Old Yru Upper Plaza, Backstreets | 11:47 AM | First Day

The modern world wasn't that terrible, really.

For its faults, mankind was pretty tenacious. After the collapse of the old world and construction of the Mimikos as a somewhat-inferior replacement, many people had believed that civilization would never recover, but surprisingly quickly, it did. And after that, people said the quality of life of the Imperial Era, the golden age which had preceded the collapse, would never come again. But it had, too, more or less.

Because humans are inherently awful, all ages of peace and prosperity must be understood as the product of miracles. And a miracle had, after a fashion, happened. Two centuries ago, a combination of an out-of-context threat from the Lower Planes destabilizing the political status-quo and forcing the world to unite, combined with timely advances in technology and the Power which the contemporary powerful were too preoccupied to figure out how to appropriate, had been that miracle. It produced a rare social alchemy. People were hopeful, but not unpragmatic. Educated, but not overly cautious. Angry, but not in such a way that marred critical thinking.

That era had seen the foundation of the Grand Alliance of the Mourning Realms, the body which now governed over 80% of humanity. And it was usually just, if you didn't squint too much. Among many other things, its inception had removed most barriers to training as an arcanist, which - alongside a revolution in replication arcana - had all but brought an end to the concept of scarcity, with most day-to-day items so trivially produced that they were effectively valueless, transcending the traditional economy. Medical applications of the Power, too, advanced, growing far more widespread and granting lifespans that were previously only attainable by the privileged to the entire population.

On the surface, everything was good. Life was abundant, food was abundant, entertainment was abundant. For most people, that was enough. Not least of all the people of the elder generations, who were always eager to remind people like me how we 'didn't know how good we had it' in the typical old-person fashion. And it was probably true, to an extent.

Still. Recently, there was a sense that things were slowly taking a turn for the worst. Small crises kept occurring, the effects compounding successively on one another. For the first time in many years, the sense of stability to the world had vanished, and I think at the back of everyone's mind there was an increasing understanding that something foundational had begun to break. Societal catastrophe is like losing at chess; you can see it's coming five turns in advance, but too much is in motion to stop it.

I'd been a child during the Ikkaryonic revolution. Back then, one of the reasons I'd first thought about becoming a healer - prior to my more complex, present-day motives - was to help people. To play a part in setting things right.

I smiled at the thought of those better, simpler days.

"Here's your food," the waitress said with a warm smile, setting the plates down in front of us.

"Thanks," Ran said.

"Thank you," I said.

"Let me know if there's anything else I can get for you," she said cheerily, before heading back behind the counter. Outside, the rain began to pick up considerably. There'd be a storm this evening, though we wouldn't be here to see it.

Finding a good cafe is something of an art. It's not as easy as simply locating a place that serves good food, with good service, at a good location - any idiot can do that. The trouble is that mere goodness inevitably attracts ever-larger crowds, which is ruinous for a multitude of reasons that I hopefully don't need to elaborate on here. So what one really seeks is not perfection, but rather a careful balance; a mix of positive traits you value highly, and negative ones you personally don't, but will nevertheless serve to put off a sufficient percentage of random individuals.

It had taken a while, but I'd eventually found a place that struck that sweet spot within walking distance of the academy. It was kind of difficult to reach, tucked away in an alley on a small side-street, itself several turns away from the boulevard, and hemmed in on all sides by towering estates, storefronts, and offices. Not much light reached it, even around noon, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere. These are examples of qualities which would put off ordinary people.

Fortunately, I was a freak who probably live in a cave if I could, so it didn't bother me.

Besides, the interior was much nicer, with a rustic, countryside-inn-style aesthetic. Big tables up against the windows, thick wooden rafters, a semi-open kitchen that let the smell of baking bread waft freely over the room. The food was only a bit better than average, but they'd given themselves a lower-than-average grade in the service index for the city, so most meals only cost a single luxury debt or two.

Not that price was that much of a concern - we were arcanists, so we both had a decent amount of regular debt relief. But Ran, at least, was still thrifty. Most importantly, though, almost no one from the academy went to it, which made it a a near sure-fire bet that I wouldn't be bothered by other students.

