Chapter Text
Lucy stirred as the steady rumble of the train changed pitch. She must be nearing her destination: Sandrock.
As she looked out of the train window, a jaw dropping landscape unfolded in front of her. Sandy red desert interrupted by the carcasses of towering Old World buildings. Amongst these impressive structures, the flat landscape of the desert was marred by large canyons, formed when the people of New World descended on the greater area of Sandrock to scour the land for relics from the past.
As Lucy gazed on in wonder, a growing sense of dread started in the pit of her stomach. She never particularly enjoyed the first few months of being the new builder in town.
This was not the first time that Lucy had needed to start from scratch and it certainly would not be the last. You see, Lucy had a rather unique problem: she did not age.
As amazing as this sounded on paper, it did create a surprising number of practical issues. Chief of these being that most ordinary folks tend to become quite alarmed once they eventually realise that someone like Lucy is in their midst.
Lucy had been in her former home of Highwind for around 10 years before a few of her neighbours had become a bit too interested in her unusually youthful appearance. In the past Lucy would have buried her head in the sand and hoped that the matter would be dropped. She had enough experience by now to know better: overstaying her welcome would invariably lead to a hasty departure and no time to properly wrap up her affairs.
Sandrock had been chosen as her new home as it was one of the few places where she had never set foot. The consensus around the Free Cities was that the town of Sandrock was dying. Most people saw this as a good reason to steer clear of the place, whereas Lucy thought that this would be a good place to lie low for a few years. Maybe she would even manage to take a holiday or two whilst there. She had not had one of those for decades.
As the train pulled into Sandrock station, Lucy gathered the two small bags that she had permitted herself to bring from Highwind. It was better for her cover story of being a newly qualified builder if she travelled light.
When Lucy stepped off the train, she was immediately hit by a wave of dry heat and beads of sweat began to form on her brow. The station building that welcomed her to Sandrock looked tired, but well cared for. Someone had been going to the effort of keeping the paintwork touched up despite it being a losing battle thanks to the sand and beating sun.
Turning in the direction of the main town, Lucy noticed a petite woman with long, dark hair holding a sign up with Lucy's name on it at the end of the platform. Judging by the overalls and goggles that the woman was wearing, this must be the other builder in town.
As they made eye contact, the woman smiled and introduced herself as Mi-an. Lucy was not one for small talk, so she was relieved when Mi-an offered to take her straight to her new workshop. Up until recently this had been used by the town’s outgoing builder, Mason
Given the current state of decline in the town, Lucy did not have high hopes for her new workshop. However, she was still unable to stop her jaw dropping at the sight of the place she would be expected to call home for the next few years. Mi-an quietly commented that the place needed a bit of work, but that was quite the understatement.
The living quarters comprised of a small whitewashed shack. When Lucy peered inside, she got the impression that the building had been designed with the sole purpose of housing the lone single bed that sat in the room. There was just enough space to walk around this if you had small feet, but no space for much else. Definitely a good thing that she packed light.
Behind the shack, hidden from the view of the train station, Lucy found her bathroom in a tiny outbuilding. Unusually, the shower was situated directly over the toilet, presumably in a haphazard attempt to conserve water. The place had not been cleaned in years judging by the smell and other unmentionables she saw in the outbuilding.
The workshop yard was strewn with mangled scrap and an array of garbage. Fortunately, there was a passable assembly station buried underneath all of the mess. It was certainly going to take some time to get this place to even the most basic standard that Lucy had become accustomed to.
Whilst Lucy surveyed her new property, Mi-an hovered silently in the background, emitting the occasional gasp when Lucy uncovered a new horror. Lucy found that she was at a loss for words herself, but figured she needed to say something to break the silence when she plodded back to Mi-an.
“Well… it’s a workshop,” she shrugged, unable to think of any positive adjectives at all that could be used to describe the place.
Any further observations were cut short as she was hit in the face with a piece of garbage that had been picked up by the wind. It made Mi-an laugh if nothing else.
*
The rest of the day was surprisingly hectic. Lucy hoped that this was not a bad omen, she had expected a slower pace of life in the desert town.
Mi-an started by taking Lucy to the Commerce Guild where she met her new boss, the Guild Commissioner Yan. For a builder, Yan was particularly skinny: this immediately led Lucy to doubt his number one position on the workshop leaderboard that was prominently displayed in the guild.
Unusually Yan had awarded himself the title of 'guild president'. This was definitely not standard practice in Lucy's experience. The man seemed to get worse with every sentence that came out of his mouth. Overall, he gave the impression of being entirely motivated by money, having little to no regard for the people working underneath him. He would have fit in well amongst the corporate greed that was rife in the Old World she thought wryly.
