Lower clouds grouped together that typically produce no rain
Agent Kokoe smiled as he pressed closed the eyelids.[1] The Agents observing, none of whom I knew by name, at least at that moment, verified the process via Thoughtnote as their receptors blinked, or rather confirmed it, the verification itself had not yet begun.
They were likely unranked; not that the Agents ranked marked themselves, as unranked or otherwise, we each bore our chosen epithet on our uniforms. But I could discern; for they would know the process otherwise.
The person who was dead, eyelids closed, began to move downward, and I noticed, as the others did in suit, that he was moving into the ground; like a hologram shimmering back into its nonexistence, and the body was the image.
“That’s good,” Agent Kokoe murmured, pushing the hair out of his eyes, and it was black. “Agent Kleo, come here,” he urged, and the one named Kleo walked over, his suit far too long for his pants, which were not of the right flynder, only fabric, as Kleo held out his hand.
Kokoe deposited a thin, single strand of his hair onto it, and Kleo stored it in his breast pocket. “Thank you,” ranked said, and the unranked subordinate nodded, saying, “One.”
Agent Kokoe turned to me.
“That’s my first verification of the year,” he said. “Thank you for coming, Raegoth.”
I nodded. The members of society so rarely lost their lives.
The Third Agent of the Second Bureau turned back to the body that was not there, and faced the one who had killed him. The Scion looked back, clearly overpowered by the sight of seven Agents who had somehow arrived moments after the untimely death. People so rarely died, and yet one had found a reason to kill.
“You will be verified now,” Agent Kokoe told the Scion, who seemed to be measuring their options; soon enough, they summoned a holoscreen, it was bright and flashing and there were moving images and sounds on it, but the distraction was useless, as a second watching unranked Agent swept in underneath the image, clocked the Scion about the head with an andante, it was Agent Shaen whom I recognized now from the Alteryear celebration, and the Scion fell, eyes closed.
I remembered what Agent Istria had said, that only she and Agent Tay knew how the process worked. But then what was Agent Kokoe doing? He was only Third.
Speaking of, he seemed to be taking the sweat off his brow.
“And it is done,” he said, and the scene was clear, the Scion was being handed a clear card by Agent Shaen, they were now walking away, and the three other Agents continued taking notes.
“It is done,” I repeated, and Agent Kokoe smiled softly. As he stood, I came over to him and extended my hand.
He took it. “I expect you in my office in the morning for a briefing,” he said.
“A good jest, but I’ll remain in the First Bureau,” I replied.
“Good, you guys get more work,” he said. After checking his things, the Third Agent swept away, followed closely by Kleon, Shaen, and the others.
I found in myself an urge to follow; another memory surged then, but I quelled it, and headed separately to a more distant portal for my return.
Upon arrival and entrance, I Thought for the Third Bureau.
Upon opening my eyes again, I found in my view the Fourth Agent Senra of the Third Bureau, pulling out a V-book from the library aisle, and replacing it with another one.
Noticing me at once, startled, they nearly dropped the second book; but I caught it, and handed it back to them.
“Here you go,” I said, to which Senra smiled, before pushing the V-book back into place; the shelf gave a soft glow of acceptance. It was the right book.
The V-book now in their hands they handed to me.
I looked at it; like the others on the shelf, it bore no title, but my receptor said to me its name. I indeed had not read it.
“For you to read,” Senra said. “Also, I did not know that that empty space on the wall was a portal, but I know now.”
I looked back. Indeed the space was clear, from which I had just emerged; I too had not known it was a portal, and I knew that the library was not the Third Bureau’s prime locale, but rather taking me to the nearest member of its echelon.
“Thank you, Senra,” I told them. I opened my V-port and inserted the V-book inside. Glow, then disappear.
“So you haven’t read it,” they said, seeming to confirm something to themselves.
“No. Can you take me to the main residence of your Bureau?”
