The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

7:55 PM | The Ninsirsir, Deck 3 | December 31st | 1608 COVENANT

Someone - a tan-skinned man who could have been either Saoic or Viraaki, with his hair shaved save for a strip down the middle of his scalp and a tiny but well-groomed beard - came to take away their plates. Lamu watched his every movement intensely; his hand as it approached her water, his arm as it brushed the table, the flicker of his eyes towards everyone seated. Once he was gone, she continued to scan the room over and over again.

She knew: Anyone here could be an agent of the Brotherhood, could be working with Utsushikome. And even without the Power, even discounting poison - which she'd be watching for like a hawk - there were ways beyond counting to kill someone in the back of a semi-dark room like this. They could snipe her through the roof. Plant a bomb. Knife through the back of the chair. Refractor blast from a hidden charge in the back of the knife. Poison gas in the wine cooler.

So she had to be diligent. Hyper diligent. At least until she had a chance to speak with Theodoros, assuming she concluded that was a good idea, which she couldn't decide on because she was too busy being hyper diligent.

She managed to tune out the conversation around her to some degree, but paid some attention to the stage. It wasn't out of the question that they'd try something in relation to the evening entertainment; applause, for example, could be used to obfuscate a gunshot. It was also possible that Bardiya would return, or even maybe another of her classmates would make an appearance. It also allowed her to simultaneously keep an eye on Ptolema of Rheeds, who could still be made out in the distance despite the darkness.

Theodoros was correct. A minute or so later, the woman from earlier - Maria of something? Lamu hadn't absorbed the full name - returned to the stage, her voice once again amplified.

"That was Rosa of Ventorum and No Way Back To Our Cave with Anca!" This was accompanied by a lot of applause; Lamu assumed this series of non-sequiturs was somehow culturally significant, but she didn't follow music. "Whew, even I'm a little starstruck. They'll be back for an encore during dessert, so don't think the fun is over quite yet. But for now, our next speaker is the former Overseer of the Office of Arcane Oversight, who will also be discussing some of the challenges facing the Grand Alliance today. Please welcome to the stage Eleanora of Halkysses!"

There was a more modest applause, and the lively Maria(?) stepped aside for a much older woman: An Inotian with slightly messy greying black hair, dressed in a black dress that looked high quality but was also extremely out of fashion, like she hadn't updated her wardrobe in a century. This figure Lamu actually recognized. The Office of Arcane Oversight, usually just called the Arcane Office for short, was one of the most powerful wings of the Grand Alliance's administration. They set policy for the use of the Power across the entire Mimikos (though not the colonies; that had remained under the jurisdiction of the military since the Great Interplanar War) and, due to how much of a threat to worldwide security arcanists could be, had slowly accumulated an abnormal amount of authority over national governments within that sphere. They also had ultimate command over the Censors.

The overseer was always an arcanist themselves which, combined with the fact that there was a taboo on appointing Inducted individuals to the office of First Administrator, made it arguably the most directly powerful position an arcanist could rise to within their society (their society-- Having had no part in the Tricenturial War, the Triumvirate had no such compunctions). Eleanora of Halkysses, Lamu remembered, had held the position for about 6 or 7 years in the latter part of 16th century. She, like Bardiya had been part of one of the last Humanist administrations, being one of the leading forces pushing the transition from traditionally grafted arcanists to ones which used arcane interpreters, a measure that began under the pretense of economic growth but accelerated now for very different reasons.

That seemed to be becoming a theme for the evening. People who had held the power to stop the world from descending into depravity, hadn't used it, and were now talking about the ways they ought to have used it to a choir of similarly displaced elites.

...but none of these were the the reason Lamu knew who this woman was. Importance aside, under- and especially overseer positions changed with the weather. She paid about as much attention to them as she did to pop music.

No. She knew her because she recognized her as a member of one of the sister organizations to the Brotherhood. If she recalled, she'd become distanced from the cause in her pursuit of personal power, so it was unlikely she had any connection to Lamu's current crisis. But 'unlikely' didn't mean 'certain'.

