Chapter 22.1: Sibling Dynamics

The next day, Minkus was the first to rise. Rolling over on a makeshift mattress stuffed to bursting with straw, he gazed out the window of the room they’d found at a local inn. Though he knew the window looked down several stories at the central square of the city, Minkus could see nothing from his angle but clear, dark skies with only the faintest promise of coming daylight. It confirmed what the utter silence indicated: it was far too early to be awake.

He turned this way, then that. He closed his eyes and twisted into a huddled mass of limbs and ears beneath his cover. He stretched himself wide. He even attempted to count the stars still visible out the window. There was nothing for any of it.

After the better part of an hour, Minkus gave up entirely, finally shifting quietly onto his back and staring up at the dark, wooden ceiling. He was inside a ship, an upside-down ship far above the pavement of Lion's Arch, and he was gazing at the vessel’s deck that now served as a ceiling, but all he could think about was his friend, one of the very few friends he had. She’d betrayed them, or so the others said.

Minkus shook his head as he silently ruminated. He couldn’t believe that, could he?

In a conversation the night before, in the tavern at the base of the inn, and with maybe one too many glasses of mulled wine in his system, Ventyr had said it was just like her. Though the betrayal had surprised the sylvari as well, in hindsight he said it made sense. “In the end,” he’d rasped, his glass gripped tightly in hand, “Penny is most concerned with Penny.”

No, even now, thinking it over in the waxing light of day that had begun to fill the room, Minkus didn’t agree— did he? He knew the sylvari had known her longer, so perhaps Ventyr knew something he didn’t? Perhaps he’d seen things like this before? But no, Minkus thought, that didn’t account for the way he— well, it didn’t account for the way he felt around Penny, the way he felt about her, what he felt from her. Oh, Jinkke would have a thing to say about that, if he were to tell her the basis for his faith in the human was his feeling about her. As all good asura did—as Minkus knew he should—Jinkke approached every question with her feet set firmly on logic, and she always chided him toward the same.

But was he really approaching it illogically? His instincts told him—

He sighed so deeply it rustled the straw. Yes, he was being illogical. He’d always been that way, and maybe it was just time to accept that. With a silent nod, he made a decision.

For another hour he lay silent and still, looking up at the deck of a ship until the others began to shuffle themselves to waking. They each came to, and before long, Ventyr, Yissa, Jinkke, and Skixx were up, dressed, and packed, and the party was leaving the inn.

Minkus followed along behind, stopping briefly on the way to the tavern’s door to hand a few coins to the keeper in exchange for a small breakfast loaf. His hand trembled slightly as he took his first bite, but a faint smile crept across his face. “A full belly is a strong belly,” he recited under his breath, hearing the words exactly as Royston had said then in his time on the man’s farm. His other close human friend managed to encourage him even now.

The five walked on, passing through the market as buyers arrived and the noise continued to grow. They covered their ears to escape the sounds of hammers raining down blows on anvils and passed quietly by the fishermen taking their places along the edge of the Piazza to cast their bait into the water far below.

It took some time, but they were soon standing exactly where they’d been the evening before, at the near side of the bridge that led to Tyria’s central asura-gate hub. The only differences this time were that the sun hovered brightly over the eastern mountains and the crotchety old man was replaced by a fat asura who pulled back the chain blocking the way and excitedly declared the gates open for business. The handful of merchants and travelers waiting alongside Minkus and the others made their way onto the bridge and toward the ring of large, circular gates on an island in the middle of the harbor, and the group got swept up along with them.

Gulls dotted the tarred pylons that held up the walkway, some preening themselves as other took turns diving down at the bay below. Occasionally one came up with a catch, but the majority simply returned to their posts and their preening, seemingly unbothered by their failures. As each left the wood to ride lightly on the breeze, Minkus felt his heart rise. He shook the nervous shiver or of his hand. This was the right choice; he knew it.

The closer they got to the platform, the more traffic they encountered moving in the opposite direction. Bands of charr and norn carried bags of goods easily as large as Minkus himself, the sight of which even caught Jinkke’s awe for a moment, though she likely wouldn’t have admitted it. Human traders were the most common among the travelers coming into the city from the gates, and though there were a couple of sylvari, the childlike expressions they wore made it seem more likely they were tourists rather than merchants. It seemed Lion’s Arch attracted a great deal of daily business from the continent’s capitals.

Following closely on Skixx’s heels and bringing up the rear of the group, Minkus danced gracefully around a handcart being pulled behind an overweight human vendor and stopped dead in the center of the round platform between the ramps that led up to each gate. He stood, bobbing his head to see each gate more clearly around passing travelers.

