SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Look Down (New)

Look Down

In Atlas, prison cells had — with exceptions, for prisoners like the hacking thief recently brought to justice by Rainbow Dash and Blake — moved from metal bars to walls of hard-light powered by dust, but in Mantle, at least in the rear areas of this particular Mantle police precinct, the cell door was still a row of cold, grey metal bars, a design almost as old as civilisation itself.

On the wrong side of the bars, sitting with her legs spread wide open on a narrow bench backing against the wall, sat Neon Katt.

"Hey," she said.

"'Hey'?" Ciel repeated. "Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

"No, I've got plenty to say for myself; I just thought I'd start with a 'hey,'" Neon replied. She grinned. "You know, if you were really my friend, you'd be in here with me instead of on the other side of that door."

Ciel didn't deign to dignify that with a response. She folded her arms. "Dare I ask?"

"I saw some cops breaking up a protest in support of the strike, outside the technical college," Neon said, "and I thought to myself 'those cops don't look like they need any help, but those kids sure do.'"

"And that's why you were arrested for assaulting a police officer," Ciel said, her voice as flat as a well-maintained road.

"Considering that no less than four cops pinned me to the ground and knelt on top of me — including one on my neck, if you please — I think I have a pretty good claim to be the real victim here," Neon said. She leaned forwards. "The law doesn't arbitrate good and evil: just because something is legal doesn't make it right; just because something is illegal—"

"Does not make it wrong, yes; I am aware," Ciel murmured, thinking about Penny and her situation and the way in which Ciel had allowed herself to be complicit in a grave injustice. The very thought of it made her shiver. I can only hope that my regret is sufficient to constitute repentance. "Even so, attacking the police—"

"Who were attacking unarmed protesters," Neon said. "Kids our age, Florentin's age, with placards and voices, and the cops were laying into them with batons and gas—"

"'Gas'? Ciel repeated incredulously.

"You don't think they would have got me without gas, do you?" Neon asked. "I yelled at the kids to run, and then I held off the cops until I couldn't breathe any more, couldn't see because of the stinging in my eyes; that's when they brought me down."

"Are you alright?" Ciel asked. "Have you seen a doctor?"

"No," Neon admitted. "But I feel better." She coughed, although it was hard to tell — even after Ciel's long acquaintance with Neon — if she was really coughing or pretending to in order to make light of the situation. Neon leaned forwards, her knees resting on her legs. "As huntsmen, we have a responsibility to protect the weak and the powerless. As a follower of the Lady, I am instructed to follow the tenets of our faith—"

"I am not sure what the Lady has to say about strikes," Ciel pointed out.

"The Lady has a few things to say about slavery," Neon replied. "Ciel, I love you, but you cannot make me feel bad about this. Just because I'm in a cell doesn't mean that I didn't do what was right."

"'And they who believeth in me, though they be cast into a bondsman's cell, shall enjoy the liberty of heaven,'" Ciel whispered. She paused for a moment. "As a matter of fact, I'm not here to rebuke you. In truth…"

She trailed off, her sense of obedience to the law and to the lawful authorities warring in her heart with Neon's call to a higher, more natural justice.

In many ways, this was all the fault of Blake and Rainbow Dash, although one might not, indeed one ought not, to call it fault. The glory of Blake and Rainbow Dash might be a more apt descriptor, the latest glory in a series of glories that had crowned Blake's brow like Mistralian laurels and rendered her resplendent.

The latest exploit in which they both had shared had been, of course, the assault they had made upon the Schnee Dust Company, the revelation of Calliope Ferny's … some, including Neon just now, called it slavery; others called it a trafficking ring; the mildest word for it was 'exploitation.' Distant mines had been raided, faunus rescued, and now, some of those faunus were returning to Mantle with their bodies — sometimes even their faces — branded with the letters 'SDC,' and tales of their harsh treatment, going back years in some cases, upon their tongues.

