Story:Invisible Cities/Ylvaria

CITIES & NAMES

Loneliness is the strongest hypnosis, ne?

If you could create something from nothing, wouldn’t you feel distinguished? It’s impossible, of course. To create nothing from something is far more commonplace. Most people dabble in this sort of thing, reducing possessions, relationships, and memories into lesser versions of their former selves.

There is a more efficient way to create nothing from something. A method that causes complete and total erasure. An art that renders anything it touches utterly irrevocable...

And you’ve just remembered how it works! How fortunate that you had the time to think idly about such things!

A vessel of mottled violet bursts forth from your scythe - oh, yes, you carry one of those around - and buries itself in the featureless earth. It twists, boils, and crystallizes into a well-behaved chrysalis. With the grace of a practiced curtsy, you lower yourself to poke it. It shudders, teeth rattling, ready to spring like an antlion, but knows and respects your touch. Lovely!

Now you turn your attention to the alien world around you, taking in your first good look since... ever? There is a sort of fuzz behind your forehead that perplexes you, though you are quite sure you have never been to this location before. And for good reason. The land is monochrome, ashen, thirsty for any sort of dignity. The ground is somewhat the same inoffensive color as your cape, though you can at least call your cape a respectable shade of ecru. It also billows with great effect when appropriate. In contrast, the sky is like diluting ecru with an unhealthy dose of discount sand. On second thought, it is almost as if some drab god decided to carpet an entire continent with your cape, to bleach the bleak sky above with the ivory of your hair.

Oh no. Oh no. Are you the Creator of this uninspired dimension? Are you responsible for this crime against landscaping? At the very least you would have picked out your more defining features - set some pale green eyes in the starscape above, casually spawn a school of ravenous landsharks to entertain the populace. Of which there is none, you note. Just you. For good measure, you send an orange-veined landshark surfing across the dirt, until it grows exhausted from skimming across so much void and dissipates.

Good grief. Have you always been here? What kind of crank are you, to conceive of such a cesspool? You should just lie down and die right now, condemned as you are to wander a barren -

Wait, no, no, no. Impossible. You definitely haven’t been here all your life. Adopting a reflective pose, you reach back as far as you can, finding it surprisingly difficult. The pieces return slowly, struggling...

Your life, before this. What was it like? Pedestrian? Far from it. Exciting? Within reason, of course. Memories flit by casually, discarded verses of an incomplete refrain. Some stocky guy with a questionable sense of fashion tries to talk to you about pointless paperwork, his face morphing into concern as you wave him off. A woman clad in immaculate white stands in front of a clock tower, then turns to you with a smile and laugh that does not reach her eyes. With apologetic tones, she tells you the significance of the hour, and where you must be. In a land stained with scarlet light, you reach into yourself, pull a fresh flock of frenzied beasts into being, knowing it will not be enough. A face wreathed in flaxen hair flashes by you, and you are filled with a sudden desire to free it, to speak to it, to release it from that freeze-framed moment of red-eye gleam.

And then you died.

Ah. You were sure there was a lot more to it than that. Most likely there was, routine motions peacefully settled in between the zeniths and nadirs. Perhaps you can recollect them with some more thinking. You consider walking around to jog the memory, but all around the horizon stretches flatly into itself. You can't be bothered to make any unnecessary movements - and besides, your carnivorous trap is the only point of reference. It occurs to you that the chrysalis will be waiting for quite some time to unleash itself, unless it is feeling particularly mutinous. And you know that your creations are never mutinous.

Isn't that odd? The one thing you are most assured of is the capacity to create these little horrific creatures from thin air. The name of your trade even registers in your mind now - Distortion.

Distortion. To remove the natural flow of matter from itself. To synthesize faux-life from the inanimate, and then watch as it dissipates into nothing. The knowledge of your power is comforting. Since you are convinced of the pointlessness of aimless post-mortem wandering, you decide to reach back further into memory and sculpt your surroundings into something more pleasing and permanent.

How to do this? You have absolutely no clue. Distortion won’t achieve this idealized sort of feat. That would require an empty slate of magic, able to be formed into anything - the complete opposite of Distortion, of anything you were capable of alive.

Good thing you’re dead! Dead, and with all the time in the world. No one has stepped forward demanding you suffer in hard labor or scatter rose petals from the sky. The most beige afterlife possible. This is why you never bothered with believing in such things. Now you have to confront the reality of it - how deliciously ironic~!

You decide to confront it head-on, starting with the basics - Aether composition. You had expected an empty place to be devoid of said energy, but it is worth a shot. Attuning yourself to your surroundings, you sense... oh...? What is this material? You had assumed the matter you had been discoloring into Distortion up until now was run-of-the-mill Aether, but with further evaluation it appears to hold more potential.

You try a few more experimental swings with your scythe, firing off maws and jaws and claws that rage into life, find it without meaning, and quit. Not that you blame them, as you appear to be in no immediate danger. Perhaps a reverse-pose would do the trick? Your most stylish efforts to swing a scythe backwards through the air produce equally disappointing results. Oops. You don't know any other magecraft than this. Time to dig your heels in!

After tediously trying all 360 angles of scythe-slicing (and several decimals in between), you chance to look back at the first chrysalis you spawned, still waiting patiently for a victim. This one still clings on to its limbo.

Hmm. Nothing from something. What you were capable of alive. If you are now dead, then shouldn't you be able to...?

In a merciless act of infanticide, you slash the scythe suddenly through the chrysalis, commanding it to grow, to thrive, to become more than itself...

The chrysalis is gone. In its stead stands a magnificent tree, a masterpiece - a gray-green lung extending its bronchioles towards heaven (or hell, you really cannot decide what this place is supposed to be). Though it is quite alone, its presence reminds you of a place in your past life, a place centered by a facsimile of the very tree you just created. Hm. Did your creation remind you of the past, or did the past inspire your creation?

