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Chapter 224: Rust Red
🕑 Added 2024-11-23 01:06:34 +0000 UTCChapter 224: Rust Red
The court was made of vast fields of rust and decay. Pieces of rotting trash being consumed by waves and salt. Pieces of metal, beacons of civilization and progress, broken against the ebbing edifice of age.
Mercury took a deep breath, smelling iron on the sea air. The statue of liberty didn't stand; it laid among the rubble, shattered to pieces. Mercury breathed out, feeling the lingering sting of salt in his nose.
One by one, the rubble receded. Fed back into the beach and the ocean. Fell apart into rusted, red sand. Rust was as much a process as it was a product. And the product was decay.
So, slowly, that was what became the world in front of Mercury, as he gently flowed into ihn’ar. The veils were left intact, but his mind became stronger, more aware. Mercury stepped forward.
A tide of broken bits receded around him, flowing aside like the ocean. Wasn’t it funny? In a way, Mercury was parting a red sea. Rust red, it was, and indeed, it sank into the ground around him. His paws touched down on red sand, powdered iron, long since oxidized.
It was a simple adjustment. Mercury decided to see the end of Rust rather than the ongoing moment. He saw the decayed rather than decay.
And a few steps later, rather than in an endless heap of trash, Mercury found himself on a red beach, with an orange sea lapping at its edges. The ocean, too, was stained red with old bits of iron. Mercury breathed in the smell of salt and metal, and stepped forward. The carriage was long left behind, and his group simply followed behind him.
Where Mercury stepped, the sand deformed slightly. A tiny mark on the flow of time, a tiny pawprint he left behind. The red clung to his fur a little, and he left the patches of sand he stepped on a little bluish. As if the rust were washed away by the rain.
Little by little, Mercury stepped forward, through the red beach, and towards the red sea. The ocean bit against his legs. It felt coarse and abrasive, like it was eating at him. His prosthesis, the Dream of Starvation, began to decay a little, the liquid metal stiffening and becoming brittle.
He quickly unsummoned it. By now, his leg had mostly regrown, but it still lacked a paw and ankle, so he ended up limping and using it mainly for balance. It felt a little awkward, but at the same time, he was rather good at moving with three legs by now, so it didn’t slow him down.
Step by step, the water rose against Mercury. It was cold, freezing even, and felt like it was eroding his body. But it was, at the end of the day, still just water. Mercury closed his mouth, summoned <Rainfall>, and then pushed.
The sea split.
There was no need for him to do so; he could have just summoned air in his lung. But he wanted to. Behind him, Orin’s eyes widened at the sight. Two walls of reddish, brackish water rose to their left and right, as Mercury opened up a path.
Walking on the seafloor was a little surreal. Each moment, the water to their sides towered higher, and when they were far enough into the sea, it closed behind them again. They were there. In the middle of the water, in a small slice of open air, towering falls of abrasive, horrible rust falling to their sides, their front, and their back.
Not that it bothered Mercury. He had a faint smile on his mouth as he limped forwards, each little hop accompanied by the water in front of him shifting aside. He cut through it like a knife, digging through the domain of the court of Rust.
Slowly, they moved ever onward. The sea rose and fell, underneath a bright sun, blazing down. Mercury felt the rust try to gather in his joints, slow him down and age him, but he pushed it back out. Washed away by the falling rain. The bits of this court that he interacted with were washed clean.
Was it a bit of an insult to rust? Sure. Did he really care all that much?
No.
The idea of his journey here was for him to redefine what Rust really meant, after all. If needed, he had all the backing to change the court and rebirth it entirely. Would that increase his popularity with the courts? Probably not.
But he already had the support needed. So it was just a case of doing.
In the end, Mercury didn’t fully split the sea. It was just too much effort. But keeping a small bubble of constantly fresh air around him and his two companions was more than doable. Thus, eventually, the sea closed above them, encasing them from all sides in brackish red. The smell of metal would have been overwhelming, if Mercury didn’t push it aside, too.
So they walked, and walked, and walked. Eventually, they found the court of Rust.