"Good evening, everyone," the woman began tiredly. "It's good to see you all tonight. In trying times, often the best thing we can do is to remain among friends and keep to our traditions, and the fact that this night is as lively is every is proof that, as much as the world changes, some things do remain the same." Despite the sentimental content, the tone was stiff; the speech sounded rehearsed. "It's a good show of force."

Malko snorted. "As if it takes much to fill a room with a capacity of 500," he snarked in a low tone. "The guest list is considerably less glamorous than a few years ago, I'll say that much. 40 years ago I'm not even sure I'd have have been invited."

"When I was younger, my friends always told me that they couldn't believe I wanted to become a politician," she continued. "They'd say: You're already an arcanist, Eleanora. There are a thousand ways for you to become a success. Why follow a path that'd see your whole life swallowed up by obligations and responsibilities, where there's a good chance people will hate you by the time you're done anyway? And I'd always give the same answer. The Ironworkers gave us the Power so we could make the world a better place. So we could try and keep the promise of a future without want the Iron Princes betrayed during the Imperial Era." Her eyes scanned the crowd. "The life of a politician, as well as the life of an arcanist, is defined by duty. Taking the messes that other people have made - or sometimes, that make themselves - and cleaning them up. No time for whinging."

If that last part was meant to be a joke, it wasn't delivered like one.

"It's that spirit that I think we're all carrying with us today," she continued. "The last few years have been difficult for all of us. We've seen pillars of our society that we all grew up assuming would stand forever assaulted by people who lack that sense of civic commitment, who would rather focus on lining their own pockets or advancing agendas of warmongering and... divisiveness."

"She sounds like she's falling asleep," Theodoros remarked, frowning.

"She sounds like she's been chewing poppies," Gudrun counter-suggested.

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other," Malko spoke lazily, taking a drink. "Might throw in some cocaine, too. There are always a few who get started early. Not that I'd be any different if I were her position. It sounds like someone has all but castrated this speech. She can't even say 'Iconist' for fear of offending any of the foxes in the henhouse."

"But the world, and even the Grand Alliance, has faced challenges before," the woman went on. "Even if we sometimes stray from the path, we always find our way again. It's up to us to make a case that will win everyone over at all layers of society, and I believe arcanists, especially ones from the older generations such as myself, have a special role to play in that. Our status affords us the ideal position for various forms of advocacy and community outreach, and efforts are already underway to centralize those roles in organizations... in nations in Isara and Inotia..."

She trailed off. The room fell into an awkward silence, and Lamu heard hushed whispers from all corners.

"...you know, there's this story I've been thinking about," she said, her tone shifting to a more airy, absent-minded - or perhaps simply apathetic - one. "I had this book of aesops... not the literal aesops, but you know, that sort of thing... when I was a child. And there was this one in particular I keep coming back to-- About a girl who can't decide whether or not to go to school or run away with a boy. She visits this fairy or goblin or something who offers to split her in two, so she can live both lives at once." She gestured in a rolling motion. "The one who goes to school succeeds and gets a good, high-paying job in the city, but the one who runs away with the boy finds true love and they raise a family in the countryside. The one who lives in the city ends up jealous of the one who went away to the countryside, but it ends with a moral about accepting the good and the bad of your choices in life, since what's gonna happen is out of your control in the end."

Malko frowned with his brow but smiled with his mouth. "Oh, I see. She's doing the pretending-to-go-off-script trick. Well, at least it's a little more creative."

"I don't know," Theodoros spoke hesitantly. "She seems..."

"You're probably thinking that this is about what I was just talking about-- About my decision to get into politics, and you know, that's applicable too. Silly as it might be to take a children's story so seriously, I've come back to it over and over again." It was difficult to say for certain given how far they were from the stage, but Lamu thought she saw her face darken. "However... that's not what I'm talking about right now." She surveilled the crowd. "The truth is, we're all the ones in the city, here. We, some of us at least, had a chance - a toss of a coin, if you like - to escape all this. But we're the ones who lost. And now there's no nice way to put it but, well, we're fucked. Oh gods, it still sounds like I'm talking politics, doesn't it? I don't know; at least a few of you understand what I mean."

By now, the whispers had morphed into a pervasive murmur of discontent and confusion. Lamu saw a few other figures moving around the stage.

