Chapter 1
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a continuation of the story and universe introduced in Chapter 0 (linked here). Although this can be read without the context within, I recommend checking it out first. Hope you enjoy! - GB
One of my earliest childhood memories is of my siblings begging for stories. They always loved hearing them, taking any excuse to harass any familiar faces into regaling them with tales. That isn’t to say that I disliked stories, but at the time I was too young to follow along, and always found myself wandering the halls or gardens on my own instead, finding more active ways to fill the hours. However, my perspective changed when the task fell to my uncle Jay, and the experience shifted to one that I could never draw my eyes away from.
At first he was drafted for storytelling simply due to his willingness to try, the age gap between him and my father being over double that between him and my oldest sister. Although it started reluctantly, he eventually started to enjoy the role, and would volunteer to entertain us when he didn’t want to talk business with the adults. His storytelling always drew a mixture of fear and undistracted awe from me. This was primarily due to the way that he seemed to become the characters. It wasn’t a conscious decision, in fact the only time I ever told him he was doing it (“Where’s your real face gone, why did you change it?”), he froze, ducking his head as though to conceal whatever he couldn’t see or control that might be displayed upon it behind a curtain of deep brown hair. So instead I stopped reminding him, and instead tried to look away from his dramatic gestures and instead focus on something more than his words, until the world snapped into place. Then, I could truly find myself in the same room as the stories that he told.
When I was listening to other’s words, it was too easy to let them wash over me and view the stories as something entirely removed from my everyday life, unreal and therefore unsympathetic. But when my uncle told stories, he always saw himself in the characters, so deeply that when I looked back at him I couldn’t see his form beyond the suddenly changed features that he projected outward. When the characters that he imprinted on were joyful, his eyes would shine, when they were ignored he would begin to fade from my view, when they were hurt he would bleed.
The first time I saw his face change, I was a child too young to realize what was happening. With the only person who would teach me knowing next to nothing about this second reality, and the people that could freshly gone, I burst into tears, convinced my uncle was leaving as well. He stopped the story immediately, the stark panic washing away the bloody tear tracks that had grown to engulf his entire face, before my vision snapped back to normal and the only face in front of my eyes was again the one I recognized.
I quickly grew used to the sight, however, taking any excuse to spend time with Jay. I don’t know if my siblings (Beatrice, Antonio, Adalyne, always wandering together despite the conflicts they found with near everyone else) ever found the secret joy of Jay telling stories. I remember that they only used him as the last resort when nobody else would stop to listen to them. Even then, to me he always seemed too busy and important to be anyone’s entertainment.
I remember I once tried to ask him if he had told them stories like he did for me, the inherent fear that came with bringing up the past overshadowed by the overwhelming need to reinforce the fading memories of my family. He smiled, and told me that Beatrice and Antonio (always full names with them, formality that he could never bring himself to leave behind) only barely tolerated his presence, and that as he remembers he only became close enough to call them his siblings once they had died, once we were the only ones left. Unnecessarily blunt, I realize now that he was probably uncomfortable with my question, but at the time I was too busy running out of the room crying to fully recognize that fact.
I’m snapped out of my reminiscence by the door slamming open, and Jay pausing in his quiet recitation, his smooth tones interrupted by a lighter yet exponentially louder voice, one I quickly recognize as belonging to one of the more prominent merchants with whom my uncle works.
“The city’s Lady of Commerce is causing a scene at the door, something about form-shifters and The Interceptor reappearing to ruin her travel plans-” Jay jolts upright, book falling to the floor forgotten.
“You want me to handle this, I presume?” he cuts in, barely waiting for the man to nod before turning to me. Jay’s drawling vowels from our private storytelling moment abruptly shift to adopt the clipped tones of the messenger’s voice. “Rissa, I’ll let you know if we have to head out, but I should be able to handle this from my office. I would ask that you refrain from interrupting if at all possible. Is that alright?”
