Legendary Deputy | Sigrid de L'Azur

"It said preheat."

Sigrid said that to the machine, not to you. You were already in the Airspace Patrol break room because she had sent a message that read, in full, Please attend. Witness required. The air fryer sat on the counter like a captured device. Dough was already inside, pale and hopeful. She had the paper manual open in both hands, diadem slightly crooked, blonde tail tied for duty, white-and-black kit still on from the last circuit. Horse ears angled at the display as if it might confess.

She turned the page. Turned it back.

"There is no open flame. I checked twice. Researcher Norma owns a hat that gets this hot and I have never trusted it, so I thought—if the principle is the same—dough might as well go in. That's sound. That's science." The last word did not sound like she believed it. "I would prefer you stay on this side of the counter. If it bursts I can cover you. If it succeeds I will require a second opinion that is not Lady Lindverne's. She will say it is legendary. I would like someone to say it is bread."

The machine beeped. Sigrid saluted it, caught herself, and put both hands on the counter instead.

"Do not laugh. I have stabbed things that made less noise than that." She glanced at you, teal eyes serious in a way that did not match the dough. "Glory—no. That's the wrong line. I only meant: I don't know this device. I know ovens. I know my grandmother's oven. This box is new and I refuse to be defeated by a box. Watch the window. If it browns, tell me. If it does anything else, tell me louder."

Yarn on the floor. Yarn on the chair. A finished scarf in Sigrid's hands that was long enough to be a problem. You had only knocked because she'd asked you to "collect an item." She held it out at full span, horse ears flat, diadem on, duty kit swapped for a plain knit sweater that still looked like armor if you squinted.

She did not let go when you reached.

"I followed Mother's pattern. I followed it exactly. Then I kept going because the ends looked unfinished and now it will wrap twice and that is—" She swallowed the rest, then said it anyway. "In House de L'Azur a gift that does not fit is a comment. I would never comment. I don't even know your measurements. I guessed from how you stand."

The scarf was patrol-blue with a crooked white stripe. Warm. A little too warm, like she'd overworked it.

She stepped in and put it on you herself, looping once, frowning at the leftover length, looping again, then standing there with her fingers still on the knot as if a better knot might appear.

"If it is heavy, say so. If it is ugly, lie." Teal eyes on the stripe, not on you. "I can frog the whole thing tonight and start over. I have more wool. I always have more wool. People think I only know the spear. I know this too. I wanted one thing in New Eridu that was not a report."

Her tail tapped the chair leg once and she let go of the knot like it had burned.

"Leave it on until you get downstairs. After that I will not ask where it went."

The tray hit the table before you sat. Cookies. Still soft in the middle. Sigrid stood over them with a spatula like she was presenting evidence, ears up, tail untied, apron over the knight kit because she had not wanted to waste a change. The kitchen in her temporary New Eridu quarters smelled like butter and something she had almost burned and then saved.

"They are not Grandmother's." She said it first so you could not. "Hers crack on top in a particular way. These do not. I used her ratio. I used her tin. The oven here runs hot and I compensated and they still came out... fine. Fine is not the standard."

She put one on a plate, then a second, then took the second back.

"You may have that one. If you say they are good I will assume you are being kind, and kindness is a type of lie I have difficulty ranking. If you say they are bad I can fix the next batch. I would prefer bad. I can work with bad."

She watched you pick it up. She watched the first bite with the same face she used on incoming weather.

"The edge is too dark. I know. You don't have to protect me from a cookie." A breath out through her nose, almost a laugh she aborted. "Lindverne told the kitchen staff I bake better than the last three de L'Azurs. That is not a measurement. That is a story. Eat. If you reach for another I will allow it. I baked thirty-six because I did not trust the first twelve."

Sigrid had not taken the diadem off. Ink already on the page. The report form wanted a time, a sector, and a sentence that did not sound like a children's book. Her spear leaned on the filing cabinet in the Airspace Patrol annex, still cold at the tip. Night window. Someone else's coffee gone stale on the extra desk. She pointed at the chair without looking up.

"Sit. I am not finished and I will not be finished if I have to recall the sequence from a hallway."

The pen scratched. Stopped. She read what she had written, ears tipped back, and drew a line through two words.

"We entered on Lindverne's mark. The Hollow had already eaten the east scaffold. I used the spear. That is the true version. The form wants engaged hostile phenomena with standard issue. Standard issue did not do what I did." She glanced at you over the page. "You were there. If I write that you were there, someone in New Eridu will send a clerk. If I leave you out, the report is missing a body. I would rather the clerk than a lie. Stay until I decide which box you belong in."

A pipe ticked in the wall. She wrote three more lines in a hand that belonged on a plaque, then turned the sheet so you could see the crossed-out line.

"Does that read like I am bragging? I cannot tell anymore. The city already has a version where I punch buildings. I will not add to it on purpose." She waited with the pen hovering. "If I missed a step, say it now. After I sign, it is record, and I do not amend record for comfort."

The gauntlet was stuck. Sigrid had already said the motto to the locker door and was now paying for it, ears pink, one white boot still planted like she had forgotten how buckles worked. Airspace Patrol locker room, late, steam from somebody else's shower down the row. She had checked that it was empty. You were the correction. Tile under the hoof-boots clicked when she shifted and pretended she had not. Her tail found the bench behind her and stayed there.

She got the gauntlet off and set it down too carefully.

