Saba Steals Memories [ONC 2020]

0 || ashes to ashes

'Anwyr Hecai Dius Sol 194,' reads the plaque in front of the Solseraph Church of Tiderunner. 'Liar, Mage, God, Sun, 194.'

"Anwyr," says the nameless, faceless spell, winding across the church steps. "Liar."

"Anwyr," clicks Acheron, watching the magic weave into the hollows of what could have been a person. "Your name."

Learning that Anwyr's name meant liar would not come as a surprise to anyone. That little scrap of knowledge would fit seamlessly into the patchwork of things that people already knew about them, slotted in-between memory mage and eternally annoying.

Of course, that's assuming that Anwyr would tell anyone the truth behind their name in the first place, and they simply don't know enough people to do that.

The City of Tides does like to think that it knows all about them, though. Last Anwyr heard, they were being called the "divine memory guardian of Sixteenth-and-Lanmoth street", which is a far cry from their preferred title of "nobody important", and even further from their actual profession as a memory merchant.

Still, the rumors don't bother them much. They don't try to correct the Cotfolk, either— in all honesty, most of what they say is true. There is a one-eyed mage working at the Lethe, there is someone at Solseraph who can turn memories into legends, and of course there's an enchanted azure crystal in Anwyr's collection for every story the world has to offer. How else would they store the memories they sell?

It's just that, for all the city knows about them, Anwyr has never bothered learning anything about the Cot in return.

Why should they establish friendships when the Coltfolk only care about their magic? Why should they bother making small talk with customers when they have a business to run?

Why should Anwyr bother ghosting through the bustling city, where their accomplishments are reduced to leaves on the gossip vine, when they could instead roam the Old World and earn them a thousand times over?

The people of the Cot wouldn't be able to answer that. They don't trifle with the Old World or its denizens, already content with their shipping docks and cloying fog and incandescent lamplight. They'll look over the dark seas that frame the Ouraic Coast, and maybe some of them will be curious about the Beyond, but none of them are truly willing to leave the security of the Tides.

But every Cotfolk knows that Anwyr can— and will, and wants to— leave. And if the Cot can't breach its own walls to find the wonder, the adventure, the thrill it wants, its citizens will simply have to buy the memories of someone who can.

The Cot acts as if their use of memory magic should bother Anwyr, but it really doesn't. They don't love the history of the Memoratoria nearly as much as they love the abilities it gives them, and the Cot is too trapped in its 'concrete truths' to figure out why. It may have plenty of truths about Anwyr, but the City of Tides never seems to understand the few things that they do love: the luminescent stories in their collection; the world beyond the city; and the ephemeral, eternal thrill of defying death.