Chapter Text
The low hum of chatter surrounds him completely as he swings his pickaxe, embedding it in the terracotta with a satisfying thunk. He yanks, pulling chunks of the clay loose, watching them skitter down, down, down, into the fishbowl below. They make a small sound as they travel, plummeting downwards.
He doesn't see the chunks land, watching instead as a small cloud of dust and sand billows up from the site of impact. He tears his gaze away, burying the pickaxe into the side of the canyon again, painstakingly carving out a path.
Other settlers work behind him, widening the path, carving it further into the side of the canyon as it spirals around and downwards. He reckons they're about halfway down, slowly working their way towards the base of the fishbowl.
He glances back, pickaxe held loosely in his grip as he watches the others work. The sun blinds him for a few moments, sending stabbing pains through the sides of his head, echoing upwards before fading away again. He wipes at his forehead before the sweat gathering there can drip into his eyes. He blinks away the dark spots in his eyes, wishing that there was a cloud to cover the sun, if only for a moment.
Maybe working through the heat of the day wasn't the best idea he’s ever had.
Someone shouts something, and he turns a little further to respond to them, twisting as though he has more space than he actually does. His foot slips over the edge, and he stumbles, quickly sliding down the side of the canyon as a few more shouts go up. He scrabbles at the terracotta, scrambling for purchase as he continues to slip backwards and towards the drop below.
He drops his pickaxe, not caring for the waste of resources as he uses his newly freed hand to grab at more ground, attempting to haul himself back up. Hands are grabbing his arms moments later, hauling him over the edge and back onto the thin path he’d created. The hands stay on his shoulders, pressing him backwards into the cliff edge.
“Gods, Sheriff, are you tryna give us all heart attacks?” He blinks up at the person speaking, smiling a little awkwardly as he continues to stare down at him. The man continues to hold his shoulders, as though afraid he’s going to fling himself over the edge as soon as he lets go.
“Sorry ‘bout that.” He laughs, and it seems to relax the man as he leans back. He feels like he should know his name, he’s pretty sure he told him - Alex? Axen? It started with an ‘A’, he knows that much. “Does anyone have a spare pick?” He asks, and Alex-Axen looks over his shoulder, shouting up to someone up top.
Someone yells back, confirmation that they have a spare. “Thanks.” He manages, pushing himself to his feet, using the canyon wall to steady himself. He can feel terracotta clumped beneath his nails, and he picks at it a little, removing it from where it's stuck and flicking it away.
Alex-Axen continues to watch him, even as the others return to work, chatter resuming and humming in the background.
“You sure you’re alright?” He looks a little concerned, which is nice. Fondness or something similar for the Sheriff is always good. Means he probably won't be killed. Which is good.
“I'm alright.” Alex-Axen, it might be something completely different now that he thinks about it, still looks concerned, face creased and cast into stark shadows by the high sun beating down on them. “I swear.” He laughs, holding his hands up, palms out.
Someone arrives with a new pickaxe for him, handing it off. He rubs his hands up and down the handle, getting a feel for the new one as Alex-Axen continues to stare at him. Already the wood is warming underneath his hands. Alex-Axen must get tired of staring at him rather than working and turns away, walking back up the thin trail carefully, leaving him to continue downwards.
He turns, swinging the pickaxe into the terracotta again, ripping more chunks loose, careful to keep his weight in the balls of his feet. He’d rather not go over the edge twice in five minutes, that’d be a record, even for him. And the people settling with him might realise that he’s not quite cut out for being a sheriff.
He pushes those doubts away, focusing entirely on the feel of his pickaxe in his hands and the weight of the sun on his back, warming his jacket just a little too much to be comfortable. He swings again, pickaxe thunking as he embeds it in the wall again.
He easily falls into a routine, chipping away at the terracotta and watching it scatter, sliding and bouncing down into the fishbowl. There’s going to be a sizeable amount there when they eventually reach the bottom. They’ll probably have to clear it out. Though he might wait until the path is large enough to comfortably bring a horse and cart down. He doesn't particularly feel like transporting all that terracotta back up top without a horse. Seems like it’d take a lot longer than necessary.
Dirt rains down on his head with the next swing of the pickaxe and he glances up, squinting angrily at the sun as it continues to blaze overhead. There’s no clouds today, there are rarely any clouds ever, but he’d wished there would be at least a little cloud cover for the start of this project, if only to make it a little more bearable.
The wood of the pickaxe handle digs into his hands, the grooves of wood no doubt leaving imprints on his palms as he curls his grip tighter around the handle. He can feel his nails bite into his palm, focusing on that rather than the headache that sweeps over him in an almost dizzying wave.
