A/N Photo above of the vibes in Master Sago's workshop.
Happy Reading! 
____________________________________________

"I can't believe you messed up," Theo whispered, his frustration piercing her pride like a sharp, ruthless knife. 

Emery crossed her arms, her feet still planted in the same spot where she'd been yelled at by a 1200-year-old kid. 

"How is it this my fault?! You couldn't give me a warning that Izoven's mastermind inventor looked like a middle-schooler?" she growled, the anger forcing the embarrassment out of her senses. Turning on her heel, she faced the cluster of pine trees and a singular wonky wooden bench, right next to a small vegetable patch. From the looks of the ground, its prosperous days were long behind it. The soil looked greyish and dry, crowded by weeds and corpses of crops. 

"I didn't know, either!" Theo retorted before breaking off into a string of mumbled insults. 

"They'd mentioned he was a millennium old—an old coot," she lowered her voice to quote the griffin master's words. "I'd built up a different image in my head."

A gray beard, glasses, and a balding head: that was how she imagined him. Not . . . that.

Her body nearly crumbled into a heap when she took a seat on the bench, her sore feet pulsating in pain. The sandals were beautiful, but not exactly useful when you were trying to traverse an entire kingdom in a few hours. She took the moment to unlace them; it didn't look like she'd be moving for a while. 

Emery's gaze returned to the small cabin. Smoke billowed out of its chimney, filling the air with the faint smell of burning coal and firewood. Through the thick glass of the window, she could only see the faint glow of yellow light and the occasional passing shadow. It appeared Master Sago had no intention of reopening the door and had continued to go about his business. 

An annoyed huff of air escaped her as she tossed the sandals across the bench and buried her head in her grimy hands—covered in griffin smell, dirt, and traces of Theo's strange potion. 

"This sucks," she whispered, hoping for some kind of fairy godmother or mythological deity to appear and solve all her problems. Of course, with her luck, nothing like that happened. 

The Master looked so furious. If she continued to insist by knocking on his door, she was sure he'd use some sorcerer voodoo curse on her. How could she make him see that she didn't mean to disrespect him? 

"What are you doing?" Theo asked, his tone sharp with impatience. "This isn't time for a break. Go back and try again."

"I'm thinking!" she snapped. "He isn't going to help if I annoy him any further."

Theo let out a sigh. "Think faster."

"How about you help with the ideas, then? That'd be faster."

"I'm not the one who messed up. You fix it."

"How is that in any way productive?!"

"You know what would've been productive? If you'd listened to me and had been careful around him like I told you. We'd be well on our way to fixing the gate."

"Forget it! I'll think of something myself!" she shouted, ripping the earring away from her earlobe and shoving it into her satchel. "Smug, little. . . ."

The sides of her head were beginning their painful percussion. Emery slid down on her seat, letting her bare feet grind against the ashen soil. She wiggled her toes in the surprisingly cool dirt, easing up the irritation the shoes had left on her skin. She craned her neck up to stare up at the blue sky. The pine trees looked like leafy spikes, pointing up at the passing clouds. 

This view reminded her of something, though she couldn't place what it was. The shade of green, the cooling soil, the rushed whispers of the river: it all seemed familiar. Her heart swelled up with nostalgia, the kind that you got looking at old photo albums or seeing old friends. 

She'd been in a place like this before, though she didn't know how. 

Without realizing it, her index finger began drumming against the wooden bench in a steady rhythm. Her mouth moved without permission, murmuring words that she unexplainably knew by heart. Following the rhythm of her finger, the words took the shape of a melody, that grew stronger and louder with each phrase. 

Emery closed her eyes and voiced out a song. 

Her tongue twisted and moved around strange syllables. The meaning of the phrases was not clear to her, but the harmony struck a chord with her soul. Its melodious melancholy made her heart ache with longing. 

The Song of Fire warmed up against her chest, coming alive for the first time in hours. Her hand reached up to twirl the small golden key in her fingers. A sense of calm flooded her senses when she felt it hum along, its vibrations almost resonating with her voice. 

A heavy thud and crash startled Emery out of her trance, making her fumble and scramble back to her feet. Her frantic eyes returned to the cabin, where the thick window had been thrown open, revealing the small Master Sago propped up against the windowsill. 

"You!" he yelled, throwing his arm up to point at her. 

"Yes?" her voice was almost timid. 

