[OrfF] Beautiful Agora

[Selah]

Image by pipking

I: Arrival

Amid the stiff, gray blossom of midday, when clouds embroiled the sky and washed the sun away, Miss Zelda, with an arched look of determination in the direction of her Aunt Ignes, said, her accents filled with all the force of expression, "Auntie? I'm going to get the flowers now."

Aunt Ignes was engaged. She glanced over her shoulder, hands still fluttering among the mounds of clothes and accessories she had taken from the suitcases and lay smoothed and brushed upon the bed. She pursed her old, coral-hued lips, returned her niece's look with one not especially scandalized—rather, a glance that was heated, ripe with irritation.

"Zelda," she said—her voice was crisp, and seemed lay a veil of hoarfrost throughout the room—"that is why I have employed a maid. Fanny will get the flowers, thank you—but if you are so very anxious to have them at this moment, then you may call her. Where is the girl anyhow?"

She flung her frosted glance about the room, as though expecting Fanny to emerge trembling from some closet of idleness and repose.

"She's in my room," Zelda replied. "Unpacking."

"Ah!" Aunt Ignes blindly lay a band of combs, wrapped in paper, onto the bed, for she had not taken her eyes from her niece.

"I would prefer to get the flowers myself," Zelda continued, arching her chin some half-inches higher. "I'm still cramped from the train ride, and would be pleased to walk about—get a look at the hotel and the town, perhaps see the coastline while I'm out."

"You can see that from the windows," Aunt Ignes interposed.

"But there is nothing like seeing things for oneself," Zelda retorted, her smile thin, perhaps, in some fashion, bitter. "I do need the exercise aunt—I've been a week without it." She laid her slim, white hand on the pleats of her jacket as she spoke, hoping such action gave significance to her words, and such words gave significance to the action. "You see I am dressed for the excursion."

She paused, saw her aunt was not inclined to response. "Please Aunt, it shall be delicious, truly it shall!" Zelda's eyes grew liquid beneath the sloping brim of dusk-blue hat; she gave way as though with a foot upon a rocky declivity, but clung with a girl's hard determination to the vines that lay scattered across the hill. Sweet, vague concession, to ease the mind, but not enough to undermine the cause.

There was no need for such aggressiveness of tone, however.

"Go, then, if you are so resolved." Aunt Ignes returned to the suitcases as she spoke, as though willing to wipe Zelda and her improprieties from her mind as quickly as was possible.

"Oh Aunt!" Zelda beamed, clapping her hands. It was necessary gratitude be shown, though not so much that she waxed effusive, and irritated her relative the more. But it was difficult, restraining natural impulse when she had already broken the commandments of submission and reticence. "I know which flowers are your particular favourites, I know them exactly!" she exclaimed, stepping forward, hand raised, banked in penitence. "Fanny wouldn't know, she's only come to us last week, and she would get a dreadful bouquet, even if you told her otherwise. But I know exactly which flowers you would like for the sitting room, and the bedchambers, and the dining table. Thank you, Aunt!"

She tripped forward and kissed the sagging, venerable cheek Aunt Ignes did not offer. The skin had lost all its youthful flush and retreated into that faint hue of old cream and parchment, but it was a proud cheek still, flinching beneath the pink, round lips briefly laid in appreciation upon it.

"Good-bye," Zelda said, before either she or her aunt changed their mind.

She left the rooms Aunt Ignes had rented for the three weeks they were to sojourn in this hotel above the Sound, and hurried down the hall. The rooms were lovely, papered in pastels and watercolour, laid with real tile and pale, chestnut carpet. It could not compare, Aunt Ignes said, with the suites inhabited by the grande monde passing their fortnights above the Sound, but they were far nicer than the humble domicile in which she and Zelda dwelled back in Hyrule. It was unnecessary that the house remain humble, but it did, for it took a great deal to maintain the appearance of one's station in that land—and besides, Aunt Ignes had little station of maintain, and so did not trouble herself. But here, choice had been relinquished to others; Aunt Ignes, aloof and reserved, saw no reason to trade what luxury others chose to bestow upon them for what could be easily obtained at home. "Though," Aunt Ignes had said, as she soliloquized with the rattle and sway of the train, gloved hands folded in a lap adorned with serge, "good society is not often got at home. So even if we were to revert our rooms back into the style of home, it would not be as though we'd never left. This hotel, Zelda, gathers to its bosom the finest people—I have heard that several moguls have reserved apartments, as well as emissaries and a few titled personages. It will be a fine thing to connect you—a fine hostess must be connected, or else she wastes her talent upon emptiness and meagre parties."

"Is that not why," Zelda interjected, laughing, brushing lint from her skirt, "we are such good friends with Sir Link? He is perhaps the most well connected man I know."

"You do not know many men then," said Aunt Ignes, looking half-scandalized, half-relieved, and vaguely bitter.

"You don't like Sir Link, do you?" said Zelda, leaning forward to run her fingers along the sides of her shoes. Her smile grew soft, her accents teasing, probing.

"He is well enough as a gentleman goes," said Aunt Ignes, stiffly. "But he is possessed of a rather… indecent personality."

"Auntie! How can anyone's personality be indecent? Sir Link is very noble."

"And very cavalier, very haughty, very dry. I am sorry for any father-in-law of his; he will find upon his hands a stiff-spined and stiff-necked son, without any notions of filial respect."

"Oh, Auntie…"

"And he is connected—" Aunt Ignes shivered—"to that coarse, uncultured uncle of his—"

Zelda laughed again. "Mr. Tingle," she declared, "is a dear and decent man. Just because he was not graced with height, gravity, or a great deal of money does not mean he is without culture."

"Again, you show your ignorance."

"In what way?"

Aunt Ignes did not elaborate, being too settled in her own opinion. She turned from the subject of Lord Tingle with the ease of experience; Aunt Ignes distrusted the power of argument, and called it base, for unless argument concerned such trivial things as weather and a politician's stance upon the economy, it was not to be broached. People were profound and unstable creatures, and to argue over them was dangerous: they laid closer to the heart, mind, and experience than chance rain and waxed-faced senators (who were, of course, barely human until you met them under the most controlled circumstances) did. Aunt Ignes did not argue, rather, she declared, and she did not like debate regarding her estimations, for, to herself, they were as fine an opinion as one could entertain. Zelda had lived with her aunt for over two years, a companion as well niece, and in that time had studied her aunt's character, and found to her distress that there was very little to Aunt Ignes beyond her middling status, her thirst for Society, and her aversion to argument. Zelda was a girl of romantic conceit, when not being practical for someone else's sake, and she oftentimes told herself that there was more beneath that shallow surface her aunt turned to every prying eye, and that she, Zelda, would be privy to more of it in time. But Time had so far proved her false; it came as a blow when Aunt Ignes had spoken of her silver plate and utensils with the caution and prudence she used when referring to people—her circumspect tones in the silver's regard did not allow argument. It was then that Zelda came to conclusion that her aunt was a personal creature, borne to the individual aspects of life. She took many things into consideration in this sphere of hers, people and silver being among its precious articles. Zelda had been grieved upon this epiphany, but it could not be helped. Living as Aunt Ignes's companion was far better than toiling beneath the stern eye of Reverend Raura. And once upon a time, as orphan-hood lay like a damp coverlet upon her head, Zelda had so lived, fettered by stricture and scripture besides. Her parents had died when she was but seventeen, a year before her debut into Society, which, unfortunately would not have been magnificent since, upon her parents' death, a great sinkhole of debt had been unveiled, one which ate the house and all of Zelda's pretty things. Like all orphans, she had gone to the Tenements, which served Hylians and Hyruleans alike, and had given herself over the to charity offered by the Reverend. Whether her aunt's discovery and aiding of her, several months after death had bereaved her niece, was also an act of charity, Zelda could not be sure.

But it was better, she told herself. Much, much better.

"And then there is that dreadful brother of his," Aunt Ignes was saying, her voice wavering upon the forceful, chomping cadence of the train.

"Young Link is not dreadful," Zelda replied, automatically, couching her chin in the bed of her palm and shutting her eyes. Her thoughts had tired her.

"He is what… seventeen, I believe? And quite the prodigal, for one so young!" Aunt Ignes pursed her mouth, knocking her tongue against her teeth and drawing at the air. A series of tsks rolled from between her gray lips. Zelda watched her from behind her hand.

"If I had a son, I would never allow him the amount of money Lord Tingle and Sir Link allow that boy," said Aunt Ignes, indignant as though the persons in question had done her some injustice.

"Lord Tingle has nothing to do with it," said Zelda, dryly. "He was both Link and Young Link's guardian when their mother passed away, but now that Link is of age—several years past it, that is—their father's estate went to him, and he doles out Young Link's allowance. It's all written up in the will; Link told me himself."

"I know that!" Aunt Ignes was still provoked of expression. "But five thousand rupees quarterly—that—that is far too much for one of Young Link's age, inexperience, and prodigality. Five hundred yearly would suit him far better."

Zelda chuckled. "He would die on that, you know," she said, glancing crosswise out the window, rolling from her chin to her cheek on her still supporting palm.

"He would learn," Aunt Ignes sniffed.

