"I look ridiculous," Senna muttered as she tugged at the edge of her white vinyl dress.
"You look quite fashionable." Nami fixed a twist in the strap of Senna's face mask, the first micromanagement of her inspection.
"I don't like this 'fashion'. My hair is done up too tight and this thing doesn't feel right. It's like it isn't even clothes. And it squeaks." Senna pulled away from her mother's fussing, her hand rising to fidget with her hair. Nami swatted Senna's hand down before it ever managed to touch the strands.
"Do not touch your hair. The stylists did not spend an hour braiding your hair up into that bun to have you pull it out before making it to the ballroom."
"It's uncomfortable."
"Give it time, you'll get used to it."
Senna rolled her eyes back over to the full-length mirrors of the dressing room. Her reflection frowned back at her from three different angles, though she hardly recognized herself. When the tailor glanced at her for the first time he muttered something about her being 'darker than he thought' and sent back all of the accessories he originally had laid out for her. She had watched his assistants trade elbow length gloves for shoulder length ones and regular boots out for one that went up to her knee. It was like they were trying to cover as much of her skin as possible, which left a sour taste in her mouth.
Nami pulled up at the neckline of Senna's dress, which was barely low enough to show her collarbones, and tugged at the hemline of the bell-shaped skirt.
"Aren't you uncomfortable?" Senna asked, looking over her mother's outfit.
Nami's outfit was a lot prettier to Senna, though she was sure she wouldn't look as good in as her mother did. The silvery white top hugged her mother's delicate curves with a scooping sweetheart neckline and a skirt that cut away to reveal stacks of gauzy chiffon. The layers billowed out like morning glories, shimmering with silver threads that wove through the fabric. Instead of a face mask she had a sheer veil that covered her face, made in the same fabric as the skirts. Delicate silver chains swept across the top of the veil, across her forehead, and up into the lifted brown curls of her hair. It looked like she was already dressed to be married. All she needed was a bouquet—did they use bouquets in Central weddings?
"Of course not. I was raised in clothes like this." Nami gave Senna a smile, the deep red of her lipstick a visible shadow under her delicate veil. "That necklace is pretty."
Senna's hand went up to the glass pendant out of reflex. She had been allowed to keep it on without argument and Senna could see why. The necklace looked more at home in Central than Senna did, its light glimmering off of the shine of dress. It resembled the city itself, the cording darting in and out of the pendant like walkways through the glimmering glass buildings.
"Thanks. Wrench gave it to me before I left." Senna struggled for a smile.
"Wrench did?" Nami's face scrunched up, as if something about that didn't quite add up. "Were you wearing it before?"
"I was wearing it under my shirt, like she used to."
"Hm." Nami's lips pressed together, clearly trying to puzzle something out, but she gave up shortly and sighed. "Well, take good care of it. Pieces like that are not easy to come by."
"There are my girls!" Zed's laugh of a voice startled both women, causing Nami to spin around in a couture whirlwind of glistening skirts. "My, aren't you both stunning." His eyes lingered on Nami, glittering with admiration. Senna's shoulders relaxed as she studied his face. If he looked at her mother like that, like her father used to, maybe she could be okay with everything. Maybe he could help her mother laugh again. If that were the case, she'd stomach the plastic clothes at the smell of sanitizer. She'd even ignore the way the tailor had scrunched his nose up at the color of her skin, so long as her mother was happy. "Are you excited about your first ball, Senna?"
"Y-yeah," Senna agreed, mostly because he had caught her staring and that startled her. "But uhm... nervous, too."
"That's to be expected. This is no mere party, it's the most prestigious event in all of Sanctuary. There will be a lot of rich and powerful people at tonight's event."
Senna's heart dropped into her stomach.
"However," Zed continued, "they're all going to love you. You are a strong, smart, and charming young lady. All you have to do is remember to smile and breathe."
"And do not try to shake anyone's hands," Nami interjected.
"Relax. Senna will be fine and so will you." Zed smiled at Nami, but she turned her nose up with a stiff pride and he returned speaking to Senna. "That's a lovely necklace."
"Thanks. Wrench gave it to me."
"Wrench?"
"Oh, uhm... Wrench is my mentor. Was. Was my mentor." Her stomach sank with the correction. It sounded like she had died when she said it like that.
