaps grandson…

“Woah! Maybe he needs CPR?” came the whisper of an opportunistic, infatuated gear to his southwest, who saw Sin in a quite different light.

“♪ Someone told me, long ago~ There’s a calm, before, the storm~ ♪”

“That’s CCR!”

At the sound of the rather lame, untimely joke, Sin’s head popped up, ears high and at full attention, looking intently all around him. A terrified hush befell the gathered crowd once again. Both Paradigm and Izuna grimaced in the vague direction of the source, before exchanging a knowing glance. After a certain size threshold… Gears were remarkably near-sighted, to the point they relied on sound and movement rather than vision.

The elderly dragon counted his blessings for being hatched a very camouflageable green, when crawling against the surviving grass of the clearing. Izuna was looking back at the sheer white stone of the paved streets, envying a better location.

Now, a solid strategy was clear in his mind. The Doctor surveyed the position of all other gears, their location, the terrain and the overcast weather, assessing all variables and producing a result satisfying to his pristine standards. In his absence, a myriad of defensive formations had been created by his eldest daughter, utilizing the strange geomorphology of the islands. They were detailed in coded parchments, the only ones kept organized and well stored by her. He thanked whatever greater forces acknowledged him for that.

“Assistant Bonnie”, he called, barely above a breath, and the little humanoid floated into his line of sight. “Tell the Bowers to follow strategem Minos”

He pointed across the crater, to a conveniently present pack of wolf-like gears. Their bellies and chins to the ground, they eyed the transformed prince as warily as any other, but the motions of their tails and the position of their ears betrayed their true emotions; their training under Paradigm’s substitute was running through their minds, imagining which formation would be ordered. They needn’t imagine much more, for Bonnie had floated across the crater - far from Sin’s line of sight - to meet the lithest Bower, a gear of deep purple fur, a mohawk along its back and a collar with hooked spikes denouncing it as leader.

A wicked grin spread across its snout, the fur on its chest rolling with pride as its companions rushed to their spots; yet its paws were anchored to the ground beneath them. A spark shone across its red eyes, a prideful boast uttered behind gritted teeth.

“Let’s show you city slickers how it’s done.”

Instead of joining its companions, the collared Bower leapt into the air, landing in the crater and making a mad dash across it, zigzagging and slaloming to avoid the sparks that missed it by a hair. With another powerful leap, the gear had cleared the wall that was the behemoth’s furred side, landing with a slide on his stomach and a bombastic howl. Sin immediately looked down at it, ears perked up and pointed in the air, pupils as wide as they would go. The Bower matched the stare before lifting itself up on its back paws, howling once more.

“Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!”

After yelling such a familiar challenge, the purple-furred gear ran madly from the scene, followed by its prepared companions. Sin’s tail wagged in excitement, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. It took him a second try to roll himself onto his legs, the first another habit-driven attempt at standing bipedally. His limbs, not exactly used to this form of locomotion, were as clumsy and uncoordinated as the rest of him, sliding ever so often from under him and making him fall on his chin; yet nothing deterred him from chasing the wolf-like gears, even propelling himself solely by his back paws while his front slid across the soft white pavement of the streets for a solid stretch of the way.

In turn, the Bowers leading him matched their speed to expertly entice him - never too close nor too far, but remaining frustratingly out of his reach. The detachment was completing their mission in a satisfactory manner - now, for all the other pieces on the board.

“They’re sure making a spectacle out of playing tag, huh? Don’t they, uh, yannow, play that every day?” Izuna commented, unimpressed, lifting himself off the ground now that a behemoth gear bounding over to him because he sneezed was no longer an immediate concern.

Paradigm combed his beard, making a small noise of agreement.

“Though I care not for the theatrics involved, one cannot ignore their effectiveness…”

A group of little humanoid creatures dressed in green and fluttering about gathered before him, ready to listen.

“Now, all others are to remain above-ground. Direct calmly and quietly towards the Galilei and Marius stations and remain there until further instructions” Dr. Paradigm spoke to his assistants, who quickly set off to transmit the instructions through all other gears.

As he turned, intending to follow the Bowers and Sin, the lion gear which first informed him of the prince’s state stood ramrod straight, chest puffed and eyebrows furred.

“With all due respect, Doctor, we are warriors! Not mere…” The gear scoffed. “Civilians to be evacuated. You underestimate our skills!”

“Underestimate? Leopold, there is none with as cognizance of all your capabilities as I” Coldly spoke the dragon gear, adjusting his glasses. “Forget not, it was I who taught you the principles and art of strategy. You’d otherwise remain the star of that carnival’s geekshow.”

The white fur of the gear was turning the vaguest of pinks, his line of sight going anywhere but the doctor, in the boiling shame he felt at those agonizing memories of a darker past. Paradigm sighed.

“Forgive my cruel words for they are born of frustration and panic rather than malice against you. Surely you’ll agree this is a dire situation” the dragon spoke, floating around the larger gear. “I entrust to you your compatriots until I am to return; more honor is to be gained by avoiding a needless battle than chasing one. You’d do well to remember that”

His words, rushed, had nary a response from the lion-esque gear, for he was far away before Leopold had the time to process them. He floated as quickly as he was capable of after the Bowers, envisioning the tortuous path of strategem Minos and calculating the closest shortcuts as he did. Behind him, his bare feet dashing with all their might, Izuna panted helplessly.

“Doc! I wanna take it slow!”

Ah, so did Paradigm! His legs did not move as his yokai companion’s did but ached just the same! The rest of his body followed in unionized solidarity.

Oh, hearsay and urban legend, not to mention years of living under terror of their non-sapient cousins, had elevated all gears to an unachievable, heraclean standard. Of feats of supernatural strength, haste faster than sound itself and of eternal youth. Paradigm, feeling his lungs struggling despite his floating and his back loudly proclaiming its complaints, could not vouch for any of those.

Ah, eternal youth - yes, they could reach the three digits of age without any concern or much change at all, but age always crept. Age always let itself known, made sure it was acknowledged. Quite so when you weren’t made for military use.

How long ago had it been? His oldest memories had been of an aquarium, then a tank when he had outgrown his previous home in less than three months. Overlooking a lecture room, the whiteboard and magic screens that always entranced him more than the distractions of pet-fish-oriented bubble blowers, sitting abandoned at the bottom. From his vantage point, his red eyes looking intently over the students’ heads, he had watched, learned, with the haste and capacity only a youthful gear was capable of. It was not long before they moved his tank - to his great horror and dismay - since, during examinations, he could not help himself but signal the answers to the students closest to him. “How can they struggle at all?”, he’d thought, fascinated by the wealth of knowledge they were granted every day, explained so plainly and succinctly. Now, there was nothing. He could not venture out of his water to fetch himself books, though he could read well… No words, symbols, nor magic - the room he had been stuck in was bare of it all. Only cleaning tools.

“The gear mascot of the university helped students cheat during exams!”, they had laughed and printed in the college newspapers, whilst he was left, abandoned, ignored and with no way to learn, in some storage room in the depths of the basement.

The newspapers… Perhaps he could have looked them up - found a date of printing, inferred the date of his hatching… Woe, such maudlin depictions of gears had been met with extreme prejudice after the war had begun. It was more than likely they had been burned, but above all, he would rather not relive such moments.

So lost had he been in his miserable introspections, the flag-like frill of Sin’s tail fluttered frantically only a few paces before him. Izuna’s ragged, choked breaths came from a ways behind him.

“Doc! Geez Louise, slow down a bit!” Izuna gasped and heaved, his legs struggling to keep up. “How do you get this energy at your age?!”

“Call it a question of genetics”, Paradigm curtly replied, slowing down to match his companion’s speed. “Watch your step now. We’re approaching the tunnels”

Ah, the tunnels, his daughter’s proudest addition to the island. Partly natural, partly gear and yokai-made, these labyrinthine stretches that coiled like snakes into the depths could go on for sheer nautical miles. Without proper training, or a clue how to read the signs, you’d be hopelessly lost by the third time the tunnel forced you to double back. Not to mention they were riddled with crab-trap-like openings, preventing larger gears from returning the way they came.

Why this construction, you may ask yourself? Simple. It was distressing to admit so, yet a shameful truth of their nature - the vast majority of gears had been made with only destruction in mind. Whether it was haste, defense, stamina or strength they excelled in, it varied, but each one had an instinctual habit to maim and ravage. Those sapient could keep these habits at bay, practicing self-control the likes of which humans could not fathom, but something always slipped through the cracks. A straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Beforehand, they had one solution for the gears that broke: exile. It was known they would return to their regular selves once their energy had been released, but the isles had no such place to do so. They could not risk endangering many for the sake of one - only drive the poor, altered fools far away and hope they would find their way back. Few did. Most met their ends at the hands of humans they came across.

Their deaths would hang heavy on their hearts - the possibility of anyone being next an uncomfortable, ever-present horror. Until they had devised this solution - a way to trap the affected gears until they recovered - these terrifying anxieties and paralyzing grief were part of their daily lives.

They were closing in on it, the crux of this life-saving plan. Several bowers detached from the group running ahead of Sin, burrowing into holes purposefully dug into the walls where they could hide. The dragon would snap his head towards them for only a second, the movement and noise up ahead far more interesting for him. Paradigm had all but shoved Izuna into one of these cramped side-tunnels, dragging him along at the very same speed.

Eventually, only the bower leader remained, running frantically before Sin, wicked expression frozen on its snout. The dragon’s hot breath blew on his back, lifting up his fur, the acrid scent impossible to escape. The incline had grown ever and ever more steep, until both were sliding rather than running deeper, deeper into the tunnels, until they came to a gargantuan opening.

The leader leapt into the air, twisting its body like a mongoose rather than the wolf it resembled, and closed its jaws around a ring stuck to the ceiling, dangling perilously over the abyss below him. Sin had tried to follow, but the cramped tunnel gave him no space to do so; he tripped before his legs even left the ground, and dove head-first into the unfathomable depths…

Falling comfortably into a pile of soft, cloth-like material, his body twisted with his legs hanging over his head and his long tail somehow remaining in the tunnel he’d fallen from. He blinked, struggling to right himself, only to land in another uncomfortable position.

“Heh. Forgive me this one time, Sin” Came the smarmy, muffled bark of the deep purple Bower, far above him. “Now sit there… Until the storm passes.”

The dragon frowned, swatting at the canine gear with his tail for the dumb joke. The Bower laughed in triumph, leaping back into another tunnel Sin could not hope to reach and vanished from his sight. Sin chirped and clucked, calling for it… Calling for anyone! This was comfortable, yes, though his position really wasn’t, but he wasn’t that interested in being left trapped miles underground with no one around.

Where had everyone gone? What was happening? He could barely see, or even move, his body was suddenly all different… Argh, for the past months he felt as if there was something else, buzzing under his skin and trying to control him… He could barely even remember anything that happened! The events of the past weeks were just a murky fog in his mind. He would never admit it, but he was… Sort of scared. Just the smallest bit! Things kept happening to him that he didn’t recall or understand. He always had some ache or agony somewhere in his body and the sight of even his favorite foods was enough to make him sick… Though now, for some reason, he felt inexplicably better.

Not to mention he’d been away from home for nearly a month now… As nice as all the Ganymedean gears were to him, always hanging out and cooking him good food for the rare times he didn’t feel as sick, he missed his family, his friends. Mom was worried sick about him when he left… Was she okay? What about Ram and Elphelt? And… His dad…

Through the haze of misery and fear, the dragon could still hear quite well; there were familiar voices coming from somewhere a bit above him. He turned his head to look at it, finally twisting himself enough to properly stand up. He could just barely see it - some sort of inset-balcony overlooking this abyss - but reaching it was impossible, stretch as he might.

“Yeesh! That was a huge fall, you sure he’s okay?”, Izuna asked, looking from behind the protective glass of the balcony, heaving still from the effort of having run all this way.

Paradigm was busy checking a few systems and measurements, but nodded idly. His own body was winding down from the unadvised burst of energy and could spare little blood sugar for his brain.

“Yes, fret not. It’s been tested to the finest degree. Even a fall from double this height would be softly cushioned by the material at the bottom” He adjusted his glasses, approaching the window himself. “This structure has been built as a way for altered gears to spend their energy without harming anyone or themselves. Hurting them from the fall would be antithetical to its very purpose”

Izuna hummed uncertainly, ears tilted back. With his arms crossed, he glanced at the depths of the precipice once more, being met with the gargantuan dragon’s pleading puppy stare. It broke his heart to see. He could not voice any further complaints, however, for a communication sigil had appeared before the doctor, chiming intermittently. Paradigm responded.

“Greetings…?”

“Doctor Paradigm.”

The voice incited many emotions in the elderly dragon’s heart. He wished to ask the voice how it was doing; if it was eating properly; if the weather was agreeable; had the castle’s workers been kind to it, wished to ask it if it hadn’t been taught how to organize its things by anyone; if it hadn’t been an inconvenience to the castle’s staff; if it hadn’t been rude or impolite; if it asked permission rather than do whatever it liked when the mood struck, wished to ask if this little -shall we call it- event had been noticed by the systems he’d programmed himself, if the royal family knew, if they were making their way over as they spoke.

As things stood, he collected himself and greeted, hoping in equal parts that his voice was not tinted with mushy paternal affection nor anxious hysterics.

“Professor.”

Izuna’s face lit up, a grin crossing it as he closed the distance between him and the sigil. The doctor waved him away with a glare, reminding him official matters were always first priority. He could wait patiently.

“I will report as to the situation in Illyria. More specifically, I will report as to what these systems have calculated” There was a rush of footsteps, muffled, as well as the muffled sounds of very nervous staff trying to keep a boiling panic under control. “A massive discharge of energy, electric in nature, overlapping a gear-energy presence of rather remarkable proportions. Its coordinates change intermittently, following no known equation”

Ah, thus an answer to one of his questions. The location of the Ganymede archipelago was kept secret from the public at large and even most officials. To achieve this, magic had been cast into the island so it would disturb any potential radar systems, as well as complex equations surreptitiously trojan horse’d into the operating systems of all gear-detecting systems. A simple filter, adjusted for two times the usual energetic threshold of the isles.

They certainly hadn’t expected a megadeath with the Blood of Juno to suddenly appear on their front lawn, so to speak, and output five times their threshold. The poor transformed lad was barely detected in his daily life, great powers or not.

“Yes…Professor, I can confirm every gear in the isles is safe and unharmed. Little terrain damage has been suffered… I may-” Paradigm replied, but two clacks of a beak quieted him down. A signal they had agreed upon.

“Would you posit this is merely a glitch in the systems, then, Doctor?”, questioned the Professor, raising her voice to be heard clearly by those around her. The murmur heard in the background faded. “I did share my apprehensions over the alterations made during the last, clack incidents. They may not function properly with the, pre-established equations”

“...Yes… Yes, I believe so as well. You have my permission to update the programs accordingly, Professor. Although, in case their supervisors express any hesitancy, adjust the filters until I am to return”

“A glitch, understood. I shall update the programs-” The professor raised her voice once more. “As you recommend, Doctor! As you have entrusted me to do so!”

Both Paradigm and Izuna stepped back from the sigil, stunned at the loud noise. The Professor was not exactly known for possessing a clear and boisterous voice.

“I take it you have found it rather difficult, earning the trust of your current human associates?”, inquired Paradigm, not without a bit of worry. At times, even the most submissive, agreeable of sapient gears would be shunned over having an appearance deemed ‘scary’ by others.

Such perceptions were different between the two species. Paradigm knew no gear who considered the professor weird or off putting… Whilst the Illyrian Queen, Dizzy, was by far the more terrifying presence any of them would encounter in their lives, short of her mother. Although, thus posited Paradigm to himself, it was possible that a certain meticulous yet impatient nature had an impact in such a perception as well.

“This species befuddles me, Doctor, is all I’ll say. This ‘King Whitefang’ individual has requested my assistance in filling and reviewing documents; I complete such a task by myself, as it is more efficient. He was dismayed for no apparent reason. Truly, a baffling kind”

Paradigm grimaced in pity, his hands on his head. Oh, she had certainly organized the poor man’s documents according to her own rules, hadn’t she? He felt for him such deep sorrow that he remained silent for a second.

“Erm… Yes. In the future, leave him to his own devices…” Paradigm replied, shaking his head in empathetic dismay. “Oh, Whitefang. You had to learn someday, I only regret it had to be in such a cruel way…”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, nothing. Pay me no mind. Are you away from prying ears, Professor? For peace of mind, I would like you to be fully aware of the ongoing situation”

A hum and a flutter of feathers followed, until the background murmur had faded onto nothing. A clack of a beak, an adjustment of papers as something was scratched down on them (notes of sorts?), then the Professor spoke once more.

“I would rather offer you a hypothesis, Doctor. I believe, I’d posit half an hour ago, these are the events that have transpired: Sin reentered a catatonic state right as a brewing storm approached the isles. Following this-” More rustling papers followed. “Considering the energy print recorded in our programs is in all ways equal to that measured when the weather phenomena dubbed St. Elmo’s Fire occurs… As improbable and ludicrous as it may sound - St. Elmo’s Fire has struck once more, twelve years before it was predicted, and struck, precisely, on the young prince. Who, inheriting a proclivity for electrical magic from his parents, may well have played the role of a lightning rod”

Paradigm’s jaw hung wide open in appall. On the occasion old technology had been accessible to them, he would’ve dropped the metaphorical phone receiver on the ground. Izuna, more prepared to accept impossibilities, was taken aback nonetheless, his fur standing up on end and his ears flattened against his head.

“That’s- That’s simply preposterous! For- For St. Elmo’s Fire to strike so- Soon, so suddenly-”

“Yes, yes, I am quite aware how this all sounds!”, sighed the Professor in exasperation, with the frustration of someone who knows the situation is all rather silly but has no other alternative come to mind. “But the chemicals formed by St. Elmo’s Fire are different from those created by regular lightning, molecules which do not form under natural circumstances, and the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and X-Ray Diffraction data is nigh-perfect to the one recorded last year, Doctor! We’re seeing a deviation of 0,1%, when the average is ten!”

The three participants in this conversation fell into a stunned hush, struggling in their own ways to process the information presented to them. They reached for plausible interpretations, anything which would make more sense than the proverbial elephant in the room, but nothing offered itself. This time, “human/gear error” or “bug in the program” was an easy out. If those listening were already incredulous, the professor was ten times so, having been the one to process the data; the one to search maniacally for any other explanation rather than the one she presented.

At times, you’ll find, it is in a struggle to process some information that another finally clicks into place, a theory or stratagem weaving itself into your mind from scattered pieces gathered over time. Such happened to Dr. Paradigm as he mulled over the meteorological impossibility before them - a theory finally made sense.

“Placing that apart for now, Professor - may I posit a theory myself?”, the doctor asked, his voice with a faint lilt at the pleasantry of plausible discovery. He waited not for an answer, and producing his personal tome of a notebook, he began taking notes.

“I will avoid going into intricate detail at the moment. As we are well aware, gear cells are infused with magic… Whilst it is not uncommon to use various kinds of magic, gear cells are often particularly attuned to certain frequencies, a phenomenon, let us call it… Harmonics, shall we?”

The professor hummed, urging him along, as this was all, quite frankly, standard knowledge. To Izuna as well, the elderly yokai quite cognizant about matters of magic.

“Sin’s Harmonics are electrical in nature, genetically inherited from his parents. It is easy to perceive Harmonics simply as ‘magic one can use strongly and without effort’, but we must consider, as the cells themselves are attuned to these frequencies, so is the entire body! Sin is greatly affected by magnetic fields, electrical currents”, Paradigm adjusted his glasses, looking up from his tome. “And their corresponding abnormalities!”

Izuna combed his beard in thought, stepping away from the window as he paced, nodding to himself and wondering about something he would not voice quite yet.

“Electrical abnormalities? I have to admit I thought of it as well, in passing, though I could not develop such a hypothesis much further… Nonetheless”, the sigil shimmered with light interference, indicating that on the other side, the speaker had opened a different channel, “I did peruse past weather reports. A geomagnetic storm took place during the early half of September. Though it was of quite great scale, it went mostly unnoticed”

Izuna was humming louder and pacing in wider circles, fingers rubbing at his forehead as he did so. Paradigm gave him an annoyed, passing glance.

“I also report, I have looked over a few of the prince’s documents… In order to have a better perception of the ongoing events, you understand” There was a rustling of paper from the other side of the line.

“Have his parents granted you such a permission?” Inquired Paradigm, with great doubt to his tone. The voice ignored him.

“Are we aware his birth name is Blessing?”

Paradigm and Izuna suppressed a snort.

“Blessing Yves André Kiske”

Paradigm and Izuna suppressed an even stronger snort.

“That aside, what are these measurements? Why bother measuring his blood pressure, blood type, why run these worthless tests which bring us no new information?” Questioned the professor, more ruffling of papers heard. Paradigm was sure at this point that she was responsible for using 80% of the paper the kingdom was allowed to produce that year. “Certainly you are not still under the assumption that his gear nature manifests to a lesser extent, merely for being lesser in number? Quarter-gear or not, a gear he is still”

Paradigm furrowed his brows, looking away from the sigil rather awkwardly. Gears varied in such a manifold manner that no standard medical procedures had been defined for them… Not to mention his title symbolized his doctorate degree(s), not any sort of expertise in the medical field.

“Well, it is not as if we can run those tests now, seeing his state”

“I will assume you have captured him safely by now using stratagem Minos. There is a voltmeter, ohmmeter, ammeter and other useful meters in your old office”

Such measurements were usually performed using magic, but the professor never had much truck to do with it, odd as it may sound. Dr. Paradigm had made the grave mistake of giving scientific books to her when she was much younger, books from before the dawn of magic. Now it was everyone’s problem in the Illyrian castle. Having this gear working only through extremely archaic methods… And using up so much paper.

“I do suppose having an understanding of the electrical currents within him would be of more use to us…”

“Yes, I request you do as such. Now, I should return-”

Izuna had returned promptly from his thinking and pacing, leaning over the Doctor’s head to speak directly to the sigil, ears perked up once more.

“Hey, Dots! How you doin’ there, junior? Those sticks in the mud getting to ya?”

A single beat of silence before the Professor spoke again, voice much softer and warmer than when she spoke to only Paradigm.

“Oh, no, no. I’m doing quite well, there’s no need for concern”, she reassured. “All things considered, I’ve adapted quite quickly. This… Populated landscape is much different from the isles.”

“Hustle and bustle of the big city, eh! Couldn’t handle it myself! If you need a break, kiddo, your dad here will switch with ya no problem! Ya just gotta ask, right?”

“Certainly. All you need to do is ask”, Paradigm agreed with a gentle, unseen smile.

“Yes, well-” the Professor continued, somewhat flustered by such familial affection. “For now, let us resolve the issues at hand. Speak to you soon”

The sigil disappeared before them. Before Paradigm could get a word in, Izuna immediately asked, one ear to the side.

“You call her Professor?”

“We were speaking in a formal, professional context, Izuna. It would be a disservice to her, treating her familiarly!”, the Doctor huffed, pushing up his glasses. “Either way, why refer to her as Dots?”

“It’s a nickname! Paradox, Dox, Dots?”, Izuna shrugged, grinning. At Paradigm’s unamused stare, he grinned wider. “Heh, she just doesn’t like you calling her nicknames! She lets me ‘cuz I’m her favorite”

“Hush.” Dr. Paradigm sighed, hiding the sheer paternal envy he felt. “What were you pondering about, in any case?”

Izuna’s eyebrows rose, and he snapped his fingers in recollection.

“Oh yeah! You were talking about magnetic anomalies and electrical currents running through Sin”, the yokai spoke, gesturing as he recalled. “Don’t you think he can use those two, to, eh, yannow-”

As if on cue, the two froze, only now noticing the giant draconic face peering at them in the darkness, on the other side of the window, a single glowing red eye.

Sparks danced around it, leaping from its spiked fur and crawling along the glass of the balcony, or dancing along the walls of the gear’s prison. Its eyes, the left one a brilliant blue rather than red, surveyed the sight before them with characteristic near-sightedness, long whiskers at the front of the snout twitching, searching for any manner of movement much like its ears swiveled in search of noise. If these behaviors were not enough to convince of the creature’s nature as a hunter, the sparks lit up its great, sharp teeth, mouth left open as it focused on floating and detecting any signs of life. It was difficult to see in the murk of the chamber, made worse by the adrenaline flooding one’s senses, yet its body stretched, bobbed and turned behind the head, twisting strategically to keep the head static, adjusting as its magnetic poles likewise did… Though certainly by instinct.

Before Paradigm could think up theories of magnetism and Foucault currents, of how Sin could manage such a thing before even properly learning the very basics of physics, a booming, familiar voice resounded in his own head.

HEY, UH, GUYS?

WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?

Chapter Text

Having opened the hidden gates on the depths of the chamber for release of the well-behaved gear, both old men guided Sin to join them in the observation balcony. A task made rather difficult as the tunnels were made exactly for large gears not to pass through them. The poor lad ended up with more than a little rubble stuck in his wire-like fur.

He was full of questions, worn out enough to think of them and in front of someone who’d finally found out some proper answers. There was only thing to do, they collectively decided, Sin sitting and listening intently before Paradigm and Izuna to the old dragon’s left, a bit behind. It was to hold a Q&A session.

Q: What happened to me?!

A very poignant question indeed, excellent. When Paradigm pointed this out, the disconcerted Sin had a brief moment of pride with a very small grin. The smaller gear cleared his voice, giving himself a buffer to clear his thoughts, and looked down at his hurried notes.

A: I believe, as a result of a strong geomagnetic storm, and due to your inherent affinity for electricity, your natural balance of positive and negative charges was disturbed. This affected your health greatly, as one would having a certain nutrient in excess or deprivation, but ultimately lead to you attracting a lightning bolt.

Q: I GOT HIT BY LIGHTNING?!

A: Yes.

Q: HOLY CRAP- AM- AM I OKAY?!

Paradigm exchanged a glance with Izuna, who looked at him strangely, looking between the two dragons and understanding very little of the situation. The dragon blinked, before nosing around his own chest, paws, back and side, ears sideways and back in concern.

He wasn’t… Hurting.

Well…

To put it like that was far too reductive.

He felt right.

Sin stared off into the distance not afforded to him by the cramped chamber, but seeing nonetheless beyond the carved stone walls and ceiling which enclosed him and the other two with him.

As if for his whole life, he’d been covered in gossamer, now finally cleared as electricity buzzed below his skin and everything felt vibrant, awake, alive, alive, alive! Oh, the splendor with which every light and color shone and dazzled him, like sparks that danced across the lenses of his eyes, in such resplendent ballet across his synapses! He knew he was an energetic guy - he knew he had more energy than most people his age, energy now multiplied to the seventh power, his heart thrumming soundly and something, something somewhere calling to him. A bombastic melody, someone sung, calling him to a primordial home he had never once visited.

Ignoring the discomfort of readapting his muscle memory, this body felt as if it fit him like his human one never once had. Was that why he ate so much, came the passing thought, brushed aside in the revelry and euphoria of the moment. Sin wanted to fly up, as much as he could, and spin and run around. Be free. Could gears feel the call of the wild, when their first ancestors had been birthed by human hand alone, never meant to know the siren song of the hypothetical jungle? Ah, cursed be his contrived vocabulary - and the writer’s as well - for he lacked the poetry to weave the feelings flooding his mind.

The doctor and Izuna stared at him still, before him, as his tail shook, his paws stepped idly, his mouth agape, his eyes sparking and his ears perked up in the excitement of finally being himself, an emotion far too large to fit, even in his own bigger body. The two needed a response, and out of some impulse he could not explain, he decided to play his joy off.

Q: Err… Nothing hurts? But I shouldn’t be okay, right? I’ve always been told not to play outside during storms for a reason!

A: Right you are. Were you any other person, Sin, I’d wager you wouldn’t even be alive right now. But because you are who you are…

Paradigm stared at him over his diminutive glasses, a silent moment of thought and doubt before he continued.

A:...Or because you are who you are, truly… You are alive and unhurt, at this moment. Though, er, it seems as if your body may have reacted in order to protect yourself, and you are currently in that form. Have you tried changing back, yet?

“Yeah, no luck”, Sin lied.

“Troublesome. I’ll have to study a way to return you to normal, then-”

I hope you never find one, something deep inside Sin snarled, to the young man’s own shock. Before he could root inside his own mind and search for the culprit, Izuna raised his hand in question.

“Heyy, fan of the show here, long-time listener, first time asker”, the yokai said, taking a step forward, pointing at Sin with his thumb. “I think I can’t hear anything he’s saying? You guys all seem to be having such a nice conversation and I’m, eh, just not invited to it?”

A: Ah, I do have a theory about that, in fact.

Dr. Paradigm leafed through his notebook, immersed in his thoughts as Izuna scratched at his own side, mumbling something to the lines of “you don’t gotta put on the conference voice for everything…”. Running his pointer claw through the words scratched onto the aging parchment, the doctor thus proclaimed.

A: You see… Sin has inherited The Blood of Juno from his mother; genetically speaking, he is, to a certain percentage, a commander gear. Now- (the elderly dragon adjusted his glasses, floating around as he spoke) Only Justice could directly command gears, non-sapient ones. Sapient gears such as ourselves would still be highly influenced by her commands, but we do have the ability to fight back against them. Justice’s powers of command over gears translate to you, Sin, as something… Akin to telepathy, perhaps.

Izuna leaned on one foot, scratching his beard in thought, his brow furrowed.

“Eh… Well I can certainly see that you’re hearing Sin and I’m at sea here, but- do gear genes really manifest like that? On some sort of intensity dial”, Izuna asked. “Thought it was an on or off sorta thing”

“Well… That may be, usually, so…” Dr. Paradigm grumbled to himself, looking back at his book. What a herculean task it was for him to admit a mistake. “We’re dealing with commander gears here, Izuna. A completely different structure from the rest of us, so few specimens we hardly know anything about how they work”

“Eh, are they really?”

“Shoosh. And, Sin”, Dr. Paradigm sighed, turning his head towards the bigger dragon, whose face muscles were intensely flexed, veins visible on his forehead as he focused. “You can stop chanting Reuben sandwich get me a Reuben sandwich to yourself. Telepathy isn’t command, just communication”

“Dangit. Can I still get a sandwich?”

“If he wants a sandwich, maybe it’s best to just indulge him this once, Doc”, Izuna suggested, correctly guessing what Sin was asking for with those beady eyes and wagging tail. “A healthy appetite’s the most important thing for a growing gear!”

“Hmph. I suppose that’s a fair point…”, Paradigm conceded, shutting his notebook and floating on over to the entrance, mind following all the steps he had memorized to return to the surface. Hah, what a catastrophe it would’ve been, for him to be out cold, unable to guide them outside!

…Well, Izuna had memorized the steps as well, that old fox, not to mention he had the chance to teleport them away should he wish to, with only the slightest chance of landing in the water and have to swim back to shore. Surely someone would’ve gone to investigate whether they’d been mashed to paste by an out-of-control gear Sin, now that would’ve been a horrible tragedy.

…Someone… Someone looking for them…

“Sin, wait”, he said, turning around the narrow tunnel to face the two following him. Izuna’s abrupt stop made Sin’s snout crash into him, making the yokai stumble back and land on top of it.

“This is important… Quite a difficult decision too, but one I truly believe is not up to me to make”, the doctor sighed, shaking his head. “Do you want us to tell your parents what happened?”

It was somewhat amusing, really. It sounded like a reprimand, a threat. I’ll tell your parents! How many times had he heard that expression, over the years? Crashing into stuff, accidentally electrocuting people, it was rarer for him to not get into trouble when he was growing up. He could be considered an angel at this point, compared to what he was like before. Maybe the threat grew in magnitude when it became very public who his parents were, but it never seemed as grave as the one offered to him.

The pit on the depths of his chest grew wider.

“...Nah. Better not”, Sin sighed, raising and shaking his head, jostling Izuna around with it.

“Wo-woah, woah- Wait, are ya sure?” Izuna asked, turning around to grab onto Sin’s snout with his hands and feet, looking him in the eye. “Buddy, they could probably figure out something in a jiffy!”

They want to take this away from me, once more snarled the something. Sin felt the fur on his back raise and bristle, and swiveled his head back to see if there was someone there. Izuna responded with a panicked Ngaah!!

This voice, this furious snarl… The cadence was exactly like his voice sounded inside his own head, but as if it came from somewhere far behind him… Beneath him? The retorts it angrily spit were so quick that Sin hardly noticed them, even more locate them. He slowly looked back to the other dragon, in order not to swing poor Izuna around more than he had already done.

“Uh, yeah.. ”, Sin replied, ears flicking. “I don’t want to worry them, you know? I’m sure mom and dad have enough on their plates”

“You don’t want to worry them?”, repeated Paradigm, mostly to keep Izuna up to speed.

“D’aw, what a considerate young lad”, crooned Izuna with an odd accent, patting Sin’s snout. “No, wait! Sin, they’re worried already, you sh-”

“Izuna”, interrupted Paradigm, with a warning tone of voice. “It’s his decision. Now, let’s get you something to eat, Sin”

Sin let Izuna down gently, following after the older men with his ears flattened back, struggling to push away the guilt and fury from his heart, as they did him no good. His parents… Well, everyone in his family, really, had been so terribly busy for the past year, while he enjoyed the most free time out of everyone. El had her band, Ram was a general… Mom was the queen, now, which meant she was as busy as dad had been before her, and dad was just as busy. As it turns out, even though “prince-consort” sounded like some sort of made-up job, it came with as many responsibilities “king” did. There was no one around to hang out with him. Even when they managed to at least eat dinner together, it was clear they were all dead tired and trying their best to listen to his rambling. As if he couldn’t notice.

Not- not that he was that clingy, dangit! It was just… A bummer. Most of the time, he was on his own. Alone. He knew so many people and gears and all of them managed to always be busy. He couldn’t even go and hang out with the old man anymore; he tried once or twice, but all he did now was sit on his armchair and grumble about the news. Jack’O tried to entertain him, sure, but… It was just so off-putting seeing the man who raised him so different, even if he was happier like this, that Sin never visited them again. Jack’O sometimes asked about him, but Sin always managed to make an excuse. Maybe it was really rude to do so, and his parents would’ve certainly given him a stern talking to if they found out he was avoiding going to visit Frederick, but, hey.

It wasn’t like he really saw much of them nowadays. Neither them nor the Valentines. He saw more of the knights who realized his situation and pitied him, like those two… Dire and Straits, if he remembered correctly? Those two guys somehow worried about him enough to ask him out to lunch every day and make time to play videogames with him. He appreciated it, but being looked at like he was a martyr got annoying quick.

And then he got really sick.

He never understood how it happened. One night, there was this weird storm that made the skies look red, and when he woke up, it felt as if his bones were on fire and he couldn’t move. He would go stretches of time not realizing he was awake and others thinking he was asleep while never managing to get a wink of rest. Either the light by his window changed as quickly as he breathed or the day slogged off for years.

Little could he remember from back then. He doubted he was even all that conscious, even while awake. He’d stare at the ceiling, at the endless collection of flags he’d gathered over the years, repeating their names and facts and blazons to himself.

Belgium. Mom was raised there. France. That was where dad was from. Italy. Where the Illyrian capital was. Spain. Only a little was left from its original territory, centuries ago. The whole peninsula had been mostly occupied by gears - though the ones residing there called themselves Guires. Over there, the most recent flag, they hadn’t decided on a permanent one yet. The flag for República Ibérica das Guires. RIG. Iberian Gear Republic. They didn’t really have cities, towns or villages, since most of the gears were solitary and nomadic, but the sapient ones had simply gotten tired of the Holy Order trying to drive them back off of this place with lovely weather, flora, and Ordovician schist-greywacke sinclines, and established themselves as a country independent from Illyria. This meant they didn’t have to pay any taxes to anyone, but you were sorta susceptible to being hunted by a hungry non-sapient gear. Them’s the breaks. Gears went there if living in Illyria was far too civilized but had some sort of aversion towards islands.

Dire’s actually from there, it’s a pretty nice place, Sin mumbled to himself and to whatever exasperated relative happened to be the one trying to feed him something so he wouldn’t starve. He never wanted to. He felt so nauseous all the time it felt like torture. Worse, despite being so out of it due to his disease, he still managed to feel shame at being treated like a child who couldn’t feed himself. Priorities.

When he stepped out of the tunnel, still struggling to make sense of how this quadrupedal locomotion was meant to work, he was greeted by a horde of curious gears, gathered just outside and clamoring over each other to get a good look at him. Dr. Paradigm had sent his assistant over to dispel the order of hiding, knowing better than anyone else that keeping a multitude of gears in close quarters was meant for emergency situations only - and even then, as shortly as possible; any time he could save on getting some personal space between these beasts, the more injuries could be prevented.

“Look’atcha! Nice fur coat, Sin!”, commented one of the vacationing knight gears that came with him to the islands over the clamoring of the crowd.

The rest followed in their own comments, either trying to ingratiate themselves to him or to cheer him up - perhaps both, why make such black and white opinions on such complex beings? Sin’s fur ruffled, eyes swiveling around at the gathering of apparently every gear on the island. Ears flattened back, he scratched at his nose with one claw, half-hiding his face near his elbow.

All these compliments made him incredibly flustered. Yes, the body fit him like a glove, he finally felt right - he wasn’t that sure about the traditional gear nudism though. Was it nudism if everything was covered anyway? It wasn’t like you saw boars out there wearing business casual. Sin didn’t worry about those things - unnecessary and uncomfortable as they may be like this, the lad just wished for a pair of jeans. Huge pair of jeans. With a hole for his tail.

“Now, now. Don’t go embarrassing him”, Dr. Paradigm reprimanded, looking over his shoulder at the bashful Sin. “And don’t go cajoling either. Treat him as you always have. It’s about lunchtime, may I ask some of you to help him get some food?”

A few gears separated from the crowd, stepping forward - a few rollers and geroppa, one who particularly looked like she had been interrupted in the middle of her own lunch. Paradigm nodded thankfully at them.

“Right. Now, the situation is under control, everyone. You are dismissed”, the older dragon announced, making his way through the dispersing crowd. Izuna followed him closely behind.

“Figure you got some calls to make, eh Doc?”

“Bah, too right, Izuna. Too right”, Dr. Paradigm groaned. “This was meant to be a vacation, if I recall correctly.”

“What can I tell ya, Doc?”, Izuna chuckled with a shrug. “It’s really only this hectic when you’re here!”

The lunch-assigned gears waited for a while for the crowd to disperse, standing around Sin. One of them patted his elbow.

“Riibbit, come on, Sin. What’s there to be embarrassed about?”, commented a Geroppa, gesturing to his whole body. “I don’t have either, so it doesn’t bother me, rribbit, but how many gears would pay to have your fur and tail!”

Sin made a strangled, awkward noise, sitting his rump on the ground. He watched as, where once stood a multitude of gears, there was only his lunch crew left. Guess huge gears weren’t exactly uncommon around these parts, but he was probably the biggest around, right? He looked at a Bonebiter sat next to him and straightened up his back, stretching up as much as he could. His snout barely peeked over her head. He snorted with accomplishment, still feeling somewhat upset at not being that much of a novelty. He looked so cool! Never mind the nudity! He looked so cool and awesome and no one was appreciating it anymore.

Maybe they would again? Surely they just dispersed because of lunch, and would promptly come back to tell him how his dragon form was critical-awesome. Preferably when he found some clothes, though… What mattered was - he couldn't even see his whole body in its entirety, and he already knew he looked awesome. He lifted up one of his paws, looking at the triangle scales that lifted up and functioned like spikes. He could’ve sworn he’d seen that same design somewhere before, but the red accents were uniquely his.

“If you want some clothes”, languidly entoned a Roller, “we can get you some after lunch”

“Oh! Yeah, that would help-”

“Though”, it continued “I don’t think we have your size”

Sin’s ears lowered again.

“Ribbit, look - maybe some tent canvas could work?”

Sin pulled an upset face.

“I COULD LEND HIM SOME OF MY STUFF”, offered the bonebiter present, tilting her head towards him in what Sin assumed was a friendly smile.

Sin copied the gesture, then looked at the other gear. Her clothing, as was the tradition for most Bonebiters, was limited to the scraps of fabric big enough for these dragons to put on by themselves. They were usually drooled and gnawed on because of it. Sin held back a frown.

“Weren’t we going to go eat, rrrribbit?”, asked another geroppa, this one with short spikes on its head above its eyes. “Dunno if we’re gonna get bread big enough to make you a sandwich, though”

“I’ll tell you what I always tell the canteen cooks, Roy”, the dragon replied, looking with a determined expression to the firmament. “Let me at the buffet table, keep a wide berth, and I’ll take it from there”

—

When Izuna had gotten to the little cabin he’d accustomed himself to know as Dots’ current office and Doc’s old one, he found the Doctor consulting several books at the same time, going from flipping the pages of one with sustained fury to staring down the pages of other, hoping to intimidate some answers out of them. Meanwhile, Paradox’s voice buzzed from a floating communication sigil, following the elderly dragon around, rambling on about some scientific terms Izuna wasn’t comfortably knowledgeable about.

“You truly have no readings yet?”

“Professor, please-”, Dr. Paradigm sighed, nearly collapsing atop the book he was reading. “Sin is a kind young man, yes, but let us not ignore the fact his whole body is likely flooded with survival adrenaline! He is as unpredictable as any non-sapient gear”

There were solemn fingers being waggled. Hoo boy. Izuna invited himself in.

“Bah… Let us go with the current imbalance then, shall we? Sin is either positively or negatively charged and he must be returned to normal.”

“Yes, I concur… Though it’s not simply a case of static cling”

“Ah, but you may apply the same fundamentals, no? On a much larger scale, tr- Ah. Give me one moment.”

There was a sudden flutter of feathers, accompanied by the rush of air past the communication sigil on the opposite end of the line, and soon, the Professor’s beak clacking sounded much more echoed and close, unmuffled by the ample space of a corridor. It did not take a great mind to deduce what had occurred, simply familiarity.

“Do not tell me you’ve hidden away in some roof cranny once more!”, Dr. Paradigm reprimanded, waving his finger at the sigil despite it having no visual component. “Have I not taught you better?”

“Ah, leave it, you pedantic old fool”, sighed the Professor with great annoyance. “I would much rather not be interrupted by passersby at every breath. Endure it and scold me when you do not have a megadeath commander in your hands”

“Well I’d never-”

“Ehh, not to, yannow, interrupt the conversation of great minds here”, Izuna said, leaning his chin over Paradigm’s head and interrupting the conversation of great minds. “And not to add more trouble to our already stacked plate, but we’re gonna have to figure out something to tell the Royal Duo, won’t we?”

The Doctor hummed in startled acknowledgment, running his hand over the top of his head in worry. Sin’s improvement during the last week had meant he talked every so often with his parents to reassure them of his state and overall health. He was now unable to speak - or rather, speak to anyone who wasn’t a gear… Heavens knew how telepathy would carry through magic frequencies- which meant such a line of updates would go suddenly and inexplicably cold. They could keep it vague until they fixed the situation, informing them Sin had suddenly worsened and could not speak… Which would bring the Queen and her consort to their archipelago faster than light could manage.

It was needless to mention telling the truth would only worsen it.

“I did not perceive them as the neurotic type, unlike my father, who requires such daily updates”, commented Paradox, paying no mind to Paradigm’s offended fluster of ‘N-Neurotic?! Why, I never-!’. “Furthermore, I’ve never heard reports of megadeath gears being thusly concerned with their offspring”

“It’s not about being neurotic or a megadeath, darlin’!”, Izuna chuckled to himself, his ear flickering. “It’s about them being parents! You lucked out with me being the cool, casual type…”

Izuna combed his hair back, demonstrating his cool qualities, while Paradigm rolled his eyes. pinching between his own eyebrows.

“Is either the Queen or Ky aware you’ve been communicating with us?”, asked Paradigm, under a sudden flash of inspiration.

“If they aren’t, they soon could verify any claims of communications being down due to the storm rather quickly. Other workers have spotted me, and bluffs of me reporting to gears in Illyria would hardly be believable”, Paradox hummed, disappointed. “I thought of the same strategy, Doctor”

“Ah, yes, but has your speech not been halted? Have you not moved intermittently across the castle, and are you not currently located in a place of high altitude?”, Dr. Paradigm spoke, waving his finger. A spark shone in his red eyes, as it always did when a strategy clicked in his mind. “If you claim communications have been spotty… Then make a show of being unable to contact me… It would surely make your claims probable, would it not?”

Izuna hummed with appreciation, removing his chin from its feathery resting place so he could wander aimlessly across the room, investigating the scribbled scraps tossed aside in frustration.

“I must tell you my… Cunning works far better on our own kin than in humans” The professor said, though her voice betrayed how she had already accepted such a plan, her mind working on how to put it in action. “As for hybrids, I have no reference. Though I must admire how you’ve come around to my methods, Doctor”

“Such embezzlement of the truth is not my particular cup of tea, Professor”, sighed Paradigm, adjusting his glasses and approaching the communication circle to dismiss it. “But I have come to see its practicality over time. Truly, I have! Now if you’ll allow me, I must check some literature on electricity…”

“You’ll return to my original plan no matter what”, snickered the Professor’s voice as the circle vanished to nothing.

“Yes, yes, goodbye now!”

Paradigm groused unclearly for a moment, casting vexed glances at the place where the circle had floated idly. Everytime he wrenched his attention back to the hefty book laid out before him, claw crawling along with the lines of words, he’d soon look back with a furrowed brow.

“Izuna”

“Ngah!”, the yokai squeaked, hurriedly hiding something from the dragon. Paradigm squinted at him, but didn’t pursue that train of doubt quite yet.

“Izuna. I’m not…”, Doctor Paradigm gestured blankly. “Pedantic. Am I.”

Izuna’s lips were pressed into a fine, long line. The dragon frowned at him.

“By today’s standards, weee-eeell-”, Izuna grinned awkwardly, raising a hand with his pointer and thumb nearly pressed together. “Oh, it’s just ‘cuz she knows you well! When I met you, ehh, a century ago, give or take? I was dazzled by your verbose vocabulary, Doc!”

This did not make the doctor feel any better. He groused to himself once more before turning back to his books, now much less interested in pursuing further conversation on this topic.

“Izuna”, Paradigm reprimanded, not taking his eyes off his book. “Stop rummaging through everything”

“Hey, I need something to do, alright”, Izuna replied, struggling to stop the Newton’s cradle from clacking loudly. “Sitting around and doing nothing while a young lad suffers - a man like that is a no good newt!”

“A newt?”

“A newt, sir!”

Izuna stood up straight, Newton’s cradle in hands, fingers trying to hold all of the spheres at once, his chin tilted up as he looked at the cobwebs decorating the ceiling.

“So may it be that my kenning of magic is nae good here!”, Izuna proclaimed in yet another accent he’d picked up from somewhere. “But I’ll make the bairn feel as right as rain!”

With that, Izuna marched on out, clackety cradle hastily placed back on the shelf, his coat fluttering dramatically behind him. Paradigm followed him with his eyes for a moment, soon turning back to his research. Have it be written - you could be familiar enough with a man, your friendship so long-lasted, that even his most out-there eccentricities became commonplace for you.

Flanked by two rows of shell shocked gears, far more disturbed by the events that had transpired within the tiled white walls of the mess hall than by the horrors perpetrated by non-sapient kin and human alike during the crusades, their mouths agape in a manner much akin to the cerulean circular decorations painted upon the walls… Tottered out Sin, his movement further impeded by his recent-past gluttony.

“Guys, come on now, that’s just how eating runny egg sandwiches goes!”, Sin sighed, discovering that the more he tried to wipe his snout, more sauce seemed to generate out of nowhere to stain it. “Well, I don’t get to eat them very often, anyway! My parents never eat eggs, for some reason”

“Doesn’t your old guy avoid eating eggs as well?”, pointed out a visiting Kappa.