"Not fast enough, I don't think."

"All the better."

"Oh Auntie…!" Zelda was used to such shocking utterances, and closed her eyes yet again.

"There's always the chance the will was interpreted wrongly, or that Link will need to withhold further stipends. It's unwise to drain the estate like that, all for the idle luxuries of a seventeen-year-old prodigal."

Half smothered by her hand, Zelda smirked. There had been a great deal of spit in that final word.

The conversation had waned following this outburst of passion, and Zelda had watched the scenery roll past the window for the remainder of the trip. Stepping now from between the glass doors of the hotel onto the ambulatory, which wound its way upon pillars and a ceiling of milk-white ivory around the boundary, she glanced out over the scene, wondering if it differed from that which had presented itself at the train window. Beyond the meticulous precincts of the hotel, where hedges and roses had been nurtured and latticed along the walkways, the mainland spread its long arm. The hotel had been built upon its vast palm, and ran nearly the length of three miles that made up the promontory. The hotel's environs halted half a mile from the promontory edge; if one were willing to pay, one might ride a donkey to the brink, or hire a guide to take one upon the winding, narrow trail that led part way down the cliff face. Zelda squinted, endeavouring to spot the marram grass and perceptible rim of the promontory. But the hotel had snugly placed itself, and left her only with an unobstructed view of its enclosure. She could not even glimpse the Sound, tumbled beyond the Promontory edge into miles of blue ocean.

But perhaps it did not matter. She was here for three weeks, and should in that time see much of the surrounding area.

With this happy thought in mind, Zelda turned her steps toward town.

The town in question was really a cluster of proprietary businesses, mainly shops and restaurants. It was a work of stone that took up three spiraling miles or so of the region, one that rubbed all hint of the Sound and its flora from the minds of the persons promenading through its sculpted belly. Zelda took a taxi in, gazed out at the scenery with more attention than she had displayed leaving it, only hours earlier, that morning. The train trip had tried her youthful enthusiasm, and rocked her into slumberous lethargy: she had leant against the taxi window and mussed her hair as she rode from the train station, and had retired to her room upon their arrival, while the busboys moved luggage under the jurisdiction of her aunt. It had not taken her long to recuperate, though her limbs were not as supple as she would have them, but she anticipated a fine walk upon this bracing August day which smelled of September.

She alighted from the taxi and gave the driver thirty rupees, which he took in lieu of his requested fifteen dollars. Toleration was necessary in a region made up foreigners, where a common currency had not yet penetrated the economy due to a lack of interest and irritation. The hotel and town above the Sound were a segment of that scattered province called Agora, which was a chain of regions connected by a river of outsiders, a common language, and little else. Agora made little sense, though politicians essayed to organize the jumbled mess into something logical. People seemed happy to leave Agora in its disordered state, as a touchstone to which the nations of Hyrule, Mushroom Kingdom, Phaere, and the like sent their men and women for summer holidays upon the southern beaches and winter business in the northern cities. One's perceptions were constantly expanding and shrinking: there was the Universe, and then the Earth, the Continents—known also as the Nations—and then Agora, the spine of that nameless planet. Zelda had often diverted herself by mentally sketching the system to her perfect understanding, and was reminded of her diversion now, as the taxi left her in a crest of blue haze and she gazed about her from the safety of the sidewalk.

A block away, the singular shriek of an incoming train lent dissonance to the harmony of the street's murmur.

Zelda glanced toward the sound, briefly distracted from her purpose. She smiled, squinted, saw nothing beyond humanity and the structures it had fabricated along the street corners. The train station lay at the end of town, and a stream of elegant cars were making their steady paths in its direction; she watched them, and wondered to whom they hurried. Aunt Ignes had said something special was going on back at the hotel, something that required the presence of emissaries and persons of means, fame, or business. It was a convention of sorts—magnates from the city had come down; Zelda had spied several in the foyer. She wondered if perhaps Sir Link would be attending—he often managed, by miraculous contrivance, to tangle himself in events of this sort, and in the end extract himself without a single broken bone, still full of grins and wit. This capacity of his never ceased to amaze her, just as his connections never ceased to stir the depths of her wonder: he knew kings and queens and deposed sovereigns; rich men, poor men, and the bourgeois. Aunt Ignes was not fond of him, but was by all natural instinct forced to admire his abilities. "He is a disagreeable young man," she was wont to say, while taking Sir Link's card and admitting him when he visited, back at home.

Zelda merely shook her head, and took things as they came in stride.

The screech of the train had gradually faded, leaving in its shrill wake a trail of smoke that made it seem the sky and its robe of clouds had settled onto the earth. Zelda quit her station upon the corner and strode along the avenue, twisting the leather handles of her purse, sliding her fingers along the icy pair of knobs that kept the object closed. On either side, the shop windows were invitingly large, the flaunted merchandise, bedded in red billows of cloth, pressing at the sides of her vision. Dresses, shoes, the milliner's, a bookstore—they presented themselves from beneath the cinder block arches and storefronts as though a part in a parade. Curious, Zelda at last relinquished her time and attention, pausing momentarily to examine a row of tomes offered by a bookstore. She was fond of books, particularly the slim volumes into which poets and philosophers painted their visions and laid their edicts in concise and fevered breaths. Words were a sort of food upon which she lived and the call of her subsistence came strong. She laid down a solemn novel she had been scrutinizing back on the rack, and turned with intent toward the shop door.

"You can't help it, can you?" said a familiar voice, only inches from her ear.

Her imagination had proved dangerous, as it often did; Zelda startled, spinning around. She was a firm believer in personal space and was unable to come to terms with the fact that not everyone were as resolved regarding this matter as she. Chastisement swelled to her lips and died again as she discovered the invader; her mouth fled upward into a smile, and flinging her arms wide, she exclaimed, "Link! Oh, I didn't see you!"

"Obviously." Sir Link smiled, holding forth a hand, one that was not occupied by the massive umbrella he carried. "How do you do? I certainly wasn't expecting you to come popping up around here…"

Zelda clasped her purse in a single hand and took his proffered one. "I did wonder if you would be showing up," she answered, grinning. "You always manage to inveigle yourself into these events, even if you have nothing to do with anything."

"Oh, but I do have a great deal to do with all this," Link replied. He had not freed her hand, and now placed it rather officiously upon his arm. "Come, Young Link and my uncle aren't too far ahead—I'd think they'd be happy to see you."

"And I them!" Zelda suffered herself to be lead, for experience had showed her the futility of resistance. And as if often the case when in the presence one's acquaintances, when they are not loathed as being forward, obtrusive, and prying, her mind was lulled into forgetfulness: she not longer remembered her errand, and that Aunt Ignes would look for her with the flowers before long. It had taken a temporary residence in the far corners of her brain, and would come rushing back at the most unpleasant time, as such things are wont.

"You were on my mind, however," Zelda began, picking up one of the less perceptible strains of earlier pleasantry. "Mine, as well as Aunt Ignes's."

"I suppose she still quite dislikes me," Link murmured, as they crossed a street emptied of traffic.

"She made one or two concessions, but I think her original opinion remains." Link gave a stifled snort of amusement; Zelda glanced at him, and found his eye upon her. An involuntary grin washed over their faces.

If there was one thing Link and Zelda had in common, it was a preference of musing upon Aunt Ignes and her opinion. The tendency was innate, for Zelda had never once expressed to anyone her disappointment in the depths of her aunt (there had even been a time when she had refused to admit this to herself). But Link's perceptions were of the same hue, a tinge that came through allusion and tongue-in-cheek innuendo. He had intrigued Zelda long before she understood the imputations he was often flinging against her aunt and by the time she had come to speed, her judgement had been establish. It was quite easy, then, to join in the insinuations—a bond that was not affection, rather, mutual interest, between herself and this man who might otherwise be a mere acquaintance, engaging but distant. If it were not for this, Zelda easily foresaw circumstances abundant in hints of flirtation: Link's attentions to herself sometimes appeared that way, when Aunt Ignes was especially vindictive and Zelda actually considered her muttered accusations. Apparently, Aunt Ignes had too read those novels in which the hero (or some pretender to his species) engaged in a sardonic manner of courtship, to which the spirited heroine took with incisive enthusiasm. Not that Zelda was proficient in that vigorous sarcasm practiced by her fictitious peers: it was only, really, in Sir Link's company that she displayed such repartee. To the romantic outsider, who knew nothing of their private and mocking delight, "courtship" seemed the only answer with which to label their affinity. But Zelda, while she vigorously shook the yoke of Aunt Ignes's guardianship at times, had not come so far as to shake it over the subject of her aunt's anathema. She defended Sir Link but admitted no fondness beyond that of amiability; Aunt Ignes would have to be satisfied, and was, in her mordant way.

"So she did come, I see! And how are you Miss Zelda? Your aunt in the vicinity?"

The street had been crossed, and some yards walked; marking her surroundings, Zelda realised Link had brought her before the train station. A car stood at the broad, curling walk that separated the town pavement from that of the station; a liveried man was setting luggage in the trunk, and his work overseen by the short and portly figure of Lord Tingle.

