Pictures of the Future

     When I'm not studying for any of the dozens of tests I take every year, I like to walk down to the café outside my aunt's house and draw pictures of what I think the future cities of Estellia will look like. I don't imagine a world of technology, we've had that world for decades now, and people are tired of it. I don't really picture a world of nature either. We like computers, cars, and houses too much for that. What I imagine are cities built of transparent, yet solid, buildings, stretching all the way up to the sky. But every street is lined with fruit trees, food is cheap and plentiful, and nobody wants for anything. This is personal, but I want a world where everyone lives close together in cities, so we can't ignore the visions of others, and outside is reserved for the bounty of nature. No one will need to worry about not being able to see blue skies and green trees, and everyone who needs clean air will have access to it. 

    We're a long way from it, of course, but I don't see why it shouldn't be possible.

Destiny

    Every sorcerer is certain that destiny smiles upon them. It's tradition. Even if you're not an adventurer at heart, you're still the person who will revolutionize the world, or failing that the person who will bring up the next generation of greatness. 

   At some point though, you have to grow out of that mindset. I was ahead of the curve. I realized when I was ten, a little over seven years ago, that it was mathematically impossible for all of us to be greats. My aunt, however, refused to let me stop trying. 

   It's not that I don't want to be amazing. It's that it's so hard and frustrating that I don't feel like it's worth it most of the time. Just because I can do math doesn't mean I want to do it for the rest of my life. 

    I'd honestly rather do a paperwork job that allowed me enough time to draw pictures. I like drawing, and I sometimes wish I'd been born low enough for it not be a shameful thing to do. I'm not very imaginative, I don't picture things the way some of my friends do, but I like to draw pictures of the buildings at college, or the landscapes that I see in the Infinite. I think that if I could just draw the things other people have built for the rest of my life, I'd die happy. 

Mathematics

    "How would you alter this world to accommodate humans?"

    Why would you even ask that question? It may not be totally true that humans never sleep, but it is true that you don't need to design a Dreamworld around them. When it comes to humans, they either change around your rules or you change around theirs. You don't need to keep them in mind. 

   It's the last question on this test though, and it's an essay question too. I guess that's what you get when you sign up for a first year mathematics course at college. So few people want to take it that the entry exams focus on weeding out the hopelessly stupid instead of isolating the truly great. At least, that's what I've been told.

   Hedging my bets, I write down "Humans rarely enter shadow cities, and I suspect the Avatar of the Shadow god will have put in a request for there to be as few humans as possible, so I'll be building my city to keep humans from being able to enter, and if they do enter they won't want to stay."

   That's what I'll tell my aunt. I make it last a few paragraphs, just to be safe. 

   I'm not even sure why I agreed to try math. I'm good at it, but that's because I'm smarter than almost everyone else. I'm not exaggerating, that's what the IQ test I took when I was five said. My aunt spent my entire life pushing me not to waste my intelligence doing the things all my friends wanted to do. I was meant to study, to aim high, to do more than everybody else just because I could do more than everybody else. I confess, I think she's being stupid. Most of my teachers don't put any stock into IQ tests, and the only reason I keep making it to the top of my class is because I know she'll be angry if I don't manage it. It sounds ridiculous, but I wish I were genuinely stupid sometimes.

    My father also studied math. He was, I'm told, considered incredibly intelligent when he was my age. But then he fell in love with my mother, got her pregnant, didn't marry her, and they both got banished to live with monsters. I don't know what happened to either of them, my Aunt won't tell me. Since I turn sixteen next week, I'm going to find out, especially if she tells me I shouldn't. She's been wrong about everything else in my life, after all. 

   I'm almost home. I should tell her I don't want to do Mathematics. It's important, since it's the foundation of every Dreamworld, but it just isn't what I want to do. I don't have a backup plan, though. All I do, when she isn't watching, is draw and paint things. She doesn't see a future in that, especially not for the daughter of the man who was once the most powerful Sorcerer in Estellia. 

   So my future is being plotted out on a line. I can see where it's going, and it isn't where I want to end up. How do people live like this, knowing they can't have something they want just because someone else told them no?

   Humans live like this, and they do all right. I'm a sorcerer, I'll be fine. 

The Genius Sorcerer

     If you want to master magic, you must understand the science behind it. That's the first thing you learn in school, and it's the guiding law behind every sorcerer's life.

     My father was a Sorcerer, was because he cheated on his wife with his serving maid. For their crime, both of them were banished to the monster lands. For his crime, I had to grow up knowing neither my mother nor my father, and was instead raised by my Aunt. 

   I never doubted the fact that I'd be a sorcerer someday. I knew not to repeat my father's mistake. I always knew I'd become more powerful than the man who'd chased someone he couldn't have thinking he'd never be caught.

   My doubts were what all children not raised by their parents feel. Worry, fear, a sense that maybe they didn't like you for a reason. I knew it was stupid of course. I used it as practice for not letting my emotions get the better of me. 

   I still wish my father cared though. 

   Father, I want you to know; I am a genius. Someday, you and your wife will know that fact, and you will regret ignoring me and my mother for so long. Someday you will see that your daughter, Nina Corvi, is the best sorcerer alive.