"The mechanic?"
"Yeah."
His eyes lingered on the pendant the way Nami's had, an eyebrow raised in consideration.
"Well, she must have loved you an awful lot to give you something so valuable."
Senna looked down at the teardrop terrarium, rolling it between her finger and her thumb. There was something in Zed's tone that bothered her, something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. There was more to it than he was saying, something else that he saw in the faint glow and the smooth glass.
"Is it expensive?"
"It isn't something a mechanic could afford, not unless they saved for an awful long time. It couldn't have been easy to part with."
Senna couldn't imagine Wrench saving up to buy a fancy necklace. Her Wrench wiped dirt and soot across the sweat of her brow and crawled under farming equipment. She didn't dress up for fancy balls in vinyl clothes and expensive jewelry. What could she have possibly wanted a fancy necklace for?
Who had Wrench been, before the junkyard sign—before the Rim?
-
"Introducing President Zed Arikson, accompanied by Nami Sairenson and Senna Kavindottir."
The butler announced them to the room, his voice echoing off of the bare glass walls of the ballroom floor. That glass arched over them into a familiar dome, the symbolism in it not lost on Senna. It was a mirror of the city itself, of their entire world. They were glitter in a snow globe, fluttering lives dancing and settling in their glass home. It was strikingly clear as Senna found herself swirling so close to the top of Central that she was sure she could touch its ceiling. The city breathed beneath them, but she could see out to the dome's edge and it made the buildings shrink to blades of grass with the ant sized silhouettes of people marching in lines between them.
"Senna, please stop looking so dumbfounded. People are watching you," Nami hissed through the side of her painted smile.
"Huh?" Senna brought her gaze from the city to the crowd of guests in their structural plastic clothes. They were a featureless mass, nothing but eyes that were staring through her. The room swayed, the feeling of flying replaced with a downward lurch, crashing into a heavy lump in her stomach.
"Smile," Zed prompted, "and breathe."
Senna took a deep breath through her nose, her lips too firmly stuck together in her nervousness. The air stuck in her chest.
"Breathe and walk."
Senna nodded, letting the air out in a 'whoosh' that left her mask feeling even stuffier than before. She pried a foot from the floor and took a heavy step forward. The next step came easier and soon Senna fell in line behind her mother, who floated like a petal in the breeze out to the crowd. A string quartet began to play, the music disturbing the stillness of the room like a ripple through water. Eyes fell away from her and the murmur of voices rose to accompany the delicate notes of music.
"See? You're doing great." Zed's approval relieved some of the tightness in Senna's chest. "Now I'm going to distract them for you, okay? You go ahead with your mother and don't forget to try the hors d'oeuvres."
"The what?" Senna turned, only to find that Zed had already left to greet a couple with a familiar warmth. "Mom, what's an... or door... doorv... dwarves—"
"Not now, Senna." Nami's eyes were busy scanning the guests, her steps slowing to a stop. She was still smiling, but it was a show of lips that didn't touch her eyes. Was she looking for someone so she could greet them or avoid them? Senna searched the crowd, but no one stood out to her.
"Hey, mom, do you think Kagerou might—"
"Nami, darling, look at you! You haven't changed a bit!"
Senna tucked herself behind her mother at the sound, eyeing the woman who greeted Nami like she was an old friend. She wore a strange hat that sat crooked on her head, covering the majority of her hair with shiny plastic folded into the shape of a rose. Senna scrunched her nose up at the gaudiness of it and turned to the rest of the crowd, the conversation her mother was having with the rose woman fading out into white noise.
The more she looked at the crowd, the easier it became to pick out individuals. Some wore gaudy hats like the rose woman. One hat looked more like a dinner plate with the person's side bun poking through like a meatball. One woman didn't have a hat at all, but her golden hair was woven up into a tiered tower of braids and buns. Several people had jewelry that glowed a soft blue, dangling from their ears in heavy looking orbs, hanging around their necks in pendants, and resting on their wrists in thick bangles. Some even had the moss in the crystal-clear heels of their shoes or pinned through their hair. Senna started using those accessories to assign nicknames to people. Plate, Bubbles, Stilts, Bangles, Feathers, Cake, Bow, Cabbage...
