The administrative building in Stone's End's upper district existed in a different world than the refugee quarters. Here, the stone floors gleamed with polished granite inlay. Tapestries depicting mountain battles from centuries past covered walls that showed no weathering, no compromise with time. Even the air tasted different—scented with imported incense rather than the practical smells of cooking fires and construction dust.
Misaki waited in the reception chamber, his work clothes feeling suddenly inadequate despite being clean. His hands, callused from months of stonework and engineering, looked wrong against the carved armrest of the visitor's bench. Everything about this space reminded him he didn't belong.
The summons had arrived that morning—formal parchment sealed with green wax bearing the mountain peaks insignia. "Lord Kka'jwo requests the presence of Misaki Haruto, engineering consultant, regarding proposals submitted to the Mountain Council." No explanation. No indication whether this was routine or something more serious.
A servant finally appeared—elderly, moving with the practiced silence of someone who'd learned to be invisible. "Lord Kka'jwo will see you now."
The office beyond was smaller than Misaki expected but far more opulent. Mythril fixtures, imported furniture, a desk that probably cost more than Misaki would earn in five years. Behind it sat Lord Kka'jwo—a mountain dwarf of considerable age, his beard braided with what looked like actual gold thread, his ceremonial robes indicating rank that transcended mere wealth.
"Misaki Haruto," the lord said without preamble. His voice carried the particular quality of someone accustomed to being obeyed. "The engineer. Sit."
Misaki sat. The chair's cushion felt too soft, too comfortable for what this meeting was becoming.
"I've read your proposal regarding military doctrine reform." Kka'jwo tapped a document on his desk—Misaki recognized his own handwriting. "The suggestion that Seleun'mhir abandon traditional neutrality in favor of what you call 'defensive force posture.' Interesting ideas. Bold recommendations."
"Thank you, my lord—"
"I wasn't finished." The temperature in the room seemed to drop. "Tell me, Misaki Haruto. What is your station?"
The question hung there, deceptively simple.
"I'm... I'm an engineering consultant. Contracted for fortification—"
"Your social station," Kka'jwo interrupted. "Your class. Your position in society's natural hierarchy."
Misaki felt something cold settling in his stomach. "I'm a refugee. A civilian contractor."
"Indeed. A refugee. Someone who arrived in Seleun'mhir with nothing, who exists here by our generosity, who works because we allow that work." The lord's expression never changed—professionally neutral in the way that made every word land harder. "Now. Tell me what qualifies someone of your station to propose national military policy to the Mountain Council."
The silence stretched. Misaki's engineering mind searched for the right angle, the correct approach, the way to navigate this conversation toward productive outcome.
"I have experience—" he began.
"You have experience building walls," Kka'jwo said flatly. "Valuable experience, certainly. Your curved fortification design shows genuine innovation. Captain Syvra speaks highly of your technical competence." He leaned forward slightly. "But technical competence does not grant you authority to dictate policy to your betters."
"I wasn't trying to dictate—"
"You proposed that Seleun'mhir fundamentally restructure its military doctrine based on your world's historical precedents. You suggested the Mountain Council abandon six centuries of neutrality policy because you—a refugee who's been in our nation for one year—think you understand our strategic position better than nobles whose families have governed these mountains for generations." The lord's tone remained perfectly level. "That is the definition of overstepping bounds."
Misaki felt his face heating. Part anger, part shame, part stubborn refusal to accept the rebuke. "With respect, my lord, Vel'koda'mir is digging tunnels toward Stone's End. They've established military bases inside your borders. Neutrality isn't protecting—"
"I am aware of the intelligence reports." Steel entered Kka'jwo's voice. "I sit on the defense subcommittee. I have access to information you cannot imagine. And decisions regarding how Seleun'mhir responds to external threats will be made by people qualified to make them." He picked up Misaki's proposal and set it aside—a gesture of dismissal more final than any words. "You are a builder. Build. Leave governance to those born to it."
"My lord, I meant no disrespect—"
"Yet disrespect is precisely what you showed." Kka'jwo stood, signaling the meeting's end. "Understand something, Misaki Haruto. You are valuable. Your engineering skills are remarkable. Your innovations have accelerated our fortification timeline significantly. But value does not equal authority. A horse that pulls a plow well does not therefore dictate crop rotation."
