Talin Chapter 1 Part 1
It was one of those slightly lukewarm days- somewhere in the middle of spring and summer when the seasons couldn't make up their minds who was to reign- when exams let out. The massive brass bell rang out over the city heralding to its inhabitants the midafternoon and to Isodore, the start of her new life.
She rushed down the worn and somewhat cracked stone stairs and into the sunlight falling like honey in the midafternoon. Her brown leather boots hit the uneven brick streets, running in her excitement to return home. She stopped near the large copper (now green) pole showing the place where passengers may wait for their Airtrain.
She was finally going to be an apprentice.
Isodore boarded the Airtrain, its large mechanical wings steady and prepared for flight. She took a seat nearest the yellowed glass window, on one of the threadbare sage sofas, the wood used to create the frame’s once ornate embellishments now worn away. The sunlight dripped through the window like water, casting ever-changing shapes onto the couch and sturdy (but discolored) wood floor below it.
“Approaching south Graywick station!” The conductor- a tall, freckled youth shouted.
When the Airtrain finally landed she zipped off of it and into the crowd.
Tall buildings set together like pastries in a bakery window loomed over the narrow cobblestone streets crowded with people of all stripes. Street sellers hawking their wares, thieves clutching a stolen purse (or three), and everyday people milling about, each focused on their own location and objective.
Isodore kept up her brisk walk, cobblestone bumpy under her feet, until she reached her building. An older one, intricate cast iron balconies framing windows whose view inside was poorly obscured by sheer linen and cloth curtains.
She entered through a nondescript wood door, with exactly three brass locks arranged one on top of the other.
She scrambled for her little key that always seemed to find itself at the bottom of her bag, and used it to undo the very tippity-top lock, and after a series of clicking sounds the door creaked open. Inwards she went on her own brisk path, toward the deep green and gold painted door at the end of the hall.
Inside was a mess. Stacks of haphazardly placed books and strewn pages of notes piled in near-toppling towers over every surface there, from the small kitchen to her nightstand in the corner, old oak wood creaking and bending under the weight of it all.
Isodore snapped out of her reverie, just as a stout woman of about fifty five popped in through the (still unlocked) door Isodore had mistakenly left open.
“My goodness Isodore, look at the state you’ve let the place get to….” She hmphed in joking indignation.
“How did it go, dear? I’ve heard that this year’s test is the hardest yet- you know that neighbor boy, Alex? I think that was his name at least- he moved out quite a while ago ... said that it was that hardest thing…….”
Isodore chuckled. “He moved out two years ago, Mrs. Leana” she removed a hefty stack of notes from one of the two humble chairs near her equally heavily laden table- and silently invited Mrs. Leana to sit.
“Oh don’t mind if I do- why I’ve just been on my feet all day… running errands and such.” She leaned forward on the rickety table. “Did you hear about the explosion in the south side of the market earlier? Why it was only a block or two away from us!” Mrs. Leana drummed her fingers nervously on the table. Isodore winced, wondering if her landlady would get a splinter from the old wood, but before she could invent a way to escort her off of the table, and to a perhaps safer seating place, the older woman jumped up.
“I really must be on my way now-” the elder woman fiddled with the frayed hem of her burnt umber colored apron, nervousness evident on her face. She waved goodbye and exchanged farewells with Isodore, her brow still wrinkled in worry as she left.
After Mrs. Leana was gone, and the door was locked, hopefully to prevent any more unexpected encounters with her other neighbors, Isodore collapsed onto her narrow bed. Patchwork quilt and cotton sheets, combined with the warm sun on her back almost luring her into a midafternoon nap.
Almost.
That night Isodore could not sleep. The light of the warm candle casted shadows like the endless storm of thoughts in her head. Isodore sighed. The most important day of her life was tomorrow, where her apprenticeship would be finalized to (almost certainly) one of the finest enchanters in the city.
Her nervousness was not due to how well she did on her test- but who she would be matched to. She steepled her fingers and rested her forehead against her hands with a sigh.
Isodore sighed and dragged her tired body from the chair at the table, and dusted her day dress off.
She started to collect the notes that were strewn in disorganized piles, putting them into large boxes, and stacking all the books she could carry painstakingly lining them up under her bed, as one would a bookshelf.
Now the one-bedroom living space seemed a degree cleaner, and with most of the debris and leftovers of studying for finals cleaned up, she finally decided to go to bed. She quickly washed herself standing up with the water basin (ceramic- and only a bit chipped) and her half- used bar of soap.