The effect in Mantle — the effect upon Mantle — had been electric. For a start — and this was by far the most minor impact of their actions — it had made celebrities of Blake and Rainbow Dash; it no longer mattered that Blake was a Menagerie-born transplant or that Rainbow Dash embodied every negative stereotype of the Atlesian officer who could not look at Mantle without their lip curling into a sneer; had they returned here, there wasn't a bar in the city where they wouldn't have been stood a round on the house — if they'd been old enough to drink, anyway. Long black wigs, and wigs in all the iridescent colours of the rainbow, were now a common sight in toy and novelty shops; Ciel herself had made a pair of blue cardboard ears and stuck them onto an old hairband for Alain to go along with his rainbow wig. Meanwhile, Father Gregory had asked Ciel if she could get one — or better both — of the new heroes to put in an appearance at the church fete to help raise money for the food bank, since it would be an even bigger draw than the tombola prizes.

Ciel had told him she would consider it; she knew that she really ought to ask them both — it was for a good cause, after all — but the thought of how insufferable Rainbow Dash might be about it was almost enough to make her recoil from the notion.

In any case, the effect upon Rainbow and Blake's personal popularity was, however meteoric, rather a secondary concern. The main effect of their actions, of the revelations they had brought to light and of those they had liberated coming home to Mantle, was to stir the city out of grim despondency and rouse it to outrage, even fury.

There were limits, it seemed, to what this city would tolerate.

The employees of the SDC had been the first to go on strike. They had no union — efforts to create one had always failed — nevertheless, they had voted — by a simple show of hands in the yard, admittedly — to down tools and then proceeded to do just that. The wholesalers had closed, the refineries had fallen silent, the picket lines had sprouted up as from out of the rock and stone. That would have been quite enough, but the railwaymen, the bus drivers, the firefighters, even the nurses and the teachers had walked out in sympathy with the miners.

Sympathy strikes were as illegal as wildcat strikes, but — as Neon and Penny had both separately pointed out for Ciel — just because something was against the law did not make it immoral. And besides, there came a certain point when the number of people breaking the law approached or surpassed the number of people obeying it, and law itself became something farcical and worthy of mockery.

Ciel thought — feared, perhaps — that they might have passed that point already; at any rate, it could not be far off.

It felt like anarchy; on every street corner, it seemed that there was some new demonstration — a picket line here, a protest there, a rally by Hanlon Fifestone in the middle of the street — some of which ended up clashing with the police and the garrison; the news had managed to find a few people who did not want to strike, but who felt unable to go to work or who had suffered the consequences for trying. And yet, at the same time, could she really say that they did not have cause? The mask had fallen from the SDC, and a savage face stood revealed behind it.

A savage face … or a branded one.

If people had had enough, could they be blamed? If people wanted justice, was that wrong? If people only wanted to use the outrage to advance their own positions, then did their positions not deserve advancement?

Could these actions really be condemned, on moral rather than strictly legalistic grounds?

"People all over Remnant require dust," she said. "It is the lifeblood of our world."

"Then people all over Remnant can push the SDC to settle the strike," Neon retorted.

Well … quite. To condemn the strike as causing disruption was to ignore not only the fact that disruption was the entire point, but also that Jacques Schnee could bring an end to all of his disruption simply by agreeing to the demands of the strikers.

"They're not even asking for anything unreasonable," Neon went on. "At least, I don't think so, anyway: SDC Security disbanded, workers' representatives on the board, an end to wage garnishment, and improvements to working conditions. I don't see anything wrong with any of that." She got up and started pacing back and forth in her cell, swinging her arms like a pair of pendulums. "What they've done … what Dashie and Blake found, it's wrong, Ciel; it's evil." She looked at Ciel. "You get that, right?"

"Of course," Ciel said. "Those responsible have been arrested—"

"And now we want to reckon with the system that let it happen."

"'We'?" Ciel asked.

"I'm from Mantle," Neon reminded her. "And so are you, for that matter."

"I am aware of that."

"Then answer me this," Neon said, "when did this city last feel so alive as it does now, so full of purpose as it does now? Mantle has been on the down for years, and people have been just letting it happen — you only have to walk the streets to see that — but now? Go out now and then come back and tell me that Mantle is in decline. Tell me that people are lying down and taking it without a fight. I don't recognise this as the city that let old Mrs. Peterson die alone and didn't care to catch the guy who did it; this is…" — she slammed her fist into her other open palm — "this is a city that's gotten up off the floor and put up its hands for a few more rounds. I think this might be the best thing that could have happened to Mantle. Which is ironic, considering it was Dashie who did all this."

