Beige World, Dark Heart

Vaelith moved through the teeming city streets like a ghost, his form shifting just enough to pass unseen, though not unremarked. Everything around him was a study in monotony; shades of beige layered upon one another like the fabric of an unending, colorless dream. The sky was a pale cream above buildings of varying depths of beige; even the people, their coats and scarves, their faces and eyes, seemed carved from the same muted palette.

Not that he knew anything different. Vaelith, like all others of his kinds, had long ago foregone traversing the dangerous spaces between realms. Not only had the practice been deemed dangerous, but the ones who did return always returned with dangerous ideas; concepts that would disrupt the carefully curated economy and societal balance generations had built. Evolved. Enlightened. Why change? It could only get worse.

Years before Vaelith had been born, in order to prevent the collapse of a perfect society, an enforcement agency had been created. The Regulators. Living beings were far too chaotic to remain within the confines of a well planned out and executed way of life. Each person was assigned, based on a weighted calculation that used aptitude, personality, and societal need, the latter carrying the most weight. Individuals were given a modicum of freedom, of course. Each had the agency to select or reject a lover, with consent. Each could choose one of three food options to consume each day. Three weeks of every year, a person was permitted to cease their productivity and remain in their domicile to relax, unless of course their work was critical to the prevention of community disrepair.

When he had been old enough, Vaelith had relished in the knowledge of his assignment to the Regulators. In the early days it had been about adventure. Chasing down noncompliant individuals, uncovering their schemes, their missteps, all of it filled him with a joy he had not expected.

And then, as he aged, Vaelith discovered that the adventure began to lose its appeal. Suddenly the draw to the work of the Regulator was less about adventure and investigation, and more about enforcement. After seeing the damage that the first unchecked dangerous idea had on his world, after seeing innocents hurt, progress erased, Vaelith found himself driven into his career with a more intense, more aggressive need to enforce order.

And then, once the sheen of enforcement tarnished, Vaelith realized what it was that he really wanted.

Power.

Yes, he had power as a Regulator, but not the kind of power he craved. The regulators had the power to ensure compliance with the norm. What Vaelith craved was the power to decide the norm. He didn't want great upheaval, but he did want to live in the knowledge that the reason things were the way they were was because he decided it to be so.

There were those with a greater power, authority much closer to Vaelith's ambition, but he had not been chosen for that position, for that life. Occasionally, in the enactment of his duties, Vaelith would encounter one of those on high. He would watch as they went through the motions of their lives, unappreciative of the position they held, of the power they wielded. If he were one of them, had he been chosen, he would have reveled in it, celebrated what he was, who he was, what he could do, with each rising of the beige sun.

Sounds pressed in from all sides, voices like dull murmurs, the grind of machinery, the constant tread of feet on pavement, but each noise felt distant, as though cushioned by unseen layers. His time in the deep ether, his meeting with Elorae, had left him partially enveloped in the dream substance. There was no place in the world where you fully escaped the stuff, but out away from people, out in the dim places, it became thicker, reality became thinner. Some enjoyed the fleeting nature of their world, but Vaelith had always found it unsettling. It would take hours for the ether to dissipate around him, for him to feel more normal, and while it had been his choice to meet out in the forest, away from watching eyes, he hated the effect it had left on him. Vaelith pulled the collar of his dark coat higher, the fabric blending into his surroundings like a shadow on sand.

His reflection, caught in the reflection of a shop window, was wrong. The ether brought to the surface one's intimate history, and Vaelith, normally cagey and aloof, would have preferred to keep his affairs private. His face flickered constantly with other features, ripples of borrowed essence that the ether had burned into his flesh. A flash of long, light beige hair, her hair, Elorae's hair, framed his face. His eyes shifted, too, a shade too sharp, belonging not to him but to her sister. Legs, breasts, ears, Vaelith's body was awash in imagery flashing in and out. His lip curled in a bitter smile as he looked away. Power, he reminded himself, always left traces.

It was only natural to have memories, echoes of former lovers attach themselves to you. And Vaelith, an attractive and powerful man, had enjoyed his share of lovers. Elorae had not, in any sense of the word, been unique. They had met, they had connected, Vaelith had extended an offer of intimacy, which she had accepted. Perhaps she had thought it more than something physical. He could, after, all, be quite convincing as he courted. But nonetheless, when he bored of her, Vaelith removed her from his life. Besides, she had introduced him to new possibilities he longed to explore—so many women, so many lovers. Each one flashing over his reflection, reminding him of his successes, of his conquests.

The ether served another purpose for Vaelith. In this city center, amid a river of people, he was at once invisible and vividly present. With his exploits on display as they were, people would see him but wouldn’t recall him, instead being distracted by the flashing imagery that belonged to those not present. He brushed past a woman whose expression flickered with vague unease as she was unable to focus on his true features. She turned as if sensing something unnatural, but the moment passed, swallowed by the relentless tide of beige-clad bodies. While the substance was unpleasant for Vaelith, sometimes it was needed.

Turning down a narrower alley where the press of humanity thinned, Vaelith sought refuge in shadows pooling beneath flickering lamplight. Even the glow was pale, casting no warmth, only a sickly ochre that stretched his reflection into something more monstrous.

"Vaelith," a voice called, smooth as silk and deliberate as the clicking heels that accompanied it. A woman emerged from the gloom, her beige trench coat a darker whisper of the same endless hue. Her eyes, hidden behind mirrored lenses, glinted as she regarded him.

"You’ve been hard to find," she said.

"I wasn’t hiding," Vaelith replied, his tone cutting through the murk.

"No? Then perhaps I wasn’t looking hard enough."

His eyes narrowed. Games within games. This one—a minor Regulator with ambitions larger than her reach—was here by design. She was someone’s messenger, a pawn sent to remind him that even in shadows, he was watched.

"What do you want?" His voice was low, a blade wrapped in silk.

"It's not what I want," she said, her smile as sharp as broken glass. "He wants to see you."

Vaelith’s breath hitched, his pulse quickening. His mind turned to Elorae and the delicate noose he had woven around her existence. It was far too soon for him to move, for her to be ready. He hadn't even finished formulating the plan that she would execute. Cracks had already begun to form; all could already be lost.

Then again, this could be the opening he needed to discover what his next steps should entail.

"Tell him," he said, his voice taking on a saccharin tone, "that I am, as always, a humble servant. Three days and I will return. I am currently finalizing..."

"Two," the woman cut him off, "He was clear with his expectations. Two days, at first light. He doesn't have time to wait on your pet projects. Two days or never again," she tilted her head, amusement flickering behind her unreadable glasses, "And I don't need to remind you of what that would mean."

She turned, her coat swirling around her legs as she moved out of the alley and vanished into the crowd, her steps lost in the murmur of a city that neither cared nor noticed.

Vaelith lingered in the alley, his fingers flexing as though to seize the threads that were being woven around him into the fabric of his life. Things were moving quickly, and soon his ambitions could be realized. Soon the power that he craved could be his. With Elorae's abilities and his drive, soon the world would know the name of Vaelith and cower.

"The game’s not over yet," he whispered to the shadows.