[Open] Stand up!

[Aodh Elzo]

77th Yaris, 2719. Evening

The tap room of the Whale was quiet, Aodh Elzo was satting at a table near the middle of the room staring into a pint of Chrove's Erse. The wild haired wick was unsettled, the news of Serros death had hit him hard, he'd given up on his life to fight for freedom and equality after his brothers death. He left his caravan and became a tsat, and sometimes, like tonight, he hated himself for it.

The pints of strong ale had had already drank mixed with the sorrow in his heart and soul and it started to boil.

Aodh picked up his battered tankard, drained it in one long swallow and slammed the empty vessel down onto the table with a bang. His companions at the table looked at him surprised, he held up a hand.

"I am done. The papers cry of Serro's dead, like he was our king. Like without him we don't have a clockin' spine, but I don't know about yous, I ain't in this coz o' him"

Aodh pointed a finger at his chest.

"But I'm in this because I believe in a better world, a world where a person can climb to the very heights, based on their ability rather than where and what they happened to be born!"

A few of the patrons at other tables were taking notice now, some even starting to grumble in agreement. Aodh didn't care, his blood was up.

""In fact, do you know the only advantage the bloody clockin' gollymancers have over us?"

He raked his table mates with a withering gaze.

""NONE!" He slammed a fist into the table top.

""We outnumber them, if all of the Dives rose up, not just us wicks but the humans as well we'd be as a bloody wave! They control us because we clockin' let those jent bastards do it! Because that's how it's always been."

[Raksha]

77th Yaris, 2719
THE WHALE | EVENING

The Whale was quiet this night, somber and moody, minds still trying to understand the events of the past houses. Jon Serro dead.
​​
​​Jon Serro dead.
​​
​​It seemed surreal. Surely the man was invincible, or so he seemed. Larger than life and passionate to a fault. He was arrogant and rash and angry and too-clocking-stupid.
​​
​​Jon Serro was dead and the last thing she’d said to the man, was that she'd never forgive him.
​​
​​Alyssa Pierre nursed her small shot of whiskey, dark hair swept into a braid and tucked under the hood of a rough threadbare cloak. She wore trousers, worn boots and fingerless gloves, tucked away in the corner. Hidden in plain sight, the assassin hunched over the drink, Jon’s pipe in her other hand. She didn’t light it, though she held it as though it was. It smelt of him, rich tobacco and smouldered oak, the cup smoothed by years of handling. It wasn’t his originally, not by purchase. It had belonged to a friend, a brother-in-arms from his years in the AAF. Handed to Jon on the eve of their last day of battle. Before the brash younger Serro had been greviously injured and his friend killed.
​​
​​Had the old fool learned nothing.
​​
​​The Whale was quiet, and Alyssa appreciated it. Here, she was just some nobody drowning their sorrows. They didn't expect her to lead, or guide, they didn’t even know who she was. Here, she could find a small moment of peace.
​​
​​A loud bang echoed in the quiet tavern, a mug slammed on a hardwood table, and the Wisp chanced a brief glance at the voice that bellowed from the vicinity.
​​
​​Aodh. The Firebrand.
​​
​​Alyssa looked down at her drink again, lifting the small cup to sip at the whisky, listening with quiet curiosity as the burly man found his momentum.
​​
​​He wasn't their King. He was a liar, and a manipulator, and a zealot.
​​
​​But he was, outside of all that, a good man. Once upon a time Jon Serro had been a father and a friend.
​​
​​Once upon a time, he’d been a good man.
​​
​​Aodh continued, and Alyssa leaned back slightly, blue hooded gaze scanning the room. He had their ears, he was grabbing their hearts. She could feel the ripple of agreeable murmurs, and her eyes shifted back to the fiery bastard, lifting the mug to shield her features behind the hood.
​​
​​ “Aye! But ‘ow’ye expect us t’do tha’when them luggers go’their voodundun? Tch, ‘ow r’us shitekickers meant t’rise up 'gainst fire ‘nd brimstone?!” The assassin growled in a rough voice, born of the harbour, indesriminately neutral in it’s tone and gruff with perceived hardship. Others that had murmured with agreeance picked up the thread and murmured their own concerns. Alyssa didn't intend to discourage or derail, instead pressing for the man to share his words and his thoughts without the weight of the congregation so often found at the Book and Bell or the How.
​​
​​She sipped her whisky, and waited.
​​

