Lucidia woke up.
She didn't wake to the sound of birds singing or the soft glow of the rising sun. Instead, she woke to a sharp, persistent tingling in her fingertips. It was an itch that started in her marrow and demanded that, because she was a writer, she pick up a pen.
Before sitting, she reached for a heavy, brass-rimmed vintage radio on the corner of her desk. She clicked the dial, and the device hummed to life with the warm glow of vacuum tubes. After a moment of static that sounded like grinding gears, a low, melodic tune began to play. It was a haunting arrangement of violins and distant steam-whistles.
With the music setting the rhythm for her thoughts, she sat at her desk. The floorboards were cold against her feet, and the gaslight above her flickered, casting a sickly greenish hue over the blank parchment.
Ten minutes went by. The tingling in her hands grew into a dull ache.
Thirty minutes. The radio hissed, the music warping slightly as the city's Aether-pressure fluctuated. She gripped the pen so hard her knuckles turned as pale as her hair.
An hour passed.
The music had looped, but the parchment remained a blinding, empty white. The ideas were jammed behind a wall of brass and soot.
"Fine," she whispered, dropping the pen. It clattered against the wood like a bone. She snapped the radio off, the sudden silence feeling heavier than the noise. "If the words won't come to me, I'll have to go find where they're hiding."
She was irritated. The lack of progress felt like a physical weight pressing against her temples.
Lucidia stood, her movements sharp and decisive. She reached for her ash-grey cape, the heavy fabric settling on her shoulders like a shroud. She gathered her long, pale hair, silky and colorless as moonlight, and tied it back in a practical knot.
Finally, she took her sword. It was a heavy, industrial blade of cold-iron, its edge designed to bite through the brass and madness of the world outside. She strapped it to her waist, the leather creaking in the quiet room.
She pushed open the heavy doors of her home and stepped out.
The Kingdom of Asgard stretched before her, a leviathan of soot, brass, and high-pressure steam. A thick, yellowish haze clung to the cobblestones, and the sky was a bruised purple, choked by the exhaust of the Great Engines.
Lucidia began her walk toward the market district. Along the way, she passed a group of street performers. They were dancing and playing a lively tune on copper accordions, laughing as if the world were a simple, happy place.
Lucidia paused, her tired eyes narrowing with irritation. Their mindless cheer felt like nails on a chalkboard to someone whose mind was currently a locked vault. She glared at them, her gaze sharp and impatient, before huffing a breath of cold air and moving past.
She continued until she reached a small, salt-crusted stall at the edge of the market.
"The usual, Mr. Fisk," she said.
Mr. Fisk, a stout man with a friendly face that crinkled at the edges, looked up from a crate of silver-scaled fish. He wiped his brine-stained hands on his apron and offered a warm nod.
"How are you doing today, Lucidia?" he asked, his voice steady and kind over the roar of the nearby steam-vents.
"Stubborn ink, Mr. Fisk," she replied, her voice losing a bit of its sharp edge in the face of his politeness. "Just give me the catch of the day."
Fisk chuckled softly, wrapping a fresh fish in brown paper with practiced care. "Don't let the pages get the best of you. Sometimes you just have to wait for the fog to clear."
He handed her the parcel, and she took it with a brief, tired nod. "Thank you, Mr. Fisk."
As Lucidia turned away from the stall, the air in the market suddenly grew cold, the steam from the vents turning into a ghostly white mist.
A man standing only a few feet away dropped his groceries. His eyes were wide, flooded with a sudden, panicked terror.
Slowly, as if his arms were being pulled by invisible, rusted wires, the man raised his hands to his own throat.
"No... stop..." the man gasped, his voice thin and pleading.
Lucidia watched in frozen silence as the man's own fingers dug into his neck. He was fighting with every ounce of his strength, his heels scraping against the cobblestones as he tried to pull his hands away, but they were locked. It was as if his body had become a puppet controlled by a cruel, unseen hand.
His knuckles turned white. His face went purple.
With a final, desperate jerk, the man's own hands twisted with unnatural force. There was a sickening, wet crack that echoed through the sudden silence of the market.
The man slumped to the ground, dead by his own grip.
Lucidia didn't scream like the others. She stood perfectly still, her hand tightening on the pommel of her sword. She didn't look at the body. Instead, she slowly looked up toward the dark, soot-stained rooftops overlooking the square.
Someone was watching. She could feel a gaze cold, mocking, and heavy with a power that didn't belong in this world.
The tingling in her fingertips was back, sharper than ever.