Fragments Regarding Legate Trunnion Apostate 2

Link to article: Fragments Regarding Legate Trunnion Apostate 2.

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++ FRAGMENTED SCHEMA
++++ Volume Unknown

[[div class="schema"]]
##red|//a.//## Legate Trunnion, brilliant creator of the machines so vital to our victory and a standing monument of the Glory of MEKHANE. Blessed smith.
##red|//b.//## And it was oft said that her work was less of duty and more of passion by most who knew her, and known to be the trait within herself she most highly valued.
##red|//c.//## A love unreturned by the creations, once vibrant imitations of life, now as cold as they had been before the metal of their hearts had been brought to her craftbench.
[[/div]]

**1.** In the springtide of the Latter Empire, it is said, that Lady Trunnion##red|^^//a//^^## oft found herself secluded in her workshop, building Titans with a fervor almost obsessive.##red|^^//b//^^##

**2.** Even in the years of peace which followed the return from Adytum, her lonely work upon the engines of war MEKHANE had granted her insight to the designs of continued, each brought to stand upon the edge of the realm by her former entourage.

**3.** Yet, in the brief and rare moments she was not captured by her lust for creation, she voiced a frustration. A concern.

**4.** Each machine, each walking temple to MEKHANE, murmurs in the Great Builder's halls flew, rang hollow in her eyes. A love for her craft,##red|^^//c//^^## but a craft uncaring.

**5.** And yet still, she drove on, colossus after colossus emerging into the great seas, each growing duller and duller in their make than the last.

[[/div]]

Another line of plates. Another set of bolts. Another minute of slamming fists and metal clanging. The outer plating of the colossus' leg grew another pous under Trunnion's arms. Another three repetitions, and the final stretch would be done. Another war-idol to Her, ready to be brought to life by the faithful in their hours of need. Trunnion's hundredth since she took to the forges alone, if her count was correct. She stepped back from the leg, into the main body of the workshop, and retrieved another two dozen sheets of Mycenean steel. It was a routine now, more than the art it had been ninety titans ago. No less beautiful, but beautiful in the way a dish well-prepared by another was, rather than one cooked by one's own hand.

Of course, there was no issue with the routine. But, even when she tried to change the formula, to make something different, to interpret Her image differently, it felt... hollow. No matter what, each war machine she built never felt right, like she was perverting MEKHANE, and tarnishing the name of all that was built in Her image. It was unshakeable. It followed her everywhere, sunk its teeth in under her iron flesh each time she laid eyes upon her own constructs.

It made her sick, to the stomach she had long removed and replaced with a steam engine.

Another line of plates. Another set of bolts. Another minute of slamming fists and metal clanging. Two more. She turned and went for another set of sheets. She could feel it, too. Her Goddess' gaze shifting away from her, unsatisfied with her works. Robert's attention felt like a hammer falling upon her every time they spoke, wishing he could only work whatever dents in her being out, to stop her slipping down. Hedwig barely spoke to her unprompted anymore. She never visited the workshop, and she couldn't quite meet Trunnion's eyes on the rare occasions they did converse.

It felt... unusual. Sad, almost, but she knew it was no one's fault but her own.

Another line of plates. Another set of bolts. Another minute of slamming fists and metal clanging. One more to go.

Maybe it //was// the routine of it all. As concrete as Her form was, she was vast, incalculable, barely comprehendible to but one mind. Perhaps she'd been trying for too long to capture that form in a single. narrow view. She'd become comfortable in the craft. Perhaps a true change of direction was needed, something to reinvigorate the mind and bring a new sharpness to the dulling edges of her craft... But what to channel it into?

She cast her mind back to the early days of the war, to the only battle she had led an army in alone. It was an invasion of the Thracian coast, near one of their forts in the region. A horde of flesh-workers, and the perverted forms they'd given to the farm animals of the pastures around the stronghold. As she'd ordered her troops forward, she'd caught glimpse of a scene that stuck with her, as unimportant as it seemed in retrospect. A bull, muscular and clad in golden-brown hair, had dug its horns into the chest of a flesh-worker on a hill not far from the front line. It lifted the heretic and swung its head, flinging the impaled body down into the advancing front line of mutated sheep and swine.

Perhaps She favored the bull. Saw it as a resilient creature, one comparable to the early humans she had given intellect.

Perhaps MEKHANE was, to some extent, like a bull.