Ciel snorted. “I wonder how much she would appreciate that.” She paused. “I must admit, there does appear to be more … it is a small thing, but I saw people cleaning their windows on my way here.”

Neon nodded. “I think that if we win this fight, there’s going to be a lot more pride in Mantle than there was before.”

“The way you say 'we' makes you sound like Robyn Hill,” Ciel murmured.

“No, I’m not,” Neon replied. “If I were sounding like Robyn Hill, I’d be ranting and raving about how awful Atlas is for keeping us down. I’m from Atlas, but I’m also from Mantle, and I’m also a faunus. I contain multitudes. The point is that all this has given Mantle something to fight for, and fighting has given Mantle something to believe in.”

“Or at least a reason to believe in itself,” Ciel suggested.

“Like I said, this isn’t the city where an old woman was left to die,” Neon said. “This, now, this is the city where everyone came together to fight for what was right because they understand we only win when we stick together. Which is kind of the most Atlesian sentiment they could have, really. The power of sheer numbers. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“About the power of sheer numbers?”

“About any of it,” Neon said.

Ciel was silent for a moment. “I cannot,” she said, “at least, not easily, not with a clear conscience. It is … disturbing, the heavy handedness with which the police will act, considering their inaction in other areas.” They would not investigate a murder, but they will assail unarmed protesters with all the force at their command. Are they officers or law or tools of the powerful?

“However,” she went on, “there is one area for which I feel I can chide you, despite your seeming sure that is impossible.”

Neon’s eyebrows rose. “Go on, give it a try.”

“Your mother has no idea where you are,” Ciel declared.

A whimper escaped from Neon’s lips. “That is … that is below the belt,” she said. “You haven’t told her yet, then?”

“Not yet,” Ciel said. “She called me, as it happens, worried sick because you didn’t come home last night. She’d hoped that you were with me and had forgotten to tell her so. I told her that you weren’t with me but that I would find you. I was worried sick myself, with all of this … everything that’s going on, I thought you might have gotten into trouble.”

“I kind of did,” Neon said.

“Yes,” Ciel agreed. “Yes, you did.”

“But for a good cause,” Neon added.

“Probably, yes, but I’m not sure that your mother will see it that way,” Ciel murmured.

“No, she won’t; I can hear the lecture already,” Neon muttered. “Throwing away my future.”

“Criminal record,” Ciel said.

“After all she’s sacrificed.”

“Don’t think before you act,” Ciel said.

“What would my father say if he were alive to see me now,” Neon said.

“Surely, she wouldn’t go that far,” Ciel said.

“Oh, she definitely would,” Neon replied.

“That … is a little harsh, if so,” Ciel said softly. “Although, everything else seems much like what I would hear from my mother if our places were exchanged on either side of these bars. Except … I fear that that would never happen.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Neon said. “If you’d been in my place, in the moment, all your concerns, all your doubts, they would have fallen away, and only the action, only the clarity of what was going on, who was right and who was wrong, would have remained.”

Ciel glanced down at the grey floor beneath her feet. “You are … very kind to say so,” she murmured. Although I’m not so sure you’re right.

“So … are you going to tell her?” Neon asked. “My mother, I mean?”

The door to her cell slid open.

“You can tell her yourself,” Ciel said, “when you tell her that you have to go to Atlas to report to Major Santiago at oh-seven-thirty hours for disciplinary action.”

Neon blinked. “I’m … going to Atlas?”

“You are very lucky,” Ciel declared. “You are not being charged with any offences; rather, the police have agreed to allow this to be handled as a matter of school discipline. Although, if you escape a stint in solitary confinement, it will be a miracle.”

Neon stared at her. “I … I can walk out of here? Like the Mistralian prisoner?”

“No,” Ciel said. “You can walk out of here and onto an airship bound for Atlas.”

Neon snorted. “Chance would be a fine thing; the skydock staff are on strike too; there are no airships flying.”

Ciel rolled her eyes. “Then I’ll call Rainbow Dash and have her come here to pick you up,” she said. “It is a right and proper thing to stand up for what is right, even if it leads to punishment; however, you still have to actually suffer punishment.”

Neon sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to console myself with the knowledge that I’ll be rewarded for my virtues in the next life.” She stepped out of the cell. “So how did Major Santiago find out that I was in here?”

Ciel didn’t meet Neon’s eyes. “I really cannot imagine.”

