Whimpers of Entropy

A change in the water currents around me pulled me from my stupor, and I blinked as I focused on my surroundings.

I had been traveling for weeks, maybe even as much as a month at this point, and my mind had wandered as the featureless, stinging waters of the ocean slid by. In the past, when people had worked together for a better future, there had been many forms of public transportation that could have made this journey in a matter of days. In recent decades, however, rather than pay the atrocious prices of the few private sectors still in operation, I had grown accustomed to swimming from place to place, allowing the ocean, and time, to pass me by.

Now, though, my next destination was approaching. Though the town itself was little more than an outpost, the ocean floor that gradually rose to its shore was littered with the evidence of what had been lost. Ruins spread for miles in every direction: what had once been a moderately large metropolis by the standards of its time, it would look unimaginably vast to any soul unfortunate enough to be born in the current era.

A sense of melancholy filled me at the sight. Though I had not spent long in this city, my time here some century past had been filled with the joyful company of loyal companions and the raging passion of those fighting for a just cause. When I'd last been here, I'd been on a mission to save the world.

A mission I had failed.

Though the memories faded with time, the remnants of those feelings were still enough to cause a knot to form in my stomach. The crumbling ruins below me seemed to fill with shades; vaguely familiar figures walking cracked streets, staring out pane-less windows, and reenacting events that would eventually prove inconsequential.

I sighed, a stream of bubbles escaping my lips and rising up into the waters above me. I forced myself to lift my gaze to the mountain that rose from the center of the town, the only part of the surrounding landscape that broke the surface of the ocean. What had been lost could never be reclaimed, the ideals of my younger years were now nothing but day dreams. I had a new mission, though, and it was time for the next step.

* * *

Ferdi Jure rubbed his eyes, trying to focus on the paperwork in front of him. As District Librarian it was his job to vet and organize new additions to the Fourth Societal Library, a position he had fought for over the course of his life. Now, however, looking at the small stack of studies he'd already read, and the much larger stack waiting his approval, he wished he had spent more of his youth pursuing his own interests, and less on progressing through the Society's hierarchy.

Sighing, Jure rose from his desk, the vertebrae of his lower back popping and crackling as he stretched his arms over his head and glanced out the window behind his desk. He had been drudging through papers so long he hadn't even noticed that the sun had set, and now the library glowed with soft imitation-sunlight. Those lights made it easier to keep working after the sun had set, but they always disoriented him and made him lose track of time.

Deciding that some movement would do him good, Jure left his spacious office and began to wander through the stacks of the Fourth Societal Library. There were a scattering of researchers and lesser librarians still at work, all of whom hurried to nod respectfully to him as he passed. He returned their nods, though his were much more shallow and he did not lower his eyes as they did. Maintaining a dignified and elevated presence was expected of someone of his station.

Jure had been reading papers by lesser researchers for so long that he found himself anxious to ply his mind with a study of a more rigorous and consequential nature. He made his way to the back of the library, producing a thick metal key and sliding it into the gate that separated the public archives from the Society's private collection. He strode purposefully towards his favorite section, its shelves lined with tomes on the Majora Animalia.