Chapter III

Chapter III

Sar, Sypheros 21st, 998YK

Tu had always loved playing a role. She often felt that she was born to play these roles, to hold a mirror to the world, as long as that mirror was her own face. She’d had that journal since she was 7, had been gathering, sharing, and creating personas for all that time. The caravan she’d been brought up in loved her, and loved her craft. And she was unrivalled in House Phiarlan, until the mental breakdown she’d had and gotten kicked out.

As she moved through the carriages in that gown, to the breakfast carriage, Rust trailing behind her, she took a minute to appreciate her feminine form. For someone who had been raised in a changeling caravan pretty genderless, most of her personas ended up male for some reason. It would be a really nice change of pace for a minute, to use she/her pronouns, to look feminine, to be a lady. An important lady at that; she was going to be dragonmarked royalty.

She looked back at Rust. They took up almost the entire carriage, their massive form blocking most of the light from the everbright lanterns overhead. Like a giant shadow. Their features were impassive, too; forged weren’t really built for emotion. Rust had developed it anyway. It was rumoured that they were one of the first to step out of the creation forge, barely a prototype. They were older than all forged the crew had met on their travels.

They had mentioned an Aaren they knew once; was this the legendary artificer? Whenever the topic came up, the forged had always fallen silent. They don’t wear an expression as easily as Sasolin or even Tu herself do, (Tu even associating certain personas with certain emotions), but Tu swore she could feel the regret radiating off the forged.

All that was really known was, once deployed for Cyre, Rust quickly took on the sarcastic, gallows humour of their commander and brothers-in-arms. The name ‘Rust’ is a further exercise in this, the idea that one day they will fall, not to age or battle, but to rust. Maybe because of this, Rust had never had any trouble with emotion or their place in the world; they were cyran, and they were as much a victim of the mourning as any human. Maybe even more so. In fact, often when Tu and Rust would stay up late at night together, Tu would forget that she would be talking to a construct.

“Rust?” Tu ventured, unsure yet curious.

“Yeah, Solloene?” The forged called back, completely cheerfully.

“I was just thinking,” Tu winced, in case she was about to make a huge mistake in their friendship. “How come you’ve never modified yourself? The towns and cities we pass through, they have plenty of able blacksmiths. You could de-armour. You could get a new face. Maybe the idea of staying with a single face is foreign to me, but you have the option. Why don’t you?”

Rust let out something resembling a laugh. Were they trying out new laughs again? “You’re probably right, Solloene-”

“Tu. Call me Tu when we’re alone.”

“But you corrected Sasolin when she-”

Tu turned and held up her palm to the forged’s massive, imposing chestplate. “Just you, okay? Call me Tu.”

Rust took a minute, nodded, and continued. “You’re probably right, Tu, the idea is foreign to you. But my face, my body, is something I quite like. I see no reason to change it.”

Tu raised an eyebrow. “Really? You wouldn’t change anything?”

“My body, my armour, wasn’t something that was a chance of genetics. My armour was given to me by my unit in the cyran forces. My face, my ghulra”, they tapped their forehead, an intricate series of engraved lines, unique to them, and them alone. “These are all gifts give to me. And without my face, how would my friends recognise me? Without my cyran colours, how would other cyrans know to seek me out? And without my massive build, how am I to protect you all?”

“I don’t really need protecting, you know. I can recognise you without that face.” Tu felt butterflies fly through her stomach. She tried rearranging a few organs to settle the system, but the system would not settle.

“But why would I change the face you know me as? I like that I am known, as I am, to you, Tu.”

A moment of tenderness passed between them, broken as the compartment door they were unwittingly standing in the way of opened and a harumph sounded from within. Rust took a few steps back to let the gentleman out, and Tu pressed herself against the carriage window to attempt to let him through. She fought the urge to physically flatten her body. Nothing would blow her cover like shapeshifting right in front of the audience. As he passed, Tu turned back to Rust, the moment passed.

Rust, a slightly sarcastic lilt in their voice, “Lead the way, Lady Solloene. The breakfast carriage awaits.”