Senra stared at me askance, then nodded. “You really don’t know, for someone who’s been here a while,” but which I’d heard as the longest, “it’s right here, in these nooks, in the Agency library. William is just up there, in the coffee venue we have,” they said, gesturing upwards, and lo and behold, for the first time, I beheld indeed their coffee place, the familiar tropical bird-endeavored dispensary rotating, colors alternating, routes shifting, powers altering.
I cleared my head.
“That will not be necessary, you suffice, Fourth Agent.”
“Huh,” they replied. At that, they beckoned, and so I followed.
Senra led me out of the aisle past a wide chamber I had not seen before, one containing several large, glass spheres, but there was a holoscreen showing description, and my eyes caught NOT READY - VISIONICES AISLE, but already we were ascending the smooth, alter titanium steps, serrated just so that we would not slip, and with my hand on the railing, I beheld the Agents of the Third Bureau.
All of the ranked were there, with Senra completing the ten. As they positioned themselves behind the circle, nay, a constellation, voices lulled as we entered. Ulyngorinoceros patiently taking decanter after decanter from the rotary. And I saw the First Agent, nodding to me in her usually laconic way, seated on a holocushion, and at her right and left seated two ranked Agents I did not know, they met my glances and acknowledged me with their eyes, and then my memory jogged, coming along the stone path, and there I saw the Second Agent, held aloft by the near-invisible wind-strings in its air-chamber, and another Agent, a child, younger than Xeric, staring intently at the rock, or rather the petrified, or purified rather, verified as such, and so rarefied, Second Agent whose still soma spun silently. Further minnowing its way through the legs hanging over their holocushions was an alter manker, its eyes never leaving mine, but it too was wearing the flynder uniform, bearing the words 10TH AGENT, PLEASE PLAY, and yonder the Third Agent Danara was crying in a corner, and another Agent, back to me, in the form of a hologram—which for the Agency, meant the highest resemblance to the real—except the form this took had distinctly pointed ears, larger than a human’s, and was wearing the cloak of a forgotten age, red and yellow and a searing gold.[2]
All of them were wearing receptors, and by verity, it was a dizzying cacophony of silent, blinking, flashing receptors, and soon I saw sometimes the colors matched, syncopated and spun, until the young girl came tugging at my pant leg, and truly, I did not know they had manufactured the Agency set for one so young. For her flynder bore the shifting designs, all woven together, of extraterrestrials across their centuries of depiction.
“Hello,” I said. “What is your name, Agent of the Third Bureau?”
“Enter Third Agent of the First Bureau,” she spoke softly, as if she were reciting from her heart, “Raegoth is his name, and he greets the 9th Agent More Barry. More Barry tugs at his pant leg.”
“Oh NO why is she going FIRST?” came a hideous shriek, and Danara, somehow over here now, throwing the child over his shoulders, retreated behind a faraway aisle just as quick as he come, and I witnessed the girl pounding her fists against his back, but to no avail, soon, they are both gone.
Agent William nodded. “There goes Danara,” said the Agent sitting to her right, wondrously wearing dark black sunglasses, which made the contrast all night to his inordinately light lavender flynder topsuit, “Agent Cato, but please call me Agent Ari Cato,” he intoned, and the Agent sitting to William’s left nodded, a look somewhere distant, without gravity, but not overbearing, filling their face replete. “Call me Liebeslied,” they said; “call me Liebeslied.” They were all in grey, but their mien indicated a deeper sense of the shade.
I nodded. “I will,” and for some reason, formerly, I had the urge to request to know their respective ranks, but a gaze from William stopped mine, and I shook each of their hands, introducing myself, but I was sure they knew my name before I knew theirs.
And I had been here longer than any of them.
I believe I nearly found myself sighing; but, seeing that the lights and revolving colors slowed in frequency, indicating a lull in the meeting, I seated myself properly on the floating holocushion before me, arranging it such that I now sat between the golden hologram and now Danara, coming back in to sit on his designated, a white one shot through with purple veins.
“Raegoth, Raegoth, you’re here,” he said, his eyes bespoke laughter, but he was not, certainly not laughing. His body was tense; tight, his legs shining through their pants, just baggy enough in the purest design.
