Logbook

"I'm not going," says Mithra.

"Won't you at least give it a try?" asks Rutile, imploring. "It's been so long since you met other people besides myself and Mitile. I think you might enjoy it."

It's been a week since Rutile came to him, bearing news about an invitation to a reality television show where singles in their advanced years meet with the prospect of romance between them. Supposedly, there are plenty of games, talks, and intercourse to go around. Rutile has shown him a few clips in the hopes of piquing his interest, only for every instance of explosive emotion or raunchy nudity to kill his halfway tolerant mood even more. It all looks and sounds like something Tiletta might have enjoyed, which alone is reason enough for Mithra to decline, no matter how many times Rutile harasses him about going.

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400 years ago, the Origin defeated the Singularity in a bloody battle to safeguard creation. Neither of them survived the encounter. However, the Origin's soul was pulled into the souls of his derivatives—those who'd shared his identity yet taken diverging paths from his in their original lives. The Origin's soul splintered into fragments, and those fragments nestled into the souls of the derivatives, awakening them to their lost memories. In exchange for the boon of the Origin's immortality, they surrendered the gift of reincarnation.

But such boon was short-lived. While their newfound longevity cultivated their powers over decades and scores, the derivatives' strengths paled to that of their origin's. One after another, they gave themselves to the same cause as their originator, passing fragments of his soul onto their surviving counterparts while what remained of themselves dissipated into nothingness. At the turn of the third century, only two derivatives remained.

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It’s a tale as old as time—wizards who cheer with their hands up to the flowers of their fated union that burst from their hearts before choking on the petals while their northern cousins cackle in the background. Then there are wizards who are left at the floral altar, because their human counterparts never knew to RSVP, at which point everyone else shows up with cutlery. Rutile, it seems, is going to be one of those latter wizards served on a silver platter for those in search of easy mana stones.

Mitile is beside himself at the revelation that not a single petal has grown on the seed of Rutile’s heart. At the tender age of fifteen, Mitile already sports a few petals to match those that dot Riquet’s chest. Although he can’t see them, Rutile imagines based on Mitile’s vivid descriptions that the blooming flowers he and Riquet share must be beautiful.

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