10th October 1137, noon

  Nameless

  She entered the manor again. Nameless made sure that no one was following her.

  The entirety of the hall was carpeted in strange colors beyond eyesight and spectrum, while the light fell as if lamenting for the piece of Starseeker. Its bodily fluids covered the ground that Nameless walked but did not slow her down. Coldness crept through her shoes, not the lack of heat, but the abundance of something else, something straining to this World and reality. She was not used to them, but neither did she see the blood of an Existence for the first time. Nameless, feeling that the piece within her called for something. The piece cried its unnamed cries, talked its incomprehensible talks. It warmed up in its seal, slowly whispering to her ears, inside her head, between her bones and flesh, calling for her to revisit the sacred yet sinister place.

  She let out a trembling breath, shivering while letting the sun warm her. The warmth felt insignificant against the cold of the battlefield once it was.

  “The one who embroiders the stars-” she whispered, head raised high as she put her hands in her pocket. The light shone through the repaired glass ceiling, painting her face in the sunshine, clean from the colors of stars. She squinted her eyes a bit as she waited for the voice to come. The seal and the layer of foul ooze stayed silent. Waveless through it, she saw the emptiness of the Realm. Only a mirror of it, but contained enough lacking of beings that disappointed her. Perhaps it didn’t recognize me?

  Tapping her index finger to her thumb, she let the power of the piece within her emanate through the seal. Star-colored blood rippled as the prowess of the part of an Unknown Existence crashed down. At first, the ripples were of the ripple of a summer rain, then a storm-raging, untimely, unpleasant pouring, the type of rain she despised. Yet the part of the Starseeker stayed silent.

  “…Fine, Existence, if you wish not to speak, I shall reply with a greater silence.”

  “By then, the serpent will have reached for the moon, and stars soon follow,” Nameless declared, turning away from the end of the hall and dragging her feet toward the gate. Right as she was going to open the gate, a wave, a thick scent of Existence, smothered her. The blood of that thing vibrated as if it were sand during an earthquake. Stars churred, air boiled as the seal started to stream, moving and crawling from her spine to her arms, and then the patterns climbed up her hands. The things of shadows between shadows, inside between insides started to whisper. Then the whisper echoed in her head, it was not the flesh of the Existence whispering its idiocy and mindlessness, but the Existence talking to her, projecting through its scared flesh.

  Voices, voices that could only be said as the scraping of a great hand and nails against the endless sky, moving stars and constellations as if a child toying with sand castles, spoke to Nameless. As the voice crescendoed, it filled her head with nothing but scraping and screaming. That noise was of mindless whisper, lamenting while experiencing great pain. Right before it reached her limit, it stopped.

  Nameless gasped for breath. Starseeker was a rather quiet Existence compared to other ones she had encountered. Even the time it descended, Nameless only heard tiny mumbles of it.

  “There you are,” said Fosfor, standing before Nameless the second she put her hand on the wooden handle. Fosfor’s pale skin contrasted with the darkness of the manor. She held a hammer as she leaned carelessly against the time-torn wooden handrail.

  For many times, Nameless has seen the false copies and projections of her friend in the corners and turns of the world. Usually, as a “pigeon” for important pieces of information, Fosfor wanted her to know.

  “Is this a projection or the real you?” she asked, knowing it was most likely a projection.

  “Projection, busy right now.”

  “You are a bit late, no?”

  “Says the one who said it would be quick and then vanished for a thousand years.”

  “…Fosfor, I’m not in the mood to argue with you, I know you missed it a lot.”

  “Alright, alright, the thing is, my other projections noticed that the Existences are waking from their slumber, Moon of Evolution, Serpent Father, both of them.”

  “Got it, if needed, I will unleash the power within against them,” Nameless answered as she walked down the stairs. She didn’t need to look, but she could imagine how the body of Fosfor spontaneously combusted, sparking flames to every side, smoking and burning.

  Nameless walked down the stairs with her hands in her pockets, slowly pacing as if she were on a stroll in the remnant zones she used to do.

