Beasts and Bells
There is something in the water, vast and passing nearby.
The abrupt and ragged edge of the world has had ages to breed strange new creatures suited to take advantage, somehow, of it; this uncatalogued leviathan is no doubt some strange child of whales. In aeons past, people would have rushed to witness it, to document, to measure and follow and learn of it habits, whether it is alone or one among a kind. Now, there are the three of them, and scarcely one in twenty of the other towers along the Terminus has a single person in it, and nobody has the time or the interest to enquire after the beasts of the sea.
Still, when a great bell tolled in the deep reaches of the spire, to say something was close by — a harbinger, once, of arriving ships — Glorie chose to pause a minute and set eyes on the pale swimming shape, to acknowledge it as it goes its way. Humankind may stand atop the world now only in the way of someone atop an outdoor table, frantically attempting to save a great map that's attempting to roll up, tangle, and blow away; but the dream of knowing the other creatures of the world, of marvelling at them, standing in awed and distant kinship, will live as long as there are people and other beasts. Or so she supposes.
The Fool steps quietly by, pauses with her own face to the floor-length crystal window, and watches too.
"If there were people here still," she says eventually, mocking, "they'd stick that thing full of spears and turn it into fried fish."
Glorie sighs, long and tired.
"Th'art right, suppose," she says. There's nothing to be gained by arguing with the Fool's toothy cynicism; the cynicism is for sport, and the teeth are for drawing blood, also for sport. She sourly resents being yielded to as a refusal to be bloodied.
Well, then; she may sourly resent. Ser Glorie's duty is not to be the Fool's chew toy.
"Do you never tire," the Fool says, eyes glittering, "of bowing your head and wilting and saying oh yes, never mind, suppose?"
Glorie licks over her teeth and briefly considers — as she has on previous provocations, repetitions out of memory — taking the Fool's arms, holding her against the window, saying something — something like, You would not enjoy fighting with me, Fool; mine art involves far fewer words—
She returns her gaze to the retreating, mysterious bulk of the sea-beast.
"What manner of knight matches wits with a Fool?" she says mildly, instead.