Massive gears rumbled inside the clockwork giants as they lifted their platform full of passengers to the top of the wall. Though singular in purpose, the giants were impressive automata indeed, their stone bodies intricately carved into the image of mythical titans. They were a testament to the skill of Bastion’s machinists and the only means of reaching its Inner City.
When the platform thudded to rest, Aya stepped off it onto a cobbled street and took a deep breath. She’d never been to the raised heights of Inner City before. The air was cool and lacked the aroma of refuse and sickness that Outer City possessed. Had her circumstances been less stressful, she would have loved to take her time and enjoy the experience. Unfortunately, this day was as stressful as they came.
A pair of scowling law-keepers in pristine white uniforms motioned for her and the others to follow.
Aya quietly hummed the clockwork songbird’s song to herself. She always did when she was scared. It calmed her trembling hands and erratic breathing.
The rest of the aspirants kept to themselves. Each had recently reached their twentieth year and now faced their Testing. If they showed some unique skill or talent, they would be allowed to remain in Bastion and possibly be raised up to higher status—if particularly gifted. Failure, however, led to banishment to the outlands and ending up a meal for the beasts that roamed there.
Aya hoped to avoid such a fate.
Huge crowds gathered along either side of the wide thoroughfare the law-keepers led the aspirants down. The people cheered wildly, each person dressed in their finest bright silks of gold or green or blue or red. Their faces were made up like dolls, and many wore elaborate, towering wigs. They lined the roads and filled every balcony and rooftop in each of the towering estates along the way. Brilliant, beautiful banners rippled down the buildings, commemorating the event. A Testing only occurred once every year and was cause for joyous celebration.
She felt absurdly out of place with her mess of tangled hair and dirty, threadbare tunic.
The cobbled street Aya and the others paraded down was known as the Lord’s Road. It led to Lord’s Grace Square—the heart of the city and the site of their Testing.
She swallowed hard and continued to hum to herself and try desperately not to panic. She hugged a cloth-wrapped bundle tightly to her chest. Everything hinged on what was about to happen. This was her one chance to have some semblance of a regular life. This was her chance to not have to scrape and claw to barely get through each day. This was her chance to not be scared all the time.
As they approached the square, a large section of the crowd on one side of the Lord’s Road stood out from the rest. They wore plain, grease-stained uniforms of drab grays and browns and each had their head bowed respectfully. They were Bastion’s famed machinists. Not lords, of course, but their work with automata was so valued they were allowed to live in the Inner City.
Aya searched the bowed faces. She couldn’t help herself. For a moment as she scanned them, she actually thought one of the faces raised up and stared directly at her. But she blinked, and the face was gone. Probably the result of some badly misplaced wishful thinking.
Aya frowned bitterly.
A thunderous roar erupted when they entered Lord’s Grace Square. Aya ignored the sound and glanced at the other aspirants around her. Most or all of them came from relatively happy families and had been learning some skill for the Testing directly from loving parents.
She’d had no such luck, to say the least.
12 years before
The lumbering clockwork centipede paused long enough for Aya to climb off, then it waddled away, still carrying dozens of laughing and shouting children. Another day of learning had ended at Outer City’s House of Education, and they were all headed home for the night.
It had been a long day, and Aya desperately wanted a snack and some rest.
Years later, those desires would be so commonplace that she would scarcely take note of them.
Aya realized what was happening immediately upon stepping into the small shack she shared with her mother. She dared not believe it though. Four men in the crimson uniforms of some lord or another surrounded her mother in the cramped space. Half-kneaded dough lay abandoned on the counter, and one of the men held her mother’s travel bag in his arms. They turned as she entered.
“You must be the daughter,” one of the men said.
“What’s going on?” Aya asked, though she already knew. She stared pleadingly at her mother. This couldn’t be happening. Not to them. Not now.
A single tear leaked from the corner of her mother’s eye and scurried down her pale cheek. Otherwise, the woman was still and quiet. One of the lord’s guards must have ordered her silence. They, of course, held all the authority in this situation—just like every other situation.