Her hands rested on the last set of sheets. She looked down at them, and back to the colossus behind her. Slowly, her hands drifted from the stack, and toward a fresh roll of parchment and her inkwell. Surely, her hundredth titan could wait.

[[div class="blockquote"]]

**7.** And so, she retreated once more, intent on regaining a spark of the flame of creation that once engulfed her.

**8.** Yet, to the world above, her occupation gave rise to concern, for months had passed in her absence, and a seat forever empty at the table of the Crafters...

[[/div]]

Bumaro and Hedwig sat alone in the dining hall of the Grand Temple. It was a cold place, in spite of the Mediterranean sunlight that poured in the slit-windows that lined its walls. Every inch of the room, of the building that it was a mere compartment of, was cold iron. MEKHANE had never intended for man to live in discomfort, and the heat of the north African sun brought sweat to the few remaining biological components of the island's residents.

What it was not, normally, was silent. Conversation had once freely flowed between the three people who ate here, on their current work, on the lives of their subordinates, on the state of the Empire and its people. But, in the months since Trunnion had sealed herself away, Bumaro and Hedwig had found themselves struggling more and more to keep their talks from growing stale at a concerning speed. One thing, however, lingered on both their minds. This day, it finally crept out.

"I'm beginning to get worried about Trunnion." Hedwig said, staring past Bumaro and out into the vast expanse of sea in the window behind him. "And I trust that my concern is not mine alone."

"Your trust is honored this day." Bumaro responded, his hands bridged beneath his chin. "She has been down in the forges for... too long. How long has it been since she was last seen?"

"Fifty days." Hedwig corrected. "Fifty days, and approximately four hours. You'd almost wonder if she'd died down there."

Bumaro snorted, a sharp, ringing noise as the place where his nostrils would have been had long since been plated over with iron. "She couldn't have. We would've felt it by now, would we not? A shift in the earth, without her presence beneath us, keeping her beloved workshop in check?" A distortion of the plates where his mouth would be formed an imitation of a smile. "She's fine. Well, physically..."

"When did you last speak to her?" Hedwig's wings shook slightly with the cold, the faux-nerves within doing their job slightly too well. "I admit, we hadn't spoke in a month or so, but I do wonder if she feels we are ignoring her. We haven't quite spent as much time together outside official proceedings in... Well, too long now."

"I spoke to her not even a day before." Bumaro snapped. "She is //not// so childish as to sulk over her associates and friends being occupied with the duties we have had for decades now. That, I am confident in."

Hedwig stared at him, somewhat surprised by the sharpness of his tone. "Do not try to make an enemy of me before I leave to survey the realm once more, Robert." She retorted, her words icy. "You would do well to keep the woman who ensures your vassals remain loyal to you holds you in a high regard."

Bumaro sighed, and rested his head against his fist. "I suppose."

Hedwig stared at him a moment longer, before rising from her seat. "I'm going to visit her. Or, try to, at the very least. I think you'd do well to come along."

Without a moment more wasted, she turned heel and left, leaving Bumaro alone in the hall. He stared at the great door leading out into the world, its cypress surface decorated with swirling bronze designs. Designs Trunnion had done, years before. As they finally swung to a full close after Hedwig had left, he continued to look up at them, his eyes tracing each loop and swerve.

He did not follow her.

[[=]]
γ̅
[[/=]]

The entrance to Trunnion's workshop was a large silver disc embedded into the hillside between the palace's mound. It sat under a slight lip in the hill, and a small cliff emerged in front of it, poking ever so slightly over the coastline, and giving a beautiful view of the Mediterranean. On a clear day, you could almost see Sparta, if you had the enhanced eyes for it. It'd been a common place for the three to meet, whenever their duties didn't demand their constant attention. Hedwig was almost certain that was the reason that Trunnion had built the new entrance there, after the old one in the city had become obsolete. It was more secluded, yes, but the view outside could be... comforting, in long stretches of solitude.

The door towered, cold and still, over Hedwig. It was largely blank, save for a singular icon of a cog. Part of the locking system, if her half-memories of Trunnion's explanations were to be believed. Slowly, she raised a hand, knuckles toward the door, and knocked. The sound of metal against metal rang out across the hillside, and a flock of seagulls took flight in terror, kicking up sand in their hurry. "TRUNNION!" She shouted, hoping her voice could be heard through the door. "ARE YOU IN THERE?"

