Chapter Text
No one would have believed in the latters years of the century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own, being scrutinised and studied like a man studies the bugs crawling beneath his feet,
That as men busied themselves with their daily routines—commuting, parenting, working—across oceans of space, minds immeasurably more advanced than ours regarded Earth with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, drew their plans against us.
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Every day in Marley was a countdown, one day closer to the moment he might finally see Annie again. But no amount of counting could have prepared him for what was to come.
The scent of burnt toast and yesterday's tea lingered in the small apartment, a bitter perfume that clung to the walls. Leonhart sat slumped on his low bed, a damp tea cloth bunched in his hands, worrying at it with the same restless energy he carried through every morning. His cane leaned against the frame, a patient reminder of the limp that followed him wherever he went.
It was late — close to eleven — but the day had already stretched thin, heavy with the same emptiness that filled all his mornings since the banners of victory had gone up. Two weeks since the war in the East had ended. Two weeks since Liberio had filled with parades, cheers, and the hollow promises of a brighter future. For the world, maybe. For him, for Annie, for the people in this zone? He wasn't so sure.
He rubbed at his knuckles, the calluses rough under his thumb. They were badges of labor, but also of guilt. He had spent years molding Annie into a weapon, teaching her that strength was the only shield against cruelty. But what had it cost? He had forged her into something useful for Marley, yes. But what about for herself? For him? The question nagged him more with each passing day.
He pushed himself upright, wincing as his leg protested, and reached for the cane. The limp was a phantom reminder of Annie's strength, of her destructive youth, of the cycle he had forced her into. He didn't even know if she was alive out there — only that if she was, she was fighting battles that should never have been hers. He told himself he was a father, a trainer, a survivor. But survival felt more like compromise than victory.
The apartment was cramped, a box stacked on boxes, its walls yellowed from years of smoke and damp. He shuffled through it with the practiced efficiency of habit: folded the bedding, refilled the tin kettle, swept the floor with a broom that had lost half its bristles. He moved slowly, but he moved — motion kept the silence at bay.
The cane tapped against the wood with each step. He gathered laundry into a basket, patched an old shirt by the window, and checked the small ledger where he kept track of ration stamps. Two left for bread, one for lamp oil, none for tea. Tomorrow, maybe, he would barter.
And so, chores. Chores and silence, and the faint hope that routine itself could be a shield. He hauled out the basin, scrubbed at the dishes until his back ached, then set them carefully to dry. He lit the stove again, not for food — there wasn't enough to spare — but to boil water for washing. Even when nothing needed cleaning, he found something. Idle hands bred thoughts, and thoughts were heavier than buckets of water.
At the door, he paused, hand on the handle, drawing in a shuddering breath before pulling it open. Fresh air rushed in, carrying the muted hum of a city half-awake: clatter from the market, shouts of children, the metallic clink of boots on cobblestones as Marleyan guards made their rounds.
He lingered there a moment, letting his eyes drift across the street. A father stooped to help his daughter after she tripped, brushing dust from her scraped knee. Leonhart's chest tightened. Such a simple thing, and yet it struck deeper than it should have. He thought of Annie again — not the hardened soldier she had become, but the little girl who once asked him if she could keep a stray cat. He'd told her no, that softness had no place in this world.
The question stung, same as always. And so he tightened his grip on the cane, as if bracing himself against memories. He was too old for what-ifs. Too tired.
And yet, as the faint wind carried the smell of rust and a strange shimmer bled across the horizon, he found himself hesitating longer than he meant to.
Leonhart locked the door behind him and adjusted the strap of the canvas satchel hanging across his shoulder. The cane's tip tapped against the wooden step as he descended carefully, wincing at the familiar protest of his leg. It was a dull ache today, nothing sharp, nothing new. He had learned to treat it like the weather — some days fair, some days stormy, and nothing to be done but endure.
The street stretched before him, narrow and cracked, lined with sagging houses that leaned into one another like tired drunks. Laundry hung from balconies, gray and stiff in the cold wind. Children darted between puddles, their shouts subdued, never too loud. Eldians learned early not to draw attention, even in their own zone.
Leonhart adjusted his red armband where it slipped down his sleeve. The cloth was frayed at the edges, the dye fading to rust. Supposedly it set him apart — honorary Marleyan, permitted certain freedoms — but as he passed a row of neighbors on their steps, he caught the sideways looks. For them, it wasn't a badge of privilege. It was betrayal stitched in red.
