Merlia Ann

 

It is the end, I think.

            After so long, humanity has reached its end.

            I’m not as horrified as I’d predicted, some three hundred years ago.

            When the human species became the recessive gene in our reproductive process, or when people began manipulating their biology to be capable of their particular niche in droves, I saw an oncoming apocalypse, but it was much more grim than this.

            We had those who could manipulate metal with mere gestures, who needed not the forges of old.

            We had wise chemists who could make any medicine, millions upon millions of cure-alls brilliant and beyond any of my knowing, I must admit. Some of which still sit on my shelf on their in-case basis.

            We were wizards, I think.

            Not really the moniker I expected, but as humanity became more diverse, our reach more profound, I cannot say  I really mourn this change.

            I am fortunate to have lived this long. Most of my peers have long since joined the dirt and the dust, and so confident were they in our inevitable ascension to immortality, that few saw the need to chronicle how we got here, in those final centuries.

            Not that I mind, I think.

            In living here, a-

I dare not use the derogatory portmanteau, let that be dust with the doom-sayers-

A New-Human Settlement, I liken it to watching children in a by-gone age tell stories. Somehow they miss everything normal and yet find everything wonderful.

They no longer bear the technologies of their forefathers, but they also lack judgement of other identities and love that was so prevalent when I was young.

One dear child, a young girl of this new humanity, comes to my tower to ask about the old world—Ha! There I go, too. Regarding it as gone. I suppose that is the fate of a relic.

In any case, I tell her much of the old sciences and histories. Borrowing from one of my favorite authors, I have started to call it the ‘First Age’. A title fitting of a world responsible for, but absent from, this one.

I remember, long ago, a friend of mine. Doctor Viala, telling me that she felt stories belonged to everyone. That tales of young magicians or brave superheroes or clever detectives were as much the property of the young writer as they were the original ones.

I’d argued, declared, that authors owned their works, and that otherwise was preposterous.

I maintain my perspective, but I will confess to having softened on this hard line of mine. I think I understood what she meant, now. I see these fighters and adventurers out and about, I see them take after the stories my dear visitor has asked, and forged themselves in the oration of those stories.

And truly, there are few things more beautiful.

I think, maybe, while we were spending so much time trying to be immortal, they were standing on two legs and learning how to truly be alive.

And I love them for that.

I love the strange joy they hold. The unqualmed zest for adventure.

I love their heart and their kindness. And I want to give them something.

A new story.

A legend.

I’ve always liked the idea of a great power for peace being a magical artifact, and so mine shall be.

I think someone needs a benevolent and curious heart to show all how the world can be wonderful, always. Even through the darkness, the fights, the wars, the long nights.

I’ve lived long enough to have a veritable trove of relics. A book with ways to curse the living with those gone. The musings of my old linguist friend in a language I don’t know. A great chalice that was meant to grant immortality, but failed and was left with me to rust until it looks like wood.

But, my favorite is one of mine. Biased, I am.

I built it to grant peace-keeping power to one of a kind heart.

It reads the future intentions of the attempted wielder through a palm scanner, and a wave of the silver panel in the light relieves all the stress from the witnessing humans, new and old, through a-

…I realize no one has preserved the documents that explain what these mean.

I suppose it might as well be magic.

Unfortunately, no one I knew was able to unsheathe it from the ore I had cemented it in. And maybe it doesn’t even work? I don’t wish to release it, myself.

But, I believe it is high time to find out.

I shall place it, in its ore lockstone, in the town center tomorrow.

This old witch has one more legend to write.

I imagine that it’s the legend I will tell the story-loving gal tonight.

I hope she will find it interesting.

She called it a sword, when she was much smaller.

I liked that.

A sword in a stone.

Perhaps that’s what it will be named.