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The silicone hadn’t been her best work. That infuriated her more than anything. Being dirt poor wasn’t something she was entirely accustomed to, but she’d rather eat dirt than feel the nasty, squiggly little earbuds not sit still in her ears.
Juneberry half-considered taking them out, and then immediately dismissed the idea. She was in the agora today, plucking her way through the bright white city’s many wares. Opealon’s architecture still sometimes made Juneberry dizzy. Partially from its sleekness, partially from its genius, partway its disastrous effects to the atmosphere, and partway that the altitude gave her the grossest nosebleeds.
Juneberry fiddled with the edge of her wing. Lately, the agora had been worse for her. She wasn’t sure exactly what. Maybe it was the harsh sunlight on the white stone. Maybe it was the people bumping too-rough shoulders with hers. Maybe it was the piercing headache she always got when she was too near the center of the city.
It’d been haunting her for a few weeks now. The migraine had grown from a funny feeling in her temple to an insidious, gut-puking kind of full-body ache. No matter how many pills she popped or teas she drank, it wouldn’t wash out of her head. If she let herself think about it too long, it felt almost like a voice. But it couldn’t be. And if it was, that would be sick - in the most literal of senses - because Juneberry was uninsured at the moment and she had only just saved enough money to buy the tools to fix her little silicone molding problem. So until she could get her grubby, purple little hands on the items to fix her earbuds, she was stuck shoving the ill-fitting things into her ears and cranking her music up loud.
The workshop appeared. A beautifully woven tarp covered the roof of the outer part, whorls imitating the sea foam in tide pools. Underneath it, molded into the sleek underhang, was the workshop. Juneberry rang the bell.
“Hey!” Juneberry called roughly. She was probably louder than she should have been, but if anyone cared, it wasn’t her. Juno could see the shadow of someone looking up, and then turning away. Juneberry felt a vein throb on her temple.
“Bruh.” Juneberry blinked as a few spots appeared in her field of view. She didn’t have time for this. Racism couldn’t wait - what, one day? Juneberry pulled the hair around her ears. It had taken a fair amount of convincing over the year for the people of even this little outskirt city to accept her as a fellow mechanic, and not whatever they did to magicians here.
Magicians. Scientists. God, it was so confusing that there was a difference, here. The main one that Juneberry could pinpoint was that science didn’t talk to you. You had to squeeze dialogue out of it, like you were juicing a lemon.
Juneberry dinged the bell again. “Hello?” she called. “Gregory, I know you’re in there! You really want to tell your aunt that you lost a regular one month after getting the store?”
No response. Juneberry gritted her teeth, and rammed her finger against the bell like it had personally offended her and spit on her family. Juenberry felt her eyes water. This headache was going to kill her. It was killing her, and if she got her hands on George’s skinny little neck she’d make sure it’d kill him, too.
Through the drums of her music and the burning sensation of the eyes of Opealon on her, Juno finally heard it. A voice calling back.
“What?” Juneberry stopped ringing the bell. The voice was still calling, but she couldn’t hear it. “God-” Juneberry tore out her earbuds. “-what?”
Silence.
Juneberry turned in a full circle, blinking rapidly. Opealon still lay behind her, but shrouded in greening mist, some thick fog that swallowed up all the activity in the marketplace. She was alone. Juneberry whirled back to face the market stall. It, too, had been engulfed in the cloud. “Wh...?”
Juneberry heard the squelching, slithering sound of something wet just behind her ear. A cold breath ghosted her collar.
“Lassie,” said a rough, old voice. “You don’t pay much attention, do you?”
Juneberry turned. There, mist pouring in droves from his coat, stood a beastly figure of a man. His shadow towered over her.
Cold fear dripped down her spine. Juno went to reach for her waistband - a small shiv she’d fashioned a while back lay there - but her hand passed through in a swirl of smoke. It was then that Juno realized she couldn’t feel her feet - her hands - she reached up to her mouth and felt the wavering figure of herself, suspended in the air in some misty apparition.
