Chapter Text
Appriesse
[n] the feeling of loss that you never had a chance to meet a certain person before they died, which compels you to try to get to know them anyway.
Appraisal
[n] the act of estimating or judging the nature or value of something or someone.
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~ Saoirse ~
(Twenty hours before Qi’s experiment)
That night, Saoirse attempts to fall asleep with her hand resting on her bandaged forearm. She tries to recall precisely how the desert flower looked. She couldn’t have forgotten already, right?
Failing that, Saoirse wanted to trace the compass rose with her fingers again, but the teleporter bracelet sat snugly over it. Saoirse frowns at the Relic. The teleporter bracelet has been acting slightly odd over the past six hours. Ever since she agreed to join Qi’s experiment.
A faint, blue glow emanates from the teleporter bracelet. Saoirse can sense a mild vibration on her skin before it suddenly cuts out. Saoirse chews on her cheek. A superstitious person would think the teleporter bracelet was listening in on her discussion with Qi.
Well, maybe not the teleporter bracelet per se, but what about the All-Source? Can’t it listen in through pieces of technology? That’s how the researchers theorized it used to work. Saoirse dismisses the thought as soon as it enters her brain. She does not need to start becoming paranoid. She forces herself to relax and allow sleep to come.
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(Sixteen hours before Qi’s experiment)
Saoirse’s dreams are usually a muddle of colors and shapes—messy watercolors of her life before the Church. Not tonight, though. Tonight is different.
So Saoirse awakens lying on gray blood-speckled mountain gravel. She can feel it through the fabric of her yellow tunic. Wincing, Saoirse blinks away the fuzziness in her eyes and sits up.
A mountain breeze ghosts along her cheek, bringing the scent of fallen snow. Saoirse looks over the dreamscape and sighs, lips pressed tight. Wonderful. Old World aftereffects from the Relic. She should've known.
Saoirse stares out over the edge of the snowy cliff that lies a few feet in front of her, and sees the red, broken rope trailing off the edge. She grimaces. The scenery has a vague familiarity. Almost as if Saoirse was piecing it together like a jigsaw puzzle.
. . Wasn’t there someone hiding below the cliff? Saoirse tilts her head. She has a feeling in her gut. Yet Saoirse doesn’t know why she’s suddenly so sure. Before she lingers on it, though, her eyes snap to movement off toward the side.
A Yakboy is standing next to the cliff’s edge, a desert half-cape covering one leather-padded shoulder. His left hand is on his hip, touching a holstered revolver. A white bandana covers the lower half of his tanned, freckled face. He’s staring down at the bottom of the cliff, as if gazing upon someone below.
Saoirse blinks as she pulls herself to her feet. I’ve never seen him before, she thinks. Who is he? And why is he in my memory? Saoirse gazes at the Yakboy, noting the bandana around his face. She narrows her eyes, recalling a particular wanted poster that had been broadcast in Atara’s newspapers. Aren’t you the Sand bandit who kidnapped Minister Matilda?
Such an event had made news among the Church’s circles. Even all the way back in Barnarock, Saoirse had heard of it. At first, she’d been in cold disbelief. Minister Matilda, managing to grow trees out of barren sands, only to be kidnapped at the height of her triumph. Surely she would have fought to the death?
Saoirse swears a tiger like her wouldn’t just lie down and surrender. . .
She takes a step forward. The sound of her movement catches the Yakboy’s attention, and he sifts toward her, brow creased in puzzlement. His eyes were a startling shade of blue. The teleporter bracelet hums loudly, a faint blue glow blooming from the metal. Saoirse can feel the vibration in her teeth. She tenses, bracing against the ground.
The world around her appears to flicker like an old projection on a film roll. Before Saoirse can react, her vision blurs to a wet smear of colors—paint rushing together into a mess. Above Saoirse’s head, a voice speaks.
[{ “OKAY . . . I CAN WORK WITH THIS.” }]
Something unspeakably cold slithers into Saoirse’s stomach. There was a quality to that voice—an inhumane reverberation.
Is that what I think it is? Saoirse thinks. The All-Source? Her palms grow slick with sweat. An Enforcer she might be, but Saoirse is not immune to the horrors of the Old World.
[{ “CAN YOU SPEAK MY NAME ?” }]
Suspicion forms in Saoirse’s gut. Why? She does not like how this thing was able to seamlessly reach into her mess of a brain and bring forth this unclouded memory.
