It won't go away!

[naodrith]

Yeah, okay. It's called Cethien. It is a world sort of like Discworld, except not, in that it is round and I hadn't heard of Discworld back when I created it. The point, originally, was to stick all the anti-cliches I could manage into it. Like vampire sheep.

It all began one day when I wandered over to Pyrae's house. Her brother was, miraculously, not home, and she had stolen his computer to play a game which could not be played on hers. I did not begrudge her this time of Joy, and sat at the table watching.

It came to pass that Pyrae's character died, and came back somewhere nearby. She went to see the grave where she had died, and I said, "Wouldn't it be odd to see your own grave?"

And so began the idea of immortals who could die, but always came back again. This went through many incarnations until it got to the point where they simply had insanely good healing powers.

The flowers talked, and were not nice. The unicorns were carnivorous and vicious. My hero was Ryuven, a teenage female-phobic mathematician atheist who lived in a theocracy and insisted that the goddess did not exist. Naturally this caused problems when he met the daughter of a goddess, but not the point.

And it came to pass that I gave up on the story because it wasn't fun anymore.

There were a few other story ideas set on the planet Cethien, but none of them lasted very long.

So, last night, I was randomly writing because I felt the need to do something, and discovered that Cethien is not yet done with me. Stupid Cethien.

So, meet Emmy, the time-travelling journalist/historian with some stories to tell that really aren't about her. Really.


Introduction

Love is the sort of thing that sometimes just happens. There is no rhyme or reason. Love is not like a summer's day. It is not like a winter's night. It is not like living; it is not like dying. It is not like falling or drowning or burning. Love is not like a lot of things.

Love, I think, just is.

You might ask how I know. Well, I don't. You see, I've never been in love. But I have witnessed love, and I have witnessed hate. I think I know enough of both to say that love is love, just as a rose is a rose.

This is not my story. This is their story. This is the story of our world.

When I think about it objectively, as I occasionally do when I've nothing better to do, which is fairly often, I discover that our world would probably seem quite humorous to people of the Other Worlds. I have some experience of the Other Worlds. I notice that on Other Worlds sheep are not carnivores and are, indeed, often used as metaphors for the stupid and weak. I notice that immortality is something sought after, though I can't imagine why. I notice that love is compared to things, and hardly ever simply compared to itself.

Our world is Cethien.

There are many stories about Cethien. How the Emralans became immortal; how the fabric of causality was (or will be) completely shredded by an errant god and his lover; how it ends. Admittedly, I don't know how it ends. We aren't quite there yet, and, time-travel being what it is, my impressions of The End are completely unreliable. I know the other stories, because that's what I do. I write stories. I write history.

I call myself a historian. Some (my employer) call me a journalist. Some (my parents) call me a disgrace. But why do I go on about myself? This is not my story.

This, as I said before, is their story. Perhaps someday there will be other stories. I don't care about the other stories. I care about theirs, because I care about them. If I should, in the course of this completely objective recording of events, narrate something for which I was not present, rest assured that I get my information from first-hand witnesses. Usually reliable.

He is Mournful, a name of his own choosing, an immortal werewolf and jewelry dealer.

She is Safira, part-time priestess, full-time editor.

They were from different worlds. Well, fine, from Cethien, but from different nations. Also from different species.

Love is...irresistible. Unimaginable. Imperfect.

Perfect.

I write this because people deserve to know the truth about the last king. People deserve to know the truth behind our theocracy. It's been covered up for too long, and as that was mostly my fault, I shall now rectify my horrible mistake.

I am probably going to be lynched for this. There seems to be rather a lot of lynching going around lately.