Station 24.
Carmen stared at the placard with this name written on it with a piercing glare, the sort of glare one gives to a charlatan as you call their bluff, daring them to go through with their big claims.
She just left Station 51, she hails from Station 35, so why does this outpost linking to the belt’s still unexplored wilds dare call itself younger than both of them?
“Oh, that makes perfect sense though! Station 51 is actually, technically, Station 17, you see.”
Carmen turned quickly to glare at Regina after she finished her explanation. As she did, Carmen was surrounded by red fireflies for a fraction of a second before turning back to the placard.
“‘Makes perfect sense’, she says…” Carmen grumbled.
Despite being the closest that the Khanon Belt still has to fully unexplored and untamed wilderness, the Forsaken Belt’s exploration is as organized as that of the Western Belt. Thus, Regina requested materials, including maps and supplies to plan their path ahead.
The Western Expansion Committee has the best interest in helping any Blazer curious or reckless enough to go through uncharted or seldom-explored territory. They will get remuneration dependant on both the amount of territory charted and resources found, these discoveries are then auctioned back in Valvion to many different entities, be it to settle or exploit, or both.
Of course not just any random person is allowed to request those, which is why expeditions consisting of many Blazers at once are usually formed when requesting assistance. But Regina is a special case, even without flaunting the fact that she’s The Lady That Death Forgot, she’s done enough good in helping the committee that she can get preferential treatment.
But this treatment doesn’t make her immune to the time wastage of bureaucracy.
She and Carmen were sitting on the square of Station 24. The area was at once a thriving settlement and a frontier outpost. The technology and structures being par for the course for Valvion, but the means of transportation resulting in a notable scarcity of structures.
Taking her eyes away from the placard, Carmen instead focused on Enio.
They were walking all over the place excitedly, but something felt off somehow… It wasn’t bad, but it took Carmen a couple of minutes to be able to put it into words.
It was as if Enio was following someone, like they were running around with someone that took the lead, but there was nobody else… was there?
…was there?
“…”
Ever since she met them at that cave, it feels like there’s been a fourth person. Carmen couldn’t describe them, or even know where they are, they’re not even watching, they’re just there as if among all three all along… but where…?
“Princess, your girlfriend would be sad to know you’re ogling someone else so intensely.” Regina commented teasingly.
“Regina, the Original Sin is supposed to just be an artifact, right?” Carmen said, completely ignoring the ribbing.
“In theory…” Regina shifted tone at whiplash-inducing speeds when her area of expertise was brought up “But the problem is that it is such a mysterious relic that if there was something outside of what it is reported to be, it would be perfectly believable. Mind you it’s mysterious because the Meriem Kingdom was very secretive, Not insular, but you always got the impression that there was an inner world only locals knew… Anyway, why the question?”
“Could it have a person stuck in it somehow…?”
At this point Carmen realized she was thinking out loud and turned to Regina expecting an extra dose of teasing, but to her surprise Regina was in deep thought.
“…not impossible…” she said finally, quickly mumbling about polarities and theorems “What made you think that?”
“I don’t know yet…” Carmen grumbled “I might be going crazy, even..”
“It would be an interesting idea to explore.” Regina added with the most sincere gleeful smile Carmen had seen out of her yet “Keep me updated if you notice anything else, will you?”
“Why can’t I get THIS Regina all the time…?” Carmen lamented to herself as she noticed Enio staring intently at a different “Station 24” placard and nodding.
“Two days at the earliest” is what an apologetic and slightly surprised clerk told Regina with regards to her requests.
Despite carrying the polite apologeticness of a practiced service worker, he was actually surprised that it only took two days for all of this woman’s requests to go through. Even with an advance notice and approval, transportation and signing off would’ve taken a week at the very least.
Just who was she…?
After receiving the news, Regina turned to other important matters: Carmen’s clothing.
Enio was clearly fine in their Armor Suit; and Regina’s own combo of jacket, hat, boots, jeans, and a shirt that changed depending on her mood that day was as stress-tested as something can be by now.
As for the youngest one among them…
At a glance, Carmen’s new attire looked practical. She left Station 35 with shorts underscored by leggings, long sleeves overlaid by a vest jacket, and hiking boots. Yet Regina was wary of just leaving things as-is.
After glaring her up and down for so long that Carmen had gone from embarrassed to intrigued to annoyed, Regina finally spoke.
“On the more urgent side of things we need to get you a coat for when we cross colder areas, it would also be prudent to get gloves for your soft hands” Carmen frowned at the last remark, but Regina continued before she could say anything “We should get you a thicker blouse and leggings just in case, and some waterproof coating. The boots look fine, but we should give them a go and see if you need inner soles with extra cushioning. Got all that?”
