“Siiiiiis! Hey, sis! Over here!”
Amber Argyris dashed her way past the the flashing signs and poster advertisements lining the storefronts of the the Olympia Mall, images of computers, new game releases, discounted dresses, and some cantankerous bespectacled fellow nothing more than a blur of color and lights as she weaved her way through the crowd. She kept up her shouting as she went, oblivious to the puzzled looks of other mall-goers and the glares of those unlucky few who she jostled.
xxxxx
Across the main avenue of the mall, looking down the row of storefronts from the edge of the first floor lounge, Ainthe gave a playful shake of her head and sighed in a mixture of resignation and amusement. She had half-heartedly worried her sister might have changed in the year since she had seen her last. From the way Amber was making quite the scene without even a hint of shame or embarrassment, Ainthe could tell her worries were groundless.
xxxxx
With but a moment having passed, Amber reached Ainthe and threw herself at her elder sister, leaning forward and embracing her. Ainthe, for her part, bemusedly stared down at her sister’s head and offered an affectionate pat on the back. Releasing her sister and standing straight now so that she could address her face-to-face, Amber cheerfully kicked off what could have been, for anyone else, an awkward reunion.
“Good lord, it took ya long enough to get here! I’ve been bumming around this city for weeks already waiting for you to show. And now here you come, just waltzing in on me without even sending a message to say you made it. How long’ve you been here, now, anyways?”
“Just three days, now. Arranged a cheap fare up here a few months ago, but just got around to packing things up and taking off this week. Unlike some people, I can’t just pick up and move everything at the drop of the hat. I do have a business to take care off, after all.”
“Bull,” Amber scoffed. “Bull, I call bull! That little repair service you run is more a hobby than a job, you know it You could close down tomorrow and never pick up another tool in your life. We’re loaded. But, man, you’re here now, and that’s what matters. Have you seeeen this place? This city has everything! An arcade right here in the mall, an old game store, a great bar, and that’s just the stuff right around here! Rumour mill’s even been saying something about some kind of fighting ring. Apparently the city has a, heh, lively, underside, too.”
“So I’ve heard. I talked to plenty of folks, locals and tourists alike, trying to track you down. It’s a funny thing how much you can find out just by asking. There’s even some group of rabble-rousers coming into town that has people plenty nervous. From the sound of it, they’re your crowd of people. When I heard what all was over in this part of the city, I had a feeling you’d be hanging around here. I figured, give it enough time at the mall and you’ll see her around. ‘Course, in a city this large, I thought I wouldn’t have found you so quickly. You really never did get the whole “leave nothing up to chance” thing that Flake tried to tell you, did ya?”
Ainthe pulled an envelope, with a yellowish stain and the faint fragrance of alcohol, from the pocket of her jeans. She waved the piece of mail back and forth as she spoke, holding it by the bottom right corner so as to make the lack of any kind of stamp or return address clear. “You oughta be thankful this thing made it to me at all. Most people send these through the mail, y’know, instead of relying on a guy who knows a guy to pass it along ‘till it reaches who ya want.”
Amber tossed her head back and laughed. “Most people don’t meet as many people as I do. And, be~sides, it made it you you, didn’t it? Really, you should be thanking me.” Ainthe rolled her eyes, though her smirk betrayed that she didn’t exactly think her sister was wrong. Amber, ready to play the part of the heroine, puffed herself up and stood on her toes so she could just raise her head above her sister’s. “Honestly, if it weren’t for me, the three of us wouldn’t all be in this city right now. You’d just be chipping away at a gear or something with your screwdrivers and your fire in your little home, and who knows what boring as-all-get-out meetings Aurora would even be involved in right now. But, nope! As long as I’m around, you guys get treats like mysterious letters in the mail and visits to a freaking flying city! Where’s anything like that in any of her precious books?”
Ainthe kept grinning, but she focused her gaze more intently on her sister’s eyes and spoke more seriously. “The three of us? So, she’s definitely here, too? Do you know where she is?”
Amber dropped the grandiose act, letting her heels down and dropping her arms to her side. She gazed down for a moment, pausing, then looked back at her sister and flashed a grin. “Nope! Not a clue. But she’s definitely here. I wouldn’t have told ya to get all the way up here if I didn’t know that for sure. We’ll find her eventually, whenever and wherever. I wouldn’t have gotten the news she was going to be up here if she wasn’t going to be this way for at least a few months. We’ve got time. So, come on now! I have to show you this bar. It’s called Valhalla. You’ll love the weird crap they’ve added to the menu!”
With that, Amber took off for her next destination, Ainthe following behind as her sister once again sped past the storefronts against the flow of foot traffic.
xxxxx
Elsewhere, in a hotel suite in Olympia’s Middle City, Aurora Argyris stood on her personal balcony and, through a gap in the skyline created by one of the smaller skyscrapers, looked down on the aptly named Silverwing Plaza down the way. Rubbing her temples, she muttered a familiar quotation. “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.” Pausing long enough for a heavy sigh, she added her own modification. “I take it that the same is true for sisters.”
Not even bothering to slide the door back in place behind her and preferring a cool draft anyway, Aurora trudged her way back inside and settled at the room’s writing desk. Laid out in the center amongst stacks of paperwork and the scripts to a few screenplays were envelopes containing the correspondence she brought with her but still hadn’t gotten around to reading. A quarterly financial statement from Rochefort Enterprises… an unsolicited offer from WarioWare Incorporated… a response from the Milone Trading Company… a news article someone passed along to her on the dissolution of Walker Incorporated… yet another piece about tariffs… Absolutely nothing of importance which needed her urgent attention.
Yet, sitting above it all, separated out from the rest of the mail, an envelope with no markings of business class or express delivery. It had no markings at all, save for a hastily written “Aurora” and a stain which smelled of malt. She hadn’t even the need to open it to know who it was from, the handwriting and the klutzy spill telling her all she needed to know. Still, she opened it and found that her elder sister Amber had heard of her trip to Olympia and not only planned to visit, but had invited eldest sister Ainthe as well. The letter was passed along by an associate months ago, but she had yet to receive any indication that Amber or Ainthe were actually in Olympia. Perhaps, she hoped, Amber had found herself distracted and moved on to something else.
She shook her head. What a foolish though, it could never be so easy. She laid her head in her arms and slumped over the desk. This time, she muttered her thoughts aloud. “Perhaps, just perhaps, she can occupy herself long enough so that I might conclude my business here before she draws me into some odious cascade of events.”
