21st September 1137

  Acryl.

  In the very morning, Acryl was awakened by a Siyuenese man knocking on the compartments. He was covered in white, not a convenient color, he thought, too easy to give out what kind of job they do. Although it was not obvious, the man’s white jacket was slightly reddish.

  “Documents and tickets? Where were you both yesterday?” the man asked. Standing in the hallway, not an inch in the compartment.

  Acryl didn’t say anything, he reached into his pocket and showed him the tickets and the document that proved he had a legal Realm-arts implant.

  “Furnace? Zero sharpened time. This paper’s outdated, get a new one once you get out.”

  “…H-how did you know?” Acryl asked out of curiosity.

  “Don’t mess around. Sharpened one-time Realm-arts aren’t as powerful as you’d think,” the man said as he walked away. Leather boots’ footsteps echoed in the hallway.

  …………….

  The aircraft’s speed was already slowed down as it flew out of Siyue, right now it is passing the Prolonged Mist, the unspoken border of the west and east. Clouds were above, under, and next to them. The sky looked heavenly as the mechanism of the aircraft hummed. Even though no one was rowing the flying ship, Acryl still felt like the engine was a chorus made of sailors.

  The sun shone on Neon. Her pink ponytail jumped up and down to the rhythm of her confident, jumpy steps. Acryl noticed her new clothes today- warm colors like a small flower.

  Everything was usual, the same route this aircraft flew for years, the same purple-ish gray mist.

  Neon suggested that they take a look around the airship, the deck, and the view that they had not seen before, to which Acryl agreed. For him, it was like the short trips outside of Grand Dome he took with Canvas. The only difference is that Neon seemed way more excited than Canvas would be.

  “Remember how we used to count pennies after Canvas left?” Neon brought up.

  “Didn’t we do that before he left? But at least we won’t spend a penny on colors now.” Acryl said as he smiled a bit.

  “Yeah, that’s for sure, your Realm-art is more handy than I thought.”

  “Neon, if you had a Realm-art, what archetype do you think you would be? Would it be conversion like Furnace, reaction like Kindling, or Key and Door?”

  “From Kindling, furnace, Door, and key? You already have a furnace… Dad has a key, I guess I would be the key as well. Is there any difference between key and Door Realm-arts anyways?”

  “…I’ve heard that the difference is that the key archetype is more internal and the Door is external.”

  “That doesn’t say anything,” Neon said as she turned around.

  Acryl nodded. It was something he had been questioning about the Realm-arts, the four archetypes, each representing one kind of power, conversion, reaction, evocation, and manifestation, but what do they really mean? Is it a law of nature, unchanged, with no exceptions? Or is it like art, like language, full of change, blemished, some beautiful? Then how would the ability to change the shape and property of his colors fall into? Kindling?

  They two walked out of the hallway, Acryl quite liked the shape of runes around the aircraft; they looked clean without too many turns, yet weren’t too round.

  He did not know how to read them, but as long as he knew, the runes of the west, raksti or sigils of the north, and talisman of the east all shared one thing: turning earthly things into arcane items. Runes were discovered two centuries ago, but talismans were invented.

  After leaving the hallway, the sun’s rays blasted into their eyes as the head of the aircraft pierced through a cloud. He looked up, the deck was covered in transparent nodes, reminding the metal dome of the Grand dome. There were some people on the deck, but none looking around like Neon and Acryl did.

  “Acryl,” Neon asked while she sat on a chair, “how much did it cost for your Realm-art?”

  “…Around…price of two paintings?” he answered as he sat next to Neon, took out his sketchbook, and started to scribble the runes around him.

  “…You really don’t do accounting, don’t you?” Neon said.

  “Why’d you ask that?”

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  “…Hmmm…nothing…just wanted to make sure.”

  “Acryl, where do you think we will be after we find Canvas? Will we still travel like this?” Neon said as she grabbed a pen from Acryl’s pocket and drew a smiley face with a braid right next to Acryl’s doodle.

  “Probably…we haven’t been to Treisaules, and we haven’t even been to Auderheim. Maybe we could go there.” Acryl suggested.

  “Doubt about the Treisaules one…no one had been there since the end of the War, but, yeah, we’ll travel like this…” Neon said as if to herself.

  They didn’t continue the topics anymore. Acryl has no doubt about Neon’s friendship with him, but he knows that Neon doesn’t open up everything to him. Although he was never good at dealing with emotions and communicating, he knows that Neon has something she was unwilling to talk about. During these years, Acryl noticed that Neon is consciously avoiding topics about her childhood.

  All he knows about her time growing up is that Neon grew up in a single-parent household. Her father, a former actor, had to raise her alone. Sometimes when Acryl is up late working on paintings, he finds Neon falling asleep holding her deceased mother’s half-empty travel journal. He respects Neon’s boundaries. If that’s the only thing she won’t bring up, then he’ll keep it that way.

