Note: A lil' piece I've been working on for a while. Enjoy!

If you looked out the great windows of the command center, into the atrium, you would see nothing.

It was one of those days.

Octavia sat down, after a brief moment of contemplation, in the center chair, and looked around. To her right, a handful of scientists and statisticians, barely looking up to acknowledge their commander’s presence. On her left, even fewer mapworkers, putting pins down for the new scout formations.

Maybe it was time to retire the command center. Back in the day, when the fortress was a buzzing hub of fairies and scouts and movement, Octavia would look out over the atrium in awe. Her Minor laughed, the first time she saw the view, and had immediately assigned her there.

“Very few fairies actually enjoy working at the center,” Nadia had said, a kind smile on her face, as Major Celeste looked on. “If you like it, I’ll find you a spot. Wes-command owes me a favor.”

That was before Celeste faded, and Nadia was Major, and Commander, then the General. All the while, Octavia had followed in her footsteps, happy to always a few stable promotions behind her friend, until the day the border laws were repealed.

“I don’t envy you, hon,” Nadia told her from the very same seat Oct now sat on, as chaos reigned below in the atrium. “Westland Command used to be the most mind-numbing job in the books. Now it’s gonna be awful.”

Nadia’s prediction came true. In a single week, Octavia became the busiest, most irritated commander of the group. Westlands was, in every cold mind, a good-for-nothing patch of land with only a pretty waterfall and a few mountains to its name. Somehow, General Nadia’s bustling command of Arcidia Planita emptied except for the lonely scouts in the atrium.

That was the beginning of the end, Octavia thought, as if talking to the chair. You were doomed even back then.

Somehow, despite all Octavia’s prayers, Westlands became the new hub of tourism and leisure. Octavia’s relaxed, prestigious desk job morphed into days in uniform, leading teams on practice disaster drills, and nights at her desk approving new building permits. It was a disaster, from Octavia’s point of view, and a miracle, in the minds of every other commander. Eastlands, even happier than Nadia at this new turn of events, even sent her flowers as the flow of visitors to the intellectual, architecture-filled city across the way ceased.

Now Octavia was older and wiser, looking out the same window, and mused that she would give anything to go back to Westlands command in those old days. That was the first year she dyed her hair, a beautiful wine that looked gorgeous on her deep gray skin. When Nadia was General, and all the commanders ate lunch together in her chambers, part of a happy, tired family.

These days, Octavia would be lucky if Northern Lakes and Borderlands looked each other in the eye, and if she could carry a conversation with Greater Lakes without hearing some snide remarks on Eastland’s personal life.

She’d almost forgotten the old names, only recognizable on a few maps now. Weslands and Estlands, they used to be called, until the foreigners decided it would be so much easier for everyone to just call them East and West.

There was a mirror opposite her bed, and every morning when she woke up, there was a moment when she forgot herself. Oct was still deceptively young-looking. Most warm fairies, even some cold ones wouldn’t recognize the change, but the older scouts understood. It was in the tired eyes, the shaking hand, the slouched shoulders in the afternoon. Things a new hair color couldn’t mask. After Nadia faded, they retired the General’s position. Oct was elected Commander-General, the highest of her peers. Arcidia Planita was hers.

She got Nadia’s seat.

Octavia stood up, and walked over to the window. Nobody there, except the minister drinking tea on the patio. No scouts rolling out mats to spar by the fountain, no artists repairing the ancient columns. The Winter Fortress, once the marble jewel of winter’s (Nadia’s) crown, had faded into obscurity. Octavia wondered if there was a word for witnessing the slow decline of something once great. Celeste would have known. She was fond of her dictionary.

Octavia turned on a heel and walked out. She heard the muffled voice of a silver guard announcing her exit, and in a moment of sheer narcissism, she looked behind her to see the workers bow. Only a few even looked up from their work.

Yes, Octavia concluded. It was time to retire the command center.