"Was just clearing up some business!" Lord Tingle called—his voice had earlier recalled Zelda's attention from Link's conversation, and brought her from his side in a flash of transport.

"Lord Tingle, how are you?" She clasped his hands and shook them heartily; his own greeting, just as effusive, filled her ears with laughter.

"Quite fine, little maid, quite fine!"

"Are you still in possession of that horrid orange suit, sir?"

"I wouldn't be Tingle without it." He smiled and released her hands, dipping his wrinkled neck into a bow. Standing, he was one-third shorter than she; bowing, he was even smaller. Just above the round, silvered folds of his greatcoat, Zelda spotted a slip of garish, tangerine-orange cloth peeking—ah yes, he indeed wore the suit that Aunt Ignes hated so much. He and his nephews (if Young Link were around) would have to dine with her and her aunt later this evening. Zelda's eyes gleamed merrily. She looked forward to Aunt Ignes's exclamations.

"Did Young Link come with you?" she asked, rising to her toes to glance over the car.

"For once, he did." Link had come around to the trunk, giving instruction of the chauffeur, who now stood with gloved hands at his sides. "John will drive to the end of town," Link continued, glancing over his shoulder, "so that we'll be free to stroll after him—" He fixed Zelda with a dry and meaningful look, but for once Zelda did not interpret. She returned the look with a frown and continued her search for Young Link. She was at length rewarded.

"How are you doing Zelda?" He emerged as if from nowhere, fitting his hand into the ivory-white confines of a glove.

"You, sir, are looking rather dapper," Zelda commented. His lack of surprise was her own mellow amazement, but then, Young Link took it upon himself to never wrinkle the fruits of his morning labour toward a respectable appearance with such uncouth things as excitement. Animation glimmered, nevertheless, in his liquid pupils; conceal his natural self though he may, suavity was often overcome in some unmanageable parts of his physiognomy.

"Your aunt in the vicinity?" Young Link asked. Zelda suddenly remembered this to be an inquiry of Lord Tingle's, though it had been asked, clearly, in a differing, and far more amiable tone.

"No," she began—her purpose for coming outdoors suddenly flashed through her mind—but before she could utter them, Young Link had gestured carelessly toward the main part of the station and said, "Roy and Marth are here. I suppose they're just getting off now."

"They are?"

"Oh yes, I saw them."

"Zelda." Link turned from his brother, held out a hand. "I would like you to meet two friends of mine, Lord Roy and Prince Marth."

"Prince Marth?" Despite herself, Zelda's eyes widened. "He's the deposed prince of Altea, isn't he?"

"Exiled would be more or less the correct word, I think."

"And his friend? Lord Roy? I don't believe I've ever heard of him."

"He's not a personage here in Agora… his interests in photography, and his claims of culture and aestheticism see to that."

"Oh, don't be rude!" Zelda took Link's arm.

"It's true." Link rubbed her hand, as though to chastise it, as gently as possible, for not immediately taking up its berth. "No one particularly cares if you admire the cave paintings of ancient Koopas or the literature of the Romans. I think that may be the reason why he persists in studying them. It irritates his people."

"That's not very nice."

"Of course not."

"You will come with us?" Zelda called, twisting her shoulders, glancing back at Lord Tingle and his nephew.

"I'll see those lads soon enough!" replied Lord Tingle, laughing.

Young Link smiled, declining to answer.

"You'll like them," Link said, tugging her attention again to the front.

"I hope I shall." Zelda glanced upward with a sudden thrill of bliss coursing through her spine. "Though… I do hope they shall like me."

"They will." Link chuckled.

Aunt Ignes, had she been fortunate enough to witness this moment, would have been pleased in her grim and lightless way.




Thank you for bothering with this. ^^ I'll post a bit more later.

[Selah]

As the train drew, in a shriek of wheels and whistle, toward the Agora Train Station, still some miles off, Lord Roy, blinking aside the grime of sleep and pressing his forehead to the window, realised he had not seen the sun in days.

This was a remarkable occurrence, considering August had not yet ambled its way from the chessboard of seasons in any manner that would excuse the dearth of sunlight. And yet, there it was—autumn climes, running chill along the spine and through the liver—the wet and lowering brow of a divided sea laid heavy across the sky, dominant though neither bodies of foam-crested water or their bridging Sound could be seen. Then again, Roy mused, as he drew his face from the window and turned to face the opposite seat with an inward sigh, this gloom was philosophically justified, if one believed in aura and atmosphere. He himself had no reason to be happy upon this day, and in his melancholy humour, Roy doubted many of his fellow passengers aspired to cheer and merriment. If all the world's unhappiness might be give physical reality, and placed before her vision, this August day, that weighed like tragedy upon the trembling shoulders of the strong, was indeed that manifestation.

There was nothing in the opposite bench to hold his interest, and gradually Roy's eyes returned to the murk of day. How awful, he thought, to reside in sadness when the world might be one's own! But the thought was exhausting, and he quickly gave it up. He was fatigued beyond his time, had forfeited the proffered fruits of the world for the moment being. They clung to boughs too far above his head for effortless plucking, and Roy was tired of scrambling after them. It was a comfort to give up the struggle for virtue, giving way to the comfort of idle misery and causeless grief. Did each new abandonment presage greater pain in his future? The young lord was too tired to care. His head sank back into the cushion of his seat, eyelids slipping shut to the harmony of a groan. The moan was involuntary; it escaped him before he could command himself. So much had stumbled through his fingers since—

He could not remember any longer. But did it really matter?

His life had become one long, slow procession of emotional hell, he mused. And it flowed on endlessly, endlessly, carving its form into his mind's eye so that even dreams were made of numbing reality. He was sickening of life. Every cursed moment came heavier and slower, like cooling molasses rolling from a jar. His mind yearned for some animation, some velocity, and still the world around his slowed, his vision blurred as though with sleep—he was ill, tired, did not wish to remain here…

The compartment door came suddenly flying open, breaking like thunder upon Lord Roy's meditations.

It was the opiate, the relief, he had so desperately needed.

Lord Roy surfaced as a man dying against his will gasps for air—he came with a start from grave contemplation and spun about to see the cause of interruption.

Soundless harmony entered, and glanced contemptuously at Roy.

There was a moment's pause, as Roy took in the apparition of his friend, Prince Marth. The moment quickly passed, and Roy pondered whether or not he should be disappointed. Marth, as always, formed the centre of everything—if Roy were ever upset, it would be due to this lissome friend of his—and indeed, the gloom Roy had earlier considered was due in part to this perfection with whom he was acquainted. Roy's wonted amiability overcame his hesitation, however, though conflict jolted through his viscera in vague and endless streams; he opened his mouth to inquire, but found himself mute and mindless, wondering after words with which to speak.

"The dining car was closed," Marth said.

Roy's mouth snapped closed—as always, he, Marth, would have the initiative. His words came unsullied by exertion, his visage remained a mask of boredom. If one had conceived their words beforehand, there would be no speaking them when Marth came at last. There was some quality to the blue-haired prince that shut one up, and Roy, even as he struggled, gave in to the silent command, shut up without having said anything. Marth had given Roy no quarter in which to react, as he drew the sliding door closed and flung himself onto the opposite bench. He was made of unbroken movements, formed of molten grace and feline dexterity; crossing a leg, Marth turned his eyes upon the window, sighed as though the breath was the period that closed a flawless address. If any human could be called Art, Marth was that human—but of course, that was not to be dwelled upon, for the sole reason that it cleaved at Roy to think this way.

"Closed?" he said at last, which much affected nonchalance.

"Oh yes, it seems the employees shut up the dining car when we are twenty-five miles from our destination," Marth replied. "It's rather inconvenient, but I suppose we shan't suffer long, you know?" The prince glanced at his travelling companion with sympathy at last, and leaned forward while his crossed leg seamlessly quit his other knee. "It won't be long now, thank God," he said. "Agora—that'll be a fine change—and I'll be off this train—really, I can't call this a relaxing mode of travel."

The car gave a mild lurch, as though to affirm Marth's prejudice, and the prince straightened, his mouth twisted, eyes narrowed. "It's turned me into a foul creature of some sort," he continued, glancing down at his suit jacket. "Trains bring such effluvium, because there's hardly any room in which to wash, and the infinite jolting is such a pain. Really, I personally don't care for it…"

"It's faster than horseback," Roy interposed. "Cleaner too." His expression sought to appease the import of his words.

"Of course," said Marth. His voice dripped with derision, but Roy only sighed without anguish: he had learned some time ago that such accents were not intentional. They were natural, though every symmetrical line in Marth's matchless form suggested otherwise. But Marth could not be blamed for his too quick trenchancy—bodily perfection demanded some compromise, somewhere, as perfection, truly, could not exist in this world.

"I like the train," Roy stated. "The jolt is… lulling."

"Well! One should only expect that, when it comes from you," Marth replied, his mouth twisting in that strange, bitter manner yet again.

"You don't appreciate the world around you!" said Roy demurely.

"It ceased to be impressive some time ago."