“We have… books for you,” Liebeslied said, pulling out another V-book from her V-port, and like the one from Senra, bearing no title, but again my receptor told me the name, and I did not know it at this time. I took it and opened my V-port, and with the lightest flurry of movement, inserted the tome. Ari Cato nodded sprightly, reaching into his own, pulling one out, I took, inserted, and closed, but oh, Liebeslied had said “we,” and so, with Agent More Barry running out from beyond the far corner aisle, her brown shoes slapping on the alter hydronium, its clearest blue tint giving only the lightest glint, holding a V-book of her own in her outstretched arms, extending them for me, and I took them, observing that her chosen epithet was scratched onto her mock coveralls, but with the name reversed. I did the same for the V-book extended to me by Please Play, a Thought-message from one Agent Alabaster Sheldon indicated full access to visionice from it, I looked, and saw no change in the miniature bust’s features; Danara sliding a dated, non-V book under the now-summoned nexus tube in between us, and the one in golden form opening their hands, and out emerged a V-holobook, the smallest of humanoid forms running across its sylvan setting, and now Agent William was handing me a book, one titled How to Use Receptors – by William The Silver, and lastly Ulyngorinoceros spilling a liquid of the deepest blue upon all these floating and fluttering pages, V or not, and in the eyes that held me I seemed to see the liquid falling in the motion stilled, but I was not Istria, not quick with my fingers, and so the books fell, their pages bled, and the blood of water was blue, a car shimmering out of the veil, and an unseen, hidden form of forms was rising out of the gaze. I once knew his name but I had forgotten, but in my head and for my eyes they knew what I saw, and before I knew what my fingers, my limbs beckoned, reaching into V-port for the V-book from Senra, I accessed via Thought Enter write, and so begun.
It was a dreamlike and snowy night,
And I caught their eyes leaving mine, and while I witnessed some persons, some silent hands, or their command of the self-cleaning repertoire of these technologies, brushing away the blue, I had to turn back, and return my gaze to the page in searing white, with these seven now empty words before me, and the path was only one, to continue—Simple. Pure. Without an enemy and yet a clear path.
I had to write—for my memory to find its true color.
I looked up at the ceiling, dimly illuminated, but enough to show my face.
The Raegoth I thought I knew, the R’aegoth of at least eight years, the R’aegoth Ni’rial of even longer, the—the R name of an untold multitude of time. He looked back at me, his thoughts an open sea, what he remembered awash in flame!
The shadows therein refused to speak. So I continued to add words—and they flowed across the page, lines in real time.
Δ
A streaming filled her mind, bright and soft feelings of color but she wasn’t actually seeing it. She was seeing shapes. All around her in vibrant lines like those in a portal at the moment of travel, welcoming, resolving into large rectangles and roads that branched off into tributaries of light. Coming closer to them she saw that she was one among them, one light among many others, and that they were all close to it. Close to the massive shapes that eventually spelled out letters.
S E C T O R
U N I V E R S I T Y
The space around her was vast and silver. Feeling herself pulled into the wide vowels she formed a thought, having read to herself what those letters meant. A name; and she soon saw with more specificity the other pinpoints of light, dots and pricks that lined the horizon in one significant line.
They were students.
It was orientation. Eleanor saw some behind her and some by her side. The line did not seem to have a beginning or an end. The space they were all standing on was empty and barren. As Eleanor made eye contact with the others in the line, she saw a wave of exclamation, surprise, and astonishment as they all realized the same thing. It was like v-World but enhanced. Eleanor knew that she still wasn’t physically present there, but something about her presence felt that way. And she knew without a doubt that the others felt similarly.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
They seemed to wait; and then, after some further waiting, as the long line of students seemed to increase, endlessly, a sound, like a deep and soft breathing, and the smell of silver, although how she knew that she couldn’t explain, they watched, as the air above them seemed to pass over, bringing their eyes to a formation in the flat landscape. It was long and smooth and wet. It was a body of water. It was dark, with bulges and swells to indicate the ideas underneath. Colors that glimmered under the surface, forming shapes, becoming images. They all swirled through it as Eleanor saw the memories of a high school year traverse the land.