  When she left the manor, the sun had climbed down the sky, its reds, pinks, and oranges bled the sky as scars of shadows formed by the clouds in its way. Nameless stopped to see the sunset she had seen countless times as she stopped by a street stall. It stood low, barely noticeable amongst the beautiful and elegant, time-marinated streets of the Old Town, where the preachers of the Starseeker and the First Mephisto and his followers once preached wisdom.

  “How does the knife cost?” she asked as she scanned the goods quickly.

  “It costs you a story,” the shop owner responded.

  …

  Must I chase Canvas?

  This was their last night in Euth.

  “So, how are we going there again?” Acryl asked as he put his paintbrush in its leather container and threw out an old kneadable eraser. He felt the same feeling when he left home before, like a slice of his heart was ripped off from him, while he folded his clothes into cubes similar to tofu slices- the way Neon taught him. She was currently getting a Realm-art implant, the money was on Suiming. He kept saying that it was his fault that he didn’t notice the danger earlier, but Acryl didn’t blame him.

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  Suiming leaned his body against the door frame, his hips almost sliding off of it. He held his hat in his hand and put it against his chest like holding a purring kitty. The monocle reflected a cold light, contrasting with the warm light of Acryl’s bedside lamp that sometimes goes out of contact. Suiming wore a set of new clothes with decorations and design, motifs of stars, and breathable fabric. Acryl tried not to pay attention to the details of Suiming’s clothes, he didn’t want to be reminded of that thing. After a bit longer time with Suiming, Acryl felt that he was more trustworthy than he thought, but at the same time, he felt he understood very little of him. Neon learn things about people through their eyes, Canvas, and Neon’s father- through tiny details, habits of words, and postures, but Acryl had none of those abilities. They were more strange than learning a foreign language, learning Siyuenese to fluency took him six years, learning how to cook took him two years, but learning how to know someone, he was still learning. It is no use, you know it. You can’t even see what your own father wants to do.

  “We could go there by train. Y’know, after the war, Auderheim established a consistent rail line system,” Suiming said as he cast his Realm-art. The dotted stars were connected by two brighter clusters of stars, each resembling the borders of a city. With one having a more rounded, artificial edge while the other, more jagged and natural, with a series of brighter light shining through it like a river., The way Suiming cast felt somewhat more familiar to him than the indescribable things that he saw in the manor. Even the starlight felt warm and fuzzy, despite he could never think of anything else but the unnamed terrors.

  “Our first stop is Rinstadt, called by the locals. Amazing place, pretty rivers, and a fancy cathedral, the Three Crown university- mesmerizing.”

  “Rin? Like the river Rine?” Acryl asked, closing his travel case as he put on a messenger bag with his sketchbook and ID in it. He used the bag for a long time, it was a present from Canvas on his birthday. After meeting Canvas and seeing him leave him again, Acryl had an impulse to throw out his belongings that Canvas gave him, but then he realized those things were the things that made him remember why he chased Canvas.

  “Yeah, like the river Rine, or Renos if you are as old as Nameless.”

  “Oh, by the way, Nameless is coming as well. She’s gonna be a few days later, she still needs time to get used to this age…just don’t expect her to use her power on every chicken feather, small matter,” he added.

  “Acryl, you seemed to be troubled.”

  “Huh? No, don’t worry about it, it’s nothing,” Acryl answered, shuffling through the contents of his messenger bag.

  “Nothing. Y’know, many things are nothing, pain, regret, wound,” Suiming said as he unbuttoned his waistcoat and pulled down his black shirt, revealing the deep wound. The skin of that wound was dark and withered like dried mushrooms. Around it, the darkness fell into a gradient that blended with his skin, it seemed painted in his eyes. The dark, cracking part of the wound was rough, similar to the texture of a large, hard paintbrush whisking the surface of a half-dried color. Acryl couldn’t grasp how Suiming looked unbothered for so long.