A handful of yokai had come to investigate why their own old guy - Izunaーオジさん, that was - hadn’t shown up for lunch with the baskets upon baskets of sandwiches and desserts he had promised them. They had been swiftly clued in as to the Sintuation, as they had dubbed it, a poorly thought out portmanteau of Sin and Situation, and a few had remained, ever the curious cackle, to see how it all turned out in the end. The resident gears were ever happy to give the natives from their sister village (island? Place?) the answers to all their questions, though now the stress of having witnessed Sin given free reign at a buffet table made them unable to respond.

“Huh, really? But why, though? What do my parents and Dr. Paradigm have in common…”, Sin wondered aloud, lowering his head so a different Kappa could give a hand in wiping his snout clean.

In an attempt to scratch his chin, to aid his thinking, as everyone knows that is how it works, Sin forgot about his quadrupedal locomotion once more and toppled flat on his face, snapping his lunch posse out of their fugue states to titter at him, amused. He glared at them.

“Sorry, Sin, sorry”, drawled out a Roller, surprising Sin with his first time hearing a slow-motion laugh. “If I tried walking on two legs, I wouldn’t do well either”

Saying this, the testudine gear tried standing up on her two back legs, achieving such a pose for a mere second before toppling back as well, rattling like a dropped coin as she did. The group had a hearty laugh, joined in by the Roller herself, as a few of the Geroppa present helped her right herself.

“All you need is practice, right? No one’s hatched walking or anything”, shrugged one of the Kappa. “I think, at least”

This sparked another debate within the gathered fellows of gear or yokai persuasion, one parallel to one that had been running in the background and slowly gathering more traction - why did certain gears not eat eggs? What was common between them? Vegetarianism had been posited to little appreciation from peers - what kind of vegetarian did you have to be to eat meat and not eggs? Were eggs meat? Sometimes, if you got certain ones, but you usually avoided the meat eggs if you were making an omelet, right?

Besides the discussion of what sort of meat an egg was, Sin was in the midst of a heated colloquy regarding whether you could walk as soon as you hatched. Ganymedean Gears have a vast range of ages amongst them, so you’d wager at least one would be young enough to remember its first days on this earth. You’d be incorrect. The unreliable memory showdown was flaring brightly in the noon of the sunny isles, well-lunch’d gears gathering around to offer their own takes on the situation. Sin had changed his opinion seven times in the span of fifteen minutes.

“Look! At least we can agree - whether you can walk or not when you hatch, you can’t walk well!”

“Wok well?! Guys, maybe eggs are hard to cook for certain gears!”

The Spirit-Seeker spun around in place to face the other, different mob gathered a few paces away, finger pointed in annoyance.

“You keep that conversation to that side! Seriously! We can’t make this more scrambled than it already is!”

“Scrambled… Guys, maybe-”

“Stop it!!”

The single Bonebiter present - as they usually liked their personal space; so went the old adage, one Bonebiter’s a party, two’s a blockade - hummed thoughtfully, looking around at the gears present and slowly forming a thought.

“ROACH, SHOULDN’T YOU KNOW WHETHER WE CAN WALK OR NOT WHEN WE HATCH?”

The Spirit-seeker looked back at her, dangling from Sin’s mouth as he picked him up by the back of his shirt and deposited him back into the middle of the Walk discussion group, away from the fight he had been escalating in the middle of the Egg debate society.

“What, you think all Spirit-seekers watch over eggs and lil’ cogs* or something?” Roach asked, shrugging and shaking his head reproachfully. “Well, we do kinda go help Offspring at the mound when they ask us, but me, I just raise doves”

(*Name given to gears under three years of age)

A wave of nods ran through the heads of the other Spirit-seekers gathered, arms crossed in the annoyance of being assumed as the babysitter of all gears. Sin, however, was rather surprised, his ears perked up and looking around himself at sheer bafflement, seeing how everyone was taking this statement at face value.

You see, this Offspring fellow came up a lot in conversations with the gears working in the Illyrian castles. Over half of them claimed to have been raised by it and the other half recounted actions taken in its name, perhaps saying it was what it would want. No matter what, all of the palace gears Sin spoke to described it with religious reverence, as a sort of panoptical parental figure who had raised nigh all sapient gears alive today, seeing as almost none had living and/or sapient parents, most having fallen at the hands of the Holy Order*.

(*For Sin, ‘my dad could beat up your dad!’ was a statement only incorrect due to the auxiliary verb. His dad did beat up their dads. And killed them. Oops.**)

(**No one was more ashamed of this than Ky Kiske himself, though his new gear knights held it as a badge of honor. My old man was so strong it took Ky Kiske himself to beat him!)

Now, understand. Sin saw how they described this fellow. Sin had never seen it. When asked, Sin was told barely anyone saw it, and he would probably never meet it. They held ceremonies in its honor, small prayers so similar to the ones his own family spoke to the saints of young, canonized during the crusades, and of old, from before even the old technologies had risen. So, Sin thought this Offspring was some manner of Deity to sapient gears, a theory now put to the test because what do you mean you went to help it. At a mound. Does it live here? Perhaps it was a religious metaphor? God has asked me to do this or that… Yeah, Sin heard that before, it wasn’t all that impossible to say… He would’ve liked to take the shortcut to discovering the truth - in other words, moving his brain muscles and beaming his question into someone’s mind, but he expected to be tittered at once more if he did, the transmission cackling at his ignorance.

The new dragon discovered he wasn’t quite fond of being laughed at, whatever the reason may be. It wasn’t as if in the past he had been a pillar of patience, a bastion at turning the other cheek… Oh, no, no - but now, he saw red. Flashes of red blinded his vision, his neck muscles straining to snap his jaws shut around something, his fur bristling and something crawling under his skin. Such a minor mockery and it made him feel rage beyond anything he had ever experienced before - was this what it was like, being a full gear? From birth? Was this what the old man was on about?

Either way, thankfully enough, Sin needn’t ask for anything - Roy the Geroppa, having been in the classic Thinker’s Pose this whole time, snapped its fingers and pointed over at Sin. It was Offspring who was the answer, the froggish gear said in an eureka moment. Sin nodded solemnly, wanting to look knowledgeable.

“Offspring raised all of us, rrrriight, ribbit? They’ve probably seen dozens of lil’ cogs learn how to walk, talk, all that stuff”, Roy explained, making its way over to Sin. “So, if anyone can help you get your gear-gears in gear-” A pause to see if anyone laughed. They did not. “It’s them! They’ll train you to be the nimblest dragon on the planet!”

A clamor rose from the transmission, riled up in excitement. The vacation goers were sorely missing the exercise of Dr. Paradigm’s drills, the locals missed the structure of Prof. Paradox’s formation exercise - there was a spread agreement that some movement would help loosen their gear-gears. They laughed at that one, to Roy’s chagrin.

“Hey, I’ll try anything!”, laughed Sin, shrugging as best he could. “If you think they can help me-”

“Course they can, it’s Offspring! Let’s get going already - hope you didn’t eat too much lunch, Sin!”

“Roy, you were there, you know very well I did”

—

“Oh, cool!”

Izuna’s eyes bugged as he saw someone other than the gruff, beefy man he was acquainted with opening the door to the middle-of-nowhere house he was told he inhabited. As quickly as his reflexes allowed him, he immediately hopped away from the non-descript machine he was leaning on and stood up straight, in front of the red-haired, grinning woman who’d greeted him. Despite the cool, early November autumn weather, she was wearing a t-shirt with a very intense bike-riding skeleton, the words I NEED TO POOP RN inscribed above it in flaming text, clearly painted on after purchase.

Something was frighteningly familiar about this woman, which put the elderly yokai extremely on edge. He would’ve inquired about it, but at the moment, no polite way of asking “hey, are you related to that creepy Backyard girl who tried to take over the world at the request of her mom, y’know, the one with the Vizuel army and the candy fascination?” came to mind.

“Ah- Eh, uhm- Yes! Ha-lloh!”, Izuna greeted, waving his hand, extending it for a handshake, doing a peace sign, a shadow-dog hand, a fox hand, a two-finger salute, a shaka, metal horns, waving it again, then stuffing it in his jacket pockets after he decided he wasn’t getting an adequate hand gesture out this time. “I- Well, geez, I may have gotten the wrong house! You caught me unawares, I was expecting a, eh, Frederick Bulsara? Residing within this establishmeeent?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s here! I’m just here to annoy him and eat whatever he cooks. Hang on, I’ll call him-”, the woman answered, copying Izuna’s series of undecisive hand gestures as she spoke. “FREEEEDDIE! THERE’S A FOX OUTSIDE!”

There was a moment of silence. A gruff “we’re in the middle of the damn woods… There’s gonna be foxes outside…” came from somewhere inside the house.

“YEAH BUT THIS ONE HAS A BEARD!”, the woman turned back to Izuna, looking him up and down. “HE’S LIKE, A GUY”

What a great description! You should work as a Police Sketch Artist!

Once more, there was no immediate response, though this time it was probably due to Frederick’s confusion.

“...How can you tell?”

The woman suddenly looked very surprised, and turned back to Izuna with one hand before her mouth, then trying to reach for his shoulder.

“Oh, geez, I just assumed- Uh, are you- Okay being called a guy?”

“Dahling, I am way too old and of too dubious origin to be concerrrrned with such petty matters”, Izuna replied with a posh accent, hand on his hip. “Anything goes, I don’t worry about it, that’s-”

“FREDDIEEEE! THE FOX DOESN’T REALLY CARE ABOUT GENDER!”

“JACK’O STOP YELLING HOW IS THE FOX TELLING YOU TH- Oh.”

The man of the hour had finally decided to show up at his own step, having deigned to leave his armchair, newspaper under his arm. With glasses and his quaint little lab coat, F.B. embroidered on the pocket featuring a pocket protector, he was miles from the infamous Sol Badguy of legend. He wrinkled his nose with a disdainful sniff, also looking Izuna up and down.

“Huh. Weren’t you dead?”

“Now aren’cha the best guy to be asking me that, Mister Bulsara?”

The woman - Jack’O? - turned her very amused face slowly towards the former scientist, entoning a teasing oooooooOOO? like the lead of a Greek chorus. Frederick glared at her, like he glared at anything he looked at.

“Weren’t you playing video games or something?”

“Ack, that’s right! My personal best!”, Jack’O exclaimed, snapping her fingers and rushing back inside. “Nice to meet’cha, fox-guy!”

Frederick grunted, shoving his hands in his lab coat pockets and shifting his position to block the doorway with his wide shoulders. A gear, a god of war, a corrupting flame he may no longer be, but the man remained a beefcake nevertheless.

…He was also wearing a black shirt with a very intense bike-riding skeleton, this one with no flaming text. It was in nearly every way equal to the one Jack’O was wearing, but far older. Couples wearing matching (?) tshirts, what a sight! If he tried suggesting that to Paradigm, even as a joke, he’d have to find out if he could still dig his own dens.

“What’s the courtesy call for. If this is about helping out in some world-ending situation, I’m retired. Can’t do shit anymore”, the man looked aside, into the woods that surrounded his house. “Just Someguy, now.”

Did you just compound ‘some guy’? Geez, what an oddball…

“Someguy with gout and IB-”

“Some video game you must be playing!”, he yelled, looking over his shoulder. He looked back at Izuna, even more irritated than before.

“Err, uh… Very common in older g-”

“What are you here for, damn you.”

“Alright, alright! Straight to the point… Look, I’ll try to make this brief, yeah…”

Your beloved writer will try to make it even briefer, by skipping the story you’ve certainly read up until now. Unless you’ve started reading from chapter three, you saucy, wild thing. You sassafras. I like your moxie, kid. You don’t follow rules. You fight against The Man. That being said, you did lose out on a bit of plot, which won’t be recapped any time soon. Sorry, them’s the breaks.

“Yeah, figured that would happen sooner rather than later. Told them feeding the kid so much would make his cells go haywire”, Frederick sighed, chewing on a piece of beef jerky he had in his pocket. In its plastic bag, of course. He was lazy, not slovenly.

For a second - a split second - his face almost looked concerned. Then it was back to that irritated frown he always had, glaring coldly at the waiting Izuna (who was also chewing on some borrowed beef jerky).

“Told you I ain’t helping out anymore. Can’t”, Frederick grunted, stepping outside and walking a few paces, purposefully nearly bumping into the yokai. “Hell, the kid was sick of me anyway. Ain’t seen him in over a year now. Why should a useless old guy stick his nose in business that ain’t his?”

“He’s just upset ‘cuz Sin hasn’t visited! He misses him a lot! You can tell he’s really worried!”

“What a videogame that is, got you talking to the T.V. and everything!”, Frederick yelled back into the house. “You eat way too much damn sugar! Pipe down already!”

“Look, Fred- can I call you Fred?”

“No.”

“Frederick, fine, geez! Frederick, no one’s expecting you to help anymore, and we don’t really need you to, it’s fine-” Izuna interrupted himself as he saw that Frederick’s frown only grew deeper. Talking to this guy was like navigating a minefield! “I just wanted to cheer the poor kid up, yeah? His favorite food’s your chili, ya hook me up with a recipe and I’ll be outta your hair in a jiffy, fox’s honor!”

Frederick eyed him suspiciously, chewing still on his beef jerky. There was no sunset to outline him, or dramatic wind blowing through - just two old men staring at each other on a front lawn.

“Not asking you to make it, Frederick”, Izuna added, dreading ensuing shenanigans. “Just. The recipe”

“Bah, fine”, Frederick grumbled, making his way inside again. “Get me a scrap of paper and I’ll write something down. You can probably get some roadkill around here somewhere. S’one of the main ingredients.”

…Ewwwww…

“Hey, Sin liked it well enough. Damn kid, can eat armed cement but suddenly my cooking isn’t as good as it used to be”

A few moments later Izuna demonstrated how good he was at keeping promises, vanishing five seconds after he got the recipe in his hand. Frederick was left with his sour mood and made his way to his post, his old chair, resuming his daily newspaper without much actual interest in it. Thirty more minutes and he’d go and make lunch. Then go outside. Sit outside. Stare at the road. Until it was time for dinner. Full schedule, really.

He caught something out of the corner of his eye.

“Jack’O”

“Freddie!”, Jack’O greeted, grinning from ear to ear. “Fredhead. Freddo. Spaghetti Al Fredd-o. How’s it hanging, champ. Does it. Does it say anything in the papers about when the next thunderstorm is?”

Frederick turned around in his seat, placing the newspaper on his lap as he narrowed his eyes at his girlfriend. She was carrying a massive paper kite and trying to hide it, without much success, behind her back.

“Jack’O”

“Yessur”

“You’re not going to Benjamin Franklin Justice back to life.”

Jack’O made a face like a fox caught in a henhouse.

“Aw, come on… That wouldn’t happen, right?”

“It would”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Reeeeally?”

“Jack’O.”

“I just thought, yannow… Dragons are so cool, and, if Sin got dragon’d by a lightning bolt, and we’re kinda related, maybe-”

“No”, Frederick turned back to the morning paper. “If you turn into Justice I’m not doing anything. Not getting out of this chair.”

Jack’O grumbled to herself, then paused, as if listening to someone whispering in her ear.

“We’ll be reeeeally careful this time?”

“No.”

“Beh, fair enough. Party pooper”

Chapter Text

This time, Izuna didn’t land in the middle of the ocean, which was on all accounts a resounding victory for everyone involved. He did find himself in the middle of a pétanque game being played by a handful of his companions, making him doubt his location for a brief second before he realized that the mystical, autumnal Japanese shrine ambiance of his home in Underworld Hill was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the limestone houses and limestone paved streets emerged from rolling fields of grass (over limestone), with hills (of limestone) emerging in the distance. Very mediterranean.

“Uncle Izuna!”, called out a Nekomata, perched on a (limestone) bench. “We were looking for you, meow!”

“Oh, hey! You guys came to visit?”, Izuna panted, knees trembling and nearly buckling under the weight of all the ingredients he brought. “Sorry, I woulda brought you some desserts, we just ran into some - nyeh, technical difficulties?”

“Oh, we heard all about it, uncle Izuna”, said the Kappa currently aiming the ball with professional fervor. “They all left to go run in some field, a few minutes ago”

“Running! Heh, they’re distracted then-”, Izuna had to set down the bags he was carrying. “Gather round, gather round, ye brave young hearts! I just flew in from Italy and boy are my arms tired!”

Izuna’s joke was met with cavernal silence. He pulled his lips in an awkward, disappointed grimace. He gestured, begging, towards a hulking Namahage, ball held tightly in fist. The masked yokai slowly shook his head at him, jaw wagging loose as he did. The fox yokai sighed dramatically and heartbroken.

“Alright, tough crowd! I still need help preparing a dragon-sized dose of Nonna Bulsara’s Homemade Chili and I need all the help I can get, so- Name your price, I’ll meet it”

He didn’t get an answer, per se. Just a clamor of yokai putting away the Pétanque game, Nekomata kicking up an uproar around him as they just about dragged him to the kitchen, Namahage picking up his bags over their shoulders like they weighed a fraction of what they actually did, Tengu surrounding him and asking for specifics of the recipe, even Akataro the Daidarabotchi was somehow trailing along, a tad lost - how did they even get him over here?! Not that he was going to be much help, but he at least wouldn’t ask for much…

Unlike everyone else…

–

“Really? No signal? Shall I try calling him?”

“I have to say - if you contact the Doctor, I think he’ll gain an instant stress ulcer”

King Whitefang grumbled under his breath, nonetheless lacking a proper rebuttal, stapling a few documents together and pushing them aside in lieu of proper organization for the time being. Organization… The professor began to realize that things such as organization were conducted much differently in the mainland, where neither human nor gear kept an intricate system to decipher which files went together quite the same way as Ganymedean gears did. The delights of the Kreutz Decimal System were lost upon these fellows, but the dragon was beginning to accept these differences as necessary and even quite interesting.

For example, King Whitefang, for all his pomp and grandeur, preferred to stick to the basics of the Alphabetical Order by Topic. It took him longer than Paradox’s four pairs of talons brushed through reams of documents and reviewed them all, surely, and for all of them he’d recite portions of the alphabet under his breath, but it was its own dance; the professor gazed intently, admiring the way this man’s hands doubted themselves, counted sheets, numbers, like mayflies dancing mindless across the surface of a midsummer pond, sun drowning beyond a firmament of trees. Though it was a species far beyond her, she had begun to admire the vast incomprehensibility of humans, much like an astronomer admires the great cosmos.

“You say a storm made the bambino-piú-bambino sick, a storm made the radar systems act up, a storm’s making the connections fall”, Whitefang looked up from the documents, across the table to the patiently waiting perched gear, “Isn’t this a concerning number of storms? Surely there’s implications for Illyria if this continues”

Paradox tilted her head this way and that, the claw of one of her talons tapping along her beak in thought. Leo’s fuzzy eyebrow remained quirked.

“Alas, neither of us can say we’re scholars of meteorology”, Paradox began, descending from her perch to walk around on the knuckles of her bat-like wings. “But I believe the storm is, sadly, magical in nature…”

“Sadly?”

“Sadly.” Paradox reinforced, staring out the window onto the bustling city. “If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have to contend with such ridiculous concepts as thunderstorms having magnetic anomaly aftershocks, like earthquakes…”

Whitefang sat back in his seat, hands laid flat on the table as he furrowed his face a plethora of different ways, eyes shifting position ever so often. Then, he slapped the table, a sharp toothed grin breaking on his face.

“A-HA, I know this one! Since it’s magic, the waves manifest from a central nucleus or focus, like earthquake waves, right!” Whitefang leaned over the table, using books to simulate two tectonic plates and the energy-releasing friction between them. “Then the magical aftershocks result from the focus readjusting and returning to its original state! Aha, I was top of the class in geology!”.

“Yes, precisely! Though so irritatingly inane, all of it!”, Paradox sighed in dismay, climbing back up to her perch. “I’d much rather have to contend with merely the natural phenomena, but anything involving gear-kind must involve magic in some manner”

Leo hummed thoughtfully, as a man educated to lead armies, win battles and rule adequately, forced to maneuver with/around the magical shenanigans that now followed him everywhere. Paradox, grudges aside, began to see the uses of magic - it was so much easier to craft lies when sacrificing it as scapegoat.

“I would offer my input, were I able to- If anything, to pay back the debt of aiding me”, he motioned to the giant stacks of already addressed documents. “But I’m afraid gears are more Ky’s jurisdiction…”

“Hello? Yes?”

Prince-consort Ky Kiske appeared from behind a bookcase like some manner of ghastly apparition, scaring the skin off of Leo’s hide, making the bulky man nearly topple the table in surprise.

“K-Ky!”, Leo called, hand to his heart, watching with confusion as the man stepped towards him rather strangely. “You were here? How long? I didn’t even hear you, good lord!”

The man lumbered towards him, as if a half-pack of sand-cranes were controlling an uncannily close costume of him. His left arm was tensed, fingers curled into claws and twitching, as was his left eye. Sparks flickered around him, his eyes swiveling from side to side like he expected some beggeth to leap out of the bookcases and attack them. Leo eyed him with the warranted shock.

“What’s the matter with you?”, the second king (was he still second when the first was a queen? Questions to be mulled over later) asked, direct and concisely, gesturing at all of him. “You’re usually a fine pile of nerves, but this is something else!”

“I am perfþectly fþine, Leo, I don’t know what you’re tþhalking about”, Ky replied succinctly, walking around the table with the same hesitant, hyper-alert stare.

Leo wondered what a fþine or a tþhalking was, his furrowed brows furrowed ever deeper, twisting around in his seat to follow the odd-creature that Ky appeared to be possessed by. The light caught a glimpse of fangs on the left side of his head, to which Whitefang sighed, exhausted. It was no secret that Ky had a rather… Non-human percentage of him that had come to manifest lately, those old knight-dorm rumors about him coming true in the most unexpected manner*. Why, that was the very reason why the remainder of the Illyrian Kingdom’s governing forces felt little guilt and lesser shame about dumping all responsibilities regarding gears on him - he was one of them, wasn’t it- he?

(*Unless you were to believe other, saucier rumors about where the Young Holy Order’s commander’s affections lay. Another nay-saying rumor that came true in the most unexpected manner.)

Whitefang wasn’t all that ignorant of how gears behaved either - you couldn’t be, when so many had met their end at the ends of your swords. That, and he had become surprisingly acquainted with two thirds of Paradigm’s bloodline (and if the youngest was anything like the other two, he’d rather the fraction stay that way!). He knew where the man’s neuroticisms stemmed from… Leo sniffed. Well, he could make an educated guess.

“Your son is fine, bambino, come now”, the second king trailed off, realizing now the Professor had suddenly disappeared, nowhere to be seen.

To his right, heterochromic eyes - one red, one blue - stared him down. No time for distractions now, there never was with gears. For some reason, his heart had caught on his throat for a brief second. Strange he may be acting, but it was Ky he was facing nonetheless! He could defeat the man any day of the week.

“You’ve heard the news, you’ve spoken to him even yesterday! Surely you cannot believe his state worsened overnight!” Leo said, pretending neither he nor Ky had seen dozens and dozens of soldiers keel and die in a matter of hours, regardless of how spright they’d once been.

A hollow, snapping sound up in the rafters agreed with him. Whitefang restrained himself from looking up, recognizing it as the professor clacking her beak. Lord, something did happen to the kid overnight, didn’t it?! You get down here and you tell the truth, you giant bat!

“You’re… Yes, you’re right, I’m sorry”, replied Ky, looking down at the wooden boards of the floor, scuffed over the years by the number of people who’d walked over them. Strangely enough, Leo wondered, following his coworker’s line of sight, there was a rather fresh scuff. A single line carved into the wood, twirling and curving around the room, meeting exactly at the heel of Ky’s left foot. Like a fruit fly to a banana, a thought had spontaneously generated on Leo’s mind: Hey, wasn’t Ky limping from his left leg? Wasn’t his left shoe patched at the front, and looking a lot bumpier than usual?

Without sparing the second king any more words, Ky lumbered out of the castle’s private libraries, hitting his shoulder on the doorframe and sliding around the corner, clearly still bothered. Leo sighed to himself, hand on his forehead, startled once more by the sound of Prof. Paradox climbing down from the rafters, talons skittering across the walls.

“The- The prince-consort!”, the dragon heaved, face gaunt, eyes wide and terrified, making Leo’s glare melt into concern. “The storm must’ve affected him as well! He emanated such- such territorial instinct! It took all I had not to bolt out of this room!”

The two gaped at the door, Ky already long gone. Leo had felt nothing of the sort - though, now recalling it, his body language had put him extremely on edge. Legends were told about gears defending their young with fearsome rage, to the point where even the weakest and smallest could level a platoon if it came to it… Rumors and hyperbole, he assumed, but there were always the tales of cataclysm and slaughter following well-meaning and poorly thought out decisions of taking gear eggs and raising the creatures since hatch. When dealing with nests, you had to kill the adults before destroying the eggs. Every knight was told the same.

“B-bah! The bambino’s a nervous wreck any day of the week, this changes nothing” Leo swallowed dryly, forcing himself to regain his bearings and reason. “A talk with his wife and he’ll simmer down, that sappy bastard”

A panicked clicking rose from Paradox, her feathers lifting in waves, one of her eyes twitching to look at him. If she looked fearful before, she was the dictionary definition for horrified.

“The Queen? She’s at her office, and-”, the professor chittered nervously. “I can sense her from here.”

–

The gear parade - a sight born from the hypothetical situation where Hyeronimus Bosch had been made to paint an idyllic pastoral scene - had made its way to a lush, verdant valley, near the sharp cliff edge of a rocky (limestone) hilltop. Flowers, grasses and such other small flora you may recognize from comforting natural scenes bloomed and prospered here, though the scene was disrupted by a massive goliath amalgam of metallic machinery, leaning against the cliff face much like a knight felled in battle.

One’s mind would supply the human shape from its details - the raised knee, arm draped across it. Slouched shoulders, head limp and lifeless, its eyes open still… This giant found its grave in this clearing, leaving one to wonder what it had once fought. Sin was the only one eyeing it in awe, a few smaller gears already detaching from the group and heading into the cliff face, entering a tunnel carved near the other hand of the mechanical giant. The dragon’s eyes were drawn to this warrior of rusted iron and scrap - glass panes akilter, brightly glowing in the afternoon sun, providing the illusion of eyes that engaged the quarter-gear in a fierce staring match - though through the corner of his eyes he could spy when the scouts’ heads peeked out of windows carved upon the cliff face, steadily reaching the top and thus approaching the goliath’s head.

The three returned promptly, one less packed lunch amongst them and nothing gained but toothy smiles. Moving forward, take into consideration all gear smiles are toothy - there is no other way for a gear to smile. They relayed the message succinctly - Offspring had yelled at them and told them to do whatever, but to keep it down.

Every other gear began hooting and hollering in reverie, heads tilted upwards and aimed at the head of the goliath, as logic and good fashion sense dictated this entity must reside in. Where else would they live? The leg? Please. Have some decency. Much like the gathered gears, who after a moment of defying what they were told to do (which sapient gears adore doing, when they know it won’t have serious consequences), gathered around to find something to do.

In five minutes, several different games and exercises had been prepared. Some were running obstacle courses that got more difficult as the egging of the onlookers got louder and more plentiful of bets, some had followed Illyrian tradition and produced a ball to play some variation of sportsball, random sticks and rocks marking the goals, some were playing pétanque, some were chasing each other about in races, some were calling each other and heading to a nearby lake- The variety they had split into was frankly too great to number here in any interesting fashion, but it did resemble some manner of topical sports competition whose name evaded Sin at the moment.

The dragon took one last look at the defunct metal giant who matched his stare still - then, a Geroppa had grabbed his paw and invited him over to play something or other, which Sin enthusiastically agreed to. He was quite the fan of sports, wouldn’t you know. Anything that involved moving about came easy to him, especially if it involved any manner of wrestling or fighting. A few good hours he spent giving every station a try, then a few Leonards had arrived just to set up an area designated for something called pankration, which was apparently an old fancy word for Wrestling In Your Undies. Sin stood with his front paws inside that circle for a good twenty minutes waiting for an opponent (somehow the leonine gears had boxer shorts big enough for him), everyone else side-eyeing him nervously until the bigger gears had finally returned from their swimming contests.

All it took was this Bonebiter, Roxanne, crashing into him at her highest possible speed laughing with the exciting prospect of a friendly wrestling match, to have a gaggle of other gears lining up to fight him - and each other! Roach the Spirit-Seeker had climbed up on a hunk of metal to write a bracket for this impromptu tournament and immediately a few others waddled on over to him to complain about “seeding”, whatever that was.

Someone to match his strength, that was what he needed, Sin realized, for the first time in his life finding out what it was like getting stuck in a chokehold by a gear several times smaller than him - a gargoylish Gate-Gunner that usually crouched atop benches or rocks, now immobilizing his whole body with one simple hold. Sure his family and friends could hold their own, but… Argh, he’d already mulled over that - it made him feel terrible, childish and clingy. Sure he trained with the human knights, and then what? He wasn’t being trained, he was practically an example, a challenge. Sin wasn’t learning anything new, just that he had to pull his punches a lot more when it came to the human divisions of the army. Once or twice he actually tried fighting back rather than dodging and defending until his opponent wore himself out, just to keep himself interested. So bored was he, itching so much for a proper fight, that he put the poor fools out of commission for a week or two without even noticing.

Even now the memory resurfaced like a putrid, rotting log surfacing on the surface of a lake - the pit of his throat felt heavy and yet empty. Others bobbed up similarly - the bird he tried to show his mom, those kids that tried to bully him back then… Sin hissed to himself, screwing his eyes shut and shaking his head to brush those festering thoughts away - not that he could move much, considering his position.

“Oh, sorry. Did I hurt you?”, asked the Gate-Gunner, easing its hold on him just the slightest bit.

This would’ve been a perfect distraction to turn the tables of the match, but Sin just wasn’t feeling up to it anymore. His ears tilted back, he panted, winded.

“I’m fine, don’t worry-”, now he managed to shake his head, the referee calling the match in favor of his opponent. “But man, that was awesome! How did you just knock me out like that?”

The smaller gear grinned and shrugged, helping the much larger dragon out of the ring as their spots were occupied by two other participants.

“I’ve got strong arms, I guess. Not much else to say”

“You ever thought about joining the gear civilian corps in Illyria? You’d be awesome there!”, Sin asked, the usual spark returning to his eyes.

He barely thought about how he sounded so much like his dad for a moment there. With the usual same result too, the gear brushed him off with a laugh of disbelief.

“Me? No way, man. I’m a pacifist”

“Oh, there’s no fighting, usually. You’re kinda like volunteers-”

“Yeah, but I have necrophobia… I’m really squeamish about anything involving a corps*”

(*The writer would only find out about the proper pronunciation days after writing this joke. Tragic)

Sin stared at it, lopsided, as it left, sauntering over to a nice sunny spot to take a nap in, presumably. Still tilting his head in confusion, ears following along, something else caught his eye once more.

The behemoth of fused refuse metal-use stared back, head as lopsided as his, with a look of great suspended disinterest. It looked rather mocking to Sin - though he recognized his brand new body was making him rather tetchy today, so he decided to give the mound of machinery the benefit of the doubt. Looking the thing in the eyes - well, the things that looked like eyes, pareidolia sure was doing a fair amount of weight-pulling here - its contemptuous stare began to look more like the passive gaze of one who died, gazing at the slow approach of death, then a vague look of yearning at the bustling gears in the valley it overlooked, longing for the life it appeared to have lost long, long ago, a freedom thoroughly missed.

Then something moved across one of the eyes.

A mere shadow behind the glass, something that shouldn’t even be visible were Sin in his accustomed humanoid form, but what a megadeath gear’s sight lacked in definition it made up for attention to movement, in spades to boot. Fur a-bristle and instincts flaring, Sin’s long limbs had stalked him over to the cliff until he could no longer crane his neck enough to keep his stare with the titan, only then waking from his hunting haze. The motion, its memory, burned in his sight and it called him towards the titan’s helmet, but how to reach it? Something within him told him that if he tried his hand at the magnetic flying trick he’d get magnetically slapped against the side of this gestalt junkyard. The tunnel entrance on the side of the cliff, through which those gears had entered some five hours ago, was far too small for him to even squeeze his shoulders past and he’d very much rather not get stuck here. He was fairly sure he would’ve been able to scale the wall if he still had his opposable thumbs rather than dagger-spur claws, but doing so at this point was nothing other than a death wish.

Boy, he would’ve been so glad if the dimming spark of his reason and common sense had spoken up about that before he found himself halfway up the cliff, holding on by his claws alone. Some people once asked if he was quite aware how reckless he was - the answer was yes, thanks. He was well acquainted with himself. They even slept, ate and showered together.

Sin would’ve shook his head in frustration, were he not scared of dislodging something with the movement that sent him careening down to the far-away ground. He pressed onward, remembering a certain old gear that wasn’t around anymore and what he’d taught him when he was a kid. Barely older than two he’d been, but the old man swore and yelled at him all the same, waiting impatiently for Sin to clear the cliff he’d climbed in a blink of an eye. There’d been enough repeats of the same situation that memory and instinct had seeped from his head to the tip of his fingers and now, his claws, knowing innately which concavities would hold him and which would kill him, tapped and curled by themselves, carrying him forward- in sum, sometimes, he’d just have to turn his human brain off and let the gear-gears turning in his head (oooh, he just got the joke!) do their business.

A larger hole opened right near the titan’s shoulder, through which Sin was more than happy to clamber in, the stinging fatigue of such a harsh climb burning through his shoulder and leg muscles. He crawled on his belly until his legs were inside, elbows and shoulders inching him along, hands and feet nearly chafed to the flesh and hardly capable of mustering the strength to hold him. He rested for a moment, though he lacked neither stamina nor energy - the claws on his feet aided him greatly, but to maneuver such a large, heavy body took considerable effort.

Gradually, the soreness of his climbing muscles faded - blessed be the natural swift healing of a gear! - and his spry curiosity beckoned him ever forth, to follow the sinuous tunnel which stretched before him. It lead towards a murky yet ample space, walls of fused metal, floor encrusted by mildewy rugs, covered by even more metallic and wooden amalgams one could not make out in the dark, lit only by narrow slits of dusty glass attached to the walls, passing as windows. In the center of the room, not particularly standing out among all the gathered junk, sat a monochromatic, lizard-like gear (closest Sin could place it would be a slightly deformed Spirit-Seeker), reclined on a rust-ridden metal-and-wood wheelchair-looking contraption. As soon as Sin saw it, the gear guffawed agoggle, startling the dragon enough to make him bump his head on the ceiling.

“You are one terrifying, toothy, mean-mugging giant son of a bitch, you are!” Shouted the Spirit-Seeker with delight, slapping the armrest of its chair. “Thought those damn ninnies were hysteric when they told me- Damn, you are a commander megadeath! Ain’t that a sight to see!”

“What?!”, was all that Sin’s mind could produce at the moment. Even given the buffer of the strange gear placing their hands on their head and feeling around, in shock, realizing the voice came from inside their own head, all Sin could think of was, once again, “What?!?”

“It’s a compliment, it’s a compliment!”, laughed the Spirit-Seeker, winking at him. “Gear compliment! Nothing’s better than being ugly, mean and toothy to a gear, eh?”

Sin lifted a paw to massage his own bumped head, carefully inspecting that his newly prized horns didn’t chip anywhere. He squinted dubiously at the strange occupant of this room, taking a cautious step back on one foot. The other gear looked down at his paws and smiled in self-satisfaction, tapping its armrest with appreciation.

“Who even are you? What’s this place?”, Sin pointed towards one of the dusty glass panes. “I saw you watching from outside!”

“Rude. You’re the one that invaded my house, scaling the dang cliff like some sort of thief! Shouldn’t you introduce yourself first?”, once more laughed the other gear, who appeared to be amused by anything. “I’m called Offspring, in any case. After the band, you know? They used to be popular back in the day”

Seeing Sin’s spark of recognition at the name, followed by an empty look at the mention of a band, Offspring leaned their head on their hand, leaning over the armrest of their chair.

“Don’t worry too much about it - they’re before your time, your momma’s time, but-” Offspring waggled its finger with a knowing, smug look. “Right, riiiight in your grammie’s time. Hehehe.”

Sin took a sequence of steps closer, now staring down Offspring from as tall as he could stand, his ears pointed up.

“My grandm- How do you know about that- How-”

“Jusssstice”, ominously hissed Offspring, delighted. “You’re asking a gear how they know Justice?” Once more, a smug grin accompanied by squinted eyes. “You’re asking a prototype how they know who Justice once was?”

There was something wrong. It troubled Sin to think so, recognizing that nearly every sapient gear he’d come across seemed to hold this old creature in very high regards. Recognizing as well that he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, something everyone was extremely keen to remind him of, but damn it, he knew to trust his instincts when it came to people. Gears. Sapient gears.

This gear was harmless enough, that he knew. There was no malice in its sinister expression, simply a taste for scaring others - in equal parts, Sin knew that they couldn’t potentially harm him, and also had no intention to do so. Yet, something boiled, festered, percolated underneath his skin, prickling at the rear of his mind. His body recognized it before his waking cognizance did and his muscles tensed appropriately. Instincts roused in him that he could not understand.

“What do you mean by proto-”

The Spirit-Seeker’s hands smacked against the sides of his snout, pulling him closer and holding him with an impressive grip, preventing him from flinching away as the other gear thoroughly inspected what they’d caught. Greasy, dusty light shimmered across their foggy, pale-red eyes (the only part of this creature with any color to speak of, even its tattered clothing faded to grays) with great interest, in a way that reminded Sin of the way Dr. Paradigm looked when he hatched a strategy in his mind. Lizard fingers lifted his lips, inspected his gums, teeth, tongue, the roof of his mouth, then his eyes, his eye lids, his ears, horns, spikes, whiskers and nostrils, as if this creature sought to replicate him through a clay model and had to commit the original to memory. Sin sniffed, sneezed, choked and flinched, constantly trying to snatch his head from this thing’s grip.

“Ayup, ya got the juice-o-Juno flowing through you like beer swill through a dinghy bar, now ‘as what we like to see”, the reptilian gear cackled, before holding up the few tufts of blonde fur between two fingers. “Coulda done without this bit. Contrasts horribly with your palette. Izzat from yer human sire or sumthin? We-ell, unfortunately most genetics are a two-idiot tango, tough luck there kid!”

Sin pulled his head away from the gear, snorting with irritation and glaring at it. The gear smiled a wide grin composed of tiny shark-like teeth, reclining in the strange chair contraption they sat on and folding their hands together in front of their stomach. Unable to leave their sitting place, Sin’s distance prevented him from being poked once more by the strange handy fellow, so he was free to look around and gawk at the tetanus-inducing rusting metal and wood that made up this chimeric tower of ancient technology.

“What’s all this rusty stuff? Since you don’t wanna answer about-”

“Old tech! Old technology, machines, etcetera, I’ve been collecting over all these years”, replied Offspring, rotating their wheelchair to face Sin. “You probably usually see it in better conditions, yeah? It fares better in labs than in islands, what with the sea breeze blowin’ an’ all”

Sin reached out towards a pile of younger scrap - well, at least scrap less rusted than everything else in the room, carefully balancing a long halberd in his paw as he inspected the decorations on its side. He couldn’t say he was well-versed in weapons besides his own beloved flag, but this thing was clearly Holy Order-issued.

“Discontinued Holy Order weaponry! The guys with the- the helmet?” Offspring motioned from the front of its head to the back, imitating a crest on a helmet that extended backwards.

“Springboks?”

“Yeah. Used those long ago… Judging by the number of those in the pile, you can guess why they stopped!”, another contemptuous snicker. “The cogs I raised always brought me the weapons they could get away with, whenever they survived an attack. That’s how I ended up with all this junk!”

Sin set the weapon down carefully and continued his careful, judging saunter around the room. Like a planet and its orbiting moon, Offspring turned its chair to always face him. The dragon swung his head around to meet its eyes, another question to be asked on the tip of his tongue.

“So you did raise all those gears?”

Offspring hummed without commitment, leaning to one side on the chair. They waved their hand horizontally with a pronounced shrug.

“A few, at least. Back in the days where we roamed the mainland”, a sweeping gesture, first to their left, and after a pondering moment, to the right. “We were gathering as many sapient kin as we could find, yeah, and most of them just happened to be lil’ orphans. Izuna and Dimmy may not look it now, but they were teeerrible with anything younger than them, back in the day - which is just about anyone! It was left up to me, telling the lil’ cogs right from wrong, don’t bite humans cuz they taste bad. Foster parent extraordinaire”

With a mumble of In any case, I’m mostly retired, nowadays, the gear threw down a lever on the side of the chair, making a puff of ashy smoke hack out of a few tubes and propel the chair forward, slowly, trembling with a rather troublesome judder until it crawled to a stop near a particularly dust-covered panel of glass. Offspring cleared the gossamer with a few wipes of their knobbly reptilian hand and sat back, wiping the dust on their palm on their old shirt. Behind the film, hid a worn picture, age showing through the greenish-purple efflorescence of magic tinging the edges, an effect only seen in the early days of magic-tech photography.

Days so early, Sin couldn’t recall it ever showing up in any of his dad’s old pictures, even the ones where he’d been (by conversion) younger than Sin, a lithe man with a douce, somber expression and a white-knuckle grip on his sword. The face of fanatic devotion, an old gear once leered, staring at a worn, painted propaganda poster they’d come across in some ghost town’s alleyways. Back then, Sin had leered as well.

This picture was far different. The background was occupied by such a multitude of gears that the collective noun ‘transmission’ wasn’t applicable anymore. A crowd of smiling faces, of all shapes and sizes, squeezed wherever they could, an entire clocktower worth of gears posed for the camera, behind two other gears in the place of honor, before everyone else, only barely big enough for Sin to tell who they were.

Two reptilian gears. To the left, one Spirit-Seeker of muted colors stood next to the typical mech this gear-type always had with them, and had an arm around the shoulders of its other companion, a very familiar avian-looking dragon. Dr. Paradigm stood prim, proper and proud, but was far, far younger than now, clutching one of his beloved books in his talons. The sight of a young Paradigm was so jarring (by Jove, he had no beard! How indecent! How appalling!) that Sin’s brain immediately purged the sight from his memory, replacing it with a tasteful gray blob to prevent any trauma.

“Raised most of those guys there, in the back. They’re not all a’ my fosters, though, a good few came after this photo. I could probably remember them, if you gave me a name or a face. Named all of ‘em, after all”, the gear chuckled, though this was far more hollow and mirthless than the ones before it. “Taught all of ‘em as best I could. At least in more practical things, you can probably guess Dimmy taught ‘em the sciency, techy, magicky stuff, like ‘writing’ and ‘algebra’”

Sin had to suppress the instinct of sniffing at the picture, because he was sure the consequential monumental sneeze would cause the entire structure they stood on to collapse on itself. He paced carefully around Offspring, trying to catch the photo at an angle where the sunlight didn’t reflect off of it and obfuscate some of the gears. There were parts that remained pale white nonetheless, and soon Sin realized it wasn’t because the light hid them. They’d been scratched off the original photo.

“How do you know the Doc, anyway? I don’t think he e-”

“Come on, kid! You can’t be that interested in history lessons from dusty old gears, are you?” Offspring guffawed incredulously, turning to face him again. “Seriously, don’t ask things that no one cares to know!”

Sin rolled his eyes and groaned to himself. A portion of his tail whipped in annoyance, hitting something and causing a cacophony of clunking metal as a pile of some junk collapsed on itself. He looked towards it for a second, and when he looked back the picture had been covered by a moth-eaten piece of plaid fabric, Offspring now sitting at the other end of the misshapen round room.

Sin squinted at this old gear. They were trying to keep these secrets, rather poorly in fact. Sin had learnt better than to push people (gears) to talk about things in the past that agonized them; yet something about this bothered him. He hadn’t yet discovered why his muscles tensed while talking to Offspring, what body language they were trying to hide so desperately between redirection and the odd manner of speech they had, cadence changing with every other sentence.

“Ugh, fine. The other guys said you could help me learn how to properly move in this thing?”

“And haven’t I?”, came the smug reply, complete with a point down at Sin’s paws.

“You climbed all the way here, stalked, only didn’t fly ‘cuz you’re a giant, hairy magnet”, the gear tapped the side of their head with one finger, in a manner reminiscent to how the Doctor would sometimes do, when he thought. “I’d argue you’re a regular old four-wheel traction vehicle now! Got you hopping on three legs, taking steps back. You’d pass the physical with flying colors”

The Kiske family had some pity-spoken reputation about being… A tad naïve. The people around them recognized the fact that they were scammed, conned, their kindness taken advantage of, a non-zero amount of times to say the least, from whence sprouted the idea that they were a pack of goodie loonies who couldn’t tell when they were being tricked. This was not actually the case. If you looked into the cases they’d fallen for, you’d see they’d mostly gotten tricked by small-time criminals - be those orphans, people down on their luck, people whose luck was an abyssal fish with an aversion for going up. People too embarrassed to ask for help, people who wanted to keep their pride no matter what. So they let a pair of too-small fingers slip into their pocket and take the cheap wallet they’d prepared for the occasion, every so often. In any case, the bravado to even dare steal from a member of the royal family while only having a vivid imagined idea of the consequences (of which there were none, except employment in the janitorial staff of the palace) should be a thing to be rewarded.

That said, Sin was now experiencing what most felt upon being scammed.

Slack-jawed, astonished indignation. Outrage. Eyebrows tilted towards center, mouth agape with shock, Sin couldn’t even form the words properly to express what he felt. He just sat back, looking at this smug little gear, all self-satisfied sitting back on its rusty throne, paw on his chest.

“Wha- You didn’t do anything though?!”

“Ah, but you-”

“Yeah I can move fine now, but don’t act like you helped!” Sin spluttered, gesturing towards the outside behind the windows.

Languorously leaning their elbow on an armrest, resting their chin against the matching hand, Offspring dismissed him with a lackadaisical gesture, now occupied looking out the very same windows.

“You want a kiddie teacher for everything? Some things you just gotta practice by yourself, son. Tough luck” A mocking sneer. “Sides, I’m not going down there when there’s some jumbo klutz such as yourself stumbling about. Rolling around near Justice’s teethful-ier, meaner-looking grandkid? I’d be mad!”

Once Offspring finished with their fit of jeering laughter and opened their eyes, they were met with two polished, glowing red ones, inches away from their face. They blazed with unacted ire, not rubies but something far unpolished, unworked, pulled from the guts of the earth itself.

Two spheres of boiling magma stared through them.

“It’s a gear compliment, I told you”, the older gear answered. They were knowledgeable about the way gears think and act, as you may have guessed, and thus mentally cursed themself and whatever else was in their mental range for the mid-sentence voice-crack denouting-

Oh, but Sin had figured it out already.

The movements, the lilt of their voice, the shift of their eyes. His body had known it before he did, but Sin had always dealt with gears. Ever since the old man had taken him in, he had to figure out what a gear fifty times his size was feeling, thinking or deciding, or risk being its next lunch. The old man had to rescue him twice from the inside of titanic stomachs, and warned there would be no third. Sin made sure of it.

“I’ve got a question for you”

Offspring held their uncaring stare before the guttural hiss of his voice.

“Why are you so scared of me?”

The older gear attempted a mocking guffaw, waggling its head over to the side with a few dismissive gestures.

“Of you?! A little cog still in his diap-”

The sonoral sting of Sin’s tail whip cracked near the entrance to the room, the flutter of his tail-banner as loud as thundercrack. Offspring jilted in their seat, head snapping towards the sound and fingers curling in a panic around the lever that made the chair move.

A moment of silence, stained only by the other gear’s harrowed breathing. It looked, wide eyed, between the tail and the face of the invading giant.

“Cut the bullshit. Why are you scared of me?”

