Eve

Eve liked being around others. She liked listening to passers-by talk about all sorts of things, some she understood and some she did not. One day, during her travels, Eve came across a few Charon children talking among themselves.

"I'm so sleepy... I wish I could learn magic that let me split into lots of mes. One me could go and work at the factory, one could do the chores, one could run around and play, and one could find a nice cosy spot and sleep as much as I wanted."

"But if there were that many of you, wouldn't you all start fighting? What if you went home and found another you already there? Then where would you go? Ugh... Just thinking about it is scary."

"Nah, don't worry about that. Magic like that couldn't possibly exist. The most we Charon can do is get a bit stronger, or make little fireballs and water bubbles and stuff."

Seeing the three children getting more and more worked up, Eve stepped in just in time.

"Yeewee! Magic like that does exist~"

The children immediately eyed the young woman who had appeared out of nowhere with suspicion. And, being children, the moment an adult said something was true, they had to insist it was not. So they argued back and forth for a while, until at last Eve gave a helpless little sigh.

"You don't believe me? Then watch this!"

With that, Eve pulled a rabbit plush from her backpack. The next moment, three identical rabbit plushes appeared from thin air in her palm.

"Whoa... One rabbit turned into four! Let me see, let me see!"

"Yeewee! One at a time! There's one for everyone. In return, can you tell me what that black, boxy thing up there is? The one that goes really, really fast, like a roller coaster?"

"Up there...? Roller coaster...? Ah, do you mean the train? They're everywhere in the Empire."

"So that's a train. Amazing! Yeewee, yeewee!!"

The children happily played with their new toys, and none of them laughed at Eve for knowing so little about the world. Eve did not ask any more questions either. Instead, she simply made another rabbit plush for herself and joined in as if she were one of them.

"Aw... It broke..."

But the fun came to an unexpected stop when the arm snapped off one of the rabbit plushes.

"Hehe. Copies always come out a little wonky. Looks like this batch had trouble with the arms."

"Aw. What a useless power..."

"Yeewee... They may be a little wonky, but there are lots of them! Come on, let's play until we're all tuckered out!"

And with that, more and more rabbit plushes came tumbling from her hands. Before long, they had piled up over the children's ankles.

The children and Eve scooped up the plushes and flung them high into the air. A warm afternoon breeze brushed across their cheeks, carrying their laughter far, far away.

Eve liked being around others.

In the Hyperborean imperial archives, Mors found only a handful of records on Arcano:

"Arcano was a village deep in Mount Arcano, in southern Flagson. Once a thriving tourist destination, it was reduced to ruins in the war four years ago.

That same war left countless towns and villages across Hyperborea and Elysium damaged and still unrepaired. Arcano was one of them."

Speaking to residents in southern Flagson yielded little more. Mors found no useful leads, only a collection of dubious rumours that deepened the mystery surrounding Mount Arcano.

One travelling merchant said that, on one occasion, he had been in such a hurry that he considered cutting across the mountains. But he had barely stepped into the woods when something caught his foot and sent him sprawling. The swaying shadows of the trees seemed to fall over him like long, gaunt figures. The wind threading through the woods sounded like the despairing cries of those who had died there. Bit by bit, his nerve failed him. Only after he had fled a good distance from the mountain, half crawling and half stumbling, did he realise he had somehow dragged the thing that had tripped him out with him. By moonlight, he finally saw it clearly: the head of a stone rabbit statue.

A retired veteran said he had once chased a serial killer to the edge of Mount Arcano. After being shot, the killer panicked and bolted straight into the woods. Moments later, a violent explosion tore through the trees. In the end, the case was closed on the grounds that the murderer had wandered into Mount Arcano and been blown up by a landmine left behind by Elysian soldiers. Before they parted ways, the veteran warned Mors: no one knew where those Elysian lunatics had buried their mines when they retreated. Anyone set on entering the mountains had better watch their step.

A wandering beggar claimed he had once heard singing from somewhere inside Mount Arcano. The other beggars only laughed at him. Everyone knew no one had lived there since the war. Who would be singing in a heap of ruins? The restless spirits of villagers blown apart in the fighting?

Other rumours were darker still. Over the years, people had occasionally strayed into Mount Arcano by accident, out of ignorance or arrogance, or for reasons no one else ever knew. Without exception, they vanished without a trace, never to be seen again. In time, people stopped speaking of Mount Arcano except in hushed voices, and stopped going anywhere near them. The range had earned its reputation as a place that swallowed people whole.