The comparison landed like a slap. Not quite calling him an animal, but close enough to sting.
"You will continue your engineering work," the lord continued. "You will receive fair compensation. You will be treated with the respect your technical competence deserves. But you will not—ever again—presume to advise the Mountain Council on matters beyond your station." He gestured toward the door. "Dismissed."
Misaki stood mechanically, his mind churning through anger and humiliation and the cold understanding that he'd made a serious tactical error. He'd spoken to Syvra about military doctrine, mentioned ideas from Earth, assumed that competence in one domain granted him voice in another.
He'd forgotten he was a peasant talking to nobility.
The walk back to the communal quarters felt longer than twelve months of construction work. Every person he passed seemed to represent another reminder of hierarchy he'd been naive enough to ignore. The wealthy merchant in imported silks who stepped aside without acknowledging Misaki's existence. The native Seleun'mhir workers who nodded to him but kept careful social distance. Even the other refugees, who at least treated him as equal, existing in a separate social stratum from the citizens above.
Class wasn't just about money on Vulcan. It was about blood, about birth, about social position that could elevate you or crush you regardless of individual merit. Earth had versions of this—aristocracy, caste systems, inherited privilege. But Misaki had grown up in modern Japan where meritocracy at least pretended to matter, where an orphan could become an astronaut through achievement alone.
Here? The lord's message was clear: build your walls, refugee. Leave thinking to your betters.
The quarters felt smaller when he returned, as if the meeting had somehow compressed the physical space. Misaki sat at the small desk near the window, staring at his engineering journals without seeing them.
The walls were half-finished. Beautiful walls, innovative walls, walls that would stand for centuries. But if Vel'koda'mir completed their tunnel before the fortifications were functional, what did any of it matter? Walls couldn't stop an enemy that emerged from beneath.
He could see the strategic problem clearly. Could visualize countermeasures, defensive contingencies, the way Earth's military history would address subterranean infiltration. But what was the point of seeing solutions if he had no authority to propose them? If every suggestion would be dismissed because he'd been born wrong, in the wrong place, to the wrong class?
"You're doing that thing again."
Misaki looked up. Sera stood in the doorway, her eight-year-old face showing the kind of perceptive concern that made her seem far older. She held a canvas bundle under one arm, clutched against her chest like treasure.
"What thing?" he asked, forcing his expression toward something approaching normal.
"The thing where you think so hard your face gets all tight and angry." She came closer, setting her bundle on the desk. "Feya says thinking too hard gives you wrinkles. You're already old, so you should probably stop."
"I'm twenty-two."
"That's ancient." Sera opened her bundle with careful reverence, revealing a collection of small tools—miniature hammer, tiny chisels, measuring implements scaled for child-sized hands. "Look what Torran gave me! He said every engineer needs proper tools, even apprentice engineers who are still learning letters."
The tools were beautiful—professionally crafted, not toys but functional instruments built to precise specifications. Torran must have commissioned them specially, probably spent weeks at the forge creating equipment that would fit Sera's small hands while maintaining adult-quality standards.
"These are incredible," Misaki said, examining a miniature marking gauge. "Torran did excellent work."
"He said I have good hands for detail work." Sera demonstrated the hammer's balance with unconscious precision. "And he showed me how to hold the chisel at the right angle for different materials. Wood versus stone versus metal—each one needs different technique."
Despite his dark mood, Misaki felt something warm cutting through the frustration. "You remember all that?"
"I remember everything about tools." She arranged them on the desk in neat rows, organizing by function with the same systematic approach Misaki used for his own equipment. "Someday I'm going to be an engineer like you. Build bridges and walls and things that protect people." She looked up at him with absolute conviction. "Torran says I'm already thinking like an engineer. He says engineers see problems and fix them instead of complaining."
The unconscious rebuke stung more than Lord Kka'jwo's deliberate one. Here was an eight-year-old who'd survived genocide, walked through hell carrying her infant brother, and somehow still believed the world could be fixed through intelligent application of effort.