Today, it was about half empty, and we were seated near the door, not far from the front counter. Ran had ordered a medium-sized dish of shakshouka (eggs poached in a soup of tomatoes and peppers), while I was making my way through a couple of cheese and lamb stuffed flatbreads, grilled brittle and crunchy. The meat within was prime loin; I'd heard that in the past, shoulder meat was used for the dish, but in the modern day, only the most desirable cuts were still widely replicated.

"This isn't too bad," Ran said, without much enthusiasm. "Kinda greasy, though."

"Mm-hmm, some of their stuff can be that way," I replied, my mouth half-full. "I think the less complicated things they do are better...? I really like the stuffed bread. The wraps aren't bad, either."

"I was hoping for something a little more substantial than a glorified sandwich," she said. "Dunno what kind of food they're going to be serving at this thing."

"I doubt it'll be bad," I reassured her. "They're supposed to have their own chef."

She nodded, silently. I sipped the tea I'd ordered between bites.

"I miss Saoic food," she said, after a minute or so had gone by, idly pushing an egg around with her fork. "I swear, this Ysaran stuff is gonna kill me if live here for another couple years."

"If you think this is fattening, you should try living in Mekhi," I said with a small smile, referring to where I had gone to university.

"Yeah, I've heard the stories." She stuffed the egg in her mouth, chewed for a few moments, and swallowed. "I remember how chubby you were when I went and visited."

I let out an awkward laugh. "I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone refer to me as 'chubby' before..."

"Well, I mean compared to when we were kids," she said. "Normal, versus looking like you're starving yourself."

"I'm not that bad, am I?"

"It's not your fault," she said, and then muttered, "You've always been that way, I guess. Even when-- Well, y'know."

I nodded distantly, looking away for a moment.

The relationship that I had with Ran was old and complicated. The subject, which would become increasingly difficult to avoid as the weekend went on, was hanging over both of our heads like the blade of a guillotine, and we appeared to have established an unspoken pact to not talk about it until it needed to be talked about.

But the problem is that, when something is a big enough deal, you can't help brushing up against it no matter how much you try to avoid doing so. And when that happens, your only choices are to either break the pact, offer some feeble attempt at meta-commentary on the awkwardness to break the ice and end up breaking the pact anyway, or to just suffer the uncomfortable moment for a few seconds before trying to change the subject.

Like I said a minute ago, I'm a coward, so the last one was naturally the most appealing. But of course the trouble was that the more times you did it, the louder it would be when the other shoe finally hit the floor.

"What was the food like, when you lived in the Arcanocracy?" I asked, changing the topic to something as unrelated as contextually possible.

"Kind of blander than in the League," she said. "Healthy, though. And they dress it up a lot."

"Dress it up...?"

"Like in big, fancy displays," she said, gesturing outwardly. "Really carefully arranged, either to look like something - like a painting, or a different type of food - or just to be pretty and tidy. They use a lot of coloured rice."

"Coloured rice? Does it taste funny?"

She looked at me with a flat expression. "No, Su. It's just food colouring."

"Oh," I said, lifting up my flatbread and taking a bite out of it.

Despite that awkwardness, it was funny how much more genuine the dynamic felt when it was just her and I. Because of my demeanor and propensity for spouting out stupid facts, in most conversations, I felt like I often ended up taking on the role of the 'serious, sensible person', even though I didn't really mean to. Like how an avocado starts looking sort of like a vegetable when you stick it alongside a bunch of sweet fruits.

Ran, though, was an actually serious person, and she saw through me in a way that most people didn't. So when it was just the two of us, things flipped, and I felt like I was allowed to be immature. It made me happy.

...at the same time, though, I was also putting on more of a performance when we spoke than I was with anyone else. A performance of the role I'd taken on, for my half of our shared quest.

Was it more authentic or less, to lie about one really big thing rather than a bunch of small ones? A question for the philosophers.

"They have this idea in Inner Sao that you can change how things taste based on how they look," she went on, spooning more of her own lunch into her mouth. "The 'ocular tongue', as best as I can translate it. So even if you're eating something hyper-healthy, you can be tricked into thinking it's tasty if it's dressed up to resemble something indulgent."

"That sounds like something I could believe is true," I said. "Does it work?"

"Sort of. By my second year, I could have sworn everything red started to taste a little like meat. Either way, though, it's totally dominant over there. There's a whole language to how they prepare the food. What color or style means what in terms of nutrition, ingredients, all that stuff."