It was underwater, housed in a red tree who sported bubbles of air rather than leaves. It looked like an elm tree crossed with some kind of coral or anemone, and the roots of a mangrove. Half the court seemed to be built into those roots, and more of it was also outside. Rusty metal cubes, made from breaking bits of old shipwrecks adorned the tree, rotting metal fused into it.
Mercury finally saw some of the inhabitants of Rust, too. Well, they had been around for a while, he had just not seen. Because the fae of Rust were, on average, either tiny or huge.
They were in the rust itself. The tiny red sand, the particles of decay that bit at Mercury, the abrasive pain eating at him he felt when in contact with the water. The fae were tiny, on the size of atoms or molecules, yet each one was gnawing at him.
The other type of fae that Mercury had seen were in the water. They were the titanic wrecks. Ships and statues made from solid pieces of metal, each one rusting and decaying away. Those, too, were fae of rust, giant and unmoving and embodying the decay.
And now, there was the third and final type of fae that were with rust. Rather than titanic bits of dying machinery, these were smaller, more intricate. The ruler of Rust was one such fae. A construction made of discarded metals, rusty gears, broken and bent pipes no longer carrying steam.
A clockwork mechanism, tiny pieces ticking on despite the red eating away at it. Despite the decay. In a way, they were a zombie, huh? A human corpse moving on despite the rot. And this was a clockwork corpse moving despite the rust. Serving as a spearhead for Rust.
What a strange state this court was in. Mercury approached the grafted metal tree with its clockwork ruler. As he walked towards the tree, he thought about this place.
In a lot of ways, he was trying to save the fae realm from decaying. Now, how to help a court that was all about that decay? He couldn’t exactly remove the rot itself. Rust without Rust made little sense. It was a concept so central to this court, he wondered… maybe it was once meant as a destination?
Everything that rotted would go here, to rot in the right way that it could be remade? Then again, that was not really how Rust worked. Rusted metal wasn’t easier to recycle exactly. What a shame that the metaphor had to break down that way.
Mercury let out a soft sigh. How complicated. Hopefully, he could come up with a solution. Every court was probably going to be another unique puzzle. Troublesome. Or maybe he was getting to hung up with the aspect of decay? In a way, Dust was also related to it, yet Finva, ruler of Dust, remembered their name just fine.
Something was there. Some kind of interlinking of the courts in more than one way. The Sixteen. The courts of the seasons. The broken ones- Mercury started looking for patterns, trying to find them. Growth? Decay? Could those be themes? Elemental, maybe?
Nothing came of that train of thought until he stood before the ruler of Rust.
Up close, the fae was far bigger, towering over Mercury. This wasn’t really all that impressive of a feat, but the construct of aging metal was significantly taller than any human Mercury had ever seen. It was a little over three meters tall and half again as wide, standing like a bastion against the ocean.
Red water flowed around it, Mercury having drawn his bubble smaller. The brackish colour seemed to drain out of the liquid and seep into the ruler. Red, suffocating and cloying streaks of rust clinging to each tiny mechanism within them. The gears screamed as they ground, each turn seemingly their last. Like a wheezing cough on the edge of death, yet the hunk of scrapmetal stood, unbothered.
“So, you have come,” it said, voice coming out as a rumbling drone, choking and bubbling through the water.
Mercury nodded. “I have.”
“Because my name is lost,” Rust repeated.
“Indeed,” Mercury said. “And after you, I will visit Blood.”
Rust seemed confused at that. “Why? Tor-Tern still remembers.”
“Because remembering is not always good. Tor-Tern is just short of changing the court of Blood. Like how Silence became Secrets became Loneliness. Blood is just short of becoming Carnage. And that will break it, because Tor-Tern will break it.”
“Ah,” Rust said, a pained exhale of creaking metal. “Most are broken by their courts. Yet, the courts can also be broken.”
With a nod, Mercury turned to the other figure. This one was carved entirely from faintly red wood, though their body still incorporated gears and levers and little mechanical intricacies, all carved. It was the avatar of the faerie house. The robotic-looking mannequin bowed when Mercury turned to face them. “Greetings. This unit is designated ‘N3TH-37’. Please inform us if service is required.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Is it fine if I call you Nether?”
The mannequin stared at him with that blank face for a while. “This unit expresses not insignificant excitement. Designation updated. ‘Nether’ designation accepted.”