A scoff came from her side and she jolted her sagging shoulders upright and tore her eyes from the crowd. An older couple stood there, looking down their noses at her. The scoff had come from the woman, whose nose was scrunched up as if she smelled something foul. She had silvered hair that was pulled back so tight that Senna wasn't sure if the smoothness of her face was the result of graceful aging or of her hairstyle pulling the skin taut. The man had aged with a similar grace, his own salt and pepper hair slicked back out of his face. His expression was as neutral as the blue grey of his eyes, not like the disgust that was reflected in the hazel green of the woman's unsettling stare. Hazel green... they looked like her mother's eyes.
The woman cringed at Senna's attention and broke the eye contact with a sharp turn towards Nami.
"Hello Nami. It's good to see you back where you belong." Her voice was laced with venom and while it was Nami that she spoke to, it was Senna that felt the sting of it.
Nami's skirts fluttered as she turned, but her grace faltered at the sight of the speaker.
"Hello mother. Father." She bit the words out, her teeth gritted behind her careful smile. The tension prickled across Senna's skin, but it was nothing compared to the heavy hit of her mother's words.
"Mother? Father? You're... You're my Grandparents!? I have Grandparents!?" The realization shot out of her in a yell, her spinning emotions torn between excitement and a terrible sense of foreboding. She had Grandparents! Sure, they looked strict, cold, distant, and maybe a touch cruel, but looks could be deceiving. Maybe her Grandmother would be like Gramma Farmer, who loved baking and always smelled like apples. Or maybe her Grandfather would be like Papa Carpenter, who used to give her little wooden toys whenever her father brought her into town with him. She could go over to their house and hear stories about what kind of child her mother was. They could come to her birthday parties! After all, they were family... she had family!
"Control your daughter. She's making a scene." The man's cold eyes flicked down to her for a mere second as he spoke, chilling the hope right out of Senna. He couldn't be serious—could he? How was she making a scene? And why did he sound so... emotionless? Why wasn't he happy to meet her?
"Her name is Senna and she's your Granddaughter!" Nami snapped back.
"She's Kavin's daughter." Senna's Grandmother stressed with a disgust in her voice that curdled in Senna's stomach.
"And thank Health she inherited her attitude from him and not you!"
"Silence. Both of you." Her Grandfather's voice was low, but intimidating in a way that startled her Grandmother and her mother into a hesitant quiet. "This sort of behavior is not fitting of your status."
Both women seemed to suck in whatever comments they had, their motions mirroring each other with such an exactness that there could be no doubt of their relation. They drew themselves tall, their jaws locked, their noses up, and their faces turned away from each other with a huff.
"Grandpa?" Senna tried, taking advantage of the quiet. Her voice was tentative, her body trembling on the edge of crying. He turned to her and she gulped, regretting her actions when she realized that his expression was not kind. He looked at her like she was nothing.
"You may call me Councilman Ehrens, Lady Kavindottir. Anything more familiar than that would be rude." It wasn't a helpful suggestion, but an order veiled behind a level voice.
"But... we're family..."
"Due to your inferior genetics, you will not be accepted as the continuation of the Ehrens line — "
"Father!" Nami interjected, though her objection went completely ignored.
"— a fact that was made clear to your mother before she left."
"Inferior... genetics?" It felt like everything inside of her had stopped. Her breath caught in her throat, her mouth opening and shutting like a goldfish. What did he mean by that? Nami's arm looped underneath hers, jostling her to the side.
"Well, it's good to know that some things never change. Thank you both for coming to support us. Enjoy the party," Nami shot at her parents, her words sharp as knives. She dragged Senna with her as she turned, forcing Senna to stumble along with Nami's furious strides. Her skirts rushed around her, giving her the appearance of a terrifying storm cloud with the silvered threads catching the light like bursts of lightning.
"Mom? What did he mean? Why do they hate me?"
"Don't think anything of it, my sweet girl. They are terrible people, always have been."
"But... they're your parents..."
"Which is why I know them so well." Nami stopped, turning her daughter to face her and resting her hands on both of Senna's shoulders. Her face was flushed red with anger, all the way to the tips of her ears, and her grip was too firm. "You can't let them get to you."
"You let them get to you," Senna pointed out with a frown. If she could simply will it not to bother her, she would. The emotional whiplash was making her ill.
