Old Yru Academy of Medicine and Healing, Auditorium | 11:02 AM | First Day

"Well," Kam said, rising from her seat. "Much as I'd love to hear you continue to crush my dreams underfoot with the force of your logic, I have someone I need to meet before we depart in a couple hours."

"It's 3 hours, I think," I said.

She blinked, confused for a moment, then chuckled and tapped her forehead in a oh-I'm-so-silly gesture. "Of course. 2 PM is 3 hours after 11 AM." She shook her head. "Gosh, I know I said I have no sense of time, but that was bad even by my standards."

"You're probably just stressed out from the conference," I said. Not that things like that usually seem to stress you out much.

"Aw, Su! It's so sweet of you to try and comfort me." She smirked. "Well, let's hope you're right. I'm all for poetic irony, but it'd be a little much if I came down with early-onset dementia right after making that speech."

"They, uh, do say that people in more cerebral vocations tend to see more cases..." Theo said, now having returned to sorting through his luggage.

"Oh, eminently helpful, Theo. Extremely reassuring," Kam began sifting through her shoulderbag herself. She withdrew a circular, silver-encased and largely flat object from inside, and pushed her hand against it. Then she frowned. "Tch, what the..."

"What is it?" I asked.

"My logic engine isn't working," she said, pushing her hand against it again with a more frustrated expression.

"You've, um," Theo hesitated, "you've kept it wound it up, right?"

"Yes, Theodoros, I've kept it wound up," she said, her brow flat. "I'm not a child. I do understand the basic thermodynamic concept of machines requiring power to be able to function."

"Hey, don't get mad at me," he said, defensive. "I was just trying to help..."

She shook the object around, tapping at it, her brow curling into a grimace. "Ughhh. This is such a nuisance! I need this for my presentation!"

"Maybe Lilith could fix it...?" I suggested, referring to the only member of our class with any expertise in machinery.

Kam shook her head. "She's already run off somewhere with her mother. I don't expect they'll be back until it's time for us to set off."

"She could do it on the way, couldn't she?" I said. "Or tonight?"

She considered this, but eventually clicked her tongue, shaking her head. "No, I can ill afford the risk. I'll have to go back home and pick up my spare." She sighed, but managed to bring a smile back to her face after a few moments. "Well, then! I suppose I better hurry off. I'll see you lot of sad sacks in a few hours-- Do try to get a little excited, would you?"

We exchanged farewells, and she headed out through the backdoor of the auditorium.

"She's really enthusiastic about all this," Theo commented, after she'd slammed the door closed.

"Aren't you, too?" I asked.

"No, I am! I mean. Obviously." He let out an awkward laugh, scratching the back of his head. "You know I've been curious about my father's work ever since I was boy. It's just that... well, the way she's acting, you'd think she's about to go on holiday, not to speak with a bunch of old academics."

I shrugged, and picked up another piece of chocolate, slowly removing the papyrus wrapping. "I'd suppose her perspective on it is probably a little different than ours."

He looked confused. "How do you mean?"

I munched. "For you, me, and Lilith, we've been exposed to this stuff for half our lives. But for everyone else, um..." I struggled to find the right wording. "I think there's a special sort of excitement to something that used to be part of the cultural background becoming part of your personal life, so to speak? Like stepping into a painting." I swallowed. "That's on top of Kamrusepa's interest in the subject to begin with."

What was her interest? I didn't actually know, when I thought about it.

"Hmmm," he said, staring into the middle distance for a brief moment. "I suppose."

Theodoros could be a little clueless when it came to other people, especially when it came to their internal narratives. Saying that is - once again - hypocrisy, but we again differed in one notable fashion. While I reacted to that lack of intuitive understanding by indulging in neuroticism and obsessively speculating about the thoughts of others, Theo just kind of didn't bother most of the time, content not to really understand them.

It frustrated some, but I was used to it.

My relationship with Theo was... Complicated. In one sense, I'd known him longer than anyone in the entire class. We'd met in primary school, on account of the relationship between his father and my grandfather. For a while we'd been close friends, in the way that children are, where they just blabber to each other about things they like without any deeper substance. It was only in our teens that we'd begun to drift apart.

I still I cared for him, in a vague sort of way. Like the way you care for a cousin. But I didn't know him, as such.

"I better go for now, too," he said, looking back down to his bags, a little anxious. "I'm pretty sure I forgot to pack any soap."

Ran looked up, raising an eyebrow. "Won't they have soap there...?"

"No, no, that won't be any good," he said, shaking his head. "It-- It, uh, has to be this one type, or I'll get a rash." He hesitated, looking up. "I know that sounds ridiculous, but it always happens."

"Would've thought you'd have got a Biomancer to fix an allergy like that," she said.

"I... well, I suppose I could," he said, scratching his head. "It goes against my upbringing, though. I don't know if it would feel right. "

"It's sort of funny for you to be saying that, Ran," I said. "Since you're always refusing to get your lactose intolerance corrected."

