woman

Anisa

There is a woman. The woman’s name is Anisa Day.

Most would recognize her by her black-black-blue hair, her thin limbs, her sullen face granting 15 more years than she’d accumulated. Anisa would fail to recognize her reflection, as she had never bothered to memorize it. She’d more often be recognized by the unadorned silver crown on her head. The people called her ‘princess’; she called herself ‘scion’. It was less elegant, but more accurate.

She floated 2cm off the ground. This conveniently agnostified shoe choice, but risked muscle atrophy. She was born weak; gravity magic had prevented her premature death.

𝄒She ruled the city of Felkner. The city had functioned without her and would, she believed, continue to function after she left. She’d simply consolidated law codification and enforcement, without ego. Executions sharply rose. The city was made safer.

She wasn’t concerned about assassination attempts. Reversing her advancements would require a lot more than killing her, they’d need to disassemble her infrastructure: the Felkner Guard, the mayor’s council, her branch of the Royal Bank of Brune. Perhaps she thought too highly of the intelligence of the remaining unexecuted would-be criminals, that they would realize killing her wouldn’t do anything.

She was trusted for her dispassion. She would gather data – ‘statistics’. She would measure the temperament of her citizens, their literacy, their employment status. She would make recommendations to her guard, to the mayor, to the bank, to the guilds: where to stake out for criminals, where a school should be built, how much interest to charge for loans, who should be considered for membership. She wasn’t always listened to, but she was listened to often enough, and her judgement led to an agreeable outcome often enough.

She was not happy. She was not sad. She was. She went for walks through the graveyard to break from her work, and on these walks she simply ceased to be.

There were some problems she could not solve on her own. Her clockwork needed another cog. And so,

Vast fields of corn and wheat.

Green-green, yellow-green. Blue. Green-green. Red-green. Black. Yellow-green. Blue.

“Why do you laugh, lady?” asked her driver.

“I was laughing? I didn’t realize I was…”