[Aodh Elzo]

77th Yaris, 2719. Evening

Aodh scanned the crowd wondering who had spoke and then shrugged slightly, the speaker had a point. He nodded and paused for a moment, looking thoughtful, and held up a hand.

"Aye, they got magic, money and power?"

Firebrand let out a bitter laugh, and stood up.
"We've magic enough do we not? And as fer power? Well they have what we bloody give them! As for money, a fool and his money are soon parted are they not?"

The last got a few laughs, Firebrand's face in the flickering candle light had taken on a decidedly wolf-like aspect.

"You know what else we got? Guns! Like to see one of um try an' cast wit' an extra erse hole in their clockin' faces! If every man and woman of the Dives decided they had enough and stood up, you know what we'd have?"

He raked the crowd with his intense blue eyed gaze.
"A bloody army, we out number the damn laoso jents, they are only in charge because we bloody let them be." He shook his wild haired head.

"Well I don't know about the rest of ya, but I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the clockin' boot on my throat, of the shit we have ta eat on a daily basis. Havakda!"

He was shouting now, passion shining in his eyes. "I am sick of letting them tell us how we should live our lives and I say, no more. I have had enough!" He slammed a fist onto the table top.

"So stand! If you want freedom, stand up if you want equality!" He paused and lowered his voice. "I mean true equality, between men and women as well.” He pointed at a man who sniggered. "You may bloody well scoff and laugh, but you expect a person to fight and not have the same freedoms as you? You should be ashamed." The man’s companions moved away and he could not meet Firebrand’s burning gaze and looked away.

The wick held up a finger and his voice dropped to a hush then, that carried around the now silent tap room. "I am not here to mourn Jon Serro, but to make his name a rallying call. A battle cry that will shake this very city to its foundations!" Firebrand scanned the faces of the crowd.

"Make no mistake, we are at war."

A few shocked looks passed around the tavern, and a few nods. Firebrand’s voice rose again.

"The time of words is done. So stand up, stand with me and prepare for war!"

[Oliver Callagan]

Date

---

Something was in the air.

Only a day ago he'd witnessed black backs swamp the riverside, pulling something large and bloated out of the water. He'd been too far away to see a face, but the shape had been unmistakably human; some drunken fool who'd drowned, he'd thought. It happened often enough. What few hours the working men and women of the Soot district enjoyed was often wasted leaning over a bar, bottle in hand, drowning themselves in spirits before tying a weight around their neck and taking the plunge. He knew a few children who waded through the muck of the river, looking for valuables, and corpses were like treasure troves.

But his concern had not been for the wretched souls that staggered through Vienda’s most hated streets. He’d been more concerned with not being arrested for some made-up crime. That’s how Big Sam had ended up behind bars, and Naggin’ Nelly, and circle gods only knew where big uncle had taken Aiden Faeh, though Aiden had always been a bit of a nutter and the streets were at least a little safer for his disappearance.

Perhaps he’d just been lucky. Perhaps they'd wanted him to see, to light a fire that spread fast as flu throughout the district. He'd only told a few of his friends about what he’d seen, but the story soon took off, corroborating what the newspaper gleefully declared the next day. Now the streets were as good as deserted. Even the sad procession of factory workers young and old had been tardy that morning, chatting in hushed tones, dragging their feet, glaring at their overseers, uncaring for the reprimand they’d undoubtedly receive. Everyone could feel it.

Something was in the air.

