You barely notice. Because what rises from the split in the geode, moving too human-smoothly at first but rapidly readjusting to a familiar sort of punctuated stillness… is the stone eater from the garnet obelisk.
Hello, again.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the physical integrity of the Stillness—for the obvious interest of long-term survival. Maintenance of this land is peculiarly dependent upon seismic equilibrium, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the orogenic can establish such. A blow at their bondage is a blow at the very planet. We rule, therefore, that though they bear some resemblance to we of good and wholesome lineage, and though they must be managed with kind hand to the benefit of both bond and free, any degree of orogenic ability must be assumed to negate its corresponding personhood. They are rightfully to be held and regarded as an inferior and dependent species.
—The Second Yumenescene Lore Council’s Declaration on the Rights of the Orogenically Afflicted
15
Nassun, in rejection
WHAT I REMEMBER OF MY youth is color. Greenness everywhere. White iridescence. Deep and vital reds. These particular colors linger in my memory, when so much of the rest is thin and pale and nearly gone. There is a reason for that.
Nassun sits in an office within the Antarctic Fulcrum, suddenly understanding her mother better than ever before.
Schaffa and Umber sit on either side of her. All three of them are holding cups of safe that the Fulcrum people have offered them. Nida is back at Found Moon, because someone must remain to watch over the children there and because she has the hardest time emulating normal human behavior. Umber is so quiet that no one knows what he’s thinking. Schaffa’s doing all the talking. They’ve been invited inside to speak with three people who are called “seniors,” whatever that means. These seniors wear uniforms that are all black, with neatly buttoned jackets and pleated slacks—ah, so that is why they call Imperial Orogenes blackjackets. They feel all over of power and fear.
One of them is obviously Antarctic-bred, with graying red hair and skin so white that green veins show starkly just underneath. She has horsey teeth and beautiful lips, and Nassun cannot stop staring at both as she talks. Her name is Serpentine, which does not seem to fit her at all.
“Of course we have no new grits coming in,” Serpentine says. For some reason she looks at Nassun as she speaks and spreads her hands. The fingers shake slightly. That’s been happening since this meeting began. “It’s a difficulty we hadn’t quite anticipated. If nothing else, it means we have grit dormitories going unused in a time when safe shelter is quite valuable. That would be why we extended an offer to nearby comms to take in their unparented children, those too young to have earned acceptance into a comm. Only sensible, yes? And we took in a few refugees, which would be why we had no choice but to open trade negotiations with the locals for supplies and such. With no resupply coming from Yumenes…” Her expression falters. “Well. It’s understandable, isn’t it?”
She’s whining. Doing it with a gracious smile and impeccable manners, doing it with two other people nodding sagely along with her, but doing it. Nassun isn’t sure why these people bother her so much. It has something to do with the whining, and with the falseness of them: They are clearly uncomfortable with the arrival of Guardians, clearly afraid and angry, and yet they pretend courtesy. It makes her think of her mother, who pretended to be kind and loving when Father or anyone else was around, and who was cold and fierce in private. Thinking of the Antarctic Fulcrum as a place populated by endless variants of her mother makes Nassun’s teeth and palms and sessapinae itch.
And she can see by the icy placidity of Umber’s face, and the brittle-edged friendliness of Schaffa’s smile, that the Guardians don’t like it, either. “Understandable indeed,” Schaffa says. He turns the cup of safe in his hands. The cloudy solution has remained white as it should, but he hasn’t taken a single sip. “I imagine the local comms are grateful to you for housing and feeding their surplus population. And it is only sensible that you would put those people to work, too. Guarding your walls. Tending your fields—” He pauses, smiles more widely. “Gardens, I mean.”
Serpentine smiles back, and her companions shift uncomfortably. It is something Nassun doesn’t understand. The Season hasn’t yet taken full hold here in the Antarctic region, so it does seem wise that a comm would plant its greenland and put Strongbacks on its walls and start preparing for the worst. Somehow it is bad that the Antarctic Fulcrum has done this, however. Bad that this Fulcrum is functional at all. Nassun has stopped drinking the cup of safe the seniors gave her, even though she’s only had safe a couple of times before and sort of likes being treated like a grown-up—but Schaffa isn’t drinking, and that warns her the situation is not really safe.
One of the seniors is a Somidlats woman who could pass for a relative of Nassun’s: tall, middling brown, curling thick hair, a body that is thick-waisted and broad-hipped and heavy-thighed. They introduced her, but Nassun can’t remember her name. Her orogeny feels the sharpest of the three, though she is the youngest; there are six rings on her long fingers. And she is the one who finally stops smiling and folds her hands and lifts her chin, just a little. It is another thing that reminds Nassun of her mother. Mama often held herself the same way, feeling of soft dignity layered over a core of diamond obstinacy. The obstinacy is what comes to the fore now as the woman says, “I take it you are unhappy, Guardian.”
Serpentine winces. The other Fulcrum orogene, a man who introduced himself as Lamprophyre, sighs. Schaffa and Umber’s heads tilt in near-unison, Schaffa’s smile widening with interest. “Not unhappy,” he says. Nassun can tell that he is pleased to be done with the pleasantry. “Merely surprised. It is, after all, standard protocol for any Fulcrum facility to be shut down in the event of a declared Season.”
“Declared by whom?” the six-ringed woman asks. “Until your arrival today, there have been no Guardians here to declare anything of the sort. The local comm Leaderships have varied: Some declared Seasonal Law, some are only in lockdown, some are business as usual.”
“And had they all declared Seasonal Law,” Schaffa says, in that very quiet voice he uses when he knows the answer to a question already and only wants to hear you say it yourself, “would you truly have all killed yourselves? Since, as you note, there are no Guardians here to take care of the matter for you.”
Nassun catches herself before she would have started in surprise. Kill themselves? But she is not quite good enough at controlling her orogeny to keep it from twitching where she does not. All three of the Fulcrum people glance at her, and Serpentine smiles thinly. “Careful, Guardian,” she says, looking at Nassun but speaking to Schaffa. “Your pet seems uncomfortable with the idea of mass extermination for no reason.”