Chapter Text
Bethlehem sipped black tea and kept a wary eye on Victoria, who paced around the Queen's chamber on Soroz.
“How can we endure this, let alone explain it? I've been alive so long, laboring with no end in sight... the tethers that hold me to the rest of Astra are beginning to fray.”
“I'll advise you, but first, I'm curious about one matter. If you'll indulge me,” the Queen began. “Is it true you've enthralled the Grand Marshal of Illumina?”
“Enthralled? No. She doesn't seem very happy with me at the moment, if I can be honest. I know your suspicion: I've been controlling her from the shadows, directing her every move toward my own agenda. Is that right?”
“Are you not?”
“I am not. We're merely intimate.”
“Hm. Forgive me if I don't entirely believe you.”
“Believe it or don't,” Victoria sighed. “I'm surprised you has such an interest in my personal life.”
“You, I, the Grand Marshal... we don't have personal lives. You may consider your dalliance to be inconsequential. But it's not. She has power over Illumina, and Illumina has power over Astra. Do you have power over her?”
“No.”
“Hm.” Bethlehem sipped her tea. “Pardon the digression. To the point, Lady Victoria, your circumstances are quite extraordinary – how could they not be – but in many ways, don't you have the same problem as everyone else, just to a greater degree? Aren't we all chained to our past and desperate to shape our futures? But like myself, you see long into the past, and long into the future. Perhaps I don't see the past as well as you, but perhaps I see the future with much greater clarity. I, of course, endure in seclusion: the frozen empty wonder of Northland, the closeness of a few chosen loves... these are how I numb the pain of seeing everything. But that's scarcely an option for you, is it?”
Victoria's thoughts were racing. A matriarch from a bygone era, she recalled, shouting at a younger ancestor: Not now, not ever. Do you understand? And she remembered speaking those words in her own life, scolding Eicy when her pupil was still a teenager. I made a pact with the tome, that these memories would be wiped away when my service was complete; but the Lord of Truth is an ever more demanding master, and my goals continue to be out of reach even after centuries of labor. So what is to be done?
“I think you may need to speak with someone closer to you, who's walked at least a portion of your road with you, if you follow my meaning.”
“I don't speak with the rest of them – those who claim such nobility. They wanted their seclusion from the world – they can have it. Let them sit stagnant until the resurgence... they dislike me even more than you do.”
“I don't dislike you.”
Victoria stared at her, cocking her head skeptically.
“Then I am very much deceived.”
“I don't particularly enjoy your company, but...” She stopped as she saw Victoria's gloomy expression momentarily turn to smug satisfaction.
“I seem to recall, not too many summers ago, you quite enjoyed my compa–“
“I also recall a mutual agreement not to discuss it ever again,” Bethlehem interrupted with an exasperated sigh as memories of warm summer nights floated through both their minds.
“But there's another member of your family, is there not?”
Victoria thought back to another lifetime, bundling her brother up against the cold, carefully wrapping a scarf around his little neck as he writhed.
“My sweet baby brother... perhaps I can speak with him. It may be that he's the only one left who truly understands. Thank you for your advice, Your Majesty.”
“Hm. One more thing, if you'll indulge my curiosity.”
“Certainly.”
“You must already know where your line of inquiry will lead, do you not?”
“I have some sense, yes, but certainty belongs to the future alone.”
“I don't envy you. We both see the path ahead of you. It is no easy one.”
-
Charon settled in at his desk, a steaming coffee in hand, staring down at a great puzzle; time tables, ridership numbers, maintenance costs. Every integer that related to the public transit infrastructure of Gannon City was somewhere on his desk. The Grand Marshal had challenged him to find a way to increase the efficiency of the sprawling network of train lines, and he had promised to deliver a project proposal that would rival a spiderweb draped across a mausoleum's entrance in both its elegant functionality and impeccable design. She just nodded at that.
Thus he took his large box of relevant documents and headed back to his chamber on Soroz, informed Vice and the Navigator that he was not to be disturbed by anyone for any reason, as a solitary genius must be able to ply his sinister work in solitude, and had taken his seat and began investigating the numbers when there was a knock on his door.
“Absolutely not!” He cried. “Do you not see the Do Not Disturb sign which rests upon my door? Away with ye!”