Jon Serro was no more, the newspapers said. Found dead in the river, they said. Murdered, they said. Only the last of those sounded like it had any truth to it. Rumour had it the Seventen themselves had done the deed, others in insisted on a feud with the Bad Brothers, and others still suggest internal strife was the real cause of the man’s demise.

Olyver replayed the memory over and over again in his head. Could it really have been him? The Jon? The sheer mundaneness with which the greatest terrorist in recent memory had been dragged ashore seemed a poor match for someone so important. If it was really Jon Serro, he would’ve expected something bigger, not this rotting sack of meat that looked no different from the corpses that his playmates down the Arova looted.

There was as little work as there were people on the streets today, and Olyver had abandoned his shoe-shining stand a house after opening it. Sometimes, when the inns and taverns got busy, they could use a helping hand, especially if it came cheap, and so he'd swept the floor of the Whale, done most of the dishes, carried crates and barrels up and down the cellar, and still he wasn't done. On a day like this, business was thriving and the proprietor of the infamous tavern had persuaded him to stay with a promise of coin.

He squeezed past long legs and big bellies, picked up mugs, refilled them, wiped the tables with a dirty cloth and tried to be friendly, earning another fort for every five drinks he sold. Though tiresome, the work was better than freezing his butt off outside and having to keep a constant eye out for the Seventen. They'd never show their faces here, not in the least because the Whale was doing just fine of hosting moony folk. Like the man at the bar, making a scene, disrupting the unusual quiet that hung over the tavern's inhabitants like a veil.

The man's voice cut through hushed conversations, sounded over the clinking of glasses, the scrapes of chairs on the dusted floor, and the crackling of a fire at the far end of the establishment. All eyes were on him now, some seemed utterly engrossed, others struggled to keep quiet.

"You're a clocking mad man!" a burly man with a golden tooth hollered from the back. "You s'pose you can take them on with those fine, spindly arms of yours?" A bout of laughter erupted from another table, though not all voices joined.

"You're one to talk, Marthen, you've never fought for anything in your life," the scratchy voice of an old, weathered man sounded from another corner. He looked like an old sea captain, only twice as dangerous.

"This man," the captain gestured toward Aodh, "is right, this means war and anyone who thinks different is a cock-sucking golly lover." The man curled his tongue and spat. "That's what you lot are worth, cowering behind your drinks while they walk over us, rob us, fuck us, murder us-" the man heeded Aodh's call, stood up raised his tankard in Aodh's direction, and gulped down rest of his drink with a mighty swig. "Give me a knife and a target , and I'll carve Jon's name in their soft flesh, so they'll never forget!"

The man slammed his tankard down in much the same fashion as Aodh, looked around him like a feral beast and roared, "more!"

Rabbit-quick, Olyver shot up to the man's side and poured a dark ale into the tankard.

"Go on, go on, keep pouring… I said go on, do I look like a bleedin' nanny? Up to the brim, lad!"

Foam poured over the edges, travelled down the table and dripped onto the floor. A mess Olyver knew all too well he'd have to clean. He'd barely got his rag out when the brutish man spoke again. "You aren't some molly coddle, are you?"

"A what?"

"A clocking golly-loving limpdick, a spineless whoreson, a fat pig like Marthen over there-"

A tankard flew in their direction, and Olyver barely ducked in time.

"You take that back," Marthen barked. The giant had gotten up now, though not in support of Aodh's cause. "You take that back or I'll-"

"-or what, you'll call your Seventen friends?"

More people got up, some reached for chairs, others reached for the knives hidden in their boots. "Let's find out if your heart beats for the cause or for the sorcerers and their spawn," the old man sneered, whipping out a knife. He shot a quick glance at Aodh, expecting help in the fight to come.

"Wait," Olyver scrambled to his feet and put himself between the old shark and the bulwark. "Stop it! Jon wouldn't have wanted-" As if he knew what Jon would've wanted. All he knew was that the Whale's owner preferred his furniture intact, might even reward him for stopping a fight in its tracks.