It’s too late now to consider such things! That image from before permeates your mind completely - not just the tree, but the world around it. The floodgates are open! With a purpose and effort you are certain is quite atypical, you spawn wave after wave of Distortion creatures. Before they disappear, you end their lives, turning them into so much more. Eyeless snakes morph into staircases and balconies, beast-blood congeals into lamp-light suspended from the ceiling that shelters you from that featureless disaster of a sky. Scaleplate condenses into bookshelves, each creation a triumph, as you grasp more and more visions that death had momentarily snatched away. The frenzy is so intoxicating as the voice of poetry returns, and you create it all again, filling row after row with prose.

As your compositions complete the shelves, you conduct a quality assessment, and note the script lacking in spots. Words that would serve to identify subjects of your prose are obscured, like silhouettes behind clouded glass. It's quite an irritant. No matter, your work will not suffer for it, you are still beloved by...

Right. No one else exists. This normally wouldn't have been a bother - you never wrote for the acclamation. Well, that's sort of a lie. You did value the opinion of a few people - one person in particular would have admitted to being an admirer~ It does irk you that you can't place her name, despite the deep feeling that she was someone dear to you. An image swims back again, more sharply, one of the women from before. How could you ever have forgotten? That flax-haired face, now adorned by a painstakingly detailed braid and a style to die for. Which is what you did, technically, as your last act on earth.

Well, one can't have any regrets now. You scan the environment you have designed, confident it is a perfect replica of the library that inspired it. A small Distortion beast morphs into a first-class couch, and you sit down heavily with one of your voluminous works. A favorite of that person so precious to you, the one you sacrificed everything for. It's too bad you don't even know the reason for that sacrifice. Your hand trembles slightly, but you smooth everything over with an alabaster smile. Such is life, yes?

You pour two glasses of wine and open the book, an enchanting aria that must have had some meaning to you. All things are born, and all things die. When her time comes, you hope she will be able to come here, in this not-so-beige beyond. You know she will, sure as silver. You can picture it now, a new verse::

''If while you sleep I shed A thousand scales and a single tear As it caresses your cheek I shall laugh And say it is only the snow in summer

"Didn't expect to see something like this here."

The daydream image of your muse pops and is replaced by the very real presence of a rather shabby man staring at you at the top of a nearby staircase. There is someone else in the afterlife after all! You rise gracefully to meet him.

"Welcome!" The sound of your own voice surprises you, internally. "I’ve only just set up shop, and already I have a visitor."

He strolls across the balcony, hands in the pockets of an unfortunately oversized coat. "Synthesizing a building in the middle of nowhere will do that to you."

The sullen timbre of the man's voice challenges the initial esteem you had for him. You notice he has managed to upset the carpeting, which you lovingly filleted from a suitably flat Distortion beast. Your excitement is starting to ebb into distaste, though you notice he has the good grace to admire your arboreal anchor.

"This is an interesting way to twist Aether," he says informally. "Some elements of Distortion, but with permanent aspects." Ah, so he recognizes the name of your craft. Good, this will save time on pointless exposition. You decide to take his comment as a compliment - a man as poorly dressed as this one likely needs all the benefit of the doubt he can get.

"Hehe, it took me a bit to get the swing right," you smile sweetly. "That was after I decided to care about building upon this stale tableau, of course."

The man has taken to prodding the marble balustrade intently, as if analyzing it. "And once you decided to care, how did you manifest your work?"

You are only too happy to indulge. With a balletic twist of your scythe, you spawn an airborne brace of incisors. Before it can devour your spectator, your scythe drops through it, and a sunburst of butterflies take wing.

If the man is impressed, he does not show it. He considers your work for a second, leaving you in an expectant pose, and returns to the balustrade. Suddenly, he swipes an arm through a pillar, completely removing it from existence. The bereft matter reappears, sublimated and iridescent in his hand, a hint of teeth in the shapeless mass. He makes a fist, then opens it - releasing a single golden butterfly to join your flock among the branches.

"Huh. Able to replicate living beings as well." He opens and closes his hand several more times. Then, apparently satisfied, he nods. "Thanks for showing me."

You bestow on him the man a sideways smile. “Uwaa~ You made it look so easy!”

“Most things are. You just have to reach for the simplest answer.”

The fascinating gall of this man! Taking care to gaze lazily somewhere above what passes for his hairstyle, you pose a question: “Not everything is quite that simple, ne? I built this library, but I don't even know what it's called. I can't even remember my name. Or her name. Some things take investment. Time. Some things aren't attainable no matter how hard you try. Haven’t you experienced that at all?”

"Once," he answers. "Ever since I arrived here. I became so absorbed in what I could do, I forgot who I was."

"And did you remember?" You ask immediately.

"I did. Just now."

Your eyes open fully. Under the aurulent canopy, each pair of wings stands absolutely still. Waiting. Watching. "How?" you ask, no longer caring about the desperation you betray.

"I don't know," he admits without shame. "But it must be something to do with you." He gestures around the library. "You obviously know what you're doing. You'll find the answer to your name eventually. And..." He arcs an eyebrow, the most emotion you have seem him display. "Hers."

A platitude. Unacceptable. "Excuse me, but I've taught you something beautiful, so I'm afraid that you'll have to do better than that in return. You know who you are, so tell me - how do I know who I am?"

He pauses. Considers. "I’m Qiri."

Those two syllables ring like a chime. A name. From it, you know you have a proper root from which to define everything else. Everything you have birthed into being. Everything you have loved. You will remember them all.

A trace of rainbow flame sparks in the coals of his eyes. "The name you are looking for is...?"

A word springs to mind, parting your pale lips, and you tell him -