After leaving the commerce guild, Lucy and Mi-an were accosted by various members of the town and Lucy started to form the opinion that Sandrock might be a bit of a haven for eccentrics. All the better for Lucy, who was a bit of an oddity herself.
As a child, Lucy had effectively been raised by the AI responsible for taking care of her parents’ home. Talking to an AI that you could not even see all day was not exactly conducive to developing normal social skills. She had certainly made a solid effort to overcome her shortcomings as an adult, but some habits were hard to shake. She was rather prone to talking to herself and was inclined to avoid eye contact wherever she could.
Remarkably, the people of Sandrock did not seem to be particularly bothered by the fact that Lucy was staring into the distance or at her feet for extended periods whilst they spoke to her. In hindsight, Lucy did wonder if they were just being polite though. People were not exactly queuing up to work in Sandrock so they probably did not want to scare her off on the first day by pulling her up on her manners.
As the day drew to a close, Mi-an pointed Lucy in the direction of the City Hall where she would be able to get her Sandrock builder's license and register her workshop. Lucy hoped this would not take too long as her social battery was well and truly depleted by this point.
As Lucy approached the building, she felt a prickling at the back of her neck and she wondered if someone might be watching her. She gave a cursory glance around the square in front of the city hall and figured it must be the tuxedo cat that was dozing on the steps of the imaginatively named 'By the Stairs' store.
As Lucy entered City Hall, she was greeted by a sprightly old woman dressed in the garb of the Church of the Light. The religion was of no interest to Lucy, but she generally found the followers to be quite agreeable and they usually generated a lot of well-paid work for her.
The woman introduced herself as Matilda, minister of the Sandrock Church of the Light and acting mayor for the town. The actual mayor was apparently out in the desert researching desert planting. Lucy got the sense that Matilda disapproved of this judging by the slight frown on the woman's face when she explained the situation.
When it came to naming her workshop, Lucy's mind drew a blank. Whilst ‘Lucy's Workshop’ was her usual choice, she had already used that for her previous 4 workshops and she was starting to worry about the possibility of someone figuring out that it was in fact the same Lucy behind all of them.
She had tentatively suggested 'Nailed It!', but hastily withdrew that idea when she thought that she caught an eye-roll from Matilda. She was getting the impression that this woman did not have much of a sense of humour.
Lucy ultimately opted for 'Workshop123!', apparently Workshop, Workshop1 and Workshop2 had been taken already.
As Lucy exited City Hall with her builder's license in hand, she felt a sudden rush of air as a large man dressed in lurid colours (and possible a cape?) dropped down from above and landed in front of her. She fell backwards in surprise and managed to land flat on her back, winded at the foot of the City Hall steps.
From her position on the ground, Lucy noticed the man’s legs draw closer to her. She peered upwards in order to get a look at his face and her breath caught in her throat. She knew that face, admittedly it had been around 60 years since she last saw it, but he was not someone who could be forgotten in a hurry.
The man caught her gaze, at first looking down at her with an amused sneer, before his expression drifted towards something more puzzled.
The silent standoff was interrupted by a shout from the distance.
"PEN! What'd I tell you about leaping onto unsuspecting tourists!"
This was followed by the thunder of boots on cobblestones and the owner of the voice appeared shortly afterwards. He stopped next to Lucy, clutching his knees as he caught his breath. He was a tall man with a goatee and dreadlocks, dressed in a yellow and orange Civil Corps uniform.
The puzzled look on Pen's face evaporated and he turned to the Civil Corps man, puffing his chest out slightly.
"Justice, good of you to drop by! I have just apprehended a possible member of the Logan gang!"
He gestured in the general direction of Lucy who was still lying in a fairly pathetic heap on the floor.
"I noticed them scurrying about the town today, gathering intel from the town's residents along with that new builder ...Mi-mi, Mi-man..."
He paused momentarily to scratch his head as he ran out of other possible variants of Mi-an's name, before continuing.
"My intention to hang back and observe was unfortunately derailed when I noticed the miscreant leaving City Hall with what I can only assume is stolen library book pages in their pocket. At that point I simply had to act!"
Justice looked at Pen incredulously, before his face turned to a look of horror when he noticed the pickhammer tucked into Lucy's belt. In the commotion her builder’s licence had also spilled from her pocket so there was no doubt regarding who she was.
"Pen! You've just jumped one of our new builders! Do you have any idea how much paperwork I'm gonna have to fill out now!? Unsuur is still working on the reflective essay from when you jumped that tourist a few weeks ago!"
Suddenly realising that Lucy was still on the ground, Justice rushed to extend a hand to her and helped her back to her feet, pressing her builder's licence back into her hand.
"Please accept my profuse apologies..."
Justice paused, clearly having no idea what her name was.
"Lucy," she offered.
Justice returned to glaring at Pen, waiting for a response.