"Get out of the way, boy," Marthen grumbled. He'd broken off a chair leg and carried it like a club. "This doesn't involve you, only those two moony sons-a-bitches who'd like to see us all dead."

[Aodh Elzo]

77th Yaris, 2719. Evening

Firebrand stood and watched as the taproom became pandemonium, but it wasn’t about fighting each other but the real foe. He leapt from the floor to the table and raised his voice.

"Aye fight, but not each other, don’t waste your rage. That’s what they want! How long have them jents have turned us against one another ye chen? Are ya all mung? Ya want ta play into their hands? Look at eachother, these are your neighbours, your friends, we’re siblings. We are fami!."

He cast his eyes over the crowd, they were quiet, but the energy was still there. To Firebrand it felt like the air before a storm breaks, he could almost taste the terrible destructive power of it and he grinned his mad wolves grin.

This was a powder keg, and all it needed was a spark.

"So you want to fight? You want something to break? Then go out into the streets, find all the damn lamp oil you can find, anything that’ll take a flame.."

He snatched a bottle of rotgut from someone at the front of crowd downed it, produced a match with a flourish, struck it with his thumb nail, held it before his mouth and spat a burst of flame towards the rafters and then bellowed.

"Because tonight we go to war! Tonight Uptown BURNS!!"

[Raksha]

77th Yaris, 2719
THE WHALE | EVENING

Alyssa didn’t laugh, holding her drink and thumbing the bowl of the pipe, blue eyes narrowed as she watched Aodh. He made light of it, a man on the cusp of either rallying his followers or simply playing the entertainment. Her interest waned slightly, and she sighed.

Why couldn’t Jon have just been more careful?

You know what else we got? Guns!

The Wisp looked up again sharply over her glass, the lines of her face drawn into a frown. That was bolder talk now, that was dangerous talk. Idea talk. It was true, no doubt, and even she had cast the idea to Jon before. But there was more to it than just throwing a few pistols to the wolves. They needed training, and organisation, and coordination. One golly against a gun, the odds weren’t great, but the aunties and uncles knew the power of their combined force. Alyssa had seen the Riots of Yaris 2718. It had been vicious, and bloody, and a lot of people had been injured or killed by spewing fonts of magma or sweeping whirls of ice. Area attacks, cast in a chorus, were terrifying because they could be continued. As long as at least one of the magisters still breathed and could cast, it could continue.

Damn it. He had the right idea, but the wrong approach. An army needed organisation and strategy, not guns and hotheadedness.

“Shit.” The brunette whispered, tucking away the pipe and throwing back the rest of her drink. The crowd were getting too worked up, too boisterous.

I mean true equality, between men and women as well.

Alyssa placed the empty glass down with a slow movement, her vibrant blue eyes scanning over Aodh’s face. That was new. Everyone and his dog spoke about the rights of the lower races and the tyranny of the galdori, but the sexual inequity? No one cared. The assassin accepted it, ignored it, lived with it. Men were stupid, vapid things for the most part, and women got by. Yes, they struggled. Even in her new found leadership, the woman had watched people turn their back on the Resistance because of her. Because she was not a he.

Perhaps she should just give Aodh the reigns. Maybe he would do better.

We are at war.

Oh Jon, what did you leave behind?

Voices rose from the crowd, some to leer at Aodh, others to support his cause. Alyssa sighed heavily, hand curling into a fist on the table. She watched as the serving boy did as he was bid, and the old ersehole demanding the ale got his goat behind him. Words were exchanged, heated and vile, and a small voice rang loudly.

Stop it! Jon wouldn't have wanted-

Her heart twisted in her chest at the sound of his name on the boys lips. That was the reason they did what they did, that small voice in the fray that was barely heard by the crowd. Her lip curled slightly in disgust as the tavern began to divide on each other. From the table, Aodh lit a flame, spewing fire into the rafters and declaring they take their rage out not on each other, but on Uptown.