I nod, and both Jay and the merchant turn to leave the room, Jay carefully setting the book back on his chair as he goes. Before he can fully exit, although I know he wouldn’t approve, I focus and reopen my eyes, allowing the sight of my uncle to vanish under the mask he always wears for these meetings. His eyes become sharper, the faint green brightening until it more closely resembles the shade that I remember seeing in my mother’s eyes, the same shade that I see in the mirror every morning. While his hair stays the same length and part—a concession to the reality that, while not perfectly fitting with the formal image, I know Jay to greatly prefer—it lightens to a duller brown than the usual shade. The already faint branching scars that creep their way up his left arm darken and soften until they’re indistinguishable from the rest of his skin. As he pulls his coat on, fastening the deep blue fabric in order to hide the looser, more informal undershirt he had been wearing in my presence, I allow my vision to return to normal.
He strides out of the room, and I quickly follow behind. The merchant splits off, presumably to guide the lady in, while Jay makes his way to the room he has claimed as his office. It’s not technically intended as one, I know, but it sits next to the room that my mother used for the same purpose that Jay refuses to enter. I have none of the same reservations, and slip into the empty room before pressing my ear against the wall. I wait with baited breath, until the surprisingly loud sound of clipping footsteps come down the corridor, hardly pausing at all to slam open the door.
“My Lady, please have a seat,” Jay greets, sounding as though he’s right beside me. The scraping of chairs echoes for a few moments, and a few more papers are shuffled to the side before the lady cuts in.
“Jaydren, a pleasure as always. I’m sure your little messenger told you that this wasn’t just a social call?” she enquiries, voice soft despite her annoyed tone.
“I heard you had an encounter with The Interceptor. I…” he trails off, emotion choking his words. “It hasn’t been seen for years. I trust that you confirmed that it was the same ship?”
“The captain matched your exact description, as did the name on the side of the ship. And they’re just as vicious as you claimed,” the lady’s tone escalates in pitch and volume as she speaks, barely pausing for breath.
“What did they do?”
“I had a girl on that ship with me who could see, we weren’t just there for commerce. We were going to scout the shores for any of the shifters that made it over at the last cycle. And they were able to pick her out and kill her.”
“They being The Interceptor or they being some shifter you ran into?”
“The former. We turned back after the girl died, so while the mission was a complete failure, we were able to minimize losses. They took everything we had, but they didn’t kill any of us but the girl,” the Lady’s words grow more and more clipped, seemingly annoyed at my uncle being obtuse. I can’t help but agree with her.
Jay pauses for a moment before responding, the only sound I can pick out is the Lady’s heavy breathing. “I- I thank you for bringing me news of The Interceptor. However, although this may be personal for me, I fail to see how your… business venture is my problem. You know that I don’t agree with your taking action now, when there’s no large-scale conflict taking place.”
“I’m aware of your opinions on shifters. I’m here to ask how the hell you forgot to mention that The Interceptor was able to identify the seers on your ship, years ago.” I can imagine the lady leaning into Jay’s space, hands braced on the dark wood desk. Jay, unwilling to break eye contact, stares directly forward, despite his discomfort with the situation. I’ve seen this happen before, the first time that the lady visited, years ago, right after the Interceptor, before Jay learned to send me out of the room for these conversations. He must know I can still listen, but he also knows that any more serious attempts at stopping me would trigger a fight that I would not, could not, let him win.
“I wasn’t aware that they could at the time, but not only is my information five years out of date, but I wouldn’t be able to notice any such attempts myself,” an edge of anger slips into his voice, and I can imagine him tightly gripping his left wrist. The faint rustle of fabric that I can hear only clarifies the image. I remember my mother telling me that people who can see beyond the usual world can usually only be identified by seeing if they react to something in the Aether, but she never would’ve told Jay. I realize that the Lady would probably know this, and barely resist the urge to reveal myself to yell at her. I doubt Jay would appreciate it.
My thoughts are abruptly interrupted by a loud bang followed by the sound of something shattering echoing down the corridor. I freeze, unsure if I should risk being discovered by investigating the new commotion, when I hear a scream. Mind made up, I rush to the door.