“Your mother is being given a great honor,” the same man answered. “She is apparently quite gifted when it comes to working with automata. She has caught the attention of our lord and is being raised to the status of machinist, effective immediately. She will be accompanying us to her new home in the Inner City.”
“What about me?” Aya asked in a small, quivering voice. “She’s all I have.”
Her father had failed his Testing and been exiled just before she was born. She often wondered how a woman with as many talents as her mother had loved a man that apparently had none. When asked, her mother would smile sadly and say he had a kind heart.
The man that did the speaking for the lord’s guards cleared his throat. “Lawkeepers will be by to collect you shortly. You’ll be moved to one of the children’s homes on the outskirts of town. I’m sure you’ll be well provided for.”
He didn’t sound particularly convinced of that last part. No surprise, really. Aya had heard the rumors. Many claimed children with no parents left to care for them were simply exiled from Bastion. They were beast food. It made sense, too. One of the main purposes of the Testing was to regulate population growth. Why waste resources and space on children with such a dramatically reduced chance to amount to anything?
Aya stared hard at her mother. Tears swam in the woman’s eyes, but still she said nothing. It made sense to not anger the lord’s guards, of course, but Aya felt a deep sense of betrayal that her mother wasn’t fighting back in any way. It didn’t matter that the guards could kill on a whim without fear of punishment. How could her mother not even attempt to reason with them?
“Well,” the man said. “We had best be on our way.” The guards brushed past her, guiding her mother by the arm. They marched down the street in the direction of Inner City without a backward glance.
At first, Aya followed behind.
Then she stopped.
What was the point? Her mother was going along with it. Aya was alone. She felt so small and helpless in that moment, it threatened to overwhelm her. Like a great clockwork serpent coiled around her neck, dragging her down and choking her breath. She cried hard. Great, gasping sobs.
She would miss her mother dearly. At the same time, a part of her now hated the woman.
After a while, Aya returned to the shack that had been home all her life. She packed as many clothes and as much food as she could carry in a bag. Aya’s identification card was just sitting on the table for some reason, so she grabbed that too. Then she left.
The lawkeepers weren’t going to find her when they came looking. She didn’t intend to be exiled. She would find some place to hide for the night and go from there.
Next to the machinists, a large section of lawkeepers monitored the proceedings. Each stood at rigid attention, heads unmoving but eyes darting every which way. They watched carefully for anything out of place.
All the white uniforms grouped together made it look as if a giant bird had defecated on this particular section of the crowd. Aya giggled at the thought, then immediately started worrying again. It wasn’t a day for laughter.
She turned her face away as she passed. She’d had more than a few encounters with lawkeepers over the years. As it turned out, they frowned on theft. Even if the culprit might have starved to death otherwise. There had been a number of narrow escapes, and she didn’t want to be recognized.
Aya felt a number of them watching her closely, but none raised an alarm. It was just their usual scrutiny. Her thin frame and disheveled appearance often caught their attention. No matter. It was of little consequence as long as nobody stopped her from Testing.
A few moments passed, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
In a way, the surrounding lords were even worse. They sneered down at her as if she were some insect or rodent that had found a way into their pantry. It was another form of scrutiny she’d grown used to over time.
Interestingly, one young girl in the crowd smiled at her and nodded encouragement. Aya smiled back. When you live a life almost entirely devoid of kindness from other people, the rare exceptions are worth acknowledging. Worth cherishing.
10 years before
Freezing wind howled down the cramped streets of Bastion’s Outer City. Icy rain-daggers sliced through the night air, pelting the street and anyone unlucky enough to be caught out in it. Gloomy shadows gathered everywhere, easily winning their eternal struggle against the handful of weak streetlights.
It was a miserable night.
Even the usual assortment of rodents had the good sense to stay hidden in whatever hole they could find.
