Xozo gets no further

  Because the crack of the whip silences her. The sound isn't loud, but final like the air itself remembers who is in charge.

  “What in Orrynthal’s Nine Cosmic Deathsongs,” says the Mora Relle, their voice syrup-thick and sharp with acid, “could you possibly want, Xozo?”

  The speaking faerie pauses momentarily to continue the lashings around her. With a huff she then continues, only half engaged with Xozo. “Can’t you see we are busy... meticulously... logging every detail Orrynthal has deemed worth recording? Do you not think... we’ve already considered every dumb... question you might bring... us? Because we have... and we all know, even you, deep down... that wasting even one more moment on you... would be a disservice to Orrythal. Have you... considered that?”

  Xozo opens her mouth. Closes it. Tries again. “I... we... actually, I was just...”

  Ruffle-Hem Roses. Eileen places a hand on Xozo’s arm. She doesn’t rush in. She buys time... calmly, professionally... with the same undertone she once used when someone tried to sell her off-brand perfume at full price. The kind that came with a too-sparkly ribbon and promises of far away lands, but smelled mostly like bathroom cleaner and bad decisions.

  It was clear of course what kind of creatures these were from their space alone. Archivists. Keepers of order. Loggers of detail so precise it could cut. They didn’t just value structure, they revered it. Tradition, hierarchy, protocol. Everything in its place, a testament to their overwhelming need. To manage and to hurt if need be. Anything required to remain in control.

  Even their minds, Eileen suspected, were much the same. She had yet to meet a species so casually consistent in the institutionalized art of hurting one another. That it even made the barbaric gnome clans to the south look like free spirits by comparison.

  Her gaze glides across the atrium again. The floors are gleaming and sparkling, the shelves are symmetrical to the point of discomfort. High above scrolls float on unseen currents, fluttering with perfect timing, never once colliding. All of it reinforcing the narrative of their being, telling a story to Eileen that started making her smile. Not kindly. Not cruelly. Just the smile of someone who recognizes a stage when she sees one.

  These terrible creatures, these ebony quills, killers of parents and harbingers of fractured families loved this place because it was a theater for them. A pageant of precision masquerading as administration. Supremacy maintained not through weapons or laws, but through elegance and ritual through the illusion, that everything here ran without flaw, without question. It was a space that demanded perfection in its highest form and had no place for slippage, not even an inch.

  The point reinforced by the way in which Mora Relle had struck first. The sharp, quick, deliberate interruption. The cutting of the pace of the conversation. The multiple avenues of attack. It was clear that this Ruffle-Hem Rose would have never responded to anything well. The conversation would have always headed towards a redirection. It was the act of someone terrified of being seen in the breath between a mistake and their recovery. It was something she could use. She could exploit.

  For Eileen had seen dozens of places like this before. In council meetings. Zoning disputes. Book clubs and Dinner Parties where the bylaws were ancient, incoherent, and often came with unsaid rules that were treated like scripture. Power, in those spaces, lived not in reason but in presentation of reason and it always worked. Until it didn’t.

  System like that, like this couldn't be fought head-on. Not if you wanted to win. You couldn’t roar, couldn’t demand, couldn’t raise your voice, that would be playing into the presentation, into the theater, into the drama.

  Instead you had to ask questions. Small, curious, innocent ones. Things like oversight. How one manages mistakes. What happens when something goes wrong. They were the types of questions you had to ask, softly, with patience always in full view of an audience. Always in full view of the stage. For the stage made the actors sloppy and all it took was reminding them of who the protagonist is while handing them the lines they forgot to rehearse.

  “Well, Mora Relle,” Eileen says, voice warm, pleasant, precise. “Your archives are so very neat. I wonder... how do you truly keep track of every single document?”

  The faerie turns. A gleam of self-importance already warming their gaze. “We are lifeforms that are simply above you,” They say as they lift their chin with something approaching reverence for their own breath. “Our traditions date back hundreds of thousands of years, and we have celebrated them for thousands more. Keeping track of something as trivial as bookkeeping is laughable.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Eileen rubs the top of her hands. A small motion. Habitual. Calming.

  She thinks then of the key. For VIP’s Only! Tucked safely in her shawl. Something about it felt made for this place. Orrynthal was clearly some sort of leader or deity. If they had served Orrynthal this long, then Orrynthal must have gotten used to them derailing many a visitor. Perhaps passes were made. For priests. For envoys. For guests of... status.

  Which made sense, given the fuzzy tumbler had mentioned the expectation of such arrivals when she first came. Of course, she’d assumed it was a joke. But then again, given how much she had discovered, maybe it wasn't. Maybe their was a kernel of truth in it afterall.

  “Oh, then I’m so curious, dear, how do you store your VIP passes and official decrees? Is there a special ledger?”