Mercury smiled a little. “Glad to hear it.”
“Come in, then,” Rust rumbled. “Dispel your bubble if possible. N3TH-”
“Nether.”
Rust shot the mannequin a look of mild scorn, but soon the emotion faded from the metallic features. “Fine. Nether will keep the biters aside.”
Looking at the avatar for confirmation, Mercury did slowly undo the air after receiving a nod. He considered dropping it all at once, but that would have caused tons of water to come crashing into them, and that would have been rather uncomfortable. So, he took a few seconds to slowly withdraw it into his body.
The pressure was intense, but he kept it at bay by raising the pressure inside him as well, soon finding himself with a strange squeezing sensation against his limbs. Not intolerable, definitely a little uncomfortable.
Orin seemed like they didn’t really need to breathe, and Alice just gave him an amused smile when he looked and a giggle that left a few air bubbles floating upwards. His party was fine, then.
Knowing that, Mercury looked back at Rust. The ruler regarded him for a long moment. “You do not require breathing equipment, then?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Acceptable. Enter.” With that, the nameless ruler turned around, each metal limb creaking as they moved into the amalgam tree of metal and wood. Nether followed closely behind them, arms crossed behind their back and skipping slightly with happiness at their new designation.
Mercury followed, entering into halls that were just as cramped as the beach had been upon his arrival. There were countless metals scraps laying around. Some were fae, others were just food for the biters, and again others seemed to be stored for future use… and still rotting away.
Rust was, in one word, messy. Plates and gears and levers and every piece and shape of metal Mercury could ever have imagined laid about, strewn in piles upon piles of decaying substance. The court was, in another word, quiet.
The biters, the tiny fae that made the water red and rusted away even organics, were silent. In here, they seemed almost docile, only gnawing at the metal. The metal, some of which was the bodies of fae, which also laid still and unmoving.
Only one sound was allowed to break the silence, and that was the deafening creak of metal scraping against metal as the ruler of Rust moved. A few more fae were of similar constitution, but most of them remained quiet and still as Mercury passed by. They only resumed movement once the party had gone by.
Why did no one move around the ruler, he wondered.
Then he saw.
Around the ruler of the court, the red was denser. Far, far denser than anywhere else. The water seemed to roil in their presence.
The fae couldn’t move when the ruler was around, because the rust on them got so severe that their very mechanics were compromised. Unable to move because of a thick coating of red clinging to them. When the ruler walked away, that red haze followed, hanging onto its frame like parasites, but at least being drawn away from the members of the court.
What a strange dynamic that was, too, Mercury noted. He really had quite a bit to learn.
Slowly, they walked through cramped hallways, all of them full of metal scraps, some having bits and pieces of glass that was actually intact. Most of it was trash, though. Sometimes the hallways changed from wood to metal, and their steps on the material echoed out through the underwater landscape.
Mercury found it all so strange. Like he was exploring some kind of ruined atlantis? Not what he had expected, yet in character. He smiled a little.
Walking underwater was kinda fun, he thought. Another reason to go explore the oceans at some point. That thought really enamored him, somewhat. Back on Earth, the oceans had been so unfathomable, and borderline impossible to explore. Yet, now? Mercury could effectively create as much counterpressure inside himself as he liked. Or even a space fully free of water.
Eventually, the ruler of Rust led Mercury to a vast, open chamber. They opened a thick, rusty door like on a submarine, twisting the circular handle and opening it with a dangerous creak. There was a thin film behind the bulwark door, and the ruler stepped through, shortly followed by the ancient one’s avatar.
The film kept the red water out. The chamber behind was actually filled with air. Mercury stepped through, and it felt a little like a soapy film clinging to him, being dragged through his fur.
Instantly, it wrung the red rust out of him. His fur was unblemished white again, the purple streaks shining. Mercury let himself smell the air for a moment, and the scent of soap was overwhelming.
Everywhere across the room there were bits of unblemished metal. Grinding disks, sanding belts, cans of oil. It was like a place made for derusting.
Noticing Mercury’s gaze, the ruler nodded, now creaking a little less. The metal of their frame was still red and rusted over, but there were no longer millions of biters and extraneous rust particles attached. “This is the guest chamber. One of two places in Rust where there is hardly any rust, at all.”