Aya huddled in the mouth of an alley, hugging herself tight but shivering violently. Inside a home across the street, a family of four sat around a table and ate dinner together. Steaming soup and pillow-soft bread and thick slices of grilled beast meat. She watched them through a large window and tried desperately not to weep with envy.
It wasn’t easy.
She’d found a mostly collapsed tower on the outskirts of town to make a home of the last couple years. It wasn’t much, but it would have at least provided some shelter from the wind and rain. Unfortunately, she was too weak with hunger to risk waiting another night, and sometimes families like the one she was watching would throw out their scraps after they finished eating. It was gross and a little demeaning, but when you’re hungry enough, nothing else matters. So she waited. Watched. Hoped.
Not for the first time, it was anger alone that warmed her. Anger at the world in general. At all the people with far better and easier lives looking down their noses at her. Mostly at her parents. Aya was angry with her father for failing his Testing and getting exiled. She was angry with her mother for so easily allowing herself to be taken to a new life in the Inner City.
She was angry at being hungry and cold and tired and scared all the time.
The worst thing was, she would only ever have one chance to become anything more than a desperate thief and beggar. When she turned twenty, she could attempt the Testing. Anyone that presented an identification card proving they were of age could participate. Unfortunately, that was a full ten years away, and she usually felt lucky just to have made it through a single night. Also, Aya had no talent to show off and wasn’t likely to acquire one. Even if she survived long enough and participated, it would almost certainly end with exile.
The Testing was her only chance. It just wasn’t much of one.
Motion through the window drew her attention. The family had finished their meal and the father—a burly man with a thick beard—cleaned the table. A few minutes later, he stepped outside with a large trash bucket in his arms. He tossed its contents in the street for the clockwork scavengers to take care of, then he turned to go back inside. Just before closing the door, the man turned and looked directly at Aya.
Their eyes locked. She tensed to run. He just smiled, motioned for her to wait a moment and went back inside. Shortly after, he came back out. He carefully looked both ways to make sure he wasn’t observed, then he set a heaping plate of warm food on the ground. The man smiled again and waved, then he went inside and closed the door.
It seemed a small thing, but he’d taken a risk to do it. Bastion society was built on rewarding those that succeed on their own merit. Helping another was frowned on and even punishable.
Tears blurred Aya’s vision as she scurried across the street to collect the food.
Lord’s Grace Square was a sight to behold. Streamers crisscrossed the massive space. Confetti flew from the surrounding crowds, drifting through the air and coating the cobbled street like multi-hued snow. Lawkeepers in silver-threaded ceremonial uniforms pranced around atop beautifully made clockwork unicorns. Looming over it all, the shimmering, metallic spires of the First Lord’s palace pierced the sky. Manors for the other great lords surrounded them as well, only slightly less impressive than the palace itself, huge buildings with well-groomed gardens and elaborate fountains and various clockwork animals filling them.
Dominating the square was the huge stage in its center. Wide stairs all around led to a raised center, and the entire thing was draped in enough fine white and gold cloth that, if sold, would feed a family in Outer City for years.
Aya was awestruck.
The aspirants were led to one side of the stage and lined up. She took a place near the back of the line. Maybe she would feel more ready after a bit of time had passed. Maybe her nerves would calm.
A man in flowing green robes with elaborate gold threading and a tall conical hat atop his head climbed the stage. He was the Chief Orator.
A group of lesser orators sat together among the crowd on the far side of the stage from the aspirants, each clad in similar green robes and ridiculous hats. Their purpose in Bastion was to educate the citizenry on its laws and customs. They also quite often took time to praise the great deeds and unsurpassed wisdom of various lords.
A convocation of clockwork eagles circled above the Chief Orator—their sharp mechanical eyes focused on him. Through some means Aya didn’t understand, they projected a giant ghost-image of him into the sky. That way people as far as Outer City could watch the proceedings.
“Welcome to this year’s Testing!” He shouted, and the crowd roared its applause.