"I did my best, but there's nothing for it now. Hell, you never know. Maybe there'll be a miracle and we won't blow up the world, in spite of the fact we now have the tools to do it and most of the people with any say in the matter are either idiots or would prefer it to the alternative if they can't get what they want. Personally, though? I'm checking out."

Then, before anyone had a chance to remove her, she turned and left.

Probably-Maria returned to the stage, and awkward smile on her face. She spoke over the crowd. "We-- We'll be taking a five minute break to prepare for serving dinner, and then we'll have Sakaito of Ukpantui with his new hit act, Ahead of the Times. I hope everyone enjoys their meal!" She glanced nervously behind her, then stepped away as well.

The rumbling of the crowd continued, Lamu primarily catching words of derision and confusion, though also a few people laughing cynically. Malko's eyebrow had slowly risen over the course of the past minute.

"Well," he said. "That was... not what I'd expected, if nothing else." He sipped. "I suppose even a lukewarm public meltdown beats a dull or sentimental lecture, so I can't complain."

"I don't think I followed any of that shit," Gudrun admitted. Her profanity filter seemed to be failing now that she'd even just a small amount to drink.

"Just another creature of our time, I fear," Malko intoned. "Hung over from the rush of power, her mind unraveling at the despair of living as one of us mere mortals. Thinks the world is going to end just because her career has." He chuckled. "Well, it suppose it's less embarrassing than going into writing."

"I thought you were saying the world was doomed," she said.

"It is! But not like that." He shook his head. "From the way she was talking, it sounded like she believed the war was going to end out of hand and blow up the whole Remaining World. It's not going to be anywhere near that exciting, unfortunately."

"I... don't know," Theo spoke skeptically, scratching the side of his neck. "I mean, er. Spatial engineering has advanced considerably, to the point that both the Grand Alliance or the Triumvirate could likely destabilize the Tower of Asphodel's planar cavity. It's eerily easy to imagine a scenario where one side pushes the other too far, and a gun ends up pointed at the head of the world."

"Maybe so, but no one with that level of power would ever pull the trigger," Malko retorted. "It's just not in human nature. Tyrants of all colors came and went, but the old world never saw truly total war again after the development of the convention bomb, not until they knew they were all doomed regardless. Politics in a base era is predicated on baser interests, but those are still interests. No one wants to see everything end." He sighed. "No, we're headed for a slow decline into a violent and disordered era, not a bang and a sudden stop. Believe me, I almost wish it were otherwise." He frowned. "Are you alright, Lamu? You look rather shaken up."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Lamu realized that she'd become extremely tense, even more so than earlier. "Y-Yes. Sorry. I was thinking about something."

"I hope you're not taking this too seriously," he told her. "Really, there's at least one of those sort of speeches a year at this point. The only novelty in this case was that it seemed to be improvised rather than simply the deliverance of a manifesto."

"What do you think she trying to get at with the whole coin toss different-life thing?" Gudrun asked, seeming unsatisfied by Malko's conclusions. "About her being the one who lost out? She said it wasn't about politics."

"Oh, it was definitely about politics. Just probably not directly," he mused, stirring his drink. "She's probably alluding to some specific regret in her career. People always have their little fixations they imagine the whole world turning around, when in truth no one has any idea what they're talking about. I hope for her sake she's only here for the night-- It's going to be an awkward weekend otherwise. Tar-Isgansar doesn't look fondly on people who spoil the atmosphere of his events."

Lamu was now just nodding along, trying to broadcast normality despite her mental state... when she noticed Theodoros looking at her strangely. It wasn't what she'd call suspicion - that would imply a degree of hostility that wasn't present - but his brow was knotted, like he was trying to figure something out.

Was her social graces slipping leading him to finally realize who she was? Well, that could actually be convenient if she wanted to talk to him. Still, she averted her gaze instinctively, looking up towards the ceiling--

And that was when she saw it.

Through the window, up in the gardens of deck 4, a figure was standing and looking down into the ballroom. Lamu wanted to say that they were staring at her, though in truth this was difficult to be objectively certain of; she couldn't make out the details of the top of its head, only its angle of orientation. But it felt to her like it was staring at her, and for this reason she froze instantly, forgetting any concerns racing through her mind about Theodoros at once.