They mumbled something to themself, suppressing their fearful trembling as much as they could, nervous snickering rising louder and louder.

“You wanna know, then?” A lopsided sneer spread across Offspring’s face. “Fine. I don’t know how you work”

Another lever was thrown down, full strength, making the geriatric machine jostle back to life, coughing out plumes of dark-gray smoke as it moved around the room.

“Every gear type that’s ever existed - self-aware, not self-aware, contaminated, even those bastard humanoids who only ever looked for trouble - I’ve raised them, or I’ve dismantled them. Meticulously. Carefully. With these very, very hands - do you think Paradigm can hold a scalpel in those talons?” Offspring raised his knobbly hands. Reptilian in nature, they had long clawed fingers who ondulated as the gear commanded it, opposable thumbs -such a sought out commodity!- jerking forward and backwards.

“Of course he was horrified. Brought up moralisms.” A scoff. “But we had to learn what our guts looked like, anyhow. Didn’t we? Better than sacrificing a fresh one, get a poor bastard who got caught by a pack of those damn ravenous scumbags of the Holy Order, who can’t tell a mindless beast from a talking, thinking, living one” A sneer, a particularly vicious one, as the tone of their voice wavered with held-back emotion. “As if I’d let those cretins turn my kids into handbags and trophies”

Offspring curled its fingers into a fist and made to slam the side of its hand onto the armrest, but stopped and gently set it down. They leaned to the side, pinching their eyebrow ridges between two fingers and breathing calmly. Sin stood, like a cobalt pillar, on the very edge of the room, looking over the gear with a maintained blank expression and ears tilted back, tail curled around him. He waited patiently, for no words came to him about what to say.

Some veterans of the crusades kept those very trophies still. Coats emblazoned with gear bones, of tanned gear leather. Knives made of fangs with ivory set in the handle. The old man called it a waste of food. Dad called it disrespectful. Mom looked away. Sin could only now wonder whether their original owner had a home - next to this unpleasant old gear, as it may be - to come back to.

“I know how every gear works. I got my hands on every species. They follow certain behaviors, maxims, patterns- and so do their bodies. All different, and yet, all the same. Standardized. Perfected. We’re machines of war, son, and you can only optimize a killing thing so much until they all start looking the same” Offspring pointed at old parchment that freckled the walls it was pinned to. They were diagrams, with sketches of a multitude of different beasts, their anatomy, ant colonies of chicken scratch covering every available inch of paper. “Sapient or not. Contaminated or from birth. Man-made or gear-made. Humanoid or not. Mammalian, reptilian, avian, ichthyic, all of them I know, because we need to know. Anyone loses their mind and starts gnawin’ on the corner of buildings, I know why, I know how they can hurt, how they can kill, how they can off themselves and how we calm them down”

The finger was now pointed at Sin.

“Without killing them ourselves.”

Offspring grew quiet, their shoulders slumping as they leaned back on their chair.

“How am I supposed to know how a Commander works?” Offspring mumbled. “Only one was ever meant to exist. Ain’t like I managed to get my hands on her corpse, did I? Nothing about her plans indicate she’d ever be able to- to breed. And here we go- only a quarter of her blood and still a dragon the size of a barge, and no one has any clue how you’re supposed to be” Another nervous snicker, pale red eyes peeking over crossed arms and shining in the dirty light of this rusty metal den. “Ten. There were ten common prototypes they didn’t dispose of- Ten pets or guinea pigs that managed to escape them before they salvaged us. And there are just two left. She was programmed to kill us. I saw her hunt us. I saw her hunt. Decimate. Even when she was in my mind. I remember.” A momentary glance towards the picture on the wall, the one covered by fabric. “One wrong move, one wrong word. You could snap and kill us all without thinking about it. That’s your blood. Your nature. Your legacy.”

Those pale red eyes stared through him.

“You have her voice. It echoes through me, fills me like hers did. It’s all I can hear. All I can think of”

Sin stepped back, his fur bristling and his ears flattened back. He wanted to deny it, but the bird, those kids, the knights, oh they stood in the dark recesses of his mind like hunched vultures waiting for a moment of weakness. Hadn’t he seen it, experienced first hand? How the rage boiled inside him at the littlest provocation, how it nearly snapped away from him like a rabid dog stuck at the end of a flimsy leash. What if he lost concentration for a moment? What if it took over? Sin crouched down silently, fighting back the miserable shivers that took over him.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone…”, he replied, flimsy, turning his head away from the other gear.

He wished to have a better rebuttal - a full-chested I’m good! I’m a good gear and a good person, who’s never hurt anyone! but that wasn’t quite true, now was it? Even the watery taste of I don’t want to hurt anyone was already a bold-faced lie. More often than not it was the people he wanted to hurt… He flinched at this hot stovetop of a thought, but knew he had to finish it. More often than not it was the people he wanted to hurt that ended up walking away unscathed. It was accidents, always accidents, but when did that ever make it okay?

Offspring looked back at him, steely gaze faltering in a moment of remorse.

“Of course not, son. You’re a good kid” A sharp intake of breath. “But it’s not about wanting. I don’t want to be afraid, but I am. It’s stronger than us. It’s our blood. I just know how to…”

Their words died in their throat, gesturing hand stopped amid drawing circles in the air. There was a quiet moment of reflection, where Offspring sighed and sat back, looking up at the many-times patched roof of their room, running their hands over their face.

“How old are you?”

“...Six.”

The older gear sucked air in through their teeth, cursing to themself. Their fingers dug deep into the skin of their face, pulling it as it went, the reptilian osteoderms not having much give to begin with. With a mumble, their chair juddered away to the window, allowing them to look outside. In the silence, finally they could hear that the gears outside were calling for Sin. The two exchanged glances.

“You don’t deserve this grief, Sin. Go on”, they gestured outside, in-between putting their hand to their temple in deep shame, shown by the deep furrows in their scaled forehead. “You’re far too young to carry the pain of old, weak gears. Forget what I told you. Forget me. Go meet them already”

Sin would’ve liked to say something. Give in to his rage, comfort the gear, defend himself, it all seemed rather useless in his mind. There was no putting words to what he felt right now, and everything in him told him that there would be nothing to gain from carrying this forth. As best he could, he slithered out from this den, following the sound of his own name being called. His fear accompanied as he went, this time managing to find his way out from a tunnel behind the hill, far enough away from the rust behemoth that he could gently float down to the ground.

“There’s our giant bon-vivant!” Izuna shouted, spreading his arms wide as Sin made his way around the hill. “What kept ya? I was asking everyone around here and no one’s seen you for a good bit!”

Izuna approached him in wide strides, many-stained FOXY CHEF apron fluttering dramatically in the wind. Behind him, there was a group of yokai dressed similarly, stained similarly, coily and smugly answering questions from the curious group of sportsgears gathered in the valley.

“Hard time in the little gear’s room? I know the plumbing situation isn’t very - er, up to snuff here”, Izuna whispered, leaning in so Sin’s hypothetical restroom issues remained private. “We tried, though, trust me. A few gears, yokai, and pipe dreams”

“Yeah I... Do not want to talk about it…”, Sin half-lied. Along the way, he made a stop to see a man about a dragon and he believed he’d accrued more grief from that singular situation than from his ongoing crisis.

Izuna patted his arm in emotional support, pinching a bit of rust flakes from his fur, bringing it to his eyes with a confused expression, and then throwing it away with a shrug. He turned around to motion at everyone gathered.

“We-ell, turn that frown upside down, because we have something special prepared for you!” The old man said, already marching along.

There was something in Sin’s mind that roared louder than anything else, than any pain or agony stinging still in his soul. Something that put two and two together; something that saw the aprons, the stains of red sauce, that smelled the air tinged with herbs and cooked assorted meats, of black beans, of the Bulsara Secret Ingredient and something that knew dinnertime quickly encroached.

Something that rose to the summit of Sin’s own being, and sung a triumphant hymn like a ravenous rooster.

The dragon bounded forward like a hunting dog, picking up the proudly whistling Izuna along the way, jumping the mob of unnatural creatures gathered and clearing the valley, paws pounding the soft earth and reaching the white-tile paved streets faster than the old fox could realize he had been suddenly drafted into GPS service.

“Left! Left! We’re going to the dinner halls, Sin, get a grip! Yeeeek!” Izuna squeaked, holding onto the dragon’s snout like a cowboy in a rodeo with a transport truck-sized bull and desperately avoiding the drops of drool that rained from the young man’s mouth.

The beast of a young lad skidded across the maze of idyllic seaside mediterranean town, claws fighting for purchase on the slippery tiles. With donuts and drifting, something the old yokai never expected to see a dragon gear ever do, the tail-banner crackling frantically as it was fluttered by the wind, they eventually made it to the halls. Sin practically crashed through the white-stone painted arch.

Before him, on the other side of where Izuna was holding onto his snout for dear life, was a spread of food so magnificent it brought tears to his eyes. Fifteen giant pots stood like the pillars of the Parthenon upon the table, resplending gloriously golden in the setting sun and reeking of chili so intensely flavored that only the late Sol Badguy’s later Biji* could have thought it up.

(*The old man always referred to his grandmother this way, though he mentioned her very rarely and only to threaten Sin with the fact that, compared to his mother and his mother’s mother, he was effectively a sap of a man.)

Encompassing the pillars of chili was a king’s guard of other dishes, far more humble but nonetheless proud subjects of their fifteen kings (and you thought Illyria was weird). Nonetheless, it was clear they were added on as a sudden embarrassed afterthought, the realization that a meal consisting of a swimming pool of chili went too far on the extremes of gluttonous indulgence to be a gastronomic hedonism, rather becoming a lunatic overindulgence that could not, conceivably, end well. For anyone involved, but mostly Sin’s small intestine.

Beverages were included in the dinner menu as well; enormous tanks kept guard over the corner of the dining hall, with almost comically small taps placed near the bottom, towers of cups built just nearby. The tanks were labeled appropriately for convenience and prevention of shenanigans - water, lime soda, Monkey Energy, Zil-cola, Nekobeer (how in the world did they get those to Ganymede?), hot cocoa, black tea, green tea and hot choclety drinks…The lime soda felt particularly ominous to Sin, for reasons he couldn’t quite name, while the presence of the hot drinks was rather strange, but he was aware of gears’ affinity towards them.

“Ho-holy mackerel, we’re there, alright…”, Izuna gibbered, working up the courage to wrench one of his scrunched-shut eyes open. “Okay, Schumacher, put me down gently now…”

Sin did, eyes a-sparkle, looking at the immense table in an incredulous, dream-like haze. If anyone could have reached through the thick layers of his wire fur to pinch his skin and check if he wasn’t having a delightful dream, he would’ve asked them to do so. Then again, why want to wake up from this?

“Hyup! Phew, safe and sound… What do ya think, Sin? You were looking so down in the dumps and, uh, I thought it was best to leave it to Doc to getcher accords back in tune, ya’ know…”, Izuna said, gesturing towards the prepared banquet. “Long story short, we made some of your favorite food! And then went a bit nuts on the cooking- but it's all for you!”

His tail wagging at cruise speed, Sin hardly felt the fact a good handful of gears and yokai were now descending from his back, having somehow jumped on and held onto his fur and spikes without him taking notice. They too eyed the banquet most famishedly, slowly approaching the table…

“Hey! Off! Git! Back! Back, I say! This is for the poor lad!” Izuna reprimanded, waving a wooden spoon previously stored in his apron pocket at the prospective thieves like a valiant musketeer holding a sword. “Look at all he’s been through today! The least he can have is an excessive amount of food all to himself!”

Sin woke up from his reverie, blinking curiously and looking all about him. A Nekomata had somehow produced a barbeque fork and was dueling Izuna in an impromptu sword fight for the right to attack the table.

“Hey, it’s fine! This much food would probably make me sick, anyway!” Sin intervened, shocking everyone present with the first instance of him showing any moderation when it came to eating. “So come on! Let’s dig in, everyone!”

The crowd erupted in fanfare and cheers, gathering chairs from wherever they could to take a seat at the table and begin the banquet. The feast progressed for what seemed like hours, with gears and yokai joining and leaving as they pleased, eating whatever they wanted and going wherever, striking up lively conversations amongst themselves, starting party games - at some point, a few had even gone to fetch musical instruments and broke into animated song(*). Sin scarcely left his spot at the table, head shoved into the pots of chili and gorging himself on such divine concoctions (rabbit chili, his favorite!), but many came up to him to involve him in the festivities - after all, they were in his honor!

(*Going a bit too hard on the drums, for Sin’s opinion. Was there someone beatboxing too?)

A good few gathered gears cheered in agreement - festivities in honor of Prince Sin, the fair young prince of all gears! The band struck up a fanfare, some gears - Leopold the leonine gear leading them, relieved beyond all belief that his temporary charge was in much better spirits - had fashioned a crown decorated with seashells and brilliant sea glass, and climbed up the rafters to crown him. The dragon fought a wide grin valiantly, but lost - something in his chest buzzed with joy as he sat straight and proud, tail-banner waving beside him, crown shining and snout covered with chili.

He was royalty, he supposed, but it had never felt interesting or a fitting title until this very moment. Sin doubted he was fit to rule - prone to recklessness, lacking in the qualities both his parents had in spades - but, for once, he felt like he belonged among these beasts, and they welcomed him in kind. The words of that elderly hermit, he hardly remembered them now.

Ah, speaking of elderly gears; it was at this moment everyone noticed Dr. Paradigm at the door, mouth agape with shock. The great hall grew quiet with whispers, everyone turning from the larger dragon to the smaller one with the surprise of teenagers being caught having a clandestine party.

“S-so much food… Where… Who…?”

Izuna approached from one end of the table, hastily putting away his SHRIMPIN’ AIN’T EASY bib to meekly raise a hand, sheepish smile on his bearded face.

“Don’t worry about it, doc, I brought every ingredient from outside the archipelago” A reassuring thumbs up. “The food stocks are fine!”

Dr. Paradigm gawked at him, looking between Izuna and the still-food-full table with nothing short of incredulity at the implication Izuna had cooked a banquet for an entire island by himself.

“That’s- Bah, no matter. Sin!” Dr. Paradigm called, floating forward with pep in his float and adjusting his glasses. “I have discovered a sure way to bring you back to your normal, human form!”

The gathered gears cheered as one. Sin’s wide grin lost its cheer and became the anxious grimace of a cornered animal. He fought to keep it leveled, happy as he should be. He should be. He should be happy about this.

RUN.

The roar echoed inside his head once more. Sin flinched, shutting his eyes for a second. It once sounded as if it came from someone speaking over his shoulder, but now it screamed from inside his own skull, making his eyes tremble for a moment. His muscles tensed, moved to obey, but Sin fought back with all he had.

“It was quite simple, really… And, hem, proposed by our current Illyrian representative… Hm”, Paradigm continued, coughing into his hand as Izuna side-eyed him. “Your electrons are simply unbalanced, so we merely need to adjust your tuning in accordance with your harmonics.”

The room grew quieter. A few murmurs came from gears who correctly guessed what their leader was about to suggest, but could not frankly believe it to be true.

“How”, choked out Leopold, before coughing again, leveling his voice. “How do you propose to do that, Doctor”

“With an electrical impulse, of course.”

RUN?!?!

For once, Sin actually wholeheartedly agreed with the roar, but now his muscles anchored him to the spot with dread. Only his jaw was working overtime, dropped like everyone else’s in the room at the prospect of being electrocuted back into human form.

“Oh, worry not, Sin, it is perfectly harmless to you, and surely not as powerful as the bolt that struck you”, reassured Paradigm, floating over to pat Sin’s paw. “We’re certain it’ll get you back into your body in no time”

“Right. Um”, Sin gibbered, eyes darting from side to side in a panic. “But, like, I just ate so much, and, like, is it such a good idea to do that on a full stomach?”

The small dragon halted for a moment, floating back a step and worrying his beard.

“Hmm… Right you may be! Yes, there is no rush. Let’s postpone your treatment for tomorrow”, the doctor agreed, raising one instructional finger. “Show up at my cabin tomorrow at noon, fasting since midnight, if you’d please. That includes water, I wouldn't want my calculations to be skewed due to it!”

“Fasting”, Sin weakly repeated, ears tilted back and forlornly staring at the still-excessive spread of food he was being denied.

“Still a couple of hours ‘till midnight, Sin!”, Izuna intervened, raising up a rather large clock. “Party’s back on, everyone!”

The party-gears erupted into cheers once more, returning to the festivities. Dr. Paradigm patted Sin’s elbow in support, before being escorted by the fox yokai over to a table of canapes, whatever those may be. Sin was the only one feeling remarkably, incredibly troubled and terrified.

He devoured the rest of his chili without much enjoyment and eventually slinked off, with few others noticing despite his conspicuous size. He padded over the streets leading back to his room, looking over the calm sea that stretched for miles in all directions, the other islands of the archipelago, far off in the distance, glowing white in the light of the full moon, which shimmered as well over the small waves.

Sin sighed deeply, wondering what worried him most: the prospect of being shocked back to human form, or the prospect of losing this body so soon after he’d just started feeling like it was well and truly his. Even though he finally felt right… Maybe it was for the best, after all. The words of the hermit returned, stinging just as they did when he’d first heard him - he was meant to hurt others. Everything indicated he’d do so - was he not Justice’s descendant? It was just easier to keep it at bay when he wasn’t seven meters long with claws the size of hunting knives, with sharp teeth to boot. He lightly waved his tail, banner fluttering with it, and smiled as he looked back. Now that, he would certainly miss.

Sin ducked under the arch of the room where he stayed in, grateful it was still big enough for him to fit inside and not knock everything down. His first conscious day here, he wondered why he’d been given such a spacious room, his few belongings packed away in one little corner and making it seem even wider. Now, he gave thanks for it. It, he thought as he picked up a soft, pillowy blanket as large as a floor carpet packed away on one side with his mouth and unrolled it on the ground, and this very mattress whose purpose he only now understood. He washed his snout as best he could in the wide basin of his bathroom and curled up atop the blanket, head sadly plopped between his crossed arms.

Sin’s eyes looked over the lone Chimaki, sitting atop his human-sized bed, who looked back at him particularly pitifully. Sin nudged his head aside and waved him over with his tail, a request the little creature obliged without complaint, waddling over to the huge dragon and fitting himself between his paws and his head, snuggling against his cheek. Sin nuzzled him back, closing his eyes.

Sin wished he had the words to ask for advice, or even to commiserate. He couldn’t even begin to put the sentences together, so troubling and complicated the feelings brewing inside him. This was not a sustainable body, he knew. The streets of Illyria weren’t yet built to accommodate gears of this size, neither was his house, nor was there really any city with such adaptations. He could only live here, in Ganymede, or in the wild, but the thought of leaving his family and friends behind hurt him terribly. How could he live with them knowing that hurting others was so much easier like this, as well? Reason told him to return to his human body, everything else clung to this dragon shape with claws and teeth. He furrowed his eyebrows as a hatching migraine began to gnaw on his temples.

A plush limb pet the side of his head in comfort. Sin hummed his appreciation, settling to try and get some sleep, at the very least.

—

“Hey, uh, Doc” Izuna asked, in between mouthfuls of pigs and their blankets. “You were joking about the electrocution, right?

“You know very well I do not joke, Izun-” Dr. Paradigm scoffed, before blinking in surprise and looking up at his friend. “Electrocution?! You think I’d electrocute him?!”

“It certainly sounded that way, Doc!”

“I… I’d never-” Paradigm stammered, hand on his temple. “I said electrical impulses! Nothing above 7 miliThaumÅmpere, goodness. There are therapeutic muscle treatments that safely use double that power!”

Now it was time for Izuna to blink, hand halted as it was reaching over for a plate of Japanese-style sweets.

“You’re going to massage him back to a human form? Like he’s clay?”

“Don’t put it that way”, the dragon sighed, shaking his head reproachfully. “We’re adjusting his tuning so he can change his form however he pleases, instead of being stuck like so” A finger was smugly waggled in the old yokai’s direction. “You aren’t the only one who can contact Frederick, you know. Me and Paradox worked to modify the theory of the chords of Frederick’s headband and Sin’s eyepatch, so it isn’t necessary for him to wear any accessories at all”

“Was that why he was so cranky when I got there?”, Izuna muttered to himself, before lightly patting his friend on the back. “Well done, Doc! You and Dotty! But maaaybe we should explain it better come morning, huh?”

“Myes, I worry he may have misunderstood the situation… Sin looked so disappointed, he probably believes he’ll lose this form forever” Paradigm left the canape table with a plate full of a variety of talon-foods. “I am not against him sticking to a full-gear form if he desires it; it is his choice, but I worry about the effects this imbalance will continue to have on his body”

“Basically, he’ll grow weaker and weaker as his magic goes haywire trying to protect him from itself, eh?”

“Correct. We have time yet, but if left untreated for far too long, he may collapse… Moreover, I dread…”

The old dragon paused before the entryway to the dining hall, gazing upon the shining full moon, who had since taken a reddish hue.

“I dread that something may be escaping us”

–

An emaciated shadow stood in the corner of the room, emerged in sheer darkness and outlined only by a red glow.

It watched him, and reached over with long, wiry limbs, tendril like fingers wrapping around his mouth and digging into his teeth.

How does it feel? Our power by birthright. The body denied to us.

Is it not euphoric?

He could only stare. His muscles were locked, unable to move, as were his eyes. No sound managed to escape him, and he knew instinctively there was nothing around. His claws sought purchase under him, instinctively - there was nothing. He could not breathe.

They wish to take it from you. You are their prince, and they wish to usurp you.

A line of teeth sharp as nails, red as the glow of this figure, appeared only on the right side of its face.

You must defend what is yours by right.

Sin wrenched his head away from the figure’s grip, snarled and moved to bite at it - only for its snout to be held shut, painfully, by some unknown force.

You won’t? You will cower like a meek mutt?

No matter.

Sin’s arms seized and shot out from under him, claws pushed apart and into the surface below, tearing glowing red ribbons into the velvet darkness of this void.

This body is as mine as it is yours, after all.

His arms seized once more, this time shooting painfully upwards as far as they would go, Sin feeling the tendons struggle to keep the bones attached. His palms turned towards him, claws pointed directly towards his eyes and inching ever forward as he struggled to force them back down-

And something hit his head. Hard, but with something that felt like the broad side of a toothpick.

He reached out instinctively to protect it, finding there was no force controlling his muscles. The figure was slashed to paper-thin slices right before his eyes, evaporating with an irritated screech and receding into the depths of the darkness as the world around him became normal once more.

Breathing heavily, crossing himself as well as he could, Sin looked to his side. A familiar plush figure, scuffed by years of the devoted love of a quarter-gear kid feeling terribly alone in this world, many a time patched and restuffed, stood proudly on the windowsill above his bed, halo of moonlight and tiny katana in riste, staring him down with the same empty expression as always, but anyone who knew him could feel he exuded the bravado of a samurai.

“Chimaki! …Thank you, buddy…” Sin murmured, burying his head under his hands. “Was that a nightmare? It felt so real…”

These night terrors were not a novelty for Sin, seeing as he had suffered from them since he could remember. Their frequency had only grown with his mysterious illness, something he attributed to his feverish brain and never told anyone. After all, they were terrifying when he experienced them, yes, but so stupid to think about when he woke up. OooOooo you’re the all-powerful prince of gears OoooOo protect your power OooOo so edgy. So dumb.

His right eye started stinging and with trained movement, Sin immediately wrapped a scarf he’d been gifted (that just happened to be on hand) around it, avoiding touching it as much as possible. This motion was so instinctual, so reliant on muscle memory, that the dragon only realized he’d done it a few seconds past. He patted around the room, confused rather than frantic, searching everywhere he could.

At some point this day, he’d lost his eyepatch. Which, Sin thought, may have been during the time the giant lightning bolt hit him and he transformed into a dragon, since there was no sight of his clothes either. He hoped the lightning bolt had the decency to fold them properly and return them to his room but no such luck.

Chimaki waddled over, handing over one of his substitute eyepatches - one of his favorites, the one with a wing design that he usually kept for parties, ceremonies and otherwise Big Days. Sadly, it was now far too small to fit around his head. Another point to why this body wasn’t sustainable - he’d have to resize all his cool clothes, for once.

“Man… The scarf doesn’t have any magic put in it, but at least it covers my eye… That’s gotta count for something, right?” Sin doubtfully asked, sighing when Chimaki gave him an unsure gesture. “Well, it only has to hold until tomorrow noon, so…”

The sentence rolled bitterly off his tongue. Revolted him. He could mull over his crisis all again - do so fifteen more times until he’d really lost all oppportunity to make a choice. He could do so, or he could do what he does best.

“I’m goin- ow!”

Chimaki flourished his blunt katana before solemnly sheathing it. Sin glared at him, hands once more atop of his head and massaging the spot the little plush creature bopped.

“You didn’t even let me finish!” Sin complained, grumbling when his little friend gave him a knowing, admonishing look. “It’s just not fair! I get all this” He gestured with his tail to the whole of his body. “And then everyone’s like, oops, no you don’t, back to Just-A-Human-Dude with you! I just wanna enjoy it for a little longer!”

Chimaki gave him a very stern, empty expression. Sin huffed, turning away from him.

“I don’t know, somewhere. You know I’m fine roughing it out there, man, it’ll be alright!” the dragon sighed, pacing out of his room with Chimaki close behind. “Look, I’ll be back soon, okay. Eventually the novelty’s gonna wear off and I’ll prefer opposable thumbs and proper indoor plumbing”

He and Chimaki exchanged glances.

“But for the first time, I want to be the one who chooses”

Chimaki stared him down, solemnly and with the very same vacant, open-mouthed stare that was frozen on his face. Sin gave him a gentle nudge with his snout, and Chimaki patted the top of it.

“I promise I’ll be back. We still have to go on that hot spring tour you wanted to make, right?”

Chimaki returned inside, to the top of the blanket Sin had been sleeping on. Once more, he unsheathed his blade and carefully placed it before him as he knelt, before deeply bowing to his young companion. Sin smiled back at him, before hastily padding off down the street.

The plush creature shed an invisible tear, wiping it away with his arm-adjacent appendage. The little kid he’d known since his hatching had truly become an adult, taking his freedom with claws and teeth. He had once been so small, quiet and timid… Now he could still hear him bounding away from his room. Chimaki sheathed his blade and gathered some writing equipment, intent on making his friend’s journey as untroubled as possible.

–

It really was too much to hope for. Paradigm should’ve thought better.

After escorting a rather inebriated Izuna (*) back to Underworld Hill, the dragon hoped for some manner of peace and quiet in his own office. Dare he even dream, maybe, of getting some proper sleep for once? His nightshirt called him in a soothing siren song.

(*Who kept prattling on and snuffling about missing his daughters. His daughters? Paradigm tolerated the “secondary father figure” business, but the last time he’d checked, neither of them resembled white fox yokai, thank you very much)

But soon there came a rap on his door, following it a frantic, frenzied leonine gear, his mane disheveled, looking as if he’d been ripping out chunks of it in a panic, his claws curled around the frame of the door and his eyes wide and swiveling about.

“Doctor” Gasped Leopold, struggling for breath. “Doctor, I have checked the entire island, all the other islands-” He wheezed and hacked, doubling over. “Sin- Sin has vanished”

Paradigm’s jaw dropped the slightest amount. He clenched his fist, breathing deeply and calmly - someone had to keep calm, and that someone was always him.

“You’ve checked the tunnels?”

“Every inch of them, Doctor”, Leopold gasped once more, dragging himself back upright. “I- His footprints lead from his room to the shore-”

Dr. Paradigm hurried to the unfixed hole in the wall where a window once had been, this morning. Snatching a monocular from his desk, he looked towards the clouds, in all directions with a discerning frown. Spotting what he was looking for, he pointed towards the sky dramatically.

“There. The clouds to the west look disturbed, yet there is little to no wind- Something has flown through them”, Paradigm noted, turning back to the leonine gear. “Gather the Bonebiters and send them searching for him. Then, order the Bowers to locate his scent - across all islands. Get the aquatic gears in contact… That is all for now”

Paradigm floated over to his notes, hunching over them with a haggard gaze. There were schematics, diagrams that at a glance would appear to be sheet music but were in fact complex magic theory regarding both electric harmonics, commander gears and gear-human hybrids. In heavy, worried handwriting, a few notes were underlined in red near the corner of the page.

“It troubles me to treat him as a runaway when he is an adult, but-” he pinched his forehead. “The possibility that something may have taken over his body… I cannot ignore it”

“Sir, before I go- There was a note left in his room”, Leopold produced a long scroll of paper from his breast pocket, handing it over.

“There was? What does it say?”

“That’s the issue, sir, I simply do not know”, Leopold shook his head. “It’s completely written in Japanese…”

Chapter Text

Few creatures are privy to the very niche type of humiliation that is landing on what appears to be a soft blanket of snow and being buried up to your chin in wet ice, despite being seven meters tall.

Sin could now say he knew it well.

Though certainly not a fan of the situation, he had to admit - being suddenly enveloped by freezing rocks all around him cured his exhaustion from floating aimlessly across the ocean. Pretty much instantly.

He dragged himself onto a safer looking rock - ever doubting it was going to turn into a pit of ice cubes as soon as he looked away - crawling on his belly. This wasn’t the first time Sin dealt with deceptively safe-looking ice, and this once, there was no Sol Badguy yelling at him from the shore of a frozen lake, telling him to get out by himself. Ah, old man, you were sorely missed.

He hoisted himself up to the rock, grimacing in frustration as he discovered it was just as cold as the sea of snow surrounding them, but pulled up his legs and tail behind him. The chilling wind bit, his wire fur doing little to keep out the freezing air, as drenched as it was. The young gear wasn’t one to dwell uselessly on what ailed him, though, and he set to work on finding out exactly where he was.

The position of the Ganymede Archipelago changed ever so often, making it hard to navigate out of it. Usually visitors used magic to get in and out, not… Floating out with barely any idea how to maneuver himself. Yet he did, yet here he was, in a place that may as well be any continent he could name. He was likely in either of the Polar circles, he thought, looking up at the sky to gaze at the polar twilight stretched before his very eyes. If he wasn’t frozen half to death, he would have found it beautiful.

He lifted himself on his back paws, in a rather meerkat-like position to survey his surroundings and taking care not to fall on his rump once more. Certain things stopped being amusing after the fifth time around.

Mountains beyond mountains of snow stretched before him, with no greenery providing shade. Not that the lack of sun warranted it. Like splotches of bushes amidst a desert, instead there were rocky areas the snow hadn’t covered. Curse his sight, damn it, for little else he could see. Flickers of movement, nestled somewhere among the mountains, called his attention, but he couldn’t discern if it was life or just something long and thin billowing in the wind.

It may have been people. Humans like three quarters of him, humans for which the three quarters explanation wouldn’t cut it when he was three quarters wet fur and one quarter teeth and spikes and claws. And nearly all tail.

He begrudgingly admitted to himself he was more scared of hurting these hypothetical people than of them hurting him, and he groaned in annoyed frustration. The old man’s loathsome, miserable introspection and crotchets always bored him and here he was discovering what it was like. Oh he always had the fear of hurting others in his brain, yes, but it was easier to ignore when he wasn’t the size and shape he, apparently, was meant to be all along.

So stuck was he on these thoughts that he had hardly noticed his limbs leaping from stone to stone, leading him towards the source of the movement, a billowing flag hoisted above a squat weather station, nigh hidden by the snow. It did not appear to be manned at the moment, for no one noticed the giant dragon scrambling up the side and to the roof, grabbing the flag to take a better look at it.

“Azure and argent vair, in fess point rampant or polar bear, holding argent axe - the coat of arms of Svalbard!”, Sin said to himself, inspecting the thick fabric in his claws. “Well, proposed! I dunno if it was accepted or not. Apparently this place just used the flag of Norway before the crusades, but since more people live here than in Norway now…”

It had been a while since he’d checked on any recent vexillology news… Even before he went to the island, most days he was far too sick to leave his room, or even read any of his newsletters. He wondered if the knight gears had chosen a coat of arms yet. Sin thought of home.

“Huh. Interesting”

Sin stopped thinking of home.

He looked over the roof of the weather station, eyes wide like plates and fur standing on end, tail held high in instinctual intimidation. There stood a huge white scaled gear, nearly as big as him, with sparse brown fur on her hands and along her spine. Black tattoos spread across her arms and torso, where not covered by a tanned and worn handmade leather harness which supported the great weight she carried on her back and sides.

“Uh, hey! Sorry I’m on your house”, Sin awkwardly greeted, clumsily making his way down from the roof.

“That’s not our house. That’s just a weather station”, the other gear replied, never once moving her mouth to speak. Her voice sounded distant and muffled, as if it came from deep inside her. Her heart, apparently, beat so loud that to Sin it sounded as if someone was drumming inside her as well.

Sin let out an awkward hum of acknowledgment, not really sure how to proceed with the conversation. He was usually an energetic guy, to the point where he wouldn’t even break a sweat if he had to keep a conversation going with a brick wall… The cold and exhaustion wore him down to a speck of his former self, not to mention the unfamiliar body, the hunger…

He was about to say something else, an attempt at restarting the greeting phase of the conversation, like trying to start an old car, but the gear interrupted him by raising a paw and digging about in the huge leather bag she carried on her back. Sin didn’t have time to blink, he found himself wrapped up in fur blankets, with a fur-eared hat with a fashionable pom-pom on the top shoved unceremoniously on his head.

“H-hwa?!”

“You. You’re cold and freezing”, correctly pointed out the white gear before waddling away. “You can walk, yes? We saw you skip on the rocks. Very agile. But you’re not from here…”

Her voice was fading as she stepped farther and farther away. Was she expecting him to follow her? Sin wasn’t afraid of her, but following a stranger home felt like a bad idea… Though, now that her back was turned to the dragon, he noticed the emblem on the back. The insignia of the Illyrian Mountain Rescue Services!, he realized. He could recognize that blazon anywhere. The equipment the white gear carried with her suddenly made a lot of sense. Sin hurried after her.

“Uh… Yeah! Just visiting, you know. Got a bit lost… Flying around and stuff!”, Sin replied, floating over a bit to clear the distance between them.

The gear hummed doubtfully in response. Her little, pupil-less red eyes never turned to face him but she seemed to side-eye him nonetheless.

“You look very young. You sound young”, the gear commented, before pointing an accusatory paw towards him. “Did you run away from your parents?”

Sin spluttered indignantly, rearing on his legs with the size of the offense pressed against him.

“I’m- I’m an adult! I’m six years old! I didn’t run away from anyone, I have everyman’s rights, yeah?! Right to roam!”

The white gear paused to motion all around herself.

“You are in Svalbard. It is cold and wet and empty and dark half of the year. Nothing rot, nothing born, nothing changes”, she spoke, somehow with great affection for all the qualities she numbered and yet recognizing that qualities they were not. “Only visit if you’re running from something. Like killing and destroying a city”

Sin nearly jumped, from the second offense thrown at him.

“I didn’t destroy anything!”

“We did”

Sin stopped in his tracks, nearly slipping off the rock he’d landed on. Standing on the tip of his paws, his fur bristling on end, he watched in shock as the white gear carried on as if it was nothing.

“...Accident. This body is hard to control sometimes. So is the sleeping mind. We did not want to, but it happened. People were hurt”, the gear sighed, shaking her whole body as she shook her head no. The bags hanging from her harness shook as she did. “So we are here. Where people are not. We are not fit for polite society, but at least we can help those lost and running. No matter your reason, I will not judge or ask you more”

Sin remained still for a moment, his ears flattened back as his snout followed the other gear as she left. Fleeting thoughts crossed his mind - worries about what this gear had actually done to warrant this self-imposed exile. Then again - he wasn’t one to dwell on others’ past mistakes. Why should he? What would it accomplish? Perhaps he had crossed one of the most grizzly murderers the world had ever seen - and true enough, there was something about her appearance that itched somewhere in his mind - but it bothered him very little. This gear - whoever she may have once been - was clearly repentant and, as it appeared, doing her best to help others in need.

And if it was all a trick, well, that would be on her. Sin had every capacity to properly defend himself.

He grimaced as he hopped after the gear, shaking birds, kids and knights out of his head. How could he judge, after all - when at any moment, without warning, he could gain that very same reputation. The sparks burning under his skin were subdued, for now, in all likelihood due to the freezing cold that currently slowed his reflexes to molasses and numbed his thoughts in a drowsy haze.

They must have crossed, at some point, valleys, canyons, riverbeds, whatever have you - it was all blanketed in sheer white with rags of dark brown stone, all swirling and turning together in Sin’s dozing mind as he idly jumped from place to place, following the other gear’s track, uncovered eye struggling to remain open and focused on the sparse orange-brown over her spine, the blue-white embroidered emblem on her bags.

She waddled ever onward without faltering, slowing or speeding, tracing meandering routes that seemed nonsensical to the untrained eye, detours with no apparent reason. Sin was wise enough not to take shortcuts, not fancying another dive into a snow-sinkhole. Though his travels with his mentor rarely took him to frozen wastes such as these, he was apt enough at survival to recognize uncertain terrain. As sleepy as he may be.

Through the haze of powder snow eventually a wooden monolith rose, tucked into the side of a cliff face, half-buried by dirt, stone, moss, lichen and snow. It took the young dragon a moment to realize what it was, his pace quickening as they got closer, eye blinking open and ears rising. A wooden cabin - well, wood and whatever else had been available to cram into every possible nook in the elderly, sturdy logs making up the wall.

The gear pushed the door - as half as tall as her, but wide enough to fit her - open as he approached, inviting him inside first. For lack of welcome rug to wipe his paws at, good manners brow-beaten enough into his psyche after months of tracking mud through the house, unaccustomed to indoor-living as he was, he shook them frantically at the door to the great confusion of his rescuer, before ducking inside.

A fireplace crackled and sizzled warm and quiet in the corner of the room, lined with safe stone bricks. Sin immediately made a beeline for it. He nestled himself in the stone before it, tucking his paws underneath his body and his tail around it, nearly sticking his snout inside the fire. Sin sighed with great relief, his body shivering as it was forcibly pulled from the edges of hypothermia by the warmth of the fire.

A moment passed and Sin realized that barging into someone’s house and immediately plopping down in front of their fireplace, dripping with ice and snow, without any further fanfare, was probably a very impolite thing to do.

Eyes muzzy and half-lidded with sleep widened as he turned towards the door, its opening darkened by the white gear’s open mouth, its lower jaw covering it completely as two creatures descended from it with total familiarity of the situation.

The first one through the door was dog-like, a massive shaggy-haired mastiff that, had Sin been the size he was used to, he was sure would be shoulder-to-shoulder to him. She was clad in an old leather harness in all ways alike the one the rescue gear wore, with some manner of goggled half-mask covering her head and leaving her snout exposed. Her giant head hung low between her shoulders in the gait of the wild wolf, tongue lolling out as she paced over to him.

The blazes of the lit fireplaces shone in her deep red eyes, visible even behind the fogged goggles she wore. Even at such a distance, she kept approaching, and Sin shuffled back, lowering his head with his ears tilted back as the fur on the back of his neck lifted up.

Seeing the ever-so-slight lift of the dragon’s lips, the dog stopped and plopped down as well, tail wagging in friendly greeting. Sin blinked as she rolled to the side and her back for a brief moment, only long enough to make these diplomatic movements understood, before rolling back to laying on her stomach, head up and alert, ever so often looking back to the door. It seemed she was waiting for the other passenger of the white gear: a humanoid shape clad in a dark cloak of unknown fabric, dull, worn and frostbit, a wide-brimmed pointed hat with the appearance of eyes and sharpened teeth embroidered on it covering its face.

It descended in a careful and rather clumsy manner, unlike the dog gear. It tripped on the front teeth of the white gear into the house, staggering a few steps. The mastiff flinched and stood up slightly, motioning to help her companion, but the humanoid raised a gloved hand in dismissal.

“Jøss, you picked a weird time to visit. Polar night right now, you know?”, came a muffled, raspy voice from within the humanoid mass of cloak. “Well, sun shows up for a bit this month. Bit lucky”

It ambled further inside, wiping its feet on the floor without much fanfare, and approached an old ratted armchair with its uncertain step, always keeping a wide berth from the fireplace. Sin had eyed it from the corner of his eyes, but soon gave it his full attention.

“Wait, you’re human?”, Sin asked in shock, seeing the creature remove the heavy cloak and hat that covered it, revealing that not only its shape was humanoid - it was as similar to a human as anything could be, lacking the red eyes that marked anything with gear cells. In fact, their pupils were a faint, dull gray.

They were still heavily dressed, mind you, with a tanned leather coat decorated with scrimshawed bones and fangs that went down to their knees. Their whole body was wrapped in these furs, barely anything visible besides their face, and even that was hidden behind scraggly curtains of dark hair.

The dog looked back at Sin, one ear raised in confusion as she did. She and the human exchanged a look, and the dog nodded, as if urging them to answer. Their eyes peered at him - he could see now, a vague spark of red tinting their pupils - from a pale face crisscrossed with stitches, bruises and scars, a thin smile stretching below them. The human - or humanoid creature, at the least - straightened up with a pained groan and a whispered titter.

“I am as human as you”, they ominously snickered, matching Sin’s stare for a brief, tense moment. “Which means not at all, right…?”

Sin’s ear flicked. He did not answer. The human - humanoid gear tittered once more. A hand marred purple and blue by persistent bruises, fingers frozen in their position, motioned vaguely towards the dog gear.

“She is more me than I am me, in any case. I am just translator, and beating heart. We are all…” The humanoid looked upwards at the ceiling. “Moving parts of one very, very strange machine”

She drummed gently on the bone-and-leather drum strapped around her leg. The white gear closed her maws and heaved herself upwards, a cascade of snow falling around her shoulders as she clumped away from the door, pawing at it to close it. There were no windows to see where she could have gone, but the sound of her footsteps stopped soon after. The drumming followed it.

Sin wasn’t altogether ignorant about gears living in symbiotic or commensal relationships. Sometimes, large class gears had “parasitic gears”, a name erroneously attributed to their commensals but that eventually stuck, living in some manner or form in their innards or simply inside their mouths. They were less complex than your average sapient gear, resembling giant tapeworms with visible red eyes. They could not speak and there was no evidence for them being sapient, though none on the contrary either. Their hosts sure acted as if they could perfectly understand them, but to everyone without a parasitic gear, they were simply oversized intestinal worms that peeked out through the host’s mouth or nostrils ever so often.

That to say these were very strange worms indeed.

He’d never seen such commensality between three sapient gears, hell, even two sapient gears and perhaps their host was sentient? Sin was at sea. He could usually take things in stride, but his mind was struggling to even put words together.

“Aren’t you, like, huge for parasitic gears? Do you live inside the other one?” Sin asked, looking between the two owners of this house and its door. “How- is it just carrying you-”

“She. We all are one, and a lady one at that. Though our smell is very unlady!”

The humanoid, now sitting on the ratted old armchair, cackled with amusement, and the dog snuffled with a similar sound. Sin was fairly sure he smelled worse, so he didn’t comment nor laugh along.

“We’ll tell you everything soon enough. Right now, we’re worried about you. Have to check if you caught hypothermia” The dog sniffed all around his body, pressing her lifted ear to the side of his neck. “Your heartbeat is regular, good. Your temperature is going up well. Still worry about you having little energy left. You aren’t built for cold weather”

“Really? But I’m all covered in fur…”

“One layer, sparse thick long hairs. Your coat of fur isn’t meant for insolation, but for protection from attacks. It ensnares claws” The dog demonstrated this by lightly running a claw across the surface of his fur. It got stuck nigh immediately, and she had to maneuver herself to free it. “You know Bower-Wolves? It is just like that”

Sin hummed with half interest, head lowering to rest once more on his crossed paws, eyelids blinking ever and ever more slowly as the mastiff nosed all about his body, searching for signs a more immediate intervention was necessary. The dragon toed the edges of sleep, his breath evening out as his bleary eyes watched the crackling flames before him…

His heart suddenly jumped, his whole body tensing awake as a quick drumroll bashed through his ears like the most effective bugle call concocted to date.

Ears up and alert, eyes tired but widened, Sin looked about him, eventually catching the mastiff sitting before him, the human still sitting on the furthermost armchair, hand hovering over the small portable drum.

“You can go sleep soon, will be good. But it’s better you get some food in you first” The dog sniffed and grinned lopsided, seeing Sin grow ever more alert at the mention of food. “You sound half-starved”

“I am” replied Sin, watching the canine gear maneuver a ladle in her mouth into the cauldron of soup resting just above the fireplace with nothing short of awe. “I’ve been flying for, uh… A bit long now, kinda? And I really wasn’t able to catch fish while I did”

A large metal bucket of stew was placed before his head. The dog barely had time to step back before Sin buried his head on it, heartily devouring it in a scene similar to a camel drinking after many dry days spent staggering across the desert.

“Heard there’s good eating in albatrosses”, was the last thing spoken - perhaps translated? - by the humanoid gear before Sin finished his meal.

He laid back down, smacking his lips and licking the fur on his muzzle free from any soup, as well as he could, at the very least. Sin had eaten far worse and far stranger than this unidentified stew who tasted of salt and little else, but settled nonetheless like a boulder on his stomach. With his ravenous hunger, he couldn’t complain, but he wistfully remembered the feasts back at his home, as filling and tasty as they were lonesome. He idly wiped his whiskers, the weight of sleep once more perching over his eyelids. Sin yawned, resting his head on his paws. He watched, somewhat guiltily, since he wasn’t helping, as the mastiff took the bucket away outside.

“Go and sleep. We’ll watch over for a bit. Nothing to fear here”

His eyes turned to the humanoid gear slouched in her corner seat, her figure so hidden by myriad fabrics as well as her unkempt hair that she appeared as little more than the faint red shine of her eyes in the shadows of this room, hidden by the glow of the fireplace. His tired eyes turned then to its flames, crackling and burning right before him.

Sin watched them dance and writhe before him, spread over logs whose origin was entirely unknown to him, digging into the charred cracks with wiry fingers just as their pelts wavered above. Sometimes small flickers of flame would detach from the body and float upwards before fading into ash, returning back to the growing pile underneath the wood.

He wondered once more where it had come from. This land was a land of ice, snow, midnight sun and if there were hot springs to be found he remained unhappily ignorant of their locations. If there were any plants under the biting blanket of ice, they could be no more than the sparse and short grasses that survived against all odds in the permafrost. A log - where had a log come from, when there were no plants taller than his foot? When beyond the warm red glow of the fire, all around was dark and frost and darker beyond that?

Sin saw, below him, the harsh white of the ice, conquering even the flooring of stone and, a sensible distance away from the fireplace, pelts and scavenged plants, and above him there was no stars to break the monotonous black of the autumnal polar sky, but before him there was, still, and always, the fire.

The fire, which flickered, danced, and squirmed, always. Its heat was, undeniably, preferred to the biting cold outside, but was really only comfortable in these circumstances. In the absence of anything better. His whiskers curled due to how close he was, his eyes dry even mostly hidden beneath his eyelids. He would have liked to shuffle somewhat away from the scorch but found himself with leaden weight, mesmerized and hypnotized by the figures who rose from the fire, all so familiar, for mere seconds before they hunched back into the burning core, emerging once more in other shapes, sizes, movements that Sin knew so well yet could not place.

A figure had risen some moments ago and stayed, hunched on the other side of the small fire, watching over him. It did not move as the others did, but glowed a red far brighter than its sister flames, its presence growing ever more obvious as the once blazing fire started, slowly, to die down.

Sin watched it with no different interest from the other flames, ignoring it at times when its piercing gaze started to irritate or unnerve him. Only when it moved - it appeared to stand up from its sitting position - and flickered smaller and smaller, vanishing into the deep encroaching dark that the fire fought off with its glow, did Sin startle and panic, calling after it.

Wait! Hey! Where are you going?