And just like that, only a few days past a year since it had last occurred, Vienda welcomed a new Yaris riot.

“Fuck.”

Standing rapidly, kicking her seat out behind her, Alyssa strode through the tavern, shoving shouting patrons aside and making her way towards the young boy who had cried out in Jon’s name. She grabbed him by the arm, dragging the child towards the table where Aodh stood in all his fiery glory.

“Have you no shame?!” The brunette said loudly, firmly, her voice sharp and angry. Shoving her hood back, the Wisp climbed the table with a quick movement, tugging the boy up with her and glaring at Aodh.

“Have you no sense?” Her blue eyes turned to scan the room, watching as some folk halted in their cheers and eagerness to burn Uptown. Some recognized her, uttering her name in shock. Others ignored the wench that was nagging them from the table, uninterested in her words or her dramatic tone. A few were reaching for bottles of alcohol from behind the bar, tearing rags from their shirts.

“Sheep. Cowards. Fools.” She growled, meeting the gaze of any who looked at her, before finally turning her ferocity on Aodh.

“You say we’re at war. That were we to rise up, with guns and torches and pitchforks, that the galdori would topple under our feet. Yet, you gladly move to set the city on fire. You gladly move to cause destruction, just because you’ve got your ire up?” Shoving the boy before her, she glared at Aodh.

“This, is what Jon fought for. Not riots, or angry mobs, or the violence of men. He fought for people who tried to have a voice, people who are drowning in the darkness and raising a hand for help.” Her lip curled and she looked the instigator up and down.

“What do you hope to achieve by this Firebrand? Who do you think suffers out there? The gollies? The uncles and aunties? Those erseholes who sit in their gilded towers with their magic and their money? No,” Alyssa scoffed, turning on the people again.

“It’s the children in the Soot, dying in the factories. Or the elderly in the streets, begging for a scrap of bread. It’s the witch peddling her craft for tallies, tucking her tiny kint away down some Dive sidestreet. Did the last riots teach you nothing? Did the hanging of our fellow Fighters teach you nothing? Did Dorhaven teach you nothing? Tonight the city will burn, and the innocent who can’t run will be burned alive. The innocent who can’t hide will be arrested and tortured for information. The innocent who can’t speak will be falsely accused of crimes they didn’t commit.” Looking at Aodh again, the Wisp shook her head, speaking quietly.

“If you want to burn Uptown, go ahead, but don’t you dare do it in Jon’s name.” Letting the boy go, Alyssa gestured to the doorway, as though inviting the man to step outside.

“Alternatively,” The assassin said with a tilt of her head, turning the hand from the doorway to extend towards Aodh instead in the proposal of a handshake.

“If you want to build an army, then lets build a clock-stopping army.”
​​

[Aodh Elzo]

77th Yaris, 2719. Evening

Firebrand did not see the crowd or the tavern, he did not hear their cries of anger. All he could see was towers crashing down and all he could hear was the roar of flames. Then a familiar voice filled with fury and disappointment, he looked down and in that moment, the boy's face took on that of his dead brother. Whos death at the hands of some damn jent's thugs, for some petty slight, had set him on this path.

"... Cinad?"

With that one word, uttering that name, the years of denied greif, locked away with a dam of rage, filled him. The anger was washed from him of a great and crushing tidal wave of anguish and he almost fell from the table like the wind had been knocked from him.

Aodh fell to his knees and caught his head in his hands and bit down hard on his lip to stifle his cries. He managed to pull himself together. When his eyes met Wisp's there was such a gulf of grief in them it was hard to look upon.

"He's gone, he's dead and gone and I couldn't do a fuckin' thing."

Finally he took a deep shuddering breath and stood. Those near the table had fallen silent at Wisp's words and the sight of Aodh's near collapse. When he spoke his rough northern Anxian accent voice filled the tavern, though he did not shout.