The reason she felt it was staring at her was because she thought she recognized them. 'Thought', specifically, because it was someone who couldn't possibly be standing there. They were inhumanly tall, with an extremely bulky, oddly-angled lower body concealed by a long, dark robe and cloak, and carried a tall staff. The lower half of their head was ensconced in some kind of device, while the upper half was bald and dark grey. Deep set eyes were in shadow behind a thick brow.

No one else looked like that. No one but her uncle.

As they locked gazes, she thought she saw him shift. He leaned forward, towards the glass--

Something in her pocket was whistling.

𒀭

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

At first I thought that maybe he was diving to protect her from a gunshot or something, but that was quickly revealed to be an overly-favorable assumption. As soon as the two of them hit the ground, he started screaming.

"How dare you! How DARE you try and pull something like this, after all he did for you!" His tone was the complete opposite of his usual one, full of pure, rabid vitriol. Instantly, any comparison to Linos went out the window. "Is this how you're planning to steal everything, with a lie like this? By trying to wear his skin?! I won't allow it! I won't allow it!"

Despite the atmosphere of horror that had been brewing and the fact that Tuthal had already threatened her, both him and Hildris appeared taken aback by this development, looking shocked. Despite having kind of been wanting to do the same thing myself out of sheer visceral discomfort, I jolted back myself, almost losing my footing and falling into one of the holes the mimic had allegedly made.

"Good god, man!" Tuthal cried out.

"C... Calm down, Bahram," Summiri said, her voice still relatively calm despite the situation. "I apologize if I've shocked you, but there's nothing at stake here. This isn't about the inheri--"

But before he could finish, he pulled an arm back and punched her dead in the jaw. Despite his age, the disparity in physical power between the two made the sight extremely uncomfortable. Summiri's head shot back, slamming against the roof of the train car painfully, and she let out a pained grunt.

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" He cried out. "You don't-- This isn't who he was! You liar! You imposter!"

"T-Tuth, do something!" Hildris yelled.

Tuthal looked hesitant for a moment, but nevertheless bounded forward, grabbing the older man by the chest. "Get... off of her!"

"I won't let you do this!" Bahram yelled even as he was pulled away, his eyes locked on the girl as though the rest of the world simply didn't exist at all. "He's dead and none of you saw him and now you're trying to erase him so he never even was! You-- Damn you! Damn all of you!"

"Calm the fuck down!" Tuthal elbowed him in the gut hard, and finally Bahram's age seemed to return to him somewhat, his eyes going wide and the color draining from his face. He slumped for a moment, and it looked like he might collapse, but instead he grit his teeth tore at the other man's arms, trying desperately to get away. Tuthal, seeming shocked this response, ended up being pulled to the side, the two men tumbled to their sides--

A bang cut through the air loudly enough that this drama stopped dead and I jumped almost a foot into the air. It came from the direction of the dead mimic; Eirene, who I must admit I'd kinda forgotten was even around, was holding a gun - an old-fashioned revolver, I think - in the air, smoke still rising from the barrel.

"W-- Fuck, she has a gun?!" Tuthal couldn't abandon his attempt to restrain his friend fast enough, scurrying backwards. His hand went to his own robes instantly, but he failed to find whatever he was looking for, and cursed.

The chef wasn't even looking at him. Her eyes were manic, and she yelled at a volume that put Bahram to shame.

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OF THIS INSANE BULLSHIT," she declared. "A WOMAN IS DEAD. WE HAVE TO CONTACT THE POLICE."

Hildris babbled weakly. "The-- The Uqartul, it--"

"MAGIC HORSES AREN'T REAL," Eirene declared with absolute confidence. (Seriously, how did she have a voice box this powerful? She wasn't even very big. It felt more supernatural than the shapeshifter.) "THAT MEANS THE KILLER IS STILL AT LARGE. THEY MUST EITHER BE ONE OF US, OR HAVE SNUCK ON THE TRAIN WHEN WE STOPPED IN THE AFTERNOON. EITHER WAY, THEY COULD TRY TO KILL US AT ANY TIME. WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW. I SIGNED UP HERE TO DO A JOB, NOT TO DIE FOR WHATEVER PSYCHOTIC SHIT YOU PEOPLE HAVE GOING ON."

