The Zeltivan Monument Series (Mod: Echelon)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

5th Day of Summer, 512 AV Minerva walked the same route through the city on her way to school each day. She had only been here less than two months, and the streets of Zeltiva could still confuse her and get her lost. She took a right turn out of her house, headed down the street, then took another right at the big tree that someone had carved their initials into. She didn't know who P.N. + G.T. were, nor did she care. They were just a landmark along the way. Then she kept walking straight (give or take the fact that the road itself wasn't perfectly straight and wove around a few light hills) until she reached the statue she got yelled at for climbing. It marked a fork in the road, and she took the left fork. Then it was past the old lady that was always feeding the pigeons, over the little bridge, and then one last right turn at the big pile of rubble. The big... pile of... "Huh?" she stopped in her tracks and looked around. The big pile of rubble was gone. She stood in the middle of the street, people walking by around her, frowning as she searched for her landmark. There were four side streets in the general area, and without the pile of rubble as a landmark, she wasn't sure which was the right one. "Oy," she grabbed a random passerby by the arm and stopped them to ask, "where'd she go?" The man stared at her dumbly for a moment then asked, "Excuse me? Where did who go?" Tock sighed in frustration. Why couldn't people pay attention and keep up? "The rubble," she said, pointing around the area. "She's gone. What 'appened?" "I don't know what you're talking about," the man said, rudely pulling away and continuing down the street. She ended up having to molest another half dozen passerby before she got a straight answer. "They cleared it all out," the seventh man said. "Using the bricks to rebuild some other building." "So what're 'ey gonna rebuild 'ere?" she asked, pointing to the location where she thought the rubble had been. "'At were my landmark!" "So you'll have to get another landmark!" the man gruffly replied, stalking off. Tock planted her hands on her fists and stared at the empty space. Another landmark. Sometime later, after being late for class and then needing to ask for directions nine times when she got lost going home, she ended up finding herself in front of the Lord of Council's Office. She had a handful of papers with designs she had been sketching out during class, and still had her nose stuck in them when she walked inside. Assuming the man sitting behind the desk to be this 'Lord of Council' person (why else would he have a desk?), she stepped up to him and said, "Oy, Bossman, some bloke done said 'ow I need yer seal o' stamp o' somethin' what fer ta build where my rubble used ta be..." The 'bloke' had been a guard who scolded her when he found her taking measurements of the now empty lot, saying it was 'city property'. "So can I 'as it?"

[Echelon]

Tranaris simply raised an eyebrow at the women at first, then smiled. It was a wicked jester of a smile, but meant well, though fell unattractively across his eldering features. "Oy, indeed young lass. I am going to make a wild guess here and say you are fresh off the boat from Sunberth." He knew he was right, and needed no confirmation, but offered an opening for her to reply just the same. Common curtsey and all. "Well then, Lass, my name is Mister Johnson, not 'bossman,' and if you wish to get a lick of paperwork so much as glanced at around here you will use that name, title and all." He peered at her a short moment then followed up with. "Well go ahead, give it a try." He seemed a bureaucratic man, not that Tock knew the type, but their was a jovial nature to him. He saw something in the young women, and it seemed to inspire some play in his usually shrewd demeanor. The room itself was a wonder to any architect or carpenter. The warm interior of the ornate reception room glowed with an impunity from what wear and tare the storm had left upon the streets outside, dressed with fine fabrics and carved with expert hands. So much rebuilding was in order, yet this office shone clear with expensive reconstruction, deep reds or a flawless new floor housed the giant heavy redwood desk within the center of the room.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock frowned and shook her papers at the man. "I ain't fresh off nothin'!" she protested. She'd been in Zeltiva nearly half a season now, and hadn't been in Sunberth in nearly four years. "Whazzay got, 'Sunberth Girl' pasted 'cross my forehead, o' somethin'?" She rubbed at her forehead with her right arm, unable to use the hand since it was still broken. She didn't know how people could always tell where she was from. Though her boss Jacques had once mentioned he recognized her neighborhood accent. It wasn't an accent that covered all of Sunberth, any more than the same accent covered all of Zeltiva. But apparently someone who was knowledgeable about such things could pick out her west end accent as easily as one could tell the speech patterns of the docks district in Zeltiva. Though it was also possible he was looking at the fading black eye she had instead of focusing on her accent. Her frown deepened when he got all bureaucratic on her, and her left hand clenched a bit tighter around her stack of papers. She hated this type. People who acted like they were better than her, just because of their title or status. If Mister Not Bossman here knew anything about Sunberth, he knew that sort of attitude would never fly there. Was he messing with her? Or testing her? Or did he just want to keep the wild Sunberthan girl in line and teach her that she wasn't in the ungoverned city of sin anymore? A few weeks ago, she'd have simply snapped at him without giving it a second thought. But her Bossman at work had been trying to instill a sense of propriety in her. It wasn't working so well, but she was at least becoming aware of the words that came out of her mouth. She still didn't give a damn which words they were, but she was aware of them. So she very briefly considered whether to just tell the man off, speak her mind as was her wont, and knock him down a few pegs; or whether she should comply, play the part of the good little girl, and swallow her pride for once. She sucked on her teeth for a moment, tapping her papers against her thigh. Finally, she decided that if she had to play the game to get what she wanted, she might as well make the man play her game as well. "Fine, Mistah Johnson," she said in a tone of barely restrained sarcasm, "I done betcha yous a busy man an' all, aye? Ain't done gots no time what fer common folk like me. So's why don't I get outta yer 'air quick as I can, aye? Jus' lick my paperwork, o' whatever it is I needs done, an' I'll done been on my way. Getcha back ta yer important desk stuff faster 'at way..." She really didn't want to waste her time with all this bureaucratic bull, she just wanted to start making her project. She also wanted to get off her feet, and rest her aching foot. All the walking today had sent shooting pain through the freshly healed bone, and she didn't want to deal with a pain in the arse on top of the pain in her foot. So hopefully Mister Not Bossman was a busy enough person to want to get her on her way with as little fuss as possible. She could play the game, if it got her what she wanted faster.

