Prompt #113 - Swank - Break the Dawn - originalharmony - Original

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Title: Break the Dawn
Fandom: Original
Prompt: #113 - Swank
Warnings: None
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Brilliant flashes of light danced through the city, leaping from building to building, mirrored in the windows and scraping the dark sky above as the thieves of that which was stolen moved.

 

It began as many things do, at the beginning.

 

It began with the birth of a woman, of a boy, of a girl.

 

It began with three very liberal educations, spaced some years apart, and with one who saw this as evidence that the human race is in need of a strict government to control its failings, and two who saw this as evidence that the human race is in need of more complete and more honest education to control its failings.

 

It began with the election of a woman to public office, and a meeting across a crowded marketplace lit mostly by the glow of knowledge and city lights and partially by the glow of a thousand far-off suns that hovered just beyond the horizon.

 

A clever thief scanned the valuables on display on the City Commons, his eyes passing unfailingly over pretty baubles and fine clothing in favor of batteries and loaves of bread. His family had been affluent, but the wealth had gone to his older brother upon his father's death, leaving him and his mother dependent on Carnesen for income unless either of them was desirous of working. Carnesen had been more than willing to support him, but he had declined angrily, upset at his father's decision to follow tradition instead of fairness, and now was too proud to ask for help - not that he needed it.

 

Roire taught a theory of knowledge course in a high school in the lowest level of the city, where the pay was never high and the rent always was. Prior to his departure, his family had been neither prominent nor well-connected, but it now was. He sometimes wondered why his brother had never bothered to find him, but he supposed that a radical younger brother with strong ideas wouldn’t look good for an up-and-coming politician. Even so, his education and intelligence would have allowed to him to take a much better job, one at one of the city’s prestigious universities, if he was determined to teach.

 

He would rather do the most good he was capable of, which meant teaching high concepts to students with very few opportunities and less money, students who were as likely to steal from the school as learn from it. Mirrors tended to disappear and end up being hocked for lunch money, and they never got replaced. Textbooks, such as they were, were usually at least thirty years old, and looked like they’d been through several wars. None of the bathroom stalls had locks, and school security was a joke.

 

He was one of the better teachers, and he was lucky that his education was so good. He taught upper level courses, which meant he had students who were more interested in learning than making a fast buck, though they were never adverse to doing a little bit of “whatever it takes” to eat at least one good meal a day.

 

Had he at least maintained contact with his mother, perhaps he wouldn’t be stealing in the marketplace. He could afford to pay his rent and utilities and feed himself, but he couldn’t afford to do nearly as much for the people around him as he’d like. He had briefly considered ceasing to pay for an internet connection or perhaps pawning his computer, but he’d realized that he needed the connection to information to properly teach his students.

 

He was aware that not all of them could afford to eat – the school was too poor to even afford to give free lunch because average grades weren’t high enough to merit proper city funding, which meant that they couldn’t afford the teachers or supplies to raise GPAs – so he more often than not ended up stealing basic necessities for them from the upper levels of the city.

 

Thieving from the lower level would be no use; stealing from the poor to give to the poor didn’t make sense, so he found himself dressing in his best clothes – he had sold most of his really nice ones to pay for a decent classroom set of textbooks for his classes – and taking basic clothing and food for his students. Perhaps the school knew what he did, perhaps it didn’t, but it didn’t care, either way. He was good at what he did and looked like he belonged; he had never gotten caught, and, so long as he didn’t, it wouldn’t be a problem for anyone.

 

Across the Commons, he saw a young woman, perhaps twenty. She was slender, of average height, with short, dark hair, and she was having an impassioned discussion with a man a few years older and a great deal taller than her.

 

The next day, Roire went back, this time to buy a new tie, because he had a weakness for good ties, and someone had broken into his apartment and stolen not his television or his suits, but three of his ties. He had had his laptop with him, and they had apparently not considered his books of any special worth. He saw the young woman again, this time singing quietly to herself and dancing a little bit in time with the song as she shopped for nectarines. She went into a small coffee shop, and he followed her.

 

She was alone, and she was drinking an expensive latte and reading a very cheap book that looked several times used and quite fascinating. He walked over to her confidently, and asked if he could sit down. She looked slightly taken aback, as if she hadn’t expected anyone to approach her that day, and maybe not ever, but she told him of course he could, especially if he would discuss either a passion or a particular political stance of his with her, and not get angry if she disagreed.

 

They talked for several hours, and exchanged email addresses after finding that they shared the same political views and completely different taste in books and music. They did, however, both quite enjoy crime shows. They left the café, and went home, separately. Later that evening, they went dancing together, and went back to his apartment.

 

They moved together in the best of ways, small sounds echoing through the cramped bedroom as the fire inside climbed, and then in a moment it was over and then again – again – oh. They fell asleep on his bed, sweat gleaming on their bodies and cooling them in the unheated apartment, and woke at an obscene hour of the morning to discuss politics again.

 

They came to the conclusion that a revolution against the City Establishment might be, at some point, necessary.

 

There came to be a time in Roire’s relationship with Termée, the young woman, that she had saved enough money to buy a gorgeous blue gown. It was knee-length, with off-the-shoulder straps and a jagged hem. She had learned to steal by now, but of course there wouldn’t be any point to stealing for pleasure. The night she bought her dress, they decided to put on their best clothes, and just go for a walk through the city, knowing the lights from every window would shine too brightly for them to be any danger.

 

Despite the city’s problems, there was enough awareness even in the lowest levels that it was never dark. They were dim, and there were robberies and murders, but it was never dark.

 

That night, the woman at the head of the City Establishment put out the lights.

 

If there were lights, there was knowledge, and, if there was knowledge, the city’s inhabitants would undoubtedly make foolish decisions that would only further demonstrate their need for strict government to prevent such failings.

 

For a month, the city was lit only during the day by the barest of glows circling the horizons, and it was pitch black at night.

 

Knowledge had left the city.

 

Brilliant flashes of light danced through the city, leaping from building to building, mirrored in the windows and scraping the dark sky above as the thieves of that which was stolen moved. Everywhere their feet touched the ground, sparks flew, and the cables that had once connected buildings to the internet caught fire as frayed cables snapped beneath human weight and the surge of electricity and awareness that followed.

 

Everyone came outside to watch, to see, as the city’s self was returned to it. There were reports of a young woman with dark skin sitting, perfectly poised, on a barbed wire fence as the structure rebuilt itself again and again in power and light. She was beautiful, wearing a blue dress, and they said she was elegant, she was an angel. Someone, somewhere, even remembered a word from hundreds of years before – swank.

 

They saw a man, moving just as gracefully as he turned the government inside out, exposing fault lines of corruption and deceit as lightning struck, again and again.

 

They didn’t live to see the new day dawn.

 

They didn’t live to see the sun rise over the city, rather than circle round it infinitely for only moments a day.

They didn’t live to see the lower levels rise to meet the higher levels.