Most people have caught bugs with their bare hands at some point in childhood, only to shrink from touching them as adults, whether out of fear or disgust.

Eve, however, still loves catching bugs of every kind. To her, each one has its own peculiar charm.

The brightly coloured ones that take to the sky are beautiful. They spread their wings and soar into the blue, shaking free of the earth below. Perhaps Eve loves them because she, too, longs to be free.

Those that crawl across the ground with sharp mandibles and hooked claws are remarkably tenacious. Even in the harshest environments, they manage to carve out a place for themselves. Perhaps Eve loves them because their tenacity fills her with a quiet reverence for nature.

Some are so small they can barely be seen with the naked eye, yet they can cross vast lakes alone. Others are fragile on their own, yet together they can build enormous kingdoms beneath the earth.

Whenever Eve touches these creatures, whether hard, soft, sticky, or bristling with tiny hairs, she cannot help but marvel at how strange and wonderful life can be. And sometimes, as she watches them, a curious little thought occurs to her:

Perhaps she, too, is no more than a tiny bug in the vastness of the world. And if that is so, perhaps she should learn from them: be a little kinder to herself and take each day as it comes.

After all, making it through another day is a small miracle in itself. So at the end of each day, she might as well offer herself a cheerful little word of praise:

"Good job today, me!"

Petals and fireworks filled the sky. A warm breeze drifted through the summer night, carrying Mother Bunny's gentle whispers, while in the distance people held hands, singing and dancing with all their hearts. This was Eve's earliest memory of Arcano.

Eve walked towards the crowd. The villagers crowned her with a garland, took her by the hands and drew her into the sea of flowers. Her uncertain steps nearly sent her tumbling, so everyone slowed down and helped her find the rhythm. When the dance ended, Eve sat with the others. Someone poured her wine, someone else sliced meat for her and, of course, another person added a helping of vegetables to her plate. To Eve's surprise, none of it felt strange. Everything was warm, familiar and safe, and before long the jokes around the table had her laughing along.

"This really is a wonderful place," Eve thought.

Each morning, birdsong in the treetops woke Eve from sleep. She would open the door and greet the villagers brightly. In the afternoons, she would find a bench in the square and doze off, only to wake and discover that someone had covered her with a blanket. At night, the villagers would slowly gather in the square and share stories of what they had hunted that day, the new toys they had made and the new games they had thought up. Seeing how happy they were, Eve could not help laughing with them.

"The people here are so kind," Eve thought.

In Eve's memory, Arcano was a place where joy could be made real. There were endless celebrations, food that never ran out and more toys than anyone could ever play with. No one remained a stranger for long. People with no blood ties came together, and even those who had only recently returned to the village soon formed bonds closer than family. Whenever someone had a problem, everyone in the village would put their heads together and do everything they could to help. Eve's greatest concern was probably deciding what to eat the next day. But all she had to do was say what she wanted, and it would be served the following day. No matter how the dishes changed, though, they all tasted much the same.

"Maybe my tongue just can't tell the difference," Eve thought.

And so one happy day followed another in Arcano, until the villagers brought Eve to Mother Bunny's grandest celebration: the Parade.

For Eve, who had never ventured beyond Arcano, the world on the other side of the mountain was full of wonders, and its share of hardship. Not physical pain, or even heartbreak. Her troubles came from having to learn the most basic rules of life beyond the mountain from scratch.

The first thing Eve learnt on her travels was that food and shopping cost money. It took her ages to convince a restaurant owner that she was not trying to scam him out of a free meal; she genuinely had not known any better. When Eve began to tear up, the owner sighed and abandoned the idea of turning her over to the Security Bureau. Instead, he put her to work washing dishes until she had paid off what she owed. Being tied to the restaurant meant putting her journey on hold, but that was still better than being locked up.

That was assuming, of course, that she actually washed the dishes. Eve soon began breaking plates and replicating clean replacements instead of washing the dirty ones, and every new mishap added more days to her stint. At that rate, the Security Bureau might have set her free sooner.

Her time at the restaurant also opened her eyes to the divide between Solarians and Charons. Some Solarians refused to eat in the same room as Charons and demanded that the owner throw every Charon out. Others took one look at Eve working there and turned away in disgust.