One of my earliest childhood memories is of my siblings begging for stories. They always loved hearing them, taking any excuse to harass any familiar faces into regaling them with tales. That isn’t to say that I disliked stories, but at the time I was too young to follow along, and always found myself wandering the halls or gardens on my own instead, finding more active ways to fill the hours. However, my perspective changed when the task fell to my uncle Jay, and the experience shifted to one that I could never draw my eyes away from.
At first he was drafted for storytelling simply due to his willingness to try, the age gap between him and my father being over double that between him and my oldest sister. Although it started reluctantly, he eventually started to enjoy the role, and would volunteer to entertain us when he didn’t want to talk business with the adults. His storytelling always drew a mixture of fear and undistracted awe from me. This was primarily due to the way that he seemed to become the characters. It wasn’t a conscious decision, in fact the only time I ever told him he was doing it (“Where’s your real face gone, why did you change it?”), he froze, ducking his head as though to conceal whatever he couldn’t see or control that might be displayed upon it behind a curtain of deep brown hair. So instead I stopped reminding him, and instead tried to look away from his dramatic gestures and instead focus on something more than his words, until the world snapped into place. Then, I could truly find myself in the same room as the stories that he told.
When I was listening to other’s words, it was too easy to let them wash over me and view the stories as something entirely removed from my everyday life, unreal and therefore unsympathetic. But when my uncle told stories, he always saw himself in the characters, so deeply that when I looked back at him I couldn’t see his form beyond the suddenly changed features that he projected outward. When the characters that he imprinted on were joyful, his eyes would shine, when they were ignored he would begin to fade from my view, when they were hurt he would bleed.
The first time I saw his face change, I was a child too young to realize what was happening. With the only person who would teach me knowing next to nothing about this second reality, and the people that could freshly gone, I burst into tears, convinced my uncle was leaving as well. He stopped the story immediately, the stark panic washing away the bloody tear tracks that had grown to engulf his entire face, before my vision snapped back to normal and the only face in front of my eyes was again the one I recognized.
I quickly grew used to the sight, however, taking any excuse to spend time with Jay. I don’t know if my siblings (Beatrice, Antonio, Adalyne, always wandering together despite the conflicts they found with near everyone else) ever found the secret joy of Jay telling stories. I remember that they only used him as the last resort when nobody else would stop to listen to them. Even then, to me he always seemed too busy and important to be anyone’s entertainment.
I remember I once tried to ask him if he had told them stories like he did for me, the inherent fear that came with bringing up the past overshadowed by the overwhelming need to reinforce the fading memories of my family. He smiled, and told me that Beatrice and Antonio (always full names with them, formality that he could never bring himself to leave behind) only barely tolerated his presence, and that as he remembers he only became close enough to call them his siblings once they had died, once we were the only ones left. Unnecessarily blunt, I realize now that he was probably uncomfortable with my question, but at the time I was too busy running out of the room crying to fully recognize that fact.
I’m snapped out of my reminiscence by the door slamming open, and Jay pausing in his quiet recitation, his smooth tones interrupted by a lighter yet exponentially louder voice, one I quickly recognize as belonging to one of the more prominent merchants with whom my uncle works.
“The city’s Lady of Commerce is causing a scene at the door, something about form-shifters and The Interceptor reappearing to ruin her travel plans-” Jay jolts upright, book falling to the floor forgotten.
“You want me to handle this, I presume?” he cuts in, barely waiting for the man to nod before turning to me. Jay’s drawling vowels from our private storytelling moment abruptly shift to adopt the clipped tones of the messenger’s voice. “Rissa, I’ll let you know if we have to head out, but I should be able to handle this from my office. I would ask that you refrain from interrupting if at all possible. Is that alright?”
I nod, and both Jay and the merchant turn to leave the room, Jay carefully setting the book back on his chair as he goes. Before he can fully exit, although I know he wouldn’t approve, I focus and reopen my eyes, allowing the sight of my uncle to vanish under the mask he always wears for these meetings. His eyes become sharper, the faint green brightening until it more closely resembles the shade that I remember seeing in my mother’s eyes, the same shade that I see in the mirror every morning. While his hair stays the same length and part—a concession to the reality that, while not perfectly fitting with the formal image, I know Jay to greatly prefer—it lightens to a duller brown than the usual shade. The already faint branching scars that creep their way up his left arm darken and soften until they’re indistinguishable from the rest of his skin. As he pulls his coat on, fastening the deep blue fabric in order to hide the looser, more informal undershirt he had been wearing in my presence, I allow my vision to return to normal.