"What happens if you're color blind?"

She shrugged. "You're fucked, presumably." She took a few gulps from her glass of water. "I bet there aren't a lot of people who are, though. The state healers do even trivial stuff for free, from birth to deathbed."

"I suppose that makes sense," I said, nodding. "I mean, they're really into the whole 'noblesse oblige' stuff over there."

"You're telling me," she said, setting the glass back down. "It's still weird not having to take community guardianship lessons at the end of every week. Shit's burned into my brain. 'All citizens with which you are entrusted are to be as your own children. To be afforded the same compassion, the same love.'"

"Kinda creepy," I said flatly.

"Well, we're foreigners used to arcanists being treated like anybody else," she said. "Hard to see across a cultural gulf like that."

"I guess so," I said, taking another bite. "Didn't they know you weren't planning on staying in the country, though? You'd think they wouldn't wanna waste the resources."

"I told them, but they seemed convinced they could make me stay," she said, swirling her spoon around her soup. "They acted that way with all the international kids - talking about the special place I'd get to occupy compared to anywhere else, all the benefits. Fuck, I might've considered it, if it weren't for..." She gestured her hand around. "Y'know-- All this."

"Y-Yeah," I said, weakly, then furrowed my brow. "You might've considered it?"

"Is it that surprising?" She snorted. "You think I'm immune to the appeal of getting treated like royalty?"

"I mean, it does seem like that kinda thing makes you uncomfortable," I admitted. "You never like being in charge of anything during our class assignments, or leading any presentations..."

"Yeah, because responsibility for no benefit is a pain in the ass," she said, glancing out the window for a moment. "But it's just human to like power. Who wouldn't run the world if they offered you the job? Get a chance to try and fix this fucking mess?"

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"I wouldn't," I retorted, faux-shivering. "It would be way too stressful."

"Uh-huh," she hummed skeptically.

"Plus, I'd be really bad at it," I continued. "I'd probably get a bunch of people killed."

"If you're a dictator, that's just called keeping on your toes," Ran replied flatly, sipping from her spoon.

Like most of the students of the exemplary acolytes class, the two of us were foreigners rather than natives to Old Yru or its region of greater Ysara, invited because our academic achievements at other institutions of higher education. We were both from Sao, to the west, though that statement is almost uselessly broad.

I'll try to explain without an outright lecture: The original Saoic Party had been one of the eight - well, nine, depending on your definition - groups of people who survived the collapse of the old world ('Sao' meaning 'Grief' in an Imperial Era language) and, after the completion of the Mimikos, had settled on the flatlands on the far side of the Akinesti Mountains. Generally speaking, the six Parties which made their homes on the bowl of the Mimikos fell into one of two categories. The first were those dominated by a single cohesive group, which transitioned almost directly into nation states; the Rhunbardi, the Mekhians. In contrast, the second were those divided into many disparate groups, resulting in them instead fragmenting into clusters of smaller states; The Ysarans, Inotians and Viraaki.

The Saoic Party, however, had been the only one to occupy an awkward middle ground. There had been a vaguely dominant cultural group, to the point that they felt entitled to claim themselves as the rightful 'leaders' of Saoic civilization, but also a sizeable amount of people who weren't a part of said group. Enough that they wouldn't fall in line behind the government the Party leaders ended up forming.

As a result, the regional identity ended up messy. Ran and I were from the Dai League, a federation of small states around the mountains, which had been the biggest group that had politely (political history code for 'only involving a couple of wars') decided not to be under the authority of the government. Said government had become the Saoic Federation, which after the Tricenturial War had reorganized into the Saoic Arcanocracy, the last state in the world still governed by arcanists.

So we were Saoic, but not part of the Saoic nation, if that makes sense. We did have someone in our class from the Arcanoncracy, but... Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

"They ever try to poach you, over in Mekhi?" she asked, taking a sip of her drink.

I shook my head. "Mm-mm. I don't think they do that kind of thing over there much," I lifted up some melted cheese and awkwardly flipped it up to the side of the bread. "There were a lot of moments of culture shock. They spent a lot of time drilling in how being an arcanist, or even being smart, doesn't make you special. That it's just a role, and you shouldn't be conceited, no matter how hard you work."

