Prelude to Crystal Cove Chronicles

Chapter 3: Musings

Shivering once again, Zenya tied her hair up into a loose ponytail and got changed with all the alacrity of someone who knows that all of their important bits and pieces will probably fall off and shatter in temperatures like this. At least she had a thick rug by the bed to stand on.

She tugged a slightly frayed but good quality pair of trousers on, buttoned up a leather shirt that had so far managed to avoid too much patching, and slipped a heavy jumper over her head. The warmth of the wool soon had her feeling a little more lively, so she ran over the cold flagstones barefoot, opened a drawer in a small dresser under the window, and pulled on two thick woollen socks.

A pair of heavy boots over these and she was about ready to start her day. Closing the front door behind her, she locked it, slipped the key into her deepest trouser pocket, and set out into the slightly more crowded streets of Tantagal.

As she walked, Zenya mused—not for the first time—on the state of their world. Liraleth was a fairly standard sphere orbiting the sun, at least according to a number of ancient records from the time of the Mathusean Dynasty some two-hundred years ago.

The Mathuseans had been incredibly advanced before their fall, with legends telling of great stations built high above Liraleth, capable of viewing the whole planet as though it were a cosmic marble.

Zenya had no idea if the legends were true (much as she wasn't sure about the Sapphire Serpent), there weren't many surviving records from that period any more. But the dangerous wasteland filled with abandoned and malfunctioning Mathusean technology far to the north of Tantagal certainly hinted that there might be some crumbs of truth there, at least. If the Serpent was real, there was a good chance that was leftover Mathusean tech as well.

Of more interest to Zenya was the idea of being able to see everything from so high up, where the troubles of people—and the people themselves—were both invisible and insignificant. Would she be able to look down upon the eastern lands across the ocean where she had recently stayed, with their wonderfully temperate climate and powerful economy?

Perhaps she could look around the other side of the world and see the people there. A lot of people in the Tri-Cities (especially those who never sailed the seas or otherwise left home) simply refused to believe there was anything there at all, that the world was clearly flat and that moving too far in one direction would cause you to fall off, never to be seen again. It would be nice to put that idea to rest once and for all, one way or the other.

Could she peek into the frozen lands south of Tantagal itself, the Southern Steppe and the Museans who lived there? The very same Museans who were probably about to once again start causing problems for her home and its people, as if they hadn't already been the root of so much misery and suffering.

Or she could cast her gaze across the Tri-Cities themselves? With their familiar blue-tinted stone buildings, heavy industry, and chilly climate, her home cities would probably look completely different from that high up. Would she even recognise them?

Her home...

No, only one of the three was truly her home now, Tantagal. Born and raised in Taridia, she had been there when the last big invasion from Musea had happened, and soon after had moved to the port city of Tantagal to start a new life.

Some memories were best left behind, after all, and as a nineteen year old who currently worked far too many jobs in the vague hope of accomplishing her modest dreams, Zenya considered that she had it pretty good here, all in all.

At least Tantagal was difficult to attack via land, and their navy was feared and respected in equal measure, even by the Museans. The only problem was that the one person Zenya truly loved and cared for was stuck in Taridia for reasons beyond her control.

And Taridia was ground zero for every single Musean attack that had happened over the last fifty years.