Foxtrot Nekropolis

Wynn was not a huge believer in superstitions, but there was only so much he could ignore. See — in his spare time, the child called Wynn enjoyed caring for the palace garden. The many exotic flowers that had been planted there, some from Terra and most from across the wider galaxy, combined to compose the most beautiful and soft images they could witness. Unfortunately, most in the palace did not much care for them — viewing the flowers as a relic from a better time more often than not. That particular garden, still named after a man who would later go on to start the galaxy's biggest war by proclaiming their god false, had a bit of a story. It was said that, once upon a time, their magnus imperatia and the one whom they could not name had walked through those gardens and engaged in peace talks, enjoying the soft, airy breeze that flowed in from the open ceilings. After the breakout of the war, the garden was left to rot — only barely kept alive by the imperatia's nostalgia, though the gardener had been instructed to do their best to keep it alive and do absolutely nothing else. Wynn discovered it a relic — a chaos composed of weeds and flowers and grass and roots that had overgrown their pots. Throughout the years, he had molded, trimmed and cared for it — leaving it a gorgeous window of colours into a better time. So it was fact that the one called Wynn had grown attached to the garden and his flowers, attached to the effort put into it and the colours that bloomed thereafter. The flowers were lovely. Bright in colour and meaning. Alive. Only three hours after their imperatia informed him of his marriage to an enemy's daughter, Wynn walked into the garden and found them all dead. And he were soon to follow. ---------- Years, Years later... ---------- Here's the thing. There really was no point to it. To any of it. The whole thing; the city, the nation, the kingdom, and most importantly, the vitae. It was all just this huge, elaborate shishow of a sham they put up continuously so that the rest of the galaxy wouldn't go apeshit on them. A little dollhouse keeping appearances up while some fifty actually relevant people studied the gates. But as the crows sang softly and the sun rose to shine high on those emerald skies that had hung above their head for four years now, Wynn once again found himself almost fond of the simple, paper-thin facade they called a life. Because Aether was actually a surprisingly beautiful place, if you gave it a chance. Every city — Aether-1, Aether-2, Aether-3, Syhe, Plagata and Riskis — had been carefully and purposefully drawn from the ground up by a team of talented architects, engineers, designers and painters to evoke a sensation of artistry with every skyscape. In Aether-1, also/previously known as Camlann, this meant buildings had these golden details to them that did nothing functional but make them look futuristic and utopic, a golden highlight to the city's silver and marble white tones of normalcy surrounded by a constant emerald or purple. Streets had been built from the galaxy's best marbles, and statues of Terra's greatest decorated the landscape, each with outstretched hands as if to invite the onlookers to join them. With the bright purple sunrise peeking out from beyond the reaches of the skyscrapers' shadows, brilliant warm light bled out from between marble and concrete and shone off of polished silver mirrors carefully placed, crafting these beautiful mirages of sparkles like stars that floated softly above the ground for the early birds to gawk at with pride. Even Wynn, 16 and still growing, who was neither idealistic, aetherborn or an early bird, could admit to sometimes feeling entranced by the thought of going outside when the sun was still rising just to stare at the 'silverstars' for a minute or ten. Today was not one of those days. Not really. But the pretty sight did a bit to get him off his 'I was woken up early' funk, and that was nice enough on its own. Because, see, Wynn was a rather dashing individual. Roguishly handsome, delightfully pretty, delicate and sharp all at the same time, with a wit as keen as the world's greatest and an ego to follow suit — Wynn had a lotta good qualities. Wanna know a quality he most definitely did not have? Keeping track of time. Wynn had an atrocious, terrible, notoriously bad sense of time. Because, see, on that day, he'd had a particularly shitty nightmare. It happens, right? Wynn sure hoped it did, because he was about seven crimes and a death certificate too far gone to really seek out a therapist. After being rather rudely awakened by their night terrors, Wynn had taken one look at their (closed) windows, realized it was a bit bright, and thought, oh, s**t, I'm f*****g late. Spoiler alert: he was not, in fact, late. He was a full four hours early, in fact. Which wasn't even their biggest f**k-up as far as time was concerned, surprisingly enough. He would know; He essentially had a perfect memory. And so it was that, groaning softly, he