Eleanor was strangely self-conscious of her lack of something, it was something she knew she couldn’t explain at that moment, but something that each of the others was struggling to experience, each in their own, single, variant, multifaceted and myriad way.
But without a moment of doubt in her mind, framed as it was with its own, unoriginal thoughts as she stood in the land, Eleanor felt that something important—perhaps not alter, but—important—was happening right now, in this instant, for her and for everyone else around them. Around her.
She had been in a classroom…
Suddenly, as the line of students seemed to cease, up ahead, beyond the plain-like space they all stood upon and the deep river surging past, a series of silver spouts emerged from the air. To Eleanor they appeared as the spouts from an enormous fountain. But they all pointed up, curved and bent to a vaselike cylindrical structure, each pointing true. Seven silver spouts. The silver fountain emerged, and created its own space.
To Eleanor, they appeared as seven silver portals. And they soon showed seven individuals, standing or sitting in various positions inside them. To the previous silver scent it was now the scent of the sky. But not the sky Eleanor saw above, the sky created by the space containing the fountain of portals.
And before speech, before any words were heard in that space, Eleanor realized that these seven were also students. No words were made to those in the line, and as this was some kind of V-movie space, those fountains were real enough to touch. Eleanor saw the light beginning to clear, their outlines illuminated, and the seven students representing Sector University stepped out.
They were each wearing clothing in the High style, and Eleanor expected this, but what she did not expect necessarily was a various play on the insignia of Sector, what had to be that distinct triangle, with its lower side curved; like an inverted V, a cone; sometimes, she remembered, that particularly annoying servant would wear, as part of his tricorn hat. On one student it was exactly that, but as he stared straight ahead of him and not meeting any of the gazes from the line, she realized that it wasn’t hair at all, it wasn’t part of his clothing—his head was shaped that way. Two of them were wearing hologram suits, showing their Governor genes; so one could be a Governor while University. As she stepped closer she saw the fifth in the group, stage left, opening her eyes, coming out of sleep, blinking several times, stretching her arms forth. Her eyes were clear and cyan, or clear turquoise, Eleanor could not be certain. The girl’s hair was likewise faded, of a sheer beige, falling over her head like water overflowing from a cup. She was staring at the six students standing, sitting, or reclining besides her.[3]
“Wait… I made it? I got into Sector? What—yes! I got into Sector! Pillars of rosan, teko nara!” she exclaimed, the last few words those were words that Eleanor didn’t understand but it was High English, most likely. The girl whooped a few more times, pumping the air with her arms, kneeling down to the floor, or ground, that they were standing on, and inspecting it briefly. She seemed just as curious about where exactly they were, as Eleanor and the others in the long, long line were.
She was happy… [4]
The other six did not share the same reaction, although one of the Governors was smiling, and the one with the tricorn head was now talking to the new Sector student, and she was shaking her head. Her clothing was entirely in a different shade of blue than her eyes, darker, but also more vibrant; something was altogether different about it than the style of High clothes the others had, and those of the High students in the line.
Eleanor felt for the first time uncomfortable in the Plent garb she had on, it was her Kiwi top and Ibis pantalons, equipped as well with the Ostrich mock iststarkes. They’d been alter enough next to Klost.
The others in the line were murmuring. Eleanor did not envy them; in that space, all of their world was an empty plane, and they were merely students. Going to college was one thing; but being oriented to Sector University was a wholly different lot.
But…
In a line; were they ordered? Eleanor looked across; it was truly never-ending. It hadn’t been surprising to her that Sector hadn’t informed them of anything other than acceptance; and she had acceded. It was a line! And they were ordered, she realized that now, and she saw that she was somewhere in the upper third, if the silver fountain was the seven embodying their class. But the girl who had been sleeping was also admitted; the others were current. That she knew. How, she did not know; and by eavesdropping on those near her in the line, she deduced that they’d felt the same. She was only in the top third; yes, she’d come from Plent, and High sourced its own line. But only third.
