1. The Trip To Harebell

I don’t know what’s pissing me off the most.
The trembling walls and the banging sounds they make on every bump this damn road has, the overwhelming heat filling the metal box we’re in, or the never-ending sobs of Nolvem.

“The heat’s gonna have my skin, I swear,” I say, putting both my hands on my forehead.

Mayth turns her head towards me.

“Yeah well, complaints won’t change a thing. Besides, it’ll only be worse once we get there.”

Mary lightly taps on my shoulder.

“What is Harebell like? You never truly spoke about it…”

“There isn’t anything to speak about, that’s why.”

The only thing I can think about is how white it looks.

“It’s… blinding. That’s a good word to describe it.”
I continue.

Febry waves at her to get her attention.

“The stories we have at the orphanage all praise its beauty and the good people populating it. I even read that the constant use of their music boxes fills the streets with the sweetest hum.”
He adds.

“That’s a load of bullshit. There’s nothing sweet about that place. You’ll find out soon enough.”
I refute.

Mary grabs my sleeve with her fingers.

“Also… Will it hurt?”
She hesitates to ask.

“The ceremony… I mean.”
She continues.

“No clue. I’ve never been out of tune, so no retuning for me.”

I stretch and turn my eyes to hers.

“Yet they make me come back each year for some reason.”
I add.

The walls shake loudly.
Mayth settles her back against the metallic wall and puts her arms behind her head for support.

“Nothing’s comparin’ to tha pain the Lady made us endure, Mary. A small pinch to the neck won’t hurt ya much.”
Mayth tells her.

“With what she did to you… We aren’t talking about the same scale of pain…”
Mary says.

“Eh. Guess you’re right. Though you’re wrong ‘bout a small detail.”

Mayth sets her elbows on her legs, her eyes locking on Nolvem and her hands holding her head.

“Our princess did this to me.”
She blames.

Apry opens her eyes and Febry turns toward Mayth.

“W…what do you mean by that?”
Febry asks.

I click my tongue against my palate.

“I mean, I’ve said it countless times now but you always protect her and think she’s perfect or whatever.”
I answer.

Apry gets up.

“Quit it already!”
She shouts.

“Unless you both have proof about what you say, nobody’s to be unfairly blamed.”

She thinks for a second or two about what she’s going to say.

“As much as I hate what I have witnessed… Decy is the one who had blood under his socks.”
She sadly says.

I laugh and spit the obvious.

“Come on, quit the bullshit Apry! As if Decy could ever have the boldness to-”

Decy grunts and hides back under the sheets.
We all stop talking.
Mayth settles back against the wall and Apry sits.
Nolvem has stopped sobbing and remains silent concerning our accusations.

An hour or so passes.
The heat intensifies and the bumps in the road violently disturb our poor attempts to get some rest.
Finally, the carriage seems to slow down.
We stop.

Apry is the first to stand. Febry gets to the back of the box to help Nolvem stand. She seems dizzy from the hit she was struck by earlier.

A throat box is played behind the door. It unlocks it and lets the sun’s rays enter the metal box.
The Tailor awaits us, tapping his cane on the outside wall to get us out.
We all set foot outside the carriage.
Heat strikes us all. Dust flies into our eyes. Half of us try to wipe it away but fail.

“I’m already full of this place.”
I grumble.

From the front of the carriage, the Tailor takes a huge wooden cabinet that he sets on the ground. His note is sung, and it opens, displaying plenty of white to dark threads, strings, and clothes.
He points his cane towards Mayth, Decy, and Nolvem. They come closer to the dressing area.
The Tailor searches inside a small drawer and tinkers in it for about a minute.
He turns to Mayth and grabs her head.

“Get ya dirty hands off me, big man.”
She protests.

The Tailor firmly grabs her head. She tries to push him away unsuccessfully.

“Damn it! It hurts ya damn brute!”

He lets her go after forcing something around her head then clearly signals her to stay around him.
She crouches on the ground and turns her back on him, waiting for his next order.
He has put a metallic eye patch over her missing eye. From where I am, its structure seems thin and elegant. The emblem of Harebell is carved into it.
She cannot stop touching it and rearranging it to feel comfortable while waiting.

“Well well, so proud to be a citizen of Harebell that you had to replace your eye with its emblem?!”
I ask her, laughing.

“C’mon ya know I always had a sweet spot for flowers! What’s an eye when you can have a cute patch.”
She amusingly answers.

Decy is grabbed by his arm and sat on a stool the Tailor had taken out while we were talking.
Decy is very concerned and trembles in fear.
The Lady in Apron’s event must’ve been quite traumatizing for him to shake like that.
The Tailor grabs his injured jaw and installs a metallic jaw mask that he locks onto Decy’s throat box.
A small click is heard and, with it, the jaw is fixed. The same carving from Mayth’s patch is present on its side.
Decy seems satisfied with the result as it did not hurt a bit during the process.

