Consul K and Silvercoat Ethel
Inside a workshop. Several Kevesi soldiers overlooking a hanging levnis with two giant copper wheel, two horns 45° pointing at the top, and one facing down, it's head faced down. It was hung by several threads. An faceless soldier was shouting instructions, "No, no, no! More to the right!" The threads hanging the levnis moves with it. "Right there! Start lowering!"
The sound of engines revved as the levnis come down. Thud. Soldiers walked towards it for inspection. He shouted more commands, "Make sure it's airtight. Sand around here? Finer than Ruska flour."
A soldier, thick hair, slightly dark skin, not wearing a helmet, suggested, "I could do a triple weld."1
"Sure. Long as the output's stable." He gave a green light before walking off.
"Yessir."
Meanwhile, a soldier wearing a green hat like that of a nurse, thick hair covering his ears, moved towards a guy half a head taller than him, buff, his hair also thick and long. The tall guy was overlooking some hexagonal-prism-shaped metal containers. As he approached, he asked, "What's up with the K rounds? We're two caches short! Hope you didn't snuff up the order!"
The guy turned and faced him. He had two groups of hairs dangling in front of his eyes. As if being attacked, he sniped back, "I don't know, OK? Got a problem, take it up with logistics."
The guy with the nurse hat, we could see his irises red. He stated, "We're just a Dirt-rank colony, low as they come. You think the Castle gives a crap?" He looked to the other side, slightly lowering his voice with the last sentence.
"Queen's Oath, this pisses me off. We get better scores than any sparkin' colony out there."
The nurse-hat whispered to him, "Did you know? For Tin-rank field rations, I hear they get Ardun meat."
"Really? And... us mudders?" He also lowered his voice to a whisper.
"Trust me, you really don't wanna know."
"Ahhh..." He sighed, his left arm tucked to his waist. We could see his eyebrows shaped like a glisser. He wore a heavy jacket with zips that ends around his chest, and a sweater inside. From behind, we could blurry see a woman with silver hair and silver coat, accompanied by a man, walking towards their direction. The workshop was huge, and there was a huge workshop door that linked to the outside. All we could see was yellow sky. The interior walls looked rusty. The floor were metallic.
"I miss the good old Silver days. Didn't have to rely on rations back then. We had cooks come and serve us right on the front line. Used to get Armu sirloin, we did."
As he spoke, other soldiers, seeing the silver-coat, her silver hair spreaded like waterfall, length to her waist, continued walking with the accompanying guys. Other soldiers bent their arms, palm facing inwards just over their shoulders, held into a fist, legs together and stood straight, stopped whatever they were doing, as she passed. They didn't notice her arrival.
"Seriously?!" Perhaps the nurse-hat guy wasn't from their Silver rank colony before. As the woman stopped, they still hadn't noticed her. A soldier working at the levnis wheel had to signaled at them in a loud whispering tone, "Ah- Hey!"
The buff guy turned to face him, sniped impatiently, "What now?" As he turned, his eyes glanced the silvercoat. "...Urk!" He quickly do the welcoming pose, chest forward. Here, we could see he had yellow irises. He probably felt scared or awkward, being found out complaining of their situations than getting the work done.
The nurse-hat guy only reacted after he did the welcoming pose. He quickly face his direction, gritted his teeth as if biting his tongue, and did the same pose.
The woman, irises mostly turquoise with some magenta, long thick forward-pointing brown eyelashes, wore metal plates at her shoulder, "My own indiscretion... has caused you difficulties. I'm sorry."
The guy standing behind her had brown skin, wore a power suit, thick hair that curved at its edge, and no other features the translator could describe other than strips of orange on his power suit.
The nurse-hat guy anxiously blurted out, "N-no! We would never... Our apologies, Commander Ethel!"
To which the tall guy added immediately, "That was all, uh, just banter! Believe me, we had... no intention of-"
Ethel cut her explanations short, "You enjoyed eating Armu steak, did you?"
The guy relaxed his eyebrows, probably known Ethel for long that she won't punish him for this time, or maybe just recalling, "Uh... Yes, I did! Tastiest food I ever ate!"2
"I liked it as well. And I hope we will have it again. So lend me your strength." She scanned the both of them.
The nurse-hat replied, "Ma'am! Yes, ma'am!" And the tall guy nodded.
Ethel maintained her eye contact for a second before turning and walking off, the guy followed closely behind. Their watched her leaving, fist up.
Outside the building, the guy behind Ethel asked, like chatting with an old friend, "I don't see what's wrong with Volff, personally."
Ethel facetiously replied, "Pfft. That's because you have poor taste. I'm jealous."
"Well, trade you my taste buds?"
"No, thank you. My mouth'd turn as foul as yours" The path they walked on consist of fine sands and dirt. Those beside the path were more coarse, grass grown sparingly. She stopped at about the end of the route, beyond which are coarse dirt, sand, grass, and some larger stones.
"Hahaha! True that." Where she overlooked was barren. Some taller pillar of rocks lurked at the edge of vision. A bonfire could be seen lit near those rocks.
If we look from the side, to her left, the double-wheel of the Ferronis with cyan tread and inner rim. Where they walked out had been barricaded, and a watchtower located at the entrance. A tent that opened in all direction, like the canteen in Colony 9, was seen inside, but we aren't sure what it hosts. Another watchtower could be seen behind it. We could barely see the plateau in the distance, as the misty dust heavily blurred our vision.