"She's right, go home, see your families. Remember the dead, honour them. Tomorrow, tomorrow we begin ta make ready for war. We all stand, and we all stand together."

He scanned the faces of the crowd, eyes still full of grief but now also with grim purpose.

"Or we all hang separately."

A hush filled the room with his last words and Aodh climbed down from the table and walked to join Wisp by the door and said.

"Aye, let's do this right. Like Jon would have done."

Aodh clasped Alyssa's hand, he had forgotten in all his rage and grief.

There was a better way of doing things.

A right way.

[Oliver Callagan]

77th Yaris, 2719. Evening

---

Down in the Soot names weren’t given but earned. Marthen Steelbreaker had earned his almost a decade ago, when his hair hadn’t been flecked with grey and his circumference had been more respectable. Which prison and country he’d escaped from seemed to change every time he told the story, but no one doubted that a man his size could bend or even break the steel bars that had once contained him. An old geezer, a boy, and a scrawny wick weren’t going to stop him anytime soon.

Yet he remained put as Aodh jumped up, taking the high ground, appealing to the bond all folk in the tavern shared. All suffered under the heel of the galdori. Marthen had seen it all around him. Mothers who couldn’t afford to look after their newborns, nameless fathers drowning their sorrows in places like this, young men rendered ten years older in the span of a month of gruelling work; daughters taken without consent. It was unjust and cruel, and yet he would gladly take the hardship over the bloodshed that Aodh preached. What did a scarecrow know of war? Did he think half a circus act could topple a Kingdom?

Marthen’s face darkened. Perhaps the wick served a different agenda. His kind was like that, slippery like eels, all smiles and tricksy words but in the end, wicks only ever served themselves. He took another plodding step forward, unfazed by Aodh’s rousing speech. But the mood had changed.

The old sea-captain answered Aodh’s rallying cry with one of his own. “Burn them! Burn them in their sleep, burn them in their homes, burn them all!”

Another voice joined, “He’s right! We have guns! We’ll take ten of them for everyone one of us!”

“Those little fucks took Jon, our Jon!”

“... we should take Azmus first, send his head to the King!”

Has everyone lost their minds?

There was a loud bang, followed by a flurry of movement. Marthen’s head jerked to the side, just in time to see a lithe figure shoulder her way through the crowd. He caught a flash of her grim face and lowered his weapon. Could it be her?

With a jerk Olyver was pulled off his feet. He staggered forward, near tripped over his own feet but was pulled up at the last moment. Somehow his legs found solid footing, and by the time he’d managed to orient himself he found himself standing beside the wild-haired wick who had breathed fire just a moment ago. For a blink he wondered if the fire had been magic too, before his attention was pulled to the hand clasped around his arm. It was too light a touch to spell trouble and the fingers were smooth, pale, and hairless.

It took a moment for him to register the woman’s voice. He looked up at her, searched her blue eyes for an explanation, and then it dawned on him…

Mouth agape he watched as the infamous Wisp turned the crowd around. If Jon Serro was the face of the resistance, she was its hidden blade, everyone knew that. Sometimes, stories of violence and maltreatment escaped the factory walls, sometimes those stories reached the right ears, and sometimes, just sometimes, the gollies got their due. Olyver had known a girl who prayed not to the circle gods or Vita itself, but to the Wisp and the salvation she brought. Her prayers had been left unanswered, and Olyver had become convinced that the Wisp was only a story people told themselves to pretend there was someone looking after them, someone who spelled out justice to the gollies in blood-red Estuan.

He was pushed forward where he could see everyone in the tavern and everyone could see him. Without meaning to, his left hand shot up to cover his other arm, right where his mark was hidden under his rough, stained shirt. There were many people, so many more than he had thought could even fit in the tavern. Amid the usual guests were entirely new faces, the faces of merchants, bakers, lamplighters, bricklayers, street sweeps, and many more. All of them had been drawn inside for the same reason, all because of Jon Serro. Was he expected to say something? Perhaps he should tell them what he’d seen. Perhaps he should kill the embers of hope before it could turn into a blaze. Perhaps the big man holding the chair leg had been right. Today wasn’t any different from yesterday, he should keep laying low and go home with a few tallies in his pocket while he still had the chance. With luck he could save up for a ticket on one of them airships and sail someplace else, Mugroba perhaps, or Gior.