[{ “oh—DON’T BE AFRAID. I WANT TO HELP.” }]
Help? Saoirse thinks, scoffing. You call this helping? No, forget this! You didn't even ask before forcing your way into my head like this!
Saoirse balls her fists, her thoughts turning into a mental scream. GET OUT!
. . .
A black stillness comes upon Saoirse’s surroundings. She is strangely reminded of someone unplugging a cord, forcing a computer screen to go dark. Her awareness dissolves like a pill on a tongue.
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~ Pen ~
Pen sits at the edge of a metal bridge and dangles bare legs into the glowing canal water. Keeping his eyes closed, Pen feels the trickle of polluted rainfall on his bare face.
Ah, nothing like a refreshing rain shower to brighten your day. Pen thinks, smiling to himself. He’d make a quip about the glowing water, but no one is here to listen.
Before the experiments, he had to wear an oxygen mask in Duvos streets. Now. . . Now he can drink in the sensation of his legs in moving water. Feel the air on his cheeks. A childhood fantasy he only found in Old World comic books his Mamá scrounged up. One he hadn’t been able to abandon. And here Pen is, living it out. How exhilarating.
(Isn’t the air supposed to be cold? Shouldn’t I be shivering from this?)
Pen opens his eyes. Duvos’s yellow-green rainfall greets him. Pen flexes his wrist, watching the black glove stretch with the movement. He even has an Old World glove relic now—one of the only good things he took with him out of that Baja hellscape.
Pen flexes his hand again. The first time he shot a purple laser with it, he could feel power in his very soul. Pen-ultimate destruction, baby! It seriously can’t get any better than this.
Yet a thought worms itself in. I wonder what snow feels like? Pen smirks, though the expression is forced. He just can’t be satisfied, huh? Just gotta keep taking and taking.
Be happy with what you have, my dear, Tiger always says, touching his elbow with a wrinkled hand. The Emperor gives and he takes away.
Pen scoffs. Happy with what I have, Ol’ lady Matilda? he thinks . . but I don’t have my soulmark. Not yet. How can I be satisfied?
Pen grimaces, his eyes catching on a neon-bright advertisement across the canal’s waters. It is his face. The Protector, known wide and far. One of the only people in the entire Empire whose naked features are immediately recognizable to the masses.
[]- The Emperor has yet to bestow you with your soulmark? Never fear! The Protector is here to keep you safe! -[]
Pen's eyes stare holes into the neon advertisement. He's almost sneering at it. He should be thankful, really.
Pen has been in the spotlight since he was a newly Knighted teenager, and it’s been non-stop adoration and offerings. Everyone loves him. ( right? )
(. . . Am I sure they aren’t just laughing at me?)
Pen’s black gloved hand clenches into a tight fist. The glove relic senses the motion, waiting for his command to go into laser mode. Tempting thought. Really damn tempting. But no, Matilda would be pissed. And he hates dealing with her when she’s angry.
Pen grimaces and glances at the grated sewer entrance, which feeds the sector’s canal. The air tastes faintly of copper. Doesn’t matter. Not one bit. I’ll chug thousands of those milkshake pouches to feel the rain on my face, Pen thinks. Yet the bitterness lingers on his tongue.
Pen pauses, blinking. Wait, what? Is that Logan’s reflection in the canal water? He quickly glances up, heart in his mouth. There is no damn way-.
Logan stands above Pen on top of a leaking sewer pipe, his head turned over his shoulder. He is looking at someone on the sewer pipe with him. Who could that be?
A strange feeling settles over Pen’s shoulders. Logan is dead. He can’t be here. And Pen never could take Burgy boy seriously with his ranting about Sandrock being haunted by ghosts.
So then, is he dreaming? (I don’t drea-)
Stop it, Pen snarls wordlessly, cutting that thought in its tracks. Clearly, he does now. But if this is a dream, does that mean-?
Pen turns away from Logan’s figure and glances down at his wrist, apprehension heavy on his tongue. Just the regular glove relic he’s always worn. (what you used to blow up that temple wall and kill Logan’s Pa) Nothing wrong here.
The annoying voice speaks up again. Are you sure? It asks. A moment passes. Pen scoffs. Since when has he gotten so cowardly?
As if to dismiss the feeling, Pen rips off the relic. He tenses upon seeing the purple compass rose on his skin. So now he’s not only dreaming, but this totally-not real soulmark is a part of it. Great, just great. Briefly, Pen gets an odd feeling that something (someone) is trying to get his attention.
