One

(( there was originally a prologue to this story but i'm unsure about it. i might post it as the first half of chapter two, but as of right now i'm unsure about that. ))

In the minds of the people of Bekkant, Eerwynd was a beautiful and prosperous land.

Bekkant was built off of the melted steel and rubble from the Burning Days, shaped dramatically over the hundreds of years since it’s construction into a city barely holding itself together. Leaning towers of patchwork metal framed by the Great Wall, it would be accurate to describe it as the slums. Trash littered the streets and drugs and courtesans were as common as the lack of food its people could acquire without being one of the few wealthy people in the small city.

Eerwynd, it’s gorgeous rolling hills and oceanfront city always bright and lively, was a mirror reflection of the drab beaches littered with dead fish and seabirds of Bekkant’s coast. The only thing connecting them, side by side but unseen by one another, was the Gate.

Years ago, the legend tells, a rift opened along the tide of the ocean, so small it couldn’t be seen by mortal eyes. But from Eerwynd, full of inhuman creatures and magic, saw it and curious, opened it even further.

War broke out almost instantly, the two cities colliding in a battle of land and near-genocide that lasted for only six months. Juteneir, the country that Bekkant resided in, closed off the entire city with a great Wall made of spiked steel over twenty feet thick, and set the city on fire. Trapped inside still were the generations of workers building the wall themselves. The fires raged for weeks, and the survivors began to adapt, to survive on what little they had left. Until Eerwynd, seeing their people’s struggle, began to help them.

Eerwyndian soldiers came through the Gate, bringing food, clothing, medical supplies from their kingdom. A truce, a peace offering. The mighty kingdom fed their hungry, clothed their cold and weak. Sent police forces and supplies and resources.

Because Eerwynd needed them as much as Bekkant did.

---

Bodies bustled by, rushing in their preparations as Rynne Farhern strolled through the throng of people with feline ease. Her eyes surveyed everything being done around her to prepare for the performance tonight-acrobats stretching, fire-wielders testing their charmed props, the animal tamer giving one last brush through her white tiger’s gleaming coat. Her right hand, Gweneviere, stood off to the side, doing the same. Making her way towards her, Rynne gave her an indifferent nod and turned to back against the wall, a mirror image of her friend.

“Everything is ready for tonight on your end, correct?” she asked, eyes sliding to her right. But with her ears picking up on the roar of the crowd outside, the hustle and bustle of more guests than they’d expected, she already knew it had.

“Of course, dear,” Gwen said in response, her full lips quirking upward. “I gave the mayor the fliers. Whether or not he distributed them or not, though…”

Rynne couldn’t help her grin. “Trust your alternative methods, I suppose.”

“You love me.”

She bit back the sometimes, focusing instead on the sounds outside. The long alley, created by food vendors, marketers and fortune tellers was full of so many people it sounded like they’d be in for a big crowd for the performance coming up. It had been a long time coming, so many preparations, so many hours and hours of work and sweat and tears, bringing her one dream to fruition at long last.

It wasn’t her first show, not by a long shot. Her first had been over three years ago now, but this one was something special. The one she’d been waiting for all along. The one that welcomed the President.

People began filtering in, and Rynne checked her ornate pocket watch. 11:53.

She shifted, picking up on Gwen’s almost imperceptible sigh as she pushed up from against the wall and started corralling everyone to their positions backstage, waiting for their respective cues. Waiting for the show to start.

He would be somewhere up high, she thought, probably surrounded, overly cautious despite the message she was sending.

While Rynne wasn’t nervous-never nervous, never with her crew surrounding her-her heart still thrummed unevenly.

11:58.

Some excited whispers of “Showtime, showtime!” began, and she herself began walking towards the curtain, watching carefully as her light coordinators dimmed the soft lighting in the big top, nearly pitch black. It was her time. She pulled on her striped coat, buttoning the single button on the front.

11:59.

She strode through the curtain, to center stage, climbing up the short steps to the top of the podium, taking in the heat of the crowd, the overlapping whispers.

The spotlight flipped on just as the clock tower struck midnight.

Showtime.

---

Hours passed, filled with acts of all kinds, all from her own troupe. As soon as the lights dimmed, panting lightly from all of the excitement, Rynne passed through the backstage curtain last after she had watched the final act-Gwen, on the trapeze with her partners, Delta and Auron, sailing through the air after a pass and then disappearing as the lights dimmed, then came back on, all three performers having disappeared and Rynne in their place on the podium, arms outstretched as confetti showered down upon their guests. It was a beautiful, final act to her most breathtaking show she’d ever had.

