City Series:Volume7a Chapter1

Chapter 1: Drawing

2000 spring

Page 1

• Shopping

[Sarah and an elf woman walk with a map of San Francisco in the background]

In America, it’s said spring arrives in San Francisco first.

But the way the people on the streets are dressed and the magazines for sale at the bookstores don’t say spring at all.

Those of us in the City Hall’s health department are still being issued winter paint and Beretta still has his winter coat while he’s curled up in my pocket.

But while I can see my breaths below the white midday sky, my friend remains cheerful any time of year.

She lives in Central’s Hyper Ben and plays a song at noon and three every day.

Page 2

• Tree

I say goodbye to the other friend I was window shopping with.

Then I take flight.

I fly towards history’s largest clocktower, which is carved out of a giant cherry tree, to visit the friend who lives there.

[Sarah flies toward a giant tree with a clock in it, waving goodbye to the elf woman whose silhouette waves back from the foreground]

I hear the sounds of a clock and a physical voice coming from there.

The aged and somewhat out-of-tune voice is coming from a hole halfway up the trunk.

Pages 3-4

• Bendaughter

My friend is a mid-era Airam-type time-telling Sein Frau named Bendaughter.

She was built as a cousin to the three sisters who tell the time inside Aerial City – London’s Big Ben.

Her primary equipment are her voice and Le Artemis, the Harp Device she combines with by splitting half her body away.

[Bendaughter is combined with and playing Le Artemis]

• Face Up

[Bendaughter looks up]

She was sent to San Francisco about a hundred years ago.

She was the first person in the city I spoke to after arriving five years ago.

Page 5

• Senseless

People wanted her to produce the kind of music that would delight the bourgeois, but her voice is aged and out of tune.

When I decide to leave, I pick up Beretta who was sleeping on her lap and turn around, but she only smiles at me.

[Bendaughter smiles while Sarah leaves with Beretta in tow]

Of course, she’s an old type of Sein Frau, so she has no emotions. The smile is just an action.

Page 6

• Think

Sometimes I think about her while at work.

[Sarah rests her head on her desk with Beretta curled up in a bed on the desk]

It looks to me like she’s been sitting there for a century without any kind of emotion, but-

[Sarah opens her eyes and, to her shock, sees Beretta holding a screw]

Where did that screw come from!?

Page 7

• Closed

During my lunch break, I hurry to the cherry tree to return the screw.

[Sarah lands inside the tree and finds a “closed” sign]

I find her gone along with her base.

Was she removed and dismantled?

This is a bit of a problem.

I mean, it’s so sudden.

Page 8

• Lunch

A few days later, things are feeling a little more springlike, but I’m still feeling really dark and depressed. I complain to a friend about my bad mood during lunch.

[Sarah and a friend speak over lunch]

[They both look up in surprise]

Then I hear a cheer.

It came from the central street.

Wondering what it is, I forget all about my lunch and put my curiosity ahead of my work.

I take off running first and then take flight.

What could this be?

I’m curious because it was such a joyful cheer.

I shove Beretta, who is playing with that screw, in my pocket as I go.

My feelings and my body are both racing.

[Sarah runs off panel]

Page 9

• Meet Again

Below the large cherry tree, a fully repaired Le Artemis and Bendaughter are being lowered from a truck.

[Sarah holds Beretta who holds the screw and a crowd is gathered around Le Artemis and Bendaughter]

She was remade into an Aileppoc-type which means she should have emotions now, but her eyes are still closed as if in sleep.

I can hear the workers’ confused voices.

“Why won’t she wake up?”

I know exactly why.

I just have to pull Beretta from my pocket and snatch that screw away from him. It’s a part of her.

Page 10

• Compliments

After she was carried up to her clocktower base, the screw was inserted inside her and her eyes opened.

She shouldn’t have had any memories after that complete overhaul, but she still looks me in the eye and says two simple words.

“Hello again.”

[Bendaughter opens her eyes and speaks]

• Smile

[Sarah smiles]

Could her memories have been stored in that screw? If so, did her old version leave that with Beretta?

No, that doesn’t matter.

All that matters is that I can hear her music again.

