“What’s all this?”

“Do you not recognize it?”

They had awoken the slumbering elf from their dreamwalking several months ago. This was the first time they had been given a broad overview of the progress they had made on their designs during their walkabout.

“I admit I do not. But that isn’t intended to be a criticism. I understand that my works have been held in some regard after my departure and so it wouldn’t be unexpected that my person might have some aura of importance around it. Me not recognizing the subtleties of your design might be a product of overestimation of my comprehension.”

The youth smiled nervously.

“I’m only 409 years old and so it is not for me to judge one such as you who has more millenia of experience than I have centuries.”

“Age is no barrier to criticism. More experience in being wrong won’t make anyone less wrong.”

“But you aren’t wrong!”

“That seems unlikely to be true and depressing if it were. I don’t remember all I encountered in the dream but I do remember the poignant sensation of being deeply wrong about things I found quite important.”

“Do you remember what they were?”

“Not yet but perhaps this is the place for me to remember. Tell me, which of my designs is this based on?”

“Titanic.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The rules you set out in Titanic, do you remember?”

“Is that a retitling of my essay on the growth of metaorganisms and their diminishing returns?”

“I have read all of your works that are available and I don’t remember any works on that matter. Perhaps that was lost to time?”

“By ‘Titanic’, you aren’t referring to my brilliant treatise on the pluriverse, are you?”

“No, that too is... less appreciated than your other works.”

“But as I look over the city, whose border stretches to three horizons and would reach the fourth were it not for the mountains aborting its sprawl, I do see several statues that seem to bear some resemblance to me.”

“You do, indeed.”

“I am held in some high regard, then?”

“You are credited for many great works.”

“But not my illustrative poems about humility and compassion in governance?”

“Those are mandatory reading for children but I will admit that few over the age of 100 spend much time on them.”

“Instead, I am heralded for the game my friends and I created to pass the time and help us study for finals.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Titanic.”

“Yes.”

“The subject matter relates to great heroes upon whose shoulders rests the fates of loved ones, states, and worlds?”

“Yes!”

“That was a game.”

“What?”

“One meant to be a bit of a satire.”

“A bit of a what?”

The old elf sighed. “The problem with satire is that it’s often enjoyable.”

“What do you mean, ‘a game’?”

“Satire often brings up something unpleasant and then relieves the audience of the ensuing tension by means of that sweet cousin to the small death; laughter.”

“Do you mean, like, ‘a war game’ or ‘the games we play in politics’?”

“And too often this creates a situation where the satirized object is embraced and amplified.”

“Well, what if it is? What if the thing you were making fun of is actually awesome?”

“How so?”

“Well, look at this! We are in a tower, the height of which could not be measured in as many people as I have years, overlooking a city known in every corner of the world that is known.”

“So?”

“So what if a joke you made millenia hence led to this moment? Who cares? It’s amazing!”

“So amazing that you brought me back to fix it?”

“Who told you that? We brought you back to celebrate your success.”

“But things are falling apart.”

“Why do you say that?”

“For three good reasons think I things are falling apart. We’ll leave unexplored the fact that everything everywhere is always falling apart because that would take some shine off this old turd’s arguments. The first of three is that I don’t think my writings left much in the way of insinuations that I was fond of being publicly masturbated.

“Honored, sir.”

“Call the hand whatever you wish but take my batting hand in earnest as it knocks others away.”

“This is true, you’ve beaten off several petitioners to host dinners in your honer.”

“And even if some whisper of such wants existed, I don’t think the cost incurred for drawing me back would be worth the risks and wrists.”

“Maybe we have so much wealth that we can afford it?”

“Maybe, but I am guessing that such wealth is eroding.”

“Gold does not erode.”

“Everything erodes and gold is not your wealth, that’s just a way of keeping track. Not a particularly good one once the power is gained to create it out of nothing.”

“Which is why we banned the practice in all but a few.”

“But people keep discovering the secret anyway? Rulers keep subtly extending the limits beyond the books?”

“Why do you say we need you to fix something?”

“Well, I know that I was insane for a few weeks after waking. Incredibly weak, overstimulated by the shouting touch on offer by even the softest sheets, all while trying to master this new, strange way of speaking.”

“We speak elvish! The ancient pure tongue!”

“If you say so, but still, the trauma of return is enough for thoughtful retrievers to create a comfortable place for the returned to rehabilitate themselves. But I’ve been mostly lucid for months now and have not been allowed outside.”

“You are free to go wherever you wish.”

“Provided I give notice and provided there is a sufficient number of people who do a wonderful job of not looking too closely at you and my other handlers to make sure they are doing what you want.”

“You are, at your request, anonymous.”

“I am, at your insistence, always watched.”

“You are cared for.”

“I am contained and were I one to bet, assuming I had credit, I would bet that you and I disguised could quickly find some sign of that question to which you are hoping I have some answer.”

“It was foolish for me to try and hide anything from your genius.”

“Yes, we’ll have to do a good spanking for you later, you naughty boy, but we have wasted enough time coddling me to have much to waste in flagellating you. We must away into the city.”

“Alas, it is not safe.”

“I am no whelp still wet and soft from inexperience. I have regained some fraction of what I once was. I am sure we will be safe.”

“Would that such boasts were true.”

“The truth is in the testing and the testing lies outside these lovely walls.”