“What’s the second?” Mercury asked, curiosity getting the best of him.
“This designated unit’s central processing hub,” Nether provided helpfully.
Their heart, then, Mercury note. That made sense. In the court of Chill, Arber’s heart was also locked away, inaccessible to almost everyone. Mercury had seen it, of course, because he was friends with Arber. And they had shared blood with him.
A gesture he now saw was even more significant than he had thought. He smiled a little, and sent a mental thanks to Arber. They truly were a reliable retainer, even if they could not come with him to all corners of the fae realm.
Without them, Mercury might not have made it through those early days. The challenges there had let him build the resilience he needed to survive in the fae realm. <Hydration>, for example, was one of the main reasons he was able to withstand the rust so easily. And, of course, his willpower and related Skills had grown by leagues.
“Now then,” the ruler of Rust said as the construct lowered itself, sitting down on the unblemished wooden floor, leaving a small puddle of red. “What must I endure to find a new name?”
Right to the point, then? Mercury smiled. He could deal with that. “I need to understand what is making your court malfunction. So I need to see the mechanics. Then, I can find out which flaw has grown out of proportion to the point that it has subsumed your name.”
Rust gave him a long look, then the construct shook its head. “No such thing.”
“What do you mean?” Mercury asked.
“There are no mechanics,” they said. “No structure making the court function. It is Rust. We embody the opposite of function. How would structured Rust work? No,” they shook their head again, making a horrid screeching noise. “Things will rust when they rust, it is as simple as that.”
Ah. There was the problem. Mercury had to think on how to counter this. Rust’s problem was less… deep than Ciarski’s had been. It was a rather direct failure rather than a gradual decay. There had to be some sort of process that Mercury could establish for them. For the fae realm in general.
Something to deal with the courts related to decay. Rust and Dust. Or maybe decay wasn’t the right thing? The two courts were intricately connected through that, but Mercury had a suspicion that the fae kept to groupings of four. The four seasonal courts. The four broken thrones. So what were the other ones?
Mercury slipped into ihn’ar almost automatically, his mind whirring. The courts that were not yet in a grouping were Skye, Salt, Shadow, Rust, Dust, Blood, Illusion and Allure. He needed to find the threads that bound them.
So what were concept suitable for the fae courts? The seasons, of course, and the broken ones were united by being linked to emotions, to a degree. Now these. Perhaps… Mercury could see Skye and Salt sharing vastness. Maybe Shadow and Blood, too? But it didn’t feel like a nice fit.
Then there was the decay thread he’d been drawing between Dust and Rust already, but how did Illusion and Allure feed into it? Those two had seemed to Mercury like more mental-aspected ones. Or Allure and Blood could fit together with a flesh-type association?
None of those were smooth fits for the courts in general. But he did kind of need to know how Rust, at leasts, fit in with the other courts.
Perhaps, Mercury thought, the answer was more obvious? Rust’s domain was full of wind and water. So, perhaps it was packaged with Skye and Salt? And then, of course, Dust, because it dealt with decay as well. And then what would their binding theme be… erosion?
And that left Illusion, Shadow, Allure and Blood, which were perhaps the courts it was easiest to get lost in. Mercury thought of it and it seemed to make more sense. Swallowed by shadows, blood frenzy… if he had to describe their connection in one word it would be consuming. Hungry.
So that left him with the eroding and the consuming courts, as well as the emotional or ephemeral broken courts and the seasonal ones. Something about that lightly clicked in his mind.
Mercury smiled and withdrew from ihn’ar. The veils mended again, first that of iridescence, then that of gold, the sheens returning back to draw a faint cover onto the world. Things returned to their normal order, no longer as obvious. It was funny. Mercury had broken the veils without even noticing.
But he liked his current interpretation. So, he brought it up. “How do the courts of Skye, Salt, and Dust operate, then?”
The ruler of Rust looked at him. “You were silent for so long and that is what you ask?”
Confused, Mercury tilted his head. “Long?”
“A total amount of thirty one minutes and twelve seconds has passed,” Nether helpfully provided.
