The Sunbreached

Chapter One

ATLAS

This morning was nothing but quick. I hit the streets of Bronewyth1 at noon, and now I was walking through them. "Spare change? Spare change?" A beggar across the street was shaking a can filled with coins, and most likely some rocks. He managed to lock eyes with me, a shiver went down my spine.

I began to quicken my pace, stars know what he could do. He shakes his can and yells "A new time has begun! The constellations the constellations! They speak yes...they speak." The man continued with his rambling and the can shaking, and the street resumed its normal busyness. Well, that was new I have– I grabbed an apple off a nearby stand, –Never heard a beggar talk of prophecies like that.

The old brick street I decided to walk on was getting more and more crowded, vendors preparing their shops and buyers pouring through the wynds and snickets like a flood. I close my eyes and mumble a quick prayer.

It's fine. I tell myself, Your fine, it's just people. Staring, arrogant, people. I continue walking down the granite street, hundreds of feet clacking on the stone. I quicken my pace, just a bit more, just hopefully enough to stop the staring. But despite my attempts, a few bedazzled magnates gawk at my round-pointed ears and scarred fingers. I don't look at them, afraid for them of what I might do. So I just keep walking, walking, walking, walking...STOP!

A train swishes past me, its sleek, metallic, gaudy design clashes with the wood and stone of my home. I turn towards a wooden pillar, doubling over feeling like whatever I ate was about to, well come back. Something crinkles where my head is. I pull myself straight and look at the paper, it looks wretched. I can't read it, but I know that it is propaganda. Propaganda that I've learned to be a part of.

I tap my fingers across my arms, a small rhythm forming as I wait in what seems as an endless line of people just like me. Thousands of documents clutched in only a few hands, making it near impossible to leave. Or entirely impossible for some. Luckily enough for me, my simple ticket should work. Before I even realized it, it was my turn to get my ticket stamped and pressed and whatever other useless process they put a piece of paper through. I unceremoniously drop the ticket in front of the teller, "Where to?" he tries, painfully tries to make small talk. He already knows where I'm going, why, when, and who gave me the ticket, but he still tried. What a poor sucker who everybody hates.

Ticket-masters, that is their official term.

Most of us down here call them suck-ups or empire scum. This guy though, he is either very new or very cocky. He cheerfully stamps my ticket with a red stamp that bears a boar head with an arrow through it. A single hole is punched into my ticket, the aggressive look of my ticket stands out from the majority of pretty tickets. The tickets with gold stamps that have a laurel of lavender and the numerals LXVII with no stamps at all. Murdered beasts representing a defeated rebellion, why wouldn't the Aesir use that imagery?

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Quicker than I hoped for, my Bi-Train slows to a stop at my gate. It's awfully beautiful design reflecting in everybody's eyes, blinding even the most bedazzled moneybags. Thankfully, it's doing me a favor, if a stick-up-the-arse looks my way they wouldn't be able to see a thing. I suppose I should talk about why I dislike the pompous travelers looking at me, but who would? Their whole life is being the most gaudy, vibrant, or outrageously jeweled. So if I beat all of their glamor by simply breathing, that's something.