“What do you want with me?” she hissed. The man chuckled wrly to himself. From here, Juno could see his face, more solid than the rest of the world. A mass of tentacles sprouted from his chin, writhing with half a mind of their own,
“Now, that wasn’t a hard question to ask, was it?”
Juneberry tried to take a step back, only for her leg to shatter into smoke. The man leaned in, those same, cold tentacles hovering around her half-dissolved face.
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for...” he let the thought rumble in his throat for a beat. “...nigh, a fortnight.”
“Sure, sure,” Juno forced the words out of her throat. “For what, now?”
“Same reason I dragged you to Opealon for.”
The man watched with smiling, sly eyes as Juneberry’s ears flattened. She bared her teeth.
“You?”
“Oh, yes, me.” He bared his teeth back - no, smiled? - and drew backwards. “I usually collect the interesting ones. But you were more of a... necessary expenditure.” He rolled his shoulders, Juneberry hearing the sharp click of his shoulderblades echoing in the empty courtyard. The man began to pace, circular, sharlike, around her. The mist followed him. It still poured out of his pockets, vortexing until it was just the two of them in a cyclone of grey smoke.
“There’s a storm on the horizon, little one.” The man was fading in and out of view, dissolving into smoke and reappearing a few paces away. “Have you heard of the Unmaking?”
“You mean the corruption on Govermorne? Everyone’s heard of that.”
“Well, it is coming for us.”
“What?”
The man ignored her, stopping to face her. The mist was swirling around them, beyond him now - with horror, Juneberry watched the fog begin to tear at his face, stripping bits of it away as he spoke. “The Unmaking isn’t corruption. It is decay without return. Unraveling without release. It will tear us apart and leave nothing behind. All of us.” The not - man approached her, falling apart with each step. He reached out - Juneberry could not move. His grinning, melting, rotting face continued. “And I confess, I don’t have the confidence that the merry band of Opealon will be able to weather it.”
Juneberry felt a cold touch of hair on her neck. “They are delicate. They could just-” something touched her back. “-be plucked clean off.”
Juno tore back from him. The man was standing, fully corporeal, hands in his smog-pockets. He tipped his head to the side, chuckling darkly.
“Unless a little fae scholar decides she wants to help give them a bleedin shot.”
Juneberry summoned her voice. “I’m not a scholar,” she rasped. “I’m a mechanic. You’ve got the wrong person, you lunatic.”
The man stared her down, one of his tentacles thoughtfully stroking his chin like it was a beard. She thought she might vomit. “Mechanic, scholar - I know a witch when I smell one, and the stench clings to you.” He blinked, each eye winking shut wetly, one after the other. She saw something unreadable in them. “I know full well the value of those dark magicks.”
“So,” she snarled, trying to seize up her own thundering heart, “let me get this straight. You want me - because I can do magic, like probably more than half the people on this planet - to fight nothing.”
“Oh, yes,” he says. “And save my people before they become it. See them-” he lifted a hand, pulling back a curtain of smoke. The warmth of Opealon rushed in, the smell of salt and sea breeze, the chatter of the crowds. Juneberry willed her body to move towards it, to run - but he let go, and the curtain sealed. “-they don’t have a clue. Like cattle to a slaughter.” The man tipped his head at her. “You’ve been here a full spin of the sun, haven’t you? Is there no compassion in your little fae heart for them?”
Juneberry froze. “You,” she hissed. “Like a complete psychopath, dropped me here for a year to - what - marinate me? Get me to make some friends and then say ‘oh hey! If you don’t do whatever I ask, they’ll all die?’” If she could cut his heart out and eaten it, she would’ve done so an hour ago. “You bet on the wrong person to make friends.”
The man laughed heartily, shrugging. “At least you know you’ll perish with the rest of ‘em if you don’t help. After all, you don’t have a way out, do you?” She gritted her teeth. The man leaned in, that squirming, fishy smile on his nonexistent lips. “Do you?”
“So - so what?” Juneberry spat. “I help you, you send me back to where I’m from?”
“Do I appear like the kind of man that cares for such things?” He gave some dark, hollow impression of a laugh. “But you do. I know you do. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.” He reached out. Even in her incorporeal state, she felt it. The tip of his claw against her heart. “So, lass, here’s my offer to you. I searched through scores of worlds to find a mind like yours. Maybe the fool souls on here can’t know the sway of magic, but you and I do.” He exhaled, some long-pained gasp. Juneberry blinked - she could see it, the whirlwind falling away, the light of the sun piercing through in fits and spurts. Out of time.
“I wrested you from the depths because you were made for this. You, who creates from dust and sun and cool, rushing water, life. I’ve bled and died for the same. I can only imagine what a living soul would be able to do.” He leaned forward, and for the briefest moment, Juneberry was there. She was before him. She could smell his rotting breath, feel the cool way it moved across her cheeks. She could feel her own fingers, the wind of the harbor at her back. “Pay attention, Juno. Don’t just stop the Unmaking. Learn from it. All magic is just woven trappings, even this one. You can undo that curse I put on you, can’t ye? You, who makes something from nothing.” He grins at her, and behind his slimy not-face, she sees a real smile. “I’ll make sure the Fortune of Opealon smiles on you long enough to wriggle your way home.” He swept his hand to the side, as if inviting her onto a stage. “What do you say?”
Juneberry glanced at his clicking, monstrous hand. You, who makes something out of nothing. The words dropped into her head like water in a bucket. It swelled in a wave. There was something in there, something buried that she was clawing out of the dirt.
“You’re a loonie.”
“I’m also right.”
“Yeah,” Juneberry sighed, taking his claw in her hand, giving it a firm shake. “I guess you are.”
When the fog withdrew, the sun burned twice as bright. Juneberry kept her eyes closed. If she listened close enough, she could still hear the creaking of wooden planks, feel the stench of fish on her tongue. But that was distant. The sun was here. She had a pulse. She was alive.
And in who knows what days, she might not be.
Behind her, the slow drawl of a man. “Miss, are you just gonna stand there all day, or-”
“Gregory,” she snarled, turning to him. “Give me the molds or I swear, you’ll die.”
Juneberry half-considered taking them out, and then immediately dismissed the idea. She was in the agora today, plucking her way through the bright white city’s many wares. Opealon’s architecture still sometimes made Juneberry dizzy. Partially from its sleekness, partially from its genius, partway its disastrous effects to the atmosphere, and partway that the altitude gave her the grossest nosebleeds.
Juneberry fiddled with the edge of her wing. Lately, the agora had been worse for her. She wasn’t sure exactly what. Maybe it was the harsh sunlight on the white stone. Maybe it was the people bumping too-rough shoulders with hers. Maybe it was the piercing headache she always got when she was too near the center of the city.
It’d been haunting her for a few weeks now. The migraine had grown from a funny feeling in her temple to an insidious, gut-puking kind of full-body ache. No matter how many pills she popped or teas she drank, it wouldn’t wash out of her head. If she let herself think about it too long, it felt almost like a voice. But it couldn’t be. And if it was, that would be sick - in the most literal of senses - because Juneberry was uninsured at the moment and she had only just saved enough money to buy the tools to fix her little silicone molding problem. So until she could get her grubby, purple little hands on the items to fix her earbuds, she was stuck shoving the ill-fitting things into her ears and cranking her music up loud.
The workshop appeared. A beautifully woven tarp covered the roof of the outer part, whorls imitating the sea foam in tide pools. Underneath it, molded into the sleek underhang, was the workshop. Juneberry rang the bell.
“Hey!” Juneberry called roughly. She was probably louder than she should have been, but if anyone cared, it wasn’t her. Juno could see the shadow of someone looking up, and then turning away. Juneberry felt a vein throb on her temple.
“Bruh.” Juneberry blinked as a few spots appeared in her field of view. She didn’t have time for this. Racism couldn’t wait - what, one day? Juneberry pulled the hair around her ears. It had taken a fair amount of convincing over the year for the people of even this little outskirt city to accept her as a fellow mechanic, and not whatever they did to magicians here.
Magicians. Scientists. God, it was so confusing that there was a difference, here. The main one that Juneberry could pinpoint was that science didn’t talk to you. You had to squeeze dialogue out of it, like you were juicing a lemon.
Juneberry dinged the bell again. “Hello?” she called. “Gregory, I know you’re in there! You really want to tell your aunt that you lost a regular one month after getting the store?”
No response. Juneberry gritted her teeth, and rammed her finger against the bell like it had personally offended her and spit on her family. Juenberry felt her eyes water. This headache was going to kill her. It was killing her, and if she got her hands on George’s skinny little neck she’d make sure it’d kill him, too.
Through the drums of her music and the burning sensation of the eyes of Opealon on her, Juno finally heard it. A voice calling back.
“What?” Juneberry stopped ringing the bell. The voice was still calling, but she couldn’t hear it. “God-” Juneberry tore out her earbuds. “-what?”
Silence.
Juneberry turned in a full circle, blinking rapidly. Opealon still lay behind her, but shrouded in greening mist, some thick fog that swallowed up all the activity in the marketplace. She was alone. Juneberry whirled back to face the market stall. It, too, had been engulfed in the cloud. “Wh...?”
Juneberry heard the squelching, slithering sound of something wet just behind her ear. A cold breath ghosted her collar.
“Lassie,” said a rough, old voice. “You don’t pay much attention, do you?”
Juneberry turned. There, mist pouring in droves from his coat, stood a beastly figure of a man. His shadow towered over her.
Cold fear dripped down her spine. Juno went to reach for her waistband - a small shiv she’d fashioned a while back lay there - but her hand passed through in a swirl of smoke. It was then that Juno realized she couldn’t feel her feet - her hands - she reached up to her mouth and felt the wavering figure of herself, suspended in the air in some misty apparition.
“What do you want with me?” she hissed. The man chuckled wrly to himself. From here, Juno could see his face, more solid than the rest of the world. A mass of tentacles sprouted from his chin, writhing with half a mind of their own,
“Now, that wasn’t a hard question to ask, was it?”
Juneberry tried to take a step back, only for her leg to shatter into smoke. The man leaned in, those same, cold tentacles hovering around her half-dissolved face.
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for...” he let the thought rumble in his throat for a beat. “...nigh, a fortnight.”
“Sure, sure,” Juno forced the words out of her throat. “For what, now?”
“Same reason I dragged you to Opealon for.”
The man watched with smiling, sly eyes as Juneberry’s ears flattened. She bared her teeth.
“You?”
“Oh, yes, me.” He bared his teeth back - no, smiled? - and drew backwards. “I usually collect the interesting ones. But you were more of a... necessary expenditure.” He rolled his shoulders, Juneberry hearing the sharp click of his shoulderblades echoing in the empty courtyard. The man began to pace, circular, sharlike, around her. The mist followed him. It still poured out of his pockets, vortexing until it was just the two of them in a cyclone of grey smoke.
“There’s a storm on the horizon, little one.” The man was fading in and out of view, dissolving into smoke and reappearing a few paces away. “Have you heard of the Unmaking?”
“You mean the corruption on Govermorne? Everyone’s heard of that.”
“Well, it is coming for us.”
“What?”
The man ignored her, stopping to face her. The mist was swirling around them, beyond him now - with horror, Juneberry watched the fog begin to tear at his face, stripping bits of it away as he spoke. “The Unmaking isn’t corruption. It is decay without return. Unraveling without release. It will tear us apart and leave nothing behind. All of us.” The not - man approached her, falling apart with each step. He reached out - Juneberry could not move. His grinning, melting, rotting face continued. “And I confess, I don’t have the confidence that the merry band of Opealon will be able to weather it.”
Juneberry felt a cold touch of hair on her neck. “They are delicate. They could just-” something touched her back. “-be plucked clean off.”
Juno tore back from him. The man was standing, fully corporeal, hands in his smog-pockets. He tipped his head to the side, chuckling darkly.
