The microphone screeched, a wounded hawk’s cry against the grey, unforgiving expanse of Gresnov’s Central Plaza. Lishka, draped in an impractical, shimmering green tunic that caught the weak afternoon light, clutched the stand as if it were the last anchor in a churning sea. Below her, the assembled workers from the Veridian Docks and the North Iceworks shifted uneasily, their faces etched with the perpetual chill of the coastal wind and the quiet anxieties of the state. Behind Lishka, the monolithic, pocked concrete of the Administratum Tower loomed, a silent, brutalist judgment. “My kin,” Lishka’s voice, honed to a razor’s edge of performative despair, sliced through the air, “Kovanya. The pride of our family, the daughter of the esteemed Varrick lineage… has chosen to abandon her duties!” Kovanya, propped against a salt-stained pillar near the plaza’s edge, yawned, a wide, unhurried stretch that pulled at the corners of her mouth. The pillar’s rough surface had already left a faint imprint on her cheek. She wore her oldest, softest tunic, the one with a lingering scent of peat moss and Bramen’s peculiar, briny cologne. The chill air barely registered through the layers of her peaceful indifference. Her sibling’s histrionics were a familiar, dull hum, easily tuned out. “A promotion!” Lishka wailed, her arm sweeping dramatically towards the tower. “A directorship at the Gallowglen Processing Plant! A chance to elevate our family, to serve the glorious state, to secure a future beyond the grime of the docks! And she… she refused!” Around Kovanya, a few of the ice-haulers from Bramen’s crew snickered, earning sharp glares from Lishka’s coterie of eager sycophants. Kovanya merely adjusted her position, considering if she could manage a quick catnap before Lishka finished her public self-flagellation. The sun, a pale disc behind the perpetual coastal mist, offered little warmth. “She desires… nothing!” Lishka concluded, her voice cracking with manufactured anguish. “To lie about! To waste her potential! To disgrace all we have built!” Kovanya finally pushed herself off the pillar, a slow, deliberate movement. She ambled towards the edge of the small stage Lishka had commandeered, her steps unhurried, almost languid. The crowd parted slightly, curious. Lishka watched her approach, a triumphant sneer playing on her lips, certain her sister was about to offer a public apology, a capitulation to duty. Kovanya stopped just shy of the stage. She looked past Lishka, past the angry faces, to where Bramen stood near the back, his broad shoulders hunched against the mist, his ice-stained coat a familiar anchor. He was polishing a small, tarnished silver locket, a nervous habit. “Lishka,” Kovanya said, her voice soft, utterly devoid of the dramatic tension her sister so craved. “You’re right.” Lishka froze, the sneer faltering. The crowd murmured. Kovanya looked at her, a genuine, easy smile spreading across her face. “I don’t want any of it. Not the plant, not the state, not the ‘glorious future’ you’re so desperate to claw your way into.” She turned, her gaze settling on Bramen, who had dropped his locket in surprise. “I want to nap. Indefinitely. In supreme comfort.” Then, in the hushed plaza, Kovanya took a deep breath, her eyes sparkling with an unusual mischievous light. “Bramen Kaelg, you shunned ice-hauler with the hands of a sculptor and the patience of a saint. Will you marry me, and ensure my pillow is always fluffed, and my rest undisturbed?” Silence descended, thick and heavy. Lishka’s jaw went slack. The scheming sycophants looked scandalized. Bramen, for his part, simply stared, his usually stoic face cracking into a delighted, bewildered grin. He pushed through the crowd, his heavy boots thudding on the damp cobblestones, a man possessed. “Kovanya,” he breathed, reaching her, his hands gently cupping her face. “Are you serious?” “Never been more serious about anything in my life,” she said, leaning into his touch, already feeling the warmth of his calloused hands. “Unless it involves getting up before noon.” Bramen let out a booming laugh, the sound echoing off the brutalist walls, completely out of place in the grim plaza. He scooped her up, a surprisingly easy feat, and spun her around, her feet dangling above the cobblestones. The crowd erupted, some cheering, some sputtering in indignation. Bramen didn’t care. He was already striding away, Kovanya nestled comfortably in his arms. “Featherbeds!” he declared to no one in particular, his voice full of giddy triumph. “We’re buying the finest goose down in the district!” As Bramen carried Kovanya out of the plaza, her head resting on his shoulder, she glanced back. Lishka stood on the stage, her face a mask of incandescent fury, her eyes blazing with a dangerous malice. Lishka didn’t just want a directorship; she wanted to crush Kovanya. She would marry a mogul, she vowed silently, her gaze locked on her departing sibling, a mogul who would make Kovanya’s pathetic indolence look like the squalor it truly was. She would make Kovanya regret this. But Kovanya was already half-asleep against Bramen’s shoulder, dreaming of downy clouds. Later, with the salty tang of the coastal sea air sharp in her nostrils, Kovanya found her perfect napping spot. A secluded sea-cave, accessible only by a winding, treacherous path known to few. The waves outside crashed with a hypnotic rhythm, and inside, the air was cool and damp. Bramen, ever the doting husband-to-be, had helped her secure a sturdy, triple-braided rope, one end tied to a stalactite, the other to a jagged rock formation. She’d strung up a suspended sling, plush with her newly acquired, goose-down bolsters. She settled in, the sling swaying gently. The rhythmic creak of the rope, the distant cries of gulls, the soft lapping of water against the cave floor – it was perfection. Absolute bliss. She closed her eyes, a contented sigh escaping her lips, already drifting into the delicious embrace of slumber. A sharp, cracking sound. Not a wave, but a sudden, violent strain. The rope, triple-braided or not, had not accounted for the precise combination of her weight, the dampness, and a fault line in the stalactite. With a mournful groan of stressed fiber, the rope snapped. The sling, Kovanya still nestled within its soft confines, plummeted. She let out a startled gasp, more annoyed than scared, bracing for impact on the rocky floor. Instead of stone, there was a sickening crunch, a muffled cry, and the distinct sensation of crushing something surprisingly yielding, yet undeniably solid. The goose-down padding absorbed some of the impact, but the underlying resistance was stark. She bounced once, then settled, her face pressed into a cushion, a faint, metallic tang in the air. Through a slit in her eyelids, Kovanya saw a dark, cloaked figure sprawled beneath her, unnaturally still. A glint of polished steel lay beside a limp, gloved hand. Her sling had landed squarely on top of what appeared to be a very flat assassin. A shadow detached itself from the deeper darkness of the cave. A man stepped forward, his silhouette etched against the faint light filtering from the cave mouth. He wore a finely tailored, dark grey coat, and a silken scarf at his throat. He paused, regarding the scene with an unreadable expression, then slowly, fastidiously, dabbed a small, dark stain from the cuff of his coat with a pristine white handkerchief. Chairman Vossig’s voice, a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through the very stones of the cave, broke the silence. “Remarkable. Your accidental intervention has saved my life, young Kovanya. Such serendipity cannot go unrewarded. You will be a lifetime VIP guest at my newly constructed Solitude Sanatorium.”

The Town Square Proposal