“With luck, we shall find many worthy additions to our wonderful city among this year’s aspirants.” He glanced down at them, doubt and condescension dripping from his face.
“It is a most sacred tradition and part of what keeps this last great human city alive and thriving. Each of these youths shall be given a chance to show us some skill or talent deserving of a place among the citizens of Bastion.”
He shook his head sadly. “Failure, of course, means exile.”
Aya clutched the cloth-wrapped instrument she carried in her arms tighter. She could do this.
She had to.
The Chief Orator raised his arms high into the air. “Without further ado, let us begin!”
8 years before
The baker had left his son in charge of the shop again. Aya watched the boy take payments and hand out fresh bread to customers through the open doorway. He always seemed disinterested in the job and had poor eyesight besides. It made him an easy target when she needed to steal some food.
She was about to enter the shop when there was a flicker of movement at the edge of her vision. A small clockwork bird flew down out of the sky and landed atop a nearby light post. Its movement was stilted and jittery, she noticed, not at all the usual grace most automata displayed.
It opened its metallic beak and let out a string of high-pitched notes.
A songbird, then.
Faint blue light peeked through various cracks in its body. That meant the crystal powering this particular automaton was exposed. No machinist worth their salt would accept such a thing. Also, half its body was painted a brilliant yellow while the other half was still dull gray—someone apparently having abandoned the task before finishing. It must have been tossed out with the rubbish and somehow survived.
Aya liked it instantly.
The clockwork songbird seemed to notice her as well. It turned its head to fix her with one gleaming eye, chirped sharply, and flew to another light post a short distance away. Once again, its flight was anything but smooth. The poor, wretched thing.
Aya’s stomach ached with hunger, but she couldn’t resist the pull of curiosity. Nothing interesting ever happened to her. She turned away from the baker’s shop and followed the clockwork songbird.
As she walked away from the shop, there was a flash of white just inside the door. From a sharper angle, she could see that a lawkeeper was waiting beside the entrance, hidden from view to anyone going in. Aya shuddered. Perhaps she had stolen from this shop one too many times.
When she drew near to the clockwork songbird, it chirped and fluttered through the air a short distance away again. The surrounding people paid it no more mind than they did her. It seemed she and this discarded automaton had a lot in common.
She’d committed to the task now, so Aya continued to follow the creature. Its path twisted back and forth a bit, but it eventually led to the base of the great wall that held up Inner City. Specifically, they came to one of the large refuse piles that lined the wall’s base. Many of the great manors above had chutes running to the wall’s edge. The lords could dump their trash on the chutes, and it would slide down and eventually fall to Outer City below. A handful of people died each year from being crushed by the falling debris.
Dozens of clockwork scavengers crawled over the refuse, grinding it to dust in their powerful jaws. They were too few to keep up with the constant flow of trash, however, and the pile had grown enormous.
“Why have you brought me here?” Aya asked dubiously. “I don’t think I want to go any farther.”
The clockwork songbird hopped up and down on a broken chair it had perched on and chirped furiously. Then it leaped up and fluttered around a tall pile of refuse and out of sight.
“What an odd creature,” Aya muttered. She did find it quite endearing though. With a shrug, she followed.
The automata perched on the skeletal frame of a wardrobe that had burned in a fire. Its eye fixed Aya, then slowly, purposefully looked down at a point in the refuse pile below it. Beneath an old, ratty blanket, Aya saw the glint of polished metal. She strode forward and yanked the blanket away.
Aya gasped.
A small lap harp—in shockingly good condition—sat before her. It was made of inexpensive metal, but polished to a near mirror sheen and clearly constructed by a skilled craftsman. She tentatively reached out and plucked a string. A beautiful note echoed in the stillness.
The clockwork songbird copied the note. It danced merrily on its perch, clearly proud of this treasure it had found. Aya wasn’t sure if it knew what it was doing, but she was touched that it had shared the treasure with her.
“Thank you, my friend,” she said.