He ignored it, as he always did. Respect was a luxury he could not afford.
At the corner, the market stalls clattered awake, wooden shutters banging open, crates of wilted produce set out as though they had anything fresh to offer. Leonhart's cane clicked against the cobblestones as he moved slowly between them. The smell of stale bread and salted fish clung to the air, undercut by the sharper tang of coal smoke drifting from the district's furnaces.
He stopped at a fruit-seller's stand — a stout man with thinning hair, his hands blackened with dirt. A small pyramid of bruised apples sat in a basket, each one marked with soft brown spots.
"Two ration stamps," the man said, not bothering with pleasantries.
Leonhart picked up an apple, turned it in his palm. The skin yielded slightly under his thumb. "One and a half," he countered. "They'll rot by tomorrow."
The seller squinted at him. "Maybe so. But you still need to eat, don't you?" His eyes flicked down to the armband, then away again. "Two."
Leonhart held his stare a moment longer before setting the apple back down. "Then they'll rot on your table instead of in my basket." He moved on, cane striking the stones with steady rhythm.
The next stall belonged to a wiry woman with a gap-toothed smile who sold scraps of cloth and buttons. She greeted him with a nod, her eyes softening just a little. Leonhart paused, thumb brushing the strap of his satchel. Annie's old shirt — patched once, twice already — could use another mend. But stamps were low, and cloth was a luxury. He offered a polite nod in return and walked on.
Children played at the edge of the market square, kicking a tin can between them. The clatter echoed off the walls, a sound both cheerful and hollow. Leonhart stopped to watch as one boy stumbled and skinned his knee. The others laughed, though not cruelly. The boy pushed himself up, brushing grit from his skin, face set with stubborn pride.
Leonhart's chest tightened. For an instant, Annie's face flashed over the boy's — her jaw clenched in the same way, her eyes sharp, refusing to cry even when blood welled at her lip after a hard fall during training. He had told her then that pain was just weakness leaving the body. Now, years later, the words tasted bitter in his memory.
A shout cut through his thoughts. "Armbands visible!"
Two Marleyan guards strolled into the square, rifles slung casually over their shoulders. Their boots rang against the cobbles, polished to a shine that seemed obscene in this place of patched coats and crumbling homes. Everyone in the market shifted, instinctively tugging sleeves higher, baring the colored bands stitched to their arms.
Leonhart did the same, though his was already visible. The younger guard's eyes swept over him, lingered on the red cloth, then narrowed. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Honorary," he said to his companion, spitting the word as though it were sour. The older guard chuckled.
Leonhart met neither of their gazes. He had learned long ago that defiance — even in the form of eye contact — was a spark better left unlit. He kept his head lowered, cane steady, moving on as though he hadn't heard.
Behind him, laughter trailed the guards' voices. He pushed it aside, let it slide off like rain.
Near the edge of the market, he stopped at a small fountain where the stone had cracked with age. A young mother knelt there, filling a tin pail with water while her daughter clutched at her skirt. The child stared at Leonhart openly, wide-eyed, her small hand tugging at the fabric of her mother's dress.
The mother glanced up, offered him a weary smile. "Good morning, Mr. Leonhart."
He hesitated, then inclined his head. "Morning." His voice was gruff from disuse.
The little girl piped up. "Mama, is he a soldier?"
The mother hushed her quickly, embarrassment coloring her cheeks. Leonhart's lips twitched, not quite a smile. "Not anymore," he said softly. He tapped his cane once against the stones. "This is the only marching I do these days."
The girl giggled, and the sound startled something in him — a fragile warmth, quickly smothered. He turned away before it could linger, resuming his walk.
As he left the square, the zone's streets narrowed again, hemmed in by leaning buildings and crooked fences. He passed old men smoking on stoops, women hanging laundry, children chasing each other through alleys. Life went on, as it always did, muted and cautious. But beneath it all ran a current of exhaustion, a collective weariness that seeped into every gesture, every glance.
Leonhart felt it too. It weighed on his shoulders, pressed behind his eyes. Yet he kept moving, cane tapping, as though routine alone could hold the world together.
At the far end of the street, where the walls of the internment zone loomed high and gray, he stopped. Beyond them lay the city proper, glittering with banners and fresh-painted facades. Marley's victory, bought with Eldian blood. He had stood at that gate once, papers in hand, the guards waving him through on the strength of Annie's service. An "honorary." Trusted enough to cross the threshold, but never truly free of the brand.