“Charon,” a familiar woman's voice called. “It's me.”
“The question stands! Surely someone who loves reading as much as you do can read a sign!”
“Charon, open the damned door! This is important!”
“I am otherwise occupied, sister. I haven't the time for whatever brings you here. As I've stated before, I have no interest in the so-called Lord of Truth. Now begone, if you please.”
Victoria, in the hallway, rolled her eyes and sighed, remembering every one of the instances like this one – she on one side, he on the other, refusing to open the door.
“So be it,” she cried. “Play with your toy trains until you wither and crumble to dust, you overgrown child!” She didn't wait for a response.
As she made her way down the hallway, she saw light shining from behind her, and heard a rumble closing in. She turned around to see Other End rolling slowly down the corridor, towards her, coming to a stop in front of her. She reached out a hand, giving it a tentative pat on what could be considered its cheek.
“Did he send you to run me over?”
Other End gave a negative blow of its whistle.
“I should apologize for calling you a toy train.” She smiled. “You became quite impressive over the years.”
She listened to the rumbles and hisses of the engine, the machine's speech.
“I am aware.” She kept listening. “Yes, I am aware of all this – now tell me. How do you know all this?”
From behind Other End, she heard voices. The train gave no indication of the relief it felt; this would buy some time to attempt to explain.
“Charon, could you move your train please? It's blocking the hallway!”
“Bah! Would you put a leash upon a comet to be dragged about? Other End does as it pleases!”
“Just blow it up, kid! This ought to do the trick...”
“Fool, no!”
Other End blew its whistle, issuing an imperative. Victoria unhappily floated onto it, making her way into the conductor's cab, clinging anxiously to the wall as Other End slowly rambled forth before suddenly gaining speed. It tore through the corridors, narrowly missing a few Aurorians here and there before coming to rest in a large empty room. Victoria, white as a sheet, clung to Other End for a moment as it did its best to laugh.
“I don't see this as amusing,” Victoria grumbled as she caught her breath and dismounted. “If I were your size, and you mine, surely you'd feel the same way!”
Charon, coffee still precariously in hand, came running in after them. She looked at him, surprised at his condition; he looked awful, his skin pale, dark under his eyes – he must not be feeding enough, poor thing.
“What did you do to Other End? My precious friend, tell me she did not –“
A loud whistle for silence. They listened to Other End pontificate for a moment. Charon scoffed.
“I've been quite clear – family of blood or not, we don't have anything to do with one another. The life of an aesthetic engineer does not call for companionship. Except you, Other End.” Victoria recalled many such speeches, although Charon was much smaller when he delivered them before.
“We have much to talk about, baby brother. Aren't you cracking under the weight of our clan's memories? Don't you need someone to talk to about what we know?”
“No. And what are you talking about, memories?”
“Don't play dumb!”
Charon's face showed genuine confusion.
“You don't... you don't know? You don't remember?” Victoria paced forward; Charon looked at Other End in concern. “What's the first thing you remember? Think back to Varaki...”
“Varaki? We come from Old Town, sister. Have you truly gone mad, like everyone says?”
“Old Town? What are you talking about? You were born at half past one in the morning in the north tower of Varaki Castle. I remember it from my perspective, and from our mother's, and...”
“Don't speak of our departed mother, Victoria!”
“Departed? She's alive, Charon... she, and our father, and the rest of them sealed themselves in the St–“
“Stop!” Charon shouted. “I've had enough of your ravings. Don't bother me again with the products of your addled imagination. Go preach them to your followers, madwoman.”
Anger flashed across Victoria's features for a moment, before realization dawned on her.
“I see it now. I'm the only one who carries these memories... your head's just full of idiotic fantasies! You truly are an eternal, lonely child, playing with his toys, living in a make-believe world!” She turned to Other End. “And you. Filling his head with these false memories – a genuine friend would speak truth, however painful. Goodbye, baby brother.” She turned to go, grimly recalling hundreds of such arguments, played out across centuries, over and over again in the family of blood.
“Yes, goodbye, Victoria. It's been a pleasure,” Charon said flatly as she left. He wondered about her words. Her devotion to her bizarre master has finally separated her from reality, he knew, but he nonetheless felt as though he was witnessing the second act of a complex drama without having seen the first.