Winds of Change

"Something is changing in Karia Vitalus." The voice was an old man's voice, heavy with the weight of years.

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In the great city of the Cheldrun, two bodies hang by a pair of ropes around their necks some two hundred floors up, lab coats fluttering in the breeze. A man and a woman, both Biomade. Though they were each attractive in life, death had done them no favors. Pale and bloated now, they swung like ghastly piñatas, waiting, oh just waiting for the chance to spill their gruesome cargo onto the streets two hundred stories below.

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Far away, the sun rose over the jungles southwest of Matamos. Just above the canopy grew a single, thick, bare branch; thereupon a strange, sinuous shape rose with the dawn, lifting its cold, reptilian eyes to the heavens in silent contemplation of the wonder it beheld there; for one shining moment, a new star was born above those jungles, rivaling the sun itself in brightness. There and gone.

The Anakarix frowned thoughtfully.

Those who have eyes, let them see.

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"The wind doesn't taste like it used to." The same old man had spoken again. We can see him now: he is a Prill, grizzled and weary, and there is wisdom in his countenance. "The flame that was sparked on the night of the bonfire skies spreads unchecked across the land."

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In the depths of Geneva Prime, a Mechified dreamed of freedom, of revolution. As he looked down upon the body of his Biomade supervisor, the thought rang clear in his mind: ‘We are not your appendages.’

Those who have ears, let them hear.

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A Zipsum raced from tree to tree, trying desperately to evade her would-be-captors. Her cheeks bulged strangely, ill-fitting around the data pad she held gently in her mouth as she ran - what she had risked her life in the Cheldrun city to obtain: the operational planning for the next great logging operation into the jungles of the Anakarix.

Hard metal bullets ravaged the trees around her, turning their trunks to so much splintered pulp, sending splinters flying in all direction: the sound of gunfire was deafening.

Pain. Burning pain. A spear-like shard of wood had lanced into her vulnerable belly. Biting back tears, she raced onwards, and soon she was beyond the reach of the bullet-spitters, and of the angry metal bees that they spat.

The shouts of angry Cheldrun echoed loudly in the woods behind her.

Bleeding from the stomach, agony racing through her mind, she ran on.

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"How did it go?" Rei asked. She already knew, but it was polite to ask anyways. She walked down a corridor of light with another girl about four years her junior. There is both a striking similarity and a striking contrast between the two girls: Rei's hair is off-white and the other girl's is shockingly pink; Rei's appearance is neat and functional, while the other girl's is meant to entice; Rei moves with an unconscious grace, while Aimi's movements are deliberate and calculated, though no less graceful. And for all that, they could be sisters. They are sisters, actually. Two distinct variations on the same DNA recombined in slightly differing ways. It was like that with all six of them: genetic siblings, all of them. Three girls, 00, 01, and 05. Three boys, 02, 03, and 04.

Aimi met Rei’s gaze, doing her best not to giggle at the thought of her meeting with that young man. "You already know," she said. "You're the one who can't turn it off, after all."

Rei nodded faintly and said nothing, allowing Aimi's irritation to pass over her and through her, leaving her self unmoved in its wake. "Yes," she said. It wasn't worth it to argue over this again. She knew that the others thought her defective. "You..." she trailed off.

"If you don't say it now, you'll only mope about how you wished you had said it for the next week," Aimi said, wishing not for the first time that Rei's mental shielding wasn't quite so well fortified. She supposed it was for the best. In Rei's case, it was either intense mental shielding or near-insanity. Even so, it was disconcerting, not having ready access to someone's thoughts. More so in the wake of recent events.

“You like him.”

Aimi blushed. “That’s private,” she said warningly.

“Sorry.” The teasing note was gone from Rei's voice now, vanished like the morning mist beneath the heat of the sun. A pause. “Do you really think of me when you think of madness?”

Aimi caught Rei’s eyes with her own, blood red eyes peering into blood red eyes. “What’s all this about, Rei? You don’t usually take an interest in other people’s missions.”

"Because it is so clear, it takes a long time to realize it,” Rei murmured cryptically.

Aimi smiled bemusedly. “In English?”

Rei shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

For a moment, the shields wavered. For a moment, Aimi caught a glimpse of a Mechified Labor unit, (‘We are not your appendages!’ ) and a desperate sense of... something. It was gone. She frowned. “What was that?”

“Goodbye, Aimi,” Rei said. There was a note of finality in her voice. She walked away down the vast corridor of light, leaving her sister there near the entrance to the briefing room.

Aimi watched her go, confusion writ large in her expression. She wasn’t sure what just happened exactly, but she had the distinct impression that she had just missed something important. “Rei, wait,” she called.

“Go to your briefing, Aimi,” Rei said.

Despite her misgivings, Aimi did as she was told.

She always had.

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“I fear that soon this fire may consume us all.” He shook his weathered head, pausing more from dramatic effect than out of necessity. “The magic of the dusk sages must be recovered if we are to have any hope of weathering the flames.” The old Prill looked at Inari with a serious expression. “This is your task, young one.”

Inari stared at the elder, wide-eyed. His task. His task! Finally, after years and years of demonstrating his cleverness to the whole choir, he had been entrusted not only with a song, but with a Task! A sacred quest! He was not totally successful in keeping the grin off of his face. “I won’t disappoint you, Elder Winter,” he said eagerly. He did not notice the very calculating look in the old Prill’s eye.

They sat in a clearing in the midst of a vast, old growth forest. It was dreary, and the light of the stars scarcely penetrated through the gloom of the place. The ground was treacherous here for any who did not know it well: for miles around the Prill village, sudden rifts and valleys opened unexpectedly in the wood, and sharp rocks were among the least dangerous of the things one might find at the bottom of one of these.

“I know you won’t,” the Elder said. “For the sake of us all, you won’t. Now, have you gathered what we asked for?”

“Water from a well holy to the Jevuum (and plenty of mud besides), a berry from the stores of the Zipsum, an Anakarix’s talon, blood spilled after insulting a Gogajin’s mother, a Vorax’s tail feather.” Inari frowned. “Elder Winter, did we really need all these things?”

Elder Winter’s upper lip twitched, as if he were trying not to laugh. “Indeed,” he said sagely as he collected the proffered items.

Inari looked unconvinced. The two red-furred fox-ears growing up from either side of his head twitched in irritation.

They were needed, mind you. They would make the blessing much easier. It’s just that other, easier to find items would have done the job just as well. Elder Winter put the items into a small leather pouch tied to his belt. “Come, Inari. You have proven yourself worthy of the task set before you. It is time to receive your blessing from the Choir of Elders.”

Inari nodded, his irritation forgotten. “Right.” He thought about it for a moment. They may be doing this to get rid of him, but it was still an honour to be chosen for a Sacred Quest.

Together, the two Prill rose to their feet and walked towards the distant firelight that came from the outer watch post of the village.

The forest allowed their passage only reluctantly, barely standing aside long enough to let them creep through, and closing immediately behind them.

The forest knew much, had seen much. Though it suffered the presence of the Prill, there were few others that walked on two legs that it would allow passage. Wooden creaks and voices like the rustling of leaves raced from tree to tree, and the air grew hot with anger. News had arrived from the distant north: another wood had fallen before the loggers. Murderers. Axe-bearers. Creatures of black smoke and steam.

Even as the song of the Choir of Elders rose into the air, filling all the land around the village with a sense of hope and glory, the trees took angry council together. No, it wasn’t time to act yet. They would watch, and wait, and plan.

For now.