1 Year and 5 Months Ago

“Father believes you’ve gotten soft,” Robin told me. “since the Stormveil incident.”

“What are we doing here?” I demanded as I walked beside her. We strode along a grated floor elevated hundreds of feet in the air; steel walkways that ran between ten deep pits, five on either side, dedicated to the construction of Axock airships. Steam and smoke billowed from concrete cooling towers, smothering the air above us and giving the scaffold a gray hue that set the tone in more ways than one. I placed my hand on the tubed railing, allowing it to glide off the metal as we walked. The sound of hammers clanging, drills buzzing, and saws cutting nearly overtook our muted conversation at every turn as we walked in cadence to the sound of whips cracking and foremen shouting in the pits just below my line of sight. 

“We’re here to inspect the progress of the fleet, obviously. Father aims to invade Klocby in the next five years, assuming of course the new fleet is in top condition. You’re not so soft that you’re against our conquest now, are you?”

“Of course not!” I said, allowing the pretense of offense to fill my voice. “A world united under the Axock flag will be far more beneficial than dozens of rival capitals and nations.”

“Correct, little brother,” She nodded approvingly. “Father, however, does plan to take it a step further.”

“Indeed?” I perked up, curious as to what she was about to say.

“The weak, under the new regime would need to be filtered out. If we are to build a new world, it will be one in which the strong survive and the weak toil beneath the yoke and the whip. The survival of our very world is at stake, little brother, and you ought well know it.”

“We ought be safe,” I shrugged. 

“Nepotism has never been a policy that father dabbled in,” Robin warned me. We continued to walk in silence to the sound of beating hammers and the occasional scream. Robin was, by all rights, a beautiful woman, just five years my senior with the same black hair and deep brown eyes. Her skin and flawless features painted a portrait of perfection in conjunction with what society, and father, would have considered the perfect petite body. Her body, I thought, would have been perfectly framed in one of her many silk dresses that I had envied over, but today she chose to wear skintight leather leggings and a form fitting white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. On her left leg was strapped a pistol and on her right hip, a saber. “As such, little brother, you ought know you’ll be making tough choices, as you did during the Stormveil incident.”

“The Rowan family,” I recalled the incident well.

“Mistakes were made there, as well, brother. You gave the man to the storm, but he escaped.”

“Escaped?” I turned to her, wide eyed. The scent of sulfur filled my lungs as I drew in a deep breath, contemplating the situation.

“Mistakes were made on our end as well,” She said. “He had a single daughter, by the name of Sage. She fled the city before we could get to her, word has it she made it to Klocby.”

“This seems as if it were not my error,” I offered, giving a slight shrug. 

“Partially, no,” She agreed. “the soldiers responsible for the execution were punished accordingly. Life for life. But, that brings us to another matter.”

My sister and I walked side by side down a set of metal steps, descending beneath the scaffold and emerging onto a catwalk that ran directly alongside a massive airship, still under construction. Orange sparks sprayed from saws and torches, men hammered away at hot metal and instructions were shouted from every level of the scaffold. We walked along the steel catwalk, nearly oblivious of the workers toiling next to us, save for the few moments in which a which cracked, leading me to flinch and thank the Gods that I would never be under the whip myself. We turned a corner and stepped into what appeared to be a wire cage set off to the side and welded directly into the beams. It might have been a storage area at some point, but now it held but one thing - a young girl with reddish hair, clad in the servant gray and chained to a pipe that had been welded to the grate. She was young, perhaps eighteen, maybe even nineteen, though older than me. I could see the bruising around her collar, as if someone had leashed and manhandled her; her left eye was swollen shut and accompanied by bruising that extended all the way down to her neck. Though her mouth was stuffed with rag, I could hear her whimpers as she tried to communicate with us. I suddenly felt a wave of pity for the girl - a feeling that I shouldn’t have been experiencing. It was merely a servant, what did it matter?

“And this is?” I asked Robin, trying to keep my voice as even as possible so as not to betray the obscene emotion that was threatening to overtake me. She was a servant. Just a servant.

“You ought recognize her, little brother,” Robin smirked. “She serves you, quite often. Goes by the name of Plum. Do you see now?”

I did. The girl, Plum, had served my father and I on the airship, and in several other capacities since then. From what I remembered, or had paid attention to, there had been nothing wrong with her.

“She has stolen,” Robin informed me. “The height of selfishness, but I would expect no less from a lowly servant, scum as they are. The sentence for thievery is clear, and you must make a decision, little brother. What shall it be, the head, or the hand?”

“What?” I demanded. “Plum is an outstanding servant, is this not the one father denied food? I should expect anyone would steal given to hunger enough!”

“As father suspected,” Robin grinned. “You are getting soft. I should never have taught you how to cook and sew, you’ve become so weak.”

“I simply do not wish to waste a good servant!” I lied. “To retrain another would-”

“Would take hours,” She laughed. “We, Micah, are the superior beings. These servants are tools, like a hammer, or a torch. We use our tools, and when they are no longer useful, we discard them. So I ask you again, little brother, the head, or the hand?”

Robin was unsheathing her saber, the scene unfolding in front of me was surreal, but why? She was just a servant, I tried to remind myself of it. Why should I feel upset about it?

“Come little brother, choose!” She began to swing the saber with a single hand in an almost casual gesture with each swing bringing the razor sharp blade closer to Plum’s nose. The girl screamed through the gag and tried to back off but the chains held her fast to the floor. 

She is just a servant. Snap out of it!

I told it to myself again and again, but somehow I couldn’t believe it. 

“Last chance, Micah,” Robin laughed. “If you don’t choose soon, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll start with the ears, maybe slice them off bit by bit, start at the tip. Then we’ll shave a little bit of skin off the cheeks. What about the eyes, Micah? Surely she won’t need those.”

“The hand!” I suddenly screamed. “Take the hand!”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than the saber came down in one fell swoop, severing the hand with a sickening crunch and leaving the girl, Plum to write on the floor in pain, her other hand still securely fastened to the pipe. Muffled screams filled the cage as I observed her tear stained face. Robin casually wiped her saber on Plum’s dress until it was free of blood, and then placed it back in the leather scabbard at her hip.

“What happened to you in the Stormveil, Micah?” She demanded. “Father sent you there to make you a man, and what is it you came back as?”

“I don’t remember,” I said angrily. “What would you like me to say? It is as I told you. I jumped into the veil and awakened elsewhere. I walked to a nearby town-”

“What town?”

“I don’t remember the name of it!” I shouted. “What do the details matter?”

“They matter much if you are finding yourself to be weak!” She screamed, unsheathing her blade and leveling it at my throat as she crossed the cage, stepping neatly over Plum. The tip of the blade rested against my throat, I watched her, wide eyed as she twisted it in her hand and met my gaze. “In the new world, Micah, the weak will be left behind! Father ought hand you over to Klocby, you’d fit in with them there.”

“Oh take that back!” I shouted as I tried to mask the very fact that I was trembling. 

“The truth can be a powerful thing,” She said, lowering the blade and re-sheathing it. She shot me another glare, and then stormed from the cage. I took another glance at Plum, now cradling the stump of a hand she had remaining, and then scurried out, after Robin. 

“I am not weak!” I screamed, stopping her in her tracks. “How dare you?! How dare you make such sordid accusations? I am the heir to the throne of Axock and what are you? Some bitch that father humors? He’ll cast you aside, watch for it and mark my words!” 

“Take heed, little brother,” She warned me, turning about to face me. “heir can be a shaky position, and one that you’re like to lose.”