wiped away a silverstar with a swipe of his hand and walked into the linear streets of the colourful Aether-1, blending into the small and restless crowd that, like clockwork, gathered daily in those streets at sunrise to get on with their early day, be it by work or a jog. No one really noticed Wynn. They never really did; with his glasses and facemask on, and with much of his hair hidden under the oversized gray hoodie he'd looted off of a ruined store that one time, he kinda blended into the nameless masses of the working and boring as s**t. As he tilted down his head to activate and then swipe aimlessly at his sunpad — more suntech, because of course — Wynn appeared right at home amidst the zombozos that surrounded 'im. And he read, "The Vitae win another day! Purple Gate at Sylvermeister Avenue defeated and closed!" and "Aether-1's mayor, Lalit Lakrishniz, caught in horrifying money laundering scheme — read more!" and "Could Morningsong and Sunburst be an item? Evidence points to yes". And he read "Anti-Vitae protest causes π$ 54.000,00 in property damage". And he read, "Looking for hot singles near you?" … Okay, maybe that last one wasn't as relevant. Maybe. But his point stood: none of it meant s**t. The rules were made to make sure'a that. The money laundering, the schemes, the cheating, the damage — it was all like that by design. The higher-ups needed s**t to be as showy as possible. Wynn had little doubts that Lalit'd been set up to fall in order to make an interesting headline. None of it meant s**t. There were a fair number of cafés around his apartment, but the one he usually headed to was a bit far from where he was. Though the extra eight minutes of walking were unfortunate — Vesta knew that every extra second spent awake that early was a dagger to his chest — the place more than paid them back for their effort by being small, cute and, most importantly, empty. Ish. It was a small, family-run business. Sounds cute, and it was, but the truth was that that kind of place usually didn't flourish in Aether-1. In Aether-2, yeah. In Plagata, surely. But Aether-1 was meant to look like the city from the future. And that meant really big brands owning a lot of s**t, clearly. Because everyone knew feeding into capitalism had worked out super well for Terra. In all honesty, the place would've closed down ages ago if left to its own devices. Which was why Wynn donated a good 20% of his salary — anonymously — to them every month. Which, as Vitae, was a whole f*****g lot. So they kept in business, slowly building up a small selection of loyal customers. And so Wynn kept coming back there and getting the best Victoria's Chocolate he had ever tasted, with a cup'a coffee to boot. Plus the bells by the door never failed to brighten up his day. Speaking of which… Ring! They rang and reverberated in a soft, giggle-like sound as they pushed the door and walked into the warm environment. Once again, Wynn f*****g loved it. The place was, of course, empty. The clientele usually showed up later, like about 6pm. Even the early ones weren't complete sociopaths to show up at the c***k of f*****g five twenty. It honestly wasn't surprising to see that, in place of the usual waitresses, the old lady who owned the shop was behind the counter. Looking at him. "I'm sorry, sir, but we're not — Oh! Ibis!" After blinking twice, the woman smiled — her unburnt cheek, the left one, wrinkling up as the big grin pushed the skin. "Never expected to see you this early. You look half-dead at 8am already." Wynn chuckled softly, taking a seat without asking for permission. "Yeah, I, uh, had a rough night. Do you mind if I sit here? I'll wait for everyone to be ready. Just, uh, didn't want to be alone." You know. He always felt kind of f*****g cheap, sprinkling in nuggets of his uncomfortable truth into the s**t they said to get people off his tail. They couldn't even keep his issues unsullied. But it worked. Because the old lady —Farron McKay — was a really kind woman, despite her admittedly intimidating visage. She was short, at about 5'3, but that really didn't matter much; the fact that the entire right side was scar tissue from charred, bent skin always gave the woman a look that said, "I can f**k you up." Which would be ironic on such a kind woman, except that she absolutely could f**k you up. Wynn had once watched her stab a robber with a broken bottle. In the f*****g throat. The woman had no chill. Wynn respected that. "Ah, of course, of course. It shouldn't be too much longer; just take a seat and relax." "Already on it," he muttered, too softly for her to hear them. The Café had a nice, cozy atmosphere that was easy to relax in. There was none of the silver and gold sheen that the rest of the city had to it; instead, Key Café had dark brick walls decorated with all sorts of cool memorabilia from the 2100s, with holoposters and drawings and paintings and this one really cool vintage machine that played a pixel game in the back. King of Fighting or something. Real