These seemed bigger than the ones he’d used between Rata Sum and Metrica, but they were essentially the same: a broad stone ring broken into geometric segments around the outside edge, with a slightly smaller ring slowly rotating inside. The glistening fuschia energy field formed inside the rotating ring seemed to simultaneously reveal the empty air beyond it and just the slightest hint of the place to which it actually took travelers. He seemed to remember something about the inner ring’s motion being responsible for the magical rift but the details eluded him. Either way, it was pretty. Every gate also had an asura operator and a pair of guards representing the nation it led to: sylvari wardens, norn wolfguard, charr legionnaires, asura peacemakers, and human seraphs.

“Minkus? Minkus,” he heard Jinkke call amid the din still rising around them. She returned a few steps from where the others had gotten off to and grabbed his hand, pointing on ahead. “It’s this one over here.” She pulled, but Minkus didn’t move. He took a deep breath.

“I’m not going with you, Jinkke.”

Her expression of uncertainty lasted less than a moment. “No,” she said simply. “ We’ve had this conversation, Big Brother, we’re not going after the human.”

“She’s my friend, Jinkke, and her name is Penny.”

“And she’s a thief,” the smaller asura added, letting his hand go. She crossed her arms and looked up at him from under her brow. “The sergeant has been clear on his purpose, as have I, and there is no room in either of those undertakings for pursuing Arkayd. I’m sorry, Big Brother, I really am. It disheartens me that she made such a foolish and short-sighted decision that’s caused you so much discontent, but it’s done, and there’s nothing for it now.”

“My promise to the Vigil is done,” he said after another deep breath. “And as far as Penny, well— I can't believe she—”

“Then what else did she do, Minkus? What other, plausible reason would she have for disappearing into the night that way?” The snap in Jinkke’s response took him back. She saw it in his eyes and reached once more for his arm, holding it gently in her small hand. “Please don’t wander off again, not for this. For you, Big Brother, it’s too dangerous."

“For me?” Minkus asked, cocking his head.

Jinkke’s lips began to form words, but she was interrupted by another voice. “Is there a problem?”

Both siblings looked up behind Jinkke to find Ventyr standing over them. One arm at his side and the other gripped around his wooden staff, he let his gaze move across Jinkke to Minkus. Just behind him, Yissa and Skixx approached through the criss-crossing crowd of torsos and legs. Curious expressions dressed their faces.

“No, Sergeant,” Jinkke replied, pressing her hair back with both hands, “No problem. Minkus and I were just—”

“I’m going to Divinity’s Reach,” Minkus interrupted, looking first at the sylvari and then down at Jinkke. “If I understand right, my Vigil contract— well, it’s—”

“Complete,” Vetyr finished. “When we reached the Durmand Priory, your contract was complete. I am aware. Does this mean you’re set on finding Penny?”

“Yes.”

Jinkke, standing between them, looked from one to the other and back again. “Is that it?” she demanded of Ventyr. “You make the inquiry we all know the answer to, he gives the answer we all know is coming, and business is concluded?” She turned back to Minkus, her anger dissolving into concern. “Regardless of what the Vigil does or doesn’t require of you, you are not pursuing this course a step further. It’s been three years, Big Brother: three years that I've wondered whether or not I’d lay eyes on you again. Obviously you’ve picked up a few tricks since then, but— well, this is a different type of danger than mindless monsters in the wild, Minkus. It’s time you returned home."

Minkus squinted thoughtfully. A different danger? He didn’t know what that meant, but it also wasn’t his first concern, and that concern returned to him. “I’m sorry, Jinkke,” he said. “Something about this— well, it feels wrong. Just wrong, Jinkke. And I can’t leave a friend to something— wrong.”

His sister’s lips grew tight. “Something feels wrong?” she repeated after him, her cadence accelerating. Minkus could almost see the script for the lecture she was about to deliver. “First, Big Brother, a feeling of any kind is an unwise basis for any course of action. Second, something feels wrong because something is wrong! That first human friend, the male in Kessex, he may have proven to be an honest individual, but this one has clearly evinced otherwise. Penny has deceived you, Big Brother. Human or not, she positioned herself in your favor and the sergeant’s, attained what she wished, and turned on you both for her own profit. The fact that you see it through any other lens is evidence that you remain as ill equipped as ever to face the mental challenges of the world around you. Instead of observing and thinking with what faculties you do have, you rely on feelings. No matter how magically gifted you may be, that puts you at a level of risk I am unwilling to allow.”

Minkus drew back. That was not the script he’d expected. When he spoke, he did so more quietly, just above the noise of the passersby around them. “As ill equipped as ever? Mental challenges?” He asked.

“That’s not what I mean, Big Brother. I— I said that wrong, and I'm sorry, but my position on this specific instance remains. You can’t handle this.”

Minkus looked down at his feet, immediately recalling more moments from their past than he was prepared for. The construction of his first electromagnet came to mind: coiling the wire around the device while Jinkke reminded him how it needed to be wound. He remembered their few years in Yatt’s lab. As a favor to their parents, Minkus had been hired for janitorial work while his sister was a full-fledged apprentice, but Jinkke would stay behind every day to walk him through what she’d learned. Finally, when Jinkke reached the colleges, she’d found a way to get him in and tutor him through, proving against all odds that she was right. Big Brother, she'd said at every turn, you can do anything.