Now, he no longer bothered. The city had nothing for him. His life was here, among cracked stones and weary faces, among those who remembered what he had given to Marley and judged him for it.
Leonhart exhaled slowly, shoulders sagging. He turned back toward home. The market's clamor drifted behind him, and the sky overhead shimmered faintly, a sheen he told himself he did not see.
That was when the ground shivered. Subtle, like a carriage rolling by, but deep enough to ripple through the soles of his boots. His head snapped up. The sky wasn't storm-dark, not exactly — it carried an odd, oily sheen, as though sunlight were sliding over glass instead of air.
"Well, that's pretty odd," a voice muttered beside him.
Leonhart turned. A man in a dusty work vest and heavy boots had stopped on the path, craning his thick neck toward the horizon. His beard was a wiry mop streaked with gray, and his voice carried the rasp of a lifelong smoker. Leonhart vaguely recalled his name — Horst, a construction worker from the next block over.
"What do you mean?" Leonhart asked, frowning at the sky.
"The winds," Horst said, squinting. "They're pulling toward it. See that?" He gestured at the clouds, at how scraps of dust and paper in the street fluttered unnaturally in one direction. "Storm winds push out. Always out. But this... this is sucking everything in."
Leonhart followed the motion. He didn't want to admit it, but the man was right. The air had grown heavy, a low whine threading through it, faint but unsettling. It wasn't the roar of a normal storm. It was thinner, higher, as though something unseen was drawing breath.
The back of Leonhart's neck prickled.
"Military testing," he said, almost too quickly. It was easier to blame Marley. Marley had always been responsible for the unexplainable.
But as he said it, the ground quivered again, deeper this time. Not an earthquake. Not quite. It was a vibration, as though something beneath the earth had shifted.
Across the street, the little girl pointed at the sky, eyes wide, finger trembling. Her father frowned and followed her gaze.
The smell hit next — sharp, metallic, like ozone and rust. It mingled with the usual city smells until it overpowered them, until it was all Leonhart could taste on his tongue.
Horst stepped back, rubbing his beard with a hand that wasn't steady. "I've seen storms that split trees in half. But the air doesn't sing like this."
Leonhart clenched his cane tighter. He wanted to tell the man he was imagining things. He wanted to believe it himself. But the truth pressed in from every direction — in the wind's pull, in the humming ground, in the way children had stopped laughing and grown silent as they looked up.
For the first time in a long while, Leonhart caught himself thinking of Annie — not as a weapon, not as the hardened warrior she had been forced to become, but as a child. He remembered her chasing stray cats in the alley, hair tangled, eyes sharp even then. He wondered what she would say if she saw a sky like this. She'd probably scoff, call it boring, insist there was nothing to worry about. She had never been afraid of storms.
He exhaled slowly, shaking his head. It was foolish to dwell on such things. Annie was gone, swallowed up by Marley's wars and Marley's secrets, far beyond the reach of a father's clumsy wishes.
The oily shimmer above pressed at his thoughts, but he forced himself to push it away. Maybe it was some military experiment, maybe a trick of the light, maybe nothing at all. Marley loved its secrets. Ordinary people like him weren't meant to understand them.
Still, as the breeze thickened with the tang of rust and dust swirled at his feet, Leonhart felt a peculiar weight settle in his chest. Not fear, exactly. More like a stone lodged between his ribs — an unease he couldn't quite name.
Leonhart's cane tapped steadily against the cobblestones as he made his way through the narrow lanes of the internment zone, the weight of his basket pulling at his arm. Inside, wrapped carefully in paper, were two bruised apples, half a loaf of hard bread, and a handful of turnips that smelled faintly of damp soil. Nothing more than rations stretched thin, but enough to keep for supper and tomorrow's breakfast.
The market was thinning out now. Evening drew shadows long across the alleys, and stalls were closing one by one as Eldians shuffled back toward their cramped apartments. A Marleyan officer on the corner barked an order to hurry along. Curfew wasn't for hours yet, but no one lingered once the sun dipped lower. Best not to be caught where you didn't belong.
Leonhart adjusted his grip on the cane and nodded stiffly to a neighbor who passed in the opposite direction, a woman balancing a basket of laundry against her hip. She gave him a polite smile but didn't slow to talk. Few people did. To some, he was a collaborator, the man who had handed his daughter to Marley. To others, he was simply another tired face behind an armband. Either way, words stuck in the throat when shame hung so thick in the air.
