[zephyr] | one

the tome of [zephyr]: on she who took her name


2 BDD

They cannot find you here. They will not find you here. And if they do, they will wish they hadn't. But it doesn't stop a cold sweat from pooling between your shoulder blades.

So you do what you can: you take a deep breath, and listen for the tell. How long will it be before the knot in your stomach shifts and crawls up through your throat, blooming through your lungs? Will a stray piece of dust cause you to hack and choke? No, you will not let it. This is a sanctuary, you repeat to yourself. Above, there is the thundering of feet, shouts and chants and cackles and even a scream (you flinch, that voice is too familiar), but if you are quiet no one will stumble upon this secret.

You are still trapped though, until they leave. You've heard enough from your parents' conversations to know that these people, The Kaps, they unoriginally call themselves, are single-minded. You've seen enough from being overlooked—as you walk through the quad while this group stands on benches, praising the Capitol, accosting their own home—that their focus makes them dangerous. You are a traitor, they believe, because if you do not stand with them you must be the enemy.

It worries your Mom, how history repeats with just a few tweaked variables. She's been staying out later, coming home each night with soot dusting her cheeks. Whenever she opens the door she scolds you for being born in a world where 2am means twelve year olds should be asleep. But she accepts the facecloth and the cup of tea that you've set out on the kitchen counter. And when she closes the bathroom door and turns on the shower, you sneak back into the living room and peer through her bag for the next set of codes.

You still have not told your parents that you've purchased a copy of their cipher with your allowance, but you figure that what they don't know won't hurt them. And if they're engaging in literary subterfuge, them being caught will affect you anyway. Besides, as much as they deny it they could use your skills. So you copy the numbers down onto your own piece of scrap paper, pursue through your own cipher under the covers, and decipher the titles and call numbers of the next set of books to move.

[Babel] wrote last week's list, and it showed: it was all over the place, religious texts, linguistics, political theory. You wish he picked more interesting topics; one month ago, [Yield], the newest inductee, sent The Assemblage through the archives of the architecture department. You'd wandered in afterwards and cherry-picked some alternate volumes, flipping through pages of sprawling cityscapes and fantastical buildings. It felt humbling, in a way. They reminded you of The Capitol, who built higher and higher while One grew slowly outwards, like a puddle of rainwater with one more click of the pipette. You wondered why they couldn't just share.

When it's your parents' turn, they always argue. Dad posits that the Futurists should be left for a future round. Mom would rather them not fall into the hands of "actual, literal, fascists." When you suggest that they do neither they are furious that you are listening, and furious at your suggestion.

If you get out of this mess, and you will, you will tell them—with soot sprinkled across your forehead not out of coincidence but out of initiation—that maybe you were wrong, but what you proposed has happened anyway. You can smell it now, the smoke wafting through the open window in the room above. Nestled beneath the floorboards, a backpack full of books clutched tight to your chest, you breathe in the stench of a dying history. You pray it does not catch.

Instead, you open a book. It is old: very old. And for good reason. Last night had been [Anchorage]'s list. It is weird for you, to call her that—you know her. You've been to her house, you've tried playing fetch with her cat. You've played hide-and-seek in her office, this very office, and pretended that it was you who was the Director of Library Services. So when she had muttered to your parents that the University President and had commanded a quarter of the collection to be sent deep under Two's mountain, and another straight to the Capitol's vault, you pretended to be immersed in your latest mystery novel. And each time the bombs fell right outside of One and you'd been clustered in your basement, your parents' hands clasped in yours, she'd been trekking the half mile from her apartment to the library, pushing a cart full of rare books towards undisclosed locations. She'd founded the organization, came up with the process for deriving codenames: taken from actual text.

You can belittle [Babel]'s choices all you want, but [Anchorage] gambled for the big deals, the exclusive items. And normally, you would let her choices remain a mystery to you—it is one thing for a twelve year old to be around the philosophy section, it is another for you to try to enter the backrooms. But this afternoon the plans changed.

The Kap, the students had whispered, had stormed the library. And they were taking books out, dropping them onto a pile in front of the building. You've read enough history books to know what happens next, and while you don't know their exact schedule, you know The Assemblage only operates at night.

So you'd run, then, around back—where the student staff leave the basement door ajar with a pebble because it takes too much time to use their keycards—up three flights of stairs and burst through the doors next to the circulation desk without a second thought, until a Kap had seen you and given chase. You lost him in the engineering section, along the plane of shelves containing all of the building standards from the last five years, but it took you fifteen minutes to sneak around back and find the books—all of which were still on the shelves. And then you'd hid, in a hiding place you found a year ago because you stepped on the right plank and heard the wrong sound.

Now you are here, in a secret room under [Anchorage]'s office. And there is a pile of books burning outside. And you don't know—no, you do know that you'll make it out of here. But it doesn't mean that it'll be easy. So you look at that tome, and examine its facets, its bevels and grooves. It is a book of fables, illustrated, illuminated, lengthy. And there is nothing else to do, so you dig in your backpack for your flashlight, and flick on the switch.

When [Anchorae] reenters her office from a long, awful day, the smell of ash still buried in her hair, she does not expect a trap door to swing open and a nearly delirious child to claw out. But you are always full of surprises.

"What are you- your parents have been looking-" "The books."

If you could be as dramatic as you wanted, you would slam the volumes down on her desk. But these are too old, so you gingerly heave them towards her. She takes one in astonishment, gently flipping through pages.

"Only members have the codes."

"It's my own," you interrupt, still heaving in breaths of fresh air. "Your own code? What-" "My own money. I bought a cipher with my own money. And I got your books. And I want to help, and I can help. And this," you take the book you have read cover to cover, flip towards the last page, point, nearly underline it with your fingernail. "This is my codename."

"How-" She shakes her head. "Did your parents tell you? They swore to keep it to themselves, not bring you along."

Your wheels spinning, you take a guess on a line that you know but don't truly understand. "Well, you try hiring a babysitter on an adjunct's salary."

"Alright, alright." [Anchorage] says, waving her hands as if she could banish you with the flick of her wrist. There is a long moment in which she does nothing but think.

You wait.

She takes the stack of books from the desk and moves to the door. But she halts before the archway, and turns back to look at you. Her eyes are sharp and calculated, a silver edge to them. She opens your book. "So."

"There, beyond the thicket and deep through the squall—" she chuckles "that serpent's swill—the zepher calls. Wake, my love." Then, she beckons for you to follow.

"Time still swims."



notes:
documented name: ☐☐☐☐☐☐☐ kestell
she/her (trans), seventeen, district one

The concept of an excerpt is from Friends at the Table, a tabletop rpg podcast. Their political sci-fi space campaign Twilight Mirage features Excerpts: saints, pilots, and partners of sentient mechs with grandiose powers. If you're interested in learning more, I highly suggest you listen to this podcast.

In the HGRPG-verse, you can find more information on the current status of Excerpts and the Divine Assemblage here