She felt, rather than saw, Neon put one arm around her shoulder. “Oh, I think you can imagine pretty well.”

Ciel hesitated. “I … may have pleaded with her for assistance when I found out that you were being held in custody. It was … the least I could do, after all your … everything.”

They walked out of the police station, ignoring the desk sergeant who was giving Neon a dirty look, and out onto the streets of Mantle. The air was brisk and bracing, a chill that struck Ciel’s face as soon as she emerged back into it.

Distantly, from some way off, the sound of a rally or protest drifted through the air, the repetitive chant seeming very quiet now, although it must be very loud indeed to be heard from a distance as it was.

“The miners! United! Will never be defeated!

The miners! United! Will never be defeated!”

“You see?” Neon asked. “Where would you have heard something like that around here before now?”

“I do wonder what has caused it,” Ciel murmured. “Not the outrage, but the confidence.”

“The SDC has been wounded,” Neon said. “It doesn’t seem invincible any more. People are thinking that if two kids can damage it, why can’t a whole city?” She took her hand off Ciel’s shoulder and slipped both arms around Ciel’s right arm. “So,” she said, “where to?”

Ciel looked at her. “Do you not think that you should go home?”

“Probably,” Neon muttered. “But you’ll come with me, won’t you?”

Ciel continued to look at Neon.

“Don’t give me that look!” Neon replied. “My mom loves you. She thinks you’re a good influence on me. She might not be so hard on me if you’re there to back me up.”

“Ah, so you want me to be your shield,” Ciel said.

“A little bit,” Neon replied, without a trace of shame. “Plus, she’ll be really grateful to you for getting me out. She might even make that butter chicken you like.”

Ciel sniffed. “You have no need to bribe me,” she said stiffly. “But … if you were to invite me to dinner, I would not say no.”

“No. Of course you wouldn’t. You’re too polite.”

“So long as you promise that I will not get caught up in a family argument,” Ciel said.

“Weeeeeeell,” Neon said, drawing out the word as she and Ciel set off in the direction of Neon’s home, Neon still hanging on Ciel’s arm, “I … well, besides the whole ‘getting arrested’ thing … can I tell you something?”

Ciel looked at her. “You can tell me anything.”

“Can I tell you something that my mother is going to hate?” Neon asked.

“You can tell me anything,” Ciel insisted.

Still hesitated, her whole body squirming a little against Ciel’s arm. “I … I am considering — only considering, mind — but I’m thinking about, maybe—”

“You do realise that I am not your mother,” Ciel said.

“I know!” Neon cried. “But you’re not going to want to hear this either.”

Ciel breathed in and out. “There is absolutely nothing you could say that would change the fact that you are my best friend and I love you.”

Neon closed her eyes for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “I’m thinking about not joining the military after graduation.”

Ciel could not keep her mouth hanging open, though she felt that it was to her credit that that was all the reaction that she gave. She did not stumble, she did not squawk, she did not make any other vocal sound of displeasure, her eyes didn’t widen.

Inside, she wanted to do at least a little of all those things. You too? First Penny, and now you as well?

Is everyone going to turn against Atlas?

Is everyone … going to leave me?

That was unfair on Neon, very unfair, but … they had planned to be on the same team together when they went to Atlas. Obviously, circumstances — Ciel’s injury which forced her to sit a year out — had gotten in the way of that, but Ciel had had the idea that after they had both graduated, they might be in the same unit, sister officers as it were. Specialists working together, or maybe lieutenants in the same company or battalion.

To find that Neon didn’t want that … hurt, even if perhaps it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t, but it did. Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt if it hadn’t come so hard on everything happening with Penny, but it did, and so it did.

Ciel was filled with a spike of resentment towards Rainbow Dash, who had gained in Blake a friend and partner, while she, Ciel, was losing everyone.

To lose Penny could be attributable to Penny’s choice, but to lose Neon as well was starting to look like there was something about Ciel that pushed people away.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Neon said.

“Like what?” Ciel thought, worried that she hadn’t hid her expression as well as she had thought.

“Like … that!” Neon cried, waving her hand in front of Ciel’s face. “This isn’t anything to do with you.”

“Is … is it not?” Ciel asked softly. “First Penny—”

“Hey!” Neon snapped. “Don’t compare me to that two-faced bitch, okay? I don’t deserve that.”