Carmen was about to reply but she then realized Regina was talking to Enio, who was taking notes.
These two would’ve killed each other almost a week ago if not for Carmen, when did they become so chummy?
Regina patted Carmen in the shoulder and indicated towards the Station’s outskirts.
“Come, let’s see how you feel on a small nature trail.”
GRYAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH
“WHAT WAS THAT?!” Carmen exclaimed at the hellish noise she just heard.
“The death throes of a Grass Skipper.” Regina answered matter-of-factly.
“Prairie Skipper.” Enio calmly corrected.
“Can you tell the difference?” Regina inquired.
Enio made some hand gestures as if trying to conjure up the words, stopped as if listening to something and then added…
“Grass skippers only ever use their voice with death throes, so theirs has less… melody?”
Regina nodded as if getting the image clearly.
…yeah melody is a word you could use for it, I guess…
Carmen was briefly distracted from her horror by feeling briefly like there was one more person in the conversation, but the indignation quickly reasserted itself.
“I’m sorry… DEATH THROES?!!”
“Yeah!” Regina exclaimed “Grass Skippers… or in this case Prairies Skippers, are chubby herbivores so they’re constant prey for bigger creatures. When one of them is about to die or fears it’s going to die it lets out that massive screech mainly to warn its kind but also to hopefully also deter whatever’s attacking it if possible.”
Enio then added how their predators are so used to making sure the shrieks don’t get out that it was probably something else that saw an opportunity for a meal. But the ensuing, spirited conversation was lost to Carmen, who retreated into herself.
She knew of Grass Skippers, she knew that nature could be nasty, but to hear that shriek in her current situation was less like a bucket of cold water and more like someone splashing cold water with her fingers in her face.
Death is such a nasty thing, killing is such a nasty thing…
Killing…
So lost was she in these thoughts that by the time she decided to speak, the three of them were sitting by a river to rest, Carmen barely noticed how winded she already was from the short hike.
“Regina…” Carmen started dryly “What are you gonna do if you find the people you’re looking for?”
Regina, who until a second ago was smiling, suddenly went really serious.
“Ideally? I’d convince them that they’re on a bad path and make them back off…” She sighed “But I know that’s not how it’s going to go.”
She rested her face on an arm resting on her knee and continued.
“When I find them…” Regina emphasized the word “when” there “I’m going to focus on taking away their Appleseeds. The one thing I know is that they’re not mass produced or there’d be more of them around, and without them, the threat of the cascade effect is reduced. I really don’t want to fight.”
Carmen was about to say something, but Regina interrupted her the moment she opened her mouth.
“Before you bring up my deplorable first impression again…” she added after another sigh “Have you considered how ashamed I might be of it?”
“…”
“I don’t call it one of the worst mistakes of my life, possibly even the worst just because I raised hand and gun towards the two people the planets claimed would help me, I also do it because I’m ashamed of how I lost control.”
Carmen was looking at her feet, suddenly unable to make eye contact.
“Ever since then I’ve been worried that I might see red like I did with Enio” Regina turned to Enio, who returned a smile indicating there were still no hard feelings about it “Lose control and do something I will regret.”
Noticing that Carmen was now visibly holding back some tears, Regina tried to reassure her by grabbing her by the shoulder.
“I’m not a murderer, Princess” She said with a calm but serious face “I’m many things, most of them not good, but I’m not a murderer nor will I let either of you become one.”
By this point Carmen was quietly sobbing.
This single short speech decompressed every concern and fear that kept building up in the back of her head. Who was Regina? Was she in dangerous company? The poor creature whose last breath was a horrifying screech made her worried she might be pushed to do something even worse, at least that Skipper died so some other animal could eat.
To hear her reassure her of this so specifically… even if the tides turn into the worst they’ll ever be, at least it wasn’t the first option.
After calming down, Carmen finally spoke.
“You’re not the only one that made an awful first impression… I’m so sorry…”
“I still stand by my words, if you want to poke me in the ribs about it I will apologize every time” Regina replied with a smile “I just don’t want it to come from a place where you build an image of me that grows worse and worse every minute.”
…
“…that said…” Regina added immediately before Carmen could say anything “If I ever make an exception to all of those morals, it will be for Riftman himself.”
“What did he do to make you so vindictive?” Carmen asked.
“You know what they say… the void hath no fury like a woman scorned…” Regina answered.
There was a moment of grave silence and then…
“…rusted teeth, you two actually believed that?”
“Eh?” Carmen and Enio intoned in unison.
“Riftman and I never had a thing, I was joking there!”