The statement was conclusive; Roy, in obedience to the dismissive glance Marth had given him before turning away to the window, retreated in silence. It did no good to argue; Marth was settled in his ways. There was perhaps some good in being an exiled prince: one could then claim to have seen all the cruelty life had to offer, and was thus be allowed to "settle" in one's manner and opinion. Adolescence, the name of inexperience and all it entailed, had been overcome; there was no more maturing to be done, for one was now a figure of the world, who had done his maturing in the process of suffering. It was a conventional idea, challenged by those who were truly venerable and still learning, and ignored by those who fancied themselves gods of the earth. Who could, in actuality, claim true settlement? Roy wondered. No one, undoubtedly—but due to the fine notions put forth by the idea, those who could profess some misuse at the hands of Circumstance were always quick to profess it. Such claims gave privileges the happy and quietly bereaved could not acquire—such claims opened the door of "settlement", and its proud, silver-tressed rights. There was the right of experience, the right of good treatment, the rights of empathy and pathos—in short, a bundle of things that made life acceptable. The quietly bereaved too had their experiences, but what did experience mean if one did not proclaim it from the rooftops, so that Man, prying as he is, might have something to chatter about? And in what way did the happy matter? Everyone longed for happiness, whilst trampling those who had it. Things were very muddled in that regard; Roy shook the flow of thoughts from his head.

There was one subject, however, that he must broach with his friend. He stirred against the cushions of the train seat, wondering exactly how he should begin, when Marth had so far dismissed him and taken up examination of the scenery without. The tall and bristling grass that had marked the wild tract above the sea and Sound was reduced now, replaced by outposts that vanished before the eye could properly fix upon them, and the increasing signs of humanity. Vacant tracks wandered from the main line, paused beneath the burden of a stationary train, that stood as a testament to memory and action of the past.

"Marth…" he began.

A motionless chain of rail cars shook the walls of their own transport, as the train tore past the phantom-hued string and left it to the deepening line of the horizon. Marth did not move.

"Marth…"

"Yes, Roy?"

"I'm wondering about the partnership."

"I thought you were."

The image of the spectral cars was imprinted in Roy's mind; he found it unnerving when Marth turned slowly from the window to face him. A flash of discomfort drew a connection between the pallor of Marth's sculpted face—half-radiant, half-shadowed, in the play of light—and the unmoving train. A shiver coursed through Roy's body, forcing itself from him in a trembling exhalation.

"If-you're-still-up-to-chronicling-the-convention-for-our-endeavour-I-just-though-I'd-say-I'm-still-a hundred-percent-behind-it." A breath. Roy's heart was beating faster than he could manage.

"I'd figured," Marth murmured. "You just aren't ready to let this go, are you."

"I thought we'd ironed that out." New anxieties mingled their taint with the old. "You said we'd keep the partnership going, just… not do as many articles and such—cut down on production, since it's not going like we'd planned."

"It never went as I hoped I would," said Marth quietly.

Roy stared. Had they truly come to a loss? he thought, or did he dream, dream as he sat paralyzed, unable to pinch himself awake? He watched his friend—his business associate in what had been—oh, it seemed so long ago!—a venture for journalistic fame—utter a verdict over that enterprise—and oh, was it to end in debacle? Was it to fall apart, after they had done so much—interviewed and written and photographed and dispatched to publications?

"Why—?"

"Why does no one wish to read of a deposed prince?" Marth sighed. "Or why I don't care for this idea any longer? Roy—" He looked in earnest at his auditor, and bent forward: fluid motion streamed through his spine into his neck and head, holding both erect while his back curved into a faultless line. "The reason I was ever up for the venture was only due to the fact I didn't have anything—oh—worthwhile to pursue."

"And you don't believe the editorials—the photography—were worthwhile enough to pursue?"

"They might have been, early on." Crisp now, Marth sat up—one might almost mark the supple, rippling withdrawal of muscle from the arch, like chords drawing a giant mannequin from repose. "And I will admit that our endeavour was a great deal of fun, what with being able to slip into meetings of administration because we were freelance journalists and the like. But…" He stretched, yawning—the image of a tiger filled Roy's mind: somehow, Marth gave yawning a delicacy and polish that would not be denied, even the to stiffest of opponents. "But that's all over now," he continued, dropping his arms. "There's no need to prowl around and hope someone will be so kind as to direct us in the way of a story. Because now we are the story." His eyes gleamed, while scenes from the outside passed along his pupils.

Argument and indignation did not come naturally to Roy, his faculties being unsuited to the demands of one, and his nature to the rancour of the other. But in one violent swoop, he felt himself suddenly possessed of both. Indignation came more easily nowadays, since Marth had first carelessly suggested, that they discontinue with their journalism, for it periodicals were genuinely in search of content, they would come to Marth and Roy's partnership with requests, as opposed to the other way around. "And besides, they have their own people," Marth had reasoned. He always found it necessary to pace, calmly, to be sure, when formulating arguments and molding others to his opinion. He and Roy had at this time been in Phaere, where Lord Roy's father, even in his debility, had taken enthusiastically to the notion of their enterprise—unfortunately, by the time Roy had told him of the partnership, its demise was upon the horizon: Marth would make sure of that. They had been invited, only a week before, to attend a convention in Agora, were persons of distinction would discuss by what means they and their money and influence might unify the Nations, ending useless wars and reverted that energy into advancing the world's economic and social schemes. It was a noble cause, one for which Marth was enthused, but then, perhaps, his enthusiasm was only a sad indication of his having been exiled from the machinations of mortal life for far too long. A usurper had wronged him, and of course there was that resulting zeal for vengeance—but the proposed convention, to Roy's more discerning mind, would result not in any true, progressive success, but in the way such things always did: underhanded, and coated in a waterfall of false promises. The idea gave Roy no pleasure. He had been among these designs before, and had no natural or artificial love for them. Youth finds only sadness in the world's intrigues, while the world itself is inured; so it was with Roy, that he mourned the loss of probity, as well as the disguise that had replaced it.

But what could be done? He suffered Marth to inveigle him into coming to the convention, and now awaited Marth to inveigle him into giving up the partnership. This final thought was the resignation of an old mind, but it was the matter of his mind's tomb—nothing he should give in to while there was still a small bit of life. His youth impelled him to argument, and with a shuddering breath, he confronted Marth's assertions.

"I think, Marth, that if we were ever a story, as you term it, we were stories long before now," he replied. Caution lined his tone, as he straightened and gazed directly at the prince. "I can't say I was anything special, but even before the partnership, you were a story: deposed, exiled, aggrieved. But even then. You know people don't pay attention for long unless something is continually in front of their faces. They finally forgot about your grievances and turned to something else; that was a sure sign, I think, that you'd been relinquished. A convention in Agora won't change anything—we're just a couple more dead titles that have been invited to a convention—"

Roy paused suddenly, for in the midst of rambling, he had lost his way.

Marth studied him with marked aversion. The sentiment, this time, was intentional, unlike his last, Roy realised; the young lord quailed slightly beneath this suggestion that his speech had incited enmity, though it had been uttered without that intent. "You confuse yourself," Marth said at length. "My argument still stands. If we, either ourselves in the flesh or those visionary entities the world has made us out to be, were indeed forgotten, we are once again recalled. There is no use, therefore, in clinging to past associations—to cling to partnership and the baseness of journalism—when opportunity is available to us. I fail to comprehend you, Roy—you seem to have no understanding, no appetite for progress. But really, if one is to get anywhere in this world, there must come a time when past connections are cut, or—if we are feign 'mercy'—relegated memory and touched no more. Really, Roy, your unwillingness to accept the situation surprises me. I did think you were more discerning. I in fact know you are more discerning. The problem with you, though—" And as he spoke, he reclined against his seat, settling into that position of Wisdom which guides with hauteur, and has only its own shallow experience—which is not truly experience, rather, a few grievances so entitled—to offer counsel from. But where people are desperate, so this shallow Wisdom flourishes. Roy was not desperate, and he shrank from the prince's counsel. Marth did not mark his recoiling gesture, and proceeded with assurance.

"Your trouble, Roy," he repeated, smiling with a corner of his lips, and mocking with the glimmer of his eyes, "is that you cling to history—your history, your father's history, the world's history—it is all too precious! And while that is all well from sentiment's standpoint, this stance cannot work in the times that are coming, and have indeed already arrived. Think Roy! We have come from a time of antiquity—I would not put it past you to have brought some ancient relic from your father's house, your sword or some trifle of the like. But think! This train moves ever nearer to Agora, where there are no swords, no tribal warfare, no tribal custom and tribal law —everything is new and novel! This branch of Agora is only one of the smaller links in the chain, yes, but even if it is not as highly developed as the northern cities, it is still miles removed from the age of our own cities. From the age of your own Phaere and my own—what was once my own—Altea. I associate our partnership with that antiquity. You yourself alluded to its purpose, how it brought us both from one stage to the next—but think! This convention serves the same purpose as our endeavour in the most basic sense: it moves us from one stage to next. And just as when we—or at least, I—turned from the memory of exile to fix my attentions upon our venture, so we both should turn from that venture, having expended itself, to fix our attentions upon this newest venture."