  The haughty smile vanishes from Mora Relle’s face. A pinched line of suspicion forming instead. “Of course we do,” they snap. “It is standard policy and procedure to retain special ledgers for VIP passes and official decrees given to representatives of Orrynthal. It is our mission to know who is and isn’t on the ledgers.”

  Eileen leans forward slightly. Not aggressively. Just... attentively. “And surely...,” Eileen says dragging the sentence out “in all that time, you’ve misplaced a scroll or two. A smudge. A lost record. A signature overlooked. You must have a system for handling small slip-ups.”

  The growl begins low in Mora Relle’s throat and it makes Xozo gently tug at Eileen’s sleeve. “We should really go,” she whispers. Urgent. Eyes darting.

  But the sound from Mora Relle's throat creates the opposite problem, drawing hundreds, no, thousands of faerie gazes in their direction. The pause between them widening the gap until is feels as if a single hand had frozen the moment. Every maroon wing, every gleaming thread, now turned toward them in hunger.

  “Never,” Mora Relle hisses. “Not once in the entire reign of Orrynthal’s cosmic empires have we, the Ebony Quills, ever made a single slip-up.”

  The air feels thick now. Like it is holding its breath. Eileen does not flinch. Instead, she reaches into the folds of her shawl and draws out a pass. Platinum. Warm. A feeling of ridiculousness. Labeled in handwriting that looped with optimism: For VIPs Only!

  “Well,” she says softly as she holds it high. “Then clearly, you must know who I am.”

  A hush rolls over the atrium like the slow closing of a thousand velvet curtains. All motion slows, a collective inhalation held too long. Eileen doesn’t lower her hand.

  Mora Relle blinks. Once. Twice. Their gaze flits from the pass to Eileen’s face, searching for the joke, the crack in the mask, the punchline. But she can't find it. “I...” The faerie's voice falters, not from doubt, but from the unbearable weight of needing to respond correctly.

  “That... pass is unregistered. It must be. There are no... no pending arrivals listed today.” Eileen’s head tilts just a fraction, that teacherly patience still in her eyes. “Oh, but surely,” she murmurs, “you said yourself, your records are flawless. Orrynthal’s will demands it. If I’m here, then surely... I’m meant to be.”

  Xozo makes a soft, strangled sound, half awe, half horror. The situation forcing Mora Relle to draw in a breath like it’s the first they’ve ever taken. “That pass could be forged,” they hiss. “Show me the seal. The embossment. Let me verify it.”

  “Oh no,” she says, her voice warm, steady, deliberate. “I wouldn’t dream of handling it incorrectly. Perhaps one of the others could verify it?” Her tone carries the gentlest lilt of concern, gracious, almost maternal. “You understand, of course. We can’t afford to let you handle such a task. I mean, with something this official.”

  She turns the card just slightly, letting it catch the atrium’s cold glow. The loops of handwriting shimmer faintly, elegant, effortless, irrefutable. “I imagine there’s a verification station somewhere. Protocol, yes?” She gestures lightly, as if it’s all so reasonable, so tedious, so normal. “Wouldn’t want to violate Orrynthal’s sacred filing sequence.”

  A flicker, panic now, barely hidden, tightens in Mora Relle’s mouth. The faerie opens a drawer from the base of their pulpit, withdrawing a black-lacquered monocle, ornate and absurd. It clicks as it unfolds. Eileen watches without blinking.

  Raising it, they bring the monocle to their eye, examining the pass like it might combust. “This... this seal... it predates the Last Revision.”

  “Curious,” Eileen hums. “So it’s old." Tapping her arm lightly she pretends to count on her lips. I mean its been a few eons since we last spoke but honestly I didn't expect things to have gone this..." Eileen lets the last words soften linger rather then same them outloud. She knew these bureaucrats were already filling in the blank for her.

  “It’s from a ledger that was...” Mora Relle’s voice drops, horrified. “Decommissioned.”

  The air shivers again. A faint sound rises... rustling paper like a warning wind. “Decommissioned?” Eileen repeats, her tone all soft edges and polite surprise. “But if the pass remains intact, and the seal is unbroken... wouldn’t that suggest the ledger was retired in error? Or perhaps prematurely?”

  A pulse passes through the atrium. Not sound. Not wind. Just motion, dozens, hundreds of faerie eyes blinking, recalibrating. The actors remembering their lines. Or realizing they never learned them at all. Even Mora Relle’s composure starts to fracture, their wings twitching in small, compulsive patterns. “There is no error,” they mutter. “There can be no error.”

  Eileen’s smile is as light as ever. “But you said mistakes never happen,” her voice so calm it nearly sings. “So if I’m standing here with a valid pass, and your records don’t account for me... then clearly, one of you must have a second ledger. A... confidential one.”

  She lets the silence stretch.

  “Unless,” she adds delicately, “you’re calling Orrynthal a liar.”