While Misaki sat in comfortable quarters sulking about social hierarchy.
"Want to see where I'm working today?" he asked.
Sera's face brightened immediately. "The siege weapons? Really? You said those were too dangerous—"
"Dangerous for playing near. But looking is educational." He stood, feeling some of the darkness lifting. "Come on. And we'll collect Kyn from the kitchens on the way."
The communal kitchens existed in a state of organized chaos that somehow produced three meals daily for eight thousand people. Industrial-scale cooking required military logistics—massive cauldrons, rotational staff schedules, supply chains that stretched across half the mountain nation.
And at the center of it all, like a tiny monarch holding court, sat Kyn.
The one-year-old occupied a wooden high chair surrounded by approximately seven women of various ages, each competing for his attention with increasingly ridiculous facial expressions. Kyn rewarded their efforts with delighted babbling that might have been words or might have been pure vocal experimentation—impossible to tell at his age.
"Again!" one of the kitchen workers—a grandmother whose name Misaki could never remember—made an exaggerated surprised face. "Who's the handsomest boy in Stone's End?"
"Ba-ba-ga-ga!" Kyn responded, which everyone present interpreted as agreement.
"He said his first word yesterday," another woman informed Misaki proudly, as if she'd personally accomplished the feat. "He said 'ma.' We're all his mothers now."
"He's going to be so spoiled," Sera observed, though her tone suggested she considered this appropriate.
Misaki extracted his little brother from the gaggle of admirers—Kyn protesting the removal with dramatic arm-flailing—and settled the toddler against his hip. "We're visiting the construction site. Educational field trip."
"Take snacks!" Someone pressed a cloth bundle into his free hand. "And water! And these herb cakes in case he gets hungry!"
The siege weapon fabrication area occupied Stone's End's northwestern approach, far enough from civilian quarters that accidental trebuchet discharge wouldn't kill anyone important. The dwarven specialists had established their workspace with characteristic precision—material caches organized by type, tool stations arranged for optimal workflow, construction areas delineated with clear safety perimeters.
Sera's eyes went wide when she saw the scale of the operation.
Three massive wooden frames dominated the space—skeletal structures that would eventually become trebuchet mounting platforms. Dwarven engineers swarmed over them like particularly organized ants, each worker focused on specific tasks that fit into larger assembly patterns Misaki's engineering brain immediately recognized.
"They're so cool," Sera breathed, watching a team coordinate to lift a beam that probably weighed three hundred kilograms. "They move like... like they're one person instead of six."
"Synchronized engineering," Misaki explained. "Every dwarf knows exactly what the others are doing without verbal communication. Years of working together builds that kind of coordination."
Master Sev'ea noticed their arrival and approached, his weathered face showing the particular satisfaction of someone overseeing successful construction. "Earth human. Come to inspect our work?"
"Educational visit," Misaki replied, adjusting Kyn on his hip as the toddler tried to grab at his shirt collar. "My sister wanted to see siege weapons. And I wanted to check mounting platform progress."
"The young one with the tools from Torran." Sev'ea's eyes moved to Sera with new interest. "He mentioned you have good hands for detail work. Want to see how we joint support beams?"
Sera nodded so vigorously Misaki worried about neck injury.
As Sev'ea led her toward a demonstration area, Misaki walked the perimeter of the closest mounting platform with Kyn babbling contentedly against his shoulder. His eyes tracked the structural design, the load-bearing framework, the angle calculations that would determine whether siege weapons functioned or catastrophically failed.
And stopped.
The platform's incline was wrong.
Not dramatically wrong—the kind of error that would pass casual inspection. But Misaki's engineer's eye caught it immediately: the mounting surface tilted at what looked like twelve degrees from horizontal. Twelve degrees. The design specifications he'd reviewed called for fifteen.
Three degrees might not sound significant. But three degrees of angle error on a trebuchet meant projectile trajectory shifted by approximately forty meters at maximum range. Meant the weapon would fire where defenders weren't expecting. Meant friendly fortifications would be in the probable impact zone.
Meant the wall could fire on itself.
He pulled out his measuring tools with his free hand—Kyn helpfully attempting to eat the measuring tape—and verified. Twelve degrees. Definitely twelve degrees.