It sang a few notes in return.
Aya picked up the harp, wrapped it back in the old blanket to hide it from prying eyes, and set off for the place she called home.
As the first aspirant climbed the stairs and walked to the center of the great stage, a huge shadow fell across Lord’s Grace Square. The crowd stared up in awed silence. A piercing, mechanical shriek rang out, shattering the stillness and painfully echoing inside Aya’s skull.
An enormous clockwork dragon thundered to the ground in front of the palace. The cobbled street trembled violently at its arrival.
The loudest cheer yet from the assembled spectators erupted.
The dragon raised its great head, neck gears whirring furiously, and sent a long stream of roiling red fire into the air. This was followed by an equally intimidating stream of blue fire. Waves of heat assaulted Aya and the other aspirants each time, but the crowd loved it. They knew the Testing’s unseen judges were in communication with the clockwork dragon and that it played an important role in the ritual.
Aya suspected its presence also served to remind everyone of the power the lords possessed and the futility of any potential resistance. If so, it was an effective deterrent. It was the scariest, most impressive automata she had ever seen.
When the crowd’s excitement ebbed a bit, the ghost-image of the aspirant on the stage was projected into the sky by the convocation of clockwork eagles. One of the lawkeepers that had been their escort through Inner City nodded at the aspirant to begin.
She was a tall young woman with big blue eyes and a ready smile. She launched into song, and Aya thought the woman had one of the best singing voices she’d ever heard. There was an awkward pause when the aspirant forgot a few lyrics, but otherwise it was a riveting performance.
When the song ended, everyone’s attention shifted back to the looming clockwork dragon. At first, it remained motionless. Unseen judges were somehow communicating with the creature. Then, it raised its head and sent another stream of red flame into the air.
The aspirant had failed.
She would now face exile and almost certain death.
The young woman’s face drained of all color as a lawkeeper came to gently grasp her arm and lead her off the stage and away. Just like that, the woman’s dream of a future in Bastion had ended. Her dream of any future at all, actually. It was heartbreaking.
Loud jeers and insults rained down from the crowd.
The next aspirant climbed onstage. He was a bulky, dark-haired youth with a permanent scowl. He pointed to the section of crowd made up of lawkeepers. One of them, a hulking giant of a man absurdly squeezed into his white uniform, stepped out from the crowd and climbed the stage across from the aspirant.
The crowd quieted in anticipation.
If an aspirant’s skill was combat, they could challenge a lawkeeper for their Testing. If successful, they would be welcomed into the lawkeeper ranks after. Unfortunately, the rate of failure was even higher than usual when taking the combat option.
The lawkeeper and aspirant circled each other slowly. Then, the aspirant charged. He was standing calmly one moment and striking out at his enemy the next. Unbelievably fast. There was a furious blur of motion as the two traded blows.
It was over in seconds.
The hulking lawkeeper walked away laughing while the aspirant screamed and writhed on the stage, clutching a badly broken arm.
A stream of red fire lit the sky.
Aya started humming softly.
7 years before
Aya’s home was an abandoned tower on the edge of Bastion’s Outer City. It was mostly collapsed. There was no roof, and large chunks of stone and piles of smaller rubble were strewn everywhere. In one corner on the highest floor, Aya had tied discarded blankets and tarps at an angle away from a large section of still-standing wall. This provided some small protection from the elements. At the same time, the wind and cold on this highest floor kept the city’s many rodents away.
The high vantage point also offered a spectacular view of the rest of Bastion—from the wooden hovels of Outer City to the towering manors of Inner City above it. She would often take in the view and imagine her life was anything but the one she actually led. She imagined life with a family that loved her and would never abandon her. A life in which she wasn’t cold and starving.
When her thoughts turned too gloomy, however, she would listen to the thundering roars of great beasts outside the city. It was important to remember that things could be worse.