"How do you know that song?" he maintained his shrill, loud tone—still furious, apparently. 

"I— I don't know . . . I just know it, I guess," she half-heartedly finished the sentence, her gaze wandering off to the vegetable patch. What kind of song was that? The words sounded like gibberish to her. 

"Who are you?"

"Emery Wright!" She quickly responded, eager to get across that, "I'm the gatekeeper for the House of Fire." Her hand reached in her satchel to pull out the broken box. The gate's lid snagged against the strap of her satchel, making the lid fly open and release a few loose cogs and nuts. Emery hurried to kneel down and sift through the dirt until she found the loose pieces, holding them up with a bashful expression.

"What have you done to my gate?!" The Master's bright, hazel eyes widened at the horrid sight.

"That's why I'm here. It broke and I—"

"Wait there!" The boy hopped off something and disappeared out of her sight. 

While Sago was away, Emery hurried to search through her bag once more and grab her earring. Just as she hooked it onto her ear, the cabin's door swung open with a bang. 

Sago stepped out, with some kind of large goggle contraption strapped to his forehead, his brown hairs spouting out in odd angles because of it. His hands were busy tying the straps of a dingy, beige apron while he looked at her. "Come inside! What are you waiting for?" 

"Y- Yeah! Okay!" she stuttered turning around to grab her shoes. She whispered to Theo, "He let me in," before facing the cabin once more. 

"See? You didn't need my help after all," the prince replied. 

Emery had to bite down on her tongue to avoid rolling her eyes. Her pace hurried to meet the small, ancient boy at the door, but as soon as she came close, he held up his small, pale hand for her to stop. 

"First!" he stated, twirling his hand into a fist, with the exception of his index finger. "Can I see that earring?" He unfurled his fingers once more and extended his hand in front of her, palm facing upward. 

"Do not give it to him, Wright," Theo barked into her ear. 

Master Sago raised a wispy eyebrow. "Well? Let me see it. Or else you're not coming inside." Sago puckered his lips into an expression of distaste, sprawling out the fingers of his outstretched hand to rush her. 

Emery lifted her hand to grasp the angled crystal. "What will you do with it?"

"I just have to observe it for a moment."

With an unsure sigh, Emery removed her earring. She could hear Theo's protests die down as she lowered the earring into the boy's hand. 

Sago clenched into a fist and stretched his mouth into an insincere grin. "Thank you," he beamed.

Then, Sago raised the earring far above his head before tossing it against the cobblestone flooring of his entrance. Emery screamed as he raised his thick brown boot and stomped it against the fragile crystal. Again and again and again.

"Why did you do that?!" Emery yelled, kneeling down once the Master had finished his assault on the tiny thing. All that was left was small fragments and dust. It was completely destroyed.

"There . . ." The boy placed his hands on his hips and adjusted his goggles, the several scopes and lenses wobbling under his grasp. "I'm not partial to people overhearing my conversations," he spoke so casually as if he hadn't just royally screwed Emery. Now she had no way of communicating with Theo. 

"Now, let's see that gate," he said, changing the subject as he ripped the box away from Emery's grasp. Her jaw was still slack, trying to grasp the consequences of not being able to communicate with Theo from now on. "Girl! Come here!" 

Emery stood up and stepped into the small home. Master Sago slammed the door behind her and proceeded to pull out a little step to place in front of the door. He climbed on top of it and began clicking different shaped locks into place—some small and flimsy, others big and clunky. He then jumped out and strolled past her, the gate neatly tucked under his arm. 

Yikes, and I thought Mrs. Baker's was cluttered, she thought when her eyes met the messy insides of the cabin. She loosely shoved on her sandals while she stared. 

Master Sago's abode looked like a madman's workshop. Pieces and scraps of tin, copper, and other metals littered the wooden floor. A low, yet unusually long, table stretched out throughout the room, covered in a series of metal and wood contraptions. Springs, gears, and coils were thrown about, covering blueprints and the sketches of what she assumed were inventions. 

The walls were covered with an array of tools. Some were common, and others were strangely shaped. A few shelves held pots and jars of screws, nuts, bolts, and more cogs in a variety of sizes. 

The boy swiped his arm across the low table, letting the metal pieces and blueprints spill onto the floor. He placed the gate neatly on the table before lowering the large goggles over his eyes. He didn't speak or acknowledge Emery for what seemed like a long time. His fingers poked and prodded the gate in different places, occasionally lowering a thicker lens over an eye to get a closer look. 

