There is much work to be done. It will be some time before sleeves are allowed anywhere near the wrist again. His training is not postponed, per se, but altered. On-the-job training, where it can be found. An assistant, to take up what tasks he can, to keep 20022’s plate even a little more clear that he might take up even more vital work. No longer can they afford the luxury of two Synnefo in a room together. He is free to make his own way. He is free to act, to carry out his tasks, as best as he sees fit.

What does he see, then?

He sees days of tea and light refreshments brought before an ever-gracious Princess who always has time to chat with a soft, friendly face. Their talks wind through the halls and gardens of the Triden’s mountaintop monastary. Always somewhere beautiful. Always somewhere separate, from host and teacher. He sees every storeroom twice a day, and when he looks at a careful little list in his pocket, he sees the household down to the last scrap of paper and drop of ink. He sees hallways in active construction, active renovation, active re-beautification. Every road between him and his next destination, a place where no Azura would care to linger. He sees his primary job carries two responsibilities: Manage the busywork. Stay out of trouble.

He sees more of Bitemark than he ever has from a distance he could have only dreamed of. There are tallies of every soul in every village in the peninsula and surrounding countryside, numbering into the tens of thousands. He sees the official records of species, past service, current occupation, imagined purpose, fitness for work. Quotas appear for each village, and grand estimates are devised and stacked against the crumbs of details from the Sector Governor. He sees complex mathematics spill across pages, arguing convincingly that ten frail bodies might equal a healthy one, in the right conditions. So many hours of rest might cancel out infirmity and age. The quotas rise higher.

He sees the careful weaving of correspondence to the Architect’s representative, informing them of the particulars of Bitemark’s atmosphere at this time of the year, and all will be well just two days after the date in their last message. The end result is a masterwork; one would never have imagined it was written amidst a full-scale mobilization. He sees a handful of Corvii pulled from their swelling ranks to affix a mounted collection of tiny skulls to a place of prominence in the house. Another gift from the Crystal Knight in case the previous ones were lost. When they finish, they return to their drills. March street by street. Keep to the timing of the drum. Wash over the village and herd the unwilling before them. 

He sees the same lines bubble up through his thoughts, burning and steaming and red-hot and unignorable. Today it is skulls. Later this evening it will be chains. Tomorrow it will be prayer. He has put each of them to bed a hundred times over. He will relitigate them a hundred times more. Sleep is a luxury harder and harder to come by. The full body of his work spans the entirety of that day several times over, to a level of detail that could count the breaths between words. The premiere work on the subject, and he its studied author.

He sees 20022 at least once a day. Their conversations are brief. There is too much to do in too little time. They share their progress. They take comfort in sharing a heavy load. Dolce receives his orders. They part amicably.

He sees what had been a steady refrain in his thinking become manifest; all this was, after all, just the view of one sheep.