Now fully changed into her frayed but clean white chemise, with hair combed and braided, she made the short walk to bed placed right in front of her window. Stretching out and finally under the covers, she stared at the moon till it sank into the tops of the buildings, and the tendrils of warm pink and orange embraced the sky as morning approached.
It was Apprenticing Day.
Isodore leapt out of bed, eager to be dressed and out the door. Her heart made a home in her throat as she went through the daily motions of her morning. Breakfast, brushing teeth, rebraiding hair, a little bit of face cream, and fiddling with the buttons on the sleeves of her best dress. Robin’s-egg blue with puffed shoulders, and sleeves reaching down to her wrists. She hurriedly slipped on her neat black heeled shoes.
She set out the door, trusty leather knapsack at her back and a sense of nervousness that made her hands shake as she locked the door for the last time before she became an apprentice.
It was less than an hour later when she finally jumped off the airtrain to Swanhollow, where she walked down the new brick road, quietly absorbing the newly painted buildings, seemingly identical in style, and complimenting each other in color. There were no thieves here, simply well-dressed people walking down the street looking like scattered marbles, leisurely in their pace, assured and firm looking.
She at last stopped outside of what seemed to be the only standout building in the town. It was tall and shiny, and made of glass, each pane painstakingly separated with wires of copper. The courtyard was made of smooth uncracked stone outlining the sigil of the enchanter’s guild. A geometric design which looked a little to Isodore like a facet of a gemstone.
With great impatience, Isodore hurried to the entry doors, but was suddenly self-conscious of her quick gait and slightly hunched shoulders. She straightened and attempted to walk into the foyer like the people she had seen before.
The glass walls, stairs, and tinted ceilings amazed Isodore, the entire area outside able to be seen through the walls unlike any structure she had been inside before. Quickly she snapped back to her goal, approaching the busy young man who seemed to be the only person manning the desk toward the front.
He was dictating to an enchanted device fed with thick (and expensive) parchment.
He looked down his nose at her. His black hair and dark eyes being a dead giveaway of his eastern isles ancestry. As Isodore had come to expect, he too was glossy and immaculately dressed, cravat and suit matched precisely to the shades of blue and green glass used to create the enchanter’s guild headquarters. He was the perfect epitome of a Swanhollow citizen. Suddenly shy, and painfully aware of how slovenly she seemed, she managed to croak out an embarrassed greeting.
“Uhm- excuse me sir. Do you happen to know where the matching of apprentices will take place?”
She said, silently cursing herself for her voice cracking at the end. The man relaxed instantly, faintly smiling at her before returning to his typewriter and parchment. “Of course, Up the stairs and in the room straight ahead. You must be Isodore Gryffiths.”
Isodore nodded, and thanked him, and when she received no response, started up the stairs, and toward the massive glass and copper doors.
As her black boots clicked across the deserted hall, she felt her heartbeat in her chest. All she had worked for, so many sleepless nights and long hours, so many evenings and afternoons , and here it was.
She stepped into the quiet room, the only one there, aside from a clockwork diamond. All bronze and gold and silver, it was quite an ugly thing with exposed wires and cogs and gears, so unlike the rest of Swanhollow she had seen before. But in approaching it she felt a sense of awe.
Silent as a mouse, she put her calloused hand to the panel of the machine, which had a handprint placed on it. And then she closed her eyes. It started to turn and spin before her. She contained her nervousness and a sharp ding! Sound rang out in the airy room.
Slowly- haltingly, she opened her eyes. A little slot she had not seen before in the machine pushed out an envelope, made of thick, quality parchment, with her name scrawled on it in midnight blue ink.
She opened it, gingerly like it could explode at any moment, practically vibrating with curiosity. Inside was not, as she expected, a long letter with the cordial invitation she had come to expect- a gesture that would be practiced by any respectable enchanter or enchantress of swanhollow.
Instead, inside was simply an address, 9457 Gribble road, messy handwriting and an inkblot the size of a large marble.
Isodore felt like she was going to cry.
She took a deep breath and composed herself, before walking as fast as possible out of the Enchanter’s Guild Headquarters, no longer caring about what the beautiful, wealthy people around her thought, making no attempt to fit in she marched herself to the airtrain pole, and clenched her jaw.
This was the last straw.
Read full chapter on AO3! Find the full list of chapters and catch up with Talin here!