"That's different," she said dismissively. "I don't even like milk, so there's no point."

"It'd make it easier to eat out."

"I hate eating out," she replied flatly.

"Um, anyway," Theo interjected. "I'll see you later, Utsu. And you, Ran."

"Bye, Theo," I said, holding up a hand in a small wave.

He headed out the door two, leaving us alone.

For about two minutes afterwards, we sat in silence. The last of the lingering voices of the auditorium guests had faded, so all that remained was the beat of the rain, and the distant but omnipresent sound of the city; movement, people, machines.

I finished the chocolate bar I was eating, and tossed the papyrus aside. I looked at the little table, considering another.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"You're getting through a lot of those," Ran remarked.

"Yeah, I guess so," I said, and then, "How's the book?"

"Not great," she said. "I'm saving a better one from a series I like for when we're out there, since there'll be nothing to do."

"That's smart," I said.

She snorted. "Thanks." And then, after a pause, "You have anything you wanted to do until it's time?"

I thought about it, then shook my head. "No, I don't think so."

"You want to get some lunch?"

I blinked, surprised. This was rare for Ran. Like she'd said a moment ago, she hated eating out.

...but, well. This was a special day for us, wasn't it?

In a fucked-up sense.

"Sure," I said.

𒊹

City of Old Yru, Upper Plaza | 11:23 AM | First Day

Once, before the final days of the Iron Epoch and the collapse that followed, the old world had orbited a local star referred to as the 'Sun'. A massive ball of plasma fueled by the hydrogen fusion process spat out of a molecular cloud at some point in the foggy distant past of the universe, it had been a major part of the cosmological miracle that had given birth to life, and, later, the cosmological disaster called the human race.

Like the majority of land-based life, mankind had evolved to depend upon the sun in a variety of ways, both as a mechanism to regulate behavior - sleep patterns - and as an agent to actively assist in biological processes, most notably the conversion of cholesterol into secosteroids via 'cooking' them on the skin with ultraviolet radiation. As a result, relishing in sunlight became, to an extent, a desirable trait in the psyche, becoming deeply embedded in the reptilian parts of the mind.

The Great Lamp, created by the last of the Ironworkers during the construction of the Mimikos - the highest plane of the Remaining World, and the primary home of humanity - had thusly been built to emulate the sun in not only function, but aesthetics and perceived behavior. It crossed the firmament over the course of the day, traveling from the east into the west. The pathway it took even changed with the seasons, as it had in the old world based on the axial tilt of the planet.

But the human brain is a observant and fussy thing, and some brains are even more observant and fussy than others. Inevitably, in some individuals, a small part of them remained aware that it wasn't quite right, producing an uncomfortable dissonance that had at this point become a widely-recognized phenomenon. I understood there were even groups to help treat it; you'd go out on nice trips to parks and to the seaside in broad daylight during summertime, to help you form happy memories associated with the lamplight. (This was a concept that seemed nightmarishly saccharine and dystopian to me, but that's neither here nor there.)

Because I'm the type of person who likes to rationalize and pathologize everything, I'd always assumed this was the reason I preferred night time and rainy days to clear daylight, although it might just have been because I'm naturally a gloomy person. Either way, as Ran and I walked down the high street outside the university, I found myself feeling surprisingly calm and light-hearted.

She'd already packed her umbrella, so we were both huddled under mine as we made our way down the street.

"I think... I feel okay," I said, without prompting.

"Yeah?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

She nodded, in turn, and made the kind of tired, bittersweet expression that you might see on someone who had just been told that a pet, stricken with crippling illness for months, had finally passed on.

It wasn't quite the reaction I'd hoped to provoke, but I'd take it.

We walked through the busy crowds. The streets, shadowed by the hanging gardens and the experimental architecture of spiraling glass and bronze towers in the city center, were dense with people even at this time of day. There were even some putting up decorations for the upcoming parade. Mostly banners, strung between the buildings. They were pale aquamarine, hyacinth purple, and black, the city colors of Old Yru.

If I remembered right, the parade was to pass through this area last, convening at the plaza a little below, so this would be a very busy area at the end of the weekend. Not that we'd be there to see it.

Everyone, without exception, was clad in veils or the occasional mask. Most of them were variants of the standard style, like ours. Long, black, though you also saw some blues, purples, and even the occasional cheerful colour. Men's were usually subtly less frilly and flamboyant, and were often a little shorter, even though this was technically dangerous and could get you in trouble if it wasn't tied up properly.

Most everyone wore gloves, too, though this technically wasn't part of the law. People worried, though.

There tended to be a cycle. The public would get progressively more laissez-faire about covering their faces, until eventually there'd be a high profile prosognostic event or contact paradox, which would spook everyone enough to start the cycle over. I'd seen it play out, subtly, about three or four times over the course of my life.