The Tailor then frees three dresses from his cabinet and hands them over. One is for Mayth, a classic white dress with the emblem of Harebell sewn near the heart. Same goes for Decy and, for a
reason that escapes me, Nolvem gets a red colored dress with no emblem.

It pisses me off so much… Harebell is grey. No living soul is allowed to have any other color than white, grey, or black on them. They even cut down all the trees and sterilized the ground to prevent the green of the vegetation from ever showing…
I mean she’s going to get arrested inside, I guess. Not that it affects me anyway but it outrages me that this spoiled brat thinks that she’s above all of us.

“Nice lil uniforms. Though I’ll keep wearin’ mine if ya don’t mind.”
Mayth boldly says to the Tailor.

She’s about to leave and join us when he grabs her shoulder and pulls her back.
With his cane he taps on her chest, asking her to wear it.

“Might’ve missed somethin’, big guy. I’m not wearin’ this. And I certainly won’t undress here in the dust.”
She confidently says.

The Tailor grabs her by a piece of clothing and begins to tear the seams on her dress, slowly undressing her.

“Ya crazy?!”

She pushes him off with all her strength but he doesn’t budge.

“Alright! Alright! I’ll do it, just quit messin’ up mah dress like a mad Noise, damnit!!”

Mayth calms down, walk backwards away from him and unbuttons her top.
Meanwhile, Decy and Nolvem don’t change and hope to disappear by standing as still as they can.
Unfortunately for Nolvem, the Tailor gave up all of his patience on Mayth.

He grabs Nolvem by the back of her neck and pins her against the metal box.

“N…NO p…please! Unhand me! Stop at once!”
She cries.

The Tailor pushes her head harder to muffle the noises she makes.
Apry rushes towards them and tries to pull his arm away from her.

“She cannot breathe like that! You’re pushing her too hard!”
She shouts.

With a swift movement, Apry is sent flying back towards us with disturbing ease. She hits the ground with a loud thud.
Mary grabs my shirt from behind and hides against my back, afraid to be the next target.
Nolvem’s dress is fully torn and drops to the floor.

The first sight we have isn’t that of a beautiful young lady standing naked before us, but of a battered body with huge bruises scattered around her ribs and belly. They go from blue to purple. We can clearly see that she has broken ribs.

Febry lets out a horrified gasp and moves his hands to his mouth.
Mary closes her eyes, too afraid to face the reality of our youth.
Mayth eyes her and proudly smiles while undressing to wear the new clothes.

Once the Tailor finally puts the second sleeve around Nolvem’s arm, he lets her go.
She collapses onto the ground and cries, holding her chest to hide what’s already been shown.

The Tailor then switches to Decy and inflicts the same sentence on him.
But rather than crying and struggling back, he just endures it in total silence.
Naked before all of us, his muscular body is bestowed upon our surprised sight. Who could’ve thought that tiny Decy was hiding such attributes?

I whistle at him.

“Damn Dec, what a body! Mind leaving us some girls please?”

Mayth giggles but the others don’t seem to laugh much at my joke.
The three of them are now dressed and ready.

“Please… Don’t let him do that to me…”
Mary whispers to me, sobbing.

“Nah he won’t Mary. You can get off me now. It’s over.”
I point out.

In fact, the Tailor has already closed the cabinet and put it back on the carriage, which departs after three taps of the Tailor’s cane.
Mayth, Decy, and Nolvem shamefully rejoin our ranks whilst we are eventually led to the tall open gate leading to the entrance of Harebell.
I hear Mary walking a bit faster behind me to catch up to my pace.

“Hey Jurny, wait!”

She reaches me.

“What do you want again?”
I ask, annoyed.

“Sorry to be a bore to you… I just wonder where we might be? And I thought you were the best person to ask since-”

“Alright, alright, don’t need to talk so much. Just ask directly next time.”
I say, interrupting her never-ending monologue.

“We’re at Harebell’s checkpoint. It’s a big gate with a transport station where a cabin coming directly from Harebell will arrive. It’ll carry us over the giant pit separating the walls of the city-state from the wilderness.”

As I look at the giant white walls in the distance, I notice huge military equipment on top of them that weren’t there last year. The number of noise bulbs covering them has also greatly increased.

“And what are those scales covering the walls?”
She asks.

She must be talking about the noise bulbs.

“I don’t know everything, Mary. Mayth once told me they were used as an energy source, but I don’t really understand how they work nor what they do. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about that. Anything else?!”
I answer.

She slows down a bit.

“No… no, sorry to have bothered you with my stupid questions…”
She says, disappointed.

The Tailor stops and signals us to form a line with his hands.
We obey. Mary lowers her head, lets Febry get behind me, and puts some distance between us.

I screwed up, I guess.