One of them was moving now. One of the seven, a dazon with goldenrod hair cut in High’s tabula rasa style, very close to the head on the surface with just enough material to give it fluff, was dancing.[5]
They were good. Eleanor rarely saw physical performance anymore, it was a rare art, having been fitfully subsumed into the others ever since the Lost Generation of v-World. But this one moved their way through the land around them with a vividness to their movements and a play to their expression that birthed a simultaneous reaction on the mouths and lips of their six peers, the two Governors nodding in step, and the girl of beige hair dancing her own, lilt-like rhythm. Yet another of them, a girl wearing glasses, taking them off, and joining the dancer as they paraded the soft, thin surface that gradually gained the spread of white tinged with points of yellow.
In watching… Eleanor felt her tide of disappointment wash and die away, fading out. She did not deserve to stand among them. She did not deserve to stand among them!
She felt a single tear fall down her cheek.
The portal stood before Tristan and he couldn’t see inside. Its clear transparent walls remained their uncolored pink, and he couldn’t walk inside. He looked at the portal and stood before it.
White and brown glittered. Tristan’s father appeared, his hands hanging at his sides. Fists unclenched. Head raised—as if Meliodas was lying in its reflective glow.
He walked out. Greeting Tristan. Asking about the status on Pops’ next idea. So finely formed. What piece of work.
“I’m not done yet,” I said.
“Tomorrow,” Pops replied. His father swept past him, crossing through the blades of bioterra and off to the GAT center holdings where he would greet his fellow techists and techist fathers.
Tristan remained standing. He set a Thought-reminder for two minutes. He waited until his father left his window of sight. Then he re-entered the portal and Thought for the home of his father.
He arrived in a glimmering of light. The portal remained empty where he left it, and Tristan found himself standing outside the icy gate. He Thought for the house-system and walked through it. He Thought for the front entrance and walked through it. He walked step by step, over the thin paladin stone. He imagined himself striding through the archway, his feet moving on sandals and encased in a wide, sunflower-yellow cloth; and here his retainer greeted him, holding out the washbasin filled with rose water, and the knight threw the liquid onto his face, cleansing it of the sins of the enemy. Blood fell off in drops.
Two minutes. Tristan yanked off his receptor and it made a clank when it struck the alter platinum flooring of his house. He’d gotten the imagery wrong; there were different kinds of paladins, some religiously motivated; and he had to pick the correct century. It was so many centuries ago.[6]
He supposed that the closest thing to knights that the Sector had were the Agents. But there was no armor or protection in their clothing, they didn’t require it, and there wasn’t a king. But many Governors, and… wait. Tristan came to remember the title History of the Protection from Restor’s library, and pulling it back up again in his Thought-feed, found Visigothic Kingdom.
So it was some similar to Governors if they combined Governors with Agents. Tristan took some steps back. He left the entrance to the house, and returned to the gate and stood before the steel bars.
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Tristan imagined a rush of light falling over him, encasing him in its reflective glow. The gate was still gleaming in the sunlight that still pierced the clouds above. Light; sky; ground. He held his head bent towards the ground; he raised it as his retainer came up to him, holding out a rough towel, one of those horsehair ones that were only preferable after battle, as they easily absorbed all the dirt and grime.
He was tired; it had been a long battle. Tristan thanked the boy and wiped off the drying blood. Handing over Macotta’s reins, he walked over the stone steps and into the chamberlain’s household. It was not the best of days to tell of Charlemagne, and Tristan thought oft of the other counts; but the chamberlain shared stables with Louis, and sometimes he wanted to be placed with the Comes Stabulorum; but Tristan knew his duty and followed it.
Soon the smell of the stables reached him; it had been the count Erudius’ notion to combine the two Comes together. Tristan passed by some other counts and some of the lower paladins, resting their feet and conversing on the dearth of enemies. Since the conquest. But that had been nigh a century ago.