Pen rolled his eyes.
"My apologies. From my rooftop observation points I could not get a good gauge of the builder's physique. Seeing them up close I now see that the thought of them being a threat is laughable.”
He waved his hand in Lucy’s general direction.
“I mean, just look at those skinny arms she has."
Lucy fought to maintain what she hoped was a suitably disgruntled facial expression. Internally her head was going wild. Skinny Arms had been her nickname when she knew Pen all those years ago. Was it just chance that he said that, or had he recognised her after all?
Lucy realised things had gone quiet and saw that Justice was staring at her anxiously waiting for her to say something. She took the hint to put the man out of his misery.
"It's fine, mistakes happen. It would take more than that for me to want to leave town."
Lucy tried to say this in the most reassuring tone that she could muster, but she was still a bit winded so it sounded rather wheezy. Justice did not seem to notice or care though.
"I'm mighty relieved to hear that partner, you have no idea how difficult it is for us to get builders in these parts."
He glanced back at Pen with a scowl before continuing.
"I'll walk you back to your workshop so that Pen here does not get any further ideas. It'll give me a chance to give you a rundown of a few health and safety matters you need to be aware of on the way".
Lucy struggled to pay attention as Justice started to describe the various monsters and wild beasts who made their home in and around Sandrock. Her thoughts were tumbling over each other trying to work out why on earth Pen was in Sandrock of all places and more importantly, what had happened since she last saw him.
Lucy zoned back into the present when she heard Justice mention the word ‘bandit’. In the run up to moving her life to Sandrock, Lucy had started reading the papers for the Sandrock area and was aware that a couple of bandits had been targeting Sandrock for the past few years.
Lucy was surprised to hear that the bandits in question, Logan and Haru, were former residents of the town who had seemingly turned bad overnight. Justice alluded to the fact that this had something to do with the death of Logan's father, but he seemed reluctant to go into too much detail.
The whole tale did sound quite unusual to Lucy, in her long experience (and it was very long compared to most), people generally did not change overnight. She figured there was not much point dwelling on this though as she was here to keep her head down and build, not solve crime.
*
Over the next couple of weeks, Lucy caught glimpses of Pen around the town, although it was honestly hard not to with the man being practically dressed as a superhero, cape and all. The Pen she had known previously would have laughed his socks off at an outfit like that.
Pen did not show any obvious signs of recognising her, but maybe that was for the best. Lucy’s cover story was that she had come to Sandrock for a completely fresh start. It would seem strange if she then happened to know one of the town’s most prominent residents.
Lucy did not have too much time to dwell on Pen or his new style however, as she was utterly drowning in work.
It had quickly become apparent that Mason had all but given up working for the past year. The backlog of outstanding commissions for the townsfolk was simply staggering and Lucy had needed to work around the clock to gather materials, build basic machines and start churning out the commissions that the townsfolk were crying out for.
She had eventually met Mason himself at the Blue Moon Saloon, the town's only bar and eatery. The man seemed to be quite intent on drinking away whatever things were troubling him and Lucy had to wonder what would lead someone to such a sorry state.
The owner of the Saloon, Owen, had looked somewhat worried when he clocked that Lucy was staring at Mason in concern. He had hastily invited her for a free lunch and given her a rundown of the town and its residents, as if trying to distract her from looking for reasons to leave already.
The red headed rancher Cooper had attempted to gatecrash the lunch at one point and Lucy had started to get a bit lost once he began regaling them with conspiracy theories. Thankfully they were rescued by Grace, Owen’s waitress come cook who saw the developing situation and fabricated a story about someone stealing Cooper’s rutabagas. Lucy was not sure what these were, small animals perhaps? In any case it certainly got Cooper moving, so she made a mental note of this for future reference.
*
Three weeks into Lucy's time at Sandrock, she experienced her first sandstorm. Waking up caked in sand, Lucy sorely regretted her decision to ignore the sorry state of the windows in her home: they were leaking sand like no one's business. The noise of the wind coming from outside was unbelievably loud and she had to wonder how the small building was still standing.
As Lucy began to dust sand off herself, there was a loud hammering on her door.
Throwing a large sweatshirt over her sleepwear, she fumbled with the bolt holding the door in place. When she eventually got the door open, she was shocked to see Pen standing outside her home, holding a strange looking hat and goggles. A sudden gust of wind caught the door and Lucy found herself flung outside, still clutching the door handle which she had forgotten to release.
Pen swiftly grabbed her and pulled them both inside, firmly bolting the door behind them. Unfortunately, the gap between the front door and her bed was a bit smaller than his feet, which resulted in Pen falling over backwards onto her bed with a surprised grunt.
Lucy could not help but laugh at this and was relieved when Pen let out a chuckle as well.