Ciel frowned. “And Penny does not deserve such language.”

“Doesn’t she?” Neon demanded. “She puts on that happy, clappy, cheery, bouncy, smiley act in public and then kicks you to the curb. When I think about how she makes you feel, I want to kick her ass. If we were Mistralians, I would have called her out by now.”

“I am very glad that you have not,” Ciel replied. “Penny … there is more to the story than you know.”

“Then tell me the rest,” Neon urged.

“I cannot,” Ciel said.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“It’s classified,” Ciel told her.

Neon frowned. “Seriously?”

Ciel nodded. “Seriously.”

Neon blinked. “I … ooookay. I knew there was something odd about your team. Huh. Okay.”

She looked away for a second, and a silence fell between them, interrupted only by the sounds of their footsteps upon the pavement and the chanting of the crowd that was growing ever more distant.

“The miners! United! Will never be defeated!”

“I would love to serve alongside you,” Neon said. “But … I just think—”

“Are you trying to tell me it’s not me, it’s the military?” Ciel asked.

Neon grinned. “Kind of, although it isn’t really the military either. I meant what I said; this isn’t some Robyn Hill thing where I denounce the military and Atlas and spit in the General’s breakfast or whatever. This is…” She fell silent for a moment. “What is the point of going out and setting the world to rights when there is injustice and tyranny right here at home?”

“'Tyranny'?” Ciel repeated.

“Just because the tyrant is a boss instead of a king, does that make him any less of a tyrant?” Neon asked. “People have been suffering under the SDC just as much as they ever did under the kings of Mantle. It’s not as obvious suffering as burning someone alive, maybe, but … it’s still suffering, and people are dying just the same, and even if they weren’t … my point stands. When our own kingdom is so … first, take the log out of your own eye, then take the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Ciel nodded. “The epistle to the people of Crossed.”

“Doesn’t it seem like we’ve been plucking the specks from other people’s eyes for a while?” Neon asked.

“That depends on what you mean,” Ciel replied. “If Mantle’s problems could be solved by huntsmen, then Robyn Hill would have cleaned up this city by now. What is it you actually plan to do, if not join the military?”

Neon shrugged. “I thought about joining Thornmane’s Guardians.”

“I see,” Ciel murmured. “At least you are not planning to become an outlaw, I suppose.”

“But you don’t approve.”

“No,” Ciel said.

Thornmane’s Guardians were, as the name suggested, the creation of retired Major Bran Thornmane, a former Specialist, former commanding officer of the Ninth Battalion, who had founded Atlas’ first private security company, importing the model that proved so hardy in Mistral. The Guardians offered settlements, particularly small villages that might either struggle to afford to have a huntsman come out and serve them, struggle to persuade him to stay very long if he did, or have difficulty getting one to arrive in time, a permanent presence, a single defender — a guardian, hence the name — to stave off threats to the safety of these places, while Thornmane himself maintained a reserve of skilled personnel for occasional huntsman work but also to reinforce any particularly threatened area where a single guardian was insufficient to the task.

As Ciel understood the business model, the idea was that the more prosperous settlements and better paying jobs would subsidise the protection of the poorer places.

It was … not an unworthy cause, and certainly, it was better than simply complaining that the military could not be everywhere. But, at the same time…

“You could do so much more than sit on your tailbone in an out-of-the-way village getting fat and forgotten,” Ciel said, “and how would that help Mantle in any case? I understand your reasoning, and if you really believe that you can do more good outside of an Atlas uniform, then very well, but please, for my sake, think about how exactly any other path you might take will actually address the issues in this city.”

Neon grinned. “I could get in more fights with cops, and they couldn’t even arrest me for it.”

Ciel sighed. “First of all, I think they could, and second of all, please don’t descend to becoming an outlaw. Avoiding such was the great merit of becoming a Guardian.”

“Okay, okay,” Neon said. “I … guess you’ve got a point. Now that Blake and Dashie have done their thing, it’s not like there’s an enemy here who can be beaten up. It just … it felt okay to walk away when all that seemed to be waiting for Mantle was everything getting worse and worse until there was nothing but a pit of people moaning softly. But now that the city is crying out its rage, now that you can hear the people sing … it feels like quitting.” She paused. “Oh, and by the way, that’s not hyperbole; they were actually singing before the cops started in on them. Do you want to hear it?”