Tu bit back a small laugh. “Absolutely it does, my fine protector. Absolutely it does.”

~

The breakfast carriage was still mostly empty by the time they entered and sat. Tu looked around; a bit anxious. She had perfectly good reason to be anxious, of course, considering she was wearing the face of a girl who had just been killed. She looked around at the nobility that joined her, but none looked shocked or surprised; only gave her curt nods, and returned to this morning’s copy of the Korranberg Chronicle. Tu looked back to Rust, an equal mix confused and relieved.

“I guess we eat?”

“I guess you do. I don’t eat.”

Tu playfully rolled her eyes at the forged and got up to go to the buffet. She grabbed a plate and began shovelling scrambled eggs (a staple from her caravanning days) when a tall man came over and tapped her on the shoulder. She lazily turned around, a grin still on her face, to see a half orc looking at her expectantly.

“Hey! So great to see you again!” Tu trusted her instincts and went in for a half-hug; her instincts were correct. Good to see those years of training as a Phiarlan improvisational comic hadn’t gone all down the drain.

“Great to see you too, Solloene. You get back to your carriage okay last night? You were really laying into the Zarash’ak whiskey I’d brought.”

Lucky, Tu thought to herself; very lucky.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she laughed, touching the half-orc on the arm. “My memory’s a bit fuzzy, but I’m sure I’ll survive.”

The half-orc nodded and made a small sound of relief. “Good, I’d feel awful if something were to happen to you.”

Not for the first time doing this type of job, Tu felt like an outsider, like the audience in some play. She’d read the play cover to cover, but the pain of watching the characters discover the tragedy that awaited them was always so delicious when accompanied by popped corn. However, she could only feel sorry for the real people it happened to.

She smiled and nodded at the orc, whilst trying to hide to terrible irony she felt at his statement.

“Well, I’m all well and good, I’m sure you’re pleased to see.” She had an idea; “Why don’t you join me for breakfast? There’s room at our table.”

The half-orc looked puzzled as they turned and travelled to the table. “Our? I thought you were travelling alone.”

Tu played it off as best as she felt she could. “Oh, you know, alone apart from my protection. Us khoravar don’t have your massive build, and the house are anxious to keep anything from happening on this trip.” She looked him up and down. He was a little over 6 feet tall, with broad shoulders that you could tell were well toned underneath that simple shirt he wore. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing off a sizeable dragonmark. Tu had never been great telling one dragonmark from another, but she at least knew (after a few dozen lectures from E.C.) that the complex it was, the more power it had.

When they got to the table, the half-orc made another sound, this one of mild surprise. “A warforged! How lovely.” The term, although widely used, always made Tu bristle, just a little bit. The idea that her friend, Rust, was only good for war didn’t sit right with her. But she was playing the part of the pretty noble, and so play along she must.

“Oh yes, this warforged and I go way back. They go by Rust.”

The half-orc gave a look of slight confusion but held out his hand for shaking to Rust regardless.

“What an … interesting name. Did you pick it yourself?”

Tu thought she noticed Rust shift in their seat, almost unnoticeable if you didn’t know the forged.

Rust shook and replied, “Absolutely did, sir. And do forgive me, but I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

The half-orc gave Tu a very impressed look that made her sick to her stomach. “Very good, very polite. Hold onto this one, Solloene!” He spoke like the warforged was a pet. He withdrew his hand from the handshake. “I’m Hod. Hod Tharashk.”

Tu slid into the booth and patted the seat next to her. “Why don’t you sit down, and we can continue the conversation we were having last night?”

Hod nodded. “Absolutely. I had a chance to look over the documents you lent me,” as pulled out a bunch of rolled up paper from his back pocket, “and I have to say, I think our houses will be working very closely together, very soon.”

Tu held up her hand hopefully; luckily, Hod seemed to think it was natural to hand the documents back. As she thumbed through a few of them, she clearly saw their importance. Plans for special skydocks, incorporating the stilts of Zarash’ak and some manner of floating balloons. This would change how airships came and went from the city, and by extension, dragonshards.

But that begged the question; if the documents were safe and sound, then why was that girl murdered?