Mantle was built for noise. The air never stopped humming—engines, drills, the heavy rhythm of machines turning dust into credits. Snow collected on rooftops faster than people could clear it, and every breath tasted like metal.
In one of the smaller districts, a young Wolf Faunus named Senti worked in a Dust-processing yard. Her silver-blue hair was tied back with frayed wire, her ears tucked under a cap. She was quiet when people were watching and talkative when they weren't.
She was eleven then. Old enough to haul crates. Too young to understand why every adult kept their eyes low.
The yard boss shouted orders from a platform. "Keep it moving. No breaks until shipment's clear."
Senti kept her head down and moved.
When the older workers argued about quotas, she listened—not to their words but to something under them. A tremor. A pressure. She always said she could "hear" people's feelings, like air vibrating in her skull. The others called it nerves. She called it noise.
That morning the noise was sharp. Fear.
She set the crate down and looked toward the shaft entrance. The foreman's voice had gone flat. That was never good.
Then came the first tremor.
The ground jumped once. Someone shouted that the stabilizers had failed.
A second tremor cracked the ceiling supports. Dust canisters burst. The air went bright blue for half a second before collapsing into darkness.
People ran. The noise became a wall—fear so strong it hurt to breathe. Senti's body froze, but her mind didn't. The feelings around her hit like wind, and she felt herself pushing back.
She screamed.
Sound tore through the tunnel. The air rippled. The collapsing debris stopped mid-fall long enough for her to crawl through. She didn't see the Grimm that had crawled up from the tunnels—only the way they turned on each other, shrieking.
When the shaking stopped, silence filled the mine.
Senti stumbled out through a service tunnel into the snow. Her clothes were torn, hands bleeding, breath white in the cold. No one followed.
Three nights passed before anyone found her again. Not the workers—none of them made it out—but a cargo inspector at the docks. He saw movement in the shadows between crates and found a small Faunus girl clinging to a half-loaded ship.
He shouted. She didn't respond. He tried to pull her down, but she moved like an animal, biting his wrist and darting up the ramp. The ship's engines started before he could call for help.
By the time the cargo freighter cleared Mantle's border checkpoints, Senti had wedged herself between containers and passed out.
The sea was warmer than Mantle's wind. She woke to gulls and sunlight cutting through the slats of a crate. The hum of the ship felt safer than the hum of the mines.
When the freighter reached Menagerie, she slipped off before the crew noticed her.
The dock guards ignored stowaways. Menagerie was full of them.
She wandered until she reached the quieter part of the port, collapsed near a fruit stand, and slept against a crate.
That's where Kali Belladonna found her.
"Sweetheart?"
Senti blinked up at the voice. A woman stood over her, holding a basket of produce. Dark hair, calm eyes, tired smile.
"You look half-frozen," Kali said. "Where are your parents?"
Senti didn't answer. She didn't know anymore.
"Can you stand?"
Senti nodded once. Her legs wobbled. Kali reached out a hand, and Senti flinched.
"It's alright," Kali said softly. "You're safe here."
Senti studied her face for a long second, then took the hand.
Kali led her to a small house near the edge of the market. The air smelled like tea leaves and wood polish.
Kali handed her a towel and a bowl of soup. "Eat first," she said. "Talk later."
Senti ate.
When the bowl was empty, she asked, "Why help me?"
Kali smiled. "Because you needed it."
"Most people don't," Senti said.
"I'm not most people."
That answer made Senti pause. Then she gave a small, tired grin. "Good."
That night she slept under a clean blanket for the first time in years. When she woke, sunlight fell through the open window, and a black-haired girl about her age was sitting in a chair with a book.
The girl looked up. "You're awake."
"Yeah," Senti said. "Who're you?"
"Blake."
"Nice name."
Blake closed her book. "Mom said you'll be staying for a while."
"I guess I will."
"Do you like to read?"
Senti shrugged. "Never tried."
Blake smiled faintly. "Then I'll teach you."
Senti laughed quietly. "We'll see."
Weeks turned into months. Senti learned to read slowly, one stubborn word at a time. Blake learned to talk louder around someone who didn't always understand boundaries. They explored the market, skipped stones by the shore, and learned which alleys the guards ignored.
Kali watched them from the porch most evenings, tea in hand, never saying much.
Menagerie was loud, but it wasn't cruel. For the first time, Senti's head wasn't full of panic. The "noise" of other people felt softer here, like background music instead of static.
Sometimes, late at night, she still woke up shaking from dreams of falling rock and screaming metal. She'd sit by the window until her breathing steadied.
Once, Blake found her like that.
"Bad dream?"
"Just remembering," Senti said.
Blake sat beside her. "Mom says memories get lighter when you share them."
Senti looked at her. "Does it work?"
"Sometimes."
They stayed quiet after that, watching the moon climb over the ocean.
By the end of that first year, Senti had stopped counting days.
She didn't think about Mantle anymore. She thought about the smell of tea from the kitchen, the sound of Blake turning pages, and the warmth of the Menagerie sun.
She still heard things no one else could—flickers of emotion, echoes in the air—but she learned to ignore them.
For now, she let the island's rhythm drown out the noise.
Because for the first time in her life, the world wasn't just surviving.It was breathing.