Everyone cheered backstage, mirroring the crowd outside. She passed through them, heading to the office where their special guest was waiting.

She saluted as she crossed through the door, clenched fist tight over her chest. He sat at the lounge chair across the room from her desk, angled toward the empty fireplace. He stood, smiling, his arms open in jubilation. “Rynne, my darling-what a wonderful performance!”

Her arm dropped, light in her amber eyes. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

He nodded to her arm, surveying it carefully under her jacket. “How is your arm holding up?”

“Just fine, thank you.” She moved to roll her sleeve up, revealing solid metal. A prosthetic. “Thank you for gifting it to me this spring. It’s quite strong, and I’m just starting to gain feeling with it after Walter’s modifications.”

He laughed, a deep and hearty sound. “I’m surprised to hear. He has quite a devious mind.” Walter-the top mechanic in the city. Older than everyone, too-his elongated lifespan meant he had seen much over his few hundred years-including the construction of the wall, and the birth of the new city. Always one for stories, but never about the construction or the Burning Days. Rynne wondered if it was a sensitive topic for him, or if he remained elusive on purpose to fuel rumors.

She had met him for the first time as a child, having been brought over from Eerwynd and forced into carnivals for people like her. People from Eerwynd and Bekkant alike, with disfigurements and differences from so-named “ordinary” humans.

Rynne brushed her hair behind her blunted ear. The scars at the edge of them hurt not physically, but every time she saw it in a mirror. Every time she felt it. The one bit of heritage she had left, cut off and discarded by her own hand to blend in.

After her first show, he had approached her, having noted the stump of her arm, another remnant of her broken past. But not from Bekkant itself. He’d whistled, peering down at it-not her-with interested eyes, promising her he would have a solution for it. The mutant-carnivals were something he had always shared her opinion in, that they were terrible. That they should be stopped. But the years before then, before Rynne had grown up and become stronger, they had been run by a crime lord-one not even the President dared to try and stop.

She turned slowly away from the President and walked to her desk. “How has Walter been doing these past few days?” she asked without looking at him, thumping down in her seat. She was tired as all hell, but she wouldn’t dare send away their leader without giving him the polite conversation he wanted.

“He is well,” he replied, turning to go and sit down across from her. Wonderful, then. He’d be staying a while. “Recently though, he’s been ailed with something that even our supposedly magical Frederick can’t figure out.” Ah-Frederick. She’d heard rumors of the new government-appointed doctor claiming to hail from Eerwynd, blessed with their finest healing magic. Still struggling to prove himself, if what the President told her is anything to go by.

She was just about to reply when Gwen sauntered in, smiling as though all the world she knew what Rynne had wanted-a reprieve from the President’s small talk.

“Boss, Eleina is out here hurling her guts out.”

Rynne stood swiftly, giving her leader an apologetic look. “I apologize sir, but I have matters to-”

“No need to apologize, Rynne,” he told her with a soft smile. “Please tend to your performers. I’ll speak to you later this week. We have matters of our own to attend to.” And with that, he exited, followed by a man she hadn’t even realized was in the corner. Invisibility then, or a glamor. Rynne narrowed her eyes almost imperceptibly, but if Gwen caught it then she didn’t let on.

Instead she only nodded her head and out they went together to take care of their sick performer.

---

Gods, this place smelled as awful as always.

At least she was used to it, Rynne thought as she swished amber liquid around in her clear, short glass. The Irons was never her favorite bar, hidden deep within the underbelly of Bekkant, but she had business to attend to here and it was the last place anyone she knew would come looking for her. It was a safe haven for grotesque and horrible things to lurk, to watch, to remain truly free after Eerwynd’s troops had pushed through the Gate and policed the rest of the city into a peaceful place.

But that didn’t mean that the people here were...bad, necessarily.

The barkeeper to her left, Clara, had a shaved head, her tan skin smooth and gleaming in the low light of the bar, her family dealing mostly in the sale of drugs. Rynne was almost positive they ran their business out of the back of the bar, but as well as her family hid it, it was almost impossible to be sure. It certainly wouldn’t have surprised her, though, if she would walk in the back to find boxes of illegal contraband stacked among the alcohol.