Still, there were small kindnesses here. A child tugged at his mother's sleeve, whispering something before darting over. She held out a wilted flower — more stem than bloom — and shoved it into Leonhart's hand before running back, cheeks red. He stared down at it, awkward, unsure what to do. He tucked it into his basket with the bread. Annie had once picked him dandelions like that, fists full of weeds, declaring them "treasures." He swallowed hard and pressed on.
As he walked, he noticed the hush settling over the zone. Normally, even near dusk, the market still echoed with chatter and children's laughter spilling from doorways. But now the sounds thinned, stretched into silence broken only by the occasional clatter of shutters being pulled closed. A strange tension rode the air. He told himself it was just the guards, just people wary of the curfew.
Yet something else gnawed at him. The breeze had shifted, pulling sharply toward the western horizon. Scraps of paper skittered along the street, not outward with the wind but in strange, spiraling drifts that seemed drawn to a point unseen. The scent that rode the current made him pause — metallic, sharp, like rusted iron.
He stopped near the square where Horst, the construction worker, was packing away tools with two others. Horst caught Leonhart's eye and nodded toward the sky. "You notice that?"
Leonhart followed his gaze. The clouds had gathered low and heavy, smeared with a sheen that wasn't quite the color of storm. Too glossy, like oil on water, shifting faintly as the light hit them.
"It's just weather," Leonhart said, though the words felt brittle in his mouth.
Horst grunted, skeptical. "Storms don't pull like that. Wind's all wrong. My granddad used to say you could smell a storm before you see it. I've smelled lightning, rain, hail. But this?" He shook his head, spitting into the dirt. "This isn't right."
Leonhart wanted to argue, to shut him out, but the hairs on his arms prickled. The ground gave a faint tremor underfoot, so light he might have mistaken it for imagination if not for the way Horst paused, frowning at his boots.
A dog somewhere down the lane began barking, sharp and relentless, until a voice cursed and dragged it indoors.
Leonhart tightened his grip on his cane and turned away. The basket's weight grew heavier as he climbed the last stretch toward his building, each step a negotiation between his bad leg and his stubborn will. By the time he reached the stoop, his back ached, and sweat dampened his collar despite the cooling air.
He paused with his hand on the doorframe, glancing once more at the sky. A strip of fading sunlight fought against the encroaching shimmer, streaking gold through the murk. For a moment, the world seemed balanced between the ordinary and the unfamiliar, caught in a breathless pause.
Inside, the apartment greeted him with its cramped stillness. He set the basket on the table, unwrapped the bread, and tore a piece for himself. He chewed slowly, the crust scraping the roof of his mouth. Supper without tea felt incomplete, but the last leaves had gone dry and bitter days ago. He'd have to barter, though he had little left to trade.
He ate in silence, then set the apples carefully aside. One he would save for tomorrow. The other... maybe he'd slice tonight, savor it slowly.
The flower from the child lay crooked on the table, already wilting. He stared at it for a long while before moving it to a chipped cup, filling the bottom with water. It wouldn't last, but at least it deserved better than to wither in his basket.
The room darkened as the light outside faded. Leonhart dragged the chair to the window and sat heavily, cane propped beside him. From here, he could see across the narrow street, rooftops stacked in uneven rows, laundry lines sagging under the weight of damp clothes. And above it all, that sky.
The oily shimmer stretched wider now, faint pulses running through it like ripples on a pond. Every so often, a thin whistle rose with the wind, high and keening, almost too faint to hear. He rubbed his temple, telling himself it was nothing — just the city, just his nerves.
Across the way, the little girl who had given him the flower earlier stood on her balcony, clutching her father's hand as she pointed upward. Leonhart followed her gaze. A scrap of newspaper lifted from the street, twisting higher and higher until it vanished into the gleam above.
His stomach turned.
He leaned back, cane tapping once against the floorboards as if to steady the world. "It's just a storm," he muttered, the words more prayer than belief. He had seen storms that split rooftops and flooded cellars. They came, they passed, life went on. This one would too.
Yet he didn't move from the chair. His bread sat half-eaten on the plate, forgotten. The flower bobbed weakly in its cup. Outside, the wind pulled sharper, and shutters creaked as neighbors closed themselves away.
Leonhart stayed at the window, eyes fixed on the horizon, watching as the evening deepened into something strange. He told himself not to think too hard, not to chase shadows. But the weight in his chest only grew heavier, a stone lodged between his ribs.
And still, he whispered the lie he needed most:
"It's just a storm."