That's human nature, I suppose. It's easy to forget something is a threat until it's actively killing someone.

I saw a news-sheet that had blown out into the middle of the street, heavily tramped and soggy. The headline read, in over-the-top bold print, 'ALLIANCE CELEBRATES 200 YEARS OF WORLD PEACE'.

I looked over to Ran, so much as you can really look over to someone when you can't see each others faces. "You sad we're going to miss the parade?" I asked, speaking up a bit over the rain and the crowd.

"What?" she asked incredulously. "Fuck no."

"Really?"

"Yeah," she said. "C'mon, you know I hate those things."

"You used to love the ones they did back when we were kids. You even dragged me with you the year we met."

"Yeah, because I was a little idiot who didn't know about politics yet," she said, rolling her eyes. "If I wanted to watch old people jack themselves off for hours, I can think of plenty of ways to do it that wouldn't involve wasting three luxury debt."

I snorted, breaking out into laughter for a second. "Geez, Ran."

"Besides," she continued. "It doesn't even make sense to be having it. We haven't had '200 years of world peace'. Everyone was shooting at each other barely more than a decade ago. Hell, my dad got half of his face blown off to prove it."

"I mean, they can't stop doing it now," I said, playing devil's advocate. "It's tradition."

"Yeah, and it's tradition to celebrate people's birthday, but it's still fucking weird if you throw a party for them after they've already six feet under."

"Well, you know what the city council says," I said. "It wasn't a proper war. Everyone was following the rules. Nobody broke the treaty, or the Covenant. It was just a misunderstanding that got really out of hand--"

"What a load of horseshit. God, the world is such a mess," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I hate politics."

"Politics is like a lump in your armpit," I said. "You don't want to look at it, but if you don't, it might get a whole lot worse while you're not paying attention."

"Oh, a cancer analogy," she said dryly. "How on-topic for today."

I laughed a little to myself.

"What about you, then?" she asked. "Are you sad you're going to miss it?"

"Not really," I said, redirecting our walk to avoid a passing carriage. "I guess I'll be sad I don't get to see the fireworks."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "They remind me of home, a little bit."

She looked at me for a moment, then snorted, shaking her head. "You're such a little kid, Su."

I smiled to myself, looking downward. "I am what I am," I said quietly. "I can't be anything else."

𒊹

My name is Utsushikome of Fusai. That's Uu-Tsu-Shi-Ko-Me, though most people call me 'Su' for short. It's an old name from Kutuy, and means something like 'mysterious child', though I've never looked into it deeply, since it's not modern Kutuyan and both my parents are disengaged from their cultural heritage. My mother probably took it from a novel, knowing her.

I'm an acolyte healer. More specifically, my discipline is Thanatomancy - death arcana, the term people use since 'Necromancer' became associated with people digging the recently-dead out of their graves, and then subsequently became regarded as a pejorative. I must've become pretty good at it, since I'd been accepted into to one of the more prestigious training courses for healers in the world. Something which still felt very strange, when I thought about it.

After my grandfather died, I drifted away from many of my friends, and found myself studying more and more often. Soon, it was all I did with my time. I'd always been clever, but pretty soon people started talking to me like I was some of sort of genius. I skipped some years, managed to get an apprenticeship under a famous scholar in Mekhi, and soon, I'd ended up where I was.

I'm not trying to sound too pleased with myself. In truth, I'm really a shockingly immature person - more of an idiot savant than a genius. I don't have many life skills, or much in the way of interesting hobbies. If left to my own devices and not given something clear to do, I just spend all my time reading. I won't say that you wouldn't be able to find a more boring person than me, but it might at least take you a minute.

...all of that is true. Especially the part about me being shockingly immature. But it's also not the whole truth.

There's two things you'll want to understand about me before we get into the meat of all this. The first is that I'm a tremendous coward. Sometimes I'm a coward in a straightforward way, like I was being back in the carriage with Ran, though you won't fully understand the extent of that cowardice for quite a while. Other times, more dangerously, I'm the sort of coward that frames their cowardice as 'logical' or 'rational', and sometimes manage to convince even myself.

The second is that, for as big a coward I am, I'm an even bigger liar.

On that day, that busy Friday in the late spring, I'd already lied (though primarily by omission) quite a lot. Because, if you haven't inferred already, I had an ulterior motive for attending this event with the Order of the Universal Panacea. Well, maybe that's the wrong way to put it-- It was more like a miracle had happened, and a chance I'd been seeking for a long, long time had fallen right into my lap.

It was said that the Order were the greatest healers in the Remaining World. And I, after a fashion, had an ailment that needed to be treated.

Even if it required me to overcome my cowardice, and finally do something selfless, regardless of the consequences to myself.

...

...hm. That's a funny feeling. Sort of like back in the carriage...

Almost like... I'm repeating myself?