She sipped her drink slowly, glancing around at the other patrons, hoping to find some inkling of the person she was meeting. No one approached her or seemed to be looking around as well, so she turned back to her drink. She hadn’t met them in person before, but she’d exchanged several letters with them since that night she’d met with the President, and decided to meet here. Supposedly, they dealt exclusively in information-at a price. And whatever it was, she was willing to pay it, feeling the weight of the coins in her bag.

The things he told her...she shuddered, watching her reflection blur and ripple in the reflection of her drink.

“Looking?” someone asked from beside her, and she whirled her head around.

Sitting a few seats away from her, a woman sat, eyeing her. Her long, cool red hair flowed over her shoulder in a braid and the dark grey clothes she wore seemed almost militaristic, her round glasses reflecting off of the dim lights.

Her eyes though-large and grey. Something magic in those eyes.

“Perhaps,” she replied vaguely, finally tearing her gaze away. Something about the woman made her incredibly uncomfortable, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.

Coins clattered on the bar as the woman sidled up next to Rynne. “I’m looking for someone as well. I was hoping someone here could help me, but I’m not used to such…” Her eyes gazed around the room, not lingering on anything for too long. “-disreputable places, so to speak. Would you be able to help me?”

She shrugged. “Most likely not. People only come here to help themselves.” A glance at a man walking out with the prostitute she’d seen in the corner.

“I know who you are.”

That...piqued her interest, though she didn’t show it aside from sliding her eyes over to gaze at the woman again. She seemed unnaturally desperate.

She continued, “You are Rynne. You lead the Karnivale, you hail from Eerwynd, you are heir to the Farhern line-”

“I am heir to nothing,” she snapped, noting the way the woman spoke. Another Eerwyndian, then, looking down on her hard work, her choice to turn her back on magic. “I chose not to live that life. And I’ve paid for it, but nothing could make me involve myself in anything that hell-hole has to offer.”

Grey eyes widened, and then softened. “I’m not asking you to return by any means,” she murmured. “I need a favor from you, specifically.”

Rynne scoffed. “I have more dignity than to sniff around like your dog.” She made to get up from the bar, but the woman grabbed her sleeve.

“Please,” she whispered, so softly that Rynne almost didn’t hear it.

As luck would have it, the second she made to keep moving, a dark and masked figure appeared in the doorway, and skittered off. Rynne jerked her arm from the woman and swept through the mass of people between her and the door, hopping down the front steps of the bar and looking around. Of course they’d disappear…

Until she hears a rustle in the alleyway to her left. She hardly registers the woman struggling to run after her and keep up, shouting her name.

She rounds the corner, just fast enough to see a flash of the black cloak they’d been wearing go around yet another corner and she sprints, pushing her muscles as fast as she could force them, hoping to catch them just in time-

She skidded to a stop.

What greeted her was death. Or some recreation of it, anyway.

She remembered little about the Kransunder, the dark magic-users of the Underworld, before they were wiped from the top of the city. Her memories were unclear, but she was sure she remembered a legend that was told by her grandmother that their magic was so dark and grotesque that being around them for too long would cause one to become ill.

But she remembered with little help the bone-white masks they wore, elongated into a beak with dark pits for eyes. She shuddered at the sight, backing away from the sight out of instinct, but her back hit a wall. She looked behind her, finding where there was once an entrance to the second alley she’d run into, there was now a black wall of smoke. A barrier, then.  

She whirled back around to the figure, her hands twitching in an attempt to not reach for the knife in her belt.

“You’re the one I’m meeting, correct?” she asked, distrustful.

The figure was quiet, but lifted up a hand. She flinched as it reached up a gloved finger to her chest, hovering a few inches away, and drew a symbol in the air. It floated to her, melting into her skin. Rynne shivered, feeling all of a sudden cold, and all at once the feeling dissipated. Something about her felt...violated.

“You are trustworthy,” a muffled voice came from under the mask.

The figure’s cloak was pulled back-it was a boy, she realized all of a sudden, and from his height he couldn’t have been too old-and from within, he pulled out a folder. It seemed full, and her eyes gleamed. That much could be worth more than she could afford, depending on what was inside-and she went to pull the sack of gold from her bag.

“Not money,” the boy told her. She stiffened.

“How will I pay you, then?”

