The Chimera

Chapter Twelve: The End of the World

"That's perfect, I just got to this world and now it's ending?" Jasper throws his hands into the air in frustration, almost hitting himself on the side of the head with the bell in the process.

"At least you'll have somewhere to go if it does," Giada tells him. "The rest of us are stuck here."

"Did no one hear what I said? We are not nearing the world's end." Tai's voice has a particularly hard edge to it.

"Well, we can't ignore the possibility. Historically, an increase in gifts and a disruption in the way they're delivered are listed as preludes to the world being shaken up, if not downright falling apart," Giada says.

"And thirst is listed as one of the preludes to plague. It doesn't mean that every time I want a cup of water, my death is imminent."

"What about that monster I saw in the valley? You said yourself that that hasn't been seen before," Jasper insists.

The talk truly derails after that, into demanded explanations of "what monster?", story-telling, comparisons between Jasper's creature and Giada's to determine whether they are the same. 

World perils, if they are meant to happen, will happen whether this small group of seven believes in them or not. So there really is no use in arguing about it. These are the thoughts of Kalila as her eyes catch in interest not from the conversation, but from seeing the book in Fallon's arms.

She leans over to speak quietly to him. "That book is your gift? May I see it?"

His eyes had been wide as he followed the debate, now they turn to her. Dutifully, he hands the tome over. "Of course you can. A fair warning, though, there's nothing on its pages."

Kalila's eyes dim upon hearing this. Still, she takes the book to hold it wonderingly in her hands. Under Giada's tutelage in the archives, she has seen any number of old, impressive texts. Books that they hope to preserve from the making to the breaking of their city. On grammar, medicine, military tactics, the making of dams. However, nowhere in the collection has there been a book from the chimera itself.

This one has nothing particularly noteworthy about it. No etchings on the brown leather cover, no emblem or crest to mark its importance. It is as blank in beauty as its empty pages.

Kalila flips through them, losing interest. They are devoid of anything, as Fallon had said. Her thumb lets another page go by before she stops. Goes back a page. She stares at the book.

Throughout her immersion in leather and paper, the other six had recalibrated their conversation. Tai now leans forward onto the table, ink-dipped quill of a rich red feather in hand as he writes on a piece of parchment.

The paper is to be sent to Beledon's city council, which requests that all receivers of the chimera's gifts make an account of them, or to report if they suspect someone they know is now in possession of one.

The chimera's gifts are by nature chaotic, unknowable, full of perilous potential. To bring some sort of order to these deliveries, the council solicits this documentation at least. But many avoid it, keep the knowledge of their gift to themselves or at least until they have figured out its purpose, not before.

Tai calls upon them to take turns dictating to him their name, their gift, the message it came with, and what they have so far been able to glean from its purpose. "We'll report to them about the creature sightings as well, and await their response."

Fallon waits behind Zahara. She is describing her amulet properties to a furiously-scribbling Tai, likely unused to being dictated at for a change but adamant that the paper received by the council be in his own hand.