Many know when, few care why; and of it, some know little. Assume aught but that I shall tell of the Towers' fall what I can… what little I know.
It would storm in Towerfall that night; I could taste it in the salty-iron rank of the earth of worlds plenty, many leagues up—high up, farther than my eyes saw. Stranger worlds, distant worlds.
Here was a purgatory I called home.
In my city, the rain bathed you as it does perhaps nowhere else—wet with the blood, sweat, and tears of more accomplished folk. Vainer folk, oft—but dwell on that not. You will know enough of their kind soon, that in time, not only will you frown at them, but twiddle your thumbs you will also, wishing you were them; as did I, as did we all.
"You're late," said Viola, all ashen skin and violet eyes. She crossed her toned arms and frowned down at me through bangs of too-dark hair. A towermongrel. She was barely human—and my one friend.
I shrugged at her. "Conductor wouldn't let me onto the centipeder. Said I reeked of grease down to my bollocks."
"Turns away Towerfolk, that," Viola scoffed. Her manner of spitting the word as she would an insult inspired rebellion in some, and ire in others more; shame I never could say it how she did: Towerfolk—pray tell, would it not have spared me those insipid years of cajoling raiders to the cause? Those bastard sons and daughters of Towers, ever-eager for roguery or stupid sods to have a piss at? Surely.
"Heard the water runnin' in the morn'," she continued. "What were you doin' in the shower so long, then? Wankin'?"
As all towermongrels I've met since, Viola had an edge to her I was fond of. I grinned, baring my crooked teeth at her, then stepped closer. "Oh, I'm not telling. But what do you do in there, oh lofty clerk of BlackEye's?" Guild Master Severick's lackeys had employed her right a mere week earlier. It bit me then, does now—what could have been. "You shower for longer, but have the same greasy musk as any of us."
Her smile drowned you. I will not deny that I admired my friend—inhumanly tall and toned, yet shapely—as she turned to unchain a thick, metal-bound ledger from a shelf riddled with many more tomes; heftier, if you'll believe it. Viola grunted as she laid the monstrosity on her workstation with a mighty thud.
The towermongrel then unclasped a lustrous ingot, possibly of wyvernsteel, from her keyholder and held it up over a grove on the ledger. It snapped right in with a spark, and the ledger's towermechanics breathed as though living—pages fluttered to the last entry with but a thought of hers.
"And who spends all day sorting your greasy, stowaway trinkets from useless to mildly useful, oh petty recycler of BlackEye's?" she mirrored my tone, grinning back. Her perfect, straight teeth—unstained and without cavities despite her centuries of chewing on the same muck as I had for only two decades—mocked mine. "Keen on havin' the Cerberus to ask for your dinner again, are you?"
"No, Ma'am!"
"Thought so," she chortled. "Out with it, then. What have you?"
I licked my lips, curling the warm piece of metal under calloused toes tighter. I feared my worn leather boots, gaping like dying fish, might betray the gambit. And I realised only then how long it had been since Viola and I had stolen a pair each from that pariah of a shoemaker in the Towerleathers.
"He's lived inside a Tower, Aeon! A Tower! Think of all the trinkets he has!" I knew the moment those words left her lips, there would be no sleep that night. Eight years ago then, centuries now. Must have felt like yesterday for Vi. I stood in that forgotten alley, wondering, am I no more a stranger to her?
It mattered not. I shook my head, praying to gods who loved me not that the towerwatchers saw aught what I hid. I know now that they couldn't have. Towerfolk deem such elaborate mechanics unfit for plebeians. "No luck today, Vi," I lied.
"The scrappers didn't let you in, did they?" she sucked on her teeth, hunching on her toned elbows and peering through my soul. I glimpsed the third eye now inked on Viola's forehead through her bangs—a black eye, proof she was his. Often, I tell myself that I could have done nothing for her then. Still, I sleep no better. "Told you to dress as a girl, Aeon. You're pretty enough for Metalbingers."
"I'm pretty enough for more than Metalbingers, and I'm a man!" I reeled, abashed. "They shouldn't have to grope my arse first!"
"Would they? Were you a woman?"
"That's not what I mean, and you know it."