"That figures," she said. "Probably the mature way to look at it. Nobody's special just 'cause they can float things around and shoot fire out of a stick."

"Yeah..." I glanced to the side. "It kinda bruised my ego, though. You don't realize how much you're dependent on praise to keep going until it's gone."

She raised an eyebrow, along with her spoon. "You must be loving this place, then."

I giggled awkwardly, my face going a little flushed.

A half-minute or so passed in silence. We'd both finished off the greater part of our food, now.

"...feels surreal," she said suddenly, in a more distant tone. "That we're finally doing this, I mean."

Ah, I thought. There goes the pact, then. I said nothing, staring down at my food.

"It's kind of funny," she continued, despite my lack of response. "I've got so used to all this that, when I got the news that we'd been invited to this conclave, my first reaction was being annoyed. I was thinking, 'shit, I'm already struggling to keep my grades up to the standard, and now they want me to spend weeks preparing to perform for a pack of old hermits?'" She snorted. "I'd completely forgotten the reason I'd spent so much time getting into this stupid class to begin with."

I remained silent.

"When I read your letter back then, I almost jumped out of my seat. Probably made an ass of myself in the middle of the lecture hall." She shook her head. "The gods have a hell of a sense of humor. You spend years trying to get something, and then they dump it right on your doorstep. Probably in the first damn place we looked, too. Can't even remember at this point."

Years. When she said it explicitly, it really did sound insane.

We'd spent so long in pursuit of this opportunity. And now that it was finally here, all I could do was fret about it. Be anxious about success, while still dreading the possibility that this last spark of hope, that I'd spent so long chasing, would be decisively snuffed out.

What matters is that you try, I tried telling myself. That you do everything you can.

"C-Come on," I said, trying to sound upbeat. "You can't say this wasn't worth it in of itself too, right? You're going to be one of the most qualified graduating arcanists in the world, in a couple years." I smiled a bit. "You could get tenure anywhere, work for the alliance administration, join the Sibyls--"

"I'd rather still be at home, working at the library. Something boring," she said, shaking her head. "This stuff isn't for me. I'll never fit in."

I opened my mouth to protest, but then hesitated and stopped, falling silent for a few moments.

"I... got the news when I was at my parents house," I said, changing course. "Two days after I got into Oreskios for my visit." I laughed stiffly, looking downward. "Ruined the whole thing. Couldn't think about anything else, barely talked to anyone."

"That's rough," Ran said, cutting off a piece of egg.

"Yeah," I said. "I couldn't even enjoy it when my mother dragged me to the spring festival. Kept having peculiar thoughts." I hesitated. "You mind if I go on a stupid tangent for a minute?"

She snorted. "It's never stopped you before."

I took another bite, savouring it a bit now that it was almost gone. Despite my reassurances to Ran earlier, I was not, in fact, completely confident that there would be decent food at the conclave, so I wanted to make sure that I was reasonably full. "You remember the tram station where we used to meet, whenever we went to class?"

She thought about it for a second. "On Hierarchs Way, you mean?"

"Yeah," I said, gesturing to her affirmatively. "That one. My mom and I took the line to get into town for the festival, and it was completely different. They'd ripped the whole platform out, and built it up again as something bigger and more modern-looking. Round, with huge glass windows. It's practically swallowed the whole street."

"Makes sense," she said. "That part of town's been booming ever since they started building up the bay back when we were kids."

I nodded. "Yeah, I guess." I scrunched up my brow. "But... After I saw that... For a while, I felt really messed up."

She raised an eyebrow. "Messed up?"

"Yeah," I said, looking away as I let out an awkward, embarrassed laugh. "I couldn't calm down for hours. I think I might've even cried a bit."

"What," she said, looking a little incredulous. "Just over a street fixture being remodeled?"

"Like I said, it's stupid. I was in a stupid mood." I lifted my hair out of the way, and scratched at the side of my head. "It just felt... dissonant, in a way that really struck me. Rather-- Ugh, how should I put it..." I bit my lip. "I'd never thought about it, but I had all these memories of being there. Sitting at all the different spots. The lamp post near the entrance. The wooden wall at the back where there'd always be posters for plays or advertisements for some shop or another. I even remembered the shape of some of the tiles on the ground--"

"God, Su." She interrupted, shaking her head. "You're so sentimental, I think it's close to becoming a health problem."

