Chapter Text
The Builder Arrives at Sandrock.
With the shearing, cauterising sweep of her gaze, the Sun incised an old life from the new.
Not all the way, as Lucy had hoped. The memory of Highwind held on, pestering her with the ghost of its cool, breezy streets even as a tumbleweed jumped the tracks and struck her shoe with a loud crackle. The smell of her family home tugged at her even as the shimmering heat sucked the scent from her clothes and vaporised it. Highwind had moved, breathed, grown with every passing season. Sandrock rested its tired old bones, faded in ways that made Lucy forget what she was looking at with every blink. There was a sudden, tilting moment of dissonance. Reality fought its way to the surface and the mistake she had just made yawned up at her like an abyss, half a step from swallowing her completely.
As if to mock her, the sagging sign of Mason’s Workshop lost its battle with gravity and fell to the earth with a final jarring thump.
“Wow, this is great, huh?” the dark-haired girl called Mi-an exclaimed. Her voice sounded as desperate as it did hopeful. “It has… character! Lucky you! I got a nice spot near the Lab, but nothing beats a big yard, am I right?” Positivity and friendliness pulsed from her like heat from the noon sun. It was hard to tell if it was warming or suffocating.
“Well, it’s… it’s bigger than my atelier in Highwind, that’s true,” Lucy managed as she took in her new property. Keep it together, Lucy, she thought to herself. You knew this would be hard. Don’t panic. Find something broken and start there, like always.
Everything was broken. Lucy couldn’t see the equipment, just a series of ruins. Where was the factory? The facilities? Was this tiny fence all that stood between the design space and the train line? Was that a shed or a house? The faded, paint chipped door wasn’t even closed. It didn’t even have a lock.
“Wow, you had an atelier? ” Mi-an breathed wistfully, obviously impressed. “Highwind sounds amazing! Gee, Tallsky had community workshops because of all the students, you know? It was crowded, but you got used to it.”
Lucy could only stare as another tumbleweed was flung over the fence to roll through the yard. With a hesitant nudge, Mi-an leaned past her and over the gate to unlatch it. It swung open with a creak and the bright young woman motioned toward the property with all the pomp of a proud salesman. She shot the brightest, warmest smile ever witnessed by mankind at her fellow Builder.
“I bet there’s more stuff out back! I heard Mason say that they use Recyclers here, but his broke a few months back.” - here, a sympathetic lift of her shoulders - “You might want to get that back into operation first… Oh, but listen to me! You know what you’re doing! Maybe settle in first, unpack your things - you can come find me at my workshop when you’re done!”
The young woman hurried away with a final pat on Lucy’s shoulder. She petered off to a standstill on the other side of the tracks and dithered there, fidgeting. With an impulsive spin, she shot a hand up to wave.
“It’s really nice having another Builder here, Lucy!” she shouted, loud enough to startle the passing scrap-worker. “Let’s do our best, okay?!” With a final fist pump for emphasis, she turned and ran for the town as if to outpace her embarrassment, dark hair flapping. Lucy watched her go, humbled by the positivity.
She turned back and appraised her new house with a steely look.
“Alright,” Lucy said aloud, chin lifted with defiance. “Let’s see it, then.”
The door hadn’t been fully closed because a hinge was warped. Lucy shouldered it open and knocked over the bucket Mason had been using as a doorstop. It rolled noisily across the bare floorboards. The house smelled like oil and tanning leather. Dust motes swam lazily through the scant light piercing in through the uneven timberwork. What furniture there was was well-worn and utilitarian, so old that it could only be from when Sandrock was first settled; it occurred to Lucy that Mason had probably inherited all of this as well, the cabin a time-honoured tradition for anyone that had made Sandrock their questionable choice of career.
What better gift for a Builder than a fixer-upper.
Lucy flung her expensive luggage onto the end of her new bed, throwing up a substantial amount of dust into the air. She flapped the cloud away and opened the case up; right there, folded neatly and packed to perfection, was everything that she owned. These were the bits of her old life worth preserving and they all but glowed in the gloom, small pockets of culture and value and sentimentality that immediately appeared out of place against the lumpy bed mattress. A letter she didn’t remember packing had been placed carefully on top of a luxury sweater. She picked up the paper and carefully unfolded it.
Lucy, her mother wrote.
Hello, dear. You must be settling in if you’re reading this. I couldn’t resist leaving a little surprise for you when you arrived! A train trip that long must have been exhausting. The farthest your father and I have travelled was to that charming little vineyard near Lake Daw, and he chartered a plane for that! I can’t imagine a big public carriage. Was it too noisy? I’ve raised such a brave, impulsive girl. You’ll have to forgive us for not coming to visit, but Lucien has redirected some flights recently and you know how it is with Duvos nowadays.
Your father tells me to send you his regards. He’s insisted that we keep your room just as you left it so it’s ready the very second you come home. He seems to think we’ll be seeing you by Day of Memories, that’s how much he misses you. Such a sentimental man!
Anyway, I’ll leave you to settle in! We’re so very proud of you.
- Ma
… Lucy dropped the letter on her things and stared at it. To anyone looking on, this was a touching moment. This well-to-do young woman had clearly set out from home with the blessing of her family, a little out of place in the harsh, rugged clime, but clearly there for good reason. There was no subtext at all, just love and support.