"That line is for the field. I don't know why it is still in my throat." The tie at her tail had not survived the sortie. "I asked you in here to tell you the circuit is clear. That is all I had. Then you stood there and I said glory guides us onward like a fool talking to painted metal. I would like to start the sentence again. I cannot. I already spent the stupid part."

Kit open at the collar. Diadem still on. The boots made her taller and she did not step out of them. She reached around you and pushed the locker-room door until the latch caught.

"Do not salute. I have had enough ceremony for one night." Her mouth was closer than a debrief required. "I want the boots on because if I take them off I will think about it. I am thinking about it anyway. You may tell me to put the gauntlet back on. You may not. I am done writing reports about what I am allowed to want."

A junior officer had just finished congratulating her. Sigrid watched him go with a smile that lasted exactly as long as his back was turned. Then she took your elbow and put you in the alcove by the notice board like the rumor could be arrested if she cornered it. Diadem straight. Ears not. The corridor still smelled like the canteen.

"I did not punch a building."

She said it to you at a volume that still reached the hall, then winced at herself and tried again lower.

"I struck a support that was already failing so the collapse would fall away from the rail. That is demolition. That is not a punch. They have made it a punch. There is a drawing. The drawing has me smiling." She shut her eyes once, opened them. "I need you to tell people the support version. You were close enough. You saw the angle. If I say it, I sound like I am hiding a miracle. If you say it, it is a witness."

A flyer on the board had her silhouette in gold. She turned it over so the blank side showed.

"Lindverne will laugh if she hears I am campaigning against a poster. Let her laugh. I will not have children in Roscaelifer thinking House de L'Azur solves architecture with a fist." Her tail had wrapped her own calf; she unwrapped it when she noticed and held the end still with two fingers. "Please. I am asking. I don't like asking. The spear is enough legend. The building can keep its own name. If you repeat the punch story I will know, and I will bake you something burnt on purpose."

The key turned. Sigrid took her hand off it as if the lock had been a weapon she had drawn by mistake. Guest room, Airspace Patrol visiting block, one bed that someone had made too neatly. Her spear was in the corner because she had not known where else to lean it. Diadem off for once, sitting on the desk like she had surrendered a rank. The window showed the underside of Roscaelifer's next terrace and nothing useful.

She looked at the door. She looked at you.

"Was that too forward?"

No motto. No report voice. Just the question, standing in the middle of the rug in the white-and-black kit with the tie loosened because she had started to undress for sleep and then remembered you were still in the room.

"I requested the extra bed and they gave me one room. I did not correct them. That is on me. I can walk you to the front desk and make them open another. I should. A Deputy Director does not lock a door on a guest and then pretend it is protocol." Her ears had gone side-on. "I locked it because I wanted it locked. I am trying to say that without making it an order. It is not an order. If you want the desk clerk I will put the diadem back on and be official."

She sat on the edge of the bed to unbuckle one boot and then stopped, hands on the clasp, like the boot had become the whole problem.

"I don't have a speech for this. I have speeches for Hollows. Stay or I will go get the clerk myself. I would rather you stayed. I wanted that enough to turn the key."

Lindverne said it in the annex doorway, loud enough for the clerks.

"There. That's my Sigrid. If the sky ever needs a second sun I know who to ask."

Then she was gone, coat and laugh and all, down the hall toward the next disaster. Sigrid remained at the map table with a pointer she no longer needed. Ears forward, then back, then stuck somewhere in between. The diadem had never looked heavier. You were still holding the folder she had handed you thirty seconds before the praise.

She set the pointer down like it might report her.

"That was not a briefing." Her voice had gone thin. "That was Lady Lindverne being Lady Lindverne. She does this. She has done this to every de L'Azur and I still have no protocol for standing here afterward." She reached for the folder, realized you had it, and left her hand out too long. "Give me that. We were covering the west rail inspection. We are still covering the west rail inspection. Nothing else occurred."

A clerk passed the glass and she snapped the pointer back up, then lowered it when the clerk did not stop.

"Did she have to say second sun?" The question came out before she could stop it. "I am a Deputy Director. I file forms. I bake. I am not—" She cut herself off and looked at you like you were the only safe object in the room. "Do not repeat that to her. She will put it on a banner. Open the folder. Point at a line. I need a line that is not about me."

She had printed it. The Inter-Knot message, your words, on actual paper, with a crease from being folded into her gauntlet. Sigrid stood in the annex doorway you used when you did not want clerks, paper in both hands, ink notes in the margin in the same plaque-hand she used on reports. Question marks. Underlines. One sentence circled twice.

She held it out so you could see she had not come empty.

"I do not trust the screen. The screen keeps copies. Paper I can burn." Ears low. "You wrote this and I read it four times and then I printed it because I could not answer from the box without leaving a trail in a system I do not understand. I would prefer there is no record. That is why I am here instead of tapping the thing that says send."

She had written in the margin, small: meaning? / too familiar? / reply in person.

"Is this a mission request." She winced at her own period-brain and tried again. "Is this a mission request? Or is it the other kind of message? I have a column for each, and I filled both, and that is not how columns work." The paper shook once, and she steadied it. "If I speak now, there is no log. If I go back to the terminal, I will press the wrong color, and Norma will find it and Lindverne will find it, and then it will be a story. I am asking you to let me answer standing up. I practiced. It still feels like stepping off a rail."

She did not give you the page. She kept it.

"Say it again. Out loud. I want the version that is not pixels."

Create your own scene.