"Yes, well..." Nami's eyes darted around the ballroom floor. "Let's get you something to eat, okay?"
Senna sighed and let the conversation drop, even though it wasn't okay. Nothing was okay. She used to have a family on the Rim. They weren't blood, but they had been family nonetheless. The Farmers, Papa Carpenter, Wrench...
She caught herself fiddling idly with her necklace for comfort while her mother collected bite sized portions of food from the tray of a passing waiter. What would Wrench do, if she were there? She'd probably crack a joke to lighten the mood. "Hey, don't worry about it, kid. If I had a stick up my ass that large I'd be grouchy, too." Senna let out a snicker of a laugh, even as the beginnings of tears dampened the corners of her eyes.
"Is something funny?" Nami asked, turning with the bites of food in her hand.
"Uhm... No. I mean... yeah. I mean... I was just... thinking about what Wrench would say."
"And what would Wrench say?" Nami asked, lifting an eyebrow as she handed Senna a white square of food topped with a shaved curl of dry looking cheese. Senna lifted her mask to pop the whole bite of food into her mouth, giving herself an excuse to not answer. The square of questionable food had an odd creamy texture and tasted like starch, salt, cheese, and mushrooms—for some weird reason.
"Ah, Senna! There you are!" Zed chimed as he arrived with another woman at his side while Senna was still clumsily chewing under her face mask. "This is Alena Isakdottir. She wanted to have a word with you if that's not too much trouble."
For the most part, Alena looked like any other member of the crowd, with her clean white clothes, her short wrist length gloves, and the sweeping lines of her custom face mask. What stood out about her wasn't the pale gold shade of her hair or the sheer metallic shimmer that was dusted over her eyelids—it was her jewelry. Unlike the pale glow of the bioluminescent jewelry that dotted the guests around them, Alena was wearing real jewelry. A simple string of perfect pearls rested around her neck, accompanied by matching earrings on silver hooks. There was no way the set could have been created in the dome, since they lacked the ability to farm pearls. Something like that would have had to have been brought in by one of the original survivors that fled into the quarantine. That made such sets extremely rare. To wear something like that was a show of wealth and power.
Senna gulped down the bite and it hit her stomach like a brick.
"It's a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Lady Kavindottir." Alena's voice was a song, accompanied by a graceful bow of her head, a sweep of her arm, and a modest flutter of lashes.
"Uh... hi."
Nami pinched the bridge of her nose and Senna flinched, realizing her dumb mistake.
"I mean... uh... The pleasure is all mine." She tried to mimic the woman's bow, but her motions were blocky and nervous. Zed seemed to take it as a good start.
"Excellent. I'll leave you two to talk then. Nami, would you walk with me? A few of the guests were asking for you before." Zed held out his hand to Nami, but she glanced back at Senna with hesitation. Senna gave her the most obviously panicked face she could possibly muster with half of her face covered, her eyes wide and her head shaking from side to side.
"She'll be fine." Zed whispered over to Nami, but Senna heard him and she wanted to argue that she wouldn't. She had already messed up the greeting and her own Grandparents hated her so there was no way she'd be able to survive a conversation alone with a stranger. Zed took Nami's arm, though, and swept her out to the ballroom even as she flashed an apologetic look at her daughter. She seemed to protest to Zed as they moved away, but they were already too far away for Senna to hear over the music and the crowd.
"I'm sorry to make you uncomfortable. I understand this is your first Upper Class event and I know that can be overwhelming. So allow me to explain why I asked to speak with you specifically. I'm the top jeweler in all of Sanctuary. In fact, I'm currently working on your mother's wedding ring."
"You want to talk to me about my mom's ring?"
"No. However, I couldn't help but notice that stunning necklace of yours from across the room. I was wondering if I could take a closer look at it."
Wrench's necklace? The woman was wearing a full set of perfect pearls that were older than the domes, but she thought Wrench's necklace was 'stunning'?
"Uhm... yeah... sure..."
The woman took the teardrop of glass into one gloved hand and delicately turned it from side to the other, leaning in to get a closer look. She tilted it forward, investigating a rather specific section of the upper back of the pendant, around where the plastic cording threaded through the opening in the glass. Her eyebrows knitted together. She used her free hand to fish a loupe from a hidden pocket in her skirt, putting it up to her eye so she could get a closer look at the spot. A stunned expression flashed across her face along with a small sharp intake of air. She handled the pendant with the utmost care, resting it gently back against Senna's chest and running a finger along the cording while she shook her head in disbelief.