He leans forward, resting his head against the terracotta. It’s blessedly cool, still damp with moisture that had seeped in and remained there until he unearthed it again with his pickaxe. He remains there as the headache seems to spiral around his skull with an electrical feel, occasionally shooting down his neck and into his shoulders.
He opens his eyes, unsure of when he closed them, and winces a little at the sudden invasion of light. He pushes away from the wall slightly, staving off a wave of dizziness as he blinks. He can still hear the others chattering and shakes off the odd feeling that’s been following him around all day, nipping at his heels like an overly persistent dog.
He shakes the feeling off, burying his pickaxe into the clay again and ripping it from the wall with maybe a little more force than necessary. The handle creaks beneath his hands and he loosens his grip, apologising silently as a particularly large chunk of clay cascades into the fishbowl. The cloud of sand that follows is particularly large, billowing up until he’s convinced he can smell it. It’s thick and cloying, filling up his nose entirely as he turns his head to the side and sneezes.
The sudden jerk of motion makes his head pound with a vengeance, the pain pulsing at his temples. He presses a hand into one side, rolling his shoulders to try and relieve whatever tension is causing the pain. It doesn't work with any level of effectiveness, leaving him staring at the layers of terracotta with annoyance.
Someone yells and he turns his head, blinking the sun from his eyes. “What!” He yells back, staring at the person standing at the start of the path. They inhale, cupping their hands around their mouth.
“Someone wants to talk to ya Sheriff!” They yell again, and he sighs, readjusting his grip on the pickaxe and starting back up the path. His legs ache from standing up all day, his head pounding in time with his heartbeat. He can almost hear the blood rushing around inside of his head as his ears echo a little.
It takes an eternity to reach the person standing at the start of the path. He thinks her name’s something like Lotus. The flowers that grow on lily pads. He smiles at her when he reaches her. She stands there, unimpressed, hands on her hips.
“When was the last time you took a break?” She asks, and he blinks.
“Who wanted to talk to me?” He asks.
“Me, Sheriff, if it wasn't obvious.” She rolls her eyes, as though he’s the dumb one here. “When was the last time you took a break?”
“Sometime this morning?” He says, though it sounds like more of a question than anything else. He doesn't wear a watch and the only clock he has is on his comm, which is tucked nice and safely into his bag so he doesn't accidentally drop it into the fishbowl. He doesn't fancy paying for a new one when he’s just settling.
“And what time is it now?” She asks. Her eyes are unnervingly bright, cutting through him with her intense stare.
“Sometimes around midday.”
“Wrong.” He blinks at her. “It’s two in the afternoon. Sit down and take a goddamn break before I make you, Sheriff.”
“And if I wanted to keep working?”
“Well I’d break your legs and you wouldn't be able to work for a while.” She smiles at him then, and he shivers, despite the heat of the sun still warming him. “That wasn't a suggestion.”
“Alright,” he raises his hands in surrender, “I got the message, going to sit down now.”
He turns away from her, walking towards where a few other people were sat, settling on a free log, staring at the dusty centre where there’d normally be a fire. There’s not one right now, burning something now would be a waste of resources and just be overall inconvenient for anyone wanting to sit here.
“Lotus bully you into taking a break?” One of them laughs, a few others join in.
“Unfortunately.” He sighs, lamenting the inactivity. “Do you reckon I can sneak back past her?”
“You’d fall off the cliff edge if none of us were there, Sheriff.” They smile at him as they speak. “Wait until there’s someone there to haul your ass back up, yeah?”
“I’ll be sat here ‘til tomorrow morning at this rate, you lot love being bullied into taking a break.”
“Because we’re not tryna give ourselves heat exhaustion.” One of them nudges him in the side, and the movement barely jostles him. It still sends a small shock through his skull, like his brain is rattling around in there.
“I've not got heat exhaustion .” He scoffs. He’s probably got heat exhaustion, he’s not an expert on the symptoms, but he’s pretty sure he has heat exhaustion. He accepts the water flask when offered it, taking small sips of water. The effect isn't instantaneous, obviously, but he feels a little better for it at least.
“Sheriff.” He glances upwards, “What’re your plans for building once we’ve got a steady path down?”
“We’ll need timber first, there’s a settlement nearby that sells timber, right?” He gets various assent around the group, “I’ll probably take Bullseye out and get a shipment for here. Can't go wrong with some that, probably set up the skeletons of a few houses and focus on structural integrity. We can live in tents for a few more days, yeah?”
“Will it be a few more days?” One asks, “Or will it be a few more weeks ?”
“A few days, I'm sure. We can get things set up pretty quickly if the shipment arrives in a timely manner.” He hears someone mutter ‘timely manner’ to their neighbour and tries to ignore it. “We can get that shipment here quicker if we finish this path, too.” He stands, setting the water flask aside and gesturing for everyone else to stand too.