On this particular day, Aya sat on a flat piece of stone in her section of the tower and plucked at the harp in her lap. It was a slow and difficult process for someone with no musical training, but she’d managed to grasp how to play different notes and had picked out parts of songs she remembered from her childhood.
Something fluttered out of the sky and landed on the jagged edge of a half-standing stone wall nearby. Aya cried out in delight. It was the clockwork songbird she’d met before—the one that helped her find the harp. Its half-painted body was covered in dirt and grime, and its movement even more stilted and awkward than before, but there it was all the same. She’d assumed it broke down shortly after their meeting, given its ragged appearance. Perhaps it wasn’t quite as shoddily made as it looked.
“Hello, my friend,” Aya called.
The clockwork songbird chirped a greeting.
“I’ve been trying to play the harp you showed me. I’m not very good, but it’s quite fun.”
She started to play a bit of a song she’d remembered. The first few notes were fine, but she quickly lost track and devolved into chaos. The songbird squawked angrily, hopping about, and Aya fumbled to a stop.
It fixed her with one of its gleaming eyes for a long moment.
Then it sang. A beautiful melody that tickled the back of Aya’s mind. Perhaps she’d heard it somewhere before. Though it didn’t look like much, the clockwork songbird sang wonderfully. Its song was incredibly pretty, but it was also haunting and sad. Half remembered images of happier times drifted through her mind.
By the end of the song, tears welled up at the corners of her eyes.
“I love it,” Aya said. “Thank you.”
The clockwork songbird fixed her with an eye again. Then it slowly, pointedly looked down at the harp in her lap. It sang the first part of the song again.
“You want me to try and play it?”
The clockwork songbird sang the first few notes again. It looked Aya in the eye, then it looked down at the harp.
“All right. All right.” She tried to play the notes but struggled to find even the first one. The songbird patiently waited. After she’d failed miserably a few times. It sang the notes again.
Aya tried to play them. She failed.
This process repeated for hours. The clockwork songbird never lost patience even though they made little progress.
Eventually, Aya grew tired and hungry and had to stop. The songbird chirped a goodbye and fluttered away.
The aspirant on stage set down an automaton he’d been carrying all day. It was a lanky humanoid with large round eyes.
It fell the first few times it tried to stand, and the crowd groaned. Then, the automata pushed to its feet and started dancing. It was chaotic—limbs flying everywhere and not keeping any sort of particular rhythm. It was also incredibly adorable, however. The large eyes gazed into the crowd, desperately seeking their approval.
Children laughed at the spectacle while adults clapped in delight. At the end of the performance, the clockwork dragon spewed blue fire into the sky.
It was the first successful Testing of the day.
The judges were extremely harsh this year.
Of course they were.
The next aspirant took his turn. Aya moved to the front of the line. She trembled with barely contained fear, humming softly to try and calm herself. Maybe this had been a mistake. She could have continued begging and stealing, held out as long as possible. But no. Lawkeepers were far more lenient with the young. Any post-Testing age adult caught wandering about would be killed or exiled immediately. This was her only chance. To have any kind of decent life but also to simply survive.
Red flames pierced the sky. Aya hadn’t even watched the aspirant’s failed attempt. She was too nervous, too much in her own head.
And she was up next.
5 years before
The clockwork songbird fluttered out of the sky and landed on its favorite broken wall. It chirped merrily to announce its arrival.
The songbird had been coming on a regular basis for a long time now. It was a miracle the automata still functioned. Aya would tighten loose screws and oil its joints when she had procured any oil, but its continued existence was a testament to its maker. No matter that it had been discarded as trash.
Also—every time it visited—they would practice its song together. Aya long ago realized the harp and the song were her chance to possibly succeed in the Testing when she came of age. Nobody would believe how she’d developed the skill, and the odds were still badly stacked against her, but at least there was hope. She’d even started to get better at playing.
Every time she made progress, however, the clockwork songbird would add to the song, make it a bit more difficult, more complex. But also, more beautiful. If she could ever master it, playing such a song would be an impressive skill indeed.
