Arcaea: The World of Glass

[Side] Ephemeral Page

A dark garden betwixt forest and flowers.

A silver web glints in a corner of glass. Well, is it glass? More likely it's stone, but this particular world  operates more strangely than any other. Reality bleeds in from elsewhere, through floating shards that fill the air, projecting colorful memory into lands of ruin and white. Now there are pillars of amethyst, glowing from a light beneath that fills the entire floor.

She sits in a fanciful, pale green chair, before a small and pale-green table, her hand atop her
suitcase which rests beside her. She drags her finger down the leather of its top. There are no other people here.

"We should leave, Alice."

"No other people"—but there is at least one other person.

He's here, holding tea as he often is, having again prepared it when her eyes were turned away.
She lays her palm on her suitcase.

"You hear that?" she asks.

He tilts his head, listening closely before replying: "I hear nothing."

Lifting her other arm, she rests her elbow on the table, slouches forward, and props her chin up
with her hand. "That's right," she says, "in this one... or these ones... it's quiet."

"And what should that matter?"

"When was the last!?" she slightly raises her voice, telling him with its tone that she finds his question absurd. "Silence and a pleasant view... Look at the gardens, Tenniel. This landscape is... handsome." She picks up her hand from her suitcase and indicates the dark wilds fading in and out before them, and to the sky-blue flowers dotting the shade.

"I," Tenniel starts, gesturing toward himself with his teacup, "am handsome."

Her brow twitches at the gall.

"Shut," Alice starts, gesturing toward him with her hand, "up."

"Terribly rude. Awfully rude," he notes. She shakes her head, grumbles, and leans back in her seat.

Precisely how long has she been stuck in this world, unable to travel to any others?

Forever, the ward Tenniel has been with her, steadfast in his claims of "I cannot be apart from you."

However, that largely proves itself to be a pain. She looks at him now. A black and orange butterfly flutters past his eyes, and after it passes he looks into his cup. Then, he tosses the cup's contents to the ground, having not drunk even a sip of it. A very, very usual habit—in fact, consistent Tenniel behavior.

He opens his mouth, not to lap the dregs, but to speak. "We really should go," says Alice,
preempting him. "That's what you want to say, isn't it?"

"If you understand, let us take care," he says.

And she listens to him. He never seems, she thinks, entirely without reason. So she stands and follows him to the white horizon. The memory fades around them as they pass. It melts and drips, all, into nothing. All except the butterfly, which flies along at her shoulder. For now, Tenniel watches it again. But it will fade, too—

All memories do.

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So, what is this place? And what is "real"?

This is true: she once walked between worlds.

She still does. For her, this is an aspect of life as normal as eating or drinking, not that she has had need of either since finding this latest realm. In the past, before Arcaea, it was countless how many new places she'd seen, how many strange plants and people she had found.

Fantastic creatures, magic too, everything one could ever imagine: she has seen it, and recorded it. For... an "inter-dimensional" encyclopedia? Whatever it was (it seems to have been lost).
The nature of the work keeps her profession fresh, certainly, but... This world really is terribly unique. The memories of further worlds dance into this one, and not as mere images, either. You can hear the other places... smell the foreign nature... taste from these memories, and touch them as if they're real. Therefore it begs the question: what is real? In a world such as Arcaea, she feels that is a very important question to ask.

If... it can be experienced fully, but only for a limited time, is it an illusion or is it valid?
Well-traveled though she is, nothing in her memory tells of a world like this. What is the purpose of it? So she asks her companion: without flare, without context. "So... what is reality, Tenniel? How can we know that here is real?"

"It's real," he says, as he casts tea from his cup, "because every sense of yours 'knows' that it's real. Why do you wonder about artifice or illusion? Why do you question even what you can touch with your own hands, Alice? That should be enough."

"Fine," she replies with finality. It is worthless when he gets like this.

"If that is over with, look there," he says, and he points to the ground. They had wandered into memory of a campfire, and Tenniel's tea had doused the flame. "How the devil does that work?" he asked.

"You're asking me?" replies Alice, incredulous.

"I've ruined their party..." mutters her companion.

"The memory will fade soon, so there's nothing to be glum over, Tenniel." "What we see is real, Alice. And when you stop looking at something, does it cease to be? Of course it
doesn't. That fire has ceased by my hand, though."

"You need to stop spilling tea everywhere."

"I will leave an apology."

"No one will see it! No one is here!"

Tenniel smirks while whipping out a pad and pen. She groans, and tries not to smile herself as he writes. It's a moment that reminds her why she never questions his company. But, it's a moment rare of late.
"Of late", she thinks...

In the beginning... was it different?

She ponders for a little while, but new scenery distracts her as they walk. She forgets to wonder.

And the day goes on.