The words reached his throat and he found they would not, could not exit, his speech inexplicably taken from him. With growing panic, eyes following the disappearing flame and stuck to his position, he yowled and hissed as loud as he could, all sounds coming out as weak whispers. Tears of frustration stinging on the edges of his eyes, he felt a warm hand resting on the back of his neck, petting down his lifted fur.

It’s okay. I’m still here. I’ll keep watch.

Sin settled down, his panic flowing out of him as the hand soothed him, eyes muzzily blinking once more. He yawned, watching the final blaze of the figure fade out with a calm, resigned sadness.

It’s better this way. The heat was far too much, it was charring your fur. Look what it did to your whiskers.

A humanoid hand as dark as the infinity surrounding them, outlined in a halo of red, entered his line of sight, running its fingers over his whiskers in an effort to straighten their curled ends. Sin did not move or make a noise, staring stock still at the last remaining embers of the fire. Its orange glow had been replaced by a red light, its oppressive heat was now a tepid warmth that did little to fight off the chill.

A sudden drumming, a distant rhythmical percussion on the limit of what he could hear dragged him from his miserable haze. His muscles flinched and tensed with the beat of the drum, his fur rippling along. The sound echoed behind his own eyes, trembled through his teeth and pulsed through his claws. His own heartbeat began to mimic it.

Voices soon joined it, chanting in chorus and rounds, yowls, howls and warbles, following along with a leader whose voices changed with the commands of the drumming, shifting back and forth like a subservient animal.

It- This incessant drumming and its chorus, it summoned him. Beckoned him.

The fire before him pulsed with it.

He raised his head. A hand soothed him.

I’ll go and see it.

“Wait, I don’t…”

Now, his voice sounded loud and clear, and he closed his mouth as soon as he realized it. The words he thought, the words he thought he would not speak, were far too shameful to say aloud. Even to the figure that stood beside him, just on the edge of his sight. It understood nevertheless.

I know. Me neither. Let’s go together.

Sin looked back at the few last, weak flames, crawling miserly across the charred logs hidden in their own ashes. Little it did to fight off the encroaching cold now and even less did it mesmerize him as it did. The drifting songs beckoned him with far greater power. Lowering his head, he stalked away from it, seeing the glow dim to nothing from the corner of his eyes.

He padded towards the source of the harmonious racket, slow at first, paws numb and weary from the ice underneath them. As he limped, he felt the figure support him, always to his right and always out of sight. Gradually, this dithyramb beckoned him more frantically and his body obeyed, his pace growing faster and faster, paws beating against the frozen ground as before him a great glow of fire grew strong, a legion of paired red eyes and their hosts writhing and squirming as they moved in what was likely a frenzied dance, and before them, an enormous figure that shone white against the vast indigo skies, that drummed incessantly and maniacally, simultaneously commanding the figures surrounding the blazing fire and being spurred by their obedience.

Sin’s eyes circled wildly at the sound, driven mindlessly wild by it. Tongue lolling out of his mouth, surroundings wholly forgotten, he galloped, leapt and kicked as he did, bounding closer and closer to this gathering of strange creatures who mimicked the shape of men, but never quite approached it, and he joined them in euphoric revelry, contorting his whole body as he jumped in wide arches over the fire, his dark body glistening blue and his red stripes blazing brighter than even the flames. Fabric hung, forgotten, around his neck, unveiling two red eyes that blazed like gimlets.

Whatever creature joined the masses, it was hardly Sin anymore, having lost all manner of reason and sapiency, made feral and hysterical by the sorcerous chorus. Claws lifted snow in the air, tail whipping around in circles and turns as the creatures, roaring with laughter, would climb and jump over his sinuous, agile body. Some luckless few would have their own limbs ensnared in his wire-fur and had no other choice but be dragged along with this frenzied dragon as he cavorted about the desolate plains, his sight never letting go of the roaring fire.

It reached higher and higher, undulating with the beat of the drum as if it were alive and breathing, claws raking across the skies, and the dragon leapt higher and higher in turn, ecstatical red eyes trained solely on it. His aspirations were hardly ignored, and even the euphoric members of this dionysian revelry sobered from their merrymakings at the realization of what he sought to do; as one they howled and called to stop him, some reaching towards the drummer, but far too late.

Standing high on his back legs, the dragon soared at once, staring open mouthed and delirious at the climbing flames who fought for dominance with him over the skies, clawing their way ever higher and reaching towards his own frozen, unkempt fur - but the dragon saw this and was far too quick for their kind, his jaws bursting open with an eerie cackle and snapping shut around the flaming claws, that raked around his mouth as they tried to break free…

The next he opened his eyes, Sin was on his back, staring at shimmering, multi color lights that broke the monotony of the dark sky above him.

Woah, aurora borealis, sweet! was his first thought, followed by Oh, crap, the scarf slid down, let me fix that, and a final Why’s everyone looking at me instead of the lights? Are they that used to them?!

Matter of fact, the edges of his vision were peppered with a handful of red pupils and white sclera looking down at him, each pair (and some sharing between them) belonging to visages more kindly described as “interesting”, all in a sight that could simply be summarized as “industrial noise/nu-metal fusion album cover, illustrated by a joint collaboration between Francis Bacon and Goya in one of his bad days”. Their details were thankfully obscured by shadows, but a more familiar one was present among them.

“There, give him space. Stop gawking”, commanded a muffled voice that Sin recognized as his rescuer.

Slowly, he rolled to the side and then to his stomach, coming to the realization that he was particularly sore all over but still buzzing with such energy that, even laying in a softer blanket of snow, he could not possibly feel the chill. He nosed about his own arms, fearful of any sort of sprain and having to re-break them before they healed wrong, and then looked up at the rescue gear. She was now shooing away all the rubberneckers back to the bonfire, crackling warmly a good distance away from them.

“There you are. Finally woke up! You passed out for a good while” The gear pointed with a furry paw. “Fell asleep, suddenly. Are you still tired?”

“I don’t think so… Also, hey, where am I? Wasn’t I sleeping by your fireplace?”

The gear tilted her whole body in inquisitive surprise.

“Hm, sleepwalking? That would make sense” The gear tapped her own chin. “You bolted in, suddenly, running mad. Then started dancing all crazy. Everyone was impressed.”

She nodded emphatically. Sin was starting to regain one of the most terribly ranked manners of memory possible: of discovering your dreams were not quite dreams at all. His mouth was ever so slightly agape, eye wide with growing shame.

“They are calling you Thunderbolt, for your dance moves. All swoosh-swoosh-swoosh” The white gear made a quick zigzag slalom motion with her front paws to provide a visual aide to her onomatopoeias. “You were sleeping too. You’re a crazy party animal, man”

Sin grinned sheepishly, his ears tilted to the sides, embarrassed. The nickname wasn’t unexpected (his dad had once earned a similar moniker, after all), though the fact he somehow sleepwalked and sleep-raved was remarkably a surprise. He figured, if he was to be moving about while unconscious, may as well make a dancing fool of himself than go around destroying property. Not that was much of that to go around here, in any case.

“Yeah, uh, thanks…” Sin was desperate to change the topic. “Anyway, I thought you said no one lives here? I didn’t know there were so many gears nearby!”

“They are from the other islands in the archipelago, or from the peninsula. We’re in the northernmost one - only we live here. They come to visit ever so often for no reason than to party and eat”

“Eat?”, repeated Sin, his head whipping around with a sudden renewed interest in the occuring festivities.

Around the blazing bonfire, a circle of long tables had been set a sensible distance around it, covered with foods, all of them of the fishy variety, and certainly looking fishy. A humanoid gear cloaked in shadows triumphantly opened a glass jar and Sin swore up and down he was able to smell its rank odor from so far away.

And yet, a testament to his inexorable digestive system and palate, Sin hungered still. He licked his chops.

“...We will not stop you from rejoining the party, but will keep an eye on you, yeah? You feel bad or hurt or sleepy, you tell us… Hm. We do not have your name.”

Sin was mindlessly nodding along, hoping to speed up all these concerns (which would’ve been appreciated any other time, really, he understood this gear was just doing her job), when the sudden statement gave him pause, making him lean backwards on his own paws, peering warily at the gear from over his shoulder.

The gear’s mouth opened, revealing her other two halves waiting inside, the humanoid sorcerer incessantly drumming. The trio exchanged long stares whose meaning Sin struggled to decypher.

“You can stay here as long as you like. As long as you take care not to die, you do whatever you like” The dog casually scratched at her head. “But we will ask what to call you”

Sin’s ears tilted back, his head turning to the left as he side-eyed the gear dog before him. His name wasn’t a particularly common one, for starters, but his parents were rather known in the Illyrian kingdoms, as you may have guessed. Especially if this strange trio - or single gear divided in three parts, as you may put it - worked for an official Illyrian division, they would most certainly put two and two together and his time of freedom would be done four.

“Thought you said you wouldn’t ask”

“Hey, not legal ID” The dog barked out strangely, like a laugh, copied nigh exactly by the sorcerer and - by the muffled sound of it - the gear body as well. “We’re saying pick a name. Fake name, nickname, war name, codename. We call you something, and you have to call us something”

Sin relaxed considerably, the tip of his tail wagging as he pondered what name to pick. This was his shot at getting a far cooler name than Blessing or Yves or Andrès. Sin was fine, but man… Sometimes people made jokes about it to the point of annoyance. Seriously, did no one know what a nickname was? It didn’t matter though - his temporary new life began now, with the greatest of freedoms and the greatest of choices. He had to get it right.

“Fou- no, uh, Temp- no, uh- Ecla- Call me Si-Siiii-” Sin thusly fumbled. “Six…?”

Although it was an easy shot at making fun of him, the gear didn’t take it. Dog and Sorcerer merely grinned widely, and replied.

“Nice to meet you, Six” A short nod.

“Call us Don”

Sin awoke in the core of a furry, warm, fish-smelling pile of arctic gears, all huddled around, below or above him. Some, depending on their size, were doing all of the above. This wasn’t a very common situation for Sin, but, as he appeared to be unharmed and no one stank of enemy, his instincts turned around in bed and went back to sleep. Snapshot flashbacks of last night (day? afternoon? It was hard keeping track of time in a place where the Sun took PTO for half the year) surfaced in his memory and made his current location make a little more sense. Snuggling up with a pack of gears he’d known for less than a day (again, who knew) wasn’t anything particularly troubling for our dragonic bon-vivant.

His mouth tasted of strong vinegar (which, though he may not know, was how his body handled alcohol) and the scent of roasting herbs and raw fish was still stuck in his nostrils, which meant that he’d probably had a great time the previous night. Not that he could remember much.

He yawned loudly, a haze of sleep affecting him still. The yawn spread across all other members of the pile, just as he decided he should probably make his way out of this sleeping arrangement and get himself something to eat. Carefully, doubting himself the load-bearing member of this sleeping pile, he twisted and slithered his way out, emerging unscathed by any grabby paws on the other side, his fur tousled nonetheless.

“Leaving already?”, yawned a gear that looked like a humanoid cross-up between a bear and a lizard, stretching out from its own place near the bottom of the pile. “Then yawn thanks for partyin’ with us, Thunderbolt. Show up whenever, bro”

The gear waved its paw at him, before immediately turning over and falling back asleep. Sin took a moment to remember who this Thunderbolt was, then nodded his head and carefully crawled out of the den in order not to wake anyone else.

He was immediately hit with a bitter, freezing gust of wind as soon as his head popped out, making him shiver and tie his hat closer below his chin. Against every bone in his body (whining nooo go back to the warm naptime nooo), Sin carried on outside, stepping more lightly in the frozen snow and investigating his surroundings. Climbing up to a rather large rock, he settled down for a moment to take advantage of the shining… Astral body in the sky (sun? Moon? Which one was it?) to sunbathe and warm up his body in the rays.

From his vantage point, he noticed the rescue gear wandering about, presumably doing her morning rounds. Sin was noticed in kind, the gear lifting a furry paw to wave at him. The dragon smiled and swatted at the air in lieu of a wave as the white gear lumbered over to him.

“Hey there, you party animal. Up already?” The gear commented, snickering to herself. “Figured you’d be out until noon, after that night”

“I can manage to wake up pretty early, especially when I’m hungry!” Sin explained, eyes flitting towards the ever darkened sky in wonder at whether his usage of early here was correct. “No need to get me anything though; just tell me where I can find food and I’ll work it from there”

The white gear’s upper jaw hobbled loosely as her entire body shifted with laughter, paws on her fur-covered hips. The equipment all about her jingled as she did.

“What, stew not good for you?” Her mouth opened just enough for the dog-gear to peek through, lift her goggles and wink at his guilty expression. “Not good for us either! Tastes like salt and nothing!”

Don stepped around him to face the other way, in the humble way of the tank, and pointed with her fuzzy paw to the white snow-haze that enveloped them in all directions. Sin leaned in and squinted. His vision was certainly terrible, but he felt like this place wasn’t making it any easier.

“Most we get here is fish. Other islands get food from peninsula, but takes long to get to them” She stepped in place to turn and face him. “We show you ocean quick. Guy there give you fish”

Don set off without another word and in a moment of quite short-interval deja vu, Sin followed closely behind, now more sure on his paws and turning his snout at that inefficient way of hopping from stone to stone. He’d only been here briefly, the exact interval a mystery to anyone, but he always had a knack for adapting to situations like a mudfish to mud, or a particularly fuzzy dragon to frozen deserts.

“I can catch some fish myself and help out!” Sin said, chin lifted high with pride as he trotted along the lumbering rescuer. “It’s been a while, but, I’m sure I still got it!”

“Hm? You hold pole with those paws?”

“No way! I fish like a bear, obviously” Sin laughed, skipping a bit ahead to stand up and show off his technique, lifting unfortunate fish-facsimile (fishimile) chunks of ice into the air as he slapped the ground with, admittedly, great reflexes. “It’s way more fun this way”

Don stopped to clap her paws, producing the same sound and effect as if you were slapping two blackboard wipers together, with clouds of powder snow lifting from her fur.

“You are full of crazy dance moves, Six! Show that one at party later”

“This one isn’t-” Sin tilted his head to the side, paw scratching at his ear. “Hm. Maybe it is!”

Deep cogitations and debate about the nature of dancing and what counted as a ‘crazy dance move’ continued as the duo progressed through the frozen infinity before them, the fog eventually clearing enough for a slightly different infinity to stretch before them.

The wine-dark sea, someone had once recited, draped before them in monochromatic tones. Unsettled black waves crowned with gray foam rolled and fainted upon the shore, or against the rickety, elderly foundations of a pontoon built a few meters away from them, overlooking the sea in such resigned melancholy it resembled a certain vertically challenged French revolutionary of yore. Yeah, dad sure liked looking at the sea like that.

Two humanoid figures sat at the very edge of this structure, thin and long appendages protruding grotesquely from their conjoined hands, aimed at the firmament, at least until Sin got close enough that he realized, with great relief, that these beings were only holding regular fishing poles. They turned towards the approaching pair, dark animalistic visages tinged and frozen with salt, matting their fur and feathers and gathering about the edges of their white-red eyes. They raised and waved their hands in a contented greeting, their relaxed postures doing all the legwork in appearing friendly that their beastly heads and expressions threatened to ruin.

“Hail, hail! A season of festivities begins with a new companion, and new fish”, greeted the shorter one, shaped like a blackbird who stood in the way of men, clad in several layers of decorated, aristocratic clothing rather inappropriate for fishing. Though Sin knew not its particular names, the long black jacket with golden embroidery looked particularly fancy. On its belt hung a sheathed, curved sword, encrusted with fine jewels. “This Thunderbolt heralds not the storm, but great merrymaking and bacchanal enjoyment. Greetings to you, young one, and to You, warden of our Northernmost Isle.”

Sin looked at the white gear.

“She’s happy to see us.”

“Oh! Nice to meet you too, dude”

The bird creature bowed deeply to him with a sweeping gesture of her arm to her chest. Sin bent his front legs as much as he could, micking this bow. Her fishing companion, a humanoid with the head of a horse and clad in clothing just as ostentatious as its friend, whinnied in laughter and bowed, still sitting.

“And wot a specimen you are, laddie! Reckon I haven’t seen dragons such as yourself in many a year” The horsefellow pulled at its ear in greeting. “Enough of our jaw-wagglin’, or we’ll keep at it all week, old hoots that we are. Don, my friend, how can we help ya?”

A heavy paw fell on Sin’s back.

“Six would like some fish. He would like to help fish, but does mostly river fishing. Like a bear. Show them, Six”

Sin demonstrated his honed technique, grinning cheesily when the two anglers clapped in awe, watching hypothetical fish, represented empirically by chunks of snow, fly in wide arches into the air before splatting back down.

“The feet of the Thunderbolt are as quick to move him as to move the Earth itself! The knowledge changes, but remains nevertheless - to mentor such an apt youth in the way of the fish will be auspiciously simple!” The blackbird sang, sweeping gestures with her hand-like wings.

“Aye, like she said. You’ll learn right quick, with those reflexes” The horse whinnied, pulling at its ear still, fingers tapping along the edge of the line. “Can’t learn on an empty stomach, yeah? Have a cheeky bite first and foremost and we’ll get right to it”

Abruptly, the horse whipped the fishing pole, sending the interminable line cast into the depths of this churning sea hurtling into the air, shimmering by the light of their weak torches, a creature clad in silver scales stuck to the other end of it. With a pull of its arm, the fish detached, hook ripping out from the side of its head as it skipped, slid and tumbled across the frozen wood, to land right at Sin’s feet. The line darted silently and plunged back into the waters.

The fish lay maimed, beat by such violent and sudden removal, half of its head ripped off by the long-gone hook. Raw muscle quivered, once hidden beneath skin, blood trickled few and thin and pooled in its divots. Little more stained the ice beneath it.

It breathed still, contorting and writhing in the agony that was being nigh-alive, denied a hasty death. Small triangular teeth shimmered in the dim glow of embers as its mouth moved helplessly, gills flaring otiose. Its body spasmed, moving little, in a desperate effort to return to the seas.

Sin could not look away from it.

Its singular, palid eye turned and stared through him in its agony.

A painful pang shivered across his body. Claws sank into the rotten wood. Sin looked up, helplessly.

“So, haha, any place where to” Sin coughed, laughing nervously. His teeth nearly cut through his tongue. “Cook? This guy?”

The look the dark creatures gave him was ten times as revolted as the fish’s.

“Cook?” Tisked the horse, all façade of cordiality vanished. “A fresh morsel? Breathing and kicking still? You want to cook it?”

The horse turned its torso to glare at him more effectively. Its companion showed far less fury than it, but seemed intrigued by this eitherhow, looking between the taller angler and the dragon.

Their faces were shaped grotesquely, an uneven union of human and animal. The usual shapes of the animalistic snout and beak would even and plateau into the flat surfaces whereupon emerged those red-pupiled eyes, bloodshot and tired, unhidden below the customary brow you’d find on any other humanoid face.

Those abhorrent eyes stared at him.

The pallid eye of the fish stared at him.

The white gear did not.

He felt his jaw open without his command, boiling drool rolling down his mouth and curling over his lip, pooling just under it to finally drip onto the floor, soaking the fish in perhaps a way it would much rather not be soaked.

His heart drummed against his chest, his fur twitching as his eyes opened as well, one hidden, but not contained, behind the scarf wrapped around his head. Something commanded him, something beyond the scope of what he knew to be himself, heralded by the ill red glow originating within his throat as foreboding as the impending light of the train in a far-long tunnel, coating the poor resigned soul stuck to its tracks. The rage in the other’s faces left asudden, eyes darting towards his tail, rising and shining against the dark sky.

A paw on his back brought him back to his senses. His whole body shivered as he relaxed, a painful cramp flowing from his mouth to his stomach. Alert, he looked all about him, eyeing the terrified fisher-creatures with confusion.

“Hypocrites we, to not accept other ways of life!” Spoke the blackbird, gesturing to appease to the other three present. “As neither we are from this land. Dare we claim our thoughts superior for these seas are familiar to us, when more they are to many another fellow? Cockamamy idea!”

The horse turned to its friend and grinned, all teeth as is the equestrial way, simply happy to have its gaze turned aside from the grandson of the greatest threat the world had ever faced.

This very same grandson paid little attention to this conversation of diplomatic intent. The ashy, bulbous eye of the sacrificial fish before him hooked his sight, ultimate and ineluctable. Sin breathed heavily. Before him, lay judgement.

He was no stranger to taking life to feed himself. He was no stranger to eating them raw, if the situation called for it, though he’d long been banned from doing so.

The weaving threads of fate and indecipherable spaghetti noodles of genetics had armed him to the teeth with a ceaseless, ravenous appetite, a digestive system capable of dissolving titanium alloy and an overclocked metabolism to back it all up. They did not send goats to clear mountains of invasive plants; they sent Sin, and it would be a same-day job - at least that was how the usual knight dorm jokes about him went, to which he laughed along.

The one concerning clunk in this well oiled mechanism was his palate, which rejected flavors it found to be unappetizing. His quarter gear side could devour an entire building by itself and still have room for seconds, his human sense of taste decided that rebar concrete wasn’t quite worth the effort of chewing, actually, as lacking in nutritional value as it was in appealing flavor. The copper-iron taste of raw meat, offal, skin, bone and kitchen sink, ranked high on his list of disgusting flavors, but it did not mean it had not found its way to his stomach many times before.

His mentor had always been stingy with feeding him, hadn’t he? Feeding little Sin, who hadn’t lived to see his first year of life yet (and with this nutrition he feared he never would), and feeding himself as well. It wasn’t as if they lacked for food. There were animals and plants anywhere they went, after all. Push come to shove, all the bounties asked for was proof of death. A skull picked clean of meat seemed proof enough. The old man had taught him to make use of all these, taught him that an opportunity for survival should never go unsnatched, and forbade him nonetheless.

Sin starved. Sin always felt starved. He would be given lean meals and shot down when he asked for seconds. His mentor gruffly explained to him that if he ate too much, he would grow too much, with all the afflictions that an unsustainable growth spurt dragged in tow.

He supposed he understood his reasoning now, a dragon seven meters long from nose to haunch with a long tail dragging behind, roughly two steps across to boot. Hard to keep something like that away from the public eye. Yet, through all that sound reason, the faintest specks of bitter resentment remained, pushed aside to the deepest parts of him.

Sin snuck bites whenever he could. With the old man distracted he would scurry away, sneaking off. Teach a kid to hunt and he will go behind your back and do so when you insist that five leaves of some unidentified edible plant are lunch enough for him. He’d hold the dead animal in his arms with unshed tears as he thought of his mother and her love for the natural world, whisper a prayer for the creature he had sacrificed for his own hunger, begging God to give it a much kinder life in Heaven, and set to extracting all the meat he could.

It could not be done methodically. The old man did not keep an eye on him often, far more preoccupied with that bike of his, but that didn’t mean he had the freedom to do things right. In fervent panic experienced by his eldest human ancestors, he would open windows in the skin wherever he could, cutting out as much muscle as he could manage with his diminished knife, and…

With the chunk of bloody flesh in his hands, he would bite into it.

He would retch, vomit and hurl at the taste, his taste screaming at him to stop and his stomach growling in agony. What other choice did he have? To this day, it was the worst thing he had ever eaten and yet he found himself swallowing it whole, in an effort to get the taste away from his tongue, multiple times per day. Kneeled on the dirt, hidden inside some bushes, hunched over his knees with his chin as close to the ground as he could manage so the blood staining his hands wouldn’t sully his clothes, making it obvious what he’d been doing.

Prostrated in profane prayer, little more than the violent, man-made animal that humanity saw him as. That his birth father considered him to be.

Then, when he finished, or when the old man started shouting for him, he prayed once more. Thought of home, his mother, the warm meals made with love that he never knew to value. Wiped his hands wherever he could. Rolled around the dirt to mask the scent. Pushed his tears away and hurried off.

The fish stared at him through the throes of death. Mouth opening and closing in a silent plea.

A prayer was whispered through his fangs. A useless apology as he bowed his head low, teeth pinching the tail end of the fish as light as a feather.

His head slowly raised with great reverence. With a curt nod of his head, the fish was repositioned tail-first into his mouth.

The two anglers, attention caught in this spectacle, stared wide eyed. Inexplicable dread soon filled them, skin shivering underneath their aristocratic cloth, the teeth of the horse gnashing together in subconscious panic.

“It’s best to eat them head first”, the horse advised in a weak voice, a terrified hint that went unheard.

Sin’s eye swirled maniacally. He breathed in deeply as the copper taste of blood, salt, ice and drool pooled together on his mouth. The smell intoxicated him. His stomach lurched. His nostrils flared, eyes watering.

He threw his head backwards, tongue curling backwards to force the fish down his throat.

The creature squirmed through his palatine uvula. His stomach lurched once more, sending his tongue warnings of bile and promises of far more where it came from, in case this farce continued.

Sin wheezed and choked. His vision flooded with the darkness above and flashes of red across his eye.

The muscles in his throat contracted and expanded, of half-mind to send this thing back whence it came from. Overrun by the mind - whatever mind it may be - they continued their harrowing toil, pressing and sliding the poor half-dead being further and further down.

The fish, already long-drowned on dry land, grew further and further airless as its ultimate fate continued, eyes fixated on the ever-dimming spot of light that came through its killer’s throat. If it would compensate it, which it likely wouldn’t, for this creature cared not for such things, as it choked, Sin did as well, the razor-thin scales dragging against the softened, slimy interior of his esophagus and ripping open wounds that flooded him with his own blood.

Sin coughed and dry-vomited, this ordeal having progressed too far for him to change his mind. His eye watered and swirled in panic, great heaves coming from his mouth that was raised still against the polar sky. Droplets of blood had managed their way out and over the corners of his mouth, staining his blue fur black.

A sound grew louder.

A buzzing, a sparking noise that resounded and crackled, a high pitch whine turned bloodcurdling. A red glow, from within the depths of the dragon’s throat, that grew bright enough to stain the whole area crimson.

Three sequential electrical explosions threw the anglers to the ground, arms over their head, with accompanying flashes blinding all around.

When it was done, only ash landed in Sin’s stomach. Only thin plumes of white smoke rose from Sin’s mouth as he heaved, tears flowing down the sides of his snout as he lowered his head once more. His eyes met the anglers’.

He smiled resolutely and lopsided, the stretch of his throat afire with open bleeding wounds that choked him still but that he did not let see, throwing his head upwards in a braggadocious, challenging manner so his blood would flow away from his mouth and so that he could hide it in better fashion. Sin gazed all about him, maintaining this façade of purposeful swagger.

His thoughts cursed against him. Everyone called him stupid and reckless, and here was proving it to the word; why had he done that?! When he knew it was a terrible idea - just to impress these conceited fools who he had never met before? Why? For what reason? Had he not grown past that, was he not an adult now - as he frequently claimed - without the anxieties of upholding something so menial as a reputation? Stupid, stupid dares and bets, and he’d gotten terribly injured to boot. Agonizing minutes he’d gone through to gain the astonished, impressed looks on those two grotesquely animalistic faces made gray with salt.

Why did he care? Why did his chest bloom and erupt as those two anglers erupted into cheers and applause, setting their fishing poles down to come shake his paw or pat his armored shoulders. Why, most of all, did he find himself lowering his head to eye them with a taunting expression, tongue hissing between his grinning fangs?

“Now you guys will try my way, yeah?” Sin hissed-laughed, his tail whipping in amusement. “Or are you all talk and no teeth, hm?”

Taken aback as they were, they nodded as obediently as dogs, ushering Sin along and detailing to him what fishing in these waters entailed - specifics of wind speed, temperature, depth that the dragon could hardly be bothered to pay attention to, trotting along with chin held high. Even as they introduced him to their ferry, a large aquatic gear that took them to the deeper waters when shallow prey proved scarce, he paid it little mind. His ego soared and thought for him.

If dumb and reckless is what impresses them, so thought Sin, a self-satisfied grin creeping on his snout as they left shore, Don looking on from the pontoon, then they won’t know what hit them.

The brisk breeze and gentle rock of the seas did him well. Away from the fog of the island he could see for leagues around, as he balanced on the scaly back of the aquatic gear acting as ferry, though it was little else than black ocean water in all directions. If at first he found the darkness off-putting, he soon grew accustomed to it, telling apart the myriad shades of shadows and the movement of fish as they crossed below the surface.

He made sensation with the anglers with his quick reflexes and sharp moves, never letting a fish he’d marked slip from his grasp. In a direct defiance against those odd creatures, he made sure to behead the fish immediately, gazing at them from the corner of his eye. After his dominant (and rather stupid) display, they dare not complain, but flinched and shivered nonetheless, eating their share whole.

The aquatic gear would take the heads at its own insistence, which Sin understood despite not quite making sense of its dialect. Dr. Paradigm had once explained that, while there were sapient aquatic gears, their distance from humans and the water boundary separating them made their version of human-language difficult to understand.

They learned the language from underwater, you see, Paradigm explained during one of the days he’d felt a little better. Their hearing is, thusly, distorted, and it can take long for land-dwelling beings to understand them…

You lived underwater most of your life, right? But you can speak pretty clearly… Sin acutely pointed out.

Well… Yes… Well- Dr. Paradigm was ill at ease, focused on his notes. He scratched at his beard. It was… Magic, yes. I used magic at first and then gained practice. Quite simple. Any dialect… Anything, really, can be mastered with enough practice. You’d do well to keep that in mind, Sin.

Yes, even practice allowed him to thrive in these frozen eternities. Sin began to enjoy his stay in this odd island, beyond anywhere he’d ever known. The challenges of daily life kept him awake and alive, but the sheer silence and lack of distractions besides survival allowed him to enjoy the natural world around him.

He would go and fly between islands, keeping in mind the changes in the wind and the ground’s magnetism below him as he did. He would go out to sea with the two anglers, whose names he was never told. When asked, he was informed they did not go by any name anymore, and though he found that odd, he shrugged and accepted. He could appreciate the idea of being no one for a time.

His stomach filled, the rest of his day was spent wandering about, even making a tenuous, strange friendship with wild polar bears he had found, whom he supposed tolerated his presence due only to rationalizing that under no circumstances could they fell such a giant, armed prey. There was little other fauna here, but the ones he found took to him as a manner of friend. Was it because he would guide them - without realizing - to the presence of fish? Perhaps some remains stuck to his fur and they waited for them to fall, making for an easy meal.

Migratory birds gathered when he sat in quiet contemplation or rather napped in nooks of rock cradled between mountains, protected from the chill of the wind. As he overlooked the vast sea, albatrosses would stop and rest next to him, blocked from the strong bluster. The cold bothered him less now; the salt and water had caked into his fur and matted it into a thick cover, keeping warm air between his skin and the outside. He had even learned from Don, with whom he had become fast friends, to dig holes in the deep snow and curl inside them, protected from the elements as he napped, warm despite being encased in ice.

Whether he slept or wandered, soon the day - whatever his perception of it could be called - would end, always in the same way. The roll of drums would begin, far away, always near Don’s cabin, heralding the start of the banquet. Flying and skipping across the ice much like a gazelle bounding through the savannah he would reach the gathering in the blink of an eye and join in, dancing and eating as he pleased.

He never fell into that half-waking, fugue reverie like the first time he had heard the surging songs and drums, but he quite enjoyed it nonetheless. Always, he would fall asleep comfortably within piles of other gears who were exhausted, full, or even drunk. And then, soon after, the day would begin anew, independently of whether the sun or moon were there to mark it.

The days thus passed.

Once, he had seen his friend Don near her cabin, the white gear standing outside with her arms spread out, a strong harness tied around her body, and a crowd of differently sized bags, packs and whatnot spread out in the snow before her. The sorcerer and the dog seemed to discuss something, before selecting a few bags and carrying them closer. Sin skipped up to meet them, the trio stopping to wave at him.

“Woah, are you going somewhere? There’s so many bags!”

“Yes. We are going to mainland headquarters, report, then we start rescue job. Wander mainland for around six months. We stay here to rest, but we feel bad when we do not get to roam around for too long. It is good for health” Don chuckled, the sorcerer climbing over the sitting gear body to attach packs to the harness.

“Do not worry, we have a replacement. Hu is also from mountain rescue, will cover for me”

“So who’s your replacement? Have I met them yet?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Wait, what’s their name?”

“Hu”

“Your replacement”

“Yeah”

“Yeah is your replacement?”

“Yeah? Hah! We could hardly trust Yeah to rescue here” the gear gestured towards the ocean. “How would they climb up on shore with so many fins?”

“I’ll figure it out eventually, never mind” Sin said bitterly, squinting his eyes. “When are you leaving?”

“Day after tomorrow. Would like to leave tomorrow, but is local holiday. Bad luck”

“Ooh, a holiday! Is there gonna be more food?!”, Sin sat back, shaking his head. “No, wait, sorry. Priorities. Whatcha celebrating?”

The sorcerer stood up from her position atop the body’s snout, crossing her arms and tilting her head to the side. The dog scratched her own head idly, tail shaking slowly.

“Well, it’s a bit odd. We don’t think anyone else celebrates it but us” The dog raised a paw. “You’re from the outside; do you know the husband of the Queen? Of… Vialattea, or Illyria, or whatever call it now. His name is Kiske”

“Yeah it uh… It rings a bell”, Sin technically did not lie. He scratched at his head with his foot as well, whale’d eyes looking awkwardly to the side. “What about him?”

“Tomorrow is his birthday”

“Oh, huh, figure that” Sin replied so he wouldn’t scream in a panic and bolt for the nearest gift store.

He hadn’t lost track of time and whoever claimed he did was merely trying to insult him. The fact of the matter was that he kept track of time very well, he’d just been keeping it wrong. He knew what day it was when he left Ganymede and noted that a full sun rotation had passed while he flew. Then the sun ditched on him for good. All this time learning to tell directions, time, weather and lunch menu from the sun, all these survival techniques hinging on the sun (or the moon, let’s not be picky) being there and the jerk had been playing hooky for the past week. Well, whatever a “week” had been, really.

He, in fact, hadn’t forgotten his dad’s birthday. He’d been counting down the days since the last one, because it had to be right. This would’ve been the third birthday gift he’d ever given him, and Sin needed it to be… The thought embarrassed him more than anything, but he wanted it to be good. Special.

The first one, when he was little, he had been bribed to make. No matter how awkward it was to make a gift for a man you had only first met about five months ago and hardly spoke to at all. Practically forced by his mother to make something the day before, with crayons, bitterness and the wish to be doing anything else. Dad had smiled sadly at it (as he always did) and hugged him without ever looking him in the eye (as he always did) and then the moment had passed.

The second had been last year, in the middle of the chaos, panic and uncertainty of the drawn battle against Ariels. Sin knew things would turn out okay - of course they would, what was the point of anything if he didn’t keep the hope that everything would be alright in the end? Yet something gnawed at him. He had just lost a friend, short as their time together had been, and his core felt empty yet heavy in ways he hadn’t felt since he had first seen his mother, suspended, encased in sheer energy so she would not die.

Sin looked at his father from the corner of his eye. The man who he knew would give all of himself if it meant he could help, even in the slightest, most meaningless way, anyone else. The knights often joke that if you asked for a hand, Ky would give you his whole arm, and are you sure you don’t need the other, don’t you have a wife and kids at home? Not that Sin needed any barrack rumors to know this, having first-hand experience with his dad’s martyristic tendencies.

Incessant worries rang in his ears. He knew they were unfounded, baseless, never to come true. They rang nonetheless, growing stronger as he saw his father’s determination. What would he say to mom if he came back alone? What would he do? What could he do?

The thought of losing his father just as soon as he’d fully buried his grudge against him troubled him. What memories did they have together, after all? Five years of life and hardly one of those had he been on good terms with his father. They hadn’t celebrated any holidays together, birthdays? Only his father’s, once and never again. It didn’t stick well with him.

So, he’d got him a gift. Something simple, and cheap, the first appropriate thing he could find when he ran out to the city. A blue-and-white plaid fabric… Thing, that the seller informed him was a “teapot cozy” while he rushed to the door after slamming down the probably-right amount of money on the counter.

He’d made it back to the castle back in time, breathing heavily from worry rather than from exhaustion. He managed to catch his father just before he headed to the Celebration of Victory, King Leo right beside him.

“Sin? Is something the matter?” Ky asked, surprised at his son’s disheveled, frantic appearance.

Sin’s words died in his throat, Leo’s presence suddenly making him realize how truly embarrassing the situation was. He’d made a mountain out of a molehill on impulse, letting his emotions get ahead of him… All of this, and all he had in his hands, inside a small fiber bag, was a tiny piece of fabric whose use he wasn’t sure of, besides the fact it probably related to tea in some way. He faltered, looking away.

“Uh- Nothing, really, just wanted to say- uh-” Sin looked to the ceiling, which was suddenly very interesting indeed. “Bye, and see you later, and stuff-”

“Sin, we have to get going now. I’ll talk to you when I return-”

“Now hold on, there”

Father and son looked up, surprised, at Leo’s interjection, who looked between the two so-similar faces, hiding a smile of amusement. He made a frustrated expression, hand to his temple.

“I just remembered I forgot something in my office! I’ll be right back, wait for me there. Don’t move a single step, now!”

Saying this, he hurried down the hallway, Ky turning to look at him with his spread arms half-lifted in confusion.

“Leo, we’re already late-?!”

“Don’t rush me, bambino!”

The second king turned the corner, leaving Ky standing wordlessly with a furrow to his brow. He slowly shook his head with a sigh, turning around to find a little bag thrust in his face. It had a small blue ribbon hastily tied to it.

“Look, today’s your birthday and all, and I figured I should get you a gift, okay?”

Sin couldn’t see his father’s face behind the bag. Even as his hands took it, lifting it so gently and closer to him… Whether it was in joy or indifference, Sin could not tell, his face fully turned to the side to hide his embarrassed blush. There was a muffled rustle as Ky lifted his gift out of it and turned it around, looking at it. He made no sound, whether of approval or not.

“It’s called a teapot cozy or something. I think it’s something to do with tea, so I bought it for you. ‘Cuz you’re always drinking it”, Sin explained, hands in his pockets as he continued his thorough inspection of the ceiling.

“Yes. It keeps… It keeps the teapot warm, Sin”, Ky replied, with an odd lilt to his voice. One Sin had never heard coming from him before and, in shock, turned to see what was happening.

His father was looking at him, eyes shining inexplicably and a gentle smile on his face. He was holding the piece of fabric between his hands with such care you’d wager it was the most expensive piece of ceramic in the world rather than cheap fabric.

“I’ll certainly use it whenever I can. Thank you so much, Sin. Truly”

There was that lilt again, that odd cadence to his voice as if he was holding back tears. Which would be ridiculous, right? It was a cheap piece of fabric, after all. A spur of the moment gift, bought by Sin on impulse after his fears of his father sacrificing himself in some way overcame him, pushing aside reason and taking the reins of his body, probably hooting and hollering all the while. There was no need for any of this, all this ceremony. It was just silly.

Sin found himself with his arms wrapped around his dad, his face buried in his shoulder.

After a moment of shock, his father reciprocated, one hand gently petting the back of his son’s head. It was warm, and safe, and his usual uniform smelled of lemons. Bergamot. Just like mom. He’d never noticed before. The same light floral tones as mom too. The smell of the tea he was always drinking. Old books.

Hardly did he have the words to put his thoughts together, but it felt like… Home. Summer days in a secluded forest. The sun setting behind the tree tops, a familiar voice calling him back. He never knew. He never noticed before.

“If you die”, Sin mumbled, breathing sharply as his eyes closed. “Mom’s gonna be very sad. She’ll die too”

Ky’s hand stopped on the back of his head. He inhaled sharply as well, and leaned his head against his, holding him there for just a moment.

“I know”, a gentle mutter as well. His other hand rubbed the back of his shoulders. “You don’t have to worry, Sin”

I still do, Sin didn’t say. I’ll be very sad too, he couldn’t say.

He let go of him before his words got away from his brain, looking at the wall, the carpet, the ceiling, anywhere but his father’s face. Ky’s hands rubbed at the sides of his son’s arms with an expression Sin wasn’t acquainted with enough to accept as one that came from his dad. A few years ago his eyes would cross him coldly with shame and regret behind them. How could they have become so different? From the change in height alone?

King Leo chose this exact moment to turn the corner of the hallway, somehow stepping so loudly that the two heard him approaching from far away. Sin gave his dad a short nod and left him, turning hallways and entering rooms in any effort to get away from the unfamiliarly emotional situation, running into his very delighted mom near immediately, whom he correctly assumed had overheard the whole situation. Much to his chagrin.

The thing was his father did use it afterwards. Nearly every day. Every time he’d go and have tea, his regular teapot would be covered with the dang thing. A piece of fabric that cost Sin some spare change, bought on a whim, and the man cherished it dearly. Strange as it was, even a glimpse of the thing in use, from the corner of his eye as he went to greet his father, ask him something or report on some completed homework, was enough to make a soft smile creep on the edges of his mouth. Plain, simple and meaningless as it was.

He’d been thinking of the perfect gift since then. What type of stuff did his dad actually like? He’d listed all of them: teacups, books, nice cutlery… At times, he would spend sleepless nights worrying over it, since it had to be right. In the throes of his disease, neither awake nor asleep he would mumble to himself his options. One night, he had asked the trembling shadows on the walls of his room, growing and writhing in the corners of his vision.

“Do you think my dad would like- something like that fluffy chicken mascot from Channel 3?”

To his surprise and great disappointment, there came a reply with his father’s voice, following an amused and relieved chuckle.

“Oh, Sin, I’ll love whatever you get me”

The man had been sitting by his side as he slept fitfully, praying quietly under his breath, counting the beads of his rosary. Sin knew, despite his nigh-blind vision, for his father reached out to hold his hand and he felt the rosary in his.

“Even you being here is quite enough. I am glad to have you near me”

Saying this, he gently pressed a kiss to his forehead and then his son’s hand between his own, once more muttering prayers under his breath in a way that lulled Sin back to sleep. When he woke, his dad wasn’t there anymore, but he dared not ask the shadows, the walls or the floating lights on the edges of his vision anything anymore. It was meant to be a surprise and fate had ruined it.

Over a year mulling over it, planning, worrying and searching. For naught.

“What a troubled face”, Don’s voice snapped him out of his memories. “Something the matter? Don’t like the guy?”

“No, no!”, Sin replied, a tad too quickly. He looked aside, awkwardly, looking for a good excuse. “I have a friend… His birthday’s the day after” With a sigh, he shook his head, tail idly flicking against the ground. “I can’t believe I let the days pass just like that! I’ve been planning all year for his gift too…”

Don nodded thoughtfully, the white gear sitting her rump down on the frozen ground to listen ever more intently. The attachment of packs to her harness was postponed in favor of lending Sin a friendly ear. It was good the bags were balanced, or Don would’ve tipped to the side with their weight and bulk; nonetheless, at the moment they gave her the appearance of wearing a cargo-hoop-dress from an alternative universe where young 19th century mademoiselles sought to carry 50-80 large rocks with them at any time, any cost.

“Tough keeping track here, huh?” The dog gave an empathetic whine. “You were unsure, you could have asked us. We keep very precise inner clock”

“Hm? Like that thing, uh, cicada rhythm or something? I guess since you live here, you’re pretty used to the polar night…”

“Ah, no, misunderstand. Hang on” The sorcerer dove inside the white gear’s mouth and then promptly reappeared, holding a last-generation magic-battery clock in her hands. “See. Inner clock. Keep in innards”

Sin snorted and shuffled away from the bile-dripping clock shoved in his face, whining with amusement and disgust as his friend followed him about.

“Stooop that! I get it, I get it!” The dragon laughed, shooing the other gear with his tail. “How often do you get to tell that joke, anyway!”

“Hah! Not very, but we do keep clock for actually keeping time” The sorcerer dove back inside the white gear’s mouth as it re-seated its rump upon the ground. The dog’s tail thumped happily.

“Hey, no need worry so much. I cross whole Illyria, I can send your friend the gift, if you’d like” Don reassured, noticing how Sin’s smile had faded back into wistful regret. “Just can’t leave today, or tomorrow”

“Right, Ky Kiske’s birthday” Sin sighed deeply, his head hanging down below his slumped shoulders. As he re-opened his closed eyes, he was met with the face of the dog peering at him with great suspicion, and immediately decided to make himself less so. “Why is it bad luck to travel during that day, anyway?”

“Well, everyone travel during holiday, roads full. People gawk at giant infamous gear, scream, run, wave arms in the air like they don’t care” Don sighed, the white gear and the dog demonstrating by putting their front paws up, in the air, and waving them like they didn’t care. They resumed sitting down when Sin followed their lead - for a brief moment, a jolly good time was had by all. “As for tomorrow… Good question. Was holiday started by other guys, not me, but they say-”

“Hej! Hej, hej!” Came a frantic bleating from beyond the fog. “Oj, are we talking about Ky Kiske?!”

Don and Sin’s eyes rose to the source of the voice. Suddenly, a man-like creature, thin, sinewy, body like mooring ropes tangled together in the contorted facsimile of a man, back covered with a rug of brown snow-speckled fur, head like a mounted elk’s poorly taxidermied mug, tangled antlers framing it like a crown of thorns, came bolting out of the snowy white void, running at cruise speed directly at them, hoofed curled legs skipping over the snow as if it was solid stone.

He was wearing nothing but a dusty, stained white and blue loincloth. Sin yelped in horror, turned to flee as the nudists had finally found him and decided to attack him for his poser naturist ways.

“Wait, wait, that is just Morey”, Don said, the white gear stopping him with her muscular arm. “Morey, you need better awareness. Even gears are scared when elk man comes running naked out of woods”

“Naked, eh? I’m not naked. I’ve kept my sash on every day. I am never naked” Hastily corrected Morey, waving a clawed finger around. “Doesn’t matter. You’re talking about the big holiday tomorrow, yes?!”

“Uh, yeah… I was wondering why it’s bad luck to travel tomorrow…?”, Sin asked, slowly and sparing no little effort, as every word that rolled off his mind solidified his certainty that asking this strange elk-man anything at all was a terribly bad idea.

“Yes, quite terrible, dreadful in fact”, the elk-man hummed thoughtfully, staring up at the sky. “It’s rude - Impolite, churlish, that’s the key point of it”

“Rude”, repeated Don, to whom this information was also new. Did her three jaws drop in astonishment? Sin couldn’t tell.

“It’s rude, my friend, because Ky Kiske deserves a holiday. It’s His birthday, after all. The blessed day where God heard the prayers of the people and granted the world its savior” Morey explained, arms akimbo as he trotted about in a slow jig. “Ky Kiske toils by sun and moon all other days. All other! For He loves the people but - this day, this day He rests, and we do not move or get in naughty trouble, so He can rest”

For all accounts and purposes, Sin replied in the best way possible for a young man who is beginning to have his suspicions that his father - his father, whom he had seen plenty of times mix cream into his soup so it didn’t upset his stomach, whom he had seen express great joy at a teapot with little chickens painted on it (damn, now that would’ve been a good gift!), whom he had seen many times as he woke and broke fast half-sleeping, which are never the most dignified times of any man’s life- his father, as was said, was the object of devotion of some manner of strange grassroots upstart religion held solely by even stranger gear inhabitants of nigh-frozen islands bathed in perpetual darkness and placed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where the most sensible form of resident life were polar bears, who probably featured on the flag for this very reason, and migratory birds.

“Ahuh”, he said, mouth hanging open.

This man-elk was speaking He’s and His’ with such cadence that the capital H’s were visible even above his head, and Sin, for one, did not like it.

Little did he know or even suspect, but the situation was about to manifold worsen right before his eyes. This poor young man held captive by good manners and societal contracts as he, and his friend, paced after an overjoyed man-elk, skipping and dancing across the frozen ground, entoning a wayward tune, having invited them for tea and a good discussion involving the Great Man Himself, oh commander of the Holy Order, oh leader of the International Police Force, oh once allied King of Illyria , now faithful Consort to the Queen of Vialattea, devoted to his Citizens, to his Family, as any Great Man is.