They do, but not without some half-hearted complaining and groaning about it. He’s at the front of the group as they return to the path, Lotus giving them a judgemental look from where she’s skinning an animal. He doesn't look closely, both to avoid her accusing stare and the sight of the dead animal.
He works alone again, on the thinnest strip of pathway, hacking away at the cliff to lead them further down. The path is a little jagged, but those working behind him smooth it out as they cut further into the cliff. He’s only concerned with reaching the bottom, even as he feels the urge to turn the other way.
He pauses, work grinding to a halt as the urge to walk in this specific direction makes itself known. It seems to tug inside his chest, pulling him away from the cliff. He halts just on the edge of his thin path, dislodging a few chunks of terracotta. He steps back from the edge, but continues to stare into the distance, towards where he needs to go.
He blinks, and the urge is gone, replaced by the headache that makes him tilt forward a little before leaning further back, away from the incredibly dangerous edge. He shuffles back a little and returns to his job. He can't seem to focus on the task at hand, though, eyes and mind drifting back towards the direction he has the overwhelming need to walk towards, even though it’d take him over the edge.
Even when he reaches the fishbowl first, hopping down onto the red sand and allowing it to rise in a cloud around him, coating his clothes in a fine layer of dust he can't find it in himself to be pleased, or at least a little satisfied with the progress they've made in the afternoon.
He helps with widening the path, hacking away at the terracotta and kicking the chunks over the edge. He tries to lose himself in the repetitive motion as the afternoon stretches into evening, widening the path until three horses could fit down it, shoulder to shoulder. Part of the canyon walls stretch over his head, sheltering the path slightly from the sun.
He jumps when someone claps him on the shoulder, dropping his pickaxe in surprise. It doesn't clatter when it hits the sandy floor of the fishbowl, landing instead with a soft thump and a small cloud of dust that hardly reaches above his ankles.
“What d’you think of the fishbowl then, Sheriff?” Alex-Axen asks, grinning at him.
“It’s big.” He turns in a small circle, dislodging his hand from his shoulder, “Definitely a good place to build, even if we’d be at a disadvantage if people attacked from above.
“But there’s only one way down, even if that did happen. People’d have to be throwin’ themselves over the edge of the cliffs to get down here if we blocked that route off.”
“But there’s also only one route out, if attackers blocked that off and rained down on us we’d be trapped.” He counters.
“You're thinkin’ a little negatively there, aren't you?” Alex-Axen grins, then laughs, “Ease up Sheriff, I doubt there’ll be anyone wanting to attack us. We’re a new settlement, hardly worth their time. The most they’ll want from us is the terracotta.”
“And gunpowder.” He adds, “I'm planning on setting up a gunpowder export.”
“Well good luck to you with that, creepers are annoyin’ to wrangle.” He laughs with him, thinking about how long it’s going to take him to get enough creepers for him to actually harvest the gunpowder from. They're docile when tempted with specific grasses, but there aren't very many grasses around here.
Maybe there’s another town or city nearby that knows where to find the grasses he’s looking for. He knows there’s a kingdom with a particular interest in nature to the east. It’s not too far away, maybe half a day’s ride if he takes Arrow rather than Bullseye.
“I can see you plannin’ it all out in your head,” Alex-Axen claps him on the shoulder again, “Well do just fine.” He turns away, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He can feel the tug again, pulling in his chest. It’s not quite in his heart, somewhere slightly to the right, in between his lungs.
It’s odd. A weird feeling that he’s not sure is entirely real. It’s pulling him a little further west, when really he should be thinking about going east. Everyone’s settled in the east, it seems, clustering together. Each settlement is within a day’s ride of at least one other, if not more. There’s a few of them too, each longer standing than his own little settlement. It looks measly in comparison to the spiralling towers he’s heard stories of.
It looks dull in comparison to the flourishing colours of another empire where its only export is dyes and colour. It makes sense, that it would be so colourful if it had such an abundance of dyes to make it vibrant. But the cyan, yellow, magenta mix he’s heard stories about seems a little garish.
The odd feeling not quite in his heart but close enough continues to tug, pulling him west. He takes a half-step in that direction, towards the setting sun. He stops himself before he can move any further, feet dragging to a stop and leaving grooves in the sand.
He pauses for another moment, staring towards the sun and the golden light it casts over the ground, casting the whole of the mesa in gold. He stares until he’s sure the sun will be burned into his retinas for the next few hours before dragging his gaze away, back towards the campsite above.
He can see smoke beginning to drift from a campfire as he makes his way towards it, sand shifting beneath his feet as he walks towards the path upwards. A warm breeze carries the smell of turning meat to him. It makes him feel slightly nauseous, even as his stomach pangs with hunger.
He pauses again, casting one last glance west, before continuing upwards and eastwards.