Tristan shook his head and walked on. He didn’t join the Comes to fight; but to give his horse ample exercise, carrying his master into the battlefield day and day again.
Tristan soon beheld the stables where the horses were kept. June and Brid, his favorite and least preferred, neighed and stomped when they saw him. Tristan nodded to the stableboy, who nodded to him as he continued sweeping the horses’ hay tidily and refilling their water troughs. Sand and coarse dirt sprayed in tufts. Flies flew overhead, their small buzzing just soft enough for Tristan to ignore it. He came here every morning, after all. He moved his hands over June’s mane and shoulder; he wished he had a brown apple with him, she only liked them brown and not ripe. Perhaps he had left it with the retainer. He would go back. June nuzzled his forearm, even though he was still wearing his greaves; the movement pricked the dun charger, causing her to whiffle and snort. Tristan laughed. She was good. She was used to the flies and the whizzing by of steel-tipped arrows and the mud filling those small puddles of water she drank from.
“An apple?” asked a voice.
Tristan shook his head and accepted the soft red apple the stableboy offered him. He considered offering in turn to the horse, but she’d already turned away, neighing softly; he wasn’t her master. Only a friend; and he came here often. He never saw June’s actual master around. Maybe he was dead.
She continued to chew her hay. Tristan nodded one more time to the stableboy, who seemed interested; he worked and slept here, after all. Tristan nodded once more as he left the stable, and soon beheld the portmanteau where they kept the old and rusted swords from the enemy. Tristan walked over to it and, with a grunt, heaved the lid open.
The swords and grey spears, arrows with brown and black feathers, their original bright colors long gone, shone dimly. Tristan reached inside and moved the fading steel around; slowly and carefully, such that he wouldn’t cut or prick his arm as it moved through it. He put his other arm in and continued. Bits and pieces of red, fading orange, other darkening hues spirited from his touch as he searched. And then deep down, below a crossbow broken along its middle, he found it. It ached in his palm even though he couldn’t see it, the crossing bends of steel betwixt his eyes and what his hand was holding. Retracing his movements, carefully maneuvering the steel as he lifted his arm up, using his other hand to shake them out of the way, Tristan lifted the small object in his palm.
Now in some illumination received through the cracks in the wooden shingles above him on the floor of the Comes, Tristan saw that his arm was cut. Thin lines of red began to appear on his forearms. His arm started to tremble, as with his other hand he retracted his fingers around the object. A glint of green shone through. It was a gem. A jade. Tristan turned it slowly in his palm, watching the light refract. As he turned, he saw an even smaller object contained within; or rather a shape caused by the light, a miniature spearhead, in the rough V shape he had come to know so well. Tristan held it.
He stared into the jade depths.
As he did so, a catch of light flashed in his eyes. From the side—Tristan turned and saw that the sun outside was falling. In its slow descent he saw the time. It was nearing dusk; soon he would sleep, and rise with the other counts to hear of new tidings. Things only changed with battle.
Things only changed with battle…
He came to, standing just outside his room. It wasn’t the Comes Stabulorum; there were no counts or paladins. No horses or retainers or stableboys offering apples. Only his room. Designs filled it. Failures and mistakes. Perpetual motions. An array of alter darts, all white. A green V-bow.
Tristan moved his feet. Pops’ latest design stood before him, in his receptor. He Thought to open its holoscreen. A blink of light before the scattered image that threw order into disarray. He saw it. He understood it and saw Father’s notes. He moved his feet further. The floor was barren. It only received light from the holoscreen, pricking the thin alter plastic surface. Points and dots. No clear outlines.
Tristan tried sitting down, attempting to bend his feet, and opened a new holoscreen. He thought about the initial image; he thought about creating it. He thought about the shapes and wholly unified colors that would characterize it. He thought and saw the intricacies of Father’s work. He tried putting them on but his Thoughts trembled. Stopped. Stopped before anything. The screen before him lay empty and unresolved. Tristan stared at it and tried again, but his feet and legs were anchored; he couldn’t move them. He stared at the image. The ideas failed to move. He stared; as the light from the holoscreen remained bright. He stared.