Mercury blinked. That… was longer than expected. Had it happened before? Did ihn’ar make him lose track of time? Or was there something… more about that? Some kind of mental block around the fae courts that slowed down his thinking when he tried to pinpoint their natures?
He blinked again. The lighting in the room had changed. This time he’d felt it. Like some kind of hitch, like he was grabbing a piece of reality that was a little large for him to hold onto, so he was getting dragged along.
In fact… he felt a little raw. Spiritually. Like his flesh was exposed, like his astral skin was sunburnt. He frowned slightly. The revelation wasn’t being pulled from his head, but it was definitely an uncomfortable feeling. Like he was staring too close at the sun. Was this the type of stuff people usually considered forbidden knowledge?
A small scoff left his mouth. What a hassle. He was that close to <Witnessing> the structure of the fae court for a moment. Just a moment. Then he held back and took a deep breath.
Instead of making the hasty, emotional choice, Mercury closed his eyes. He let a dozen seconds tick by, then looked at Nether and the ruler of Rust again. “Apologies. I’ve caught onto something of grander structure in the fae realm. Please, tell me how Skye, Salt and Dust operate.”
Nether was the one who replied to this, pulling out a clipboard. “Skye generally is self sufficient. Cloud matter exists in a constant state of dissipation and aggregation. Rain is a natural consequence. The rain exits the domain of Skye and goes to Salt and Rust, filling the oceans.”
They paused for a moment, looking at the red outside through the window, with an almost wistful expression. “The court of Salt operates largely in oceans and desiccated flats. Water is often used as a temporary medium for salt transportation in order to ensure the domain is in motion.”
“Finally, Dust operates as a perpetual storm. Dust and ash are blown around. This was, the entire realm is at all time covered in dust.” After they were done, the faintly red avatar lowered the clipboard, dropping it to the floor where it melded with the wood and nodded at him. “This unit hopes to have provided sufficient elaboration.”
“Acceptable,” Mercury noted. Then he turned to the ruler of Rust. “So. What is your process? To ensure that rust spreads in your realm, or to ensure it finds its way to where it needs to be?”
The mechanical construct shot him a confused look. “There is none. Rust is stagnation. A quiet death, A graveyard. Every death is kept here. Every movement stops. It’s a most pure form of cessation.”
“Pathetic,” Alice said. Her voice was entirely neutral, wispy, even. But her meaning was more than clear.
For a moment, the word hung in the air, then the ruler of Rust moved. They stood, then stepped up to Alice, each movement painfully slow and accompanied by horrid creaking. The ruler stood before the heroine and stared her down. “Say it again, if you dare.”
Alice looked at them, for a long moment. Then she regarded Mercury, who nodded. She turned back at Rust. Then gave a smirk. “I called you pathetic.”
It was perhaps the meanest thing Mercury had heard her say, and the ruler was positively infuriated. “I invite you into my home. To find a solution to a problem, yet you can barely start, and insult me instead? We never should have supported this notion. Perish.”
And with that, the construct reared back and swung at Alice.
There was an impact, a resounding crack, and the noise of crumpling metal.
A pillar of red wood rose in front of Alice, dented and crackled but not shattered. Meanwhile, the arm of the construct had entirely folded in on itself, the rust having broken down its integrity too far.
The demonstration was simple. A ruler should, by all means, be able to break through an ancient one. Yet, Nether had fended off the attack with little trouble. Because the ruler of Rust had attacked with motion. The very opposite of Rust. It was a fundamental mismatch of their strategies and the concept they embodied.
Either they needed to stagnate, or their court needed to speed up. Perhaps a bit of both.
Mercury looked at the ruler, at the way their own arm had broken under the Rust. They looked down at themselves, and a long few seconds passed.
“This unit accepts the blame for accrued damages. Reparations will be provided if desired,” Nether said, matter-of-factly.
Rust held out their remaining hand to stop them, the one that was just rusted scrap metal, rather than entirely shredded. “It’s… fine,” they said. “Right, then.” The titanic construct spent a few more moments staring at Mercury and Alice, then trudged back to the spot of red rust they’d left on the floor, and sat back down.
Another long second passed, then the giant waved a hand through the air. “Fine, then,” it said. “Fix it. What must change about my court and me?”