Aya pushed to her feet from her bed of tattered blankets. She took a step toward where the harp leaned against the wall.
The world spun crazily before her eyes, and she collapsed to the cold stone floor. Sharp pain stabbed her gut. Her body trembled violently.
Aya tried to remember the last time she’d eaten. The lawkeepers had been particularly vigilant lately, so she’d had to stop stealing or begging for food for a while. Apparently, the situation had grown more dire than she realized. Either that or she’d simply refused to acknowledge the truth.
She tried to push herself up and collapsed again. Her body had no strength left in it.
Aya sobbed in frustration. She had to practice. Everything hinged on that. Dreams of the better future she’d finally begun to consider. Her continued survival. Everything.
The clockwork songbird hopped around, squawking worriedly. It watched Aya with one of its gleaming eyes.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” she said. “I don’t think I can play today.”
The automata watched her for a while, then it flew away in its stilted, jerky way. Aya wondered if she would ever see it again.
She closed her eyes and considered giving up. What was the point? She should have just allowed herself to be exiled as a child. The stories of people like her only ever ended one way. She’d been doomed the moment her mother allowed herself to be led away.
Something clattered beside her. Aya opened her eyes to see the clockwork songbird had returned. A small piece of bread was clutched in its metallic beak. It dropped the bread on the floor then used its head to nudge it in Aya’s direction.
She reached a trembling hand out to grab it. The bread was soft and warm. It tasted of honey. It tasted like love and warmth and everything good in the world. The automata must have pinched a piece of the baker’s freshest bread right under his nose.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
The clockwork songbird fluttered away.
A short time later it returned with more bread. The process continued until Aya regained a bit of her strength. She fell asleep that night on an almost full stomach.
The next day, the clockwork songbird returned, and they started to practice its beautiful song once again.
The lawkeeper nodded at her. Aya climbed the stairs and walked to the center of the great stage. She couldn’t breathe. She felt as if she would pass out at any moment, and it took a monumental effort of will just to stay upright.
When the clockwork eagles projected her image into the sky, ripples of laughter passed through the crowd. A handful of people shouted insults or booed or hissed their displeasure. They were certain nobody with such ragged, threadbare clothes and filthy, badly tangled hair belonged in Bastion.
For about the hundredth time that day, Aya missed the clockwork songbird. She wished she’d had more time with it. The poor thing. She missed its comforting presence but also wished it had been around longer to prepare her for this moment.
She felt overwhelmingly alone.
2 years before
The day Aya had been dreading finally arrived.
When the clockwork songbird arrived, it missed its favorite perch on the partially collapsed wall and clattered to the stone floor. It bounced a few times before sliding to a stop. The automata tried to raise its trembling head for a moment, then the blue glow of the crystal that powered it faded to nothing, and it laid still.
Just like that, her only friend was gone.
Aya stared at it for a long time.
She’d known this was coming. The clockwork songbird had been malfunctioning more and more often of late. It only visited sporadically and constantly walked or flew into things and had suffered a number of hard falls. It no longer helped practice its song and sometimes wouldn’t respond at all when she spoke to it. Automata weren’t meant to last forever. It was a miracle the clockwork songbird lasted as long as it did.
None of that made this moment easier, however.
Aya cried hard. She would miss her friend dearly.
She cupped its tiny body in her hands and carried it to the base of its favorite wall. She placed it reverently beside the harp—her most prized possession—and gently stroked its head. It had been the one to show her the instrument, after all.
Aya lifted the harp into her lap.
She played the song the clockwork songbird had taught her. It’d been a while since she played, but the notes came back easily. Countless hours they’d worked on it together. It was second nature now.
She played well.
The automata would have loved to hear it.
Aya stopped and stared at the broken body that had been her only companion. She owed it to the clockwork songbird to continue practicing. She owed it her best effort to put the song and the instrument to good use. That way, their time together mattered. Its life mattered.
She began to play once more and continued for hours, until exhaustion claimed her.