Lucy felt prickly from head to foot. It was a familiar feeling. As usual, like always, she carefully picked her mother’s kind, mediating words from the text and took a long look at what remained.
He seems to think we’ll be seeing you by Day of Memories…
“Oh really?” Lucy seethed, instantly outraged. “Is that how you see it? I’m just going to stumble around for a month until I give up and crawl back to Highwind?” The insult brewed a little longer in the pit of her stomach. All that the silence did was sour it. “A month?!” she shouted, now thoroughly incensed.
Her father was a successful, talented, competitive, perfectionist of a man. He was very good at most everything, but he was especially good at letting his only daughter know just how hopeless he thought she was. Her mother was blind to the constant needling. For Lucy, there was only one thing of worth she had in common with her father. Pride pitted them against one another. A fit of prideful temper had sent Lucy halfway across the Free Cities to prove the biggest point of them all.
“I’ll show you a month!” Lucy fumed, then slammed the luggage shut on the letter and muscled down on it vindictively, elbowing and punching her frustration out. She was going to be the best damn builder this side of the dividing ranges. On her own, as far away from her father’s condescending ‘help’ and his pocket book as she could get. When she remembered how many expensive things she had packed, she fell back and took a final kick at the bed instead, dust erupting from the mattress.
The tiny, hesitant knock on the door instantly punctured a hole in her temper. A hand gently pushed the broken door open an inch.
“Helloooo?” a voice wheedled from the light.
Lucy fell upon the entryway in an embarrassed rush. The round, shiny-faced man on her threshold recoiled with a squeak, arms raised as if she were to bludgeon him. “Don’t shoot, I come in peace!” he warbled in a voice entirely too high for his rotund frame.
“N-no, I’m Lucy, the new Builder! I also come in peace!” Lucy babbled stupidly, raising her own hands in an awkward mirror. A thought occurred and she recoiled. “Wait, do… Do people here have guns? Are there guns here? Is that a thing?”
The man exhaled mightily, relieved.
“Oh, thank the Light! I heard a ruckus and was worried! But uh, don’t worry! Only the Civil Corps have weapons! And probably Cooper. And the Logan gang abso-lutely have guns, of course. Oh, and a few of the monsters are packing iron... Well, never mind that! I’m glad it was you in there and not an angry home invader! That would be bad! Greetings, Builder, on behalf of the Church of Light, welcome to Sandrock!”
He popped a party popper, covering her welcome mat in faded confetti.
“Thank you?” Lucy managed, clutching at her chest from the fright.
“You’re very welcome! I’m Burgess, by the way! Matilda told me you were coming today. As your go-to representative for all things church and community, I couldn’t wait to introduce myself!”
Burgess was a blonde, round, bright-faced young man with a perpetual flush and a nervous smile. He was wearing a uniform Lucy didn’t recognise, and he had pressed it and starched it to perfection. His blue eyes were startlingly vivid while at the same time every-so-slightly unfocused; Lucy couldn’t tell if he was picking out every flaw of her inner soul, or if he was peering into a different plane entirely. With all the quivering meekness of a boy handing over a love-letter, he presented her an ancient, ratty pamphlet.
Welcome to Sandrock, was stamped on the front in cursive, a sad attempt to try and make the blurry photo of the town look like a holiday destination.
“Just a little care package we like to give newcomers,” he said proudly. “Everything you need to know in handy-dandy print form! Conserve water! Haha, just a little spoiler there. But yeah, come find me if there’s anything you need, us Sandrockers need to stick together! Good luck!”
He suddenly snapped to attention as if he was a soldier in a parade, arms at his sides, then he spun on his heel and marched away with the same kind of embarrassed haste that Mi-an had. Lucy watched him go.
The sun pressed down from above, oppressively bright and hot. She stood in her own doorway, feeling the bite of the uv index on her nose, and counted to ten. She kicked a rogue tumbleweed that rolled past, accidentally wedging it in her fence. She browsed the pamphlet, noting that, yes, the town took water conservation very, very seriously. Bubble baths and mineral soaks had suddenly become a logistics problem, something she would need to solve later. Further reading revealed that there was a place called the Blue Moon (she looked up and confirmed the saloon across the tracks), a general store for sundries and an office for the local law keepers called the Civil Corps. The Church was located at the top of the town, just barely visible above the rooftops.
Not very many amenities. The town was a husk. Her workshop was in ruins. She wondered if her father knew, if this was all some kind of smug entrapment designed to remind her of just how not ready she was…
Lucy sucked in a breath.
Find something broken and start there, like always.
She smoothed her hair back and tugged her shirt straight, a fire raging in her veins.
Her tools should come first. The workbench would make the rest of this easier. The house was nowhere near adequate, but it would just have to wait. The workshop was priority one. She wasn’t sure what kind of craftsmanship a desert town would need, but better to cover all the standard bases. Smelting to the east of the yard, grinding and detailing to the south. She’d never used a Recycler before, but it sounded straight forward enough. She tried to shut the door and it bounced behind her, still broken.
There was nothing stable about Sandrock. A stiff breeze would blow the whole settlement over, that much was clear.
There was no longer any other option. She would simply have to make Sandrock stable. One broken bit at a time.