  Acryl looked at Neon. Her turquoise eyes are aimed far away, Acryl could almost see the Grand Dome in them. He could see a slight smile on her face. In his memories, everything is gray; only Canvas’ figure and Neon’s smile are colorful.

  Thinking about it, Acryl looked in the direction Neon was looking. There was nothing but the Prolonged Mist.

  Every direction was covered in the same dense fog, not even the sun could shine through it, if not it is noon, Acryl would have thought that it was sunset. Acryl couldn’t tell if it was his illusion or not, but he could see something appearing and disappearing under the mist.

  He squinted his eyes to take a better look. All of his focus was on that thing, the shadow looked like a dragon from illustrations, yet Acryl couldn’t tell the exact size or shape of it. Almost like it was some kind of illusion.

  His ears were ringing. Every sense of his is focused on that thing far away. He was sure that it was not some kind of structure or mountain. It was like something alive, like a cloud of flesh.

  “Did nobody tell you both not to gaze too long into the mists?” a voice broke Acryl’s focus. At the same time, he realized that his back was already wet with his own sweat. He turned around and saw the one who had interrupted him.

  “Tales say the Prolonged Mist is the closest thing to the Realm. Strange…empty…dangerous…full of incomprehensible crap.”

  Acryl recognized him, it was the man he had bumped into yesterday. This time, he sees the man more clearly. The man is dressed in a blue waistcoat and black shirt decorated with constellations, like an encyclopedia, Acryl thought. He is about as tall as Acryl, he looks about the same age as Acryl, yet the feeling he gives off doesn’t belong to his appearance.

  Old was not the correct word for him, but Acryl could not find a word to describe the man. On his face was a monocle with delicate carvings. Behind it were a pair of purple eyes. Acryl didn’t believe the belief that “eyes are the windows of the soul”, but he could tell that the man was no ordinary soul, that he should belong in a contemporary art piece.

  “Your name’s Acryl, right?” the man said as he reached his hand to Acryl. Acryl nodded as the man shook his hand.

  “And you must be Neon, I really enjoyed your father’s play,” he said as he reached his other hand to Neon.

  “Thank you! Although he’s retired, Dad would love to hear that!”

  “Forgot to introduce myself…the name’s Suiming, S-U-I-M-I-N-G. Sui of broken, Min of brightness.”

  “Anyways, where are you going on this trip?” Suiming asked as he rested his back on the handrail.

  “We plan to fly to Euth for…personal matters,” Acryl responded.

  “But Euth? Really? This time of the year? Remnant tide is quite dangerous, y’know. What’s worth risking this?”

  “Have you heard about Canvas?” Neon answered in Acryl’s place.

  “That artist who went missing three years ago? Letter-Wri-, ahem, a friend of mine bought two paintings from his student around three years ago…I remember that some say he went to Siyue or Senhashi…sorry, I can’t recall anything else right now. Speaking of my friend, have you seen anyone…never mind.”

  At first, Acryl didn’t know if Suiming was trustworthy, although he did have a good impression of him. If Suiming hadn’t encouraged him yesterday, his Realm-art wouldn’t have been sharpened. But for now, he thought that Suiming meant no harm in any way and was a rather easy-going person.

  Yet the fact that he knew Neon’s and her father’s names confused him a little.

  “…Well, then I hope everything goes in the direction of the wind in your journey.”

  “I couldn’t help you at all, but I do know a person who could … although she’s quite busy,” Suiming said as he looked away, hand searching in his waistcoat’s inner pocket.

  “Where is it?” he said impatiently, like a child looking for the toy that had fallen under the sofa.

  As Acryl waited for Suiming to search his thing, Acryl looked around. The runes somehow looked brighter than before. At first, he thought that the aircraft was going to accelerate like it did yesterday, but quickly he realized that it was something that blocked the sun. Suddenly, he felt the scent of iron and burning matches. With the corner of his eye, he saw Neon standing in shock. Out of confusion, he looked back.

  He had never seen such horror in his life. Not even the warnings from messengers and tales from the remnant tide explorers could be compared with that thing right in front of him.

  Acryl could not call that thing gigantic or huge; the correct adjective in his mind would be vast.

  Just vast, the aircraft looked like an ant compared to that horror, like a mountain range standing right below them.

  It pierced the mist, stretching its many tentacle-like limbs filled with eyes, which were like the tips of the iceberg of that monstrosity. The eyes were like the eyes of the dead, lifeless yet expanding and shrinking as if they were hearts.

  The flesh limb’s eye, the biggest one, was looking into Acryl’s eyes; they were closer than before, yet Acryl didn’t see it move. He felt chills running up his spine and in the end, devouring him whole until he couldn’t feel the slightest part of his body.