"But what," Roy interrupted, "if this newest venture does not turn out as you hope? As you claim? What then?" Many points in Marth speech had roused his misery; there were many things he did not agree with, and yet he was helpless to address them. Marth careened through his arguments with a hurricane's speed and savagery; there was no pinpointing those bits that had gouged rends and drew blood, because they mingled themselves with everything else, and were, once the speech had been finished, inseparable. But there was no challenging Marth's discourse as a whole, for who could dwell with that monstrous, ruthless thing without bringing hell upon his own head? Roy seized the conclusion and challenged it as best he could, but he saw immediately, as the cool twilight of nonchalance fell across Marth's face, that he was just as helpless as if he had questioned nothing.

"And perhaps it does not turn out as it should," he acquiesced, though his expression and tone had never been more contrary to this estimation. "Then we have suffered bravely, and who may blame us for cowardice? Which, I believe, is the course you would not be loath to adopt…?"

"Fine!" Roy pitched forward, his tones that of despair, more than any fury. "We go to the convention—I never argued that—but the partnership! Why must the partnership fail? If you would have me say it, I shall. You're a brilliant writer, Marth, you should know that from the comments your editorials receive. And my photographs—journals and their readers like those too. Why must we give up the freelance business? Why not continue, maybe put it aside for a little while until this convention is done?"

"Because it is not merely the convention; it is due to all that shall transpire thanks to it that I wish to give up this damnable business of the partnership!"

"But why? Why do you speak of occurrences that may or may not happen with the conviction that they shall?"

"Haven't you a clue?" Marth's tone was withering, even if the words—all that seemed to matter—were not. "The convention itself would not leave room for the partnership, and the opportunities that would come as a result—"

"What opportunities?" Roy could bear the prince's evasions and allusions no longer. "Explain."

"Is it not—" Marth began, then just as suddenly, broke off. He fixed his friend with a stare of assessment, brow broken into fine and even furrows. "I suppose I must speak, then," he said at last, "if you are so insistent that I should elaborate upon my meaning. I have been offered a vocation by the authors of this convention—several notables of the highest standing dispatched pleas for persons of… well, there were various conditions, a few which I met. Representatives are needed to champion to convention's cause, to take its message beyond Agora to the Nations—and it seemed I was thought to fit the bill. I won't be able to balance this duty and continue that of our partnership, Roy. Something must give. I think we both know what it is." The train had given way to a rhythmic series of jolts, rocked this way and that by some invisible hand, and Marth, bending forward, blended his words with the swaying of the train. "You must own to it at some point," he said, "there is no hope for dead things any longer."

"But it's not dead," Roy mumbled.

"Oh, but it will be. I don't wish it to live anymore."

Only blindness missed the telltale indications of the Agora Train Station now; having come upon them in fits and starts, the city now embraced the travelers, gave no doubt as to their proximity to their destination. Marth pulled back and rose, catlike as ever, though the train sought to uproot him as it lurched into the station; being certain of his equilibrium, however, Marth was far from agitated by its fitfulness. He laid a hand upon the his former seat and reached for his coat; the greater part of his and Roy's baggage was in the hands of stewards, and would be conveyed with all alacrity to the car that would be awaiting the two once they had disembarked.

"Three minutes more and we shall be off!" cried Marth, laying his coat upon his arm.

Roy did not respond. The windows had darkened, throwing the compartment into a deeper shadow than the sullen day had cast it in before; turning to the glass, Roy found the sky had receded into a mass of buildings, all of which could be viewed only from the rear. What remained of the heavens was boiling cloud, drifting like smoke along the roofs and toward that distance which could not be seen from the train. Marth's utterance was decidedly accurate, for a sign soon presented itself, indicating the station with a blurred arrow and a line or two of still more blurry writing. Roy, as he gazed, could not decide whether a greater weight had fallen upon him, as they drew closer, or had been removed—the compartment was now a mausoleum, and the corpse of the partnership its lone occupant.

He saw again the ghostly trains, frozen upon the track.

High above him, a monotonous voice droned. "Pulling in to Agora Station. Please do not block the aisles with luggage…" Its clarity faded. What was the use? Roy thought, someone would take it in their mind to block the aisles, either from necessity or stupidity, and the it would start a chain reaction, one that obeyed no decree as laid by the tired voice buzzing from an intercom. The buildings had given way to the train station; Roy was no longer diverted by the scenery, and turned reluctantly to the matter at hand. He gathered up his coat and stood; Marth had already quit the compartment and stood without.

"Less than a minute!" he called, brightly, over a shoulder.

"Of course." The train was visibly slowing.

Lord Roy, in his twenty years of existence, had not once felt so defeated by a single human being as he did now. He watched Marth balanced in the aisle, plumb and joyous in an attitude of triumph. But when would he ever feel otherwise? Roy doubted the prince ever would. He might have been exiled through no wrong of his, but that had only heightened his victory in the end, furnished him with the tools of success that took him beyond the strictures of royalty, and increased his prospects when evil men had only sought to injure them. And again—Luck was in his hand, and had showered in him with fortune, advantage, left behind one romanticist, unfortunately, but Progress pauses for no man who will not attend willingly to her. Roy, were he not beneath the auspices of Prince Marth, might have been made extinct by the furies of the times—but as he stood there, listing with the train as it drew to a stop, he wondered if he still retained even one hope of life amid this confusion. Eyes that see despite themselves often view their downfall upon the horizon—so Roy recognized the rupture that would drive him from the prince's aegis, and consequentially, from the stream of existence, which clearly did without him.

Lord Roy was useless. It was best he vanish now.




Yay! ^^

[Mr. Lexxi Aileron]

I've only read the first section, and the lesser half of the second, but this is quite an engaging read, if I may say so myself. Given especially the short span over which you've written this, it is a very polished piece, with very vivid descriptions, particularly of the Sound, and very dimensional characters (Aunt Ignes, most specifically). Keep up the spectacular work, my dear, and this will continue to captivate, I'm sure!

[Selah]

Oh, thank you so very much for your review, LionHarted! ^^

A new part. Yay... I was having a wee bit of trouble remembering the name of the Ice Climbers' home, and thus, the bit of improvising later on.

---

The confluence of passengers was thinning.

Prince Marth and Lord Roy disembarked just as their car emptied. Roy had insisted upon this, and for once had given Marth some reason to pay attention to his arguments. When the way was at last clear, the two quit the rail car at the heels of the stragglers, and emerged into the brisk, autumn-scented air.

"Perfectly lovely," said Marth, inhaling.

Sunlight braided its influence among the thinning boil of clouds; as the friends walked, the gloom eased with the advent of film spreading above their heads. The character of morning was yet to be broken, and with the steadily growing luster of midday, the air's clarity was waxing ripe and crisp. The train station was in every manner built to accommodate this swelling brilliance: fabricated of white stone, it glimmered, like a reflection upon a lake of incandescence.

"Do you see the car?" Marth asked, inclining his head. His eyes remained unmoving, fixed upon their path.

"Not ours exactly, but then… I don't know what it would look like."

"Well would you look at that!"

"What?"

"I do believe we are not alone here. Is that Sir Link's brother? Young Link? The prodigal? Not that you would call him that to his face, mind you, for it's been rumoured he's been in a duel or two—not very pleasant for his family—but here now, you do remember Sir Link, right? That cordial gentleman who introduced us to the Eminence? Heavens, Roy, I know you remember that journal. They liked your photographs a great deal. Ah, yes, I see you do remember…"

"What's he doing in Agora?" Roy asked, squinting, hoping to catch a glimpse of the "Young Link" in question.

"There he goes! I don't suppose he's seen us. Then again, he probably did… his brother's always doing that, you know—ignoring people—but anyway, what's Link doing in Agora? Bah, haven't you the slightest idea? I wouldn't put it past him to have been on the convention committee, charged with setting up the event and whatnot—inviting notables—you know how damnably good he is at that sort of thing."

"What's his brother doing here?"

"I have no idea." Marth yawned. The yawn was affected.

"I thought he was getting married this year. Or betrothed. Or going off to college—the Tour—gods, I can't remember…" Prodded from his sphere of miserable reflection for the time being, Roy furrowed his brow, pondering on the behalf of others.

"He's an erratic fellow," Marth responded, idly. "What was the girl's name again?"

"Miss Nana… can't remember her last name."

"Ah, yes, Miss Nana! I remember her—we were introduced on the Coast, just south of the Mountains. You remember that? We had sojourned in that little resort on our way to accost Prince Hubert of Chôns for an interview, and we encountered Sir Link… really, I have no idea how he manages to get around. Anyway, he introduced us to her and her brother, Mr…. Popo I think his name was—he was a somber, sarcastic fellow, that one—at the morning salon. Remember? You said you liked her, that she would make a good photographic subject with the… gods, what was it? The intensity of her expressions? Yes, I believe so."

"She would make a good subject," murmured Roy.

"That Young Link isn't fit to lick her shoes," Marth remarked.

"I thought you didn't like Sir Link."

A wry smile. "I only care for him as much as sociability requires," the prince responded.

"You called him a snake once, didn't you?"

"Only because he is one. Oh look, there he goes, he's coming toward us. Ah! And he's gotten hold of a very handsome lady too; shall we greet them?"