In the weeks and months to come, she practiced obsessively. Any time not spent sleeping or eating or finding food was spent playing. Her Testing wasn’t far away, and she would make the clockwork songbird proud.
Aya sat in the center of the stage, the massive ghost-image of her dirty face projected into the sky above her. She carefully removed the cloth from her harp, folding it and setting it aside before lifting the instrument to her lap. A surprised murmur snaked through the crowd. Even after all these years, the harp was a beautiful instrument. Its polished surface caught the light of the sun in a brilliant glare. The watching lords hadn’t expected her to own such a thing.
Everyone quieted in anticipation.
Aya raised her trembling arms into position, tried to filter out the chaos all around her and focus on the task at hand. She took a deep, shuddering breath.
And froze.
Her mind went blank. The song vanished entirely—no matter the hundreds of hours spent memorizing its every intricacy.
A powerful surge of fresh panic engulfed Aya. Her breath caught in her throat. Her arms started to tremble more violently. She swooned and almost toppled.
Someone in the crowd groaned loudly. Many others whispered to each other in obvious agitation. Why had the lawkeepers allowed their time to be wasted on such an obvious failure?
Tears streamed down Aya’s face. Why was this happening now? She’d tried so hard to prepare for this moment. Then, when it mattered most, she faltered.
Maybe everyone was right about her. Maybe she really was the piece of trash everyone had always treated her as. Only she alone had been too blind to see it. She should have been exiled all those years ago. Deserved it, even. She had deserved to be abandoned. To struggle. To suffer.
Many in the crowd looked over at the looming clockwork dragon, waiting for it to put an end to this embarrassing display.
Aya closed her eyes. She thought of the clockwork songbird. Its broken, half-painted body and jittery movement. Its beautiful singing and sweetness and loyalty. The memories were so vivid, she could almost hear its song in her head.
Aya’s eyes snapped back open. That sound wasn’t in her head at all. A soft humming floated to her through the stillness. A woman’s voice. It came from near the entrance to Lord’s Grace Square.
There was something odd to the sound of the voice—something that tickled the back of Aya’s mind—and it was humming the clockwork songbird’s song. Aya peered in the direction it came from. At first, she saw nothing. Then, far in the distance, something caught her eye.
Among the plain, grease-stained machinists, one head was raised high and staring back at her. It was a woman. Older now, but still painfully familiar.
It was her mother.
Aya just stared. She listened to the distant humming in shock. A faint memory of her mother singing to her when she was a baby floated through her mind. Perhaps it was real. Possibly it was imagined. It didn’t matter. Slowly, the reasons for everything that had happened in the years since her mother was taken began to click into place.
Her mother was a gifted machinist that was also talented in many other ways, including music. The clockwork songbird had appeared and given her a chance to succeed in the Testing by teaching her the song her mother now hummed to help her remember.
Automata were closely regulated, but every machinist failed from time to time and those were discarded. The clockwork songbird had appeared poorly made but in fact displayed unusual intelligence and lasted for years.
The harp had been so conveniently discarded from some lord’s manor.
All those years ago, the identification card she would later need to participate in the Testing had been sitting out for her.
Despite how Aya felt at the time, it wouldn’t have done any good had her mother fought back when she was taken. Instead, the woman had played along and helped the only way she was able.
It all made sense.
A pair of lawkeepers moved in on her mother’s location. There would be some form of punishment for the interruption and the disrespect. Hopefully they wouldn’t be too harsh.
There were whispers throughout the crowd, mostly outrage. A few had recognized the song—apparently a piece well-known for its difficulty called Lazlo’s Requiem—and expressed doubt that she would be able to play it. Aya paid them all no mind.
Her fear and doubt drifted away like leaves in the wind.
For the first time in so many years, she felt that the world could be something other than cruel and that she might truly have some place in it.
For the first time in so many years, Aya felt loved.
Eyes glistening and a wide smile on her face, Aya began to play.
