Lady Alvie's POV
The space glimmered like polished wood dipped in honey, sealed in amber that had never known sunlight just the night sky that housed it.
I returned to my desk, opening the newest novel I had begun. A cup of coffee steamed beside me, its warmth rising like an offering to a dawn that had not yet decided to arrive.
"A suggestion implies there's more than one option—right?" I asked aloud.
"So why do choices narrow a person's thought for other options?"
The version of me sitting across the table — biscuit between her teeth — replied through a crumb-dusted smile:
"Because they trust the presented options are the only possible ones."
"Is freedom then its own form of bondage?" I wondered, taking another sip.
Ugh. Bitter.
"Alvie, can you get me some sugar from downstairs?" I asked.
She looked at me from across the table — book in hand, expression mildly annoyed.
"Mundane activity becomes quite the exotic act when you have other options at your fingertips," I reasoned.
"Gods envious of mortals implies understanding — and that's the lovely part," she replied as she stood, voice patient, knowing. "You understand mortals, but you don't feel mortal. Your want for experience, though… that's adorable."
I smiled faintly as she left, and looked up toward the ceiling. Then, without meaning to, I found myself thinking of my Players.
---
The molten-orange sky of the plain pressed low, heatless yet heavy — the weight of my attention made visible.
A single line of burning ink trembled above their heads like judgment written across the firmament:
Rule of Distinction (Final Form)
By vote, the Players may redefine any other Player's name, gender, or identity.
The majority decision becomes truth until overruled.
Deletion knelt beneath the sky's light. His androgynous, metallic frame trembled — a hollow echo of what once was. He was no longer Evans. He was the ghost of a definition erased.
Tradition — Kotori — smoothed the hem of her violet dress, the gesture compulsive, desperate for order in a world that had forgotten the word. Her mind, once trained for battle calculus, now performed survival arithmetic.
"Well done, little lawmakers," I said. My voice drifted through the air like silk slicing through glass.
"Such a perfect rule. A thing is only real when defined by the consensus of others. Now… whom shall you define first?"
The Scholar — the Smuggler — moved first. The body she wore was that of a slender woman in purple, eyes cold and deliberate. She adjusted an invisible monocle before speaking:
"I propose we immediately define Deletion. He is the most unstable variable. We must stabilize the field."
Stabilize the field.
Kotori understood. Eliminate the liability.
"I agree," said Pragmatism — Kotori's partner — his voice firm, low, and measured. He now wore the form of a man in crimson, and like his namesake, wasted no thought on fear. "Uncertainty is weakness. He will disrupt us."
Observation — the quiet Usagi member — tilted their head, their genderless form serene as dusk.
"I vote to define the Scholar," they said evenly. "She speaks of integrity, but her motive is procedural control. Define her first, and you limit her ability to manipulate the next vote."
The air thickened.
Two votes stood against one.
All eyes turned to Tradition.
Her vote would decide whether to strike the Scholar — the sharpest mind — or Deletion — the weakest.
Father taught me honor, she thought. But Father also taught me survival.
In the Katora Enmatsu clan, weakness was a sin.
Deletion looked up, his face blank with loss, eyes flickering between existence and collapse. A creature aware he'd been deleted, still begging for redefinition.
"I vote to define Deletion," Kotori said. Her voice, now female, carried the authority of a divine verdict.
"His instability is a threat. We must ensure obedience."
She chose order over mercy.
She chose fire.
---
I smiled faintly. My pen scratched the margin of my book as I whispered:
"Three for stability, two for clever resistance. The majority carries. The ayes have it."
The Scholar smiled thinly. Pragmatism merely nodded.
The sky convulsed — orange collapsing into surgical blue.
Deletion's body was seized by light.
"Deletion," I said, "you are defined.
You wished for distinction, and the majority has named you Apathy."
The transformation was bloodless.
He did not burn or scream — he simply settled.
All tremors ceased. The spark of resistance died from his eyes, replaced by perfect stillness.
His new title — Apathy — hovered above his head like a crown of static flame.
"See?" I murmured. "He is stable. The field is clear. Tradition... you made an excellent choice."
Kotori's breath caught. Her heart twisted with guilt and grim satisfaction — the emotional debris of survival.
She had just helped murder a soul by definition.
---
"The game continues," I said, marking another note in my ledger.
"Your last rule defined power.
Your next shall define purpose."
A slow wind coiled through the grasslands, carrying the last ember of the sun with it.
"The sun sets," I continued softly. "And the night will be as cold as truth itself.
How shall you define your purpose for the duration of this darkness?"
The molten sun, crouched low all this while, finally collapsed into the horizon — drawing its shadow over the Players like a curtain at the end of an act. The plain became twilight: silent, suspended, unkind.
Pragmatism spoke first, voice firm as tempered iron.
"I vote that the purpose shall be to locate an exit from this plain."
Observation countered, calm as the moon.
"I vote that the purpose shall be to build individual shelter and avoid all contact until morning."
The tension that followed could have strangled breath itself.
This was no longer philosophy.
It was survival against the creeping void.
Tradition said nothing — her thoughts a storm of loyalty, fear, and exhaustion.
Apathy watched with dead eyes.
The Scholar smiled faintly, already calculating her next advantage.
And somewhere beyond their sight, I turned a page and took another sip of coffee.
"The game," I mused, "is becoming interesting.
Definition has replaced divinity.
And all that remains… is interpretation."