Roy, to whom the vicissitudes of human nature and circles of opinion were all too familiar, shrugged. "Of course," he said.

Not that his concurrence mattered. Marth had already swung from trajectory of search for their car and passed into the beeline of Sir Link's approach.

"Sir Link!" he cried, with an uplifted hand and rapturous expression. "To think you too were attending the Agora convention; how fine it is to see you again!"

The two shook hands.

"I have never been more delighted than I am at this moment," said Link. "I hoped you would come."

"I suppose it is futile to ask if you have heard of my appointment? I and several others are to represent "the cause" beyond the bounds of the convention and Agora—we are to spread the gospel, so to say, that is preached upon this ground."

"Ah, yes." Link smiled, in that indulgent manner that negligent observers sometimes have the misfortunate to call a "baring of teeth". "It is quite useless to ask. I myself had a hand in a few of the appointments. Again, never have I been so pleased as to see you were among the candidates chosen."

The prince laughed, in such a way that no ear misconstrued its intent as the complement of Link's tones. "I thought as much." His humour melted into simpering mildness.

Roy had no incentive to join in the contest; it was unappealing, besides, and he was in no mind to gratify the other side. He had instead bent his head, by way of acknowledgement, toward the girl at Link's side. Her figure and carriage were both agreeable: gently molded in a suit of pongee, slight and lissome, satisfying in a quite, mellow way that was due, perhaps, to mere reticence, rather than any natural bent of character. She clung to her companion's arm through visible instinct, but there was daring—perhaps some audacity—in her pupils.

"Good afternoon, miss… I trust you are well?"

"Quite."

"I see you have taken it upon yourself to be acquainted with the young lady!" Link exclaimed, breaking quite suddenly away from his conversation with the prince, and turning to Roy. "Hello there, Roy." He winked. The gesture seemed at once avuncular and a confidential code between friends that speaks, voicelessly, of one's opinion regarding the people about him. Roy was baffled and turned away—he thought Sir Link a very good and affable man, but had never spoken with him beyond situations of the most public kind. It was quite useless for him to translate gestures of which he had no understanding.

"This is Miss Zelda," said Link. Miss Zelda seemed more than capable of introducing herself.

"Delighted," said Marth, raising her hand to his lips. Zelda's mouth twitched.

"You are Prince Marth, I presume?" she asked, when he had released her hand, and she had hidden it among the folds of her skirt.

"I am honoured that you know me."

"I should wonder is there is a soul who doesn't!" Her own swift rejoinder seemed to mitigate whatever spirit of discomfort had touched her earlier; Zelda disentangled her arm from that of Link's and drew both hands into the open.

"Is it very terrible to be exiled?" she asked.

"Ghastly. One must make one's way from the country as quickly as possible when the sentence is first laid, for there is the overwhelming threat of assassination. Outside the country, there is the trouble of funds, for when one is exiled by such malicious men as I was, capital is not at one's disposal, having been stripped away. Once you have made a situation for yourself beyond the borders of danger, one need only recall the great adage: 'Out of sight, out of mind.' Malicious men, as I am sure you have guessed, are not sedentary men. If they fear danger from the outlaw himself, this fear most likely roused by a reminder, or the circulation of a certain name upon foreign tongues, there shall be hell for the outlaw to pay."

"And yet you seem to walk without fear."

"Yes. I do. I've had a few good turns at the hand of Fortune, and am released from suspicion and ill will on the part of mine enemies. Alas, I am without a country… but even if I were to attempt seizure of the throne, where would that leave me, he whom circumstances has rendered unworthy of a throne, has cast lots among regular men and found himself perfectly their equal? There is nothing I can do in regards to my country… but perhaps you deem me ignoble, rather than inefficient, as I realise I am."

"I do not know what to think," Zelda murmured. The audacity had shrunk away, and left pensiveness in its wake.

"You are Lord Roy, I presume," she remarked momentarily, turning to Roy.

"That I am."

"I thought so, because I cannot recall ever hearing of you." Roy, deaf to insinuations of this type, smiled, but Zelda, as though she feared an indignant response, hurried on.

"Sir Link said that you were fond of photography. You must come and see my aunt sometime—she is a dabbler in the arts and might like…" She paused.

"I was always under the impression your aunt hated photography," Link interrupted. "When you said 'dabbler in the arts', I supposed you meant to allude to her actual interests: poring over bad sketches and bad paintings because she knows no better, and calling them brilliant!"

Zelda laughed, glancing, as she did, carefully at Roy. "I do suppose," she admitted. "But do you take pictures of fashionable things? I think she would appreciate your photographs if they were of fashionable things."

"I do take pictures of fashionable things, yes." Roy's smile softened—he sensed a pretext in the girl's reference to her aunt. "But not often… only when I'm on a project—" He broke fleetingly, and fought an urge to look at Marth—"but I am curious: are you fond of pictures?"

"Oh yes, quite," said Zelda, flushing.

"She hides her interests for fear they'll seem to doting," Link put in, dryly. "Isn't that right, my dear?"

"Oh stop it!" Zelda slapped his arm.

"Do they have pictures where you come from?" Roy inquired. The technology was not pervasive: he himself had not seen a camera until he had left Phaere. Even then, the Brownie camera in his possession was unlike any of the cameras rumoured to have been produced in the northern cities of Agora—cameras smaller than the box that was the Brownie, capable of taking and storing clearer photographs that did not require a darkroom to process them.

"There were photographs in Hyrule," Zelda said. "Pictographs. They inspired my interest."

"Is that your car?" Link asked, gesticulating.

"That's our luggage," Marth answered, glancing in the direction of Link's hand. "Let me see…" He took brisk leave of the group.

"I suppose I should go and see to it too," Roy added. Indecision wavered in his voice, and he turned toward the car.

"You'll join my brother, my Uncle Tingle, and myself for dinner sometime, won't you? They would be delighted."

"Of course." Roy's wandering gaze had fixed upon Marth, who appeared to be giving instructions to the chauffeur.

"Excellent. By the by, how goes you and Marth's partnership? Still sending articles to the Eminence?"

Zelda seemed perplexed by the inattention.

"I must be off now," she said.

"Oh really?"

"I have to buy flowers for the rooms. Aunt Ignes likes flowers." Link chuckled, and the Zelda flushed, stepping aside. An ankle sank beneath the hasty movement, and she staggered a bit, caught her balance at the last moment and pulled aloof from Link's soliciting hand. "Tulips and roses," she explained, as though explanation was needed. "Good-bye."

She left them, awkwardly half-turned as she waved an uncertain adieu.

"Is she often like that?" Roy asked, genuinely intrigued.

"Oh!" Link laughed. "Hardly ever. She's a splendid girl—can get a bit high and mighty and even defensive of her aunt, who is the last person in the world who would require such defense—but she's a capital all the same. You like her? I always ask everyone that. I make it a point of attaching myself to her and her aunt, in hopes of easing their relatively uncomfortable rank in society—I can't be sure that either appreciate it, but Zelda makes the attempt. You think she would make a good subject for a photograph?"

"Not really," said Roy, gazing after Zelda's mild and retreating figure. A photograph taken upon instantaneous impulse, perhaps, would suit her, one that captured her undoctored sunshine and adolescence. But not one that was deliberate, the scene studied. All the delicacy and freshness of her maidenhood would pale, melting into the colourless hues of the background, thinning and sickening till she was but a corpse of herself. Zelda's youth did not lend itself to the camera lens—in a manner, predetermined photographs were the privilege of the old.

Roy shook his head.

"No, she wouldn't make a good subject at all. She can't be captured right. Everything else would be affected."

"Your expertise lies in the camera," said Link, lifting his hands. "I profess only ignorance."

"What are you two still chatting about; do come along, Roy!" Marth's voice came to them in good-humoured exasperation above the roar of the gunning engine; the chauffeur had vanished into the interior, and Marth was partially inside.

"You must come to dinner," said Link.

"I'm sure we'll find the time somewhere."

"It's been a pleasure seeing you, old chap. Hopefully we shall have the further delight of chatting at some point in the future?"

"Of course." Roy offered his hand. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye." Link took it, and they shook.

It was as Roy was turning away that his eyes were captured, and in the briefest of moments, as he gyrated upon a flat and heavy sole, a sight, gleaming crimson beyond the train station's chalked and scattered statues, seized the breath in his lungs and expunged it. He gaped, beyond shock and wonder, transported, arrested.

A lady was hurrying from the vicinity of the track, toward a car parked in isolation from the others of its kind.

She was dressed for town upon a summer's day, swathed in cotton and white lace, gloves drawn up to her elbows. Her dark, scarlet hair was partly free, or perhaps carelessly bound, for it spilled among the varied and useless constraints like a mass of red foam; ribbons and a cascade of pins trailed from its depths. There were curls all about her face; she fought them with a hand, which came and brushed back the tresses, returned sight to wide and girlish eyes, even from this point discernible. A man strode beside her—he had hold of one arm, and was pulling her along. She stumbled after him, caught between this force and that of curiosity—tirelessly, her neck turned this way in that, sloe-eyes drinking in the sights, breaths and smiles of wonder wreathing her face. Once or twice she paused, as though overwhelmed by sight of beauty, but each time the man yanked her forward, and she come obligingly. Despite the ferocity of his stride, the woman—but no, she seemed but a girl, perhaps the man's daughter or sister, come to Agora and the Sound for the first time—there was pure honey in the girl's expression. She looked as though in ecstasy, as though her foot rushed upon the gilded streets of heaven: how pure and radiant did she seem, against the rush of gray that was the sky, the lead and false brilliance of the station itself.

