Hopefull

In the land of eternal sun, a woman sits typing, typing, typing. Her house is a warren, a tapestry composed of fairy tales and epics, of pop songs and snatches of ritual. If anyone remembered it existed, he could get lost in that house amongst the threads of story.

It has been many years since the Naki Menace were at last defeated, and Nibiru hovers like an empty shadow in the sky. Heroes have risen, heroes have fallen. Their names live on; every now and again a new song comes out that reminds people of what had happened, and to whom, and why. If perhaps they are not as musically skilful as they had been in the heyday of the battles, no one complains, as long as it has a beat and a phrase you can sing over and over.

The woman is older than she looks. Though her hair is white, she is not stooped, and her eyes are clear. No one remembers her name, the cults she has brought down, the cults she has created, the scandals. If the speeches, the oratory, the sheer lovely rhetoric of it all are remembered it is, as is the way of these things, for the people who spoke them, not for the one who wrote the words. People talk of the great heroes of the Hard Times, of the Dragonslayer and the Hound of Himin, of the Shepherd and the Reckless, the twin orbiting stars of the Twice-False. If you should chance to mention The Hopeful Scribe, all you will get is a funny look and a shake of the head. Somewhere in the tangle of word-skeins is a Pulitzer award, but even she has forgotten where.

What she has not forgotten are all those who have gone before, and all those who tread the earth now, more softly than in yesteryear, but with no less love and pride. Each story, however small, goes noted, woven into the greater picture that is her charge. When the electricity goes she switches to a quill pen that she takes from behind her ear. It is always there, even though these days she can take it off if she wants.

The sun passes overhead but does not set. It shines warmth upon the earth. In a forgotten house built of time a woman with no name is writing, writing, writing, that no song ever be forgotten.