After what seemed like a full hour of broken thought… he shook. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t do it again.
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It seemed like hours. Kept together in that space, the line of students had over time gradually deformed, deconstructed, broken up into a scattered spread that widened over the long flat plane that made Eleanor feel singly, entirely, brutally alone.
The goldenrod dazon had stopped; or rather, they had just stopped dancing. This feeling of solitude… she wasn’t sure exactly what it meant here, as nearly brushing her shoulders was another student from the line, or maybe they’d been of the original seven, still, breathing heavily, nearly pushing her aside. She moved over just a bit, nearly avoiding another who’d been sleeping completely spread-eagled on the floor. If it even was a floor. She overstepped, nearly making a leap, as she jumped over the fallen student and managed not to hit the other guy, then she was clear.
Standing alone, in a relatively empty spot; the fountain was still, just right there; by now some from the seven had intermingled with the rest of them, which of course had included Governors, so soon she had lost sight of which was which, who was who in the great crowd that threatened to fill the horizon. All she knew and saw was that she, Eleanor Dorr, was still, not dancing; she remembered having moved a bit, earlier; but only glimpses. Almost as if she had been observing herself, from the side, just outside of her; a moving haze, a figure among the many silhouettes, dancing, figure or an outline in orange.
A glint, a flash of light. She moved her eyes toward there, and saw a single, no, a multitude, of thin pinpoints of silver coruscating upon the spouts of the fountain—and she had to turn her eyes away. It was too bright. She moved. She moved away, and suddenly the slightest of oranges, made hazy by the all too silver, rumpled her vision, threw her eyes out, tossed and furled and conflated them. It was too bright! There were too many…
Eleanor came to, and saw the line was smaller; holding her hand up in front of her eyes, she squinted towards the horizon, and saw that students were filling it, dots and points and miniature lines. She found her feet, saw her hands that connected to her arms, and recognized the clothing still on her body. She was Eleanor, and she was at the orientation, or part of it, for Sector; the school officials had spoken, and everything was assigned. She’d continue and complete the classes she had here at Blazon. The horizon dimmed, fading into a line, and the whole of her space billowed out and broken, she opened her eyes again, and she was sitting at her desk, in Blazon. She spread her arms, she stretched—she reached out, looking at her hands, opening and closing her fingers, all ten of them. Normal, ten human fingers, finely formed, and she could feel the nanos swimming through them, keeping them perfect. She looked across at the others; the few that were still here were similarly still, staring straight ahead of them, or recently emerged from their respective orientations. Those in Lowers would be going there personally, of course… she didn’t care about them though. She was going to Sector, receiving the perfect education here, or rather up in High; and she’d do it again, see where she stood among the many. She didn’t see them here; she stood, moving around and between the desks, not seeing any of the group still in the classroom. She moved out into the hallway. It was long and empty, save for some students running through it, proclaiming their victories and their failures. It was a tiresome—no, it wasn’t tiring at all. She stretched her legs and kept walking. Next was the gathering of Blazon students who’d also been in orientation. She hadn’t seen them but, Giya Igre Bis, and probably Proen iHiela, and a few others. She’d see them.
Eleanor kept walking, and felt an expression come upon her face.
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[1] Theme of Kokoe: DEAN’s “Sometimes i hear Howlin’ in my head,” released on YouTube, differently from the original recording Howlin’ 404, which is the theme of Koko
[2] Official theme of the Third Bureau of Rarification – CHVRCHES’ 2015 album Every Open Eye (Special Edition)
[3] Theme of Adventa Rosan - Lucia’s 2020 single Lunar phase : A side
[4] additionally – NAQT VANE’s Beautiful Mess released in August 2023
[5] theme of Seiya Agapi Defu: “Lose You” by Sam Smith on their 2023 coming of age album Gloria
[6] Tristan’s theme for the first three folios – “Awaken” by Yutaka Yamada, from his original soundtrack to Wit Studio’s adaptation of Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura.