“Ms. Nagahiro!” I shouted, moving quickly through the midnight.
My cries seemed to echo needlessly in the dimmed hallways. There was no response, except for my same yell which had buried itself into the tatami floor. My footsteps sang a chorus as I stepped rapidly through the hall, looking in every direction as I searched.
The rain pitter-pattered against the walls of the building, thunder booming angrily in the distance. I could feel my heartbeat, which pounded out a rhythm as I walked.
Thump, was its first.
Thump, second.
Thump, sounded out a third.
It skipped its fourth.
A crack blue-glown cascaded down the length of the sky, and midnight flashed bright as lightning struck down against the cold earth. The door at the end of the hall had been slid open, and the rain and wind which battered down against the soil pooled in at the edge of the doorway.
She was no more than a silhouette against the bright night sky, but I knew full-well who stood before me. Atop a terrace that overlooked a fast-flowing river, which now seemed to cascade with torrents of rainfall, her hair had lost composure, and given way to the wind’s will.
“Ms. Nagahiro, I know I said that as my guest, you are free to do as you wish, but I could not help but blame myself if you were to catch a cold in my charge.” I spoke simply, the volume of my softened voice trying desperately to fight against the howling breeze.
She turned to face me, and I could see clearly underneath the faint glow of the winter moonlight that her makeup had run down her face, drooping like the rainfall she stood underneath.
“You truly don’t have a semblance of understanding of the human heart, do you…? She spoke softly, her voice droning on a quiet breeze, “Baron of Lilacs…”
“I’m sorry, I don’t get what you mean, Ms. Nagahiro.” I shook my head in turn. “If you want to discuss this further, we should do it away from the rain.”
Her face took on an expression that looked like a painted mixture of sadness and infuriated disposition. She parted her lips as if to speak, a softened breath exhaling a cloud against the air, but bit at them just as quickly. Her eyes furrowed and her gaze darkened, and in a sudden moment she turned towards the iron-railing of the terrace that overlooked the raging river below.
Without a moment of hesitation, she climbed up atop the railing with one foot, and allowed gravity to pull her over.
Thump, was the fifth beat of my heart.
I rushed forward, nearly tripping over the railing as I grabbed hold of her western-style dress, sewn thin with ribbon that I could barely keep hold of between my calloused fingers.
Her face held an expression of shock, and in the darkness I couldn’t differentiate the tears upon her cheek from the rainfall.
Slowly, I could feel her grasp slipping from mine. My limbs were stuffed with cotton in place of my muscle that illness had worn thin.
From my hands she slipped, and into the river, she fell.
Thump was the sixth beat of my heart.
The seventh, thump.
The eighth did not sound out against my cries, which were drowned out by the thunder that boomed, and the rain that poured, and the wind that howled.
—-
‘Guilt does not fade as easily as I had hoped’.
That was my foremost thought as I stared deep into my own silver-gray gaze.
My breathing was heavy, hot and shuddered against the warmth of the air. My eyes were widened, and my skin felt tense and taught against my bones.
My heart felt light, yet sunken against the weight of my realisation, as if chained down to drown within the depths of an ocean torrent. There was no obvious wound upon my stomach, yet I still felt the phantom ache of a piercing blade. There was no blood upon my clothes, but I still felt incredibly warm. In place of the searing heat of the Kaishakunin’s cleaving sword, the gentle warmth of the blood-red sun that hung within a hazy-orange sky blanketed the flesh of my neck.
In a single moment as quick as a flash of lightning, I had abandoned the dreary atmosphere of my family’s estate. I stood instead in front of an iron-gilded window which held my reflection in its gentle silver body.
The sun was piercing lamplight behind the sky of rubied clouds. Underneath it, my skin seemed pale. Against my softened skin, my white kimono, the Shiro-shōzoku, had been torn away from my flesh. In its place, I had been dressed like a Prussian doll.
I bore a pair of glimmering steel-framed spectacles, and I had been draped in a buttoned cloak of a midnight shade. I wore a white button-up shirt underneath with a pair of black suspenders that held up the pleated trousers that sat trim against my socks.
Everything seemed cramped, stuffy, and unbearable. Whatever force had chosen to dress me in such a way carried a dull sense of humour.
My hands, which seemed unusually uncalloused and devoid of scarring, pulled down the flesh of my cheeks in an attempt to look closer at my face that seemed almost unreal. I didn’t look sickly in any regard. I had grown so used to my illness as apparel that I had forgotten to remember the faces that mine were wrought from.
I let out a simple and softened sigh.
I knew I had been lying to myself then. There wasn’t atonement, or honour in dying to ease guilt. It was just a way for me to justify an escape from the pain.
As I tore my eyes away from the crystalline glass-window of the bronze building, I in turn greeted the sight of a city I did not know.
In a blaring portraiture of steam and bronze, I stood gently underneath a skyline of bright-red haze. The sea of clouds above sat as a smog that erupted with fantastical, flamboyant colors amidst the glare of a blood-orange sun. The heat that rained down from the blazing sky was unbearable within my buttoned cloak. I could feel beads of sweat collecting against my skin, like pools of salt that begged freedom from my flesh.
A clock-face sat trim against the edge of the cascading building above me, carved into shape out of brick and lined tight with reinforcements made of steel and bronze. Copper gears spun endlessly within the clock-face, twirling the hands forever slowly to keep safe a remembrance of fading time.
Large steel automatons hovered above the streets, steam erupting from their bronze orifices as they climbed against the iron railings that had been bolted on the sides of the buildings. Within them, the metal beasts carried vast amounts of people. They were those who seemed to have a rushed quickness lurking in their steps, as if they could not wait to escape the glare of the scorched sun above them.
What sat apparent amidst my slowly-steadying heart was the glaring reality set before me. I was no longer a resident of the Earth I had grown used to.
The people that stepped throughout the streets did not look like me in the slightest, and seemed to offer me a variety of surprised and wondrous gazes, for in their eyes I too was unlike them. Underneath the hazy red sky, they wore various shades of darkened skin upon their bodies. Their eyes and hair alike were stained flamboyant colours, and their ears were sharpened at the tip.
In essence, I presumed they were not human as I was. I was a standalone figure in a terrifyingly new world.
Even despite that, there was a calm in my heart that I could not fathom. It was eerie.
I watched as a woman with dark-black hair and a blouse of clouds waltzed through the busy streets with long strides, a passionate smile on her face as she handed out sheets of paper to anyone who would pay her gaze.
One of the parchment sheets had fallen to the ground, blown towards my feet by the gentle warm breeze. I reached over and picked it up, only to cut myself upon its tattered edge. A small trickle of blood soaked into the paper, gilding it in a ruby-colour like the sky above.
Against the parchment, the portraiture of the woman had been painted. Alongside her image, in bright and bold lettering, spoke the words ‘The man with the mechanical eye’.
Suddenly, a cry resounded through the streets I stood within. Forgetting my thought process in an instant, I rushed forth. Tens, dozens, and hundreds of people passed by, their heavy steps resounding in the stone street where a woman much older than I had been knocked over.
Kneeling beside the old woman, I placed my hand under her head as if to keep it from hitting the hardened stone beneath her.
I helped the old woman up, grasping her calloused hand with my softened fingers. Her citrine-coloured palms had been aged by work, time, and the glaring heat of the sun that sat above us. As she stood before me, she held a kind thankfulness within her bright green eyes.
“Thank you, my dear.” The woman smiled. “What is your name?”
With the escape I had sought out from death, I had re-emerged within a new life. With a fresh experience gifted towards me, I had resigned myself to live in a different persona as a whole. As a new person, too came a new name.
I paused within my tangled thoughts, and my heart ached. My answer was the antithesis of my being — callous, wild, and harsh. It was a name I had been gifted long before.
“My name is Agreste.” I answered her with a softened smile. “Simply Agreste.”
In parallel to my movements, the woman who had been handing out papers had rushed to help out the elderly lady that had fallen, and now had knelt beside me. She had chestnut-coloured skin that seemed to glimmer underneath the glow of the orange haze, and eyes that reminded me of the gravel on the ocean’s floor. Meeting her gaze, I couldn’t help but smile.
She had dropped the entirety of her parchments on the ground, and as I glanced at them, I saw clearly that they were the same advertisements as the one that had plastered itself to my boot.
“Are you all right, Ma’am?” She asked the elderly woman, who responded with a simple nod.
The woman with an ocean-gaze then turned towards me.
“Thank you, Agreste.” She spoke softly. “It’s not often here than anyone would help out a simple stranger... not anymore.”
I shook my head as if to avert the praise directed towards me.
“I could never think to do anything different otherwise. It’s not wholly selfless.” I smiled. “I’m sure later that I would have felt guilt for standing idle. I would rather do something now and save myself the trouble.”
Turning towards the elderly woman, I spoke gently to her, if only to ensure her safety in the moment. She had incurred no visible injury, apart from a scratch that looked as if it would heal within the hour.
“Will you be fine, Ma’am?” I asked of her. “Do you need someone to walk you home?”
She shook her head in quick response.
“No, my dear. You have done enough for me.” She smiled in return. “You have given me a kindness that will etch a gentle memory in my mind for the rest of my lifetime.”
She started to walk back down the street, hobbling slowly as if trying to avert the weakness of her aging body.
When I turned toward the woman who held a calmed sea within her eyes, she had seemingly vanished, leaving the scattered carpet of papers on the ground behind. After assuring the safety of her elder, she had left. Even kindness was quickly cut away by the bustle of the people within the great city of steam. Staring up into the hazy sky, I began to wonder how much power the sun had to make them move in such haste.
I continued walking through the steel city, gazing at the automatons that moved atop the sides of the bronze buildings. Their massive legs of gears and pistons stepped upon the railings that had been fitted and fastened to the cityscape, letting steam out of their orifices that seemed to burn red-hot.
I turned my gaze away from the sky, and focused fully on the path before me.
Sticks of chalk sat by the roadside, likely left behind by children who had sketched the whole of their imagination onto the street’s surface. I bent down on one knee, picking up one of the pieces gently as I smiled. Stepping towards the wall, I then scrawled needlessly upon the wall of a building beside me.
With the chalk gripped softly in my fingertips, I found myself able to summon only four words, ones that mirrored the inflection of my internal considerations. I wondered then if the guilt I had been hanging onto was something I had to abandon within a new life. I wondered if I still had to atone for the harm I had caused to the one I had loved.
I wondered if my heart was meant for more than clinging to a dreadful feeling that I thought had been resolved with my death.
In parallel, I pondered whether my apprehensions were ones I had falsified to protect my own feelings. I did not seem to hate the title that had been offered to me which acted as if to replace my family name. I did not truly despise it as much as I had thought. I had realised in that moment that I had always treated it as a secondary persona to myself. It was one that I could play the role of when I needed an escape from my life as a deposed noble. I had never wanted to admit such a thing, so I had always chosen to forsake the title that had been gifted to me.
I took up the chalk within my hand, and underneath the words I had carelessly and effortlessly scrawled onto the wall, signed it with a simple moniker I knew well.
It was a name that bore significance to both me and others, and one I would now choose to belove with the very depths of my being.
Your heart has meaning,
‘Baron of Lilacs’
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