No response. The door didn't budge. She knocked again, harder this time. "LOOK, IF YOU'RE ANGRY AT ME, OR... SOMETHING TO THAT EFFECT, PLEASE, JUST TELL ME! I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE WITH YOU MAD AT ME OR BUMARO OVER SOMETHING! PLEASE?"

Again, there was no response. Hedwig stared up at the door, and sighed. She stood for a few minutes longer, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she'd hear the sounds of a hurried approach and the door opening, just before she turned to leave.

It never came. And she waited still.

Day turned to evening, and evening to dusk. The sun had long since dipped behind the hill above her, and the sea behind her was painted with the pinks and purples of sunset. As much as she would've loved to wait longer, in the desperate hope her friend would emerge, some part of her, deep within, knew there was next to no use in it. Slowly, she turned, facing the sea at the edge of the cliff. Her steel wings spread wide, ready to bring her across the sea to the furthest reaches of their dominion.

As she reached the cliff's edge, she turned her head to look back at the door. One final, silent plea for it open. In the fading light, it looked less like a door and more like the beginning of a deep sinkhole. It did not respond. Silently, she returned her gaze to the sea before her, and took flight for Crete, begging Mekhane that her friend would be there when she returned.

[[div class="blockquote"]]

**12.** And thus it was, for months, that the Three Hammers of the Forge were brought apart, divided among rule, creation, and the maintenance of order.

**13.** Lord Bumaro, alone in the seat of power, sought each day to tempt Trunnion back to the surface, through promise of new materials, assistants, and an expansion of her workshop.

**14.** And yet, she did not surface, nor did she deign to answer him when he sought her attention.

**15.** In her rare moments of respite in the Empire's heart, Hedwig would rest by the door of the workshop, hoping she could find her friend leaving under cover of night, or slipping out in a new body.

**16.** And, yet, for every hour she watched, the path to the workshop's doorway seemed to grow lonelier and lonelier.

**17.** And thus it was, for nearly a year.

**18.** Until, at noon in the depths of spring, Trunnion emerged to bring her fruits to bear before Bumaro, confident in her year's isolation and its product.

[[/div]]

Bumaro and the Imperial Bulwarks stared at the automaton in front of them. Even if its form was physically undamaged, the weight of their judgement may as well have flattened it already.

Eventually, Bumaro spoke. "This is a cow."

{{"A bull, my lord."}} Trunnion corrected, looking up at her friend in his throne. {{"The difference is mostly in gender, which I understand we are... rather disconnected from, but the semantics do matter to an extent."}}

Bumaro's face plates clanked slightly as they rumpled. "Yes. My point stands. This is a bull. I must ask... //Why// have you brought this before me?"

Trunnion stood stock still as Bumaro's gaze fell upon her in turn. Her two pairs of arms quickly crossed, hands at her elbows. {{"I believe this to... to be a step towards more fully capturing Mekhane's being."}} Her simulated voice had a slight quake to it, almost as if she were shaking.

"...And you believe the key to Her full image, which most believe your colossi already depict in barely-faulted detail... is livestock."

Trunnion nodded, and Bumaro brought a hand to his forehead, sighing. "A year, Trunnion." He leaned forward, gesturing at her with his other hand. "Twelve months in that workshop. Twelve. Full. Months. I'd thought you dead on numerous occasions, only for the noises you made down there to tell me otherwise. I believe you were designing a weapon, or creating some sort of... new, improved design of colossus. Not... making replicas of livestock."

He returned his eyes to the automaton for a brief moment, only to see its tail now flicked back and forth, back and forth. Its eyes shone with a bright golden light, bringing a faint glow to its bronze skin. It raised its head to look at Bumaro, tilting it to one side as it stared at him with empty eyes.

Bumaro looked back, before turning his attention back to Trunnion. "This is a party trick. Something we would throw before the Sarkites and watch as they ran in fear at the sight. Not..." He paused, his exasperation clear. "Are you //sure// this is what you truly see as your future? Model animals, rather than the machines you've perfected for years? Toys, rather than titans?"

Trunnion didn't respond. Her eyes traced a path along the stairs between them, from his feet to her own. Her joints whirred, and her robes billowed slightly in the faint breeze that blew into the room from the vents in the floor. Bumaro sighed, much more pointedly this time. "Trunnion." He said, his voice hard. "Is this //truly// the path you wish to walk now?"