"Do you mind if I ask where you found this piece?"
"It was a gift."
"Quite the gift." Why did everyone keep saying that? "Do you know the value of that necklace?"
"Value? No. I mean, it means a lot to me, but..."
"It means a lot to many people, not only you. Who gave it to you?"
"My mentor. . . on the Rim," Senna responded before realizing that Alena was expecting a name. "Wrench. I mean, Ko. Ko Geary. We all called her Wrench, though."
"And how did she end up with it, I wonder?" Alena continued, but the question wasn't rhetorical. She was expecting an answer.
"I don't know. She's always had it, since I've known her. Why? What is it?"
"What is it? You honestly don't know, do you?"
Senna shook her head.
"Dear child, what you have there is the first ever piece of bioluminescent jewelry. It was created and worn by the Kagerou Sato."
That couldn't be right. Wrench knew that she idolized Kagerou. She would have told her if she had somehow gotten a hold of Kagerou's own necklace. Especially when she was giving it to her as a going away present. This necklace used to belong to Kagerou Sato and now I want you to have it. Right?
"You... you must be mistaken."
"Kagerou Sato signed her initials and a date on the pendant, so small that it required the loupe to properly see."
"Her?" Senna asked, stunned. She had always thought Kagerou was a he. The dome repair manual with his, well her, name on it hadn't exactly come with a picture on the back or even a bio. The jeweler continued as if Senna hadn't said anything at all.
"There have only been a few knock offs over the years and they either omitted that detail or lacked Kagerou's distinct style of writing. Not to mention the original plastic tubing and the imperfections and bubbles in the glass. . . I'm so certain that it's real that I'd buy it from you now if you named a price."
Senna shook her head again.
"She would have told me."
"Who, this Wrench?" Alena shrugged a shoulder. "Did you know her so well that you think she would have told you that she committed a crime? Or maybe she didn't even know when she stumbled across it."
"A crime?" Would Wrench have told her she committed a crime? No... probably not. She loved and trusted Wrench, but there was a lot Senna didn't know about the woman. She didn't know what kind of person she was in Central, or why she left and fled out to the Rim... Had she been running from the Police? Had she been a criminal, the entire time? No... Senna couldn't believe that. Wrench was just as trustworthy as anyone else on the Rim. She wasn't a criminal. . .
"People used to call it grave robbing when they still dug graves for the dead. Kagerou Sato was cremated with her necklace, last I heard. For it to be here now. . . it would have had to have been stolen from her corpse."
Corpse? The room lurched.
"K-Kagerou is dead?"
Senna staggered backwards, desperate for something stable to lean against.
"Are you ill?" Alena asked, though she didn't seem concerned for Senna as much as she was for herself. She didn't move to steady the girl, but moved back instead. "I'll go fetch your mother. Please consider my offer when you feel better. President Zed knows how to get in touch with me."
The room blurred with a haze of tears, the whole terrible night hitting Senna like a punch to the gut. The Grandparents she never knew she had hated her and her father, her idol was dead, but worst of all... what if Wrench really was a criminal? Her Grandparents hating her she could get over. It would hurt for a while, but they could all forget each other existed and be better off for it. Her idol being dead was terrible, but she was an idol. It wasn't the same as losing her dad or leaving Wrench. But the idea that Wrench may have run out to the Rim because she was a criminal... That was the one thing of the whole evening that she couldn't handle.
"Senna, darling, are you okay?" Nami steadied her daughter with a gentle hand on her arm and the girl looked up as the first tear fell.
"Mom... Do you think Wrench could've been a thief?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You should take her down to her room to rest," Zed offered from Nami's side. "I'll handle the guests."
"Come on, sweetie. Let's get you to your room."
When Senna glanced back through the glass of the elevator walls, Zed and Alena were talking. Neither of them looked happy.
-
(Author's Note: There's art from this chapter up on my Patreon, so I thought I'd make a quick banner. It reminds me too much of my forum RP days, though. What do you think? Do you like banners in your stories or does it look dated and cheesy? Leave a comment and let me know!)