She sat on the copper railing of her balcony. Watched her city's life fade into current events.
She scared her father with this habit. When she was a girl he had a wire net to stop her doing it.
He only seemed to care when she could ruin his position.
Family had always been a controlling figure to her. Now they are dead, she was queen. She was a pawn, no longer.
She liked it there, nearly a two hundred foot drop below her feet, a well stocked cupboard-bar and an equally well stocked wardrobe.
Three knocks came through the door, she knew who it was.
"Come in." she said, words drifting back into her room, a charming place to her standards, Arron hated it. The old friend came and he looked as dower as ever.
"You'll never consider how many problems you will cause me. Will you?" He asked.
"No." She smiled. He leaned to the railings engraved with rhombus. "If I did though. It would be quite the image. A metaphor." She said feigning profoundness.
"Don't worry if you don't fall we may be thrown anyway."
"Arron, can you never just enjoy something? A moment to yourself? Anything?" She snapped back, exasperated. "You've been like this since we agreed on aleister. What's wrong?" She continued only after calming herself.
"Marie. We used to kill monsters." He said. Not taking his eyes from the cityscape. "We protected people." She could only nod in return. "The council were Chimeara. Now they're just rats waiting to be stomped on?"
"We're not rats." Marie said intently. Climbing back into the area of the balcony, walking away from her friend. She heard him follow, then stop. He always stopped.
The balcony, more a terrace, was concrete and ceramic like all else. Though Marie had begun painting plants up each copper post.
"We are wolves." He started. "Government sanctioned murderers." More anger.
She said nothing for a time. He was impossible to reach at times like this. There had been countless times when she was too. Worse even.
"Maybe. But we're liberators also." She told him. Drifted over to a Louis Cabernet just inside the room. Took two glasses and left one for Arron on the side. A brandy from the southern town of Fowey, his favourite.
Despite the dower design of her palace Marie thought she had done a good effort in stylising.
Red curtains, highlighted in brass coloured flowers. Rose wood drawers and wardrobe all centered by a huge bed made of printed ivory ceramic.
She heard Arron scoff at her statement and drift in the other direction to observe the city again.
"It used to be; insurrections, terrorism, political corruption." He said. approaching, taking the glass on his way. He smelled it and gave her a knowing smirk before turning away again and leaning on the frame of the doors.
"I still have work Marie, it's noon." The old sod said.
"Your Queen demands it." She said mockingly to his back. He obliged.
You couldn't get the brandy anymore and she mentioned that before saying.
"The war isn't going well Arron, the best we can do is hold this place together and hope."
Arron sighed, finally turning to look at her.
"I sent Torrin up there last week." He said.
"And? Reckon he will be okay." She asked, smirking.
"It's not what he will do I'm worried about. I'm worried about what I see in him."
She couldn't refute that. If anything, it humoured her. "And now you know my pain, Arron Loui." he laughed at that. "See you are capable of a smile."
"And you're capable of too many." He glowered back. she just laughed.
"Besides. Aleister went as expected then?" She asked, pushing her raven hair behind her ear and falling into a large white leather chair. Arron joined her on the one opposite, grey hair and blue eyes stark, features dejected in the blue sun.
"He was unfortunate." He said. "At least now that the Marlow house is under Taylor's hand you don't have to worry about that region for competition."
"Like they would have anyway." She groaned, wishing she could enjoy one quiet drink with a friend. "Can you just shut up Arron. just for a minute."
To his credit he did and to her surprise that silence felt comfortable. He looked nice. He was wearing a suit of black tweed with a red tie. Clean shaven, hair in a comb over. Surprisingly stylish for a man like him. He looked like one of her paintings, from her younger days when she'd had the time. She wondered if Arron still sketched.
"Finally got a decent haircut." She jibed, kicking him in the foot from where she sat.
"I got this two weeks ago." He said. Picking at it self consciously.
"just means you should visit more." She gave him yet another smile and piled all the warmth she had into it.
"It's good to see you, Arron."