[Echelon]

Mister Not Bossman gave a wry smile. He did not seem upset. If anything, he seemed as if he was messing with her. "I suppose something can be said for improvement." He muttered and set his pen down, reaching forward to allow Tock to hand the papers over to his capable bureaucratic understandings. "Where is this landmark of your going? And who do you propose will pay for it?" Assuming the papers make it, however dubiously, to his hands he would squint, and peel his lips back in an ugly grimace, then look up at Tock, rearranging his glasses on his face. "What is this?" He would ask, confused at her scribbles. Tock and this man lived in different worlds. Johnson in a sea of text, and a land of orderly flat and easily mastered bureaucracy. Tock lived the life of an artist, one that could be crawled only in uneven lines, grumbled of numbers, and half thought of shapes. All to be revised later. There was a small gap in communication. So they had no choice but to resort to words. She would have to convey what she meant to do, or find somebody that could.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

The address of the intersection, at the corner of West Street and the road that led up to the University, was scrawled across the top of one page. The rest of the papers were a mix of measurements (as many as she'd been able to take before she was shooed away by the guard), notes about types of stone, preliminary sketches of various designs consisting of tridents, waves, and ships, and scrawled notes about the carving tools needed to get the job done. Everything Tock felt she needed, if the man would just stamp the pages or whatever it was he needed to do, and send her on her way. "She's goin' right 'ere," she said, tapping on the scrawled address with her good hand. "An' dun nobody needs ta pay fer it. I's gonna does 'er myself!" She thought that much should have been obvious. What good was a landmark if she made someone else make it? "I's get the stone myself, I's carve 'er, build 'er up nice an' pretty like. Ain't nothin' sittin' 'ere now but a patch o' dirt, aye? Aye. So's as I can gets somethin' better 'ere. But 'at bloke done said the city owns the spot," she tapped on the address again. She didn't know the first thing about bureaucratic procedures, real estate, or any of that. She just knew it was a big, empty, useless lot, and she wanted to put something there. "Ya ain't does'n nothin' wit' 'at spot, aye?" she asked. As far as she knew the small patch of land was worthless until something new was built in it. "So, does yer stampy thing, an' I's gets back ta my statue..."

[Echelon]