"Blessed Izoven . . . What did you do to it?" Master Sago finally spoke, raising his goggles to glare at Emery. "Never in my long, long life has a gatekeeper been so reckless with my creation. The gates are a work of art; they can withstand most anything. How did you ever manage to break it?"

Emery cleared her throat awkwardly. "I . . . um—got hit with a fireball and it. . . ."

Sago stared at her, his big eyes stuck in a state of disbelief. "It takes much more than a fireborn's attack to break this. Try again. Maybe the truth this time."

"But that's what happened," Emery countered. It was the truth! Well . . . the partial truth. It wasn't just anyone's fire that broke it. It was a prince's—the son of one of the original children of Izoven.

Sago frowned at her while he squinted his eyes into a deeper glare. "Hmph! Well, no matter how you broke it. If the Song of Fire chose you, you must not be a complete imbecile." His attention returned to the table, reaching across the heaps of tools to gather what he needed. 

"Thanks?" 

"Not exactly a compliment," he quickly retorted, his eyes never leaving the table. He got to work right away and jammed a screwdriver in the box to pick it apart. "Now . . ." he stopped to give her a passing glance, "my question is: How did you get here with a broken gate? I've heard the stories about the House of Fire's gatekeeper. You killed the banished king."

Though he spoke coldly, something inscrutable flashed through his eyes. 

"So, you must've been on Earth when you destroyed it. Your clothing suggests you've been in Diuna's Kingdom. Did you enter through the Temple of Water?" he interrogated her without pausing to take a look. His fingers expertly wove through the inner workings of the box, dissembling its cogs and pieces to lay them out on the table. 

Emery's eyes broadened in fear. She wasn't sure lying was the best way to go about it, and telling the truth was out of the question. So, instead, she settled for, "I'd rather not say."

Sago let out a childish laugh. "So, you did!" He laid down the screwdriver to look Emery straight in the eye. "How did you manage to get your hands on the Song of Water?"

A nervous heap of saliva gathered in her mouth; she struggled to swallow it down her tight throat. "I. . . ."

The smile dropped, returning to a frown. "Fine, don't tell me. If it's going to get me in trouble with the Kingdoms, I'd rather not know. Then they'll come here and want to talk to me." His nose scrunched up in disgust at the word 'talk'. "No, no, no! Best not to know!"

A bundle of questions popped into Emery's head. "How come you're not part of any Kingdom?"

Sago furrowed his eyebrows at her. "Oh, so you can keep your secrets, but you expect me to answer your questions?" 

"Yes," Emery beamed, mouth stretching out into a grin. 

Another flash of sentiment passed through his childish features, though Emery couldn't place what it was. His gaze returned back to the box before she could further study his emotion. "This was Izoven's home, and thus not part of any of the four kingdoms. She gifted it to me."

At those words, Emery felt the whole place take on a new light. She felt like her feet were on hallowed ground—like it was sacred. "Izoven lived here?"

"Yes," Master Sago continued, "before the Kingdoms were created . . . before the songs were made and strangers entered the realm, it was only Izoven and her children in this small cot."

Emery tried to imagine what it was like. She imagined Izoven was a woman with majestic, flowing grace. It was no trouble visualizing her taking care of the future kings and queens of Izoven. "But . . . wait . . . Why did she gift it to you?"

"You ask many questions. Weren't you educated on our history?"

"No."

Sago flinched, taking his hands away from his work to gape at her. "You weren't— How are you a gatekeeper then?"

"Long story? To be honest, I'm not clear on all the details myself," she hoped her answer was enough for him. When he scowled, she knew it clearly wasn't. 

"Well, we've got time for a long story. This will take me a good while to finish. Go on . . ." He urged Emery to begin by waving the screwdriver in small circles. 

She stepped closer to the table, watching him take some kind of orange-red crystal out of the box before placing it gently on a rag that had too many stains to be sanitary. "How much time will it take?"

"Hmm, three, maybe four," Sago replied, with a shrug of his small shoulders, the neck of his dress shirt stood up unevenly with the action. 

Three or four what? Emery waited for him to continue and specify the time, but that seemed to be his conclusive answer. So, she rasped her throat loudly before asking, "Hours, you mean?"

"Days," Sago cleared up. "Three or four days."