“Not particularly, thank you, although I have no doubt it was very stirring,” Ciel said, before Neon could get started. “I … understand; for a long time, I have wanted nothing more than to get away from here, perhaps to get my family out. But to change a city … that is not work for me. I have not the mind for it, nor the temperament; leave that to other hands. Is that really for you? And how?” She ventured a smile. “Also, your mother will no doubt kill you. Either that, or die herself of a heart attack brought on by too much apoplexy.”

Neon sniggered, leaning against Ciel’s shoulder. “Yeah, okay, I don’t need you to tell me that. She wants me to become a respectable officer, and I still might! I’m not saying that I’ve made my mind up; I’m saying that I’m thinking about keeping my options open more than I was before. Hey, Ciel?”

“Yes?” Ciel asked.

“How do you think all of this will end up?” Neon asked. “The strike, and everything else?”

Ciel looked across the street, to where a couple of children were playing in Blake and Rainbow Dash wigs. “I think,” she said. “I think that our friends might just have made a change that will last, but how much of one … I cannot say.”

Neon lived in a nicer part of Mantle than Ciel did these days; in as much as there were any nice parts of Mantle, Neon lived in one. Management in the hospitality industry paid better than serving in the military, it seemed. Mantle was basically structured in three or four rings, with the central areas of the city, the areas closest to the industries, being of somewhat poor quality, the poor quality of which Mantle was infamous in Atlas, if not in Remnant; then there was a sort of middle ring, a band surrounding the centre which took the form of what might have been called suburban had they not been so thoroughly urban in location, if not in character; then there was the outer part of the city, closest to the walls and thus closest to danger if the walls ever came down, and thus home to the very poorest, the most recent arrivals in Mantle, the new immigrants who headed north in search of jobs.

It was in the prosperous band sandwiched in the middle where the Katt family made their home, in a neighbourhood of detached two-storey houses with cladding over the walls to conceal the stonework, albeit the cladding was getting a bit dirty and showing it on account of the white colour which had probably been a mistake. It was not immune to the general Mantle malaise, by any means — the windows in this part of town could do with a good clean — but there was a car on every driveway, and there was a driveway, which was more than most homes in Mantle could say.

Speaking of the windows, the Katts’ next door neighbour was out cleaning theirs, while his children borrowed his bucket of water to fill their water pistols.

“Take this, Blake!”

“You’ll never get me, Rainbow Dash!”

“Are they fighting each other?” Ciel asked softly.

“Who else are they supposed to fight, I guess?” Neon murmured. “Who do you think would win if they did fight?”

“Blake,” Ciel said immediately.

“You said that really fast,” Neon declared. “Where’s your sense of loyalty?”

“First of all, Rainbow would never go all out against Blake,” Ciel pointed out, “and secondly, even if she did, she couldn’t hit Blake if she wanted to; Blake’s clones give her an insurmountable advantage.”

“There’s more to a fight than semblance, you know that,” Neon insisted. “If she wanted to keep swapping out clones, she’d burn through her aura, and if she didn’t, then Dash would beat her down.” She paused. “Not that it’ll ever happen.”

“No,” Ciel agreed. “No, it will not.”

The door to Neon’s house was red, a striking contrast to the white cladding over the walls around it, but which matched the colour of the four-door car out front. Neon fished her keys out of one of the pockets of her parka and opened the door with a series of mild clicks and rattles.

The walls in the hall were a grey blue, while the carpet was simply grey, and with the light from the open door blocked by Ciel and Neon, the room looked darker than it need have done.

As Ciel shut the door after her, she heard footsteps stamping quickly down the stairs.

“Neon!” Jade Katt cried as she rushed down the stairs. She was roughly of an age with Ciel’s own mother, shorter than either Ciel or her own daughter but not by a great deal, with jade green hair cut around her shoulders and big blue eyes set in a round face. A feline tail as green as her hair emerged from underneath her skirt, waggling furiously as she descended into the hallway. “Neon, you’re home!”

Neon smiled. “Hey, Mom.”

Mrs. Katt reached the bottom of the stairs. “Don’t you ‘hey mom’ me, young lady; don’t you know how worried I’ve been about you?! No idea of where you might be, no word on when you’d be back; I called your—” She noticed Ciel, and her expression softened at once. “Oh, hello, Ciel, dear.”

