You want to know what I know? You want to stare into the depths of my mind and observe the impossible eternities behind and before me? You don’t want to see it; there is infinite loss and pain in that eternity. So let me tell you a story instead.

  Isn’t that what you want? A story?

  You might see a city that chases the sun as odd. Certainly not more odd than you might find a floating city to be in the first place. On that city there was a young woman, she wasn’t human nor tuvei, pitten nor dragon. But I’ve been there and I’ve met her, and both the city and the woman are just that: A city and a woman.

  Reiav was her name. She enjoyed sitting and watching as the floating city drifted lazily with the wind, chasing the dawn. The city was fast, faster than it had any right to be, moving past enormous jungles, lush grasslands, and vibrant oceans. Occasionally the moon would come into view, shining against the sky and the faint stars that could sometimes be seen past the rising sun.

  The grandest part of the sky, however, was presently absent to Reiav. In time Arithren would rise from the west and pass over the minuscule sun like a daily eclipse, storms following in his wake that were filled with rain, wind, and occasionally death. Reiav usually never got to see that greater moon in all his glory. It was more dangerous when he was in the sky, but where our story begins, he would pass too far north to be of any consequence.

  It was beautiful even without Arithren there, but still a sight that I never truly appreciated myself. Reiav loved to see it though, every chance she got she would simply watch it, sitting still and thinking about the amazing intricacies of how the world worked. Her imagination spun with ways to configure gears and wires, her heart sand for the simplicity that was a wrench and greased joints.

  This particular day, Reiav perched atop the highest tower of the floating city and wondered once again at the beautiful cycles of the world. A year would pass, and then two, and yet the sun would keep rising in other cities that didn’t chase it, the stars would keep circling, and the greater moon would always bring his storms. The observation of those cycles was the only thing that kept her mind occupied as she tried—and failed—to not think about a certain boy. Not even the gears of her imagination could distract her.

  Not because our dearest Reiav is much like the majority of the population in this snese, those who are hardly thinking much past the presence of attractive individuals. In fact, she could hardly even say for sure what her thoughts were on this certain boy.

  But he was coming to her city—and yes, even without the full title yet, it was hers—and so it was difficult to not feel her thoughts stray in that direction.

  In theory, the young woman had known that this would happen one day. Ruirel finally arriving was the whole reason she hadn’t been sent to the broken mountains two months ago when the city passed through the stormzone. Instead, she’d been sequestered in the same building for a month while they’d made their way through that dangerous area.

  This whole situation was probably just her father’s way of dissuading Reiav’s fears that she and Ruirel were drifting apart and would be complete strangers when the betrothal finally turned into more. Reiav wasn’t even thinking about that part at the moment, this time the problem was a step or three farther. She’d somehow convinced herself that he didn’t even remember her.

  It had been more than ten years since they’d last seen each other after all, lessons and inheritances, disasters and festivals kept lining up exactly wrong, as if the universe didn’t want them to ever be happy.

  But at the same time, Reiav had to admit that part of her didn’t want to end how things were at the moment. She had all the freedom she wanted, well, most of it. It was like she’d convinced herself on some level that she would never see him again; even as she built her future up on the idea that she had to see him again.

  “Mistress!” Reiav glanced down at the open window below her, revealing a worried looking Akia. “Mistress you really should get down from there, what if you fall and don’t have time to manifest? What if one of those cloud snails hits you in the face on its way down? We’re passing below a colony right now, mistress!”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  I’ll have you know they were always passing below a colony or ten of those things, but perhaps I’m still salty about not realizing the sparking snails even existed for so long. Cloud snails collisions are unfortunately common on Arendi, but they aren’t as fatal as they could be seeing as it’s a relatively hard object moving at high velocities towards you. Ironically, they were more fatal before people started breeding them to be bigger.

  Reiav smiled at Akia though, glad for the worry and completely and utterly oblivious to my grudge against snails several hundred years after her lifetime. She tilted her nose back up to the sky, humming slightly and letting her spectral wings manifest so Akia would feel better, “It’s alright, I’m just a bit out of sorts is all. Do you… do you know when Ruirel is arriving?” Her voice hitched at the end there, but that was understandable.

  Akia hesitantly manifested her two small wings and climbed up the roof with shaking hands, apparently not willing to let Reiav’s father believe she’d just left her charge in a possibly dangerous situation. “Mistress, that’s something you should ask your father, not me. He said sometime today, but with this sunchasing city I can hardly even tell what day it is!”

  It was always so strange to Reiav that people could tell time better outside of the city of Teisel. She’d lived there her whole life after all, and all it took was looking at the land below for her to know what time it was, and what day too for that matter.

  Akia was new though, she’d wanted to try out life on a floating city and Teisel was the most traveled one, passing over almost every piece of the world at some point over its three and a half year cycle. She’d been here six months at this point, and Reiav had expected her to have left quite a while ago, and yet she remained.

  Reiav still fully planned for Akia to give up on Teisel soon enough and hitch a ride on a new city, but for now she was finding work by looking after Reiav. A respectable job, considering how dedicated Reiav was to the one thing her father was adamant about never letting her do.

  Reiav nodded absently, “I’ll just try to be patient, I suppose.” She stood up, examining the space below the ancient city. It was ocean right now, but they were just about twelve hours out from the island of Iana by her estimate.

  Their latitude changed steadily as the city moved west with the slightest tilt toward the south. Reiav didn’t know what exactly the city was thinking—if indeed it could. At the very least, the metalfolk seemed convinced—but her great grandfather had first established a trade route based on that, and it was just as viable today as it had been a hundred years ago.

  Currently, their destination was that out of the way island, Iana. The city never stopped, that was its nature, but the niortak had flying machines and wings. They could return to their city when it passed again.

  The two women sat there for several minutes, Reiav calmly watching the world and Akia fidgeting every time a breeze so much as ruffled her feathers. Eventually, Reiav sighed and stood up, summoning her spectral wings again since they’d begun to dissipate from disuse, she didn’t even berate herself for letting them fade, which just showed how out of sorts she felt. “Akia, what’s the status of those materials I ordered? Did father pick up on what was happening?”

  The older woman shook her head, “Your father was attempting to negotiate with the city of Neschav again when I sent in the request, his assistant did the paperwork and he never saw the order form himself.”

  Reiav relaxed marginally, good, the last time he’d caught her trying to make her own version of a low-gravity engine, he’d thrown a fit. A lady wasn’t supposed to chat with engineers, suggest ideas to the smithy, or take an interest in the scientists. A lady who wanted to do any such thing was a disgrace to her family name and might be disinherited if she kept on going.

  Fortunately, Reiav never did care about being that kind of lady. If she cared about that then I’d be telling you about some other poor sob who ended up in her situation. Reiav was the heir to the city of Teisel. No matter how many times she disappointed him, her father had no choice but to give her that eventually, no matter how dishonorable she might act.

  The man in question didn’t like that idea, which was why he only knew a little bit. Everything else she took pains to obscure from his vision. She just had to last two more years and then she could take over, get married to Ruirel, and dismantle ancient thrusters to her heart's content.

  Ruirel had never seemed objectionable to the idea when they’d been kids, but this was just another one of the worries that Reiav had going into with this. She had no way of knowing if Ruirel was the same Ruirel she remembered.

  He had to be though, right? He had to at least be mostly like her memories.

  We build up people in our minds like this. We decide that they must actually be one way because that’s just how the world works, but in the end does such an illusion even have a use? I say that it doesn’t, but people like Reiav and my old friend Aymiae would disagree.

  Our illusions make us who we are.