{{"I don't know."}} She responded, her voice unregulated, higher than usual. It took Bumaro aback for a moment. Out of the three of them, Trunnion was always the most composed. Her voice was never raised, nor lowered. She was almost unfeeling, in his and Hedwig's eyes. And yet, here she was, sounding almost... upset. {{"I don't know."}}

Before he could respond, she'd turned and was making for the door. The bull looked up at him, and snorted, a small plume of white steam leaving its nostrils, before it leapt to its feet and charged after its creators. He reached out a hand as the two reached the door, his friend casting one final look back at him. They held eye contact for a moment, before she slid out between the gap in the door, followed by her creation. Slowly, he retracted his hand, and stared after them. He glanced at his palm, before looking back at the door. For the first time since he'd cut it out and replaced it with iron, he felt the words he wanted to say catch in his throat.

//"Then let us find out together."// He murmured, before resting his hand against his forehead.

[[div class="blockquote"]]

[[div class="schema"]]
##red|//p.//## Fall apart. Succumbing to the weathering of the world. To let oneself rust is the ultimate scorn upon MEKHANE. An ultimate display of folly by Her divine tools.
[[/div]]

**29.** Let those who turn from the teaching of The MEKHANE feel Her bitter scorn. Let them not know Life as it should be. Let them know not of Her Glory.

**30.** Cursed are those who turn against Her. To fail is to Rust.##red|^^//p//^^## To Rust is to fail. An accursed cycle, the road of ignorance is.

[[/div]]

The walls were always moving.

Gears turned, pistons hissed and squealed. Everything in motion, akin to something alive yet so painfully not. There was an unnatural rhythm to the movement, as jerking and wild as it appeared. She'd picked up on the pattern to the movement ages ago. Clockwise one way, counterclockwise another, different walls and sections oscillating between the two. Artificial. Like a rehearsed dance.

Said dance was one of glittering metal. Of copper and steel, dark iron and bronze. In the orange-gold glow from oil-lit lamps, they looked almost as though they were burning. A brilliant, bright fire cast across many walls, reflected by spinning gears that sometimes stuttered and grinded against one another in shrill cries like something not-quite alive.

And it was a //mockery.//

Six hands work desperately and tirelessly. A bird, fragile and small, was slowly being put together. It was one of many she'd attempted to craft. One of many in a line of small creations that refused to sing. Refused to move //right.//

Small gears are fitted into its chest, carefully pushed into place by the tip of a thin tool, teeth slotting into one another. Metallic blades are fastened in alignment in a replication of feathers along a wing -- despite how her mind nagged that it would not be able to fly.

She has been doing this for ages. She has been attempting this futilely since before these walls contained only her and whatever machinations were even capable of dragging themselves across the floor. She has been attempting this since before those she'd brought to her workshop to help left her here alone. Abandoned her.

A tinny sigh, like the squeaking of unoiled joints. Legate Trunnion rises from her desk and turns to survey the rest of workshop.

[[div class="blockquote"]]

[[div class="schema"]]

##red|//r.//## Legate Trunnion's perseverance in asceticism against the corruption of Rust to strive for the perfection was recognized as a key doctrine of the faith by the First Patriach Council of Nicomedia.
[[/div]]

**34.** Adytum has fallen. MEKHANE smiles upon us. The loss is great, but the victory greater.

**35.** Beneath the Pillars, see the Workshop of Trunnion. Of renown and of greatness, the womb of the Colossi. A great burning forge as it's perfect, glowing Heart. A place of divine creation, guided by the MEKHANE's hand.

**36.** May the Inventor-Smith of the Empire once more show us Her Holy power.

**37.** May She once more be made manifest in the physical realm by the hands of the Inventor-Smith, and the world once more purged of its heresies in Her presence.##red|^^//r//^^##

[[/div]]

{{"This place is imperfect."}} Trunnion spoke, her voice filling the chamber in spite of her lack of a mouth. {{"Nothing within the halls of this place so much as resembles my Goddess, not a single gear is placed in a remote facsimile of Her image."}} The sound rumbles the bench before her, her tools clattering against the cold marble. But, just as quickly as it arose, it subsided, as she slumped over the workbench and clasped her head in the two of her hands which were equipped to do so.