He turned his head to look up at the Wisp. She thought differently, and didn’t mince her words either.

An army?

He was let go then and a sinking feeling took hold of him, as though he’d been knocked off a cliff. Was that it? The wisp hadn’t even looked at him, just dragged him up there to make a point, and now his presence was no longer needed. He watched as the wick and the wisp left the table, leaving him to stand awkwardly on a podium that no one was interested in looking at anymore. Whispers grew to murmurs in the crowd as a dozen dozen eyes traced the man and the assassin to the door. Big Marthen turned around, plodded back to his seat and rejoined his drinking mates with a brooding look on his face.

He sat down on the edge of the table, slid off, threw his cleaning rag over his shoulder and moved to resume his work.

Best ask to leave, best lay low, he told himself.

Except, today was different and if no one took a stand, all that Jon Serro had ever done would be for naught, and all his friends who worked in the factories or sifted through the mud down the river looking for valuables would keeping doing their jobs, would keep being hungry, would keep stealing, would keep getting locked up or disappearing.

But what could he do? He wasn’t big or strong, he couldn’t spit fire, he couldn’t cast a spell to save his life and he doubted he had the courage or stomach to do anything violent with a knife. All he had was the cursed mark on his shoulder, the silent promise that someday magic would explode out of him. If only he could control it, whatever it was, then at least he could be of some use…

“...I don’t believe it,” he heard a woman’s voice at a nearby table. “I don’t think he’s really dead, they’re just trying to rile people up…”

Olyver glared daggers at the woman, who thankfully didn’t notice. How could she not believe it? He angrily cleaned the table before him. I should tell her, he thought to himself. It wasn’t particularly useful to tell someone something they already knew, but it was the right thing to do. With a sharp sigh he turned away from the table and, when the Whale’s proprietor wasn’t looking, slipped out the front door.

A wall of cold slammed into him and he wished he would’ve taken his coat with him. The skies had wept for Jon Serro not long ago and the air was thick with moisture and the scent of bygone rain. It didn’t take him long to spot the familiar outline of the tall wick and the wisp and he marched up to them with as much confidence as he could muster.

“I was there when they pulled him out of the river,” he started, not bothering to apologize for interrupting. “Jon I mean, I didn’t get to see him up close, but I know what I saw and it was a dead body, it was bloated and it stank.” He clenched his jaw and crossed his arms over his chest, daring either of them to contradict him, daring them to reveal to him that it was indeed all a ruse as the woman inside had claimed. His gaze turned to Firebrand then and a puzzled look came to his face. What had the man called him? Cinad? Didn’t matter. He had half a mind to turn and simply leave now that he’d made his contribution, but something kept him there, defiantly rooted to the spot.

“So what’s your plan? You’re going to raise an army in a day? And how are you going to tell the good gollies from the bad ones?” His family might’ve left him, but his sisters hadn’t had a say in that, perhaps they still thought of him, he certainly wondered about them often. He turned to face Aodh with a harsh look in his eyes. “Who gives you the right to burn people alive? You’re no better than the magistrates tying nooses for us all.”