Ciel curtsied. “Mrs. Katt.”

“Oh, please, how many times? Call me Jade; you're old enough now,” urged Mrs. Katt. “How’s your mother, love? How’s your brother?”

“Alain is responding well to treatment,” Ciel said. “Mother is with him at the hospital, more often than not.”

“Of course she is,” Mrs. Katt replied. “That’s wonderful to hear. I’ve been lighting candles in the church for him.”

“Your concern is very much appreciated,” Ciel said. God and the Lady may not appreciate it, but we certainly do.

Mrs. Katt smiled warmly. “Thank you for looking for Neon; I felt better already when you told me that you’d go and look for her. I don’t suppose you can stay for dinner? I’m making biryani.”

Ciel smiled and bowed her head. “It would be my pleasure, Mrs. Katt.”

“Oh no, it’s always my pleasure having you around,” Mrs. Katt assured her. The smile slid off her face as her attention returned to Neon. “But as for you—!”

She grabbed Neon by one ear, dragging her protesting daughter — who, though she might protest, did not meaningfully resist; it was her mother after all — out of the hall and into the living room.

The carpet was grey in here as well, and the walls the same blue grey, but the large window admitted enough light that it did not seem so dark. A large picture of Neon’s late father hung on the wall facing the door, beaming down upon anyone who walked through the door, his portrait garlanded with yellow flowers.

An icon of the Lady sat on a small table underneath, with candles burning on either side of it.

In a padded armchair in the corner, beside the window, sat Neon’s paternal grandmother, Cerulean Katt, although the cerulean hair for which she had been named had mostly turned to white by now. A pair of cat ears emerged from out of that same hair.

“Ceru!” Mrs. Katt cried as she dragged Neon inside. “Look at the cat that came back at last!”

Cerulean’s ears twitched. “Neon!” she shouted. “You didn’t think to call! Your mother and I have been so worried about you!”

“I’m sorry, Nana—”

“I thought that you’d been kidnapped by robots!”

“That was in Low Town, not Mantle, Nana, and Rainbow Dash and Blake took care of it,” Neon said.

“Or had been taken away by the SDC.”

“Blake and Dashie took care of that too, Nana,” Neon said a little wearily.

“Then where have you been?” demanded Mrs. Katt.

Ciel looked away, her mouth tightening.

Neon straightened her arms at her side, not looking at either her mother or grandmother. “I … I … I was … I got arrested.”

There was a moment of absolute silence in the room; as the faces of Jade and Cerulean slid into shock and horror, the beaming smile upon her father’s face seemed almost inappropriate.

“You WHAT?!” they both yelled.

“Are you trying to throw away your future?!” Mrs. Katt shouted. “After all that I have sacrificed—”

“And there it is,” Neon muttered.

“What did you say?!”

“Nothing, Mom, nothing at all!”

Comments

[Mastermind4892]

It is so good to see Mantle getting its spirit back. It was where everything started and now the people are remembering the spirit of standing tall and overcoming adversity when they first came to this frozen continent. The same spirit that Atlas glorifies and never wastes an opportunity to boast about.

[Tsuguri]

Took me a bit to notice, but nice job fitting two references from Le Mis into here.

For those who are curious: the Chapter Title and the reference to starting to Hear the People Sing. Both Le Mis songs.

[Alysion]

11490346
Oh, didn't catch the first one. Thanks!

[Scipio Smith]

11490346
Until very recently, when Neon asked if Ciel wanted to hear what the people were singing it was actually going to be Marius and Enjolras lines from the reprise of Look Down - Where are the leaders of the land/where are the swells who run the show/only one man and that's Fifestone/speaks for the people here below - but I decided that was a little too much.

[Lancerguy]

11490390
This actually really helps provide some more background. I was waffling between if it was great or did not truly fit the chapter as Look Down was more about the conditions of the masses that lead to Revolution not the outbreak itself, the tension and the buildup as opposed to the let out. Do You Hear the People Sing fits the current atmosphere of Mantle as described by Neon. I can see why you thought adding those lines would be a bit much, especially how damming it would be for Ironwood's reputation which could be seen as too much too fast, and too unfair from a reader's POV