"Oh, do I? Then you should know to expect no less from the lords of the Towerscrap," said Viola, slamming the ledger shut. "'Arse or tax, asks Ingot, Lord of the Scrappers.'"
"'Arse for tax, replies the plebeian,'" I said. "But how's that fair? We're recycling rubbish, Vi, their rubbish!"
"If a debased Metalbinger shat golden turds in your mouth, you'd swallow, wipe her malleable bum till you saw your face in it, and say thank you. Rubbish to them, rare metals to us—sure as Towerdeity, Aeon, they know it. Fair enough for you yet?"
I bit my lip. "Can I come in? Please?"
She grimaced, then hushed. "Not without loot, sorry—or it's my arse someone's groping, and Towerdeity spare me, that's all they do."
"Please!" I raised my hoarse voice as best I could. "Think of my end—there are worse fates lurking the night."
"Not for me, there isn't. I don't have to lurk it. Not anymore, Towerdeity bless," Viola frowned. "And you wouldn't either, had you spent less time lost in daydreams and more on the job!"
I knew not why Viola loathed Towerfolk yet worshipped their god with such reverence. A god whose word commands children "tainted" by human blood—towermongrels—banished from Towers, down recycling chutes, little more than rubbish, is no god I'd worship.
"They're not daydreams! Take that back!" I hollered, the hurt choking my voice and marring my face.
She looked away, down at her hands, fiddling with long fingers. "Maybe not, but we can't watch out for ourselves as easy no more, you know that. Meet me halfway… please, Aeon."
"I don't mean in with the others, Vi," I hushed, swallowing down the angst—we had not the time for bickering.
She met my gaze, furrowed her brow. "Where else, then? Janitorial's full, so's Laundry. Mechanics? You'd need schooling for that. Recycling's all there is for squatters right now." Viola looked over her shoulder, then hushed, "But keep your head down. Word is, in a few months there'll be—"
"Might I warm your bed?" I asked, face burning as my toes clutched the piece of metal in my fetid boot so tight their callouses boiled. From where I found the might to meet her violet gaze then, I know not. It is foolish how convinced I was she would elope with me—laugh, if you will. How little I knew of her, of Towerfall.
"Warm… my bed?" Viola smiled no longer; the amusement left her eyes. "Where do you think BlackEye's is—a fetid backwater brothel in the Towershadows where they let you 'proper humans' fuck us mongrels, if you're kinky?"
I felt the blood drain from my face, a dread like lead seeping into my bones, when I saw the tears in her eyes. My manner had repulsed Viola, hurt her. One never misunderstands cruelty. Why, then, is kindness so?
"You misheard me, Vi," I hushed, wary of the towerwatchers drowning in shadows unseen. Undeterred, desperate, and foolish, I risked not living to write this account when I raised the soles of my boot. Viola might have seen what the lustrous piece of metal beneath my twiddling toes was, had she looked down at the gaping fish's mouth that was my worn boot. She never did, or was reluctant to let on that she had. I can't say with certainty. "Remember, uh, remember the night we stole these grimy boots? When we first heard the Language of the Towers spoken by a native? You said it was—"
"Fuck all what I said! I did so to a friend, Aeon, not a man I wanted mine; I've had enough of those take me for a breeding mare—a freak right for fucking and little else." Viola's lip trembled. "Enough of your kind… human. Go away!"
She spat human as she did Towerfolk—that broke me. And I don't blame her. My lack of tact then is unforgivable. It's that moment you agonise over, pacing about, tossing and turning in your sleep, or muttering to yourself like a madman; wishing you'd acted differently.
I was young and infatuated with my friend, yes. And the fool I'd been had long-harboured a confidence that she shared my affections (perhaps Vi did, alas, I will never know). But would not that I had mustered a better reason to talk to her alone, let her in on a secret that would change all of Towerfall—a trinket that reeked of foot fungus and opportunity unlike any we'd had before it, no less—that she would have stood by my side, if not as a lover, then a precious ally, that night when the Towers fell? I ruined that ending because I wanted the girl mine and to play the hero both. I wonder, was I no different from Ingot, Lord of the Scrappers, in Viola's eyes then? Arse or tax—is that what Vi heard when she saw the Towerkey in my fetid boot?