The latter half of 919, 9th Era
Endergaln
Peace sat like an ill-fitting sweater, outgrown years ago but worn in a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the passage of time.
It should have been a time of tranquility and growth for them. In many ways it was. No strange itchiness or sense of unease could completely remove the pleasures of learning, with fascinating problems to dig into and new discoveries to be made every day. With no need to hide their magic, they could explore the furthest stretches of the Stuff, beyond anything they’d imagined when they’d first started delving into the mysteries of the arcane beneath Northgate. Too, there was the hitherto-unknown pleasures of camaraderie with minds as good as or better than theirs, passing ideas back and forth and refining them into a better state than either could alone. For one of the first times in their life, they were learning about the Stuff—no, the Weave—from other people who knew about it and could chart out a path, not digging for any scrap or item they could find and trying to deduce the principles from seeing how the end result worked.
She still hid the fact that she was Returned, of course. Generally she hewed as close to the truth as possible, since it seemed Galoring as a city still existed; she just neglected to mention that the Galoring she’d grown up in was apparently from hundreds of years ago. Being from a faraway city, come here by a magical accident, was close enough to the truth as made little difference. It wasn’t even the strangest origin story she’d heard from the occupants here.
Even outside of work and research, there was much to occupy their time. They spent hours each week exploring the city, of course, learning its nooks and crannies, poking their nose wherever permitted (and occasionally not permitted). They started to watch the odd play again, usually small productions at the district theater. When they wanted to turn their mind completely off, they sneaked the swooning books that Peach loved (they were so silly, of course, just absurd, but— and here any attempt at justifying their choice of reading material would break down, even as they devoured new entries in the City of Brass and Shadow series).
And yet, suffusing the easy rhythm of life in Endergaln, there hovered the looming sense that this state of calm was as fragile as a soap bubble. They kept a pack ready to go in their room and one in their locker at the workshop, with travel essentials, tools, components, and a small coin-purse. Unexpected noises still made them tense up and their hand arch into a casting position. They learned to minimize the reaction lest they make their colleagues uneasy, but never quite fully rid themselves of it. If they had something at hand to engage with, they could set aside the anxiety and focus on the here-and-now; but in stray unoccupied moments, they found their gaze drifting northward, where the Tower stood, ever present though often occluded.
During resting hours their mind would skip about, retreading paths that had been trod a million times before, how to escape, what order to contact people, who would be best suited for what, reliving moments that could not be changed now. Sometimes they would lie rigid on their bed, stubbornly fighting the thoughts in a race to see which would arrive first, sleep or the chime of the clock signifying “morning.” Even if sleep won, it was often a temporary victory; they might wake an hour or two later in a sweat-soaked tangle of sheets from a disconcertingly-broad array of nightmares.
Other times she would cede the win to the thoughts, and rise to attempt to read, or work on experiments, or scrawl notes or (in the corner of pages she would never show to anybody) poetry. Sometimes she would give up altogether and leave through her small window to walk the city, usually over the roofs, Aloysius a sleepy murine lump in their pocket. (Generally invisible; just because the city was more accustomed to magic didn’t mean it didn’t cause alarm to see people zipping about overhead during the hours of rest. And it didn’t pay to attract the attention of any other folk about in the resting hours who might be inclined to cause trouble, like the House militia.)
There was a small 24-hour public house in one of the rougher districts that they started to gravitate to during the times they gave up on sleep. Bock’s was run by a rat-faced (literally) fellow—not named Bock, in fact, but Skinner—who catered to the rest shift laborers and the various ne’er-do-wells of the area. He kept the drinks cheap and the meals questionable and fried, and the wide cross-section of society that showed up there meant no one raised eyebrows at a slight young human with mechanic’s hands and doubting eyes. One might see a wealthy group of youths slumming it after a night out rubbing elbows (or more) with the gentlefolk of negotiable affection they were there to find, next to a traveling messenger who’d just made it into town, still with their message bag and traveling gear, beside the members of a construction crew there for their breakfast fry-up and small beer, interspersed with students who drank there because it was cheap while arguing over the latest ideas and politics. A third of the time Sav was there some kind of altercation would break out. It usually didn’t go any further than shouting and maybe a few punches, but one time knives did come out, and Sav had to deflect a hit and trip a dealer of exotic powders into the bar before extricating herself.
Something about the very obvious need to keep an eye out at Bock’s soothed the inchoate edginess that pushed Sav into the streets. It was justified, here, while not being so dangerous that anyone was likely to lose a life. And the food was all right. Sometimes one needed something fried and questionable.
Sav largely avoided chatting there, preferring to hide behind a book or journal, but the frequency with which they showed up meant that inevitably they started to be known (though Skinner himself refused to acknowledge anyone as a regular—it didn’t matter if you’d gone there every day for fifteen years and ordered the same thing every time, as indeed a few had, he would make you say every order as if it was the first time you were there, without a flicker of recognition). At first it was Demira, the matronly satyr server, who greeted Sav with a “The usual, hon?” which startled Sav so badly they didn’t return for three weeks. When they did, Demira slid the usual in front of them—a plate of sausage and fermented cabbage on toast and a fried pickle, with a pint of the dark house beer—without asking, a knowing twinkle in her eye. Sav just nodded at her, and left a little extra coin that time.
Others began to nod at her when she entered, though she never introduced herself to anyone else, nor they her. She didn’t have a specific seat—it wasn’t that kind of place, nor did she come on a regular enough schedule—but sometimes someone would squeeze over to give her a space when room was tight, and once during a brawl Mid-sized Jasper (whose name she only knew because they had it embroidered on their factory uniform) held an interloper for her to punch, which she did with a brio that surprised her.
Yet none of this, while comforting in its own way, ever quite loosened the knot at the nape of her neck, nor kept the nightmares from recurring.
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