A light shone from behind her, and she looked to find a stream of rose gold cutting through the inky swirl of smoke. She heard the folder being tossed to her, and she caught it without looking. “Payment will come later. I must go. I suggest you do the same.”

She turned back around to face the figure but he had already disappeared. She looked up, finding a warped fire escape above her.

By the time the red-haired woman cut fully through the smoke, Rynne was already on the roof, looking down at her. She seemed somewhat confused, looking around. Stupid.

Rynne shoved the folder in her bag, and began moving back home.

---

Gwen was not a scaredy-cat.

Not never in a million years.

But something the way Rynne was acting since she had met with the President seemed...odd. And Gwen was nothing if not determined to keep her leader happy and as stress-free as possible.

And it wasn’t weird at all for her to have followed Rynne to the bar that night, to see her encounter with that woman before they’d both run off in a direction that Gwen wasn’t fast enough to catch. But something about the woman-something about her seemed wrong. Not dangerous, but wrong.

So when Rynne invited her into her apartment to look over the information she’d found, Gwen was excited to help her friend.

They’d known each other since they were five years old, tumbling over each other in the thick grasses of Eerwynd. Together at every opportunity, which was...well, all the time. Rynne’s father had joined the royal army, after years of their family line staying away from the main city. Their entire family had been invited to move from their country road to a comfortable house directly within the city, close to the beaches. Gwen’s family, on the other hand, were generations and generations of servants-residing for the most part within the castle. But something happened, and she could never quite remember why she and her friend were ripped from the city by Rynne’s mother.

She remembered the running, the fear, the looking over their shoulders constantly. But she couldn’t remember why.

It hurt her head to think about.

“What do you think it means?” Rynne asked her, and she tilted her head.

They sat in her small living room, a lamp pulled over next to them. “I couldn’t tell you,” she replied, picking up a paper from the pile and studying it. Rynne flopped back onto the floor, brows furrowing.

“What a help you are.”

Gwen stuck out her tongue, but studied the information further. “You said the old coot told you there was a threat, right? Why not just deal with it himself instead of asking you for help?”

“I’m not sure,” Rynne replied, pushing herself back up onto her elbows. “I met a woman last night, though. She asked me the same thing. I wonder if they’re the same thing.” She brushed her short, brown hair behind her ear. “I might be a Farhern but...I didn’t inherit a damn thing.”

Gwen gave her a pointed look. “Your family doesn’t exactly have an active power. Maybe it just takes a while to mature. The President does know a lot of things that no one else seems to, so maybe he just sees it more than you do.”

A nasty look to meet her own. “Even if I had…” Rynne sighed. “Even if I did, I don’t want it. I don’t want a damn thing to do with Eerwynd.”

She sighed, moving overtop the mountain of paper to lay beside her companion. Rynne had never...never longed for a greater power. Their family had been blessed by Lady Luck herself, a very passive ability allowing them to turn the tide of any situation with just their luck. Most of the time it couldn’t be controlled, but knowing Rynne, if she had indeed inherited the gift after spending so long in Bekkant…

She rolled over. “I dunno. I think you should find that woman and tell her that you’ll help. I know you don’t wanna go back through the Gate, but maybe if you try hard enough, you can help them with what they need and demand something in return.”

Rynne’s eye twitched. Gwen knew she’d hit the jackpot.

The one thing they’d both been working towards for so long.

Her friend pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket, bunched in her hand. She uncrumpled it and showed Gwen.

meet me near the gate if you change your mind. I can grant nearly any wish in return

-avalon

“She slipped it in my pocket before I left,” Rynne murmured.

“I wonder if she could change laws,” Gwen mused as she looked over the paper, reading it carefully.

“She sounded like some kind of snotty noble, so I doubt it.”

Gwen crumpled the paper up in her hand and tossed it in the air, catching it easily. “The discrimination laws haven’t been abolished yet only because they need another signature. Just one more Eerwyndian signature and it can be done with.”

Rynne sighed. “I guess you’re right.”

“As always. Just talk to her, see what she needs. Maybe it won’t be so bad.” Gwen stood up. “Regardless of what you decide. I believe in you. I gotta go, but whatever you do, don’t stress it too much. Hopefully after the show the other day some more signatures will come in. Just give it a little more time.”

As she walked towards the door, she heard Rynne mutter, “Whatever.”

And with a smile, Gwen knew her friend’s decision had been made up.