Tall brick structures, seeming like five meters in terms of the earth's measurement, rise above the streets, their walls darkened by soot. Metal pipes crawl along the sides of buildings, disappearing into upper floors and chimneys that constantly pour grey smoke into the pale sky, but not the blue sky, it is like yellowish. The air smells of coal and hot iron, thick enough that each breath tastes faintly bitter on anyone's tongue. Sound of blowing whistles can be easily heard. There are fallen wastages on the streets making like trash.
Children are playing, running in the streets. They seem to be happy living in such a dirty condition as if it were the earth, lung cancer could be easily produced. But fun fact, this is not earth.
There is silence in the carriage coming no sound from the interior portion. There Aeries and Varion are sitting quietly. Varion is taking a nap and Aeries is looking outside the window sliding the curtain beside. He is overwhelmed by the sight of children and city. In his thought, this is like Victorian era enriched in stem engine and advancement in some technology.
A few moments later, a massive iron machine rolls across a raised track, wheels clanking violently over cobbled rails. Steam erupts from its sides in greyish bursts, drifting across the road and swallowing pedestrians before thinning again. People barely react. They simply walk through the foam, accustomed to its passing, coats drawn tight and hats lowered against the ash falling like dark snow.
Carriages move alongside it, but they are not all pulled by animals. Some are connected to small boxlike engines mounted behind the driver's seat. Pistons pump, gears rotate, and the vehicle shudders forward with a rattling cough of smoke. The sound never stops — clanking, grinding, hissing — as if the entire city is a single machine struggling to remain alive.
Street lamps stand in a row, but not illuminated this time. It is connected by thin metal wires beneath the cobbles. A greyish orange color flickers when the moon is about to rise when the dusk falls upon the head. Street mechanics never go off to work as these lights always need to be repaired in three lights interval.
There can be seen mini shops rented in the ground floor of the medium height apartments. After going over twenty minutes by horse carriage, they reach at their destination. They step down from the carriage and walk along a pavement. After walking for a few moment in the stone path, they reach at a modest building seeming like a higher middle class family building. There is only a building standing beside this building.
The house is made of mainly bricks, colored with dark bluish black berry color. A short stone path leads to a short front door from the stone street. Beside it, a tall window looks onto the street, the glass slightly wavy and imperfect, distorting the shapes of passerby.
The ground floor holds most of the daily life. Through the windows, faint lamplight often glows in the evenings, illuminating shelves, a narrow table, and a cast-iron stove whose pipe climbs the interior wall before exiting through the roof. The air around the doorway carries a mixture of coal ash and boiled herbs, lingering as a quiet, familiar scent.
An exterior staircase of wood rises along the side of the house to the second floor. The railing is simple, suggesting repair rather than wealth. The upper floor seems quite bigger, yet actually same like ground floor, and its roof slopes inward, forming low ceilings and shadowed corners. Smokes escapes from a thin chimney, curling into ever present haze of the city.
The house seems not to be grand but also not to be a poor house from the exterior part. It is a place built less for comfort than for persistence. It was built by Aeries' father eight Turnings ago. There is no such kind of building around them.
Aeries unconsciously keeps his left hand in the back pocket. He finds an iron made key.
He unlocks the wooden door and steps in. Varion follows him behind.
Aeries and Varion both are shocked by the sight of the environment.
"Maybe a thief came last night."
But Aeries doesn't convince with this. He suspects looking around the room, "I think it is not the deed of a thief I guess."
"Whatever the robbery and stealing begin to start more rather than past."
Even this answer doesn't satisfy Aeries.
Varion doesn't give a chance of speaking to Aeries. He continues, "Lets clear and repair the surrounding."
Varion and Aeries start to work together, having a little chitchat passing between them. Aeries stops in front of the reading desk. There he sees some books and diaries kept randomly. It is like someone wanted to steal a valuable item from this desk or this room.
At a first glance Aeries becomes perplexed to understand the contents written on the diaries and books. It feels like he is never familiar with this language. He understands the reason why this is happening with him. He starts rubbing his forehead to focus and figure out. Putting his mind in deep concentration, Aeries finally recalls the name of this language, "Lethari".
Aeries thinks in his mind," This is the reason why I was feeling some kind of confusion when Varion was speaking with me. Every time he spoke my consciousness translates it into English automatically and I didn't understand it at all."
There are two bedrooms in total, one in the ground floor and one in upper floor. The rooms are not so big at all. It is of medium size perspective to the earth. There is dining room and a kitchen room. Aeries looks around the room in ground and upper floor. But something is knocking his mind saying, "Everything is not okay in this room."
Aeries clears his throat after clearing all and keeping them at the right place, " Are you done?"
"Yeah, almost."
"Everything is okay now."
"It seems like. Do you find any problem now?"
"No, no."
Aeries and Varion step down from the upper floor. Aeries sit on the bed and Varion sit on a wooden platform mostly like a chair.
Varion starts first, "What do you plan to do tonight?"
"Nothing in my mind actually."
"Why not go to the sect?"
Aeries cannot but hear. " Actually-"
"I don't want to hear your any word. You are coming with me tonight. That's final."
"Okay, as you wish."
"It is first time since last three Arcs you agree with my proposal."
"It's nothing like that."
"So that's final. You are coming with me."
After having a little chitchat between them, Varion stands and walks off the main door and bids farewell.
Aeries doesn't think anymore. He is tired going through all these staffs from last night. He closes the door and lies down on the bed. He doesn't think much of time. He falls in a deep sleep.
Aeries wakes up by the sound of knocking door.
"Who the hell comes here now? Disturbing my sleep!!"