"How did your meeting with Chrey go? Still pining about those tungsten shipments, I assume."
"You would be correct." She replied, venom curdling her voice. "Old sod wins one in three skirmishes and blames lack of shipments for his failure." She was far too angry and she knew it. She reserved herself, breathed.
"Can you blame him? With the reports that have come in recently." Arron asked. Again she couldn't say anything.
"Apparently the hoard brings more each time. The chimeara, that is." He said.
"I gathered." He mumbled, cynicism leaching in.
"And we're running out of tungsten." she bit off sharply, as if the words offended her. "Half the mines dried up a decade ago and the others are on their way." She was almost yelling in a mock teacher's voice by the end of it. The hours she had spent before being lectured on logistics by high commandant Chrey, so generous he was to explain every single minutiae for her simple mind.
"I'm sorry." she said after a while, Arron had made no attempt to coax her into speaking. He knew her better than that. "I'm just tired of hearing of the fucking war."
"As am I."
It was then when a bell on her desk began to ring and one of the telecoms began printing, slowly, steadily. At the same time Aaron's portable one began to buzz. It was one of only five in the world. She rose from her perch and paced over trying to feign soberness. The telecom device was a small wooden box with a roll of paper inside. That was about as much as Marie knew about it.
"Speak of the bastard. Torrin just checked in."
"Broom's town. He's moving quickly." she heard Arron mumble reading through glasses he'd pulled from a pocket on his breast.
"Are you sure not telling the military about him was a good idea?" She asked. Rejoining him in her chair, crossing her legs and flattening her black Sabina jumpsuit. Anxiety apparent in her face.
Arron took longer than usual to reply, his face became more grave with each moment.
"The council already thinks we have too much reach in the capital. What would they think if we started meddling in military affairs openly?"
"What's his cover?" She asked, trying to give herself time to think of an answer to that.
"An officer. He will pick up the uniform before he crosses the river."
"The guard captains being at one another's throats gives us time to organise." Marie said, carrying on the last thought. "Malcolm won't make a move on us while the outer guard looks for any excuse to absorb them."
"Ambitious." Arron smiled, clearly finding more humour in that than her. "Ambition is dangerous. Just look at what we did." He said, gesturing with her hands, spilling her drink. At some point in the conversation they had poured again.
"That's another worry I don't want to think about now." He said, death in his voice.
"Arron. Are you alright?" She asked. He said nothing but threw back the drink. Answer enough.
"The fire." He said after pouring another and sitting for several minutes. "I've been seeing it when I sleep." It was when he said that Marie realised. His eyes were close to black, red rimmed.
She leaned in. "You could stay on the couch if you'd like?"
This seemed to discomfort him, she thought it was cute. She also found it infuriating. The man was thirty eight, when would he grow a pair.
"People saw me come in." He said finally.
"And they will see you on the couch when they come to spy later." She said, "You might feel more comfortable around someone."
He didn't answer, she didn't press. They sat in silence as Jadus, the blue sun met the mountains and the sky began to bleed purple and green, then black. The sound of the city roaring as the upper market became a makeshift festival ground and bars welcomed their patrons with warmth and joy. The light failed just short of Marie's little aviary.
"Alright." He said to her astonishment. He didn't sleep though, neither did she. They burned through bottles and talked of their few good days; the night of her coronation, their escape into the city disguised as merchants, the night they 'borrowed' a river boat sailing it up the canals of the lower city before crashing it into a pier. They were younger then.
The fact she was Queen was probably the only thing that prevented her arrest that night. She missed flippancy.
The night dragged on and eventually the life below died too. jadus's began to rise on the city and planes beyond. Eventually Arron passed out in his chair, empty bottle in his lap, drooling on himself. She watched him for a while, fondness filling her mood. She rarely saw him like this anymore.
She eventually went to bed and left Arron with a blanket over him. She needed some sleep, it was three hours till midday and she had another day of miserable politicking to get to. Such is the order of the Conclave.
We won't become invisible.
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