[Raksha]

77th Yaris, 2719
THE WHALE | EVENING

Alyssa knew that look, that face. That hopeless haggard expression of loss and aching. It was hard to look upon, it was true, but look she did. Because he deserved that respect, and his lost one deserved that respect. The Wisp waited with the patience of a leader, and the readiness of a warrior, knowing full well that this could be a make or break situation.
​​
​​This time, it was a make.
​​
​​Aodh approached her, and Alyssa clasped his hand firmly, not in a handshake but in a symbolic gesture. Brothers and Sisters in Arms. She nodded, blue fire in her eyes.
​​
​​ “Like Jon would have done.” She repeated firmly, clasping his forearm with her other hand for a moment, before opening the door into the cold wet air and gesturing for Aodh to follow as she pulled her hood up.
​​
​​ “We need to start with a strategy. The people are willing, but they are raw. Untrained. Unarmed. We need to build an army, not a rag tag group of starving children and sickly men.” Resting a hand on the burly man's shoulder, Alyssa leaned closer, holding his gaze intently.
​​
​​ “I want you to join me, to ally with me. Not as Firebrand the Fighter. As my partner, my right hand. In the Armed Forces, I guess Jon would have called you his Commander. We should call a rally in the How, with Stu and Ginny, maybe that bastard Ceres. Build a plan. Find smiths, and people experienced in warfare. Can you—”
​​
​​ I was there when they pulled him out of the river.
​​
​​The brunette assassin felt the breath freeze in her lungs, turning her head to look down at the boy that had approached them. She’d seen him, in the corner of her eye, the same lad that had called out amid the crowd. A youngster, who shouldn't be involved in wars or rebellions. Who should be playing with friends or laughing and learning about the world. Her brow drew together, and her hand dropped from Aodh as she focused her attention on the boy.
​​
​​He’d seen them pull Jon from the river.
​​
​​Alyssa dropped to one knee, placing her hand on his own shoulder carefully and looking into his determined little face. There was a moment there where she couldn't speak.
​​
​​So it was real. Jon’s body was sighted. Or at least, a body. Somehow, it hadn’t felt quite as real till now.
​​
​​ “Are you sure it was Jon?” It felt desperate, but she had no one else to ask that question.
​​
​​Damn.
​​
​​Shoving down any personal feelings, calm on her face, the Wisp shook her head.
​​
​​ “No. Nothing good is ever achieved by rushing. We will be making plans, taking time to know our people and our strengths, and our enemies.” Her gaze turned upwards to Aodh, allowing him to address the boy should he wish, before looking back at him.
​​
​​ “Good gollies? Tell me, how would you decide?” She stood, crossing her arms much like he did, raising an arched brow cooly, interested in the boy’s thoughts. There were gollies out there, some of them, that were good. To a degree. But it took a lot of proving, and even then it was still always going to be ‘them versus us.’

And Alyssa didn’t trust a single clocking one.
​​
​​ “What's your name kid? You got a code name? What are you here for?” It wasn't an accusation, but a question.
​​
​​Why indeed, was the boy there? What did he want to achieve by chasing them into the street, aside from the information about Jon.
​​

[Aodh Elzo]

77th Yaris, 2719. Evening

The cold night shook the last of the drunken fuzz from Aodh’s as he followed Alyssa outside. He took a few deep breaths and looked up at the night sky as he took a cigarette from his coat pocket and was about to light it when Alyssa’s words brought him up short. She wanted him as her second? A commander?! What did he know about leading troops?

As the Wisp was questioning the young lad, Aodh stood in shock. He buttoned his red brown great coat, turned up the collar, put on his battered cap and struck a match to light his cigarette. The routine calmed his nerves, he let out a long plume of smoke and nodded turning to Alyssa.

"All right, I know a few of the craft folk on Hollow Street."

He looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Also there’s a smith I know who I’m helping currently I trust."

The wiry wick rolled his shoulders and looked thoughtful, he’d been working as a street cleaner the last few weeks in Uptown. Watching that tsuter brigk’s house, the news of Serro’s death had thrown him, tomorrow night he’d hit the house. It was time.

Aodh turned back to Alyssa and nodded.

"Alright, do ya have a location in mind t’store things?"

Now they were out in the open he was more careful about what he said, though he was kicking himself for drink and grief loosening his tongue in the tavern. Aodh turned his gaze to the lad and nodded sticking out a hand.

"I'm Aodh, I reckon I've seen you around,."