{{"Why?"}} The workshop again rang out in her voice. {{"Hath you forsaken me, my Goddess? What hath I done to displease You? Hath I not been amongst Thine most faithful for so long? Led Your children into battle against the heretics of Flesh, and crushed them? Sung Your praises to those who did not believe Your word, from Athens to Thebes? Who built the forges of [[[scp-2217|these islands]]], whose fires never flicker to mere cinders? Who raised their blacksmiths to know no end to their talent, to best serve Your purpose? Who unearthed the raw source, with which we could forge wonders in the faintest hope of imitating You? What among these hath brought upon me your displeasure? Let it be known to me, lest I drive myself mad with the hungering of these questions, I beseech thee!"}}

Silence. Not a thing within the workshop moved an inch. The dull hum of the steampipes vibrated through Legate's steel skull. She sighed, and one of the pipes burst, a jet of steam providing the sound to the lungless act before a small, five-legged automaton scuttled along the ceiling and ignited one of its needle-thin legs, welding the fissure shut once more, before retreating back into the depths of the workshop. She didn't remember building that one. Maybe Enrichner had snuck in and thrown it together one of the days before she'd hidden away in here. Maybe she'd built it and it had been of too little effort for her to even bother to remember it.

Did she even remember building half of the things that now filled the workshop around her? Had they been built? Were they always there?

...How long had she been down here?

She stared at her hands, any luster the metal had once held dulled to nothing from years of friction and oil. She stared and, without so much as a moment's hesitation, put them back to work. She was close. Any hour now, she'd put the pieces together right. Something would click in her mind, some grand revelation, and the fire within her soul would reignite, ready to forge perfection in an instant once more. She would win back Her favour, make Her image manifest in the mortal realm once more, for the salvation and the glory of all who walked them.

She could rejoin the world above. Look Hedwig in the eye and believe that she was not descecrating her comrade's most Holy presence with her own. Stand before Bumaro and know, in the twisting, piston-pumped depths of her heart, that he would not see her as a blasphemy given form, but as half of the pair who had followed him into [[[a-baptism-of-fire|hell itself]]] and brought their people to victory.

She cast her eyes over to the bull, sat motionless on a nearby table. Powered on, but unmoving. Watching her with hollow, glowing eyes. Mocking its mother and its discarded siblings.

{{"This is your fault."}} She murmured, just loud enough for its sensors to pick up. {{"You were the first deviation from the path. The first step toward perfection, before you kicked me back to the ground. You sit there, staring at me, as if you think yourself superior. Closer to HER."}}

The bull continued to stare, a small plume of steam emerging from its nostrils as its tail flicked to one side, then to the other. It gave no further response. She turned further, half-facing the beast. {{"Do not ignore your progenitor. I let the world bear witness to your creation, but your destruction may well be more glorious if you continue to behave as such."}}

It snorted again, harder this time, with the plumes of steam almost entirely obscuring its face. She snapped. She took a hammer in one hand and let it fly at the bull. It collided with its midriff with a //bang,// and steam began to leak from a new hole in the construct's side. Finally, it let out a metallic roar, and leapt from the table, hitting the floor in a cloud of white gas and sprinting away into the workshop. Trunnion watched it go, cursing every molecule of its body, before bringing a hand to her face and an elbow to the workbench. She was forsaken. Every step forward took her in a new direction, and none of them were towards Her. Whatever fire burned within her hadn't gone out, but the light of it that had once guided her vanished.

No. She could still manage. She could still figure it out. She could //make it work.// She just needed time. Time and peace. She thought back to the last time she had left the workshop. The disappointment in Bumaro's eyes as she'd presented the bull to him. Hedwig's absence from the meeting spoke more than enough. She wasn't needed in the Empire anymore. Wasn't wanted.

That was fine by her. She'd make them come begging for her to return. She'd leave the workshop with MEKHANE's visage made manifest, and they'd lay down on their hands and knees and proclaim their folly of misplaced faith. Of course she could do it. She was the craftswoman, after all.

Yes. She could do it. If only she were left alone to do so.

She glanced to her left. An imprint in the wall, in the rough shape of a hand, sat amid a tangled web of pipes and funnels. The lock for the entrance to her workshop, the only thing connecting her to the outside world. As always, she had it engaged, to prevent unaware wanderers from stumbling in. She stared at it for a moment, running her fingers along the sandstone palm, before pulling back and closing her hand.

{{"Not until it's good enough. Until I can see Her looking back at me through a pair of eyes I wrought with my own hands."}}

She tightened her grip. The pipes around the gap twisted and groaned, before covering the handprint in a wall of copper and iron. She stared at it for a moment longer, before turning back to the workbench. She shoved the loose scrap aside, and prepared herself to start over.

She would make something perfect. It may take until the stars burnt out and her very soul was coated in rust, but she would find a way to create perfection.

[[/==]]

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