In the Empire, Solarians and Charons were not treated the same. That was one of the first lessons every Charon had to learn.

Painful as those lessons could be, they only made Eve more excited for the journey ahead. She loved waking each day to something new, something she could never have imagined back in Paradise.

Rumours of bizarre creations have begun circulating throughout Flagson.

Farmers have reported finding three-legged ducks in their pens. Children claim to have seen five-headed rabbit dolls in city alleyways. One traveller even swore that they had come across a brand-new house standing all alone in the wilderness. Every story has one thing in common: witnesses saw a young woman no one recognised near the strange creations. No one knows where she came from or where she went next. All they know is that wherever she appears, strange creations follow. Neither the girl nor her creations stay in one place for long. They disappear from one place only to turn up somewhere else, like hardy little bugs that somehow find their way into the most unlikely corners.

Some claim the Alchemy Academy is conducting yet another vile experiment it would rather keep secret. Others dismiss the rumours as silly stories invented by adults to stop children from wandering off. The truth is far simpler: a girl still learning to use her power of replication is behind it all. Whether the odd results come from flaws in the power itself, her own inexperience, or both is anyone's guess.

Even though everything Eve replicated came with flaws, she loved every one of her creations equally. To her, those flaws were what made each one unique. And as long as they remained imperfect, there was always a chance that the next copy might turn out a little better. Eve had long since made peace with her own flaws as well. She knew she was not very clever and was not good at many things. But whether it was a person or one of her creations, if it had no flaws at all, if it were already perfect in every way, would there be any room left for it to grow or change?

Eve no longer remembered how she made it home after her first Parade.

Whenever she closed her eyes, the terrified face of the villager taken away during the Parade flashed before her, crowding out every other thought. Beside her, Mother Bunny slept as peacefully as ever. Somehow, that only made it worse.

If the birds in the treetops could speak, they would surely have asked why Eve was lying wide awake, tossing and turning, before they had even begun to sing.

Exhausted, Eve opened her door. The villagers greeted her as warmly as ever. In the afternoon, she found her usual bench in the square and sat down. Her body was weary, and her eyes were dry and aching, but she did not dare close them. She feared the darkness behind her eyelids. She feared the terrified faces that surfaced within it. She feared that if she closed her eyes now, she might never open them again. At night, the villagers slowly gathered in the square and shared stories of what they had hunted that day, the new toys they had made and the new games they had thought up. Seeing how happy they were, Eve felt her stomach turn.

Again and again, the same thought returned: something was terribly wrong.

Eve sat down at the table. The food tasted just as it always did, yet she could barely force it down. How could everyone still sit there, smiling, eating and talking as though nothing had happened? Had they really forgotten how they had shouted at one another, blamed one another and turned against each other during last night's Parade? Had she only dreamed it? Was the Parade some awful joke they had played on her? Or...

"Is everyone else normal? Is there something wrong with me?" Eve wondered.

After Eve set out on her journey, she rarely saw Mors. Even so, she never forgot the friend who had helped her escape Paradise. Whenever she encountered Imperial soldiers, she would stop and ask whether they had heard any news of Mors. She had no idea which Legion Mors served in, or even what distinguished one Legion from another, but she was convinced that if she asked enough soldiers, sooner or later she would find someone who knew something.

Most of the soldiers Eve met, however, belonged to local Escort units stationed across the Empire and had little contact with the 13th Legion. Few had ever heard of Mors, so her questions usually led nowhere. Some found her interest deeply suspicious, wondering whether she was one of the Forsakens gathering military intelligence or perhaps a spy for the Elysian Church. Fortunately, Eve always managed to get away. The knack for reading people she had developed during the Parade helped her recognise when suspicion was turning into hostility, and bolt before anyone could lay hands on her.

Eve still had little news of Mors, but she was certain her friend was out there somewhere, saving others just as she had once saved her. Whenever she thought of that, the same quiet wish rose in her heart: that Mors would stay safe, and that one day they would meet again and trade stories about everything they had been through.

She pictured their reunion in countless ways, rehearsing over and over what she would say when she finally saw Mors again. But when that day eventually came, it was nothing like anything she had prepared for.

The Legions have established checkpoints along every road leading to Mount Arcano. Even military airships are required to avoid the airspace above it.