"Master Sev'ea," he called. "We have a problem."
The dwarf returned, leaving Sera examining beam joinery with another specialist. "Problem?"
"The mounting angle." Misaki showed his measurements while simultaneously redirecting Kyn's exploration away from the sharp edge of his pencil. "You're at twelve degrees inclination. Design specs call for fifteen."
Sev'ea's expression shifted from friendly to professionally defensive in an instant. "Our calculations show twelve degrees provides optimal—"
"Optimal for conventional walls," Misaki interrupted. "But these aren't conventional walls. They curve inward at fifteen degrees. If your mounting platforms are at twelve, you're creating a three-degree differential between wall angle and weapon angle." He sketched rapidly on a spare piece of parchment with his non-Kyn-holding hand. "Look. The trebuchet fires here. Optimal trajectory sends projectiles at this angle. But the wall curves at this angle. Three-degree overlap means when you fire at maximum tension, projectiles will impact the wall itself approximately eight meters from the platform."
He looked up at Sev'ea. "Your siege weapons will destroy your own fortifications."
The mounting area went very quiet. Other dwarven engineers had stopped working, turning to watch the confrontation.
"That's..." Sev'ea pulled out his own calculation tools, checking Misaki's numbers with meticulous attention. "That's a significant oversight."
"It's an easy mistake," Misaki said, keeping his tone carefully neutral while Kyn tried to grab the dwarf's beard. "Curved walls create non-intuitive angles. Earth engineering dealt with similar problems when transitioning from straight fortifications to angular bastion designs. The mathematics aren't obvious."
Sev'ea studied the calculations for another minute, then looked at Misaki with an expression mixing grudging respect and professional embarrassment. "You're correct. At twelve degrees, we risk catastrophic friendly fire." He turned to his team. "Halt construction on all three platforms. We're redesigning mounting angles to fifteen-degree specification. Haruto's numbers are sound."
One of the younger dwarven engineers spoke up—tentatively, as if questioning authority was uncomfortable. "But Master Sev'ea, the design we're using has worked for the Mountain Halls for three centuries—"
"On straight walls," Sev'ea interrupted. "These are Earth human's curved walls. Different geometry, different requirements." He looked at Misaki. "How did you catch this? We had four master engineers review these platforms."
"I built the walls," Misaki said simply. "I know exactly how they curve, at what angles, with what tolerances. I've been calculating stress distribution on curved surfaces for months. When you've been thinking about fifteen-degree angles as the fundamental structural principle, twelve degrees stands out immediately."
"Specialization versus versatility," Sev'ea observed. "We're experts in siege weapon construction. You're expert in these specific fortifications." He extended his hand—the universal gesture of professional acknowledgment. "Thank you for the correction. Better to catch this now than during actual siege conditions."
As the dwarven teams began recalculating mounting specifications, Sera appeared at Misaki's side, her small face glowing with excitement. "They're letting me help measure! Master Kren'da says I'm very careful with the tools."
"That's excellent," Misaki said, though his mind was still processing the morning's contradictions.
Lord Kka'jwo's rebuke: stay in your lane, refugee. Build your walls, leave thinking to nobility.
Sev'ea's response: your specialized knowledge caught our error. Thank you for the correction.
One conversation saying his expertise had clear boundaries, his social station limiting his authority. The other demonstrating that technical competence transcended hierarchy when lives depended on accuracy.
Kyn babbled something that might have been commentary on the philosophical complexity of social systems or might have been a request for more herb cakes. Probably the herb cakes.
Misaki looked at his siblings—one learning tools, one learning language, both completely unaware that their older brother had been thoroughly reminded of his place in society's structure. He'd promised to protect them, to give them the family they'd lost when M'lod burned. That promise didn't change based on what nobles thought of his station.
And he wondered which lesson mattered more: the lord's about knowing your station, or the engineer's about solving problems regardless of who pointed them out.
The walls continued rising. The siege platforms would be corrected. The tunnel excavation continued twelve kilometers away.
And Misaki built, because building was what he knew how to do, social hierarchy be damned. His siblings would be safe when Vel'koda'mir finally came. Everything else was just noise.