The sounds of metallic wings fill the air.
In the center of the plainswept courtyard, a many-branched tree shimmers— oak and silver intertwined in chimeric, mercurial union.
It is what some cultures would call a "world tree", or at least, a replication of it.
Reflecting the golden sunlight off their armor, metallic automatons shaped like birds land and depart from the tree's branches, their clockwork gears turning behind thin vents in their shells— a smoldering, orange core of light visible, deep inside their iron workings.
One of these mechanical birds perches, not on the tree's myriad branches, but on the edge of a table. His beak points down at the checkered tiles of a game board.
On his side of the board there are 6 white pieces, in the shape of various divine beasts.
On the other side lies 9 red pieces, shaped like humans covered by veils and carved armor.
The bird's eye slits narrow, as he hops around the edges of the board, observing the intricate web of pieces.
Then, carefully he sticks his beak into the mass and nudges one of the white pieces two squares forward.
Rising his metal head, he looks up to the other end of the table.
"There. Your turn," the bird says.
Click.
There is a gentle, but deep, hollow tap, the sound like a knife hitting wood, the pinpoint of a blade, striking in rhythm.
On the other side of the table, a girl sits, dressed in plain white silks. Where her arms would protrude from her sleeves, is not flesh, but machinery.
Grafted, black-iron, interlacings shape the form of a multi-jointed, five-fingered hand, nerves commanding the movement of bladed fingers with fleshlike precision, as the girl's finger taps on the wood of the table, again, and again, leaving the slightest of scratches.
The girl's hair is long and black... and inside her eyes... the pupils are thin.
Black slits, within pools of gold. Against the cool steel of her other, identically grafted hand, her face rests.
Slowly, her hand tapping the table reaches over the game, takes one of the red pieces within her grasp, and cuts it downward across the board, into a position closest to the edge of the bird's side of the board.
As the simulacrum of the bird sees the move, it bristles its metal feathers in indignation, its eye sockets widening to allow its searchlight-like eyes to express its shock.
"What?! How did I not see that?" the bird chirps. His voice resembles that of a middle aged man's-- with a weathered, somewhat easily irritable nature to its intonations.
In response, the slightly inhuman face of the girl curved into an apologetic smile.
She made no verbal response to the apparent game-changing move. Her throat was silent-- covered by a series of white bandages.
Behind that texture, if one looked, they might observe...
Something moving slightly, beneath the bandages. Beneath her skin.
"Ahhh...."
The bird's head drooped, sulking.
"I really can't beat you, can I, Hana? At least have some mercy on which one you take, yeah?"
The girl called 'Hana' raised her prosthetic hand to her chin, as if thinking for a moment-- then reached over to one of the white pieces on the side, holding it up over the board.
They were playing with an ante. Her head tilted, eyes on the bird, as if measuring his attachment to the piece. The bird's eye-slots squinted again, in response.
"Huh, that one? ...That's fine. I got more of those than I can count. The old man loves making those, nowadays."
The eyes of the girl, too, looked over the weathered piece.
It was a grazing, oxen beast, carved in intricate white marble. As she held it, a gear within the game piece clicked, and a blood-red coloring seeped over the piece, staining it crimson, like the rest of her collection.
The bird shakes his head in dramatic disappointment.
Then, there was a shift in the air.
A signal of abstract static passed around the open space of the garden, a rush of images flashing across the bird's eyes. Other mechanical birds perched on the trees, too, feel a spark of chaos pass through their eye sockets.
Information passes around an all-encompassing organ which does not exist.
Like having received orders, several of the birds fly off, dispersing in different directions from the great tree.
"There's a message, Hana." the bird says, the lights in his eye sockets still flickering. "Some bandits broke into the garden. Wonder how they managed that... Well, most of them are dead already, though."
'Hana' set the game piece down.
Though her eyes retained the same foreign shape, there was something deeper, swirling inside.
If it was an emotion, perhaps it was unease. She crossed her metallic arms over the table, letting her head rest sideways as she stared down the path which led to the table under this tree.
"The 'attendants' will handle it, in any case. Looks like it's just humans," the bird said.
Hana's eyes remain fixed, unblinking, for a moment. Then, she seemed to sigh, deeply.
The morning breeze gently sweeps around the clearing.
In that moment, beneath the bandages which encased her neck, there was another movement, from within. Like a vein, come alive-- sending a faint ripple across the skin.