Looking from their front, we could see metal barracks behind them. The guy, with his hands on his waist, scanned the horizon, exclaimed, "They cleared out real fast."
Ethel changed the topic, "I hear the attending Consul... is a particularly punctual sort of character."
The guy complained, "Please not another stickler for the rules..."
"Can't be long now..."
"Yeah... Got about five minutes to go... Whoa!" As if he glanced something to his right, he raised his voice. "Well, well, Consul dear. Your reputation certainly precedes you..." Ethel followed his glance. Some tall irregular plateau stood in the distance. A watchtower was placed at the end of the barricades. There were even some weird plants, like flowers with half-opened petals, with some part of it glowing yellow, growing next to a rock just in front of the watchtower. As the sound revved through the air, a transporting levnis emerged from the dusty air, travelling toward their direction.
Zooming in, there were some short trees, probably just 2-5 meters, growing rarely. Some more of those half-opened petals flowered plants grew.
As the flying levnis made a turn, from where the levnis is currently at3, the Ferronis came fully into view. It had very long claws, each held up by double-wheels with cyan treads (yes, the one we seen left of Ethel earlier.) Two pointed spear-head stuck out to both sides of the rim, and in between, a tombstone-shaped metal with a steering-wheel-like structure at the bottom part. To both sides of the levnis body, we see even more giant wheels, as tall as the levnis body itself, about 2 times taller than the wheels on the claws. The watchtower was about a third of the smaller claw wheels. The levnis seemed to hugged their settlements between its claws. We could also see a tall entrance into the body of the Ferronis from a distance. A bird nest fern like, but colored more like trees in Avatar, grew near a rock where the transporter levnis flew past.
As the transporter reached its landing spots, six legs got stretched out and landed in front of Ethel and the guy.
"Ugh! Sparks' sake, a hover type...?" The guy put his hands over his face, facing his ears at the levnis, eyes closed from the dust. "I mean, did they not get the memo about the terrain here?" 4 We could already see soldiers lining up behind Ethel and the guy as the levnis dropped.
As the door opened, Consul K, or rather, Moebius K, strodded down the platform. The others held up their right hand into a fist, the Kevesi welcoming pose. "(coughing)... Ohh, why is it so insufferably dusty around here?" He shook his right hand like how you would pinch a dirty piece of table cloth. "Clearly... the place befits its Dirt-rank status."
Ethel replied, "The rainy season will soon be upon us. I ask your patience, for just this short while."
Putthing his hands on his chin, "Is that so? Then, leaving aside the issue of cleanliness... " He scanned the surrounding with his blood-red-tinted vision, some purple foggy structure were visible, "Just what is with all this fog? I don't take kindly to my vision being obfuscated..."
Perhaps he had given up on complaining, not wanting to stand out in the dust further, asked, "Oh, forget it. So? Where are my quarters?"
"Yes, this way." Ethel lead the way, K followed, and the guy followed behind before the rest of the soldiers.
A huge room tiled with wooden planks, along the slanted top were diamond-shaped metal grids with glass windows. Below are the "top beams" of the house, followed by "bottom beams". In between, we could see some displays on one side, with yellow fluorescent light to the other side, just below the windows. A metal plaque with kevesi symbol hung below the bottom beams, below the fluorescent lights. The consul walked below this plaque, sitting down with his hands on the table. An oil lamp could be seen placed on one edge of the table.
Never stopped complaining, "Guh, what a filthy room! How the Dirt rank has fallen..." Scanning the room, we could see some dustbin and two-layer cupboard, with a paper notice stuck in between them. "Ah, I suppose that would be something to take up with the Castle."
Ethel: "Our Ferronis is an old model. I understand your displeasure... but please don't escalate this."
"Do I detect some defiance?" K wasn't happy with things outside his control.
"N-No, no, that was never my-" She furiously tried to explain, shaking her head.
"Relax, girl. I jest. Now then, let's cut the chitchat and talk business." He brought both hands together, his right folded on his left fist. "I'd like you to eradicate some vermin for me." His eyes seemed to be closed, we could not see his iris or anything from the eye opening of the helmet.
"Vermin? By your leave, sir, we've detected no movement from Agnian Ferronises around this area..." She turned to the guy who followed her around, whom nodded in agreement.
K explained himself, "Not Agnus! People. Soldiers. A band of deserters from both sides. Well, something like that."
Ethel was curious, "Agnus and Keves... both?"
As he put his hands on his cheek, "Hah! I think it's best you see for yourself. Hmm? This is expressly at the Queen's behest. Don't foul this up." As he finished, he opened his eyelids, and the moebius icon glowed.
Back at where the Kevesi queen is, the pods still beside. She stood before the giant structure, her "seat," holding her staff. OK. Her seat isn't actually a seat. It is a metal platform, 5 metal "arms" stretches from its center at about equal distance. Two "armrest" like feature stood beside5. Above, we could see a flame clock, the left filled yellow like Agnian, the right glowed blue like Kevesi, touching each other at 12 o'clock. Two of "<" and ">" each lay at both sides.
Footnotes:
1: A fact, his height is about the radius of the levnis' wheel.
2: Ahem, ahem, unconscious reaction to delicious food.
3: Still in the air
4: How he got to talk amidst the dust was incredulous.
5: But if those were armrest, even if the queen held out her hand straight, she wouldn't have touch both at once, for her hands can't reach both.