“WHY WOULD YOU JOKE ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!!!” Carmen exclaimed in a volume rivaling the death throes from earlier.
“Because it’s easier to believe than my actual reason.”
“Which is…?!”
“That I just can’t sit by and do nothing about it.”
Another silence, one of bafflement this time around.
“I joke that I’m a bitter ex, there’s some truth to feeling responsible for him having the tools for his current plans, and both seem to be easier for others to believe than just me feeling like I’m the only one that understands his threat and I just cannot sit by doing nothing. Especially when it’s more effective to move on my own rather than starting a smear campaign against someone the public as a whole decided was just a charlatan.”
Contrary to what Regina said, however, this felt to Carmen like the piece she was missing to make sense of her.
Why could Carmen feel from the start like Regina was someone she could trust despite all the surface-level stuff indicating otherwise? For the same reason that hearing her talk about this felt like the most sincere she’d seen Regina up until now.
Carmen wasn’t taking a leap of faith by wanting to believe that this altruistic Regina was sincere, all this time Carmen was being distracted by the front that Regina puts for herself on top of that altruistic core.
She then turned to Enio. Did Enio know this all along? Is that why they were able to handwave their fight so easily? Or is that an inherent Enio thing?
Maybe it’s both, just like how Regina the philanthropist and Regina the boisterous are the same…
“I’ve got so much to learn…” Carmen mumbled covering her face in frustration.
“Hey, for whatever’s worth…” Regina said in a lighthearted tone with a shrug “…you’ve got more romantic and sexual experience than me by now so we all have our own expertises in this world, you know?”
Silence.
Carmen turned to stare at Regina.
She had to be kidding again.
The subsequent “oh no you actually believed me again” comment was sure to follow.
But it never did.
This had all the tellings of an out-of-pocket comment meant to lighten the mood via shock.
But the more Carmen examined Regina’s face in that endless instant the more it dawned on her that while she WAS making an out-of-pocket comment to get a rise out of her, she wasn’t joking.
She wasn’t lying.
Carmen frowned, looked Regina up and down and examined her face again in hopes she got something wrong, but no.
Somehow, this was the most shocking thing about Regina Tempest so far.
“No, what I think happened was that Riftman thought my devotion to research was devotion to him so he thought I was already in the palm of his hand when he started going full on cultist.”
“So you were the one that broke his heart.”
“I don’t like that idea, Enio. I don’t like it a single bit.”
The next day the trio was out for a walk again. Regina fitted Carmen with a different pair of shoes and they were giving them a test run.
“…where are we going?” Carmen finally asked when she noticed they weren’t walking towards any wilderness and it was getting dark.
“It can’t all be serious business, so I wanted to take you two to a nice spot. Speaking of which…”
Regina took out a piece of paper and a transparent orb with a small red needle floating in the middle. It wobbled for a bit before pointing left of them and slightly upwards.
“What’s that?” Carmen asked intrigued.
“You’ve never seen a compass?”
“Aren’t those used to draw?”
“That’s one kind, yeah…” Regina lowered the compass orb so Carmen could see it “It’s a device that always points towards Valvion. When you use a map you use it as a point of refere-”
“EH?! Always points towards Valvion?! Really?!!!” Carmen was suddenly excited, trying to see where the needle pointed “Why does it point upwards then?”
Regina was taken aback for a moment. It’s not like Carmen was dumb, she was very smart and clearly well-read for someone her age, but she had the oddest holes in her education, this is the sort of thing they teach kids in elementary school.
“So… the Khanon belt is roughly a ring, right?”
Regina made a circle touching her thumb and index finger together to start illustrating.
“Or a belt.” Carmen added.
“…or a belt, yeah.” Regina conceded not realizing the obvious comparison. She continued while pointing with the opposite hand towards the outside of her fingers “We don’t actually live here as it were, rather, we live on the inside of the ring.”
Carmen’s eyes grew three times their regular size as it all clicked in her head immediately.
“And because of that…” She ventured slowly as she constructed the thought “If we could see over the sun, Valvion would be roughly above us…”
Regina couldn’t say anything, not that Carmen realizing things bit by bit out loud would’ve let her, but she was floored.
Who was this… creature? So eager, so curious, so sharp and smart? A few seconds ago she didn’t know what a compass was or how the Khanon Belt orbited the sun, and now…
“Wait, that’s why blasting happens, right?” The energetic Carmen added “Because the belt is orbiting the way it does, anything that falls over the edge of the land has all that momentum before it goes into the void, now it makes sense.”
Carmen kept mumbling things she had clearly read in the past but now she had sudden context for.