  “This is what I call nothing, does it hurt? Yes, does it make me worry, yes, but do I care, not really. But is it not real?”

  “Tell me, Acryl, you can trust your wounds with me, I am a doctor, the doctor, actually.”

  Acryl stuttered, his hand held onto the strap of the bag. He felt the dryness of his tongue as Suiming put his clothes back on. Suiming’s face was relaxed and carefree as it had always been.

  “Why do we call her Nameless?” Acryl asked. Thinking of the images that pain his head. Strange colors beyond eyes and senses, the thing that bled the color of stars and that sky. The sky that he was falling inside.

  “…How would you like to call that reality-bending lady?” Suiming asked, flipping the hat in his hands.

  “I don’t know,” he responded, looking away from Suiming. Away from his wound and the decor on

  “Do you want to hear a story?” Suiming said, walking out of the room. Acryl followed as he couldn’t help but notice the back figure of Suiming reminded him of a famous painting- “The Sailor of the Endless Mist”, a painting depicting a traveler standing before the purple-gray mist of the Prolonged Mist. It was often seen as the beginning of the Joyous Art movement that started after the War.

  “Sure?” Acryl responded, stopping as Suiming stopped on the last stair of the studio.

  “There once was a whale, it asked its kin to give it a name,” he said, sitting down as he wiped the dust with his hand.

  “But every kin gave it a different name, a different song, it turns out when the whale was little, it lost its name in the depth of the sea, so it let its kin call it whatever they liked, and in the end, the kin settled with silence,” Suiming said as he put the hat on and stood up. He walked to the front of the door and stood there. The light from the other side of the street painted Suiming dark, only leaving a silent silhouette. His figure reminded Acryl of the sacramental arts he learned in the academy.

  “Why we call her Nameless is because she couldn’t do anything to have another true name.”

  “But doesn’t Nameless count as a name? And what about Rosemary?” Acryl asked as he sat on a white cube to display subjects for drawing still life.

  “Nameless, Namenlos, Wu Ming,” Suiming answered.

  “The words nameless and rosemary, they don’t…gosh, this is weird,” he paused,

  “But they can’t really be referred to in a Realm-lore way, true names are constants, but names, noise to catch your attention, can change, but your name, and Canvas’…are strange cases.”

  “And that’s why all Existences are referred to as titles?” Acryl asked. Suiming nodded, then said:

  “If you ever spoke the true name of an Existence- which in most cases is unpronounceable, then they will definitely know that you called them, like if I shout Josh Wingbloom rather than just Josh in a room full of people.”

  Acryl sat there, looking down at his shoes. He felt that the information Suiming gave held some kind of weight that was straining his shoulders. The city’s light shone through the uncurtained windows of the studio, with the dead flowers and plants by the doorstep, rusted bicycle stands that Canvas bought before their bicycle got stolen. Acryl looked into the reflection of the light on the ground, reminiscing about the days he spent here painting and drawing. There were no regrets about choosing art. The memories felt somehow insignificant, light as scraps of paper and kibbles. Acryl trembled. Why did I feel like that?

  “Constants…”

  Constants…

  As the word echoed in his mind, the sound of the door opening pulled Acryl out of his thoughts. It was another light shining through as he saw Neon’s familiar figure. Then the slight, unnoticeable waves of casting slightly whisked Acryl. Gentle and kind, akin to the summer night’s wind, he adored.

  “Kindling?” Acryl asked as he looked at Neon. Light of her Realm-art surrounded her in a manner similar to ceremonial flags, gleaming brighter than the dim light from homes and street lamps. His eyes were hooked on the light, the gentle yet attention-grabbing spotlight.

  “No, Gate, look at it go!” she responded as one strand of light flowed around her arm, changing directions and illuminating shadows.

  Seeing Neon’s delight to show her Realm-art, Acryl couldn’t help but smile with her.

  “Are you tired? Do you need anything?” Acryl asked.

  “Oh, no, not at all, I’ll pack up my stuff and go to bed early.”