South Circular
Tory Samay
Arjaan Miah Year 9
ory Samay prided herself on her ability to disguise herself. She could wear a thousand conflicting masks, opinions, and personalities, in one statement alone. This helped her immensely as the ruler of her village. In a short span of time, she could satisfy and agree with all parties in any crisis, conflict, or disagreement, although it was relatively common for her critics to notice this. Her face had developed such dexterity that she could, in fact, carry multiple expressions at once, a skill she often practised whilst alone. In her middle age, Tory had picked up an interest in botany, and so she would often neglect her official duties to care for her orchard. Her most precious and loved plant, however, was her Arbor Pecunia Magicae, which grew solid bricks of gold for her. After a difficult day of procrastinating at the village hall, Tory found herself shaking her tree, as she did her routine facial dexterity exercises. She was in dire need of gold, as she had promised some to her friend, Arlone Fester, so she was shaking it vigorously and with great exertion. Before long, the branches of the tree began to flop about wildly and gold bricks were flying everywhere. All of a sudden, everything turned black, and Tory Samay flew backwards, falling into a deep sleep. By fortuitous chance, one of the bricks had landed directly in the back of her head, rendering her unconscious on the floor. She’d woken up the subsequent morning lying in her bed, most likely carried there by servants. It wasn’t a rare occurrence for her to be hit while shaking her tree, so she proceeded as though it were a normal day. On her way to work, however, she noticed the citizens of her town were pointing at her, giggling like schoolchildren. Although used to ridicule, Tory was perturbed. This laughter seemed different, somehow, and this was unsettling. She kept her face down for the rest of the journey and had the chariot drivers go faster. By the time she reached the village hall, she could no longer bear to not know why, today, she found herself the subject of ridicule, and so she pulled aside the nearest civilian and asked. It was a young man, who, in response, stifled a giggle, and pulled her ear to his mouth, whispering to her. Bright red with embarrassment, Tory ran in and looked at the first mirror she could find. To her shock and horror, her accident the night before had caused a serious issue – her face was paralysed in the expression she had been practising – one half a mean, cruel snarl, the other, a righteous, ‘high and mighty’ grin. For the rest of the day, she isolated herself in her office, mulling over her situation. ‘I’ll have to fix my face, that much is certain,’ she spoke to herself. ‘But how would I go about doing such a thing?’ She looked to the portrait that hung over her desk for inspiration. While she stared at her role model, Nagal Firige, an idea occurred to her – maybe she could terrorise immigrants and minorities. No, while it did sound like a nice weekend activity, she doubted they could further her position much. But perhaps she could seek advice from them. With utmost urgency, she had a messenger sent to the exotic land of Sudai Abira. They certainly owed her a few large favours that she could rely on to be fulfilled, so she had no doubt that they would have a modern, humane, and futuristic solution that they would be more than eager to give her. Within days, she had received a package, gift wrapped with money and dried oil. This was, without a doubt, their response. Inside, she found a mechanism, a medieval and pre-enlightenment mechanism, with two eye holes and a breathing hole. T
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