From the windows of her skyrise office, one that offered her a commanding view of the city beneath, and, as a perk to it being on the sixtieth floor, a visage of the whitewashed buildings of far-flung Kilar on the mainland, Aofie stood and observed. It’s always felt odd for her to be up such heights, especially for a girl from rural Cathal who had barely seen a building more than ten stories tall before she went to Loren for her academic pursuits at eighteen. Though a great many tower blocks she’s been on ever since parts of her were still in awe at what she was seeing from where she was. She’s seen the movies, and indeed been here once in a while as part of occasional port visits when she was still in her youth serving with the Armada, as well as family visits but never before from this height.
From this height, the flow of Akdaleriens streaming back and forth down below looked like ants, tiny and insignificant. Nevertheless, Aoife could feel some sort of twisted life force manifesting itself before her as countless obediently toiled their lives away under the supervision of their corporate masters playing the role of Mirhaimian administrators in a twisted theatrical.
“Millions….” Aoife murmured to herself, “…yet none truly serves us.”
From her posting here by the Leiadh herself, she was to govern over them, or at least, rein them in for years of disinterest from Ymirodraeth and political lobbying in the Seacarái had given the giant corporations and their ambitious leaders the environment needed to thrive. It was disgraceful to her, and she had committed herself to rein them in, whether they wanted her to do so or not.
Nevertheless, as she drowned herself in her thoughts, the sounds of her phone vibrating in her pocket knocked her back to reality.
“Well….fuck-” She muttered to herself, a hand rubbing on her chin before taking a deep sigh.
“Bite me…” She cussed as she pulled out her phone from her right pocket, and looked at the time then precisely half past ten, and the notification sent by Clarái, her personal assistant:
“The Council is prepared to meet you, bealéidh-”
It was then fifteen minutes away from a meeting that’d she much rather skip, had it already been made inevitable for her.
Still, she steeled herself, and slowly made her way out of her office, feeling a slight sense of discomfort as her morning solitude was broken by employees, clerks, and desk jockeys working on the same floor as she walked by, and gave her half-hearted greetings. There was something about them that she could immediately tell was off, something that she occupied her stressed mind with by pondering as she walked towards the meeting room.
The elevator hummed to life, and, as it descended, for a moment, she felt weightless. It was almost terrifying, though still not enough to deter her away. The numbers descended with her too, from eighty-two to seventy-five, and from seventy-five all the way down to fifty before finally opening. What greeted her was a glass wall, where she could see twenty-five-odd individuals too busy looking over their notes or conversing with one another to notice her presence. What irked her the most was how almost monolithic their attires were, with their suits sharp-looking and well-fitted in an almost uniformed black-and-white, except for a handful of individuals at the front of the table, whose names and roles popped up in her head like a lightbulb. Before any sense of fright could take hold of her, she closed her eyes and stepped into the room.