"Where did you even get that thing!" Tuthal was hung up on this point. "Did Gaizarik not even search the help?!"

"WE HAVE TO CONTACT THE POLICE!"

"We can't contact the police!" Tuthal yelled back. "Look around you! We're right down in the middle of bugger all!"

"N-No, we have the flare," Hildris pointed out. "We're too far for it to be spotted by the stations, but at this time of night, it'll definitely reach a town." She swallowed anxiously. "The army keeps watchtowers out here to to monitor for scouts from the Ikkaryon and the Arcanocracy. They should see it."

"WHERE IS THE..." She hesitated, then finally lowered her voice - and also the gun, though only somewhat. "Where are the flares."

"I don't know," Hildris said. "Gaizarik would have them."

"Okay," Eirene said. She paused for a moment, taking a breath. "Here's what we're going to do. The four of us are going to go back to the middle carriage. We'll down the ladder one person at a time; I'll go last, and if anyone tries to run, I'll shoot. We'll speak to Gaizarik and find out where the flare is, then set it off. Then we'll round up everyone and head to the back of the observation car and wait together for help to arrive. Because of the glass and the fact it's the final carriage, there won't be anywhere for the culprit to ambush us from. And if the culprit is one of us, they won't be able to act." She blinked, glancing downward for a beat, then continued: "If there's anyone we can't find, we'll assume they're the culprit and hold them hostage if they turn up later. If help doesn't come, then at dawn we'll see if we can see any settlements on the horizon, and we can we'll walk there. If we can't we'll go to the engine car and get the train moving again." She nodded to herself. "Yes. That plan works."

"Who put you in charge?" Tuthal objected. "You're a-- You're the cook! You're no one! Your food wasn't even that... good..."

She pointed the gun at him. He trailed off.

"That... plan seems sensible," Hildris agreed, sounding only mildly coerced. "I was going to say so myself before we got derailed, but obviously any sort of supernatural explanation for what happened is absurd. Someone must have simply killed Phaidime, cut the horse open, and placed her body inside."

Tuthal frowned, looking to her. "I agree with you that the whole shapeshifter concept is patently ridiculous, but how would the horse have got up here?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not a bloody detective, darling. Maybe we should find the one we have and ask him; I'm surprised he's not up here already."

I wrinkled my nose nervously.

Hold on a second, though. How was this trick supposed to have worked? Everything had descended into bedlam so quickly that I hadn't even really thought about it, but obviously the rules of the game demanded that a logical explanation exist. Unless whoever had wrote this was a complete hack to the point of bending physics to make their tricks work, I could be sure of that in a way I'd never been for the conclave.

However, horses were extremely heavy animals. They weren't something that an ordinary human could ever hope to lift alone; even for a pair of adult men in good health it would be a struggle. And getting one up a ladder? Without some kind of pulley system, I doubted there was any amount of people who could pull it off. So how did it get here?

Off the top of my head, the simplest explanation was probably that it had always been here. I hadn't taken a good look at the roof either of the times I'd been outside the train, so it was entirely possible I could have overlooked it; the angle would make it difficult to see much of, so combined with the fact the beast was facing the opposite direction to where we'd entered the train, it might have appeared as a mere indistinct brown lump. But this idea felt a little risky and impractical. Like, someone could have looked. And though horses were very heavy, a train was still a high-speed vehicle. Was it really a sure thing that it wouldn't move if exposed to the open air for an entire day, especially if we ended up having to make a sudden stop?

And what about the dents? The ceiling was evidently fragile enough that it wouldn't be hard to create those artificially with a hammer or something (which in turn made it odd it hadn't shattered altogether, but maybe the underlying structure was tougher than the superficial surface) but the fact remained that the horse was lying in one that hadn't been there before. Which seemed to nix the idea completely.

So... what then? Setting aside the disappearing carriage, if we'd actually hit a horse for real, maybe it would have gone flying and landed up here in the way it had (though it seemed unlikely). But there was definitely no time between the alleged impact and when we'd all climbed up the ladder for someone to have cut it open on the spur of the moment and planted a body inside, and again because of the dents, no earlier point that this could have transpired instead.