Sin’s eyes were spinning in place.

His father had reading glasses. Tiny pink ones. He would put them on and squint at the newspaper to solve his daily crosswords over his plain croissant.

Plain.

Because the chocolate ones were “a bit much”.

He’d seen his dad battle great armies of inexplicable soldier-creatures. He had sparred with him himself. He had read and heard how his father was practically a punk, a rebel, someone who stirred up trouble among the usually oh-so-peaceful and unanimous higher ranks of the UN and caused problems with his lofty ideals, sure.

He had also, on occasion, had to help his father put those warm medicinal patches for muscle pain on his back. He was there to hear the hoo-hoohoohuah! of surprise after the warm patches proved ineffective and they decided to give their cold version a royal try. Once more, not the most dignified moment in a man’s life.

He mumbled incoherently to himself, pausing quickly to adjust the scarf over his eye and to wonder, incredulously, what in the world was going on.

A rather familiar sight eventually made its way out of the snow-fog, billowing movement catching his attention just the same as it did during his very first hours here.

The weather station!

Oh, old friend, how do you do! Sin managed a pleased smile spotting it, treating it as almost a long-unmet acquaintance. It changed somewhat to boot - aside from its proud flag, still standing boldly up on the slanted roof, moving as if waving back at him - just as the acquaintance will. It was far more decorated, small chairs set outside the main door, embroidered blankets with alpine themes, the traditional decorated knots of polar fabrics, covering them for comfort. They were protected from the snowfall by an awning set on the edge of the roof, from which hung a series of wooden carved trinkets and amulets. As they closed in, Sin could swear he had seen their shapes and motifs somewhere before.

A rather long wolf, covered with a furry pelt cloak, waited at the door, laying down in a blanket-covered wooden frame in what would likely be the frame of the couch. Everyone present was fairly sure there was a better name and description for it, but the writer’s thesaurus is failing at the moment. Forgive that illiterate fool for the moment, and let’s continue.

A red-pupiled eye cracked open with their approach, a flickering ear joining in as this creature raised her head slow and pensive, gauging the visitors before her.

“Hail, good Wells! Tea’s on the fire, I take it?”

The wolf’s mouth parted to reveal rows of thorns growing from within, head tilted in such a way to appear as friendly. It did not work.

“Boiling for a while now, Morey, my friend. Keeping it in and out the fire hardly makes for good tea” She yawned, stretching her paws before her. They were shoved into thick fabric sleeves tied at the edges with ornamental, sparkling thread.

“Quite so true, but, it was my imperative”, Morey lamented, bowing and gesturing towards Sin and Don. “You see our honorable Warden and our Young Thunderbolt had their inquiries about Our Grace Ky Kiske! What manner of cad would I be to leave them with unanswered questions, well, a very dreadful cad indee-eed.”

“No”

“No?”

“No. You would be a dreadful curator. You would be doing the exact job a cad does, ergo-” One finger raised.

Morey threw his hands up, looking away from her and towards the two large gears, shaking his head with reproach.

“Thunderbolt! Let her be. This is her favorite pastime. This happy fool” Morey tisked.

“Uh…”

“Thunderbolt”, Wells repeated with realization. “We know of you. We’ve seen you about, heard of you”

She sat up, furred cloak falling down her shoulders and keeping her long body hidden still.

“I don’t think you have seen us hitherto”

Sin slowly shook his head, lacking for words. In his mind, he pondered about the odd gear before him. Everyone he had seen to this moment, who wasn’t aquatic or an outspokenly migratory gear who would be gone by the next time Sin awoke, had a distinctly humanoid figure and gait. This little fact burrowed into his mind like a worm to an apple, but he could make little of it.

Dr. Paradigm, in the past, often grumbled to himself about humanoid gears, now less often for the sake of diplomacy and keeping an open mind. When asked about such types of gears, Paradigm informed him that very likely no full blooded, naturally-born humanoid gears remained. It was a question it was probably better asked to that cantankerous old gear friend of his in the mechanical titan, but the thought made Sin grimace. After all, the Doctor, far more concerned with the theories of magic, could not exactly explain why humanoid gears were the way they were, or rather, had been.

Self-destructive to a fault, it was impossible to keep two within the same area or they would find each other and battle to the death. Dreadful things, the old dragon mumbled to himself, looking down at his notes. He hypothesized that they had never made it out of the mainland and had driven themselves to extinction. Those with any semblance of human cells in them, Dr. Paradigm explained, nodding towards Sin, were far more agreeable and calm, much like other sapient gears. Sin grinned and accepted the compliment, blushing lightly.

Of course, temperament and intelligence varies from gear to gear…

…Hey!

In any case… Could these be those humanoid gears the Doctor so dreaded and loathed? They were… Well, rather grotesque. Uneven fusions of animal and human, or perhaps human trying to reshape itself into an animal. They spoke with weird lilts, as if reciting rhymeless poetry to themselves, had odd habits, iron-clad, unspoken geas that, if broken by an unknowing party, would send them into furious spells, from which they would just as suddenly settle down from into deep depressions.

Everything pointed to this being the last habitat of the mythical humanoid full-blooded gears, just as little gaps prevented him from being sure of it. He hadn’t seen the bloodshed he would’ve expected from all the stories he’d heard, after all.

This wolf, though odd proportions it may have, looked… Wolfy. Far too wolfy to belong in the same boat as the other type of gear on this island. Her speech was just the same as all the others, though.

“We keep to ourselves. Small little unmanned fort. Keeping track of storms, checked every moon by an Official” A shake of the head. “We keep our collection here. Keep it for those who would like to visit it. For peace of mind. For hope”

Case in point. Sin nodded politely and hid his awkward grimace as much as possible. He’d lost track of this conversation five times already.

“I am Wells. Liaison from Longyearbyen. A pleasure to meet you” The wolf bowed deeply.

“I am Morey! I hail over from sunny Bjørnøya, to the south” He trotted around in a circle to point, supposedly, south. “I’ve come a long way to be here, all for the Holiday!”

“Yes. The Holiday in memory of Ky Kiske”

Synapses and neurons of the primordial ichthyic brain division, dedicated solely to keeping the meat mechanism alive, exchanged stares amongst themselves. They were staunch survivalists, the lot of them, for whom a screech, a hoot, a howl or a gargle were far more efficient than any nouveau-riche attempt at organizing sounds together in the shape of words, and though the particular expression in memory of seemed to make old Recollection twitch and groan, they had little idea of what it implied.

With great difficulty, threading chemical messages set to reawaken the atrophied human brain, with all its knowledge of languages and its associated comprehension. Asleep at the wheel, it had gone mostly unused since he had first set foot on this island; verbose as though its visitors were, he had soon discovered he could miss three words in every four and still gather an acceptable understanding of what the gears were trying to say to him. Finery, regalia and vast vocabulary were little more than accessories to their lifestyle. The way the discarded warrior clung to its swords, these man-creatures clung to their rags and words to maintain the panache of civility, the façade of superiority over the other walking life of the islands, with none of its chores.

Ichthyic neurons tapped gently on the neocortex’s shoulder, hoping it wouldn’t startle awake and frantically veer their limbed vehicle side-to-side in a panic, which was exactly what happened. Memory shuddered, let spill reams of hazey snapshots of times now past. Books, movies, benches, plaques, songs. Two little words, sometimes three, who made their way, every so often, as an ante-prologue, the scouts to such a vast plethora of art and object and otherwise that no connection could be derived from such.

A crackling radio, mid afternoon. Repeat of the morning news.

We present you this program in memoriam of the recently deceased S…

They printed newspapers for it, paper limits be damned. The world turned on its head. A man who outlived their great-grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers, who they thought would outlive them, had died.

On the first pages was his face. That annoyed, frustrated expression perpetually frozen on his face. His thumbs crossed over the ink.

He’s not actually dead, they tried to comfort him, when they saw him, once more, staring intently at the long-worn newspaper, no movement, no sound, no expression betraying his thoughts.

He’s just settling into his new house. Why don’t you go visit him soon? I’m sure he’ll be glad to have you.

A living gravestone.

He won’t say it, but he probably wants to see you. You know how he is.

He did, once.

He could only find his love and concern at the end of his fist. A man so long-lived and utterly finished with the world in which he had been a guest for far too long. The world he was born into was a faint memory of the past, and he had lost all he cared about many times over. He was crankish, but he came to realize, in time, that he was but a husk, trying to give to him what he lacked. Keeping him alive through whatever means he could.

He was not the man who raised him. He was, and was not. This was a man he had never met, but everyone around him pretended to have known for many years. This was a man who called his mom “daughter”. A man who his dad called by a name that had been buried, far away, on a hill he said he found quite not bad. The trust, bond and affection he had for a dead man was meant to transfer over to him, wordlessly, simply, with no problems whatsoever.

He was happier. He was calmer. More agreeable. Everyone noticed the same, and expressed how glad they were for him. He had lost everything, but he found new purpose. Always. There was something new to live for.

So how could he feel this way? He wanted to treat him the same. His heart longed for the man who, for years, he considered his only safety. The wide back of a brutish, cantankerous old man who would keep him safe through thick and thin.

In memory of the recently passed…

His father was dead.

He mouthed the words. Sound would not cross his throat. His vision was fixed, intently, on the wolf creature who eyed him back. Frozen as the rest of this desolate place, watching him. Waiting.

“You tell such dreadful jokes! Goodness, you!” Morey scolded, stamping the ground with his hoof. “Look at that. Look at that! You scared the poor boy. Who wouldn’t, hearing such- such cruel lies, that Ky Kiske is dead!”

Morey trotted over to pet his shoulder.

“Dear Thunderbolt! Little Thunderbolt, it’s okay! She has a horrible sense of humor, that’s all!” Morey reassured, Sin’s fur flattening down as he remembered how to breathe. “Ky Kiske is alive and well! We receive news, and they say - Queen Dizzy and her consort inaugurate this, or do as such, and he looks hearty and healthy all the while. We have seen the pictures! We keep the pictures, Wells!”

“We do, don’t we?” The wolf hummed to herself, tilting her head to the side. “Then I do suppose I tell lies.”

“Bah! You, I swear. You make for wonderful company” Morey waggled a finger towards her. “But you take perverse delight in terrifying guests!”

“So you say”, the wolf commented with a flat voice. “Let us go inside, now. The poor tea can hardly get any worse”

The wolf raised herself diagonally, more like a sturdy log being lifted by a handful of burly men rather than a person or gear. The heavy cloak, dragging on the snowy ground, made her about as wide as a door, her height far exceeding the one she appeared to have while laying down, around eye-height to Sin and clearly owning all her miles with confidence. Her cloak parted, revealing a second pair of arms emerging from her tree-trunk-like torso, donning a heavy long coat as well, these ones ending in human hands and covered similarly by sleeves, though of a different fabric. The stitching was fairly obvious, askew, right at the edge of these sleeves. The fabric frayed where they met the rest of her long coat, as if done hastily by someone unused to sewing at all. Her legs, straight unlike the ones of the common carnivore quadruped, ended in heavy boots.

So much for looking like a regular wolf.

The two gears headed indoors, ducking below the low door. Sin stood frozen to the spot, mouth half-open and panting, tongue snapping back and forth as he did, eyes wide. A heavy paw fell on his back and directed him along, neither pushing nor pulling along but moving him forward nonetheless. He complied half-awake in a haze of dread and rage.

He met with ten thousand pairs of eyes glaring down at him from every angle.

Sin stopped, made a noise to rival an Aztec death whistle, and backed up, claws scrambling against the stone flooring, crashing into the concrete wall that was Don. He looked over either of his shoulders in a panic, eyes twitching, before looking back to the reverse panopticon he had found himself in.

No inch of wall or ceiling had been left uncovered by Holy Order memorabilia, insignia, propaganda, artifacts that would’ve likely found their homes in museums. Worn posters, paintings, weaponry, uniforms, crosses, tabards, gloves, charms carved from wood that would follow young knights to battle and to their eventual demise.

Chief among them, repeated ad nauseum across the walls, an elegant young face with a gaze already soured by the horrors of war, two brilliant blue eyes made deeper, gimlets that shone in hellbent righteous fury with all the aplomb oil paint had to offer. Tousled light yellow hair, a uniform blue and turned pristine white by artistic interpretation. Gloved hand with a death grip on his sword.

An alliterative name that rang still across the mouths of the people.

He found himself sitting at a small table, pushed like a dog avoiding the carrier acting as the antechamber to the gates of vet-hell. The clink of a teacup set before him and a polite Here you are yanked his horrified stare from the collection on display, making him mumble out some gratitude as his chin tilted down towards it. In kind, the elkman appeared to be revving up for a fervently religious tirade, but was properly damped and mollified by the placement of a teacup before him.

Wells’s arms passed along the teacup amongst themselves in an upwards bucket brigade, back and forth every time she took a sip. Sin himself performed quite the feat of balance, placing his long upper body’s weight on his rump as his paws, grasping the teacup through grip strength alone, maneuvered up to his mouth. This feat went sadly unnoticed by everyone.

“Legend goes… Ah, much obliged…” Morey began, then mumbled off as a rather solid brick of bread was placed before him. He chewed it idly, as did the rest of the group, staring silently at each other. This went on for a while.

“A cold night, the twentieth of November!” He suddenly began again, cervid troubadour standing up from the table to pace around the cramped room, hand to his chest and other in a gesture Sin had only seen coming from saints.

“Yes, twentieth November twenty-one-fifty-seven, God’s message of Hope towards mankind was born… Ky Lucás Clément Kiskè, born in a small ocean-side village in Bretagne… One small village of indomitable fellows who still holds out against invading gears… Ah, well, held”

A finger came up to tap his lip.

“Yes, yes, his little village, leveled nigh entirely by an onslaught of gears. His mother, having passed a year before, his father, having long left them two beforehand… Kiskè was in the care of a poor, small orphanage, but it was through such agony and tragedy, tribulations, e-ven, that he came to meet with knights from the Order he would one day lead…”

Sin was vaguely aware of his father’s childhood, scraps of assorted information he had heard from veterans and knight rumors. He never spoke of it himself. If Sin asked about the Holy Order, Ky would tell as much as he recalled: training, Commander Kliff, this and that division, these other knights, those battles... If Sin asked what he did before that, Ky would grow reticent, saying he joined the Order very young.

And when he was younger still?

A pondering gaze. An imperceptible shake of the head, the lightest brush of his fingers against his cross.

No use dwelling in the past.

So Sin didn’t.

When night was deepest and the most quiet, Sin would stay awake and think to himself. What would he have done if the emotional maelstrom he felt when his mother was frozen in time by magical energy had reached its ultimate, catastrophic conclusion?

Who would he be if he had reached home and found that his mother had died, and only the biological father he resented (at the time, agonies of a starving, cranky teenaged gear) remained?

No use dwelling in cruel hypotheticals.

So Sin didn’t.

Instead, in long airship voyages, when his father sat quietly to stare out of a window, far and isolated from everyone, he’d silently sit next to him. Lean his head on his dad’s shoulder. No words were spoken - he didn’t exactly have good ones to say, anyway - but his father would lean his head over his, and the two would stay that way and watch the clouds.

The dragon turned his snout to look at the countless posters with his dad’s face reverently painted on them.

They never got his look right. Or maybe he’d just been that way, in a past Sin couldn’t dwell on.

Morey had continued his raving with little consideration for his guests, as it seemed. Don was snoring a shameless three-part melody, Wells was polishing white-metal baubles with her human set of hands. Sin’s ears flickered in embarrassment, much like when he found himself daydreaming during his tutorings.

Something nagged at him. He knew not why, but he seemed to lose himself in thoughts and memories far too easily than normal. He distracted himself from time to time but now… He shook his head. He was doing it again.

“And afterwards, fate and the Will of God had made it so, Ky Kiske Himself had become Commander of the Holy Order of Knights!” A dreamy sigh. “Truly, a sign of a bright future, good and beautiful, of peace and love and all that is kind. God had willed it, Ky Kiske had brought it so, to God’s children on this earth…”

“Then, 2173”

Well’s voice rang like funerary carillons through an empty cave system, startling everyone else present into looking at her.

The light of the little candle present grew dimmer, throwing stronger shadows quivering and crawling against the walls, reflecting below her wolfish snout. She looked down, gloved fingers inspecting every indentation, crevice and divot of the artifact in her hands. Wells hardly appeared focused on what she was saying, a million miles and years away.

“Battle of Rome. Ten thousand callow chevaliers volunteered, all heart, hope, little self preservation to hold back a stampeding cavalcade of gears. With only the intent of saving as many civilians as they could. The city was already lost”

She set the little bauble down. The wavering shadows made it impossible to tell what it was, shapes carved from whale bone that as soon went from a rearing gear, to some manner of air-vehicle, a humanoid kneeling down, a witch with arms crossed. A man in manacles.

A very familiar gear, one he had only seen in dreams.

“They say only twenty-five knights survived. Less than one percent. All of the Holy Order’s forces erased in one fell swoop”

Her yellow-red eyes shone through the darkness.

“Among the dead, the commander. Ky Kiske had fallen, and with him, mankind”

The ring of a church bell. The usual chorus.

Sunlight streamed through the stained glass. Sin couldn’t see the shapes from where he sat.

I didn’t think he was religious. He already had a funeral. Why the church service?, Ramlethal whispered.

I think he was a Holy Order knight for a while, so it’s customary… Maybe?, Elphelt replied. Sin, do you know?

He stared at the colorful lights above him.

Oh, Sin, he’s…, Elphelt looked around her, before whispering even quieter. He’s alright, there’s no need to be sad. You can visit him again soon.

He slowly blinked. He did not move or reply.

This happened at the other funeral too. Ramlethal commented, leaning to look at his face. Hey. Sin. Everything okay?

Sin nodded then. What could he tell them? That even before he’d died, he stopped recognizing the man whose funeral they were attending? That he, somehow, had inexplicably and irrevocably changed when Sin wasn’t looking.

Either him or Sin, that he didn’t know.

Things had changed. The affection he once felt couldn’t be mustered up again. Despite his character, his optimism, his usual certainty that things would turn out okay…

He could only mourn.

The ring of a church bell.

His father was dead.

“Ky Kiske, dead! Hah!” Morey scoffed, throwing his arms in the air with disdain. “Hark at the fool. Ky Kiske would never die, He is alive and well” A shaming finger waggled. “Ky Kiske would never die, for He is Hope Incarnate”

Sin shook his body as if he had returned from freezing swim, tip of his tail touching his forehead as a substitute for his hand. It continued. These moments where he lost himself in memories continued, dragging him far away from the moment and leaving him angry, resentful. This time, directed at the wolf gear before him.

“I say what I saw. I saw him dead, and I died too then, in that field. We all died.”, Wells replied, smiling soothingly. As soothingly as a mouth of thorns could smile. As soothingly as someone whispering visions of mass death could smile.

“Oh, there you go, with these horror stories. Little Thunderbolt, you are from the outside, you know the king… The husband of the queen, right?” Morey tisked, turning towards the dragon in the room. “What of His health, tell us?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s alive, dude!”, Sin laughed with a tint of disdain. There was something about her words that irked him in the way of the fork dragging across a blackboard, in the way of the dust, in the way of being told he had more tasks to do. His claws scratched the stone floor. “He just had a little cough, when I left”

He realized his words far too late, shutting his mouth abruptly as if that would stop them. The strange gears paid him little attention though - only the shine in Don’s eye unnerved him, but it did not stare at him. It stared at nothing, as it always did.

“See! Stories, stories. You’re quite great intellectual conversation when you don’t gnaw on those horror stories of yours!”

“Stories, then, they are stories” She turned her golden eyes towards Sin, the same soothing smile. “Do you like horror stories, Six?”

The dragon took a moment of thought, non-recognition at the name. Ichthyic neurons sighed, seeing the end of their increased workload nearing with each moment they passed another task towards the higher faculties. Old hippocampus released a weary, rattling breath, and remembered offering that word as name.

Sin offered a half-smile, half-grimace, neck moving backwards, taking the first step of removing him out of this purgatory.

No right answer for that one, much like its dreadful older sister, “are you ticklish?”. Whatever answer, whether truth or lie, it would always result in practical testing. No escape.

“Tell our favorite one”, Don requested, paws patting her stone-solid belly in an idle, amused manner.

“The one with the dog?” Well’s voice intoned, tilting towards the bigger gear.

Don nodded with her whole body.

A rattling chuckle through thorny teeth, a sound extracted from a radio drama featuring in the acting credits of the big bad wolf himself. Words slid out between a mouth that appeared to be protecting nuclear waste, rolling slow as molasses and hitting as hammer clangs to the side of empty metal canisters.

Legend speaks of powerful yet amoral magicians, willing to sacrifice their flesh and others for the faintest chance at achieving their goals. Legend speaks of villages where the blood-magic, the sorcery of gears, was not only practiced but a necessary custom…

Perhaps it was lies. Rumors. Baseless fear. Written record has it they treated gears as any other prey animal, hunting them and using their parts as needed. Their flesh, they warned, must never be eaten, for it will fester inside you, where a new gear will hatch.

Their taboos extended other ways. They saw dogs as animals of pure evil, one creature that one must never come in contact with. In all fairness, the wild-dogs of the European steppes had grown into a now-extinct breed, giant mastiffs as big as a bear and as strong as a five…

I digress. A young courier of the tundras had tamed one of these hounds for dog-mushing, used it to travel safely against a war-torn Europe that most daren’t cross. She had met her match at the hands of a giant polar gear, with skin so white that it hid among the snow, in wait for its prey. She was saved, along with her dog, and the gear killed, by an ancient, cantankerous scientist, who had found the secrets of artificial life, and would teach them to her in the following months…

But the courier had bigger, brighter ambitions. The old man thought only of the limits of alchemy, the courier thought of the ultimate reaches of gear-sorcery. In her work, she used the skin, flesh and offal of gear carcasses, never quite attaining the results she sought. Her mentor forsook her, for tampering with gears was a sure way to the higher sentences…

But her faithful hound had passed, her body entombed in snow, and the courier had nothing else to live for… Scorned by family and home, unliked by her own kind, a role that had lost all its importance when faced with her greatest loss…

The courier’s mind had turned to ambitions best left undreamed of.

Sparks of recollection flared across his mind, mammalian neurons looking towards the reptilian ones. The two side-eyeing the gear ones, who sat picking at their metaphorical noses. He had heard something to this effect, somewhere before, somewhere long, long ago…

Sunlight filtering through old curtains, patched quite visibly…

No! No, he couldn’t keep doing this! He was losing himself in thoughts and memories, his attention always sliding from the world around him to the very innards of his mind and soul. What way was this to survive? Where was this coming from?!

With claws and teeth, he dragged himself back to the present. The first sight he saw was Morey’s very frustrated face, hands on his hips and the lightest furrow above his beady elk eyes. He tapped the floor with a hoof, the whole extent of his disappointment turned towards Wells.

They had found three corpses, worm-eaten and rotted, each inside the other much like the nesting dolls of yore. Gear, canine, human, their innards mixed and strewn about the area and conjoined body, so entangled together that one could not separate them anymore. Canine was gear was human was canine. An unholy trinity forged through agony, officiated through blood, sworn by death. No one would come to know the profane rituals that had taken place. Perhaps… For the best.

But Legend speaks still - a three headed, perpetually rotting gear that never attains death, who wanders still across the frozen planes where man dare not cross… A demon that preys upon whatever it catches… To replenish its own life.

The ending of Wells’ story was met with a trio of enthusiastic claps, one very lost, confused and concerned stare, and one very frustrated scowl by an elkman scorned and upstaged.

“Wells, you digress far too much! You do weave a good tale…” Morey scolded, pausing to tap at his lips in thoughts once more. “But it hardly pertains to the Holy Order, now does it?”

“It was our Warden’s request. I could hardly shun it” The wolf shrugged with both pairs of arms. The mastiff barked and panted in appreciation, shooting looks at Sin to make sure he also enjoyed her favorite story. “I have many stories about the Holy Knights as well. Would you like the one about the two stranded officials?”

“The ones on the island, yes? Oh, pishposh to those. Officials are hardly knights, trampled under all their titles and medals!” Morey huffed, crossing his arms.

Sin nodded to himself, inclined to agree. He had the unfortunate bad luck of being present when his father had to deal with Holy Order bigwigs. They did little fighting, little thinking, little doing, but a lot of posturing and huffing about.

“I like it well enough. Good morals” Wells commented in a flat voice, tilting her head to the other side. “How about the one with the archer?”

The greasy light of the candle shone across the elkman’s eyes. His fingers twitched into one of his muscles, as his mouth moved to say something. Then he turned, placing his hands on a table pushed against the wall, acting as a shelf for most of the artifacts that couldn’t be hung up. He dedicated his whole attention to them.

“Oh, you old, old fool, really? You sound as if you are a broken parrot, or something of the like!” Morey sighed deeply, throwing one hand upwards. “Always, always, same old, same old. You and your weltschmerz, your mal du siècle dourness!”

Wells slowly tilted her body towards her companion, expression frozen in what appeared to be rather indifferent half-interest. Her ear flicked. Arms remained tucked inside her cloak.

Sin grimaced awkwardly, partaking in the popular opinion that he would really rather not be present when arguments between strangers occured. He stole glances at the closed door and then at Don, hoping to find a like-minded individual (or three) in her, but the dog-gear was fully leaning out over the bottom row of teeth, listening intently. The sorcerer drummed in her fitful sleep.

Morey turned suddenly, hunched over, trying to copy the same indifferent expression that was a permanent fixture on Wells’ snout. He began speaking, voice made heavier and scratched, with the same baleful drawl that Well’s had.

“Legend goes, of a young woman who lived with her mother, far away, far away from all, in a small village where everything was dreadful. There was this terrible wolf - who was also terrible, and also dead - made of light, sheer, bright light, with glowing red eyes. And the wolf had felled nearly every, so, nearly all inhabitants of the village were dead, but perhaps not all, but a good handful were still dead, and things were miserable and terrible, but the young woman shot the wolf truly dead with her bow and arrow to save her mother, from being also dead”

“You’re not telling it right” Wells commented, tilting her head to the side.

Morey continued nevertheless.

“The wolf returned to life every time, returned from being dead, no matter how many times the young woman shot it. But soon she discovered that the wolf of light only ever chased her, that it wanted her dead.

And the young woman, well, she loved her mother so, so dearly, her mother was all to her. She would give all she had to save her from being dead, and if it was what it took, she left her village, face a-wash with tears, in great misery but hope as well, to join the Holy Order. At least, then, there would always be any capable fighter present to kill the wolf dead, and it would not go after her dear mother”

Wells’ stare was fixed to a far distance, behind the horizon of those brick walls. Interrupting her companion, she continued the story herself.

“Long, interminable years passed in the service of the Holy Order. Skills as a hunter doubled quite well for eliminating gears as quickly as possible. Her mother begged the return of her beloved daughter through tear-stained letters, but the young woman knew such a thing could never come to pass. Why this curse had befallen her, she could hardly wonder, but it had nonetheless. She would rather never again see her mother, than let her suffer at the jaws of this beastly wolf - whether gear, demon or apparition, she knew not. Retribution for her own doings, perhaps.”

A woman suspended in a beam of light. She hardly looked any different, he thought. Her form floated above him, just about high enough for the perspective to remain the same, even after all these years.

Yet…

When had she become so small? Her stillness gave him pause. The memory emptied him of breath. He struggled to drag himself back.

“She would meet her end, along with the Last Holy Order, in a ravaged battlefield, some time in 2173. The corpses of her comrades covered every inch of ground. She had run for cover and found none. Found the lifeless body of the commander- He, under whom all gathered, under this banner of Hope. Lost. How fragile, it all was.

But she had to stay alive nonetheless. Not for her sake, for she had long cast aside all that makes a human a human - dreams, aspirations, memories even hope itself. If she fell, what would the Wolf hunt? Where would it go? Perhaps to continue, perhaps to sink its fangs into her beloved mother. It was a chance she could not take.

Under another onslaught of gears, she hid under the body of her fallen comrades. Held her breath and kept silent, even when she saw a fang-clad snout dig under the corpses.

A snout made of light. The Wolf had found her.”

“Delightful, now you’ve told your dismal little tales. Satisfied now? You obstinate cynic”, Morey tisked, turning back to the great wall of Holy Order. “I understand I myself am quite the pernickety pontificator, but goodness, you! It always ends with death”

“That is how life ends” Wells hummed, rolling something between her human fingers. “If they are not dead, their story continues - I cannot tell a story that has not ended”

The elkman threw his arms upwards with great frustration.

“There you go, again! Again! How could anyone, ever, enjoy listening to such horrible things. I certainly do not!”

A strange light crossed the wolf’s eyes. Her hands set something down on the table - a coin of sorts, emblazoned with some emblem that, if Sin could’ve seen it from that distance, he would’ve recognized as the coat of arms of the Holy Order Field Medic division - before retreating back into the cloak. She slowly tilted her head to stare at Morey. Her foot tapped.

“Here is one you’ll like, then. Your favorite story”, snickered Wells, the humanoid part of her body crossing its arms, the wolf ones hanging limp far above them.

The elk man’s curled-rope muscles tensed, his ears flattened back. Lips drawn back, he wordlessly glared over his shoulder. Wells smiled and kicked into her far-away tone once more intoning a rhythmless song.

Once there had been a man, a young man, who had left all his family behind. He came from a warrior culture that tested the mettle of its children at every corner and he, meek, timid, haggard of mind and body already at such a young age, failed all of these tests.

The elk did not move. His breath came out in huffs of fog pouring out of his nostrils. Sin felt the growing pressure inside this run-down, freezing cabin, felt the burning scent in his nostrils. The air tasted like the warm blood of the fish he had caught - once more, its revolting taste incited him in equal parts to puke and to have more of it, as if it were its own and without it he would keel and die, veins dried and shriveled. The voice felt like fingers, prodding through his mind, pulling at a non-existent harness around his mouth. It felt, at once, like being before that frail old gear who feared him so, but now his instincts snarled, bristling that something was going to attack him.

Scorned among his own kin, he was sent away to be a knight. He had failed all the examinations, every test, question and trial, but scarcely could the recruiters send him back in such times of need. A field doctor he became, mired in the sick and ill whether sun or moon shone above him. This did not gain him the respect of his knight fellows, mind you, who would mock, harass and bully him, taking his rations. The man could not fight back, weak as he was, growing weaker in the presence of illness and absence of food. Driven to his limits, he would sneak out-

“Wells, that is quite enough”, snarled the elk-man, his eyes staring fixedly at the frostbitten stone before him, knuckles white from gripping at the table. His sight flicked from Holy Order memorabilia to Holy Order memorabilia. “You are putting a damper on-”

To the corpses of the gears they had killed, gathered and brought along under heavy canvas tarps, in fear of their trail being followed by more. With nothing else to eat, with no way to prepare it, as it would call the attention of his companions, he-

“Wells.”

-ate the raw flesh and offal from the corpses, though it revolted him and made him puke, his tongue eventually accustomed to the taste in this dire time, and he found himself more and more ravenous for such blasphemous sustenance…

Drool foamed at the edges of the elk’s mouth. His muscles tensed. Sin felt his teeth grinding against each other, his lips pulled back and a growl trying to brute-force his way up his throat. Saliva pooled on his tongue. His eyes, edges clouded and darkened, darted from the elk to the wolf.

It was all he could eat, and it certainly saved him from starvation - but the greatest pleasures of this world come with the greatest corruptions, something the man could not feel festering within him until his own knights took heed… And then, well-

What else can happen when a gear sees humans?

The growling grew louder as the elk and the wolf stared at each other.

What else can happen? What else?

A hysterical cackle rose from the wolf’s thorny mouth, as she threw her paws in the air.

What else?! What else?! Our young man has tasted the forbidden flesh!

It happened faster than anyone around cared to notice.

Out they went, through the side of this centennial fort, a relic from pre-war times gone unremembered, so full of forbidden, the grimly named black, technology and yet all packed away into broom closets by fervent acolytes who saw little else than their neotheistic idol and the inherent inescapable doom of life. Contraband devotees would’ve given their right arm to have a fraction of the mechanical artifacts hidden deep within, far from sight and interest of the weather station’s timeshare-ees, but what maniac would make it to a land so frozen and desolate, so stuck in stasis, where even death was denied to you?

Wolf and Elk, intertwined in mortal battle as good Mother Nature commands it. Fang, claw and horn sunk into flesh. Furious howls of agony sung a song known deep within every living thing. Man-made or otherwise.

Whether beast playing at man, whether man playing at beast, whether a line could even be driven between the two, this conflict was known. Well repeated. Worn down to smooth, round river stones.

Yet, every time a story is told, a new corner unfolds. A thread added to a motley-tapestry.

Their eyes widened in primordial fear, their duel paused in sheer horror. Reflected in their eyes, a gaping red maw lined with dreadful fangs, large enough to block out the horizon. A blood-curdling howl like the strike of thunder above them.

Behind them, followed a Thunderbolt.

–

Freckles of sunlight danced across his chest.

He hummed to himself, greatly content.

Lunch had settled pleasantly heavy in his stomach, and the sunlight shining through the leaves above warmed him quite nicely, settling him down to a comfortable torpor that he would be most displeased to snap out of.

Sin yawned, just because he felt he should. The scene warranted it.

He ran a few mental calculations, just to take stock of where he’d found such a mundane slice of heaven. Trees above him, sun as well. He felt blades of grass underneath his bare arms, tickling him, the few ones that managed to grow underneath the shade of the treetops. Most of it were moss, lichens, rather moist below him, yes, but not in a way that bothered him enough to get up.

Sin stretched his arms above him, holding his splayed out hands there for a while. Regular, human hands. Fingers without any sign of claws, or scales, or fur… Well, some hair perhaps.

He hummed thoughtfully. Such a strange thing for his brain to remark on. Why did it give him pause?

He raised one leg up, for unknown good measure. Regular. Human. No scales, or claws, or- Look, he felt it rather unnecessary to comment on his leg hair situation. He was clothed, which was good. Seems like he didn’t have his shoes on, which was fairly plausible but rather unadvised. The gravel around here was most unpleasant.

Now, inopportune questions started flooding his once pleasantly dormant brain, who grumbled to itself and struggled to reach for an alarm clock that did not exist. Where was here? Why was he so surprised that his limbs looked human? When had he ever looked like anything else?

Rubbing at his face, he sat himself up. Yawned pointedly and stretched himself again, looking all about him as he scratched his side.

To one side, the shrubbery and trees grew taller, closer, casting the area in impenetrable shadow. Sounds of birds drifted from within the deeper parts of the grove, ringing over a babbling brook- woodlarks, doves, starling, jays… Was that a redstart? Sin wondered sleepily if such a star-studded cast list of birds made sense for the area and time of year, but the thought simply slid out of his mind without much ado.

To the other, the trees cleared up somewhat, the wildflowers grew copious and the grasses grew tall. A quaint little stone house, moss and vines decorating it here and there, neatly nested a good few meters away, nearer the crest of this small hill. At its front, there were vases plentiful, of all shapes and sizes, all manner of vegetables and tubers growing within them. The wild vegetation watched these city-slicker plants with apparent indifference.

The sight of this house made Sin’s chest bloom warmer, a smile playing at the edges of his lips. His so-pleasant dormancy returned, and he lifted himself onto his feet, stumbling out of the tree line towards that old oak wood door as if carried by the gentle sound of a lullaby. As it always was - his naps would start outside, in the warm sunshine, and end with him in his bed, carried inside by loving arms in the interim.

Carried? By whom, or what? What could possibly carry him now, with how tall and heavy he was? Once more, thoughts that popped their head for a brief second, before drifting off with the breeze. Sin was hardly interested in chasing after them, anyway.

Yet, something small interrupted him. A small limb grabbed at his trouser leg, and he looked down to inspect what.

“Chimaki” Sin greeted with a yawn, realizing he sounded far more tired than he actually felt. He bent down to pick up his little friend in his arms. “Hey, there, buddy. It’s so nice out, right?”

He buried his nose into his fabric, nuzzling him ever so gently. Sin’s eyes fluttered closed, and he gently swayed side to side as he kept walking towards the house, the birdsong lulling him to the edges of sleep.

“I was just goin’ to take” A loud yawn that brought tears to the corner of his eyes. “A little nap inside. You wanna join?”

A little fabric paw (?) tugged at his ear, forcefully.

“Hey- what gives!” Chimaki was pointing behind his shoulder with some urgency. “Huh? You wanna show me something- oh, hey, wait!”

Chimaki had scrambled out of his arms, up his shoulder, and was hurrying away into the depths of the grove with little concern for whether Sin followed or not - which he did, sleep shaken out of his body.

The trees grew denser and denser, the undergrowth began to impede his progress, but Chimaki carried on still with Sin close behind him. The sunlight didn’t reach them anymore, couldn’t make it through the canopy above them, and the entire area was cast in a shadow so thick that the world appeared to be in black and white.

He stumbled out of the tree line into a shore cast in blue-grey tones.

A giant sea of black, viscous liquid spread out before him, waves crashing against grey sands. The sky was of a vast darkness as well, grey clouds spiraling. There was no sun nor moon visible, but a weak light was present anyway, though nothing here cast any shadows. Bewildered, he looked behind him, to see the tree line still there, but with the appearance of black paper cutouts. He scratched idly at his head.

“Chimaki, what the hell is this pl…”

He turned around, and the horizon before him was completely hidden by a wall of blue-dark… Something.

It was alive, shivering and breathing and shuddering. Immense spikes protruded from its back, covered in shifting red swirl-shaped indentations carved into the dark skin. A glowing red halo shimmered all around this immense form, at least how far Sin could see.

Chimaki waded into the black sea only to poke at this thing with his katana. The entire mass of flesh flinched, a muffled sob heard far above them, beyond this monolith. The little creature returned to him, head bowed down in failure. This was not an apparition he could cut down.

Sin was far too preoccupied with the very faint crying he could hear.

“Hey… Hey, doesn’t that sound like a little kid to you? What’s going on?” He mumbled to himself, pacing about the shoreline with his head craned upwards, struggling to see beyond the giant before him.

The mass of flesh moved ever so slightly, forwards and backwards, sending waves crashing into the shore, as it was rocking itself. Whoever was crying was also whispering to themselves, sentences which Sin couldn’t quite make out through how blubbery and quiet they were.

A great weight inside him. A sudden pain on his chest. Something was wrong - something was deeply, deeply wrong. A sense of ongoing cataclysm and doom settled deep within him, but he couldn’t possibly imagine why. Only that it made him panic.

“W-where are we, anyway?” Sin shivered, once more looking about him.

-

The sorcerer sat on the embroidered picnic cloth, leaning back against the white gear’s stone-solid belly as her hands perpetually percussed her pet drum. The rhythm was slow and faint, as was appropriate for this moment of relaxation. She could even fiddle with the detailed needlework of the cloth with one hand and keep the pace with the other.

Well, really, she could’ve stopped drumming, but her mastiff was far too absorbed in the battle to come relax with her.

The dog-gear leaned over the top of the hill, craning her neck this way and that, barking to herself every so often in enthusiasm and frustration. In the valley, a most strange battle was occuring, one which the gear-visitors kept joining in and participating with most bacchanal delight. It was as violent and gore-splattering as any other battle, but its participants cackled and howled with manic glee, striking the others and themselves in euphoric mutilation.

The only creature who hadn’t lost its mind… To this extent, but in an entirely different direction, was a huge, canine-like dragon that snaked around the battle, stalking about with an arched back out of sheer terror. At least someone was behaving like a proper animal in here, and that someone was by far the most destructive one.

The other gears tried as a whole to steer clear of it, its watering eyes, its mouth agape with fangs as sharp as stakes, drool flowing out of it in panic, its giant claws and worst of all, its tail, stronger and more muscular than any gear’s had any right to be, but tucked uselessly against its stomach in fear, the great banner on its tip acting as a bib.

If any lunatic made their way out of the main bedlam towards this behemoth, they would soon find their way towards the other side of the valley, probably in a lot more seperate parts than they started with - flung violently by paw or jaws alike, and the massive creature would yowl in terror and hurry to another side, perpetually trying to flee but finding itself unable to escape and turn its back on these dreadful combatants.

But dismemberment was little excuse for them. Whatever limbs they could gather, they would reattach to themselves without issue, and join back in. Good old hyper-speed gear healing.

“We’re gonna have to fix weather station, you know that” The sorcerer commented, attention focused on other things. “None of these dummies know how. It’s us. Always us.”

The mastiff huffed to herself, pacing about in dissatisfaction. The sorcerer tilted her head in curiosity, and shuffled closer.

“What you mean he’s throwing?”, the sorcerer laughed, hand pointing as a gear flew in an arch across the sky above them. “Hah! He is!”

The dog-gear growled quietly, not against her master but in simple annoyance. The same raised hand came down to pat her back.

“You speak odd things, puppy.” A shrug, an indifferent paradiddle drummed out. “You want to see him fight better? He’s just scared. Big scared baby puppy. Can’t blame him. These dummies are crazy”

The mastiff turned her huge head, pointing with a paw towards the giant dragon. A thoughtful bark, followed by a delayed, more thoughtful one. The sorcerer’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Oooh! You think so? Would make sense” She scratched at her own chin, below layers upon layers of clothing. “But can’t be sure, can we?”

The mastiff ran about in a circle, before making a dive for the tablecloth, jaws pinching one corner of it. With agility far beyond what an animal of her size and stout brawn should have, she ducked, weaved, jumped and dashed, perfectly folding the cloth. She repeated this impressive ballet around the inanimate white gear body, before using its solid belly as a launching board and diving deep inside its gaping mouth.

A shudder, a shake, paws lifting up with a lurch. With a jump and twirl meant only to show off, the gear was up on her feet, claws scratching at the ground in excitement. All at once, all the bags on her body fell to the ground, in such a way that, after her will had been achieved, she could easily step inside this semi-circle of cargo-bags and be travel-ready once again.

Her lips twitched up into a giddy grin, eyes trailing ever after the movements of the maddened dragon in the valley below. The sorcerer’s own were trained on her, mouth open incredulously.

“I pamper you too much! Bah, just this once, okay?”

With great difficulty, she stood up, picking the folded cloth along with her and storing it inside her cloak. She shook her head in amused reproach as she approached the white gear, whose paws were stomping the ground in excitement.

“Come on. Help me up here”

A fuzzy paw was offered, the sorcerer lifted up into the open jaws. She stumbled past marble teeth, past her loyal once-canine companion, into the cockpit of pulsing flesh, seating herself at the very base of the tongue. She plunged her hands into the esophagus, hauling out a larger, far more decorated drum with no shortage of difficulty. The mastiff pulled her back by the belt of her cloak.

It was a massive membranophone, occupying nearly the whole width of the back of the gear’s mouth, standing at roughly chest height to the sorcerer if she was sitting down. She ran a hand over the tanned leather of the drum, tattooed with the very same symbols that spread over the white gear’s arms.

From the rope that stretched it, hung several gear jawbones, fangs, knucklebones and so on, that would jangle against each other every time the drum was struck. It was a work of art - her greatest work of art, she thought, a smile playing at her scarred and perpetually bruised face. Not the type of thing to use for everyday life, no-no; you could hear it from the very other side of the island. This thing didn’t give suggestions, indications, a friendly reminder of what tempo the beat was following - it gave commands.

It had been their only one, once. A long time ago, during wilder times - an age of indiscriminate violence, of lack of control. The drum spoke louder than the person (person? Perhaps, once) beating it. Hah! As if you decided how it beat; no, the drum took over you. Commanded you to give the orders it wanted.

The first time she - the three of her, for the first time thinking as one yet separate - had tripped the light ultimate, found herself somehow moving still across the frozen plains of the Antarctica she had claimed as her home, she soon figured out that she needed a heart that beat more quietly. Drums carved through forbidden rituals seemed not very conductive to a peaceful, easygoing life.

The mastiff barked impatiently, looking back at the sorcerer, lost in fond memories. The sorcerer dismissed her, then breathed deeply.

“Follow the beat. Tell me when to change it” She ran her hands over the circumference of the drum. “Once more, for old times’ sake.”

It was always easy at first. Set the pace. Little dots in a row, birds on a wire of the music sheet. Then change it. Command it - let it command you. Diddle, paradiddle, flam. Show off a little.

Teeth gritted, an amused titter evaporating from between them. Hands rolled and struck the pulled leather of the drum. Hitting the sides of the drum, jawbones clacking against each other as if they, too, were laughing and playing along. The sorcerer saw the fur of the canine beast conducting this spectacle rise, shift, muscles rolling underneath it. A low growl of anticipation.

A light blue glow shone from behind her. The temperature dropped. She closed her eyes and laughed to herself. Such a show off, truly, truly.

In the valley down below, the bedlam had grown more chaotic. They had heard it. They had not seen her. In the mania of battle, their adrenaline still pulled them along by the collar, frantically trying to drag them from the scene of inevitable doom while their higher faculties further sought the high of combat.

The massive creature-gear hadn’t heard it. Its adrenaline drowned it. Pulled it along, eventually, to squat in the exact azimuth that she hoped for.

An imperious bark.

“Yep. Moving along” The sorcerer hummed familiarly. The tempo changed - double time. Bruised hands struck the drum furiously. The violent percussion echoed off the neighboring hills and mountains, casting the valley below into an inferno of noise “Onward march”

A massive, muscular beast leapt from the crown of the hill, casting a shadow in the ground below as suddenly-sobered gears scurried and slid on their feet trying to get away.

As she landed, a wave of snow and ice lifted with her impact, casting a blue halo about her form. Shimmering light rolled off of her muscles, black tattoos dancing with it. Her front paws hit the ground before her.

Upper jaw tilted fully back. An arch of teeth, and below them, a glowing blue light, growing ever, ever brighter.

The creature was still none the wiser.

The mastiff hung perilously off the side of the lower jaw, her own jaws holding the still-drumming sorcerer, who held the massive drum as well as she possibly could. Hands swam over the edge of the drum.

They used to say the mark of a good musician was to make a guitar speak.

The mark of a good sorcerer? Was to make the drum roar.

HEY SIN!

The creature, long sinuous form hunched over its folded paws, suddenly lifted its head in shock. Look about itself, until its eyes fell on the source of the light blue glow that washed over him.

Its eyes - at least one of them - had its own blue glow.

“Aaah, you’re right. He is in there”, a titter. “So play nice, okay?”

The increasingly loud hum of the white gear muffled the affirmative bark.

DODGE THIS.

From the gaping maw of the polar titan bloomed a beam of blue light, erupting with a clarion clamor that made the ice beneath shudder. It burned a shallow trench clear in the snow, embankments boiling into water vapor that rose and diffused the sheer light that bathed the entire valley.

It blinded those pitiful few, now long torn from their euphoria into the cold bite of the reality before them. The sun of the middlest day, known only to null latitudes, dawned as bright as bright could be, as bright and grating as to be flashed with a floodlight from two paces away, in the middle of the night. And after a hangover too, to boot. It was suffocating their polar ever-night. All burned within the light of the beam - yet, somehow, fractal crystals of ice whirled into existence in the air surrounding it, hidden inside the curtain of vapor - and if adrenaline hadn’t dragged them in time, it would’ve been them consumed by it.

A fate shared with the pitiful clump of creature, huddled into an unrecognizable shape, barely seen through the mist and obfuscating incandescence. Its shadowy shape writhed slowly, moving neither forward nor back - withstanding the force pushed against it. Its head raised, mouth agape - scraps of shadow emanated from it.

The mastiff narrowed her eyes behind fogged goggles - rubbed the back of her paw over them. Shuffled along the edge of the jaw she held onto, barely avoiding her own beam, seeking to look closer into it.

Wisps of muted red wriggled under and across the surface of the beam, a crimson iridescence spreading along it or leaping from it like salmon across a river. They grew and spread like roots, thin tendrils overtaking the burning, freezing light. Like lighting across the sky.