“Unless a little fae scholar decides she wants to help give them a bleedin shot.”
Juneberry summoned her voice. “I’m not a scholar,” she rasped. “I’m a mechanic. You’ve got the wrong person, you lunatic.”
The man stared her down, one of his tentacles thoughtfully stroking his chin like it was a beard. She thought she might vomit. “Mechanic, scholar - I know a witch when I smell one, and the stench clings to you.” He blinked, each eye winking shut wetly, one after the other. She saw something unreadable in them. “I know full well the value of those dark magicks.”
“So,” she snarled, trying to seize up her own thundering heart, “let me get this straight. You want me - because I can do magic, like probably more than half the people on this planet - to fight nothing.”
“Oh, yes,” he says. “And save my people before they become it. See them-” he lifted a hand, pulling back a curtain of smoke. The warmth of Opealon rushed in, the smell of salt and sea breeze, the chatter of the crowds. Juneberry willed her body to move towards it, to run - but he let go, and the curtain sealed. “-they don’t have a clue. Like cattle to a slaughter.” The man tipped his head at her. “You’ve been here a full spin of the sun, haven’t you? Is there no compassion in your little fae heart for them?”
Juneberry froze. “You,” she hissed. “Like a complete psychopath, dropped me here for a year to - what - marinate me? Get me to make some friends and then say ‘oh hey! If you don’t do whatever I ask, they’ll all die?’” If she could cut his heart out and eaten it, she would’ve done so an hour ago. “You bet on the wrong person to make friends.”
The man laughed heartily, shrugging. “At least you know you’ll perish with the rest of ‘em if you don’t help. After all, you don’t have a way out, do you?” She gritted her teeth. The man leaned in, that squirming, fishy smile on his nonexistent lips. “Do you?”
“So - so what?” Juneberry spat. “I help you, you send me back to where I’m from?”
“Do I appear like the kind of man that cares for such things?” He gave some dark, hollow impression of a laugh. “But you do. I know you do. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.” He reached out. Even in her incorporeal state, she felt it. The tip of his claw against her heart. “So, lass, here’s my offer to you. I searched through scores of worlds to find a mind like yours. Maybe the fool souls on here can’t know the sway of magic, but you and I do.” He exhaled, some long-pained gasp. Juneberry blinked - she could see it, the whirlwind falling away, the light of the sun piercing through in fits and spurts. Out of time.
“I wrested you from the depths because you were made for this. You, who creates from dust and sun and cool, rushing water, life. I’ve bled and died for the same. I can only imagine what a living soul would be able to do.” He leaned forward, and for the briefest moment, Juneberry was there. She was before him. She could smell his rotting breath, feel the cool way it moved across her cheeks. She could feel her own fingers, the wind of the harbor at her back. “Pay attention, Juno. Don’t just stop the Unmaking. Learn from it. All magic is just woven trappings, even this one. You can undo that curse I put on you, can’t ye? You, who makes something from nothing.” He grins at her, and behind his slimy not-face, she sees a real smile. “I’ll make sure the Fortune of Opealon smiles on you long enough to wriggle your way home.” He swept his hand to the side, as if inviting her onto a stage. “What do you say?”
Juneberry glanced at his clicking, monstrous hand. You, who makes something out of nothing. The words dropped into her head like water in a bucket. It swelled in a wave. There was something in there, something buried that she was clawing out of the dirt.
“You’re a loonie.”
“I’m also right.”
“Yeah,” Juneberry sighed, taking his claw in her hand, giving it a firm shake. “I guess you are.”
When the fog withdrew, the sun burned twice as bright. Juneberry kept her eyes closed. If she listened close enough, she could still hear the creaking of wooden planks, feel the stench of fish on her tongue. But that was distant. The sun was here. She had a pulse. She was alive.
And in who knows what days, she might not be.
Behind her, the slow drawl of a man. “Miss, are you just gonna stand there all day, or-”
“Gregory,” she snarled, turning to him. “Give me the molds or I swear, you’ll die.”