So the body had to have been planted in advance. Which would mean the horse would need to have been somewhere on the train, then dumped in front. But how could you hide something as massive as a horse?

No, there's one place they could have done it. The massive freezer in the kitchen-- You could store the horse, obviously already dead, in there. Kill Phaidime, pull it out, put her inside, then do... what, exactly?

Plus, when would they have done it? The train was a linear space. I saw Phaidime head towards the back of the train. I went to the front of the train. How does this all happen in the short window of time between when I claimed the Last Winter and when I killed the detective?

Was I thinking about all this to avoid the fact that in the last 10 minutes I'd 1) committed an extremely realistic fake murder, and 2) been faced with a deliberately-disturbing fictionalized rendition of the worst thing I'd ever done, laced with the unlikely-but-distinct possibility that whoever I was going to encounter when this was all over somehow knew about it? Almost certainly.

Hildris looked across the way. "...Summiri," she said carefully. (It spoke to the extent of Bahram's outpost that she was the one she addressed first.) "Or whatever I should call you. Are you amenable?"

The girl, still lying against the roof after Bahram's punch, rose with a twitch. "i. i don't. don't want to be near him. i don't want to."

Hildris frowned. "...Summiri?"

Her features were stiff for a moment, her eyes fixed on the middle distance, but then she suddenly shut her eyes and shivered, then opened them with a more relaxed expression. "Pardon me. That took me rather by surprise." She cleared her throat. "Yes, even if I find your skepticism rather ridiculous given the circumstances, I agree that plan seems sensible enough. As I implied, it's still possible that this woman's death was engineered deliberately, which means a threat to the rest of us may well exist on this train. We should take all due precautions."

"What was that just now?" Hildris asked. "You were acting like your normal self."

Summiri made a forced half-smile, a stiff chuckle escaping her lips. "I'll defer explaining that until we're elsewhere, I think. I sense a lack of patience in the moment." She glanced towards Bahram. "Though in any event, I do feel like it might be an issue to travel with someone who seems to bear me murderous intent."

"Bahram," Tuthal said sternly. "Can you reign whatever the fuck this is in?"

The older man's face, which for the past minute or so had been locked into wide-eyed... horror? Anger? Grief? Suddenly became anxiously somber as he turned towards his friend. "Tuthal, she's... you can't understand, she's not..."

"I understand perfectly well that she's completely insane, thank you very much. What I don't understand is why it's driven you into apparent hysterics. You just committed assault on a girl a fraction of your age. You'll end up in prison at this rate." He squinted. "No one thinks she's really Rastag, so just calm the bloody hell down. We'll sort this out when we're somewhere safer."

"You can keep on calling me 'Summiri', incidentally," the woman in question said. "Despite my connection to my former identity, it's simpler to think of myself as a distinct individual--"

"No one cares," Tuthal cut her off.

She shrugged, then looked over her shoulder. "One thing, though. What are we going to do with that woman's body?"

"We should leave it as it is for now," Hildris stated. "We need to preserve the scene for the police."

"Mm, fair enough."

"Why do you keep calling her 'that woman'?" Tuthal asked with a sneer. "Shouldn't you think she's your sister?"

Summiri looked puzzled for a moment, then realization struck her, and she laughed. "Oh! How foolish of me. I got so preoccupied with talking philosophy that I failed to address one of the key points I was meaning to arrive at." She shook her head. "No, I'm afraid our departed friend over there is most definitely not my sister. Even if you want to call into question the more esoteric aspects of my process, my other self took me to see the woman in person some years ago. No resemblance whatsoever."

Tuthal frowned. "What? Who is she, then?"

"We don't have time for this!" Eirene interrupted. "We need to reunite with the others now, before anything can happen!"

"Of course," Hildris assented. She turned towards me. "Kasua, any objections?"

I blinked. I have to confess, in that moment I'd almost completely ceased thinking of myself as actual, physical person in the scene. The process of being dragged back into a participant in this was so viscerally uncomfortable that I almost wanted to leave on the spot. I was curious about the mystery, but I felt done with investing myself in this reality as a flesh-and-blood human.

Still, I forced myself. "...no, I... let's go."

The others started to rise--

"Hold on," Eirene asked. "Why exactly are you covered in blood?"