She huffled to herself, a sound not unlike that of laughter and amusement. How long had it been since she’d seen an opponent with some fight in them? How long since they’d allowed her to actually fight them? Through gritted teeth, holding very old, many-times patched fabric between them, the dog-gear barked in warning. The sorcerer, once more, acknowledged it with little worry.

“Roger, roger” The percussive pattern changed once more. “On the signal. You know what to do”

Shave and a haircut - two bits.

With a toss of her massive head, the mastiff gear let go of the ratted fabric she held onto with her teeth, lugging the drummer back within the gaping mouth just as the beam of light whined and petered out. Now visible, emerged the charging creature, jaws and claws spread wide in a bouquet of knives, eyes glowing red behind it. It was only a few paces away from the white gear as the dog scurried inside, about to sink any of its natural blades onto the blubber-covering skin…

A furred paw came up and smashed into his head with a right hook worthy of the world’s greatest unknown slugger, a force that could probably be compared to something or other, but those on the receiving end of it usually experienced short term memory loss.

The creature was sent flying backwards in a wide arch, lower jaw rattling wildly against his upper teeth, eyes rolling wildly. Eventually he landed, tumbling in the snow like a full force hose in a hurricane, stopping with his rump bending over his buried head.

The white gear laughed heartily, shuffling her paws about in the snow as she shadowboxed, beating her chest and provoking her opponent. Bewildered tourist-gears dove back under the snow as she shuffled-slid past, as all who didn't got unceremoniously shoved aside, a few valleys away, with the mania of battle.

A snowdrift with ears, horns, sharp teeth and mighty scowl rose from the frozen ground. The white gear stuck her paws on either side of her gaping maw and waggled them, mockingly, making the creature catapult forward with a furious snarl.

Another hook rose to meet his chin, but missed, two star crossed lovers passing by, sitting in opposite trains - the creature whirled backwards in a somersault, kicking at the gear’s belly with his clawed feet. It did little to her, sending the dragon flying as if he’d kicked a lamppost, but she didn’t have the chance to laugh imperiously. A tail-whip with the strength of an aircraft carrier mooring chain slammed down on her head, forcing her gaping mouth shut and driving her deeper into the snow.

A multitude of ugly faces peering from below the snow, like meerkats watching a rhino duke it out with a hippo, gasped in unison.

Don pushed at the snow, lifting herself off of the hole she’d been slammed into, small dark brown paws lifting up the upper jaw to glare, fuming, between sharpened teeth. Meanwhile, the gargantuan rikki-tikki-tavi-wannabe was somersaulting, whirling and flipping away from the scene, back to the other end of the valley, flickers of drool still foaming over his pulled lips. His eyes spun madly even as he danced about, turning in consecutive circles about.

The battle of titans continued - the dog-gear’s blood boiling furiously, having forgotten her initial intentions to the call of her territorial instincts and the ever demanding metronome percussion, the dragon creature overdosing in adrenaline, his nostrils flared out and his heart beating so loudly that it poked out of his throat. The white gear provoked him and chased him, bruising him as well she could, at least when she could catch him. Awake, yet not awake, the dragon slipped and circled by like a rabid mongoose, all to swing about his tail. It never hurt her, but just as easily knocked her over or buried her down in the snow. Just enough for him to get away.

But he never could get too far. For as bulky as she was, rolling muscles and blubber covered by a lycra-suit of white scales and tattoos, she would cut him off just when he made for other, gearless valleys. The thought of flying off never even crossed his mind - he was sure she’d find a way to reach him anyway.

Something had to give. His heart was working overtime. His muscles cramped. Panic drove him mad and blind, vomit was starting to pool in the trenches of his mouth, sliding out between his teeth. He panted frantically, and clawed at the ground. There was one chance - only one. The gear was invulnerable everywhere else. He’d have to take it - the one chance to not die.

He kicked furiously against the ground, flying through like an arrow pointed directly at the gear’s open mouth. The sorcerer had slowed her drumming, and the dog was tired as well - she wouldn’t have enough time to close the hatch to this tank of nature before he hit her.

True enough, he had made it up to his ears before she managed to close her jaws.

The white gear’s teeth snapped shut around his neck, enclosing his head within her mouth.

An arch of blood sprayed from the puncture wounds as the rest of his body squirmed, struggled and finally dropping limp with a few final twitches of his limbs. Blood ran down his back, staining his blue pelt a nearly black purple, and spread down the white gear’s chin, forming red rivers that meandered down over her torso, dripping silently into the snow below.

The dragon heaved, breath weak and choked. His eyes glazed over for a few minutes, until his eyelids twitched and blinked. They darted from side to side, before focusing on the two other presences inside the gear’s mouth.

A sorcerer and a dog. Playing cards.

“There you are” The dog looked at him, putting down the cards in her mouth. “Calmed down yet?”

Sin’s eyes rolled from side to side, his mouth opening and shutting without noise as pink foam rose from his throat. His paws pushed uselessly against the other gear, and he eventually sighed and closed his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m… Would it surprise you if I told you this has happened multiple times before?”

“Happens to everyone here. No shame” The dog shook herself, padding over to him as the sorcerer put away the cards. “As long as no one’s dead by the end of the day, there’s no reason to apologize. Don’t even think about it”

Stepping across the twitching red tongue without losing her balance or step even for a second, the dog reached him and helpfully placed her paws on his neck, near where the blunt teeth dug into his skin. With them, she parted his fur and sniffed the puncture wounds for a moment, barking to herself in thought. Sin could not see her expression - due to both her mask and the angle his head was forced to be at - but she returned to his line of sight with a wag to her tail.

“Even losing your mind, you’re good at fighting! You’re at a great angle to get free without scars” The dog nodded happily, the sorcerer whistling in appreciation. Sin smiled awkwardly. “Now, when you’re out, dive under snow right away, okay? You’re strong gear, will fix your wounds right up”

He felt, one more, paws wrapping just below his shoulders, claws kept as back as possible in what was probably consideration. The pressure above his neck eased off.

“W-wait, wait,”

Cold air rushed all around him and whistled past his ears like road-raging drivers passing a bewildered highway-wandering elephant at rush hour, burning his wounds before sheer cold slush enveloped him, freezing all around his body. Even nooks and crannies he didn’t know he had. Bits he didn’t know could even feel cold were currently freezing.

Muffled, he heard the sound of heavy steps going away from him. Then the movement of digging and depositing dug-up snow a few inches away. The spread of cold informed him those sounds were Don packing snow over his tail. Ah, thanks.

The adrenaline gently drained out, breathing evenly and depositing it’s shattered half-bottle into the proper recycling bin. But as soon as the immediate thoughts of survival calmed down, another kind made its way in. A kind reserved for even only a few of those who possess what is considered higher faculties.

His mind was a raging maelstrom of panicked thoughts. Wide eyes fixed on the far distance, mouth opening and closing wordlessly. He could hardly follow a line of thought for more than a second before the background noise grew far too much.

There was something inside him.

A creature, titanic and inexplicable, hiding in recesses of his mind that he had no awareness of. The harness that pulled at his mouth. Something that spoke to him in his own voice, in the way it echoed in his skull. The reason for his illness, for his agony. And it controlled him.

Was this dragon form not him after all? Sure, it felt right, but were those feelings his? Were these thoughts his, the creature’s, even someone else’s? Was this the only one, or the only one he’d seen? How many had gathered inside? How much was he outnumbered?

His breath ran short. Encased in the depths of the snow, surrounded by gray cold infinity, he saw it once more - the endless sea of black ichor, a pulsing monolith of flesh emerging from within it.

It shivered, and whimpered, and flinched. Muscles rolled below the endless spikes, rising like the vast destroyed tenements Sin had always seen in his travels.

And it moved. A head, nearly indistinguishable from the sky, a head far, far above him, turned to look over its right shoulder.

A single red eye looked back at him.

With that, everything clicked together. Sparks of recognition had made a fire bright enough to rival a lighthouse, realization hit him with the weight of one. How could he not recognize it?

The eye was his.

Furry paws dug into the underside of his arms, hardly noticed by the chill that had burrowed through his matted fur and into his skin.

“Upsy-daisy. Don’t stay buried too long now”, a muffled voice advised from the outside. “You get hypothermia!”

Saying this, he was suddenly yanked out of the snow in one fell swoop, and then deposited outside as if he were one heavy, wet towel laid out to dry. His ears perked, bewildered, as he looked speechless towards Don.

“Come on, Sin. We go for walk”

He had ten thousand questions battling for dominance inside his head, hurt stinging all about him, the dread of something inside him, something with spikes and glowing eyes, controlling him, and when he managed to produce a coherent sentence, it was merely the following question.

“You know my name.”

Don grinned smugly, looking down at his prone form.

“We know your Mother and your Father. He killed us once” She laughed heartily and dismissively, as if recalling a fond memory with an old estranged friend. “Your smell is the same. Reek of lemons”

He pushed himself upwards on his front limbs, mouthing along to thoughts that remained unsaid. Sights of blue-dark creatures were shoved back down in favor of piecing together scraps of memories, pulled up from the dustiest corners of his mind, gluing them together into a realization that went mostly unsaid.

“Wait- you’re-”

“Leopaldon”, finished a voice far different from the muffled voice of the sorcerer or the barks of the mastiff, something that shook him to the core in a way he felt his bones rattle against each other. A spark shone across the red eyes of the white gear as she spread her arms wide. “Scourge of the brumal-lands, great unstoppable glacier, harbinger of winter’s destruction”

A rattling cackle, a claw waggled in rascal fashion as if in amusement at such sonorous titles.

“Ye-es, we were rather famous! Then your father killed us, now we retire” Another laugh. “Do our best to not harbinge anything else”

Saying this, she trodded off, as usual not waiting for him to follow.

“It’s a mouthful, right? Call us Don anyway” He saw her shrug, even from behind. “Don for our friends, which you are”

He pushed himself to his paws, shook the snow off his fur, and padded after her in pensive silence.

He was hoping this reveal had been a tad more… Bombastic. The friend he’d just made was one of the most infamous gears in the world! A creature that had leveled entire cities, torn apart mountains! Her feats - mindless as they had been - resounding still in the annals of written History! His father had slayed her after a most dire and long battle!

And all he thought was “oh, that makes sense, I guess”, and also “Oh, so that’s what they meant in the stories by three headed gear. I was wondering where the other two were”.

He supposed in part he’d already come to terms with befriending a mass murderer when he first arrived. Again, what else was he supposed to do? He didn’t really have it in him to shun someone because of past mistakes, especially when it came to large or megadeath class gears, for whom he knew sapiency was a result of constant hard effort. Some called him foolish, some called him a saint - he really only thought that trying your best to be good in the present day was way more important than anything you did in the past.

That, and most sections of the brain were busy behaving as umarells in the edge of that metaphorical sea of black ichor, scratching at their own metaphorical heads as the creature dove once more below the surface, red sparks floating after it. Was that supposed to be there? They asked among themselves, Ichthyic and Reptilian brains at a loss for words. Higher mammal and Gear cortexes were exchanging worried looks. That wasn’t supposed to be there, right. I don’t remember where we put it the last time, but it wasn’t there. There wasn’t even here the last time we checked. What is this. Who put this here.

“Don, huh. What a nickname”, Sin laughed to himself in lieu of something better to say.

“You’d know good nicknames, Six”

Sin spluttered, offended. He even paused to put a paw to his chest, face aghast at such an insult. It was- It was off the top of his head, okay. The white gear was tittering in front of him.

“Whatever, man”, he grumbled, carrying on.

He looked through the corner of his eyes at gears who emerged from the snow. Flashes of him defending himself from some of them came back to him, and he now understood the meaning of ‘excessive force’. He’d grimace, but…

They were happy? Rather content with themselves. They would wave and smile at him as they passed, before going off to try and relocate their missing limbs. Some - about five - were already cuddled up below a little mound of snow, taking a nap. He recognized the half-lizard, half-polar bear gear, whose head lifted in joyful recognition. It was about to stand up, maybe invite him to the cozy pile, but its eyes drifted over to Leopaldon. It sat back down, giving Sin a gentle tilt of the head and a smile, as if to say maybe next time!

“Okay, first question, go” Don finally said after the endless stretch of cavernous silence, clapping and turning around to point both her front paws to Sin.

The dragon was taken aback, blinking helplessly. He shook his head, trotting to catch up as she continued moving just as suddenly as she stopped.

“Okay, uh. What is this place?”

“Svalbard. Small archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, under Norway, but main island of Spitsbergen has more people than Norway now-”

“Wait, no, I didn’t mean it like-”

“But other islands are mostly aquatic gears, migrating gears”, Don’s upper jaw popped backwards to reveal the sorcerer and the dog-gear, the latter leaning over the side of the lower jaw to grin at him. “And a lot, a lot of what they call c-type gears…”

The sorcerer, drumming as she always did, leaned as well out of the side of the white gear’s mouth, to offer her own annotations on the matter.

“Well, in gear sorcery we call them Enochs, or Metamorphos, or Samsas, or Moreaus, or Jekylls, or even other names: everyone has different idea” She turned the brim of her hat in thought. “Oh, we live here too also.”

Sin tilted his head to the side, opening his mouth-

“Okay, question two, go”

He furrowed his brow, ear flickering in annoyance.

“What’s a c-type gear? I don’t think I’ve ever heard dad or Dr. Paradigm say that name”

“Aha, makes sense! They don’t want others to know they exist, and others don’t want to know they exist. They hide out here because of it!” Don motioned him up a rocky hill. “Here, come see”

They padded up its side, looking over the sheer white valley and the haphazard brush strokes of dark red blood all across it, looking very much like a canvas where someone was attempting to paint with the least amount of pigment possible. Across its middle was a wide and enormously long, yet shallow trench that reached to the frozen ground below. The poor plants underneath the ice had met their first instance of sunlight and warmth and been burnt to ash along with it.

The weather was surprisingly clear today, letting them almost see the surrounding ocean before the snow-fog set in. The plains before them were filled with those tiny specks that were these strange gear visitors from the other islands, hurrying about. Sin flinched spotting them, fearing another sanguinary battle may erupt without Don’s supervision, but they were all calm to a man. If they weren’t diving under the snow, they were searching about, often digging out lost body parts and bringing them to their owners, who would reattach them without great fanfare. Some were even chatting amicably and hugging the very same creatures that, a mere moments ago, were engaged in merciless combat with them.

“You heard the horror stories, yeah? Did you figure it out?”

“The horror stories…?”

The chaos of the battle - not to mention that, to his eyes, he had simply fallen unconscious and then woken up with flashbacks of having nearly killed a lot of creatures in a very short time - had completely taken his meeting with those two odd Ky-Kiske-groupies out of his mind. It took him a moment to remember what horror stories Don was talking about and then a brief second to put two and two together.

“Oh, crap! It makes sense now! It was them, the stories were about them!” Sin shouted, leaning over the side of the hill to stare at the gathered gears in the valley below with wide, shocked eyes. “Wait, all of them? Are all of these guys former Holy Order knights that got turned into gears?!”

Sin counted roughly twenty… Oh, one popped out of a snow bank just then, twenty one creatures milling about. There were others, yes, but they were circling overhead or perched atop rocky ridges and watching the scene unfold with the uneasy demeanor only a homeowner, mourning the loss of peace to the horrors of tourism watching a group of inebriated visitors duke it out under their window in the reprehensible hours of the morning, could possibly display. Thus, something told him they were of different kinds to the former battlers.

Sin suddenly raised his head, brows knitted together and ears askew in confusion.

“What, can you really turn into a gear from eating gear meat? From getting bit by a gear? Then why…”

Sin was about to ask why he and his old mentor never suffered the same fate, but the reason, struggling to catch up as it may, did so anyway, making him look to the side with a thoughtful hm.

“Three and four!” Don clapped again. “Three: the guys down there, yes. They all died, converted in the middle of war. The last memory of their human minds is war, battle and blood, so they battle with the drop of a needle. They mean no harm, though. They don’t want to die and don’t want to kill” The white gear had closed her jaw once more, looking wistfully as the former knights below began gathering to engage in amiable chatter with each other. “When they do, it drives them crazy with guilt and sorrow. They won’t even kill fish before eating - like those two weirdos, you remember?”

“Yep. Not a good day” Sin sighed.

“Heh, sorry about bringing you to them. They are expert fishers, though. They are just very, very scared of killing. Sometimes even die over it” Don tapped her chin with her paw. “I understand, yet I don’t! You know?”

“Yeah, I know” said Sin, who really did. He truly did understand these strange creatures, even if their point of view was a bit too extreme for him.

“Four…” The white gear waved her hands sideways. “Usually no… Then you have the spread type gears, s-type gears… Many other names” A pronounced shrug. “But they say their flesh, blood, drool… When it gets inside you, it overwrites DNA in your cells. Makes them gear cells. Makes you gear. C-type gear. Contaminated-type gear”

Sin’s mind inexplicably drifted to his father. He discarded this thought with great confusion and gently requested his brain to never bring such things up again.

“There are few self-aware s-type gears. Few stay alive, usually far away from human places. Usually humans think becoming gear is worst thing that could ever happen. Punishment. They think for them it is very easy to make other gears by accident” A deliberate shake of the head, as the trio looked down to the valley below. “It is not. Either eat them, or be dead already when gear bite you…”

Sin’s mind inexplicably and very worryingly drifted to his father, and he discarded that thought as fast as it could possibly go, jettisoning it out of his brain at break-neck speeds. He gave a very stern, furious look of reproach to his imagination, who shrugged innocently.

“We don’t think being gear is bad” Leopaldon began again, scratching at her back as she looked wordlessly to the horizon. “We chose this life. It’s a good life. We are quite happy, all together”

Her paw pointed down at the valley.

“They didn’t.”

Silence fell upon the two. Fragments of conversations drifted up towards them. The whistle of the cold wind, as the clouds moved forward.

“Suffering”

Sin looked back towards her.

“Suffering stemming from desire, desire stemming from living, living stemming from suffering”, Don hummed. “To live you must eat. To eat you must kill. To kill there will be suffering. What the prey suffers, is little, compared to what you suffer. Compared to what the one who escapes suffers. Nothing wants to kill. But everything does.

The more you desire, the more you take, the more you suffer. The moment you stop desiring, you are dead. These creatures live in pain - they are the thing they kill, and the one who killed. Maybe it is disgust, maybe it is guilt. Desire keeps them alive, and keeps them suffering. They are here, because they are running away. Perpetually running away. To face truth, reality, their past, it would kill them.”

Weary as he was, exhausted nerves checking amongst themselves at every step to confirm whether his thoughts truly, really, were his, or from the unknown that delved deep within the murky hadal zones of his very being, flickers of red shimmering below the surface, contently knowing it could not be reached… Weary as he was, the words reached him. And they did not ring true in his mind.

“Well, hey, that’s kind of depressing”, Sin spoke up, ear flickering to the side. “They’re kinda weird, but they still have fun! They party every night and, hey, look!” Sin gestured with his head towards the valley below, where the gears were already starting another much more peaceful get-together. “They’re already starting a picnic! Maybe they’re all pretending or whatever, but it looks like they enjoy this place and hanging out with each other! Maybe bad things happened in the past - things so bad they can’t even think back to them, but they’re doing their best to carry on. Isn’t that what everyone does?”

The dragon stood up, shaking snow off of his coat. Whether it was his dive into the snow, the matted look to it had gone away in favor of a flowing look to his fur, with a sheen and luster that reflected the low lights overhead. He turned his head towards Don with a determined smile.

“So, yeah, I guess sometimes you do suffer in life, but… Saying ‘life is suffering, bleh’, is kinda lame. There’s rough times but, there’s so many good things, dude!” Sin’s tail waved with excitement. “There’s food, and friends, and cool animals, games, comic books, other books- And look at this view!”

Once more, he gestured towards the now-forming northern lights above him. Like snakes, eels, fish or even dragons such as himself, wisps of color shimmered and swam across the polar-dark sky, the valley below suddenly lit in technicolor glow. The gears pointed above and, sitting down and conversing amongst themselves, their heads turned up as one, enjoying the natural spectacle.

When Sin looked back at Don, surprisingly, the three had a proud grin on their faces.

“Exactly. You get it now”

Sin tilted his head to the side with confusion.

“Life is good, right?” Both mastiff and white gear were wagging tails at high speeds, the dog-gear’s tongue lolling out with excitement. “Very worth living. Lots of good stuff all about”

“Yeah, right on!” Sin nodded, his own tail wagging along. The breeze caused by the flaps of skin on his tail deviated the course of the falling snow. “Even when stuff’s kind of a bummer, I’m super glad I was born, dude. Hatched?”

The four all nodded, joyful and delighted simply with zest for life, whatever life they lead. The view surely helped, after all. Sin felt like dancing along with the lights, but he was feeling a bit too tired after all that exercise.

Suddenly, Don grew quite serious, placing a paw on Sin’s shoulder.

“Sin, there is a creature inside of you. We do not know specifics, but we know it is scared and sad. It shows up to defend you, and sees only fights and dark and blood, and it thinks it is all there is to this world”

Don poked him in the chest with a paw. Sin looked down and then, sitting, slowly raised a hand to his left eye, covered now by the scarf.

The scarf did nothing to contain his powers, that he knew. Yet… He thought he could’ve kept them under control a while longer. Long enough for him to get sick of being a dragon; which hadn’t happened yet. This skin was his skin - this skin should’ve always been his skin, but the more he thought of it, the louder the buzzing he could hear inside his head. He breathed deeply.

“Man, none of my eye patches fit around my head… I need to get one to cover my eye and then it’ll be fine-” Sin complained, already thinking of who would help him without forcing him back sooner than he wanted to. The old man was a certain no. There was no one else who hated having a gear-form more than him, and Sin’s mother was close behind. Who else did he know…? Another poke stopped his line of thinking.

“Cover? Sin, there is no cover. You ever have soda and shake it? Goes psssshooo”, Don explained, sorcerer and dog raising their hands to simulate the motion. “When it goes psshoo, you can’t cover it. Make it worse”

Sin’s ears flattened against the back of his head. His eyes widened in dread.

“You… You mean-”

“Whatever creature is, you can never contain it again. It is out. It stay out. It never go back in. Even if you cover eye”, The white gear patted one of her own eyes. “Soda is already out. Will not go back in bottle. But, do not look so worried”, Don spoke, putting her paws on his shoulders to ground him. “Sin, creature wants to protect you. Not wage war on anything. It is only scared. Like scared puppy who bites hands”.

A reassuring pat.

“Treat it like so.”

Like so? Like a puppy? What was she thinking? That showing kindness to a horrible beast who only knew isolation, fear and anger would result in something? A creature scorned, a shield patched together from the scabs of festering wounds, an unspeakable horror who only brought forth nightmares and agony, something that took over this body without permi-

A gentle hand lay on the twisting, scarred blue-dark skin that surfaced over the murkiest depths of the ichor. The creature flinched, squealed in fear and dove once more out of reach.

Sin smiled, sitting cross-legged upon the shore of this impenetrable sea where lurked the parts of his being he would’ve liked to have left behind. Well, he was never one to leave anyone to their fate, no matter how rude they were. Maybe they just needed help, after all. This one certainly did.

The dragon smiled back at the arctic gear, a crease of exhaustion upon his brow, faced with a task most arduous and endless.

“Show it that life’s fun, huh?”, Sin laughed, shaking his head and lightly swatting his friend with the banner on his tail. “Sorry to say but, for that, I oughta get off this place super-jet ASAP!”

Don cackled with great amusement, her whole body shaking as she did, paws on her belly.

“I was about suggest same thing! Get off here! Guest stink after three days!”, a lighthearted pat on his back. “And this place is real depressing! Too depressing! Even I go away after you!”

“Hey, you’re the one who lives here on your time off!”

“We do! We’re strange three-time gear weirdo! It’s great for us!” Another boisterous cackle. “You think we do good at city socialites? No way! Too smelly!”

The two friends descended from the hill, laughing and poking fun at each other all the way. Eventually, their laughter died down, and the two walked together in comfortable silence.

“You still look for gift, right?” The mastiff leaned out of the gaping maw. “For your father”

Sin nodded sadly, stopping to run a paw over his head. What a harduous day, and after everything, his biggest problem at hand hadn’t even been solved. He tried to think of any store that would allow a dragon as long as three coaches… A store that would allow raw fish as payment, in the stead of legal tender. A store that did same day delivery.

“Hey, no need to worry. You are no-worries puppy, you keep that way. So scared puppy doesn’t get more scared” A furry paw poked him on the side.

“Uh-what? Puppy?” Sin gave Don a bewildered look. “Did you just call me a puppy?”

“I see gears over there. Gears worrying about you. Gears, feeling… Culpable about what happened” Don continued, ignoring him. An inexplicable smile played at the sorcerer’s mouth, as if she’d just told the funniest inside joke in the world.

True enough, despite the camaraderie of the commotion, two gears down in the valley appeared far more concerned than their kinfolk, wandering about, going from group to group with their long faces and agitated gestures, apparently inquiring each one about something but getting no certain answers. A mostly-nude elkman and a far-too-tall wolf woman, trudging through the bloodied snow, ever searching.

They spotted him, eventually - rather impossible to not do so, considering his size and the color of his hide - and relief washed over their expressions, a smile even tugging at the corners of the wolf’s jaw.

“Perhaps they part amicably with artifact of theirs. They like doing so. Souvenir, gift, for visitor” The mastiff sneezed. “Anyone who listens, who stays and pays attention”

“I hardly think I was paying attention then, dude” Sin smiled, mirthlessly, his eyes looking through the gears that now trudged their way over the snow, slowly approaching him.

Sin thought of home.

Dad always forgot his own birthday. Mom told him, at the very least, and from the times he’d been there to witness it, he’d wager it was true for all of them. At least when it was Sin’s birthday, the old man always used to get him some more food than usual, some sugar water, hell, a cool new flag once in a blue moon. It was special.

He smiled when he thought of his own birthday this year, before he’d fallen ill. There was a lot of food, a lot of food, a lot more food, and there was his family. He’d spent lunch with a few of his non-family-related friends, and dinner with mom, dad and the Valentines. The old man and Jack-o couldn’t make it, but it didn’t bother him in the slightest. He ate dinner, his cake, and wished he could’ve played a bit more high-energy games, but ended up laying sideways on the couch with a glass of ginger ale* and a mighty stomach ache, playing board games with his family.

(*XTRA MANIAX EXXTREME ULTRA PLUS G MINUS A brand. Even he thought that was a name a bit EXXTREME for a soft-drink company)

And they’d celebrated Ramlethal’s birthday too. Mom and Elphelt’s the year before, even if a bit late. And now there was no way he’d make it to dad’s birthday.

Would they have a party without him? Would they not have it all? Either option saddened him.

How could he cross the entire continent in less than a day? What would happen after? They’d force him back to normal, to his human form. Scold him, probably. Would it even work, now that the thing inside him couldn’t be contained anymore…?

Even if he got express mail to send it, wouldn’t they figure out who he was, immediately? How would he write the address? How long would it take? Wouldn’t they track him down?

His mind flooded with questions. A clear voice cut through them.

“And don’t worry about mailing” Leopaldon spoke, and Sin swore he saw the frozen rictus on the moving gear corpse smile.

“We know a good guy.”

Chapter Text

He used to like mornings on the isle, once upon a time.

Spent most of his life there. Would’ve been odder if he didn’t.

The night fog rolling in, the feeling of the morning dew on his feathers, a slight chill that woke him from the torpor of sleep. The wind would whistle through the white stone construction, far off waves would roll and turn, foam bubbling above them. He could even see his aquatic compatriots when the day began particularly rainy.

Now, they were quiet, cold, and humid. Carrying a hefty dosage of impending doom he never quite remembers ordering.

Dr. Paradigm sipped at his tea. Hot. Second cup of the day, not even noon had reached.

He had to get a grip on himself.

“No news yet, I wager”, he sighed, purposefully avoiding looking at the hunk of nerves beside him. A proud Leonard brought to an anxious mess by the events of one day and night.

Someone had to have a grip on something, he supposed.

“We’ve” Leopold’s voice came through far too winded, and he coughed to clear it. Holding on to the last of his dignity. “We’ve heard from all Bonebiters and aquatic gears sent. Nothing spotted yet”

A thoughtful hmm. The oppressive silence resumed.

The wind whistles. Waves beat against the shore.

“Doctor” whispered Leopold, who would’ve had bloodshot eyes if they hadn’t already been red to begin with. “Do you think-”

“He is alive and unharmed, Leopold” Dr. Paradigm spoke with surging conviction. Conviction that had arrived late to work, it seemed. “These are different times than the war that made and molded us. He is a different kind of gear altogether, from all kinds of which we have knowledge”

No analogues, no comparisons. Possible similarities with the few others before him, but never, never certainty. Something not even the natural world would ever expect to be hatched, and yet he did. Yet he lived, and above all, survived. Oddities and aberrations would always be born, but for them to survive would be the true miracle.

Dr. Paradigm knew of anomalies, aberrations, fluctuations in the natural order of magic and associated physics. Any scientist worth their salt would know any theory was but a naive, well-intentioned approximation of the true vastity of the world. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, and yet… He supposed his expertise was in magic itself, whilst the empyric biology of his kind…

A strange, strange miracle indeed.

A moment’s thought, and a passing glance to his assistant. He willed away the anxious tension on his face, his eyes gentle and understanding when they crossed sight with the other gear.

“Wherever he is, he is well. There is nothing on this earth that can command him” A sip of his tea. “But himself. We have time” And once more, to reassure himself. “We have time”

Leopold opened his mouth, words died in the arch of his throat. Tongue moved with nothing to say. He closed his eyes, and with a sigh more concerned than frustrated, he gently bowed his head.

Sunlight rose over the horizon, fringes of light shining through fog, casting a haze over the islands. Quite a tardy sunlight, Dr. Paradigm noted with sustained vexation, as was the nuisance of the winter months. As a gentleman, he disliked all manners of tardiness, even the ones from Mother Nature herself. Matriarchal status gave her no excuse, Dr. Paradigm thought, while a more reasonable part of his mind was aghast at what thoughts his frustration concocted. Now we’ve gone mad indeed!

He paused mid sip.

Matriarchal status, indeed. One could go through so much in life, accumulate so many experiences that you’d think memories of times long past would fade to dust - but no. When he needed it, something always rolled his way.

He adjusted the spell on his vertical altitude a tad too eagerly, suddenly slingshotting upwards until he was level with the roof of the cottage and sufficiently jostled to have lost some of his precious few (ah, his long lost youth…) feathers. He squawked indignantly, along with Leopold’s yelp of shock, before turning himself around and floating over to the few instruments he had on the roof.

In a time long, long gone… He was but a cog, an abomination even by gear standards, sapient and resistant to the orders of the Queen, scurrying from den to den, even underwater where (presumably!) she wouldn’t reach him. There were more, back then, but quickly did the numbers dwindle to just him and one other.

She, for incomprehensible reasons, was after them. It perhaps made sense that a Queen had no need for disobedient subjects, but what could they have done against her? Wonders and questions could wait - gritting their teeth through the panic that took over their bodies, they had created these very instruments.

Instruments used to detect Justice’s location, a lighthouse of power that summoned gears to her at regular intervals. After her death, and the discovery of Ganymede, they had fallen into disuse, and with one thing or the other, they’d been wholly unmaintained. Dr. Paradigm grumbled to himself, moving the swinging fan blades and oscilloscopes of this odd thing.

It’s a long shot, but… He is her descendant… Perhaps…

He floated back, rubbing at the top of his head in frustrated thought. This thing wouldn’t provide readings in this state, proper or otherwise. It still moved, but in a strange way that he doubted had any rhyme or reason to it. What could it be tracking, after all this time…? He could probably devise a spell to adjust it to at least Illyria castle (home of the dormant body of Justice, and a basketball team oddly named after it), but it would require a point zero of reference, and values to calibrate it… He was sure he could do it, but with his brain as troubled by worry as it was…

He couldn’t fix this thing by himself, he begrudgingly concluded, looking over the towering clouds in the horizon.

“Leopold?”

“Sir- Doctor! You gave me quite a start there. Did you see anything?”

“Yes… Well, yes and no, Leopold. Let’s simply say I have an idea” Dr. Paradigm spoke, looking over the edge of the roof at the leonine gear. “I’ll need to repair the Justice Positioning Systems up here. No news on Izuna yet?”

Leopold sighed deeply, his shoulders sagging with disappointment.

“Sadly no, sir. His yokai tell me they’ve tried everything to wake him up, but he remains in deep slumber” A shake of his large head, mane flowing with it. “The silver lining is that he is not hibernating; his heartbeat and breathing are consistent with his napping rates, so we likely will not be facing another three year absence from him”

“I’ll certainly hope so! Oh, that old, old fool… I should’ve stopped him once I saw him reaching for that blasted gourd canteen of his” Paradigm rubbed at his snout in irritation.

He looked onward towards the hills that rose towards the center of the island. Leopold followed his stare, and then turned back to him with a knowing look. A look full of fondness, but also one that knows a most exasperating task is at hand.

Dr. Paradigm looked back at him, and simply nodded. Leopold sighed and nodded in kind.

“I bid you good luck.”

“I’ll surely need it, Doctor…”

==

He finished wrapping up the last of the bandages around his left arm.

It was the best he could think of to hide the conspicuous blue glow, the scales and claws he had suddenly and without warning (or consideration for the kinds of people he had to hold meetings with) been granted. Even below the shirt, gloves and jacket it shone. He could only wear so many layers until people started to speak.

Thus, there were bandages. It wasn’t a motion he was altogether unaccustomed to, the turn of the roll in his hand far more familiar than he cared to admit, but it was strange to do it on a limb that was, in fact, uninjured.

Just a bit too showy.

A sigh.

He stood up from the edge of his bed, teetering unbalanced with the way his clawed foot set against the ground*. Limping considerably - but nothing to be done about that, as he discovered again and again for the past week - he made his way to the mirror placed on the corner of the room. Even in a kingdom where most legs didn’t fit into a regular pair of pants, royalty had to look their best.

(*It already was a headache trying to maneuver and stuff that foot into one of his regular shoes. At this point, he just re-sewed a shoe around it every morning. He recognized his younger self would’ve been appalled, but age had made him more pragmatic. And a tad more for the odd)

It was a delicate balance. Too ostentatious and you were looking down your nose at your subjects, too plain and you hardly considered their opinion of any worth. Ky had to admit he never quite understood the fine details of being king - though he suspected everyone else in Illyria was already well aware of the fact - and he just acted the same way he did back in the Holy Order when addressing his superiors. That worked well enough…

Gears were, he had to admit, more simple. It wasn’t the clothes that amazed them, though they remained partial to adornments that reflected the light or swayed with movement. It was…

Well, how should he put it? He looked himself over in the mirror, tested and flexed his fingers.

Many times, when he was younger, his boyish looks had earned him a fair amount of praise and the double-edged honor of being the face of most Holy Order propaganda. Even as he’d grown older his face remained youthful*, but it wasn’t that part of him that his gear subjects were interested in, no.

(*If you’d like to hear more descriptions of how handsome he looked, and looks, please consult Queen Dizzy at your earliest convenience)

When not leaving Vialattea to hold meetings with other leaders, officials, the like, Ky’s suddenly glowing and clawed limbs went mostly unbandaged.

Because the citizens actually preferred seeing him like this.

He’d been subject to a lot, a lot more compliments since his body had permanently half-transformed. He couldn’t walk in the street without overhearing someone praise his claws, scales, fangs… He had a small fin on the edge of his arm, and apparently that was extremely attractive among dragons and gears.

It was incredibly flustering for him. He had never exchanged rings with Dizzy the first time they got married - it wasn’t as if the Ky Kiske suddenly purchasing matching wedding bands was something that would’ve gone unnoticed - and now he regretted it. Would it even stop such praise directed at him, though? It was fairly obvious he was married and yet complimented he still was, and enthusiastically so.

A small sigh. He adjusted his shirt.

These past few days… Weeks… Months, had been particularly stressful for him. Even knowing Sin was faring better under the watchful eye of Dr. Paradigm, healing with the calm sea breeze of the Ganymedean archipelago, his nerves were stretched as thin as his poor left shoe. The sudden cut in communications definitely hadn’t helped the situation.

Just yesterday they’d been informed by a passing Professor Paradox - Dr. Paradigm’s eldest daughter* - of the fact, as formally and succinctly as anything organic could possibly manage. To her credit, so matter-of-factly had she delivered this information that the royal pair nearly forgot to be (more) worried until a good few minutes passed. Then, no matter what or how they asked, no new information was supplied. She did not have it. Passing thoughts wondered if behind that stoic beak and impassive facts void of emotion, boiled worries for the professor’s father. Among pangs of fear and grief for his own son, Ky wagered it must be the case (and yet something deep down told him that it wasn’t quite so).

(*The sudden revelation that the old gear was a father was enough of a shock that it snapped them out of their anxious fugue state. Long enough for them to wager a question usually best left unasked: how?

Dr. Paradigm succinctly explained. Roughly 70 years in the past, a younger and ill-advised Paradigm, a friend of his so long-lasted that they may as well be called his sibling, and Izuna, who had changed little since then, had a terrible idea. They had, in their possession, the original blueprints used to create the first (dubbed failed) prototype common-gears. And they thought, as imprudent as young self-taught scientists can be, hey, we can do that too.

His friend had already enough adopted cogs to look over, so it was the doctor’s own blood they used for the experiment. Using different methods, they had created two successful specimens - his daughters - the third, dead-in-shell. The experiments did not continue afterwards. The doctor put it plainly, leaving no room for further questions or condolences. Still, he looked down at his notes, glare from the sun reflecting off his glasses and covering his eyes.

It was King Leo - the poor fellow practically becoming a regular guest in Paradigm’s office - who had the presence of mind to be appalled at this injudicious behaviour. To create more gears?! Whilst Justice was still waging war on mankind?! These daughters of his could’ve very well have been non-sapient, vassals to the Queen of Gears, a serious threat!

No, they could not, Paradigm replied, smiling mirthlessly to himself. Once more, in a way that left no room for questions or doubt)

The communication sigil was already a quite ungainly, intricate beast of its own*, designed between the Doctor and the Professor for the purpose of having a communication line between themselves (and thusly, Ganymede and Illyria, the two hubs of sapient gear population) without fear of it being tracked, spied on, and none of the contrivances of human-made communication magic (but a lot of different ones).

(*In the world of programmers and othersuch odd beasts, it would’ve been called “spaghetti code”)

The storm that had affected them, and to a stronger degree, Sin, had affected the line as well and brought it down. The two dragons would do their best to bring it back up as soon as possible, but it would involve a lot of Bonebiters flying back and forth, something not to be done in storm weather. Still, just a matter of time.

He smoothed down the front of his shirt. Even featherlight touches felt the scales underneath.

Just a matter of time.

“How do I look?” He asked, mustering up what he hoped was a playful tone and not a terribly worried vibrato, turning around to look up at the corner of the room.

Shivering and quivering, rose a great dark shape that clouded the corner it occupied in sheer darkness, a gentle iridescence of blue over its jet black scales that shimmered as it quivered.

She was curled over herself, hidden much like a tortoise but lacking the shell; her wings, of jet black and blinding white, stood in for it, encasing her in a protective cocoon of feathers. Her face peeked out between them, long sharp snout frozen into a permanent furious rictus, all teeth in full display. Saliva glistened between them, bubbled as she breathed.

She hadn’t heard him. She mumbled to herself, clawed fingers moving with great anxiety over the ridge of her legs.

A terrifying sight, so his human part provided. Instincts reshaped from the dawn of humanity into something far more useful in the Age of Gears. Man made horrors of untold cruelty. Part of his neurons told him to flee, hide, freeze… And yet…

How strikingly beautiful. A sight beyond compare - the gear cells in him all hummed in unison, infatuated, making his heart race. Nonexistent ridges on the back of his spine rose in phantom motions, a tail he didn’t have trembled slightly… He brought himself back to his senses, pulling at the collar of his shirt.

No harm in feeling such things towards his wife, of course. It was only natural, and the proper thing to do… The issue was when he gave in to them, let the pleasantly warm rose-scented waters of infatuation rise over his head and succumb himself to these lovely emotions… Once or twice it had happened, and he had found himself lacking any control or autonomy over his now-catatonic body and mind for a good few hours before Dizzy, panicking far more than she already had been, managed to snap him back to his senses.

And the last thing she needed were more worries. Her son was quite enough; her husband an unneeded extra.

He walked over closer to her, hands reaching out to hold one massive clawed one between them, to press a kiss against the top of one of her talons.

Dizzy’s trembling halted, for a moment, her wings spreading away from the main body so she could look down at him. Ky heard it, in the back of his mind; in recent days there had always been a low, buzzing hum whenever he was near her. Rarely did it grow quiet, more often right after Sin updated them on his current state. It would always return.

“Oh… I’m sorry, Ky” she sighed, moving so her head would be closer to her husband’s. “I didn’t hear you, I was just… Thinking”

Ky hummed in response, running his hand over the side of her talons, each one as tall as him. Carefully, with the silly worries of hurting her with his weight, he climbed onto her hand so she could bring him up to her face.

“I understand. I must admit, I…” Ky looked over his clawed hand. His arm glowing a brighter blue. “I’m terribly worried about Sin. I wish I could be the comfort you need right now, Dizzy, but-”

“I couldn’t possibly ask it of you, Ky”, she spoke, a voice that rang and echoed deep inside his head, buzzing and humming under his skin, rather than through the air between them. “You’re already taking on so much of my own work, at your own harm…”

“You can’t do it in such a state” he replied, running his hands over the bridge of her snout. The texture of her scales felt comforting, under his own clawed hand. “And if it must be done, and I am able to… It’s my duty to take on whatever could burden you-”

“No”

The command rang through his skin, through his flesh. Buzzing drowned out all other thoughts within his own head. He found his muscles locked, unable to move, a strange torpor drowning him.

“I will not have you run yourself ragged to take on my share of work. If it is urgent, I can handle it in this form. It if isn’t, it will be postponed”

He fought with all his will against the sensations overtaking him. His teeth gritted, he barely noticed the growing horror in his wife’s eyes.

“Oh- oh, no, Ky! Don’t tell me I-”

“I’m fine” Ky grunted, with a deep breath and a cough. His restraints released, he slumped, winded, against the front of her snout. “Don’t worry. You were only caring for me, I can hardly hold that against you”

Her stare was uncertain, anxious. He could only wager to the tumult boiling inside her mind, but a good few years of marriage gave him the power of educated guesses. The back of his claws ran over the top of her snout, bumping along each scale like the needle of a seismograph. It served to soothe both of them.

“Goodness, we’ll need a vacation after all this” She sighed, laughing to try and clear her own worries. “The three of us, as a family. Well… I’d like to invite Elphelt and Ramlethal along, but… They’ve been so busy lately…”

“Haven’t we all… I’d even say another vacation would just result in our poor son’s homework piling up!” Ky chuckled, arranging himself more comfortably, sitting on the rise of the Flexor Policis Brevis* muscle of her hand.

(*A muscle he was far too acquainted with, due to excessive sword training in his youth. Nomenclature of other muscles may fail him, but never old painful Brevis, oh no)

“Surely we could reduce his daily chores for a week or two after he returns…? He has been away from home for so long…”

“Now, Ky, pampering Sin won’t do him any good… Tell me, would you have him shadow you for the whole week?” Dizzy accused with great amusement, lifting a thorny, pronounced brow when her husband replied with a silent sheepish grin. His fangs shimmered with the same iridescence as her body.

“Having an assistant couldn’t hurt, could it? I’m sure it would be very educational for him, being close to our daily work, seeing what we do… Simply, a little break away from his routine” Ky ruminated, his wife’s hand moving him to the side of her snout so she could see him better. His clawed hand continued petting at her metallic-toned scales. “Just long enough for him to settle back in”

A chuckle resonated through her and thus through him, echoing inside him. There was a glint of mirth in her eye as she laughed, which one didn’t usually get to see were she in her human form. Whenever she smiled then, laughed with amusement, her eyes were pushed closed by her own smile and the rise of her cheeks. His hand hovered.

“Are you sure he’d like that?”, she asked. “Never quite took our son for an enthusiast of bureaucracy and paperwork”

“But if it would get him away from errands and homework…”

Their conversation fell comfortably silent after that. Their eyes did not meet, but Ky leaned gently against the side of her snout, petting it still. A bit of comfort, a mite of relief from the sickening worry that stormed around them. Idle daydreaming, perhaps, but it was here at least that hope was allowed to fester and swell.

Away from this room, away from each other’s embrace, then yes; they would allow themselves to face the dire facts of the situation and handle them as soberly and realistically as they could. In this den of warmth, they would rest, gain the strength to do so, dream of a better future. Dream that their son would return as promptly as they wished, under the loving care of his family and friends, and bring with him his bright smile and sunny days - as he always did. Dream that he was never forced to leave again.

Hard to disagree that losing him once had been quite enough for everyone, after all.

The moment was rudely interrupted by one of Ky’s magical alarms, crowing out a reminder of a long work day ahead with little care for its owner’s comfort.

Ky’s gear cells roared indignance and curses against humankind, rioting in their tissues for the cruelty of taking him away from the loving, comforting embrace of his wife - hadn’t this man suffered enough already?! You took his cub - cub? Incredulously questioned his human side - away from him, left him anxious and miserable, now you rip him from his wife’s arms?

The ever dwindling human cells comforted their neighbours and reminded them that such meetings and diplomacy were steps to reach a kinder, better world for his dear family. So, though their current vehicle of choice would have to tear himself away from his love, it was for a greater, worldwide purpose. A delayed, but far more substantial happiness.

His gear cells harrumphed.

Just as Dizzy’s hand concluded its elevator descent to the ground, he felt one of her talons rub against his side. A touch so featherlight, like that of a ghost, motions and strength so restrained out of concern for him. He leaned into it, pressing his cheek against the flat of her claw and his arms around her finger. He looked up at her, gaze full of emotion and love boring into the underside of her chin.

“Have a good day, Ky. Please don’t work too hard”

You heard her, men! Leave work early and come back to her posthaste! Howled the gear side of his subconscious, while the usual party-pooper reasonable human cells were, for once, in unvoiced agreement.

As warm as if he’d been lounging in her arms the entire day, his marking glowing a bright blue, Ky left the room limping, barely having time to address the guard posted outside his house as he set off full-speed down the path. The sooner these things were handled, the sooner he could return.

The poor sod of a guard sat on the cold, wet ground, hand on its ill-fitting helmet, that barely stayed on its horns, another propping itself up, mind on how expensive it would be to wash mud off of white uniform pants. It attempted to heave itself upwards, get back to work, satisfied with the knowledge that King Ky couldn’t complain about how it looked when it was he who had tornado’d right by the guard and knocked it tail over teakettle.

It felt phantom-light fingers prod through his cerebral folds.

It was far from pleasant, but hardly could it dive and writhe on the floor in agony. As invasive and horrible as a stranger suddenly licking the back of your neck while on some manner of public transportation, but with a pain factor gruesomely locked at stage 1. Oh, god against whom it was an abomination, the guard wished it could reel and howl from the sensation, but it left it frozen, eyes pulled wide and teeth locked shut, gritted and enduring.

Then, as if apologizing for treading on your foot,

“Oh- Oh, goodness, not again! I am so sorry- Please, are you alright?”

The words bounced and crashed through the walls of its mind, rattling its eyes from the inside. It took a good few moments of panic for the both of them for it to manage a response.

“No harm done, marm- I, I mean, yes. Yes, your majesty” It wheezed, finally somehow lifting itself using a vertical version of a three point turn. “Please don’t concern yourself”

It dusted its stained white uniform off and stood to attention, as it once had spied the old Holy Order fellows doing, wagering that if its Queen could prod around in its unconscious insides then she may as well be peeping on its conscious outside. One of its horns crooked sideways, darned be the shedding season.