With a bemused expression he listened to her go on in his crude form, as his eyes looked over the scrawled plans and numbers, slowly beginning to recognize the picture coded in amongst the technical garble. After a long pause he glanced up at Tock, then back to the papers. With a precise click of thick sheets against the table top he let the pages fall neatly together, and set them aside on another stack of his desk, wrote himself a professional note, and without glancing up again said, "What be your name and address, Artisan? I will have your papers looked over by the counsel's building administrator of Zeltiva. He can approve your plans. And..." He looked up at her, with another mysterious and slightly off putting smile. "I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like off paper. Try not to make it too lewd, Girly. You are in a civil city now." Then his mouth opened as if he would say something else, but peculiarly enough it hesitated uncertainly and closed as he pondered, looking the girl over again. "Learn to speak like folks here, Missy, and you will go far. The sky is the limit for one with your fire. Don't let anybody tell you different." Then with a quick and albeit clumsy motion he put his arm out over his desk and undid the button holding his long off white sleeves down over his aging arms with the opposite hand. Without another thought he pulled the sleeve back and there in thick lines of black as charcoal ink laid with a crude design, a symbol Tock would not have expected to find anywhere in Zeltiva let alone on some sort of official. Gangs filled the streets of Sunberth, proudly displaying tattoos of loosely aligned dependents like badges of honor. One which badge was that of the Dread Ten, which ironically enough had grown to a group of nearly seventeen before Tock left Sunberth. This man, Mister Johnson, sported the slowly aging and blurring mark of one of the originals in the gang, along with a thick scar crossed painfully over the old mark to show his disallegiance to the gang. "Zeltiva is enlightened, and has no concern over your past, or your lineage. Let go of your accent, and your crude manner. Become Zeltivan, and shape the city into what you want it to be. Nobody can hold you back if you learn to fit in. Or, remain how you are and have yourself be pushed to the bottom every time."

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock begrudgingly whispered to the man, "I's Minerva Zipporah, but... oy, ya can jus' put 'Tock' if'n 'at's okay?" She hated her name, and didn't even want to tell it, but all the legal mumbo jumbo forms and stuff had to be all official-like. They'd made her give her REAL name at the University too, refusing to accept 'Tock' as her real name despite her protests. "Jus' Tock's jus' fine," she said with a firm nod. She added her address, then at his comment on lewdness, she protested, "Oy, what kinda girl ya thinks I am!? 'Is's done gonna been special-like! Regal, an' all 'at! I ain't no East Street 'ore what wants ta flash 'er jumblies 'round the city, aye?" The nerve of some people! Just because she was from Sunberth, he treated her like she was some kind of gutter trash. She was ready to go home. Her hand was aching, and she wanted to dunk it in some cool water or something to soothe it. Her face and ribs still hurt from the fight the other day. She didn't even want to be on her feet anymore. Standing up for this long dealing with this man and his stupid rules was making her dizzy and a little nauseous. Her barely-recently-healed broken foot was throbbing as well, and she wanted to lie down and put her feet up and sleep for awhile. Her physical exhaustion, combined with her begrudging understanding that this was a civilized place, were the only things that kept her from starting to shout when the man mentioned the way she talked. If there was one thing she hated almost as much as her name, it was being told she talked funny. Of course, she never paid the least attention to how anyone talked, and wasn't very good at picking up on accents. She was still about to offer the man a retort, but while she was chewing on the inside of her cheek trying to figure out how to say it civil-like, the man surprised her by showing the tattoo... She had to turn her head to the side to make it out, considering how old and blurred it was. When she realized what it was, she just looked up at the man and stared. How the hell had a Sunberthan, a person from a city know for anarchists and a strong hatred for any sort of control or government, EVER gotten into a position like this!? Tock renounced her Sunberthan heritage as well, but there were certain things she still held a disdain for, governments and paperwork being chief among them. She stared at the man, and considered the hypocrisy of his words. He said Zeltiva didn't care about her past, or her lineage, but at the same time said those things would push her to the bottom. She didn't get it. And she didn't want to let anyone force her to change. Just because she came from crude roots didn't mean she let those roots define her. She wasn't the same scared, abused little girl who'd fled Sunberth on the Sailor Man's boat four years ago. "I ain't no lewd an' crude nothin'," she said, waving at the tattoo dismissively. As far as she was concerned, she'd left that past behind her a long time ago. Maybe she didn't realize part of her was in denial. Maybe she didn't realize she was already changing since coming here. But regardless, she didn't appreciate the implication that she HAD to change. "Ain't what nothin' wrong wit' me, aye? I's a builder," she thrust a thumb to her chest, "an' a artist. An' a mother." Of course, Johnson presumably wouldn't realize she was referring to her artificially created babies, but she saw no difference. "I ain't what no nothin' from Sunberth, aye? Ain't nothin' on me," she rolled up her sleeves to show her clean, bare arms, as if the unmarred skin could somehow prove she had no ties left to her homeland. Maybe she didn't really understand what the man was talking about. But she didn't see any connection between the way she spoke and whether she was 'enlightened' or not. As far as she was concerned, actions spoke louder than words. And she'd prove it, by building something to show this whole city what 'enlightenment' was. In fact, she'd just figured out the finalized theme for her statue. Unless the man had anything else left for her, She'd sign anything else she needed to, and go home.