At first, people assumed the Legions intended to rebuild the village of Arcano. Yet the Aeolipile has sent neither construction materials nor heavy mine-clearing equipment to southern Flagson. For days, the troops have done little more than maintain their positions around Mount Arcano, leaving the public to wonder what operation is unfolding in the mountains.

Summer nights in the mountains were usually sweltering and alive with noise, but the vast walls of the Pond of Slumber shut both out. Within, the only sounds were the murmur of running water and the breathing of the people assembled there.

Eve stood in the great hall with every resident of Paradise, all eyes fixed on Mother Bunny and the shallow pool at her feet.

Tonight, they would execute the "player" who had lost the game during the Parade.

"Justice" Justus opened the cage, dragged out the condemned man and brought him to the edge of the pool.

"Begin," Mother Bunny said to the crowd with a smile.

"The Hierophant" Sanctus stepped forward and began to pray in a low voice.

"We sleep in the Pond..."

The other villagers joined him, repeating the words in unison.

"We sleep in the Pond..."

Then "The Emperor" Cesare placed a hand on the condemned man's shoulder and led him into the pool at Mother Bunny's feet.

"...and are reborn in Mother Bunny's gentle embrace."

Cesare's grip suddenly tightened. He forced the wretched young man beneath the water. The young man thrashed, his arms flailing above the surface. Eve remembered those hands. They belonged to a writer. They were meant to hold a pen.

"May we meet again in Paradise."

More villagers gathered around the pool. Some seized the young man by the wrists and ankles, while others pressed down on his head and torso. As one, they held him beneath the water.

"May we meet again in Paradise."

The chant climbed higher and higher, swelling into something almost hymn-like. The pool was only just deep enough to submerge the young man's face. However desperately he struggled, he could not raise it above the surface long enough to draw another breath.

"May we meet again in Paradise."

Then the splashing stopped. So did the young man's muffled cries. Still, the chanting continued, echoing through the hall.

Eve lowered her head, unable to watch. A few droplets flew through the gaps in the crowd and landed beside her feet, the last spray kicked up in his struggle to live, mingled with his tears. They trickled into the cracks between the cold floorstones and became part of Paradise forever.

Eve could no longer stop herself from trembling. In that moment, she understood why the Pond of Slumber had always filled her with instinctive dread and revulsion. As the voices around her continued to chant, "May we meet again in Paradise," Eve finally understood the truth.

There was nothing wrong with her.

It was Paradise that was wrong.

In the slums of one city, Eve came across Vena and a man she did not recognise. Vena had escaped Arcano, where she had once been known as "The Lovers".

At first, the pair answered Eve's knock warily. But the moment the man saw who was standing at the door, he let out a long sigh of relief.

Eve did not understand his reaction, but she came straight to the point. She apologised profusely and offered to replicate anything the two of them needed, whether money, food, clothing or tools. It was her small way of making amends to the people Ada had hurt.

To Eve's surprise, the only thing Vena asked was that Eve call her by her real name: Blair. She introduced the man beside her as her fiancé, Hansel, then caught herself.

"No, that's not right. He's not my fiancé any more. He's my husband now. He's a passionate playwright, and we're looking for new opportunities."

The sight of them so happy only made Eve feel worse. She blamed herself for not coming sooner and for having done so little to make things right. Blair seemed to understand without being told.

"Ada did some terrible things. You may look just like her, but I know you're not the same person. I've never hated you. If anything, I'm grateful to you."

"I still remember what you said at the end of the Parade: 'Even if I messed up, even if Mother Bunny kills me for it, at least I took one step towards a future I chose for myself. You're all so clever, but you're still standing exactly where she left you!'"

"Your words made me believe I could choose a future of my own. After leaving Mount Arcano, I finally found the strength to leave my old life behind for good."

Eve grew shy and flustered. She kept bowing and apologising, but Blair only smiled.

"Hansel and I used to be two of those 'clever' people you were talking about. When our parents tried to keep us apart, we thought we had no choice but to break up. Now I'm happier than I've ever been."

Blair leaned against Hansel.

"We don't need anything you offered us. We may not have much, but now we finally have each other."

Smiling, Blair reached out and gently lifted Eve's chin.

"So hold your head up, Eve. You don't owe me an apology. Without even realising it, you've already given me something far more precious than anything you could replicate."