Queen Dizzy was far more concerned with her own discourtesy, either way. It could hear those uncertain whispers loud and clear, a force gently passing by its very soul and looking farther still, into a foggy horizon of essences lacking any shape.

“I deeply apologize for this indiscretion… We’ll- I’ll arrange some compensation for you”

Images of seaside vacations popped into its mind. The guard held back a disappointed wrinkle of the nose, thinking of the sea-air-worsened arthritis of its type, the reason it had been among the first to jump ship from Ganymede.

At the mere buzz of the neuron, the images faded, replaced with an image of a quite sizable dinner. The guard, figuring there was no manners to be had when someone was already in direct connection with your brain, nodded vigorously.

“For now… Could I bother you to keep an eye on Ky?”

The king? Well, that was on the job description, really.

“Yes, but… He’s been very worried lately, and hasn’t slept well. If anything is off, please…”

The presence trailed off, and faded in embarrassment and concern. Instructions, nevertheless, understood, the guard saluted and hurried off down the path, after a king who decided a brisk jog was the best mode of transportation to a diplomatic meeting.

==

“Morning, John”

“Rrribbit, morning to you, Dire. Heading to work?”

The young Bower yawned pointedly, scratching behind his head with his paw. Behind him, a quite big female Leonard, a rarity but not unheard of, characterized by branching horns like those of an elk, yawned ever more pointedly, five-quarters asleep and practically moving backwards from how still she was.

Their uniforms fit them awkwardly, not from a lack of trying from tailors both lacking and exceeding opposable thumbs. They say the clothes made the man, but that the man wore the suit, the suit didn’t wear him, and that the habit didn’t make the monk. Whatever philosophical conundrum could derive from this, one thing was certain - their uniforms didn’t want to be here, and neither did they.

They had their reasons. Dire knew his, his mind drifting to fond, pink-tinted recollections of a human face only a mother and a gear-wolf with odd interests could love, and could estimate the ones of the Leonardess behind him. Little she spoke, or did, or breathed even, a monument to torpor unlike anything he’d ever seen before. An exchange from the islands whose reputation preceded her and apparently boldly and flagrantly lied.

“So it goes” A shrug, metal decorations clacking as his shoulders moved. “It’s not a bad job”

“Yeah, it isn’t”, John helpfully reminded in the cutting bite of the forcefully self-employed. “...Look, with the Queen and King here, you couldn’t really have stayed with your m-”

“Yeah, yeah. Still trying to see if I can stick a pair of ears on him and smuggle him over”, Dire groaned, already turning to carry on his way.

…And the eyes…?

Both smaller gears looked about themselves, in shock. The streets were empty so early in the morning, the only possible signs of life being the nocturnal gears scampering off from their night shifts before the sun came to say hello. They exchanged a look of sheer befuddlement, then slowly looked up at the leonine galoot.

She swayed gently in place, snoring quietly.

“...Well, on with you. I only open evenings”

“Going, going. Relax”

==

Paradigm gave the misshapen metal on his roof a glowering, rancorous look. It creaked and whined as it silently turned, as the old tend to do.

He’d spent an indeterminate amount of time - roughly since Leopold had left him - cataloguing the turns of the instruments he’d infuriatingly left unkempt for decades. It had been hubris then (“What is she going to do, come back to life? Hah! Or perhaps have children?! Hahaha!”), and it was mule-headed doggedness now, his notes a directionless miscellania of scribbles like an ink-covered ant had samba’d across the pages of his crowded notebook. Like he predicted, there was no sense to make of these turns unless he fixed and calibrated the darn thing, but if could find some manner of algorithm, some connection, before they arrived…!

“Guys, no way! They’re here!”

“Rin!”

“Rin-rin!”

Paradigm lifted his gaze from his endless notes, and shut his eyes tight. His claws smoothed over the wrinkles that had formed between his brows.

Something stodgy this way comes.

A cavalcade of gears rushed past, bifurcating around him then reconverging into a solid mass of unnatural creatures, their clamor nearly loud enough to rival the walking cacophony of grinding rusty metal.

A manner of strange machine, a motley of metal panes and repurposed ancient machinery… Approached, somehow.

The manner in which it did so was difficult to put to words. To say it walked was to be far too generous. It hobbled, stumbled, careened, tumbled, jostled, this inorganic creature twisted into the patterns of the living shuffled about on 7 piston legs over mound and hill and dragged an 8th behind, which, turned around the wrong way by a hitch that its creator never managed to properly fix, uselessly kicked the air. This thing trailed steam and smoke behind it, coughing and wheezing with every step, clouds of vapor hissing between its joints and drenching poor Leopold, who was out of filial loyalty following meekly beside the strange walking contraption.

At the helm, fighting against steering wheels, levers and other such supposedly moving apparatuses, was a pallid face that Paradigm would’ve rather avoided seeing. Not out of hatred, resentment or any such simple emotions - simply for the same reasons he found his bond with his elder daughter was suddenly much closer when they weren’t near enough to argue about the most menial things.

Bullheadedness, it might be, offered a rarely used compartment of Paradigm’s mind meant for self-reflection. Not that he’d ever admit it.

Almost all gears gathered erupted in a clamor of “Rin!”’s, their voices suddenly higher pitched in the affliction called “being clingy”. They adjusted their clothing, fur, a few were rushing to polish their snout scales as well, all shoving and gathering around the slowly progressing rust mecha that lumbered up from the valleys. It had to stop every minute or so, since its elderly conductor had to stop and give their approaching past fosters a pat on the head before continuing.

“I don’t remember raising you little pests to be this clingy!”, spoke Offspring with a voice syrupy with parental affection and a brow furrowed by worry. “Off, off with ya! There’s serious stuff to be talked about!”

Dr. Paradigm was the one to approach them, since the machine’s progress had been practically halted. The two exchanged a look, which was neither resentment nor fondness. Neither guilt nor rancor. It was just an acknowledgement of the other’s presence.

How long had it been? Maybe ten years now. “Oh, you’re still here?” was the only appropriate greeting left.

“What’ve you gotten yourself into now, that you stress out my poor lil’ darling here enough to mess up his mane?” Offspring groaned, leaning over the dashboard of its machine to stare, squinting, at Paradigm. Leopold was leaning over the side and mumbling desperately that it was fine, it was fine, please don’t make a scene! “I’m told Lil’ Justice did a vanishin’ trick on you and you got no clue where he went. Well, howma s’posta help?”

A gesture of disregard, coupled with a scoff as it leaned back on its peeling leather seat.

“I’ll be damned if I go fetch him myself!”

Leopold was once more leaning over this machine to whisper in his former caretaker’s ear, because he did explain the whole situation on the way, Rinrin, please try to help just this once… But it was unnecessary - across the way was the only gear who knew this elderly Spirit-seeker longer than they knew themselves.

“I would never ask you to”

Offspring lifted its head, trying its best to look uninterested rather than surprised.

“What?”

“Why would I ask you to go fetch Sin? Unless you’ve learned to fly recently, you’re really no help.” Dr. Paradigm made a point of looking down at his notes, shrugging. “I only wanted to calibrate some old instruments-”

“Instruments?! The kid- That thing- He’s poofed off to who knows where and you’re worried about your experiments?!”

Poor mortified Leopold was trying his best to reign in his elderly mentor, vapor-borne sweat rolling down his snout and dripping into the hissing machinery, completing the micro water cycle. Dr. Paradigm would’ve liked to reassure, with a wink or a look, his leonine assistant, but his focus had always been impossible to break, for better or worse.

“What is one to do? He is an adult and entitled to his freedom. I never stopped any gear from leaving the island and I see no reason to start doing so!” He huffed flippantly, flicking his hand as though dealing with laughably petty matters. “In case there are any problems, Izuna can go fetch him. You are aware we can use teleportation now, myes?”

“Freedom be damned, and that wily fox be damned to boot, Paradigm!” The monochromatic gear wheezed in worry, launching its arms upwards. “The poor kid is the spitting face of Justice! He’s gonna get mauled by anyone who recognizes her!”

They were met with confused, astonished silence from every gear present. Justice wasn’t exactly remembered to be hairy (putting aside her red mane) or mainly blue, with red and blonde accents.

“You ninnies only care for the outer shell!” Reproached Offspring, producing a chart from the storage section of its little mech. “Look- Double 2I-1C-2P-3M on the teeth - three roof-ridges - bifurcated tongue - no tonsils and yet no scarring - Imperial red sclera with vermillion pupils” Sharp inhale. “And the same exact vein disposition on the inner eyelid! Only the commander genes could give a gear any of these traits, but” Offspring dramatically rolled up the chart with an ominous, nervous snicker. “They’re all he has. It’s like his sire got no say in anything besides some superficial junk”

Offspring gestured dismissively, leaning over the front of their mech to stare Paradigm in the eye.

“The kid’s a 1:1 recreation of the Big Girl herself, Paradigm” They rolled the toothpick in their mouth over to the other side. “Like seein’ a damn tank engine inside a moped*, man”

(*Among Paradigm’s many documents, rested dusty ancient magazines that predated even the first manuals on magic. They spoke of engines that fed on the acrid-smelling blood of those long dead instead of the odorless, clean zeal. Though theory told that these devices were in no way superior to the magic of today, Offspring yearned still for a past that it had never lived)

The doctor fought back a triumphant smirk with all he had. Precisely, old friend, precisely - the very thing he was hinging this stratagem on, but couldn’t confirm for himself. The biology of his kind was a subject he never delved too deep into, but here, before him, stood a gear for whom their shared tragedies incited encyclopedic knowledge of Sin’s tyrannical ancestor.

A nitwitted plot it may be, but one that may just very well work. Not that Offspring needed to know of it - telling this old fogey it was right was by far the worst thing one could ever do. For now, Paradigm gave them a dull look of almost-pity and a long-suffering sigh.

“Hm. Sure”, he commented, closing his eyes with a deep sigh. “You believe everyone he comes across will open up his mouth to check…?”

Offspring showed its appreciation for this pertinent doubt by crossing its arms and furrowing its brow.

“Could happen”

“Right. In any case, you didn’t let me finish-”

Offspring stood up - or at least, tried to, slumping forwards over the console with the wind kicked out of it. Whatever rubbernecker gears had remained, not dissuaded by the argument between the two most respected figures in their life, surged forward as a panicked mass to help it back into its seat. Unaware of its own predicament or at least not caring for it, Offspring was still roaring in outrage, slamming their hands against the dashboard.

“What are you gonna say, anyway? He’s a- He’s only 6! And only quarter gear, you do the conversion! He’s- he’s just a cog! He can’t fend for himself, I don’t care how big he is-”

“I need to calibrate the instruments to find him, you old fool”

The wind was immediately sucked out of Offspring’s sails, like a balloon hit by a cannonball. They stood frozen in a pose of outrage, arms up in the air and with the most helpless expression Dr. Paradigm had ever seen.

“Huuh?”

“I can track him-”

“Bah! As if!” Retorted Offspring, gold medallist at arguing with the doctor. “Y’know how fast something that doesn’t have to worry about air currents can go?! The brat may as well be halfway across the globe-”

“Distance from Ganymede to any continent, at any given time, is far too long to fly across… And have much energy remaining, if you’re still inexperienced and with an overclocked metabolism”

Just like the vehicles it adored, Offspring changed speeds right away, rubbing at its chin in thought.

“How much does he eat, per meal?”

“Roughly half of his body weight, if not stopped. We’ve been monitoring him” A nod towards Leopold, who was just glad the conversation headed for more reasonable topics.

The spirit-seeker’s jaw dropped in horror.

“Still?! That’s the metabolism of a cog in its first week of life!” Its hand flew to its head, lips stammering out calculations. “How the hell has there been enough food in the whole world to sustain him?!”

Dr. Paradigm had heard of doctor-patient confidentiality in passing. It was probably something he should keep in mind, paired with the fact he was quite fed up with reciting the young man’s medical history to whoever came along. As such, he gestured to the ever convenient Leopold.

“Leopold can catch you up on his history, if you’d like. Without spending the rest of our lives discussing him, I can only say… You have not known him very long, and there is more to him than meets the eye…”

Offspring leaned back on its chair, looking curiously at Paradigm and then Leopold, who slowly nodded his head. It was a long story.

“Our time is better spent acting rather than speaking. Much as it pains me to say this, I do need your help… Come along, now”

Dr. Paradigm motioned his fellow gear to follow him, the clunking sound of rusty machinery soon right behind him. “I have a better use for your insightful paranoias”

“Paranoias! Mighty fine way of asking for help, you old fool!”

“Could tell you the very same thing”

“Bah.”

==

“Morning, John”

“Swear to… Eh, ah? Morning, Dire- What in the world…”

The amphibian gear was leaning his weight on his diminute broom, faithful companion with whom he half-heartedly sweeped the entrance to his establishment every morning*. His attention was fixed on the end of the foggy street, muttering in astonished disbelief.

(*It wasn’t very necessary because, as it turns out, when you serve warm drinks in ceramic cups and demand them back, there’s precious few glass bottles left outside. But it kept him busy, and there was always an errant marshmallow to catch)

A deer-like gear hurried past them, struggling to hold its uniform pants up and swearing under its breath.

Now it was Dire’s time to join his friend in astonishment.

“What was that about?”

“Well, the King just zoomed past here, so I guess that must’ve been his attendant”

“The king? Here?!” Dire looked up and down the street, just in case both his route and John’s bar had magically relocated. “Where the heck’s he going?”

“I’m sure that poor sap there’s wondering the same, rribbit” John leaned the handle of his broom towards the running gear, running ever smaller into the distance. “You didn’t hear it from me…”

The froggish gear look around himself in all directions. He’d been reading this new genre of book called “historical romances” that spoke of such frightful things as gossip toppling entire dinasties. He wasn’t a royalty nut by any chance but he would rather avoid living under issues of succession, what with the young prince ill and away.

“But his guards tell me that he’s gone-” He pointed a long claw towards his head and moved it in circles. “Suddenly. We-ell, not suddenly, we all know what happened, but they say he’s taking it real rough, rribbit.”

“Who could blame him, man”, muttered Dire, dragging his sight from the end of the street to the stones beneath him.

Things were strange, and this time, he wasn’t the star of his solar system of worry (which indicated things were very strange indeed). A troop of sapient war machines trying to establish themselves in society was already odd enough, with everyone trying to figure out on their own what jobs were needed in a country and how to do them. Unstable royalty mourning their son’s absence just made it more complicated.

He was working as Queen Dizzy’s guard today, which was meant to be an honour. His friend Mountain had bragged about it the whole night before her turn, only to come back disoriented, semi-conscious, barely able to move her limbs in the right order. To see his old quaffing, boisterous, cantankerous friend with a vague, unworldly expression made his heart do terrified somersaults, mind dipped into horrified ponderings at what in the world could be happening over the royal palace. Everyone that returned from their post at the Queen’s side was the same - completely lost in brain fog, unreactive, stuttering and drooling with a mile long state - until they slept it off. Whatever happened, it scrambled your mind to an omelette-like consistency. No one wanted to repeat the experience.

He felt selfish to dread his turn, as the Queen was very much in a bad way. Her transformation didn’t bother them (some even felt that was the way their queen was supposed to look) but it did her. All he’d heard were fogged recollections, whining stammers of head-clutching trembling gears, but all of them concerning. Her relatives, that one metal band vocalist and the Illyrian special forces general, had even taken time off their jobs to come help her through the days. That was how bad the situation had gotten.

“Every day he’s rushing off the country to some meeting, ribbit” Commented John, who was in fact still there. “Can’t blame the other humans for not wanting to come here, but… Staying away overnight? He’s burning the candle at both ends, I tell you”

While John worried about the man who made their whole kingdom-situation possible, Dire focused on smaller, minute and personal worries. Like if he could make it back home after undergoing the mind torture gauntlet of work.

“Hey, John? When my shift ends, can you come pick me up?” The Bower piped up, tail tucked meekly to his side.

John leaned forward, giving him a bullfrog-worthy glare of disbelief. Grown gears, they were, well into their 10s, even 12s. To pile onto it, transportation was just a greasy glint of jamais-vu-nostalgia off an old-as-cuss’ gear’s half-blind eye a million miles away. Their town was a walkable town. Every town was a walkable town - what else could you do, teleport? Cherry on top, the palace was at best a thirty minute walk. For a Roller.

And Dire jogged for fun.

“I don’t wanna end up in a dumpster, somewhere” Whined Dire, tail whapping the ground. “You saw Eagles got stuck trying to leave the top of a tree for 3 hours before I got there”

It was true. That had been a long, long night, a grand total of seven hours trying to direct the poor Bonebiter back to her stables. You couldn’t exactly shepherd something that cuss-off giant, after all. Only gently and meekly voice sudden fun ideas for directions we could take this time, how about that.

“Ah, alright. The bar can open a little later” John acquiesced, resuming his broom assault on street dust. “Can’t lose my best customer, in any case”

==

“See, see! What’d I tell you then, Dimmy!”

Paradigm did not deign himself to look at the pernicious gear beside him, gesticulating wildly towards the instruments on the roof.

“Look at that. I told you, you were gettin’ way too big for your britches, thinking we’d never hear of the old girl again, and now what?”

“Could you cease this and simply go fix it? Please. We’re wasting valuable time”

“Suuure, sure.” Offspring leaned to the side, rolling their milky-red-white cataract ridden eyes over to the greenish blob they assumed was Paradigm “It’s like an old fairytale. The proud dragon, master of magic, needs the help of the lowly lizard who can work with a wrench”

“Bah.”

A dispunct little snickle made their chest throb asthmatically. But after the insolent look they casted at him, their face fell with the heavy, serious analytical look of a master at its craft. Beady pale eyes took in the sight of the turning metal, the creaking filling up the silence over the break of waves and whistling wind.

“To work, then”

With a hack, a heave, a wheeze and a sound that would’ve constituted a screech of deathly agony if made by a living being, Offspring’s machine sparked back to life, legs shuffling about and carefully making their way up Paradigm’s cabin.

Much to the Doctor’s horror, it was leaving muddy footprints (tireprints, or whatever call it) up the side of the wall. His grievances remained silent - as he knew how fickle his friend could be - marked only by a twitch of his eyelid.

As it climbed, he recognized on the back of the mech, a mostly faded word that had, once upon a time, been painted with vibrant, natural pigments.

The Miracle (Mk. II)

==

A page lifted ever so slightly.

Its center slowly raised in a gentle arch, one of its sides attached to the spine by cracking book glue that had seen many, many moons, and was sure it would see many more until a claw the size of a forearm decided to operate the book it held together.

The other side of the page was currently being tenuously lifted in the sharpened tip of said claw, trembling ever so slightly with cautious focus. As soon as its owner, a gargantuan, hunched beast that glimmered in the clouded light, could see that, finally, she was lifting only one page rather than skipping entire chapters, the claw turned on its side and dug deeper into interstitial book space, turning the page from its middle with much more ease.

Dizzy sighed with accomplishment when the page reached its destination on the other side of the book. She stretched and leaned back against the great tree she was used to reading under, in her free time, the only difference now that her head was stuck perfectly in its canopy, slotted between branches shoved aside the first time she let unconscious habit prevail over reason.

The tree’s inhabitants stopped minding it around the third chapter, skipping over her snout to reach the other side. Dizzy huffed to dissuade a squirrel from storing a chestnut in her nostril.

She didn’t mind doing things slowly. It helped enjoy the world around you, she thought, when she took her work outside and sat against this tree. Pausing every so often to go for a walk around the woods or to just watch the clouds above her. Listen to the whistle of the wind.

Some days, she didn’t get much work done at all… But, who would complain? Confidence could get you anywhere, some would say, and she would add that the mere possibility of beam-attack-usage helped a lot.

The issue here… The thing that gave her so much grief, prevented her from resting as she wished to…

Whatever hobby or distraction she could think of was considerably hindered by this body. Her true form, behind the guise of human, something that she knew to be reality but bitterly rejected with her whole soul.

Gardening was never meant to be done with titanic claws. They only dug deep furrows in the soil, narrowly avoiding the roots of her precious plants. The pages of books were made for dextrous, blunt-nailed human fingers. The textile arts demanded the tactile grip of skin not covered in scales nor osteoderms. Nature walks were far more enjoyable to those whose heads didn’t stand above the canopy. Millions of years of musical instruments, of which she had tried just a few, and none made with a species in mind that was not humans. Even something as passive as listening to the radio required a capacity to handle small buttons that did not exist in her at this moment.

Yet… Yet her very subjects did them all.

Hindered, yes, but for them, it was all part of the enjoyment. What was any pastime activity without some effort, some difficulty, after all? It may be easier for humans, but for them it would be far more difficult to go flying, running properly, certain feats of magic that to this day only gears seemed to pull off.

Tilting her head down, to the right, she looked at the open book before her. Carefully propped up on her knees so the ground would not dirty it.

Dizzy flexed her fingers.

She was hatched in a beastly form. This she could remember. A reptilian thing covered in down from the curve of her snout to the tip of her tail, with only the vaguest, most blunt promises of future horns, fangs and claws.

Dizzy never knew what her parents - her foster parents - confused her for, at first. An innocuous little forest creature neither could place, perhaps. With her eyes still closed, none could tell for sure she was a gear.

It showed, eventually. Of course it did. Gears grew exponentially - she was shoulder-height to them in a couple of months. A bright young girl, she knew she was different from the good human boys and girls in the stories, none of whom she resembled in the slightest. It was only when suspicious, furious men from the nearby village came hammering at the door, those times when her elderly mother forced her to hide in the basement storage while her father defended them from accusations of harboring gears…

It was then she forced herself to change. No claws, or fangs, or horns. The hatchling feathers that had begun to molt and give way to a lustrous armor-suit of scales and osteoderms - it was all willed away. Transformation magic was simple for her; if humans changed clothes, she changed her entire body. For her own survival.

The wings and tail could never change. Only diminish, as small as she could possibly get them. Try as she might, even then, she could not hide them properly. Her guardians had a mind of their own, after all, and weren’t particularly keen on being stuffed under miles of bandages for the vain hope she could live among the humans who wanted to kill her. Dizzy tried, though. In as vast a plethora of ways as she could think of.

Still, her parents left her.

It was safer for her, for them. She understood as much. It was the logical path to take. Dizzy still cried, alone. Wept silently, nestled in the crook of tree roots.

Just as their visits dwindled, so, eventually, did her tears.

She brought a hand to her eyes. The pads of her fingers rubbed over them.

When she opened them again, her eyes focused back on the open pages of the book. Dark dots were beginning to appear across them. Dizzy, sluggishly, tilted her head up, her snout met with a pattering of rain hitting it.

It was time to head inside.

==

“Say, Dimmy”, came the echoing voice of Offspring on the roof. “The Biteys you sent out- no one’s made it back with news? Not one single one of them?”

Dr. Paradigm shut one of his great tomes of research, brows wrinkling together. A hand came to slap the top of his head as he realized he had not marked his spot at all, but he quickly shuffled those concerns aside. No need to make a flood out of every droplet - not when he needed to ration his patience for his… Great benefactor, who, chatty as they were, quickly figured out a way to communicate with the doctor without needing to come down.

Paradigm stuck his head up his fireplace, to see two pale-red eyes looking back down.

“You’ve asked me this yesterday” Noted Paradigm, raising a finger. “And the day before that”

“What? Can’t be curious anymore?! Raised those dragons myself, you know!” A knobbly finger was accusatorily thrust into the chimney. “I have a right to know how they’re doing”

“And no other reason at all, yes?”

Offspring groused under their breath.

“Fine. Sue me for caring about a lost cog” They harrumphed, leaning back against the chimney with arms crossed. “This is a fine mess you got up here, by the way! Blasted sea winds’ eaten through the darn thing like a Bonebiter through a swamp. Told you we shoulda’ put them somewhere else!”

Dr. Paradigm ignored the color commentary to consult an array of reports that had been connected to a large map, hung on the wall where a window once had been, by several strings of yarn. Through more complex terms, they all spoke about the same: not here, not there, not anywhere. Areas closer to the current location of the island had all been crossed out. Even those in the opposite direction of where he had set off from.

The Bonebiters sent to them had already set off again, ready and willing to continue the search. Those sent to wider and wider radiuses were beginning to return, though, and with them the very same answers. Not here, not there, not anywhere.

Offspring was silent, deep in thought. The break in its chattering didn’t last long, but this sentence was quieter. An inquiry rather than an accusation.

“You’ve seen him flyin’, right Dimmy? Flyin’- he floats. With magnetism” The gear clicked their tongue. “Darn novelty, haven’t ever seen anything like it. I swear the kid is a bag of mysteries that just keeps on getting deeper”

Dr. Paradigm was inclined to agree.

“My point… He’s got at least some sort of know-how of magnetism, right? And Bonebiters…” Offspring stopped itself, before proceeding uncertainly. “Bonebiters navigate through a whole heaping of integumentary sensory organs they got, but I posit that chief among ‘em is a little one in their inner ear that detects changes in the magnetic-gravitational fields of the ground. Like how some rocks register changes in polarity, y’know this, and they sense it from up there”

The dragon was more than inclined to agree. Biology wasn’t his exact field of expertise, but he trusted his friend’s knowledge in this area. They had never gotten around to experimenting with such a hypothesis, since Offspring was always far too concerned that their darling protégés would somehow get hurt. Nevertheless, the theory was sound.

His intellect skipped him ahead to Offspring’s conclusion.

“You’re not saying…”

Could it happen? Who knew. Gears, his own aquatic cognates, at times used magnetism, the very same way eels and such used it. He had never heard of using magnetism to fly - float - and he had never thought of a gear somehow carrying enough electrical power… Enough ability to vary the charge they carried, with great enough speed, to generate a disruptive magnetic field. But… From what he had seen…

“You think he’s smart enough to do it?” Bluntly asked Offspring, possibly meaning it in a ‘You think he’d be aware of it?’ way.

Hiding himself on purpose…? For what reason?

Or perhaps, he wasn’t cognizant of it at all.

His gaze drifted once more to the vast map. All the area that had already been put aside as ‘empty’ of any signs of Sin. An array of possibilities unfolded before him - none of them very propitious.

Dr. Paradigm silently adjusted his glasses.

==

“Your majesty? You’ve been staring at the sky for a while now. Everything alright?”

It was not. Not at all. Very few things were ‘alright’ for King Ky. From the day he had sent his son to this improvised island retreat, if you could call it that, if you were trying to be amusing, which would not work for him, he would argue he spent less than 60% of his time awake actually conscious of what he was doing. Part of his mind acted like his son had already passed away, and the mere thought of those words put together was almost enough to bring him to his knees, weeping. He held it together as well as he could.

Ky Kiske felt anxious and distressed in a way he actually had experienced before, but at the time he also only had about thirty minutes of sleep and 30 calories of food per day. Whilst being under constant threat from higher governmental powers.

Not knowing how his son was faring was apparently comparable to his body wasting away.

Ky Kiske was not alright. His left wasn’t doing too well either, converted into the facsimile of a dragon-man. The bandages were doing their best, but he had long lost his patience for tying them properly.

He breathed deeply and shook his head. Questions asked for replies. He should say something.

“Oh, sorry, I was just distracted… I swear I keep seeing Bonebiters flying about, but…”

His thumb rubbed at his chin, just below his lip. His eyes followed the flight path of yet another possibly-dragon-gear, who soon dived out of sight into a mountain of clouds.

“Don’t they look like Ganymedean Bonebiters, rather than Illyrian ones?”

His guard lifted his visor and looked up at the sky with him. No dragons passed then, as is the rule for any unidentified flying object that they must never appear clearly before any credible witnesses. And everyone knew Skeptical Steve of King Leo’s guard was the most credible witness around.

“I’m sorry, sir, I wouldn’t really know. Ground fighter I am, your majesty.”

Ky shook his head, looking down. Of course. It wasn’t as if any other knight could’ve really taken the time to differentiate between two very close variations of rare, shy gears. Only someone like himself, he supposed.

“Right, sorry-”

“I can distinguish between 56 variations of Bower, but I am frankly helpless when it comes to any other type of gear”

This bold statement was news to the oft-lauded “gear expert” himself Ky Kiske, whose worries were buried under the fact his knowledge of the creatures he ruled over was outdated. His mouth hung open in stark surprise.

“Fifty six? There are fifty six? I only ever encountered about seven”, he mumbled with faltering confidence.

“Oh, yes, seven existing ones, your majesty,” Skeptical Steve explained, a giant hammer leaning against his shoulder. “but even before the beginning of the crusades about forty different variations of Bower had been tested out in the field, though only one proved to be useful for their goals. From this one due to mutations and environmental pressure-” He switched his hammer to his other shoulder. “About sixteen new types would diverge during the Crusades themselves, though most were driven to extinction by the Holy Order. Leaving only seven variations from the years of 2130 to today”

Ky was speechless. The knight wriggled, embarrassed, under his persistent gaze. His free hand was scratching at the side of his helmet, and he looked away, stewing in the bashfulness of going on and on about a certain topic far too long than you should’ve been. The coy display only made the king more speechless.

“I didn’t discover this myself, your majesty. Certainly not. Wouldn’t have the intellect to research it myself” The knight meekly continued. “It’s just… You know that big, bird-like gear that walks about the palace? I think she’s either a gear diplomat or, well, an assistant to King Leo”

Ky was fairly sure the Professor would’ve been appalled at most of the terms used to describe her. He urged the knight to continue with an absent-minded nod.

“I’m unsure. We were told she is not to be impeded, but many of my fellow knights are somewhat frightened of her. She is far taller than any of us! Nonetheless, oh, your majesty!” Even beyond the shadows of his visor, there was a spark of delight across Steve’s eyes. “When she is not working, she will hold classes, presentations, about gears. Their biology, anatomy, history - it’s all so fascinating! After so many years fighting them, one would’ve thought there was nothing else to discover about them… That is not the case! They are such rich, interesting creatures, sir!”

The knight halted himself before continuing onto another passionate tirade, switching around the giant warhammer in his hands and avoiding the king’s gaze. Even before the newly appointed king of gears - or perhaps exactly because of it - it was rather awkward to wax poetic about the beasts you’d been trained your entire life to dispose of with extreme prejudice.

Thankfully, Ky managed to be present enough to give an encouraging smile through the haze clouding his rational mind.

“Your efforts to learn more about gears are remarkable. Seems as though you’ve already attended several of these presentations?” He asked, to which Steve nodded shyly. “I’m sure the Professor appreciates your enthusiasm very much, even if she does not voice it.”

“You really think so, sir?”, the hulking knight asked, cutting a figure like a young boy excited about classes rather than the muscular knight he was. “Perhaps I’ll ask her the difference between different kinds of Bonebiters next time!”

Ky’s gaze was once more turned towards the skies, as he caught the vanishing tail of yet another dragon. His hand curled by his side.

“Yes. You should.”

=

“Hey, Dimmy! Diiii-mmmmaaay! Geez, have ya finally gone deaf? What’re those giant ears of yours for!”

His book was shut with the speed of continental drift. Paradigm’s eyes never left the map before him, where detailed notes had given way to red X marks of frustration that proliferated across this projection of the world like clovers across an empty field.

Patience. Patience.

Dr. Paradigm had spent a great deal of his life rationing. Food, time, sleep. There was little abundance to be had by a gear on the run, head of a troop of your conspecifics, all terrified beyond their wits of even the idea of uniforms. Some slowly turning this fear into a ravenous bloodlust that would prove to be troublesome further down the road.

He knew to ration his patience. Though he rejected this idiotic idea that below the skin of every gear resided a dormant furious beast waiting to reap all life that came across it… He let himself be a small deal more cantankerous than usual.

“You could surely stand to remember your manners, couldn’t you?” Dr. Paradigm groused, his snout looking up his chimney. “I can hardly get a single moment to think!”

“Someone here has forgotten their gratitude! I’m the one-”

“Tell me what you want!” Dr. Paradigm shouted, with a tone that not even he knew he was capable of.

Offspring was taken aback, gone fantastically silent for precious few seconds before their usual nature returned.

“You don’t happen to have the last readings this thing ever made, eh?” There was a metallic ding of a metal tool hitting a similarly metal object, repeated twice. “Trying to see if I’m not making the darn thing worse. Could stand some calibrating”

Such a reasonable request could hardly further stoke the flames of his irritation. He’d been thinking the exact same thing, after all, and when he turned his head his eyes, squinting with annoyance, could see a large dossier of dusty documents already atop his table.

“I have them here. I’ll have one of my assistants pass them to you outside”, the doctor sighed, moving to fetch the dossier. The little fairy-like homunculi gathered around an empty sewing thread roll table playing cards stood to attention, and he motioned one of them forward.

Just as he did, he happened to hear the most befuddling thing.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ll go and get it!”

Dr. Paradigm halted in his tracks, staring at the ceiling with his mouth ever-so-slightly agape and eyes wide, mouthing silently to himself. His assistants were just as befuddled, in a similar position as him. He could recognize those flippant, lax tones through the thickest layers of wall, brick and roof tile, he wagered he’d recognize the sheer vibrations if he ever turned deaf - but how could-

The door to his cottage was pushed open, and an unmistakable foxy snout, above which rested two half-lidded eyes with a perpetual twink of amusement, peeked through.

“Heya, Doc-”

“IZUNA!”

Fifty kilograms of feathers, down, scales, suit, shirt, lopsided tie and disappointed dragon gear glare were shoved in his face. And Paradigm had mastered the glare of disappointment in the so-many years they’d known each other. Not even his best friend was safe from it.

“You foolish drunkard, where have you been?” The Doctor demanded, sticking a talon on his chest, before answering his own question. “You have been unconscious for several days now! And- and you simply appear without a word of warning?!”

Izuna waved his arms in front of him helplessly, exchanging a glance with the lizard gear on the roof and receiving no pity from them, rather than amusement.

“Hey, I just woke up today! Everyone was yelling at me to wake up, then yelling at me to go see you, and then Offspring started yelling at me to go help them on the roof!” Hands on his ears, Izuna sighed. “My ears are ringing, Doc! Don’t you start yelling too!”

“Offsp…” Paradigm’s mouth moved soundlessly, before he turned around to gesture angrily at the roof. “Could you not have told me?!”

“Ya never told me you were looking for the dang fox, were you? You think I read minds now?” Replied Offspring in a petulant drawl, its elbow on the very edge of the roof.

Izuna looked at Offspring, and at Paradigm, between them two as their argument continued to escalate and their gestures grew angrier and more frustrated. Flashbacks to decades past rolled across his eyes, of when both were far younger and hadn’t realized that the main ingredient to a peaceful familial bond was distance and silence… Arguments that rolled on and on and on, at any given time that the other was within hearing distance, grumbled under their breaths when they weren’t, but constant and ever increasing in volume…

“Enough, enough! Geez to the both of ya, enough!! Relax!” Izuna yelped, throwing his arms up in desperation.

Grabbing Paradigm by his wing, he dragged his friend inside, shut the door, and with a sorry! he shoved his jacket up the chimney, muffling any and all attempts by Offspring to keep arguing.

Nevermind the former window currently covered with a map. The spirit seeker wasn’t minding it either.

“Okay, phew! Finally some peace and quiet” Izuna sighed contently, gently patting his ears as if to encourage them to stop ringing.

He walked around the room and took a seat on his favourite armchair, which was there really only for him. He stretched his legs and then his arms, sinking into the soft upholstery and finally allowing himself a good post-pseudo-hibernation yawn. When his eyes opened again, they fell on Paradigm, who was crossing his arms and waiting for something.

“I was surprised to see Springy here again! And fixin’ the JPS?” Izuna tilted his head to the right. “I mean, good on you guys for being cautious, but now? After letting it rust for ten years or so? Well!” A shrug. “I’m sure you have good reasons in mind. Probably something to keep you busy with Sin the way he is, eh? Where is he, anyway?”

“Gone”

Izuna’s chin dropped. He blinked owlishly at Paradigm’s irritated expression.

“G…Gone?”

“He disappeared weeks ago, and we have no idea where he is”

Izuna’s claws sank into the arms of the seat, and he silently mouthed to himself as he did, eyes spinning. Gaze drifted over to the map-curtain, nearly all covered with red x-shapes. His ears flattened back as his claws dug deeper. Izuna began babbling something incoherent.

Offspring was experimentally turning a fan-wheel shaped metallic part, sitting back and watching the way how it returned to its spot. It wasn’t spinning around frantically nor completely still, for once, which was a good sign, but its position was always about thirty degrees different from the last reading. The spirit seeker scratched at its head with a wrench.

Perhaps if-

A white spectral figure, though slightly covered in soot, legs, arms, ears and tail sticking out from under a white and red jacket, scrambled up the chimney like a cat away from water and dug its claws into their shoulders.

“QUICK! QUICK!! HOLYMACKERELWEGOTTAFINDHIM!!”

==

“Aww, Ram! Are you sure you don’t wanna switch with me?”

A silent shake of the head, her eyes never straying from the cards that fate - and the colourful deck set helpfully on a little holder of wood before them, on the board - had dealt her. Ramlethal Valentine heard her sister’s grumbling, and looked at her from the corner of her eyes.

“What’s wrong with the Vizuel?”

Elphelt pouted at her own cards, dispiritedly moving a little wooden playing piece between her fingers.

“Nothing…”

Ramlethal shrugged, but was encouraged to look back at her sister due to her repeated sighs, growing in volume.

“They’re just… Aren’t they kinda… Creepy…” Elphelt shivered, putting the playing piece down away from her. “Their outfits can be kinda cute, but the rest of them! Brrr!”

“They’re named after sweets, though” Ramlethal helpfully added, pointing to one of the pieces. “That’s a Miss Tiramisu”

“That makes it worse! Why is she on a horse skeleton?!”

“I think it’s a moose”

Dizzy chuckled to herself, the girls trembling with the vibrations this deep noise sent through the ground. They, bless them, tried to look as unaffected as possible.

Ever since this troublesome situation had all begun, the Valentine sisters had tried their best to be around as much as possible. Elphelt, despite being busy with her band, and Ramlethal, busy with her job as a general (or was it commander?) under King Leo, took time out of their full work schedules to come and keep her company. Even help her dictate some paperwork that really couldn’t be ignored.

In rainy, cloudy days, full of worry, uncertainty, the agony of being stuck in a body that brought only painful memories and didn’t allow her to live her life the way she had grown accustomed to, these two were one of the very few things she looked forward to. Day after day, they did their very best to cheer her up, sometimes through strange, unexpected ways that soothed her heart nonetheless.

She had never found out a proper title to attribute to their bond. Aunts, sisters - never quite fit. But they were her friends, and they were her family. Her beloved family.

If she weren’t sure she would hurt them, she would’ve hugged the two girls then and there.

“I’ll switch decks with you, Elphelt”, offered Dizzy, leaning forward to pick up her own stack of cards.

Elphelt stopped her one-sided argument to wave her hands at her in polite dismissal.

“Nooo, no, it’s okay!!” She assured, eyes darting around as she looked for a good excuse. “I know you like playing with the Illyrian clan”

“I’m fine with whichever”

Elphelt gave her a strained grin, looking out of the corner of her eye to see if her dear sister would offer any assistance, but no luck. Whenever polite falsehoods failed, there was only one option.

“I’m allergic to that deck in specific, Dizzy”

“I think you’re the only one who likes the Illyrian clan, Dizzy”, commented Ram, interrupting her sister’s last stand at kind dishonesty. “Compared to all the others, they’re lame”

“Huh? Really?” Dizzy’s perpetual beastly grimace would’ve been a o-shaped mouth of shock. “I don’t think they’re lame… Look, the Convict Hammer is big and strong!”

With the tip of her tail, she picked up one of her own figurines and moved it to the center of the huge board, spread out on the grass between them. It represented a battlefield, with all its different, special tiles. A few structures were already in place, in particular the ghosts and master ghosts, and the Convict Hammer in question.

It was joined by a carved figure of a dragon-like gear, pushed forward by Ramlethal. She looked up at Dizzy.

“Bonebiters are bigger. And stronger” She toppled over the humanoid piece with her own. “So, they’re cooler”

This was the one perpetual problem in households all around Illyria, where the BAPTISMA XIII board game was slowly growing in popularity in gears as well as humans, though it was significantly difficult for the later to get their hands on a copy. After all, Dr. Paradigm was one of its main advisors - his sudden involvement in gaming a shock to everyone, including himself - with a development team of mostly gears.

This meant that the box to their right, away from the game area and holding a few unused pieces, contained a game that used chords and key signatures so complicated (typical of microtonal gear magic) that most humans had never even dreamed of seeing them. Gears were considering it revolutionary in the boardgame community, presenting them with effects and mechanics never even seen before. Humans were gnawing their nails in envy and yelling at the Illyrian Magic Supervisors to get on with accepting it being sold in Illyrian territory, who cared if the magic was illegal or not.

The supervisors, in turn, claimed they had to check it further. It had to be done thoroughly! And sources claimed they would go back, giggling and kicking their feet, to their 50th consecutive game.

As one was saying - the perpetual problem was in its clans. The type of servants, warriors, that one could pick to play for the game. Due to the unbalanced composition of the development team, gears were made significantly stronger and cooler-looking than the rest of the playable clans. Dr. Paradigm had done his best to reign them in, surely, but even he couldn’t stop himself from making the Ganymedeans the overall best choices in the game.

Close behind, the yokai, because at heart every Vialattean gear missed their old neighbours. This made the game very popular among these creatures as well. Some would say games between Ganymede and Underworld players could last for days.

Then, trailing far behind and struggling to even come close to these two behemoths, the Illyrian and Vizuel clans*, having taken potshots by a few resentful advisors, veterans of the Crusades or of the actual Baptisma 13 incident. They were situational, the figures were made with less detail and quality than the Ganymede and Underworld clans, even the cards dealt were less comfortable to hold. No one wanted to play them, if they could help it, but with certain competitive gaming circles banning both Ganymede and Underworld due to their clear advantage, sometimes you were forced to.

(*Legend spoke of a fifth clan, just called Machines, apparently left over from beta versions of the game. Its servants so weak were, that players would rather share a clan with their opponent than attribute a luckless fifth this token of certain loss. Apparently the clan’s mechanics involved searching and gathering materials to summon a great dragon - something none of the testers ever managed before being steamrolled by one of the other clans.)

So, house-rules to ensure that all agony was distributed fairly arose, a vast variety of them that changed from host to host, circle to circle. Flipping a coin, picking straws, the youngest consulted what the current rankings were and got first pick… In the Kiske household, they put the bigger pieces into a bag and shook them, randomly distributing the clans in a clock-wise fashion. The youngest trio of the family was convinced they could still manipulate this method of distribution and always played a strange round of soundless musical chairs before every game night.

Dizzy huffed to herself. She didn’t bother with any rankings, she liked the Illyrian clan.

She liked their colour palette, she liked how they looked, she liked their names. She thought the little wizards were adorable, and the big ones were rather cool. Yes, of course she liked the Ganymede clan, it behooved the Queen to play a house game every so often, right? But she had grown attached to these little wooden underdogs.

Only to be told they were a bad pick. She would not argue; she believed wholeheartedly that it was best to pick whoever she liked and have fun that way. Her beastly grimace would’ve been a crabby pout, reacting to the sudden thought she didn’t win all that often in either case.

Elphelt was the same, unhappily eyeing another dreadful wooden figure, some sort of ghastly cross between a half-moon and a spider. Her pout was even crabbier, her sighs even deeper.

“M-”

“No, you can’t switch for the Yokai clan”, Ramlethal commented, guessing what her sister was going to ask for next. “We picked at random, so it’s fair. You’d have an advantage over Dizzy otherwise”

“So do you”, grumbled Elphelt dispiritedly, watching Ram as she organized her cards.

Her sister paid her no mind. She attempted one last ditch effort at giving herself a fighting chance, leaning forward to place her chin on Ramlethal’s shoulder and look up at her with enormous, sparkling eyes.

“I’m your little sister! You gotta be nice to me!” She logically reasoned.

“I have to prepare you for the real world”

“It’s a boardgame!”

“Dogs do the same” Ramlethal commented wisely, moving to place her initial formation of units. “Older members of a pack wrestle pups to teach them how to hunt and fight. Through games you can learn real-life skills”

“By losing?” Elphelt harrumphed.

“By failing and trying once more. Until you succeed”

Elphelt leaned back to her original position, arms crossed and expression equally cross. She knew that!! There was no need to tell her about failing and trying again - she had a band! No one knew loss and failure as personally as hopeful band members!

Her indignation was interrupted, once more, by low vibrations in the ground that shook her very bones. She looked up, expecting it to come from Dizzy, but missed the target by a few degrees.

…She was… Shorter?

The sharpness of her features was slightly more rounded, claws retracted into her fingers and allowing her to properly hold the cards in one hand, the other covering her face.

Behind it, gruesome fangs were covered by skin.

A smile spread across Elphelt’s face. She quickly nudged her sister with her elbow while Dizzy was looking away, and nodded towards the somewhat-not-so-giant gear before them. Ramlethal, a credit to her intellect, understood immediately.

“Okay. I’ll let you switch”, she spoke, looking between the expectant Elphelt and Dizzy, suddenly thrust into being one half of a comedian duo with zero preparation or practice.

“Yay!! That’s why you’re my favourite, R-”

“To the machines”

“Wha-?! They’re not even in the game!!”

==

The wind blew briskly, whistling as the gargantuan steel spear sliced it in twain.

On the ground level, where humans milled about in the dull ebb and flow of daily life, wind played about, danced and rolled as a light breeze. It gathered in long archways, under buildings. Lifted the fallen leaves of Autumn, now slowly giving way to the harshness of winter. Soon, even on the ground the wind would hiss and bite, but for now it fluttered like the litter, leaves and floating insects that surfed its currents. It made a child’s balloon gently bob against its path. Lifted the coat-tails of a passing businessman.

On the tallest rooftops of the palace, near the very spear that kept the underlying city safe from storms, it had no desire to frolic. Here it endeavored, gathered strength to push her over. It did not whistle nor hiss - it roared, growled at her invasion upon its territory. Its icy claws tried in vain to claw through her thick feather coats This was an efficient wind, far from frivolous. One had to learn to read it, to float with it lest one be taken along with it.

She did not fly much these days. Gear cells could only do so much against the unstoppable onslaught of time, after all, her joints straining against movements that once came as easy as breathing in a youth long past. Still, the knowledge remained - carved into her mind like a canyon through plains. Try as the gale might, the professor did not do as much as totter, only her feathers and coat ruffling.

Paradox knew how the air currents behaved. Where they moved, how they moved. With only a cursory look, diagrams of ascending and descending arrows formed in her mind, tracing their paths. How they rose upon the sky, where the shape of the clouds then provided all she needed to know.

As such, she was staring right at the point of emergence of a long-necked dragon before it made it out of a great grey cloud.

She narrowed her eyes, tilting her neck gently backwards, tucking her beak against her chest. A sigil appeared next to her.

It rang. Clicked and whistled, the crack of the magic-network, particles buzzing between each other across thousands upon thousands of miles. Anyone else, whether they had seen her and her father’s compositions or not, would say it was a miracle something like that could work. She would scoff at such an implication. There were no such things as miracles. Only hard work, dedication and chance.

…Which was a shame, because a miracle would be certainly useful at this time.

There was a final, definitive click. The sigil opened into an array of complex symbols.

She waited.

On the other end, there was no sound for a moment or two. Then, an uncertain question.

“Professor?”

Before he could go into unnecessary questions - the less they wasted in pointless pleasantries, questions of what she was doing calling him when they agreed to maintain the façade of a storm preventing communication, the better - the Professor recited, calmly and clearly.

“Doctor. You are running out of time. The other day one of the staff asked me to explain the difference between Ganymedean and Illyrian Bonebiters”

It was unnecessary to explain that any regular citizen, or even worker at the castle, would not notice any difference between two very similar types of gears only spotted flying high above the clouds. Less that they would not know there were subspecies to begin with. Dr. Paradigm’s silence made it clear.