. . .
But Pen shuts it out completely, his eyes focusing on the soulmark. ( a soulmark, Mamá, I earned a soulmark, aren’t you proud of your hero? )
He isn’t sure if he is relieved or displeased when his surroundings melt away.
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~ Saoirse ~
(Six hours before Qi’s experiment)
Saoirse jolts upright in her bedroll, nearly knocking into one of her roommates. The sound that came out of her mouth was almost a sob. Sleep-ruffled voices sound off on all sides, groaning that it is too early for noise.
Saoirse’s bedroll neighbor grunts and rolls over on their side, blinking blearily. “You alright, Sister-?” they mumble, dragging a hand over their face. “Making a lotta noise.”
Saoirse glances at them, a hand on her chest, reeling from the vivid dream/nightmare. The fabric of her sleeping tunic is damp with sweat. Saoirse swallows. Did I really just get contacted by an All-Source?
Saoirse forces her expression to be still. “I’m fine,” she grits out. “Just Old World aftereffects emitting from this relic. That’s what I get for sleeping with this thing on.”
A weary sigh comes from the neighboring bedroll. The pastor sleepily rubs their eyes with a hand. “Just be careful messing with it, Sister.” they say. “You can never predict what those things do.”
Saoirse looks at her forearm, noticing the blood-soaked bandages. “Thanks for the advice,” She says, pushing herself up to tend to her wound.
Saiorse grabs a linen towel from her personal items chest, wraps it lazily around her shoulders, and heads down the hallway for the shared bathroom. Saoirse halts briefly once she reaches the windows. An inner survival instinct rising to the surface.
The temple hallway was filled with morning light, making the beige brick wall appear almost pure white. The color almost physically repulses her. Saoirse hunches her shoulders, hugging her arms as she starts again down the hallway.
There’s a peculiar feeling shrouding her—almost an echo of a childhood memory. I don’t want to go down that hallway, a thought protrudes in her head. The scientists will make me punch the robot until my fists bleed.
Saoirse scowls against it. Yet the thought persists, even as she moves past the windows. she lowers her head, yanking on her sleeves.
The Alliance doesn’t have scientists. They have researchers, they have Builders, and doctors. Scientists are a label from the Old World, one favored by Duvos and those who cling to that destructive past.
So why does the idea of them make her skin crawl?
Saoirse readjusts her grip on the towel, tugging it tighter around her. Most of her memory was already damaged and full of holes. Whatever memories that remain are odd, fragmented, and lack sense. Saoirse isn’t sure if she should trust them.
Exposure to Old World corruption, Minister Matilda would tsk sadly back at the Meidi Academy. She would softly pat Saoirse’s shoulder with a sickly-sweet smile. Your memories will come back in time, my dear. Be sure to tell me all about it.
Saoirse grits her teeth and pushes it away, almost bursting through the privacy cloth. She leans back against the tiled bathroom wall, breathing heavily. The soft linen towel drapes over her shoulders.
Saoirse pushes up her sleeping tunic sleeve and stares at the compass rose on her wrist, trying to calm herself. Don’t freeze up here. Don’t. She continues to breathe, forcing the air through her lungs.
A Barnarock orphan wouldn’t have nightmares of an endless white hallway where everyone wears reflective visors over their eyes or black oxygen masks that cover their faces. Or of a cold, sterile white room where she held someone’s hand as she walked, a handmade quilt cloaked over her shoulders like a cape. A bracelet cuffed around her ankle, tracking every movement.
You be a good squire now, my dear, and take your medicine. General (Tiger) tells her softly, black gloved hand patting her shoulder. She smirks cruelly. You haven’t earned your soulmark yet, Seer. And you won’t, not unless you become stronger. Be sure to tell me which duels you win.
Saoirse bares her teeth at the pretty mosaic tiles on the bathroom wall, feeling a sudden welling of anger. She could taste that bitter, acidic powder on her tongue.
“It’s Saoirse,” she snaps. She digs her hands into the cloth of her sleeping tunic's pants. “I’m not that. Whatever that was, I'm not it.”
One hand reaches for her ankle, feeling the bare skin as if to prove the metal ankle bracelet wasn’t there. Saiorse dislikes that name. Seer. It sounds so . . hollow. Empty. A mirror with no reflection inside.
She leans back against the bathroom wall and sighs. I'm going to have to inform Qi about the All-source going in my head, Saoirse thinks. Won't that be fun?
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