He shook the memories away and returned to Lion’s Arch, to his sister physically standing in front of him. He felt the small grin spread across his face. “Don’t worry about me, Jinkke. I can do anything. I am a Dynamics graduate after all.”

"Yes, officially."

Minkus felt the small smile melt from his face in his sudden confusion. Jinkke’s eyes widened.

“Officially?” he asked. “I don’t— what do you mean?”

"Nothing, Minkus,” she said quickly, taking hold of his dangling arms

“You’re right. You made all your marks, completed all your courses, and it made me the proudest little sister that’s ever been." He didn’t understand it, but he could see her eyes, her mind, frantically searching for something.

"Jinkke,” he pursued again, “what is it? Something is wrong, and— and you’re not telling me.”

"Nothing. I just— It’s—” His sister bobbled her words about. She never did that.

Minkus looked over and noticed a pensive expression on Yissa’s face. Skixx simply looked uninterested. If there was one thing he could recognize in his own people, it was when they’d computed something he hadn’t, and both of them had. His eyes moved between Jinkke and Yissa’s faces, two very different expressions of awkwardness, and a slosh of thought finally settled and solidified in his mind.

“Jinkke,” he said, looking at her, “I’m a Dynamics graduate, right? I— all that studying— all the help you gave me— the way everyone else was so— I mean, just tell me I—"

“Minkus.” She looked right at him, and the words almost failed her again. "You worked like no one I’ve ever known, you always have. And those imbeciles around us, they were too blind to recognize what you really are. I may have—”

“Jinkke.” He could barely get his voice above a whisper. “Please tell me.”

She nodded, lowering her eyes to the wooden planks beneath their feet and letting the words spill out. “The administrators adapted your results, Big Brother. By common standards you should never have been accepted to the college, let alone commenced from it. I just wanted—"

“I cheated?” Minkus wrapped his arms around himself, letting Jinkke’s hands fall away. The world seemed to shrink. “How many— how many of my results were changed?”

“I don’t know the exact number,” she said, pausing for only a second. “But it would have been the great majority, I suppose.”

The world blurred. "I cheated," he uttered.

"Not technically,” Jinkke corrected. “You didn't know what was occurring."

“No, but you did,” he said. “And you— I—” He held his forehead, waiting for the rest of the statement to form. “Jinkke, you let me think I'd accomplished it. Why? Why would you—” He trailed off. You can do anything, he remembered her saying again.

He gazed down at her dainty, chocolate fingers wrapped lightly around his forearm again. The past continued to flicker confusingly through his mind, followed closely by a torrent of disjointed feelings that he didn’t want to have, until something far more recent pierced through it all: Penny was still out there. For now that was something tangible he could focus on, something he had the heart to do something about. He slid Jinkke’s hand away.

“Thank you for telling me the truth.” His words were both gentler and stronger than he felt.

“Big Brother, you can’t—“

“Maybe not,” he said, “but I have to try. Penny didn’t do it. She couldn’t have.”

“Minkus,” Ventyr interjected, his eyes firm. “By the Mother I want you to be right, but you are not. The likelihood of her even being in Divinity's Reach is slim. I’d sooner see you spend your time on something worthy of your gifts. But, you are free to do as you will.” He shifted his attention to Jinkke standing just before him. “As are you. The scholar and I are on our way to Brisban with no further delays, Skixx is headed on to conduct more business in the Black Citadel, and the two of you are free to go where you please. It has been a pleasure to journey with you both.” With that, he put a hand on Jinkke’s shoulder and then Minkus’, and pressing past Yissa and Skixx, he made for the gate to Rata Sum.

Minkus blinked, watching the sylvari’s boughed head bob farther into the milling crowd, and Skixx followed without a second glance. Yissa caught his eyes sadly, hugging herself, but she too slipped away after the others. That left Minkus and Jinkke, and a too long silence.

“Big Brother—”

“You should go,” he fumbled, nodding toward the others as they got farther away through the milieu. “I should too. I need to— I just need to go.” Minkus turned and pressed through the crowd to the Divinity’s Reach asura gate.

It was maybe a hundred feet away, but it was hard to make progress while repeatedly looking back at Jinkke from the corner of his eye. He caught glimpses between passing travelers as she slowly turned and walked in the other direction, the two of them moving farther and farther apart through the milling hive of people. After bumping tactlessly into several other travelers, Minkus focused on his own heading as well, turning to face forward.

He sighed heavily as he stepped up onto the ramp, joining the short line of people on their way into Divinity's Reach. In his turn he paid his fare to the operator and stepped into the glistening glow that rippled within the ring.