She could barely make out the sound of him brushing his hands over the top of his head.

“The staff member told me King Ky encouraged him to ask”

The silence grew deeper still, as Paradigm’s own panic mounted. She kept her calm, obviously, though shifts in her head muscles kept attempting to rattle her beak, her eyelids and wings kept twitching, her heart stuttering against her chest.

What manner of scandal loomed over the horizon, only their cruelest anxiety could fathom.

“I have to return. Whatever you decide to do, Doctor”

The wind brought her inquisitive voices far below her. She feared people on the street spotting her, but it did not seem to be the case. They would need eyes far beyond those of a human to see at her height. The sound of windows creaking open, clawing against stone window sills, reached her soon after.

The two halves of her beak clicked together.

“...I will assist you”

A low, perishing clung, and the sigil vanished into nothing but glowing dust, carried away by the current. She watched them float and ebb, deep in thought, before carefully unfolding her wings from her sides. With them half open, a current caught under them, and all she needed was to release her grip on the iron spokes.

Without making much effort of moving her wings - true experts in aerodynamics need only micro adjustments to properly use a gale - she floated down from her perch, talons soon gripping the very upper edge of an open window.

She pulled, folded herself through it like a multi-stage swiss army knife, scaring the skin out of the poor hapless fellow who could’ve sworn he was hearing voices on the roof, but who in blazes would climb up to the spire? and opened up a window to investigate, only to be faced with a tumbleweed of wiry stilt-like bird-ish limbs grabbing at everything in the open vicinity of the window, before a vicious looking greenish crane beast with round reading glasses perched on her worn beak peered and made its way inside.

The Professor dusted off her vest and stood up straight, one limb fetching her helpful cane, leaned against the inside wall, before lowering back her neck to a resting position, in order not to drag the top of her head across the ceiling. She noticed the blabbering, trembling fool squirming on the ground, looking up at her in shock. Paradox glared at him, before carrying on her way, each step clearing about 7 meters between them, onward to looking for her young fellow researcher and assistant.

Some people certainly made spectacles of themselves.

==

Two unlucky gears stared despondently at the one between them. Which, admittedly, was their superior - everyone’s superior - and they should’ve probably felt a little more respect towards him.

Hard to feel anything but pity and concern for a wild-eyed man, who only ever so often bolted upright like a rabid meerkat before slumping back on his chair, hands over his eyes and muttering frantically under his breath.

The Queen’s guard and The King’s guard exchanged glances.

“You were right. He’s lost it”

“First time seein’ him like this?”

“Just about. I usually leave before they drag him back. Catch glimpses of it, though.” The Queen’s guard sucked air through its sharp teeth, bringing its back paw to its neck to give it an industrious scratching. “An’ I thought dealing with the Queen’s mind-thing was rough”

The King’s guard kept the king from toppling forward for the third time since they’d sat him down.

“Maybe we lay him down on the couch? Crap, maybe he’d roll off and fall flat on his face”. Worried teeth gnawed on a bottom lip. “Nah, I wouldn’t have switched places with you for anythin’. He’s light. Pretty easy to carry. Gettin’ easier with every other shift I get”

The King’s guard held up a palm to gesture at its employer. Everytime he jerked to the side, flinched, its worry grew more and more.

“But usually he’s… Yannow. Still somewhat there”, the king’s guard tapped the side of its head. “Dunno what happened to kick him over the edge”

“Didn’t need anythin’ special, man, I reckon. Just days and days wearing and worrying himself to nothing”

The two fell quiet, the sort of terrible silence that follows watching someone once placed on a pedestal doing their darndest to burrow underneath it. Ky Kiske’s eyes were spinning, still mouthing noiselessly to official-sounding, empty pleasantries.

The guards stood wringing their hands. Or whatever appendages they could wring. As gears, hierarchy was built into their very magic-infused soul. It wasn’t necessary for the sapient, higher mental capacities to chime in; their own instincts could recognize a Commander Gear from the other side of the world.

Whatever other protocol followed hierarchy, they remained entirely ignorant of it. It wasn’t like Vialattean royalty went about barking orders at them on any other day, and they sure weren’t keen on being treated like royalty either. You could see the wince at every mention of their title.

So… What should they do with him?

If it was another gear, well, another gear like them, they’d set some soft stuff down on the floor and cover them up with some nice blankets. Maybe stuff something in their mouth to make sure they wouldn’t bite through their tongue, elevate their head, take turns watching over them to make sure they stayed safe. The Queen’s guard was no stranger to this procedure.

But this was their king. Doing all that felt close in a way that challenged authority. Sapient gears liked the idea of challenging authority, but it left a sour taste in their mouth when their authority was defending this little, strange patch of gear-heaven with tooth, nail, sword, assorted magic and strangest of all, diplomacy.

“We thought he was unshakeable, you know. Immortal. Ya couldn’t hurt him anyway you thought of” Said the King’s guard, who had gotten its sapiency shortly after Justice’s first death, and had been around to see everything that came after. “We never feared him like we did Kliff, but he was a big deal alright. Some fellas said he was god coming to kill us for good”

“Wow”

“Yeah.” It clicked its tongue to the side of its teeth. “I heard when he was made king it was different, though. Some of the fellas more attuned to the Command thing, they used to live near the Queen’s house then. Habit and whatnot. And when they caught glimpses of him, yeesh. Like a walkin’ corpse”

“I heard of it. Sometimes the Queen thinks about it” An awkward scratch behind the ear to avoid the confused gaze of its companion, who would’ve had to work a shift as a queen’s guard to understand. “Dreadful stuff. But he was calm then, right? Not like-”

This? No.

Dear reader, up until this point you had been told Dizzy’s skin was a scaled armor of black iridescence. This is not entirely incorrect. To your eyes, and to many others’ too, this is how it would appear…

For you see, a certain type of eyes may see otherwise.

A fulgent shape lightened the doorstep. Around her, there was a brilliant halo of shimmering light, so bright that anything except her silhouette, outlined in pale blue, appeared as blinding, pearl-luster white.

The Queen’s Guard, who had looked up at first, and the King’s Guard, who had looked further up than its coworker, averted their eyes and held their breath, burning tears prickling at the edges of their bright red eyes. The Queen stepped closer, and closer still, and as she did there was the invasive feeling yet again - of something digging within the depths of your mind, turning and pulling, as if attempting to dig out something hidden below.

The Queen approached.

The King’s Guard fell to its knees, panting haggardly. It had never felt the Queen’s trespassing command, which ordered nothing except for it to stay still while She reduced its brain to mush. She didn’t even desire to cause any harm, one could feel it - there were far less cruel ways to be cruel than this. Even the Queen’s own guard was doubled over in agony, tongue lolling out loosely as something pushed and prodded began disrupting muscle control.

The Queen approached… And the King stopped.

She beckoned him with one extended hand, and he lurched, moving as if pulled by a harness, to take it. She felt his clammy skin, cold, humid and shivering. Bandaging long since ignored and left to dangle. Crazed eyes now slowly closing with the offer of a warm place and safety within the arms of his wife. The Queen pulled him into a short embrace, no longer so much taller than him that he fit in her hand - instead, his head came to rest against her abdomen, herself leaning over him ever so slightly, clawed hand rubbing carefully at his back.

The Queen turned towards the two guards, heads firmly turned downwards while the rest of their muscles trembled and seized in a struggle to keep them standing upright. Her pang of helpless guilt was felt through their very bones.

You have my utmost gratitude for watching over him… And my deepest apologies for all the trouble. Please, go and rest; you’re dismissed for the day.

The guards careened towards the door as if yanked along by highly-strung metal wires. They bolted through the empty hallways, all dark and dust-covered ever since the young prince had left for Ganymede*, and only when they reached the porch did Her presence fade away, their bodies crumbling powerlessly down the short flight of stairs.

(*And how the two guards wished they had done the same, at the moment)

The Queen’s guard heaved. You got it down to a science, after your third or fourth shift. Breathe in as much as you could, until your lungs start hurting, and then breathe everything out, until you begin to hack and cough and your lungs start to really ache. Give your limbs a good shake, throw your head from side to side, and remember as much of yesterday as you could. The last part was the important one.

“Blueberry muffins, ice tea, ham sandwich”, it whispered as it stood up. “Charge and those sugary cereals. A drop of hot coffee to wake me up.”

Always a good breakfast to have. Change one thing everyday, and you’ll remember it no problem. Back to its own, uninvaded, unwatched self, the Queen’s guard shifted its attention to the poor newcomer, the King’s guard shuddering uncontrollably on the ground, foaming at the mouth with its eyes rolled to the back of the head. A rather stereotypical look to the thing, but you couldn’t help it. Everyone went through it at least once in their lives, you just forgot how to return from it.

The Queen’s guard shifted its weight onto its back legs, putting its paws around its coworker’s head. The inner bend of your wrist pressing in on the side of the head, somewhere in an area called “the central sulcus”, or something along those lines… Where hid a very diminutive section of the brain that Old Offspring, cackling maniacally with a very concerning blood-dripping ceramic stake held in their hand, and fresh stitches running all across their head, once said was dubbed “Hale’s Organ” by the very scientists that had created their kind.

What it did, was a rather confusing explanation. Neither of the old gears who understood those ancient notes on their creation liked to put things simply. But Offspring once grinned deviously and summarized itself: it makes you an obedient little soldier. Not us? Some wondered, but then looked at the old gear’s stitches and decided not to press the question.

The specifics didn’t matter for the maneuver. You pressed in on it, while tapping the back of the head. It was better if you could get someone with thumbs to do it, like John or that new guy that used to be a dispersal gear, who could stab needles into your back in fifteen different places and somehow make you feel better than you did before. It acted as a “soft reset” on the organ, but it took a while to get the positioning right. Once you did…

The King’s guard heaved and vomited water, panting haggardly as its consciousness returned. Glassy eyes looked up, helplessly and terrified, at the other guard.

“Hey, man. Welcome back to the world of the living”, it said, sitting back on its haunches. “Sucks the first time, I know. But it gets easier”

Its leg scratched its ear once more. The King’s guard opened and closed its mouth, tongue moving wordlessly. Tears pricked at the edges of its red eyes, a thin string of blood now rolling out of its nostrils.

“Here, I’ll get you home. I can help get ya cleaned up if you want” The Queen’s guard heaved the other across its wide shoulders, and set off towards the town proper. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone who gets a shift at queen’s guard goes through the same thing. You’d think it would get worse the more it happened, right? Feels like someone bashed your head in with a brick, so you’d think doing it more would… I dunno, turn off your brain for good. Nah. Some fellas have done it so often they start resisting it, too. Like that big Leonard lass, you’ve seen her.”

A shake of the head. The King’s guard, laying across the other, looked up at the dark light poles that guarded the right side of the road. Gears never needed light to see in the dark, but now its eyes saw shimmering, glaring auroras across every surface that the light of the moon reflected off of.

Its coworker was right about how it felt now, after being released from Her control. The poor bastard would need a few days to even feel able to move again. And yet… And yet…

Horrible, treacherous thoughts fizzled in its head. It tried to bury them, to shake them off, to think of anything else. But they returned, louder, and louder, and more malignant every time. Now, it felt dreadful, but when under Her control…

“It felt good, didn’t it?” Spoke the gear under it, a quiet tone dripping with familiar shame. “It feels right”

A hollow, humiliated laugh, ringing in the silence of the autumn night.

“Damn, it’s awful to say it, but we all think the same. We all come back for more. No worries, no fears, no rage, no nothing. Just waiting to do what you’re told and…” The guard spoke, but then grew quiet as it became too mortified about its own thoughts.

The King’s guard stared up at the night sky, where triple the number of stars shone twice as bright, through its altered, recovering mind.

Stars also shone through another mind, though this one saw them from above. Like fields of lilies blooming through dark grass, a tapestry of little glowing dots spread across her vision. They moved, sometimes, other times they lay still. There were areas with only one or two dots, others so dense it was hard to make the rest of this field through the glow.

She saw this field under her sight, like a manner of filter over her own vision. Things she had only felt instinctively were now impractically presented in diagrams for her visual enjoyment and agonizing migraines with no choice to turn it off. As she looked down, towards the shivering body she carried in her arms, she saw it too - a glimmering orb, shining stronger than any other.

His presence was comforting. Always had been. But now, it was simply a relief to be near a gear who she didn’t have to be especially careful not to invade their minds. Dizzy could only command him if she felt extremely strongly about it, unlike how it happened with other gears; that would (sometimes literally) bend over their own backs to obey each and every one of her passing thoughts. Moreover… She couldn’t entirely read Ky’s mind the way she did her subject’s, only vaguely sense how he felt.

Stronger feelings, somehow, were cast from his mind onto hers. The biological reason was unknown to her. Dizzy only noticed the dreadful visions his anxious, fearful brain supplied for him when they crossed Sin’s empty bedroom - the door ajar, to pretend that he could possibly still fitfully sleep in his own bed, seeing as the sight of the shut and locked door was enough to make the two of them have a nervous episode, once.

She sat down inside their own bedroom, finally able to once more use their bed, and held him still, her head gently set over his.

He’s alive, Ky.

Dizzy knew he didn’t doubt this. Ky worried about his son, but never once believed him to have died. His eyes were trained on the half-open closet across the room, where an old belt with the inscription HOPE across its buckle enjoyed its long-earned retirement.

Her husband breathed deeply, holding onto her. Ky never doubted, but something within him did. It was as if all the reason and hope in his body were nothing against the surge of fear, rage, dread, brewing somewhere within him. So, even as her statement, full of certainty, calmed him, he still asked.

How can you be sure?

Above the field of stars, shone a swimming aurora. Floating far above them, far away, moving with the flow of the currents in tones of blue and red.

She could recognize him anywhere.

==

“Ey, ye’ll have ta excuse me fer being crass but” The strange creature pushed up its hat with its clawed thumb. “Ya look lost as hell here, man”

“WELL”, spoke the dragon-looking gear, though that word was associated with different kinds of creatures for both of them. “I AM. THIS DOESN’T LOOK LIKE AUSTRIA”

“Naw, yeah, yer in Australia. Bit of an extra L in there. But, hell.” The creature gestured incredulously. “Never seen anythin’ like ya round here before”

The dragon froze, beady little eyes going as wide as they possibly could behind heavy duty reinforced-lens goggles. A shiver ran through her body, as she wrenched her head to look at her greeter.

“AUS… AUSTRALIA”

“‘As right. Kinda obvious, right? Seriously, where are ya from to…”

The creature soon realized the cause of its sudden inexplicable discomfort.

Between the two, Australis Gear and Borealis Gear, a human might see little to no difference. The two creatures were fanged, clawed and red-eyed giants now nervously eyeing each other and sweating buckets. One beast dressed for casual enduring of boiling, dry weather warily stared at another, dressed for high-altitude flight*. Some scholar or otherwise professional nerd might point out some helpful taxonomic differences, but either gear side didn’t need theoretical evidence.

(*Fashion sense was probably not the issue here)

After all, every gear is perfectly equipped to recognize another gear. It’s not just in the eyes, the same way that being a human isn’t just about the thumbs. This also meant that they were perfectly equipped to recognize that something wasn’t a gear, or that something was some manner of indescribable gear-ish horror crawled out of the uncanny trench.

Which was, exactly, what was happening.

Once more, a regular human couldn’t possibly tell the difference - and may find it more profitable to haul dérriére and run, in the long term - but if it is any comfort, your usual gear could not possibly tell why you’d be scared of a human stretching to three meters in height with three-time folding arms that measured three times their height. Was the high frequency of threes putting you off?

They simultaneously took a step back, and flinched because of it. That thing on the other side could attack at any moment, hadn’t you heard the stories?! While one side was an unfortunate consequence of human hubris, the other was clearly a crime against nature*! Who knows what it could do!

(*Which one is which, your guess is as good as mine)

The Borealis gear swallowed dryly.

“JUST TELL ME WHICH WAY NORTH IS” she pleaded. “AND WE’LL NEVER HAVE TO SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN”

The suggestion, coming from a horrible parody of its kind such as it was, was the most enticing deal that had ever been offered to the Australis gear. It nodded frantically, before pointing off to a side.

The other gear nodded, not ungratefully but with the jerk of someone who expects to be jumped as soon as break eye contact, and set flight immediately.

The Australian gear stood watching the other disappear into the distance, before wiping its forehead of sweat.

“Tear me half ta shreds”, it sighed, fanning itself with its hat as it set off down the horizon once more. “Nearly escaped with my life there. Teach me to talk to strangers”

==

“Hey, Paradigm. It’s done”

With Izuna to moderate between them - and cause an entirely different type of daily trouble for him - the perpetual arguments and bickering had been brought down to a simmer. All the better, for the Doctor had found there was a region beyond the event horizon of anxiety, a sargasso sea of thoughts and absent-mindedness.

He found himself staring idly at the map, before realizing the words he was hearing were on the outside of his head, this once.

“...Eh?”

“It’s done. Come up here”

So he did. Floated towards the rooftop of his cabin with Izuna scrambling behind him the old fashioned way. Night had fallen, but the sheer amount of white stone populating the archipelago always made it glow no matter what.

Cutting a silhouette against the rising moon, he saw Offspring’s back, hunched over and occupied putting away the tools of their trade. And to their right, it spun. Moved.

And, he could tell as soon as he lay eyes upon it…

It moved properly.

==

Somewhere near the toothed cliffs of the northernmost shores of Norway, lonesome long before the dawn of gear invasions, a furred paw rose sky high to block the non-existent sun.

Force of habit, one supposed. She hadn’t made it out of the arctic circle enough to worry about things such as “light in her eyes”.

Even in the polar darkness, her red eyes caught the crossing of a winged cognate through velvet-blue night. It vanished from sight just as soon as it appeared.

The creature sat down, snout still turned towards the skies. An hour must have passed before another dragon-like figure cut through the air far above her. A half-hour, and another one.

How strange.

She shook the falling snow from her body, stood up and trudged onwards, deep in thought. Not much else to do across these plains.

One would’ve been regular. A fellow from warm lands who got the wake-up call of migration far too late. Only realizing when the very first snowflake hit its snout, when the first real biting winter chill rattled across its bones.

Two, coincidence. A mate. Maybe a cub, juvenile, inexperienced, who decided to shadow the wrong elder in its first migration.

Three? There was something afoot.

A hypothesis suggested itself in her head.

“Hope our friend made it far enough inland”

“Wruff.”

==

A yawn so deep it rattled through his bones made its way out of his mouth.

His cheek against the rough, easily-washable fabric of the table cloth, Sin watched sunlight filter through drawn curtains and closed eyelids. He stretched out his arms before him, his fingers curling as he felt the pleasant pull at his shoulder’s muscles.

He smacked his lips.

A wooden ladle gently bopped him on the head.

Sin sat up straight in his seat, rubbing at the hit target. He chuckled and grinned at Chimaki, impressively carrying a pot of soup over his head without any input from his little stubby arms.

“I know, I know. No napping at the table…” the young man said, stretching his arms high over his head, rolling his wrists.

A silent yawn trembled through his body, just as the pot made its way onto the table. A contented smile played at his lips, his eyes idly following the gentle dance of the vapor rising from the boiling hot soup. He knew what came next.

Wordlessly, he extended the empty bowl before him towards Chimaki, just as the plush began stirring with a ladle he could hardly reach. The utensil was raised threateningly, and Sin covered his head on instinct, chuckling.

“Okay, okay! Pleeaaase may I have some soooup?” Sin laughed. “Look, the ladle’s dripping onto the table!”

Chimaki shook his head in reproach of his master’s table manners - or lack thereof - and dipped the ladle back onto the soup, stirring it heartily before scooping it deep, aiming to gather the thickest parts of the soup, richer in its solids rather than the watery layers of the top. Sin was a growing young lad, after all, with a voracious appetite to boot - he needed his food as hearty as he could get it.

The soup was deposited into the waiting bowl - one, two, three full ladles of soup, filling it nearly to the brim. The warmth spread from it, to the ceramic of the bowl, to Sin’s fingertips, reaching up his arms and making his back shiver with the difference in temperature.

He let it warm him up, setting it gently before him on the table and watching as the steam rose, embracing his face in fragrant hug as he leaned to breathe it in deep.

It wasn’t in his nature to be this unhurried with meals. Anyone who knew him would argue as much - if food was in sight, Sin became a noisy blur until all that was left were polished, empty plates. He wasn’t quite sure why he felt different now, only that a strong sense of peace and calm had settled over him. Sin could’ve taken the bowl and gulped the soup directly from it - an action that had earned him a few ladle bops to the head in a few other occasions - but doing so felt like far too much of a bother.

He lifted his spoon and dipped it into the soup before lifting it once more with its great spoils. The rich broth, heavy with oil, glistened in the warm, drowsy light that bathed the room in golden tones. He had fished out a large chunk of an yet-unidentified vegetable as well, since he liked to have one with every spoonful. Whenever he actually bothered to use the spoon, at the very least.

The dollop of soup was deposited into his mouth, the broth stinging the softer areas with its heat. It didn’t bother him, not when the rich flavours danced on his tongue. He did his best to identify them, closing his eyes in his deep thoughts. The sweet tones of pumpkin were strong, so they were likely the base; following it was the gentle but firm earthy sweetness of chestnuts.

It was overall a sweet-flavored soup, just as he liked it. He could sense other similar tones in the broth, but this spoonful had done its role. He let it take stage left, rolling down his throat, before welcoming one of many replacements.

The next players in the soup game were harder to identify. He could feel the mild bite of onions, like a loving, strong pat in the back, in the midst of the warm and cozy hug of the autumnal produce. He wanted to guess carrots were also present, but mostly through the smell rather than through their taste… He swallowed once more.

He knew his little friend was never one to skip out on culinary herbs, but his tongue had never been too keen on distinguishing them from the main cast of the broth. His concentration was beginning to falter, in any case - the tasty, warm meal now settling comfortably within his stomach was not helping in the fight against the dulcet drowsiness that had overtaken him fully.

Sin yawned behind his hand, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth and enjoying the lingering flavour of the last few portions of soup. He let the yawn tremble through him, before focusing his attention once more on the dwindling soup before him. He would never let a meal go unfinished, of course, but he doubted he could reach the end of the giant pot Chimaki had carried to the table, the little creature bringing spoons to his own mouth, wherein the broth magically disappeared. Perhaps he’d ask for one or two more servings, after finishing his bowl.

After all, nothing felt more wonderful than napping in the sunlight with a full belly, letting it handle the complicated process of digestion while you took a well-earned break. On that front, none could sway his opinion.

Just the thought of it made Sin ever more comfortably drowsy, to the point of when he felt a strange presence, with a stranger toothy snout, looming over his shoulder to stare at his soup, Sin tilted his head to bump against it, in a friendly, familiar manner.

The presence flinched, flickers of static jumping from it onto Sin’s skin before vanishing. It did not hurt him, but tickled him, making him giggle to himself. He felt the presence calm down and, carefully, full of doubt, press its own head against his.

“Are you hungry? There’s enough soup for everyone”, Sin asked in-between yawns. The presence did not answer him, but nuzzled against his cheek.

Sin looked at Chimaki, who in turn was warily glaring at the figure beside and behind him. A stubby limb flinched towards his katana, always kept at his hip. More wisps of static crawled across Sin’s skin.

“It’s alright, buddy. He’s not hurting anyone” Sin reassured. “Can you serve him a bowl?”

If the little creature had fingers on his sword hand, they would’ve twitched like those of a gunslinger at high noon. His face remained impavid, but his eyes were trained on the very presence Sin knew he could not turn around and stare at. The very presence that was growing more fearful, a low crackling hiss emerging from it as the sparks started stinging across his skin.

“Chimaki, don’t go and pick fights with him, c’mon”

His beloved doll gave him a withering “fine, it’s your funeral” stare, before filling another bowl and kindly passing it on. Sin thanked him - hazarding that forgetting his manners probably wouldn’t have made the situation any better - and held the bowl up to his shoulder in a rather awkward position.

There were a few inquisitive sniffs, a hazarded lick, and then a sequence of very determined schlops. Soon enough, as he expected, the bowl was empty, and Sin gently set it down on the table.

Sleep returned to him, and it seemed to affect the creature as well. The clicking and snapping of sparks sounded behind him, in a way much like snoring. Sin leaned back on his chair, hands together over his stomach, rubbing it ever so gently to help the food settle properly, and let his eyes drift closed.

It was strange to end a meal at its start - the soup was only the prelude to the main show, after all. Still, his hunger did not assail him as it usually did. He could fit more - always could - but for the sake of avoiding any global food shortages, he always stopped when the hunger pangs did. He felt a pull at his trouser’s leg, and reached down to hold his doll’s little hand.

“I know. I’ll be heading up in a minute, buddy. ‘M just…” A loud yawn. “Resting my eyes a little”

Through the soft, drifting haze of sleep, he felt the world around him. The sounds of Chimaki clearing up the table, storing the rest of the soup for later, cleaning up the three bowls… The last one with a definitive wary tone to his movements.

His focus ebbed, but he managed to feel a sudden weight on him, like something small, but far heavier than his doll, had crawled up on his lap and leaned its head against his chest. He reached up a hand to pet it, feeling static crawl up his hand and dance across his skin.

Time passed. Hours, minutes, days or years, he couldn’t tell. He fell asleep trying to place the texture he felt across his palm, and woke to the sting of cold landing on his nose.

His snout wrinkled and wiggled.

Another sting.

As he opened his eyes, scarf pulled down around his neck, he saw snow swirling above him, falling in the gaps in the pine tree canopy, flakes landing on his snout.

He stretched out his limbs and yawned, keeping his mouth open just a little longer than usual because the feeling of the snowflakes landing on his tongue, in between his sharp teeth, greatly amused him.

He did not feel cold at all, and a more industrious wiggle moved him into a position where he could understand why.

Like a very fragile package, or perhaps even like a baby (though he loathed to think of himself that way), he’d been wrapped up in thick, heavy furs from the tip of his nose, which now peeked out from under his blankets, to the tip of his tail, helpfully held between his forepaws so he wouldn’t take up much space… Wherever he was on.

He carefully rolled himself sideways and looked about him. Sin had been placed in the midst of a few other packages, all rather heavy and reinforced against wind, rain and dangers the young gear could only imagine their senders fearing. Below his fellow packages (*) there were some thick wood planks, treated equally against all manner of inclemencies, and a tilt of the neck allowed him to see some heavy, thick blades, meant for sliding across snow, attached underneath.

(*Someone had stuck a few stamps on his snout. Facing all evidence, he decided to consider himself mail for the time being)

Further investigation towards the back and the front revealed he was currently lying on some manner of tobogan caravan. A mail tobogan caravan. Pulled by…

“‘Allo, sar!”, greeted a heavily accented voice, muffled by what could only be a beard as dense as the Earth’s nucleus. “Hope the snow didn’t wake you up! If you’re cold, I have more blankets!”

Sin squinted his eyes to the mists flowing out of the tree line in all directions. He couldn’t exactly blame his temporary near-sightedness on this one, but he wouldn’t know it. He saw a blur moving in between the pines, approaching, but he eventually managed to make out a vaguely humanoid shape.

Once he did, the details became… Well, not clear, per say, but he could definitely tell this individual was somewhat primate-like, bipedal and plantigrade, covered in molasses-thick white fur from its huge head to its giant feet. The only breaks from the mass of fur were its face, with beady red eyes shining barely above a big, round nose and two massive tusks, as well as its big hands and massive feet. This creature - a gear, he could tell - was strangely familiar, but all that came up to his mind were blurry recollections. Nevertheless, it wore a heavy coat, reinforced against rain, sleet, hail, wind and whatever else the weather could throw at it, and a proudly polished badge of the Illyrian Mail Services.

“Sar?”

“Huh? Oh, I’m alright, thank you!”, Sin stretched once more, now taking care not to throw any of his companions overboard.

Looking around himself, he counted about six or seven different tobogans, all connected and all full of packages, attached to the sled by heavy rope and canvas coverings. Yet, there was no one else pulling them all along.

“I only stopped to have my lunch, sar”, the gear explained, presenting a half-full lunchbox. “Well, lunch… Still night… Not quite dinner, though! Are you any hungry, sar?”

Always wasn’t much of a proper response, which Sin had learned the hard way, so he just nodded and accepted a sandwich that made use of fruits, leaves and berries in a way only twee forest creatures from childrens’ books knew how.

“What’s all this you’re carrying? Where are all these packages going?”

The primate-looking gear’s chest swelled with professional pride, and it set a too-small hat on its head.

“I am the only long-distance courier for gear mail! Possibly, even, the only courier for gear mail ever!” A prideful huff. “And in any case, where human couriers dare not cross, I will! Through tundras and glaciers and plains and mountains. I can even make it across frozen lakes and rivers! No terrain can stop me from delivering the mail, sar!!”

It gestured towards its precious charge.

“So I get to carry all of the mail that the others don’t want to deliver.” It thought for a second, and then a spark of recollection crossed its face. “Ah, and I’m carrying you on behalf of my good good friend Donnie! She helps me whenever she crosses over these parts.”

Sin’s face lit up in equal recollection.

“So you’re that guy she knows!”

A proud nod.

“I owe her many favors, sar! So when she sent a message my way, and said, “our friend is a dragon who is travelling about, but he’ll be tired when he gets there. We pay for shipping, you just carry him along your route until he wants to go himself. He also wants to send something confidential, so we pay for that too”... Yes, that was the message! So when she said that, I thought, of course! It will be my sworn duty to keep him safe. You were asleep when I received you… You seemed so exhausted, I just bundled you up and carried on my route!”

Such was Sin’s power, though he never recognized it as such. He was amiable, loyal, high-spirited, made friends everywhere and had a charming face, whether human or dragon. If he got past the barrier most people held against gears, then he would most definitely get into their good graces as someone they wanted to do a favor for. No matter how much of a cranky lone wolf they were, the image of his jovial, darling expression stuck, etched as if on stone, and they would feel this strange compulsion to help him on his way. Like a puppy.

Whether he recognized his power or not, it came in handy. Especially when he did need help.

“Oh, that’s right! I do wanna send something!”

He turned to nose around his chest, where a heavily reinforced bag was attached by several straps going around his back. He had other bags, for things that others had given him while he travelled, but this one. This one was by far the most precious one of all, that he always kept close to himself and beneath him, safe from whatever could come to harm it. Peeking inside it, he sighed with relief, seeing the cushioned package looked perfectly intact.

“It’s kinda out of the way, though…”

“Don’t you worry! Donnie said extreme priority! Well, I owed her one anyway!” A chuckle. “I planned my route accordingly, taking into account a detour south. Though if it’s across the mediterranean” The gear wiped its forehead with its hand. “I’ll have to ask a comrade of mine to bring it across. They don’t let me on boats, see”

Sin shook his head, and carefully took the package from his bag, held between his forepaws. He looked at it for a moment - the several layers of wrapping and cushioning, the multitude of stamps, the cord that was like the cherry on top of the safety cake. She guaranteed him nothing would happen to it. That she trusted her courier friend above all, that it devoted its life to the safe delivery of all and any mail.

If it was to get there fast, safely, and without attracting any attention - this was the only option.

It had to get there. For his own peace of mind. He lifted his eyes, and caught the courier’s own, its hands stretched out to take the package.

“I will do everything I can to get it to its destination safe, sar” Said its muffled voice, so serious and solemn that Sin was taken aback. “I promise. I swear it upon my own life,” It brought a hand to its chest, “and upon my badge”

The way it spoke led one to believe the badge’s importance far outweighed its life. Sin, surprised, nodded a jittery nod, before carefully handing the package over. While still nervous, it relieved him to see the other gear holding it with more reverence and care than even he. Suddenly far more formal, the gear squinted and looked closely at the address written on the side.

“Right-o”, said the primate-looking gear, placing a thin pair of pince-nez reading glasses above its bulbous nose. “You’re sending this to Vialattea, hm?”

“Yeah.”

“Vialattea, then… To the” The mailgear halted, tongue locked against its upper teeth. “Grinding Gears?” It asked with a certain amount of effort.

“It’s a bar”

“Right-o”, it repeated, looking down at the package. Its tiny eyes looked over the upper arches of its glasses. “The Grinding Gears. You know this… You go there, sar?”

“Yeah?” Sin asked, ear ticking up in curiosity. He watched, put-off, as the mailgear looked him up and down. “What’s the problem, dude?”

“Nothing! Nothing, no, no problem at all. Just surprising they make bars nowadays that fit gears your size. Our size”, it spluttered, adjusting its glasses. “It’s 2280-something, nothing wrong about- anything-” It coughed. “I was in the Holy Order, you know, plenty of that there”.

A moment of silence.

“Plenty of… Bars? Wait- How the hell were you in the Holy Order?!”

The hairy gear grinned widely, fantastically relieved to be back in a topic it could talk about without worries. With great reverence, it wrapped the package in an additional layer of cushioning before storing it in its shoulder bag, ready to begin a most fantastical auto-biographical tirade.

“They thought” A poignant sniff filled with pride and nostalgia. “I was a baby bear”

A moment of silence passed. Sin stared open mouthed.

“They thought I was very cute” The mail-gear puffed its chest out with even more pride. “And signed me in as an official soldier. I helped carry things from place to place”

Another moment of silence. Sin slowly began to nod, hoping this would push the story along, but the other gear was far too absorbed into its own memories, eyes shut tight as it hummed old war songs to itself.

“Then, how-”

“Well when I was six I got my fangs, you see. Started walking upright.” It replied, flicking the large tusks that protruded from its bottom jaw. “I was a really, really late bloomer. In any case, hard to not catch on that I was a gear, then”

“But they… Let you stay because they loved you so much…?” Sin prompted, leaning his head closer.

“Oh, nono. They kicked me out, obviously” It laughed, shaking its large head. Seeing Sin’s sad expression, it approached to pat his shoulder. “Oh, they didn’t kill me, now did they! That’s the biggest love a knight of the Holy Order could show a gear, eh sar?”

Sin could think of an even stronger one, but thoughts of home and family only troubled him now. He tilted his head this way and that, unsure.

“They didn’t erase me from the records, anyway! Or just forgot. What matters-” It proudly displayed the official badge on its coat. “I count as a veteran of the Holy Order! That means the government had to help me find a job! They had to!”

It appeared to think for a second, before thumbing at its nose and sniffing disdainfully.

“Well, they tried to kill me at first, but I stuck a chair through the ceiling. That was convincing enough for them”

You couldn’t exactly say that this gear considered itself superior to all the others who had only gotten started on their lives as working citizens of this continent, or even that it resented them. Mostly, you could argue this gear found its way into a locked bus, and now that the doors were open, it would like to remind everyone that it entered before everyone else.

Did you know that? I was here before the doors were unlocked. I was here before the driver, even. Yes, that’s true. No, no, I don’t really need any special rewards, so to say, just - keep that in mind. Didn’t get here the easy way, did I- Not to say that your struggle for freedom was easy, no, but I mean in the way- well…

“I was assigned to the inter-Siberian mail! Can you believe it, sar? There had been no such couriers in the region since 2060! At least, not in any official capacity - that was how I met Donnie, after all!” The gear grinned wistfully. “They clearly just wanted to send me to the back of nowhere and let me die. Oh, but I persevered, sar! I delivered the mail no matter what!”

A self-contented little chuckle, characteristic of one who has shown up their bullies.

“And now I’m the only one the gears trust. And the only one those living in deserted places trust! Who wants a flimsy little human courier” The primate gear arched one fuzzy eyebrow, sticking a thumb in its chest. “When you can have this steadfast, all-terrain courier? They don’t like it alright, but they can’t do anything about it!”

It paced over to the start of the caravan and began attaching all manner of harnesses to itself, still boasting. Sin carefully left his blanket cocoon and followed after it, somewhat intrigued by the life this gear led.

“So I tell you, sar, I will get your package to the-” Its voice faltered momentarily, “to there, with no problems, post haste! I swear it in my honour!”

It proudly saluted, and Sin felt compelled to do the same, sitting back on his haunches with his back as straight as he could manage. Looking up at him, the strange gear’s eyes sparkled oddly, as if its already swelling pride had been reinvigorated by Sin’s acknowledgement.

The strange spell soon passed, the mail gear shaking its large head, confused at itself.

“I was about to set back on my way, sar. The snow up ahead is hard and frosty; I’m used to it, but I’d recommend you returning to the sled if you’d like to carry on”

Sin looked about him, at the cold pinewood forest. After so long of the deserted, white shores and hills of Svalbard, seeing any type of plant was already quite the view. And yet, he thought, yet on any other occasion I could see them from this angle, right?

A slight smile played at his mouth.

I can walk on the ground whenever I want. But to fly above them…

His smile grew giddier.

“Thank you for the lift! But I think I’ll go by myself from here, if that’s alright!”, Sin stretched out, his tail swinging circles in the air as he took in the movements of the magnetic currents about him. Somewhere between Norway and Sweden was a massive geomagnetic depression that sent him careening into a lake, and he’d learned to check before he set flight.

The courier took off its hat and waved him goodbye, watching him rise above the canopy in his particular way of flying, where he constantly yet slowly barrel-rolled to keep his magnetic poles switching enough to levitate him. Sin waved back at it with his tail, vanishing into a cloud… And giggling as droplets clung to his whiskers. He could never tire of this.

“I wish you good luck in your travels, sar!! Wherever you’re going” It set the hat back on its head, before trudging on, becoming just a vague blur amidst the snow once more. “I hope you find what you seek!”

Unbeknown to it, a minuscule, humming-bird like creature flew down and followed in its path, hiding among the branches.

==

Against the crash of the waves of the night, creaked the turns of the device before them.

It oscillated between two points, slowly, staying in one for a few seconds before swinging back to the other. The moonlight shone greasy off of its metallic parts, glowing off of Izuna’s white fur as he bent forward to read the angles it marked. The yokai made hand signals towards the moon, then the horizon, his brow wrinkled as he muttered under his breath.

Neither of the gears questioned his ability to calculate distances and locations; Izuna was easy going and laid back, yes, but he was far, far older than anyone else alive today. Yokai tended to be. Some people wondered why Paradigm got along so well with the mirthful fox, and the doctor wondered if these people ever listened to the man.

His black eyes peered from behind a curtain of white hair, before pointing towards the horizon.

“That one over there would be… Roughly Vialattea, I’d wager. If Dottie called us, we can probably guess that’s Queenie, right?”

The three observed as the device slowly creaked to its second position.

“So that one would be…” Dr. Paradigm combed his beard, brows pressed together.

Izuna rubbed his hands together with great satisfaction.

“Oh, goodie! We finally figured out where that rascal got to!” He raised his hands in the triumphant relief of a man who had to act as an argument dampener for weeks. “I can just pop on over and teleport him back no problemo! I, er, think… Doc, how big was he again? …Doc?”

Dr. Paradigm was muttering to himself, antenna twitching as he worried his beard. It was Offspring who scoffed and voiced the Doctor’s thoughts for him.

“And you’d get et or bit in half” The gear sneered, pointing a wrench towards the very spot. “A lil’ cog he may be, but was keepin’ everyone out for a damn reason. You think an old Yokai draggin’ him back by the ears is gonna go peachy?” They continued packing their tools in their mecha with rather more force than necessary for the task. “Told you. Her flesh an’ blood”

Izuna stood up from his position, kneeling on the roof of Paradigm’s cabin. His arms crossed, his expression was one of pity and frustration. He rubbed at his temple before stepping in to defend the young man his old friend seemed so keen on hating - for reasons he could hazard as to why, but couldn’t possibly accept.

“Come on, now, you hardly even know the kid! I… Can’t say he’d never hurt a fly,” Izuna awkwardly scratched behind his ear, tail twitching. “But he wouldn’t mean to, and he’d give the poor thing a funeral!”

“Ooh, that makes it alright, then, does it?”

“He’s a really sweet kid, Springy, it’s just been rough-”

“What’s it matter what he’s like?” The old gear rolled themself over the side of their mecha, landing inside it with their feet crossed over the dashboard and arms crossed over their chest. “He might not even be himself, over there. Ain’t that right, Dimmy?”

Izuna’s eyes widened, in the way of the fox that suddenly finds the barrel of a shotgun two centimeters away from its whiskers. His fur ruffled in waves of shivers as he slowly turned towards Paradigm, whose whispering had only grown more troubled.

He didn’t tell them his entire theory. It was just scattered thoughts, after all. It would remiss of him to fill their heads with his own worries and anxieties. It was just a possibility, in the end, and he didn’t need to grant it as much suspicion or mental power as he did.

But it was a possibility.

His stare caught Izuna’s out of the corner of his eye, and he couldn’t snatch it back.

“Doc… You said-”

“I said it was unlikely. I didn’t-” Dr. Paradigm breathed in deeply. His feathers ruffled in equal measure. “I was considering it for the sake of taking in account all options. There’s no evidence that theory was right”

But there was, wasn’t there? Izuna stared at the tile below him.

“Is that even how it works? It can’t be, right? I mean-” Izuna began, his words fading out as he looked from Paradigm, who shook his head to signal his ignorance, to Offspring, who shrugged tersely to signal this wasn’t its problem anymore.

Izuna saw he wasn’t being considered in the conversation any longer. Though neither spoke a word, both gears’ glares had caught on one another, and the argument continued without any words being spoken.

“I told you it was a bad idea”, said Offspring, and Izuna knew it wasn’t referring to the JPS device, or them being on the roof, or locating Sin, or Sin whatsoever.

This was an argument so old and over discussed that it had been eroded to the perfectly mobile shape of a sphere. It rolled on its own.

You vex me, you old fool. Would you rather I left the young man to wither without trying everything I could?

But it began even farther back. The sphere just picked up debris as it went.

Your mind wanders, an’ you keep wandering. Ya keep getting distracted by problems that aren’t ours instead of watching over your own.

He’s a gear.

He’s mostly human, you idiot. If he’s a gear, he’s Her. You brought her back to us! On a silver platter!

Argh, you- You continue getting caught in a past that we could’ve left behind years ago! She’s dead! She can never return-

There was a derisive little glance at the creaking device. Dr. Paradigm flinched like he had just taken a blow.

An’ you keep getting your head stuck in the clouds, dreaming of futures that CAN’T be ours, Paradigm. Going off to lick the boots of some stupid humans and beg them not ta kill us! Like that’s gonna work!

You scorn me for trying to give our kind freedom?! For aiming for a future better than- Than self-inflicted exile?

That stupid Ky Kiske put ideas in your head! He’s leading you and everyone there by the nose! For Pete’s sakes, Paradigm, he was a knight! What do you think he’s gonna do with all of you!

You doubt my judgment that bad-

Yes! Yes I do, damn you! Because some shit is gonna happen, and I’m gonna have to watch you get killed and turned into skins and trophies like everyone else, and there’s just gonna be me left.

Both gears had their teeth gritted, claws curling over the edge of the vehicle and the book, respectively.

…And you’re an idiot, but you’re the leader. I’m just the caretaker. You may make some damn stupid decisions, but you’re the one they listen to. You’re the one who knows magic. You’re the one they want to follow. You said it yourself. I’m too stuck in the past to move forward. I ain’t got the spine to lead. Paradox is too clever, too focused. She ain’t got the bleeding heart you need ta lead. We needed you here, Paradigm.

I am here. I returned.

No. You didn’t.

Before the Doctor could get a shift of his brow in, Offspring’s vehicle turned around and crawled down the side of the cabin, clunking, creaking and dragging itself back into the depths of the island, vanishing into the dark glow of white stone.

Dr. Paradigm stared after it, hands clenched around the edge of his book. His eyes followed the faded words in the back (The Miracle (Mk. II)). As usual, his heart was a raging maelstrom of emotions. He had so many counter-arguments prepared for this occasion. He trained them near every day since he had left.

When it came down to it…

Ashamed, he looked back towards Izuna, who was once more looking over the angle measurement of the device. His ears twitched as his dark eyes scanned the edge of the waters.

“He’s moving due south, I think” The yokai commented, barely above a whisper. The argument appeared to have drained all his energy as well, despite him not hearing it. “...Y’know where he’s heading?”

Dr. Paradigm narrowed his eyes. Trouble never came alone. He nodded to himself.

“From your tone, I can guess.”

The waves crashed on against white stone. The device creaked still. Above, spread the infinity of dark blue skies, speckled with stars that could have never been seen from anywhere that humans had reached. Galaxies spun away above them, almost reflected in the churn of the black waves that surrounded them in all directions.

They had once been home to him, all that he saw. Now perched atop his own roof, his eyes could only focus on this little point marked by this reanimated relic, forcibly dragged out of retirement by circumstance, a little point beyond the edge of his sight.

Izuna leaned against his chimney, scratching his side before thumbing at his nose.

“Well, if there’s anyone who can deal with him, it will be her, right?

The Doctor didn’t answer him, hands together behind his back. His snout was tilted slightly upwards. Izuna followed his line of sight, and saw rags of moonlight reflecting across a familiar shape.

“Hey, that’s the last one, ain’t it? Maybe she’ll have some news, Doc!” Izuna suggested, though his own voice betrayed his thoughts.

Without any further words, Dr. Paradigm descended from the roof, and headed down the path to the docks. Izuna headed back inside his cabin, deciding the old gear probably didn’t need his support as a joyful chatterbox at the moment.

When he reached the shore, he saw a few gears already awaiting there. Closer friends of Sin, some, others proud of their role as those who helped Bonebiters settle down after long flights, some few others who just couldn’t sleep. It could hardly be called a crowd rather than a handful of weary gears, but they all looked towards the same spot in the night sky.

Dr. Paradigm frowned as the blinking lights and luminescent patterns of the final Bonebiter scout to return landed on the white stones of the shore, and slowly and gently floated over. A shake of the great dragon’s head was all he needed to know.

“I WENT AS FAR AS THE OTHER EDGE OF THE MAINLAND. COULDN’T FIND HIM. CAUGHT HIS SCENT A FEW TIMES, BUT JUST AS SOON LOST IT”, the gear reported, laying down so the Geroppa on service could climb over her and detach the braces meant for long-distance flight. A few were already approaching with mops. “I CAN TRY TO GO BACK OUT”

“Leave it for now”, sighed Paradigm, raising a hand to stop her. “It wouldn’t do to have you get hurt over this. He’s a resistant young gear, wherever he is…” A second’s hesitation. “I am sure he is there because he wants to be. We have more time.”

The Doctor turned around, worrying his beard between his claws and worrying his mind with what to do next. Sin was… Reckless, as was fairly obvious to anyone who knew him longer than five minutes, but he was remarkably tough. It was a complicated time for him, it was, to have such a sudden change of body, and nothing would do him better than some time away from everyone. Perhaps it would even delay the consequences that Paradigm calculated would eventually occur.

Yes, Paradigm wasn’t particularly worried about him. He was not. Certainly. Nothing could command him but himself. Stood to reason.

If it came down to it… She could handle him. At least that, he trusted her to do.

“Last flier just came in?”, asked Izuna as he returned to his office, reclining on one of the armchairs. Paradigm nodded, not looking at him. “From that grim expression, I’ll assume we, er, have no more news from our guest”

The dragon grumbled to himself, pretending to organize a few documents that had already been organized, all to avoid doing the one thing he’d rather not do at all. Izuna rocked back and forth on his chair, looking at the ceiling, the flickering light, the insects buzzing about, who had entered through the hastily covered former window (how long would it take to get some more glass from the mainland?), the collection of parchment covering the floor, the books and scrolls occupying the variety of bookcases, the other chairs, down to the rugs, anywhere but the grumbling doctor. Eventually, he coughed into his hand, awkwardly.

“So uh, figure we swallow our pride and tell the Royal Duet we lost their lad?”

“If you so insist, Izuna, you can do the honors.”, swiftly replied Paradigm, spotting the opening he was waiting for.

“Yeah, s- Hey, wait, wha?!”