Regina couldn’t contain her smile, Carmen’s energy right now was infectious, where was this adorable thing all along?
“You can have it.” Regina said, presenting the compass to Carmen and making her stop rambling.
“Eh? N-No, I couldn’t…”
“Just take it, Princess.” Regina pushed the device into her hands “It’s not that expensive of a thing anyways. If we need it I’ll borrow it, and even then it’s not that hard to get one.”
“What do you mean it’s not that expensive?! You mean for you or in general?!!” Despite the apparent indignation, Carmen was just shocked to learn something as wild to her as a compass was so common.
“Even kids know how to make one.” Enio added.
“Even kids can make these?! HOW?!”
As they kept walking and Enio recounted the elementary school exercise of rubbing a needle on a Cold Battery, piercing it through a piece of sponge and making it float in salty water, Regina remembered how Clint raved on and on about Carmen’s curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
She took it as just the rose-tinted way of a loving father seeing his own daughter, since it was in such conflict with the Carmen she saw.
But now? Now she saw what he kept going on and on about.
And she hoped that the place they were going to would help this Carmen rather than the anxious one be the one at the forefront moving forward.
It was dark… darker than Carmen was used to, even.
Though Station 24’s lights could be seen in the distance, everything looked so… black.
Nights in the Khanon Belt go through phases depending on how close or far the planets are to the sun when they eclipse it.
When they’re closer to the sun it’s a tinted night, so called because the planets turn everything a distinct green or red tint. Though once every couple of months there’s a Golden Night, when both planets overlap and everything gets a pale yellow glow.
Then there’s nights like these, hollow nights, when the planet orbits closer to the belt completely covering the sun.
“Are we close?” Carmen asked, taking cautious steps while holding onto Enio’s jacket.
“Not only are we close, we’re already there.” Regina answered.
Carmen stopped looking at her feet, looked ahead, and her breath was taken away.
They were near the edge of the landmass, in such a way that you couldn’t see Station 51 and its landmass or anything else for that matter.
It was, top to bottom, night sky without horizon.
“Mantle of oblivion, guardian of our guardians…” Carmen recited almost reflexively before turning to Regina “Are we safe here?”
“So long as we don’t fall over the edge” Regina chuckled “But you’re gonna be in trouble if that happens, blasting or not.”
Carmen was dead silent for a moment, as if her brain couldn’t take the marvel in front of her.
“They’re… not really souls… right…?” She finally said in equal parts wonder and fear, like her age had just halved twice over.
“The stars? They can be if you want.” Regina told her while sitting on the ground “Believing that doesn’t hurt anybody.”
The void, the name those in the Khanon belt give to outer space, has a complex meaning in their culture.
It’s simultaneously heaven and hell. Where you hope the souls of those before you go to rest, and where you command those that have wronged you to go to.
It is the land beyond, where spirits travel to, where the ancestors look after those that came after. A land so sacred that anyone so hasty as to try to head there loses their right to return to the land of the living, their story ending prematurely.
Carmen sat on the floor, though mainly because her legs were giving in.
She looked up and then down, and then up, and then to the sides, and then down again.
No horizon, only darkness and the twinkling of stars.
And that’s The Hunter…! And that’s The Hound…! And that…!
“Eh?” Carmen snapped back from her reverie having heard someone, or rather, felt like she had heard someone “Did you say something?”
“Not yet.” Regina replied.
Afterwards they both sat in silence. Carmen’s eyes darting all over the place, and Regina alternated between looking ahead and looking at Carmen being enraptured. Enio, meanwhile, sat relaxed looking at nothing in particular, oddly content with themselves.
“The path we have ahead is going to be rough…” Regina started finally talking “It will change us, for better or worse, and I don’t know which it’s gonna be.”
Carmen tentatively turned towards Regina.
“But I know we’re going to see things like this on the way, so many things that few in Valvion or even the western belt even know about!”
Carmen opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, as if three different things were trying to escape her lips at the same time.
“And besides!” Regina added with a pat on Carmen’s back “You’re gonna have so many cool stories to tell your girlfriend when you go back home!”
The darkness of the night got interrupted by Carmen being surrounded by green fireflies for a moment as the prospect of telling Lucretia about this experience clicked for her… she then cleared her throat when she realized her emotions were visibly leaking out.
Eventually, she quietly extended her hand towards Regina.
“We started with the wrong foot, and I hope I can make amends from now on.”
“That makes two of us, Princess.” Regina replied while returning the handshake “Thank you again for embarking on this quest with me.”
Forsaken Gaia – Chapter 9: Mending Fractures
Written by: Fernando Damas (@ironiclark)