old, that one — they'd found it in a junkyard somewhere, according to Farron's daughter. With the clicking and rattling of things getting ready behind the counters serving as wonderful background noise, Wynn settled for swiping aimlessly through the net. Most of his top conversations were the same; his chat with Orion, whom he was actually kind of looking forward to seeing, his chat with that f*****g asshole Mack, that one scammer chat he kept coming back to… But only three unread messages on AstralGrid, two of which were about a year old and left very purposefully on read. The last one was from Hjæl. Sent… ten minutes ago? What the s**t? He tapped on it with furrowed eyebrows. hat dumbass: dude u awake What…? What kind of f*****g sociopath would be awake at f*****g five fifteen? (Wynn's kind of sociopath. Obviously. But no one needed to be told that.) Still. It was a bit outta character for Hjæl to message him like that. not fuhsaz: unfuckingfortunately. the f**k is up? not fuhsaz: these are sociopath times to be awake hat dumbass: u're awake tho not fuhsaz: that is precisely what I just said. hat dumbass: lmao hat dumbass: fr tho hat dumbass: i uh hat dumbass: Huh hat dumbass: didn't expect u to answer this quickly not fuhsaz: sucks to suck hat dumbass: is it just me or are you even more of a b***h in the morning? not fuhsaz: just you, I maxed out my b***h levels ages ago not fuhsaz: I checked not fuhsaz: anyway what the f**k is up hat dumbass: well u're gonna hear about it anyway so hat dumbass: uh hat dumbass: hearing a lot of cops and booms, pretty sure a gate just opened not fuhsaz: what? not fuhsaz: no not fuhsaz: NO not fuhsaz: no f*****g way not fuhsaz: FUCK not fuhsaz: FUCKFUCK not fuhsaz: I just wanted to enjoy my f*****g café hat dumbass: well hat dumbass: to quote the words of a great man hat dumbass: sucks to suck not fuhsaz: I sincerely hope you Die hat dumbass; tell orion i said hi hat dumbass: also tell her i said shes cooler than u not fuhsaz: f**k you His sunpad chose exactly that moment to ring. Brianna Kay's "Between Jupiter and Mars" blasting across the café, into his ears and all of their f*****g souls. Back when Wynn had chosen the worst song he knew to be his ringtone, he had thought himself clever for it — "No way I'll ignore it this way!". Now, he felt like taking the wooden chair he was sitting on and using its legs to impale himself with. A groan escaped his lips. No, no, no… but he took the call anyway. "Mmhm? 'Ello, 'ello, this is your local foxy foxtrotting fox, how may I help ye?" Wynn-who-was-Fuhsaz answered, a cheery, musical tone to their voice as they spoke in a happy little singsong. Part of the Fuhsaz persona was keeping their gender ambiguous; to that effect, he made sure to make his pitch a bit higher. "Pretty early, innit?" "Fuhsaz," Sunburst's voice echoed inside their skull. He'd never before resented or loved the sunpad's inner ear connection so feverishly. On one hand, it helped them keep their secret identity. On the other, it sounded like she was standing right next to him. "We've got a situation." "Oh? Ohoh? Callin' me to ask fer help, ye royal reverence? My oh my, this fox is blushing to their tail~" He let himself dramatically sigh. "What's up?" "Gate." God f*****g damn it. "Oh? Well that's just nifty, innit? Alright. Where's it at?" "Near the eight, on the crossroads between Arc Industries and the Rift." "Mmm… Okay, gotcha. I'll be right over." Click! The call was shut down, and Wynn was left to stare blankly at the device with clouded eyes, his lips parted. After a moment, he exhaled, sounding every last beat as defeated as he felt. He typed in another message on Hjæl's chat. not fuhsaz: f**k. you. not fuhsaz: so much. hat dumbass: lmao And put his hands on the table to get up. "Need to leave, dearie?" The old lady behind the counter called out. "So early, too? Whatever it is you were talking about looked urgent, by the look on your face." Wynn made a show of sighing, lowering his hood to run a hand through their caramel locks of hair in exasperated irritation. "Yeah, peeps from work are gonna need me sooner rather than later, unfortunately." He muttered. "Probably need to go." "Well," she said, "if you need to go, you need to go. But if it's not too urgent, maybe you'd like to wait for just five or ten minutes longer? I have he machine making you some coffee. Not as good as our normal stuff, but it should get you through the day. I'll add in milk like I know you like." He got ready to say no — but then stopped. Remembered Sunburst's last little speech about how irresponsible he was. Thought about how she'd probably struggle until he got there. On the other hand, the situation wasn't likely to be dangerous just yet — the invasions usually built up in numbers exponentially as time went on. The first few minutes were tense, but not dangerous. They wouldn't have killed anyone. "You know what?" He said, shrugging lightly with a mischievous grin on their rosy lips. "I think that'll do just fine." ---------