"--and I remembered being with you, and all the stuff we talked about then, just after we'd met. And in the two years after that, and everything that happened during that time. All those important moments, tied back to that one place, linked together like the middle of a spider's web. "

Her expression became a little more serious, and she sighed, nodding a bit.

I ran my spoon in circles around the inside of my teacup, the liquid swirling. "But when I saw how it'd changed, it was almost like... I'd lost them, after a fashion. That before, they'd be grounded in a real part of the world, etched into something concrete, that would always be there for me. With that gone, it was almost like they'd been overwritten. Invalidated, like someone had crossed out that whole section of my life story."

"You mean, because there isn't any proof you didn't just make it all up?"

"Sort of," I said, hesitantly. "It was more abstract then that. Like the world within myself had become disconnected from the one I had to live in, and I'd slipped into a parallel dimension. When I focused on it, it felt as though I was losing something. Like it was being taken from me."

She scoffed, shaking her head.

I frowned. "You don't get it?"

"It's not like I don't get it," she said. "It's just... That's normal, isn't it?" She sipped from her drink. "The world changes, you don't, stuff from your childhood disappears. It hurts, life sucks."

"Life sucks," I repeated, quieter.

"But I can't imagine anyone other than you intellectualizing it so much," she said. "It's just something people have to get over."

"Well, you know me," I said, shrugging. "I'm always overthinking things."

Another few moments passed. I'd finished eating, so I just stared at the slowly-solidifying droplets of melted cheese that had managed to managed to escape from my flatbread during the consumption process, like blood from a dying animal. I picked at one of them with my fork idly.

"My grandfather once said--"

Her eyebrows jolted up.

"--that the human heart is like a bowl with a little crack in the bottom, so that water is always leaking out. And you have to keep pouring more and more in, to try and make up for it." My eyes wandered towards the window. "That no matter what you do in life, you're always losing things, either explicitly or in abstract. And the only way to make up for it is to keep adding new things to make up for it. Because if you're not careful... You won't be able to keep it up, and before you know it, you'll have nothing at all. And then you'll be out of luck for good."

The atmosphere suddenly became extremely awkward. She seemed unsure of the appropriate thing to say, and broke eye contact for a moment.

"I don't know why it sticks in my mind so much," I said. "Like granddaughter, like grandfather, I guess." I made a grim smile, looking downward. "Or... Well, whatever you'd call our relation to each other."

Nice work, my sense of social consciousness said. Now you've made this as weird as it can possibly get.

Eventually, Ran cleared her throat. "I don't think you're like that old man, Su."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked, with a grim smile.

"Yeah," she said, firmly, nodding. "For one thing--"

"Hey!" A recognizable voice interjected off from the left, near the door of the cafe. "You two!"

Ran stopped and sharply turned her head in the direction of the interjection, while I physically jumped a bit in my seat, the personal nature of the conversation stripped away violently.

Sprinting over to our table was a young woman, with a medium-brown complexion, flat black hair cut to pixie length, and bright green eyes that contrasted sharp, elegant facial features. She was dressed in a vibrant colored green, knee-length chiton and a brown cloak. It was not remotely suitable clothing for the weather, and this was evident in the fact that, despite having an umbrella, she was pretty wet.

Not that she seemed to care much. She was grinning, but also panting a bit. It looked like she'd been running.

"Phew," she said, wiping her brow as she came to a stop beside us. "I finally found you!"

"P-Ptolema?" I said, thrown off. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, obviously!" She said, still huffing and puffing. "It was really tough. What are you even doing in a place like this?"

"Uhh." I gestured to the table. "Eating... Lunch?"

She looked at the table, then back at me. "Well, yeah, duh. I meant, why are you in such a shady place? I almost gave up and went to get a map. And there's not even a proper sign on the front door."

"Don't look at me," Ran said. Her face was flushed a bit, and she'd turned her attention back to finishing her food. "She picked."

"Hey, c'mon, you said it wasn't bad!”

"It isn't," she replied. "But if I were on my own, I would've gone somewhere less fucking weird."

I clicked my tongue, looking back to Ptolema. "How did you find us, anyway?"

