A Perfect World

Prologue

This world is different. It’s not like yours, and it’s definitely not like theirs. In all honesty, it isn't much like mine either. It’s much better than either, most of the time. It’s full of people of different colors, sizes, and shapes, but all with a few things in common. The first is the twisting, swirling, web-like veins running across their skin, caused by Moral Blood. Some people have white veins that stand out against dark skin or blend in with lighter skin. Others have black veins that work as a warning light against getting too close to them, but most have pale shades of gray twisting and spinning across their bodies. I’m sure your people would have gray blood too. They’re so torn up by things that aren’t their fault, and so many things tear at their minds that they would probably have darker blood that my people. I should know, as I was once one of you, if only for a few lifetimes.

Many of the people of this world have rainbow marks glittering on their skin, named Turning-Point Marks, often decorated a black patch in the center and identical to their soulmate’s mark, regardless of whether it had appeared yet. These designs, called Soul Marks, indicate your soulmate. Most of the time the Turning-Point is on the person’s hands, but some on their arms, shoulders, and legs. A few people have them on their cheeks or necks, and often are the same people that tried to hide it before it had been touched. Before they exploded in color, these people tried to hide their marks, afraid they would be hit or attacked by their soulmate, but from what I've heard, it's always been a gentle caress or an accident. From experience, it’s almost never violent. Sad maybe, but not often violent.

Some people have a hundred tattoos stretching across their skin and tangling together, painting beautiful murals on their bodies. Love Marks spread across their skin in dark, careless ink. These people fall in love easily, often falling for the person's initial beauty. Other people have only a few Love Marks on their skin. They don't love easily, only falling for those pure of heart and strong of mind. Even after the tattoo has appeared, and the mark has been touched, you don’t age past 18 until you really find your soulmate. Not if you have to wait a hundred years, not ever until you find them. Even then you won’t age past around 30 until one of you pass on, then you live out the rest of your days and die, whether by natural causes or man-made ones. After that, you are reincarnated to live another life, sometimes on another planet, but you always end up together again. You and your soulmate live on forever together until a higher power chooses the pair of you for a task. I’m often privileged with that task, but not always.

Usually, around between 8 and 12 years of age the veins start to appear, since before that you don't really have the capacity to fully differentiate right from wrong, and you don’t usually get held accountable. As for the Turning-Point Marks, it has to do with the beginning of this world and the inhabitants. Soulmate’s atoms were close together when their spirits formed, so they turned into the most compatible pairs. Once the atoms come into contact with each other during a key time, a reaction occurs, turning the contact points a hundred colors. The Love and Soul marks are similar, but they also involve your brain. When you fall in love a signal is sent from your atoms to the atoms of whoever you fell in love with, then sent back with the information about the tattoo they have, then it appears somewhere on your skin.

Our world works like the internet in your world, everyone and everything connected. With training, you can learn to tap into that connection more accurately and use it to find people, places and things, send information, and receive it. It’s difficult, mentally-straining work, but it is a very practical skill to have, but as with any magic, it can be used for evil tasks as well. With deep magic and dark trainers, one can learn to bend wills of others to match their own. Sometimes it's only for short, mild tasks like thievery, but sometimes it’s used to bring loved ones back from Palace Ple Art’tar and even beyond, from my sisters’ children's reach.

That’s when dark powers come into play. It’s like a glitch, allowing you to more easily break past Destiny’s plan, and often outwit the Balances. It’s difficult work, repairing time when that happens, but with six or seven deities, gods, and goddesses working it doesn’t take long. A long time ago, these people didn’t get punished, but when the Balances broke their own rules they became cursed, one to live as a parasite, one as a shattered soul, and one as a heartbroken, helpless deity, cursed to be forgotten and used. Syven and Karma, torn apart into many more than they were ever meant to be.

Even so, this world we live in is perfect and beautiful. Everyone helps each other, no matter color, species, or sex. They never forget your help, and always pay it in full, however it is seen fit by the universe. As you've heard, this world is balanced, equal, and safe in every way. It's been millennia since the last major conflict, but that may soon change. This world's magic may be its downfall, and that can't happen. In order to fix the world, we- I, must first bring Karma and Syven back together as two deities, not the many they have become under Haiwa and her favorite child’s rule. Haiwa and Destiny have always been hard-headed, fiery-tempered gods, but soon they may tear Haiwa’s prized creation apart. Soon, Haiwa’s world, so vainly named after herself, will fall into a chaotic ruin, but not if it's inhabitants can help it.

Not if I can help it.

I won't let Haiwa fall again.

Never.

Again.