Roy was amazed. He watched her until she and her conductor had reached the car, and she stowed within. Before she disappeared, the lady gave the station a final, ardent glance—and then she was gone.

"Gods, Roy, what are you staring at?"

All the humour in Marth's rankled tone was dead.

"Did you see her?" the young lord managed to ask.

"See who?"

"Her—the lady in that car…" He pointed.

"I never laid eyes upon her once," Marth retorted. He had not even bothered to look. "Now do come along!"

Roy came. He had transcended mortality for a moment, and could not mind Marth's indifference.

[Mr. Lexxi Aileron]

I absolutely love your dialogue--it is very conversational, not the slightest bit overstated (as is always fitting to my fancy), and it captures the period in which you have set your story most fittingly! And the setting--the setting is magnificent! Your descriptions of Agora and the Sound are executed wonderfully, spaced perfectly, and they never once distract from what is happening to the characters. I am most impressed, as I always am with your work.

Keep it up, my dear, and you'll turn out a real chef d'oeuvre!

[Selah]

Yay! Thank you again for your wonderful comments and approbation, LionHarted. ^^ The dialogue is one of my favourite portions of the writing process, and writing descriptions of the Sound come to me in my time of trouble... anticipate more.

---

II: One Step to the Apparition

Lord Luigi had been among the last to disembark from the train. He had very little liking of crowds, and took every chance afforded him to avoid them. Crowds, innocuous though they appeared, were in truth quite sordid. When in the midst of one, a person was required to shuffle—always a base manner of walking—and to cringe and recoil in useless endeavour to keep from brushing up against another. Somehow, one always ended up jostling somebody, and this unhappy intrusion of personal space always carried its dangers, particularly here, in Agora, were crowds were largely foreign, and some individuals a part of those unenlightened cultures that feared taking baths and attempted to disguise their fragrance under a sea of odiferous oils and cologne. Needless to say, this odorizing only served to strengthen body odor and make it more disagreeable, and as crowds had a tendency to push one's nose into the armpit of one's neighbour, the end result was often deadly. Seated in his compartment, and watching his anathema hurry by, flushed from the train's interior like a worming mass, Luigi was satisfied to indulge in his own prudence, and ponder the misfortunes of the crowd.

He watched the women, dressed in the fashions of Paquin and Armand, sweeping before, after, or beside their husbands, to the places were private transport awaited them, to carry them to whatever destinations they had set sights upon. Luigi peered toward that lot, eyes squinted; he could make out no car for himself, though, verily, every car was the same. But he knew, without having been told, that there would be no car awaiting him and his baggage—the Toads back in Mushroom Kingdom, who had been charged with the reservations, had somehow forgotten the car, and left him without the expectation of one. Luigi, had he believed in luck, might have called himself lucky to have even reserved a room in hotel above the sound—the Toads would have forgotten that too, if Luigi, with pale tenacity, not insisted they do so. The Toads were forgetful creatures, often in malicious ways—though whether their failure to recollect, upon the behalf of those who were not their inherited masters, was truly due to malice was a debatable notion. One could never fathom what lurked beneath the spotted helmet of a Toad, what thoughts lingered between the smiling lines of their primitive faces or in the grave and spectacled pate of the Steward toadstool, Toadsworth. Having no understanding, a person was forced to deal with them to the best of one’s ability, and Luigi, though it was vaguely debasing, always found some smidgen of relief in evoking the names of his friends (Princess Peach, for example, who was their unequivocal mistress, as well as his brother Mario, their patron and guardian) to compel the Toads into doing what he asked. When directly ordered, the Toads never resisted, but there was always the sense that they were muttering behind your back, going through your things, and rolling their eyes that made dealing with them a challenge. But here, upon the Sound, there were no Toads to do one’s bidding—the respite was enormous. Their servitude was a discomfort, and without that peculiar bondage, Luigi felt truly liberated; he began a mental letter, as he watched the train empty, to thank Princess Peach for giving him with matchless opportunity to represent Mushroom Kingdom in the land of Agora. “Never,” the letter would go, “have I been so honoured as to serve as emissary for my country and rulers. Though I cannot call the chance to do so an aspiration that has occupied my yearnings, that is only due to the fact I was ignorant—your appointment, my lady Peach, has liberated me from darkness and myopia. I hope to serve you to the best of my ability, to give our country good name through my actions.” The letter must run at least several pages long, and Luigi’s busy mind outlined the content; it was to be a letter of great emotion and appreciation, written effusively, as a the earnest lover’s kiss upon his lady’s hand. For the briefest of moments, Luigi’s thoughts flickered to his brother—the thought of Mario was purely obligatory, and now more or less born of the pity a well-favoured person feels for the so-called unfortunate. Mario’s duties as Mushroom Kingdom mascot had prevented him from being sent in Peach’s stead as the kingdom’s representation; Luigi had expressed some sorrow, when Peach had made the announcement to the brothers, and Mario’s face had twitched horribly. It is the duty of the noble to offer apology for their own good fortune, and Luigi, being noble, had done just that. It was a pity that Mario had been deemed too busy to carry out such a mission, but Luigi could not help it, and could only offer his empathy. Mario, bull-headed animal that he was, had refused to accept this brother’s sympathy, and Luigi could not help that either: he gave it with many professions of regret, and when Mario had at last bellowed at him to “give it up”, Luigi withdrew his sympathy with acquiescent grace.

If Mario could not handle sympathy, well then, he would get none at all!

The throng of passengers had at last given way to a clear vision of the sidewalk; quitting his compartment, Luigi stepped from the rail car into the faded sunlight. It was an atrocious day, devoid of all radiance; that the shroud of clouds would pull back and admit the sun! The earth suffocated, he thought, beneath this dismal blanket; the poetry of Hyperion had been stolen from mortals, like miserly gods clinching the globe in dark and gloomy fists, depriving her of the bright air and shafting, life-engendering rays. Luigi shook his head: the cloud cover was shameful.

He wondered from whence he would get a carrier, to return to the train and fetch his luggage. Philosophy had weakened the fibers of Luigi’s muscles; once upon a time, he had given up an adventurous life for Plato and other such philosophical studies. What was the use of spending one’s energy toward resisting marauding monsters, when Mario, Mushroom Kingdom’s acknowledged hero, was so capable at keeping the land safe that he canceled out whatever endeavours Luigi made? What was the use of grieving over stolen jobs and opportunities, when in his bones had lain a latent love of beauty and poetry, and consequentially, philosophy? And what, God forbid, was he doing fixing drains and pipes when the largesse of Princess Peach provided him and his brother with enough capital to sustain a life free from physical labour? Mario, in his own peculiar way, was a noble man to the people—let his continue in that path, and give up the pretense of offering help that would only be rebuffed! It was under the influence of this cogitation that Luigi gave up the business of combat, and retired to a lakeside chalet to take up the study of aestheticism and belief. In the process, what little physical strength he had atrophied, but it was the sacrifice required by his new line of employment. Everything required sacrifice, in one shape, form, or another; Luigi was stoic about his own.

He considered his circumstance while casting about for a carrier. He beheld several, either occupied or hastening from view, but Luigi could not resolve on whom to ask; he decided, at last, to inquire in the station building.

The station, in total, was small, and appeared large only to the naïve, who marked its opulence and mistook it for greatness. The building, which occupied a square of white concrete, was even the more negligible—it was often lost amid the figures of stone and unsmiling busts, the rush of the train, the damp mists, the veiling showers of clouded days. Luigi entered. The interior of the building was just as trivial as its outside: mainly bare, with some minor decoration and seating arrangements, a front desk, and little else.

“Where might I find someone to help me with my luggage?” Luigi asked.

There was a man behind the counter, modestly arrayed in the barest of the railroad apparel—he was without the polished cufflinks, service cap, or even the jacket—and at Luigi’s inquiry he made as though to come around to the front. Luigi’s heart contracted. His horror arose not from any especial repulsion of the man, rather, a fear that there might not be any available assistants about, and that the manager of the station would be obliged to help himself. Luigi was among that category of persons who linked modernity with full wealth—such wealth, says the stuffy gentleman, lays the task of helping with the luggage upon shoulders that were paid lower wages. To think the manager, stepping from his seat of hypothetical power, would thus assist a passenger was degrading. It was to be awkward to be the cause of such a situation.

"If there's no one about—" said Luigi hurriedly, not knowing exactly what he meant, but knowing that something must to done to prevent a theoretical miscarriage in the scrupulous queue of Society.

"Whoever said there weren't no one about?" the manager interrupted brusquely. "Aye, stay yaerself a bit. Simon! There's a gen'leman who needs a hand with 'is luggage!"

"Coming sir!" The addressed Simon came scurrying from a side door.