"Theo told me," she said, grinning. "I asked where you might be, and he said that he didn't know, but that you sometimes went to this gloomy place a few streets around the back of the clothing store, and then gave me some directions..."

My eye twitched slightly. That traitor, that snivelling little rat! Now everyone will know about it!

"They were kinda crappy, though, but I figured it out eventually," she said, looking thoughtful. "Geez, though. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to hide from people here."

I made an effort not to contort my face into an expression of distaste. Ran appeared to notice, looking subtly amused.

This noisy and enthusiastic girl was Ptolema (Pronounced tol-em-ah, if you're bad with your Inotian) of Rheeds, another student from our class.

Ptolema was another member of the class who I'd known prior to joining, although unlike Ran and Theo, we'd only ever been very loose acquaintances, having occasionally met due to our families, and at one point during a summer study course we'd both taken. And for not-incomprehensible reasons, since we were basically polar opposites in every regard. She was outgoing, I was introverted, she was an optimist, I was a pessimist. She was athletic, while I was constantly in a state of physical atrophy so severe that it was a miracle of the modern world that I could walk down a street without collapsing.

Of all of the members of the class, Ptolema was perhaps the greatest enigma to me. Not because she was a particularly mysterious person - if anything, the opposite was the case - but rather because it seemed unclear to me how she was in the class to begin with. Her vocation was arcane surgery, which wasn't exactly a discipline of the Power so much as rare method of emplyoying it, carving runes and enchantments into people's physical bodies. By all accounts she was very good at it; she had an incredibly steady and precise hand.

But...

I don't know quite how to put this in a way that won't make me sound incredibly full of myself, but Ptolema was, uh, not exactly someone who came across as much of an intellectual. I could picture her scores for practical work being amazing, but when I tried to reconcile my conception of her and her overall apparent knowledge with the written exams we took with regularity, it was a little difficult.

My only guesses were that either she was putting on a front and was shockingly good at it, or somehow coasting through on pure nepotism. She came from probably the most prestigious background in the group, so the latter seemed more likely.

Or, you know. Perhaps I'm just an elitist who can't conceive of someone who isn't full of themselves being smart. Draw your own conclusions.

"So," I said, "Uh, what did you need, anyway?"

"Oh! Oh, right." She pulled herself together. "Actually, I was supposed to get both you and Ran."

Ran looked up, a little wary. "What for?"

"The class coordinator asked me, since everyone else ran off after the presentation-thing. He said he needs some help with some class files the conclave requested, or something?"

She frowned. "Files?"

Ptolema nodded enthusiastically, as if the two of them had come to some important understanding. "Yeah! Like, records of all the past stuff we've done, test results, that kind of thing. They wanted a copy of it as one of their conditions, I think? So the archivists went and re-printed everything."

"What does that have to do with me?" Ran asked.

"Uh, dunno." Ptolema held her arms together, rubbing them with her hands. Now that she was stationary, the cold appeared to be catching up to her. "I think they screwed something up? I didn't get all the details, but he said that only you could help..."

She sighed a bit, rubbing her eyes. "Fine. I can deal with it."

"What about from me?" I asked.

"Aheh, I'm not sure about that, either? I think he just wanted to talk? Something about a favor...?" She scratched the back of her neck. "There was more, but I think it slipped out of my head while I was running around..."

I thought about saying something snarky, like 'y'know, Ptolema, they have this thing called 'parchment' that I hear is popular', since I was genuinely a little annoyed that we'd been interrupted. But you're not supposed to shoot the messenger, even if the messenger is a little crappy at their job, so I bit my tongue.

"Well... It's okay, I guess," I said. "So where does he want us?"

"At his office off the grounds," she said. "But you don't have to go right away, or anything! You can finish eating or talking or whatever. I just wanted to find you before you went someplace else."

"We're almost done already," Ran said. "Unless you were gonna order dessert, Su?"

"No, it's okay," I said. "I don't want us to end up rushing too much if this ends up being complicated."

"Ugh, geez," Ptolema said, frowning. "Now I feel like kind of a jerk... And if I'd been less dumb, you might've known if you had more time..."

"It's not your fault, Ptolema," I said, standing up. "Everyone is stressed out, right?"

We paid, put our veils back up, punched our seed numbers into the the auto-lock mechanism on the door, and left.