He strides out of the room, and I quickly follow behind. The merchant splits off, presumably to guide the lady in, while Jay makes his way to the room he has claimed as his office. It’s not technically intended as one, I know, but it sits next to the room that my mother used for the same purpose that Jay refuses to enter. I have none of the same reservations, and slip into the empty room before pressing my ear against the wall. I wait with baited breath, until the surprisingly loud sound of clipping footsteps come down the corridor, hardly pausing at all to slam open the door.
“My Lady, please have a seat,” Jay greets, sounding as though he’s right beside me. The scraping of chairs echoes for a few moments, and a few more papers are shuffled to the side before the lady cuts in.
“Jaydren, a pleasure as always. I’m sure your little messenger told you that this wasn’t just a social call?” she enquiries, voice soft despite her annoyed tone.
“I heard you had an encounter with The Interceptor. I…” he trails off, emotion choking his words. “It hasn’t been seen for years. I trust that you confirmed that it was the same ship?”
“The captain matched your exact description, as did the name on the side of the ship. And they’re just as vicious as you claimed,” the lady’s tone escalates in pitch and volume as she speaks, barely pausing for breath.
“What did they do?”
“I had a girl on that ship with me who could see, we weren’t just there for commerce. We were going to scout the shores for any of the shifters that made it over at the last cycle. And they were able to pick her out and kill her.”
“They being The Interceptor or they being some shifter you ran into?”
“The former. We turned back after the girl died, so while the mission was a complete failure, we were able to minimize losses. They took everything we had, but they didn’t kill any of us but the girl,” the Lady’s words grow more and more clipped, seemingly annoyed at my uncle being obtuse. I can’t help but agree with her.
Jay pauses for a moment before responding, the only sound I can pick out is the Lady’s heavy breathing. “I- I thank you for bringing me news of The Interceptor. However, although this may be personal for me, I fail to see how your… business venture is my problem. You know that I don’t agree with your taking action now, when there’s no large-scale conflict taking place.”
“I’m aware of your opinions on shifters. I’m here to ask how the hell you forgot to mention that The Interceptor was able to identify the seers on your ship, years ago.” I can imagine the lady leaning into Jay’s space, hands braced on the dark wood desk. Jay, unwilling to break eye contact, stares directly forward, despite his discomfort with the situation. I’ve seen this happen before, the first time that the lady visited, years ago, right after the Interceptor, before Jay learned to send me out of the room for these conversations. He must know I can still listen, but he also knows that any more serious attempts at stopping me would trigger a fight that I would not, could not, let him win.
“I wasn’t aware that they could at the time, but not only is my information five years out of date, but I wouldn’t be able to notice any such attempts myself,” an edge of anger slips into his voice, and I can imagine him tightly gripping his left wrist. The faint rustle of fabric that I can hear only clarifies the image. I remember my mother telling me that people who can see beyond the usual world can usually only be identified by seeing if they react to something in the Aether, but she never would’ve told Jay. I realize that the Lady would probably know this, and barely resist the urge to reveal myself to yell at her. I doubt Jay would appreciate it.
My thoughts are abruptly interrupted by a loud bang followed by the sound of something shattering echoing down the corridor. I freeze, unsure if I should risk being discovered by investigating the new commotion, when I hear a scream. Mind made up, I rush to the door.
As I exit the room, skidding to a halt as soon as my bare feet meet the carpet, I turn to the left and meet eyes with Jay. I can see his eyes widen, he sighs slightly in annoyance at my presence, a slight, fond smile almost on his face. But before he can say anything, his eyes snap to something behind me, going wide, losing their forced brightness in an instant. Just as he opens his mouth something hits the back of my head and I fall to the ground, the world going dark.
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