This

This is the song of songs, a story of stories. These are the chapters, or what little of them what has yet come to light.

I could say that this is the middle, that the story starts here, in the middle, not because the middle is more important or more interesting than the beginning or end, but simply because it is the only piece left that is not missing. It is the only piece that has been found, and the only piece that is safe to share. The rest is holes.

Except I'm not sure that's true.

Fragments

• /Survivors song - Coraline Henderson (after coming to Arling Tor), Vardaman and Ariel meetup, and the pieces of the cliché
• /Reapers song - Coraline Henderson (after quest failure), Rahah as Zhorishna (after death, 'mystery')
• /Deathgods song - Rahah as Eapherod (finding and restoring power), Sherandris on holiday, hostels
• /Wayfarers song - Everyone (journey into the shades, figure out what they're dealing with, grand end)
• /The song of Arling Tor

• /Hunters song - Rahah Okieshu (before the dream, after Coraline went missing), Lilya Coren (general unrelated)
• /Lost ones song - Kyrule and Eapherod (the first time)

• Sovereigns game - little Rahah
• Precipice - the first hunters

• Trinity - mouseforged wackiness
• Sarathi de - game/reality mixup
• Ellis Company - mercenaries
• Hahkellis - the Game
• Equilibrium - terrorism
• Black Book - I am told this is not technically a fanfic because I am the writer writing to myself about myself writing my own story.

Holes is also related, as are various dreams.

Some hunt light. Others shadow. All parties meet at Midnight.

Compendium of Fragments: The Book of Dreams

But let's try that again. Suppose this is all in the book.

And the book? Call it what you will: This, the Book of Dreams, A Very Useful Book, the Compendium of Fragments, The World. It may not even be a book, showing up instead as words on a wall, pictures in the air, an app, a game, a dream, a world to fall into. All these little words tied together by invisible threads that twist about and interweave the unrelated fragments, and where does it leave the reader, the player, or perhaps the played? Where, indeed?

From this book, worlds can be written, and rewritten. All that is written and told is here, and anything that is found can be changed, if only one knows how. For those who understand the true nature of words, there is no limit. No limit at all to what can be secreted away and lost forever... and no limit to what can then be later found.

This isn't what it's all about, of course. It's not all about anything. Things just sort of happen, one after another, except when they happen another after the one, but that only happens sometimes. All of it only happens sometimes, really. The sometimes are simply the times we happen to care about.

Titles?

• A Very Useful Book
• An Assorted Compilation of Events That May Or May Not Be Significant
• Library of Arah
• Compendium of Fragments
• Book of Time
• Encyclopaedia of Mirrors
• Objects in Space
• Sarathi Codex
• Sarathi de
• This
• The Book of Dreams
• The Book of the Dead
• The Codex
• The Index
• The Madness
• The Manual
• The World
• Things That Are