The manager inclined his head and Simon glanced expectantly toward Luigi; flushed, Luigi directed him to the rail car, and Simon brought out the luggage.

"Is that you car, then?" he asked, gesturing in the obscure direction of a black limosieune.

"Erm, no." Luigi bit his lower lip. "I'm afraid I haven't ordered one."

"Like me to flag you down at taxi?"

"Of course."

Simon was a capable lad. Having swung the trolley on which he'd set Lord Luigi's luggage, he wheeled it toward the street. A taxi was caught minutes later.

"The hotel on the Sound then?" asked the carrier.

Luigi blinked. "Yes… that's right."

Simon grinned. "There's been a boatload of ladies and gents going in that direction," he explained.

"Ah." Luigi made a point of clearing the astonishment from his expression.

"Here's the luggage!" Simon drew the trolley behind the taxi, and together he and the driver filled the compartment. It was soon apparent that Luigi carried a suitcase too many, and the surplus was placed, with much grunting and effort, into the front seat. Mantled in crimson shame, Luigi watched the driver force the narrow space to accommodate what it had never been built to hold, and found himself wishing that the royal generosity that had filled his wardrobe had been less liberal in its charity.

"Have a good trip, sir," said Simon, when the luggage had been stowed away. The driver did not spare his rider a glance, and climbed with mutterings into the vehicle.

"Thank you," returned Luigi, sliding stiffly into the cab.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

Simon laid forth a palm, with an apologetic smile.

Luigi stared at the palm, then realized with a jolt it was meant to be filled with coins. His money was packed away and had to be wrestled from its place of concealment, the gratuity counted out rapidly—for it would seem miserly to take one's time—and dropped into that beseeching palm.

"Thank you very much sir." Simon's red fingers closed over the fistful of coins and retreated into a pocket, while his other hand brushed instantaneously the brim of his service cap.

It was then that Luigi understood he had been too generous—but nothing could remedy that error now.

---
It took but half a hour to get to the hotel. The scenery was ubiquitously dismal, the sky blanketed, the grass, sprouting at the wayside islands where gardeners had contained it, and upon the granite cliffs were nature had seen fit to repulse human intervention, was grayish yellow, depressing against the murk. At one point, the cab passed over a broad and solid bridge, suspended by steel girders and cord over the Sound, and upon passing over, swung against the gated median, where the cliff tumbled into the whit-crested ocean. Luigi pressed a nose as close as dignity would allow to the window: without, he saw the escarpment they had just quit, divided from its twin, the block of land upon which they now drove on, by a gash of water—the Sound. The tributary connected Agora’s inner lake, around which the town was built, to the sea, which sprawled in blue surges into the limitless horizon. Had the day been clear, the scene would have been beautiful.

All traces of water had vanished by the time that they reached the hotel, besides its suffocating tangible scent and sensation. Luigi gagged, upon getting out of the car, and he thought he saw the taxi driver smirk, as he rose from the cabin and went around to the back.

“I’ll leave you’re luggage by the door,” said the driver.

“By the—?”

“There should be a concierge or somethin' about.”

“A concier—? Of course.”

These were new words and concepts that met Luigi in this short communication; he affected knowledge, so that he would not feel left behind. When one is in possession of a duty or power, it is awkward to be without total insight regarding all that is connected to that responsibility. Luigi smiled, and nodded in assent.

The driver graciously took the concession and removed the luggage, setting it just inside the hotel’s foyer, tipping his hat as Luigi set a heap of coins—the proper amount in both payment and tips, this time—in his palm. Luigi watched his departure, and as the cab vanished around the building, turned his gazed toward the lawn. It wavered on that verge between public lawn and private park; the vegetation had been scrupulously groomed, and paths carved throughout the verdure, edged by brick and stone benches. People were wandering about, dressed in white and lightsome greys.

Luigi left the threshold, and made his way up to the front desk. His arrival had been marked, for the woman presiding fixed him with a genial smile and asked, “Do you need some help with your luggage, sir?”

“I would highly appreciate it.”

“Of course.” The woman beamed, as though she had been complimented upon a quality she did not have, and rose from her seat. “Wait a moment, sir.” She vanished into the back. There was a moment’s delay, filled by the quiet hum of activity—a woman floated in a sea of lace through the foyer, neck gracefully bent, gloved hands clutching a sumptuous hat. Luigi watched her until she had melted into the faded rays of sunshine that had, through some contrivance, made their way through the cloud cover and bottle-green glass of the foyer door. The entire scene seemed sculpted of dreams and fancy; strange philosophies, which thrive upon these celestial whispers, are stirred by their appearance, and true to his sensitivity, Luigi was moved by the swanlike perambulation. Enthralled, Luigi did not note the shift behind him; a slight cough from behind the desk interrupted his reflections; staring, Luigi turned back. The woman had returned, followed by a porter.

"This man will take your luggage," she said.

"Of course." These seemed the only universally accepted words available to Luigi, as he nodded and ventured a languid smile—he had used them so many times, mostly for lack of any other expression, that they had become ingrained upon his tongue, and came spurting forth with every attempt at articulation. The porter appeared accustomed to the phrase; stepping forward, with a strong, guiding hand upon his trolley, he wheeled the contraption in the direction Luigi pointed him, and began loading up the trunks.

When the baggage had been moved from the vicinity of the entrance, Luigi gave him instructions regarding its disposal. The porter had been through this routine long enough, and asked no questions; he received his directions with a voiceless nod and trundled off toward the lifts. The experience had lent Luigi a sense of empowerment: the Toads were constantly questioning, and the process of getting one's requests fulfilled always became trying. But here, au contraire. It felt delicious to not suffer a stream of idiotic inquires.

"Luncheon is being served in the café," the woman called, checking Luigi's triumph.

"Luncheon? Ah, yes, that would be quite nice." The train trip had been long, the food not particularly appetizing, and Luigi acquiesced with a smile.

The woman's directions shepherded him around the front desk, to a pair of glass doors that opened up into an indoor garden. The café lay around a bend, preceded by clusters of bluebells and crocus—the artificial lighting had done much to improve the colour of the vegetation, and Luigi paused momentarily to admire the violent and cultivated bands of blue, pink, and white. A page-boy opened the café door as he turned from his examinations.

The café was dark, imprecisely illuminated with diluted and hazy patches of synthetic light. There was another door, through which a pale stream of natural daylight struggled through the dim, fluidly patterned glass; Luigi indicated this door, and the maitre d'hôtel, assigned to him through implication and sagacity, guided him through the tangle of seats toward it. The lord, glancing about him, could not bring himself to condone the lightless interior and the people who wished to be seated there. The dark was feigned, unnatural, devised for the unstable whims of flirts and gossips and affluence that knew no dignity, all whom cherished masquerades and reveled in the supernatural, in some fashion or another. Luigi himself was practical, and hadn't time for dimness and secrecy. The outside, compared, was weightless and radiant, despite the weakened sun.

The maitre d'hôtel bade him seated and handed him a menu, made some comments upon the content, recommended a dish. Luigi thanked him—he would hold on to the menu for a bit longer, and see if there was anything else more suited to his fragile palate than what had been suggested—the maitre smiled, indulgently. He was soon gone, and Luigi fell to perusing his menu; the choices were sparse, for the choices present in a café are rarely numerous; though it seemed vaguely inappropriate, considering the time, Luigi settled upon tea and the tiny sandwich squares that came with it. He glanced about for a waiter.

But before he could discover such a person, half-concealed and bent over some table near the rail, taking orders amid a crush of personages and the murmur of their discourse, Luigi caught a glimpse of a particularly distinguished individual, pulling out a chair under the accommodating smile of the maitre d'hôtel. Luigi had seen the man before, featured in the papers due to some matters of banishment from the country of Altea—the whole business had been grievously shocking, and Luigi had extended his pity. Apparently, the usurpers had been suppressed, but Prince Marth was still not free to return to his country: Princess Peach had followed the story avidly, and kept her friends au courant with every detail. She had not done so, Luigi fondly mused, from any base or scandalizing purposes, but because the story had touched so closely to her own fears: like the spirit of intrepidity, she had read the papers despite her apprehensions. Gazing toward the prince now, Luigi wondered if it would be within the rules of society of put himself forward, introduce himself and be acquainted. A party of friends surrounded the prince: a tall, red-haired, and sympathetic-looking gentleman; a dwarfish man in a brutish orange suit, flooded by wrinkles in the tapering, grinning confines of his florid face; a matron of strict and Spartan appearance—this perhaps told of beggared circumstances; Luigi wondered how she had come to be here—and two other gentlemen, one obviously younger than the other, though both were similar in aspect. He watched the party assemble about their table, and saw a space had been left between the matron and the older of the last two gentlemen.

Perhaps I could sequester that seat…? Luigi thought.

He saw he was not the only person entertaining such thoughts of introduction, however. A number of heads had turned, fixing their gazes upon the prince, and a woman watched him the lens of a gilded lorgnette, her excess of costume jewelry dribbling from about a creased and mole-strewn neck into her soup. What could be seen of her face was streaked with determination. Luigi winced.

How, he wondered, had she gotten here?