Pages 11-12

• Sakura

She sings.

“It is already 5, but I will play my spring song anyway.”

To celebrate our reunion, I spread my wings and soar up where I can see her and the cherry blossoms.

At the same time, she begins to sing and play her harp. The Tone Cargo amplifies that music to an Octave of 3 million.

I can see her voice and the music.

So I redraw the sky with the colors of night and a touch of sunset. To celebrate the coming of spring…

[Bendaughter sings]

I paint to the music!!

[Sarah flies and paints the sky with cherry blossoms around her]

Page 13

• Dive

[Sarah dives down from the sky with Bendaughter in one arm]

That completes my job.

She can separate from Le Artemis now, so I have her put on her shoes and do a bungee dive down from the clocktower.

Okay, now for some flower viewing, some drinking, and some karaoke!

Page 14

• Night flower-viewing

The cherry blossoms mark the arrival of spring.

The blossoms fall while she sings. This probably counts as her birthday.

But she’s still out of tune at some pitches, so maybe that had nothing to do with being old.

Oh, dear.

[Bendaughter sings below a cherry tree while Sarah and her two friends sigh]

The end of image.

Finish

Kawa-Commentary

Chapter 1: Drawing

• General

This was the first serialized chapter. That makes it the first real chapter, so I introduced Benny (my nickname for her) who I had been planning to include at some point. One detail not revealed in the story is that Gleun went along for the ride when the new Benny was brought over from England.

Also, the giant cherry tree was sent over from DC when SF was founded to solidify the ground against the city’s frequent earthquakes.

• Page 1

That’s a map of San Francisco in the background, but it’s supposed to be the cover of an in-universe paperback. Oh, and look at the publishing company.

Sarah’s winter outfit becomes the standard from here on. Her friend Elfy (Kawakami Nickname) isn’t a coworker but a friend who lives nearby. She should be quite a bit older than Sarah.

That’s her hair Beretta is reaching for. A young mystical fox’s love of fluffy things was touched on in Paris as well.

• Page 2

This is the city when looking south. The Hyper Ben cherry tree was built on the south end of the city, so it should cast a large shadow on the city. I wonder if the people living in the shadowy area get a sunlight tax reduction.

This is a really small detail, but that is Sarah’s shadow on the boutique’s second floor on the left. It definitely isn’t the aftermath of something crashing into the wall there.

• Pages 3-4

Benny doesn’t seem to be facing the entrance Sarah used, but her base can actually rotate and move out onto the terrace, so she will sometimes rotate around inside there depending on her mood(?). It’s probably weird to have something so big moving in a dark place like that.

• Page 5

Nothing much to say about this one.

• Page 6

Here we get a look inside the City Hall. Sarah’s chair is turned to the side because she can’t have the back behind her with her wings. She is righthanded, so most her tools are on her right side.

• Page 7

At this time, Benny’s hangar had rails like this. They were removed after her repairs for ease of maintenance. The rails were mostly to send her out onto the terrace when she sings, but they were also used to turn her around and move her during maintenance.

• Page 8

Lunch with Plainy. As you can probably tell from the spoons, Sarah is eating a homemade lunch and Plainy is eating a convenience store lunch. Plainy is a human but wearing the same uniform as Sarah, but that is because the SF City Hall has a basic uniform that can be modified for wings or extra arms. They don’t discriminate.

• Page 9

The explanation on the interior of the container has some misspelled English, but it was built by Arcs RDC which you might recognize from Hong Kong. The company’s Hong Kong HQ was moved to England where it was rebuilt(?).

• Page 10

Just some close-ups, so nothing really to say.

• Pages 11-12

It’s cut off on the page, but there is an elevated highway at the very bottom. The musical notes are in perspective because Sarah is drawing them.

• Page 13

This chapter’s bungee is from the clocktower toward the city. It’s hard to see, but there is a lake on the bottom right. That is a reservoir for the big cherry tree and also part of the forest park surrounding the tree.

• Page 14

Army doesn’t have any color… The English for this page’s title was in my dictionary, but is night flower viewing really a thing overseas?

Back to Prologue

Return to Main Page

Forward to Chapter 2