During the special operation at Mount Arcano, the 13th Legion successfully recovered the Catalyst.

The Catalyst exhibited no signs of life upon recovery. This will not impede the Second Scion Program. In the hands of the Alchemy Academy, even a corpse can be put to use.

Eve's journey was about more than seeing the outside world. She had another goal: to find those who had suffered in "Paradise", or their surviving family members.

She had found only a few so far, but she refused to give up and kept searching. Along the way, she hoped to make up for as much of the harm Ada had done as she could.

An avid amateur archaeologist once stumbled across a strange notebook filled with indecipherable writing and bizarre drawings. After a thorough "professional" analysis, he arrived at a preliminary conclusion: it was either a record of some occult ritual or a treasure map left by a lost ancient civilisation, its contents written in a forgotten script.

Clutching the notebook excitedly, he was about to rush off to the Archaeological Society, the same society that had already turned him away several times, and announce his momentous discovery. But just outside his home, he ran into an anxious young woman.

"Yeewee! So this is where my missing diary ended up! Thank you for finding it, mister~"

"Diary?" Sweat beaded on the amateur archaeologist's brow as he adjusted his glasses and flipped open the title page. "How could markings imbued with such mysterious artistry possibly come from an ordinary diary?"

"Oh, you mean this? That's my name... It says 'Eve'. See?"

The man followed Eve's fingertip across the page. Somehow, among those twisted lines, he could just barely make out something resembling the letters "Eve".

"Er... then what about this?" Refusing to concede, he made one last stand.

"Yeewee, you mean this picture? That's the big train I drew! But it was going so fast that it whooshed away before I could finish."

The amateur archaeologist stared at the tangle of black lines beneath his finger and began to question everything he knew. After a long internal struggle, he was forced to accept the truth: the notebook was not a treasure map left by some lost civilisation after all. It was merely a girl's diary.

"My great discovery..." he muttered mournfully.

One night in Paradise, Eve secretly opened Ada's diary and discovered the truth about Paradise.

Before she began, she steeled herself. She knew she was prying into Paradise's darkest secrets, bracing herself to confront the horror hidden behind the name "Mother Bunny".

She thought she might fly into a rage, sink into despair, feel utterly lost or simply break down. Yet when she finished reading, none of those feelings came. There was only a quiet, lingering ache she could neither shake nor name.

Eve did not understand where that ache came from. Without knowing why, she lay down beside the sleeping Mother Bunny and gently wrapped her arms around her from behind.

Only much later did Eve understand what she had been feeling that night.

It was loneliness.

Every birthday Eve could remember unfolded in exactly the same way: she woke in Paradise, shared a cake with everyone, listened to their best wishes, made a birthday wish of her own, and that was all there was to it.

On her first birthday, Eve wished that her happy life in Paradise would last forever.

On her second, she wished that no one else in Paradise would die.

On her third, she wished for everything in Paradise to end.

None of her wishes had come true. Even so, Eve refused to give up the tradition. For that one brief moment, Mother Bunny could not choose for her. The wish was hers alone.

Whenever a new "resident" arrived in Paradise, Eve would wonder, "Could this be the one who makes my wish come true?"

In the storybooks, whenever a girl was in trouble, a kind fairy would appear beside her, wave a wand and grant her wish. Perhaps one would come for Eve someday too.

But every new arrival turned out to be an ordinary person just like her, the sort who would barely get a line or two in a story. Some lost themselves completely and became part of Arcano's "family". Others held fast to who they were, only to be caught and killed for resisting Mother Bunny or trying to escape Mount Arcano.

None of them could make Eve's wish come true.

Mors and her companion had reached the drawbridge and were racing out of Arcano. Eve tightened her grip on the lever, holding the way open as they fled.

For a moment, the world seemed to blur around her. Then her third birthday wish came back to her:

"I wish for everything in Paradise to end."

She had defied Mother Bunny. She might soon be executed for it. Eve gave a bitter smile. This wish, too, would go unfulfilled.

And yet her heart was suddenly full of something she could not name. It was neither regret that her wish would go unfulfilled nor fear of death. It was... happiness. A happiness so vast it almost overwhelmed her.

For the first time, Eve had made a choice of her own, and acted on it. That single act was what transformed her from "The High Priestess" Ada into Eve, the one and only Eve.