I feel like I'm being kicked out of my parents' house. Haha! I can imagine them saying, "You now have wings to fly, we've given you roots to come home to."
Cold sweats dripped down from her face. Dread and disappointment were plastered on her face despite her best efforts to make light of her situation.
Nobody knows me here in Silvershroud.
Nobody knows me here in Azarette.
Hah!
Nobody knows me here in the whole wide world of Elioudra.
Heck! I don't even know myself!
Damn it!
Just what in the world is my name?
What the hell is my name?
How can I be a wandering soul one second and an adult woman the next?
Hah! Haha! AHAHAHAHAHA!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
She kept laughing maniacally. She laughed and laughed until she ran out of breath. Her knees felt so weak that she ended up kneeling on the floor in the middle of her cabin.
NOBODY KNOWS ME! NOT EVEN ME!
She yelled, fists balled tight, slamming them—and her head—against the floor.
I didn't even know my name while I was still in my mother's womb. And I was probably too senile to remember my name when I lived as someone's grandfather.
Now, this. I existed here. Without a name.
Sure, I have a conveniently placed cabin like continuing from someone else's save point. Aside from the books available here, like a guide on how to exist after blipping to existence.
There is no name assigned to me.
ARGH!!! This is so frustrating!
Do I try naming myself impulsively, like a cute name? I haven't seen my face, I might be ugly!
Do I pretend to be some mystical person like the name of that Anima Amara?
What if that's a taboo name here?
She pulled the sides of her hair, trying to reason out her predicament.
Do I try and be a pretentious poet? Give meaning to every character and form a name out of it? How do I do this? How do mothers do it?
Wow. That's a huge responsibility…
And what the hell is with this ID Card? What does it mean when it says "Royal hierarchy?!"
Are people here in Azarette born of nobility? What the heck is that?!
Ah! She remembered one of the books on her shelf.
The Velvet Scrolls: Bloodlines of the Six Nations - A record of noble family trees.
I really should read these books. Why do I have to skip reading the manual in making my third life lived to the fullest? I already had the convenient placement despite starting midlife.
She scrunched her hair, then pulled it apart. She released an exasperated sigh, lied down on the floor, and stared at the ceiling.
She had succumbed to surrender… dejected and quiet…
She stared at the flickering flame inside the candlelit lantern.
A quiet moment passed.
I can't go on like this.
She got up. Fixed her posture, knelt on the floor, and formed a perfect Seiza. She placed her palms together against her chest, seemingly like a prayer, closed her eyes, and said,
"Thank you to all external celestial beings for giving me a convenient restart at a third life. I am grateful and in no way, shape, or form unappreciative. Pardon me for being confused, I am only human. I will cherish this third life of mine greatly, as well as this cabin so conveniently placed here from where I formed into existence."
She paused. Almost waiting for someone to reply. She flipped the coin of her perspective.
I cannot be deterred so easily. I am alive. That is more than enough for me to continue despite any obstacles I face head-on.
With a new found determination and purpose, she took the books from her shelves. Learning the royal hierarchies and nobles around Azarette. Maybe she might learn a thing or two about nobles from other nations as well. She is already somewhat familiar with the nations of Ugarta and Kaelshare, albeit briefly.
The book titled Echoes of Elioudra has a world map; all she needs to do is learn where she is and the surrounding area.
She also needs to find the meaning of "Anima Amara" from Orthan's letter.
Flipping through Echoes of Elioudra, a particular story caught her eye. The title was so obvious she couldn't believe she skipped reading it first and combed through the book as if it were a picture book.
From the Storybook:
⟡~—✦—~⟡༓𖦹❖𖦹༓⟡~ The Echoes of Elioudra ~⟡༓𖦹❖𖦹༓⟡~—✦~⟡
The Beginning was a Sigh
Before time began, there was only the Weeping God.
A primordial being drowning in the emptiness of existence. His tears held no meaning, for there was nothing to witness them. Nothing to answer.
Then, one day, he sighed.
That sigh, heavy with loneliness, trembling with the weight of infinite solitude, became a world.
Unintended. Unwanted.
A place shaped by divine regret, where the stars blink slowly, as if straining to recall a forgotten promise.
They call it Elioudra.
The Weeping God, for the first time, felt something new: longing.
Not just for existence, but for belonging.
For something—someone—to mirror his power, to ease the hollow ache of being eternal.
So he dreamed of light.
The Goddess of Light emerged, radiant and hopeful.
She poured her brilliance into him, but the Weeping God only wept harder.
Now, he yearned not just for company, but for understanding.
Frustrated, he conjured Wisdom, hoping knowledge would fill the void. But wisdom brought questions, and questions brought War.
The Goddess of Wisdom and the God of War clashed, yet in their battles, they found harmony—a love as fierce as it was contradictory.
The Weeping God watched, and for the first time, he felt a new sting: Envy.
He tried to voice his sorrow, but his grief was too vast, too shapeless.
So he willed into being the God of Voice, whose song could have given form to his pain—but the sound shattered something deep within creation.
The Voice God fell silent, and with him, the Weeping God's last hope of being understood.
Elioudra, born of a sigh, became a testament to divine failure.
A world built not on purpose, but on the echoes of a god who never learned how not to weep.
And the stars? They still blink, slow and solemn, remembering the moment existence became lonely.
Elioudra was meant to be forgotten. But the children of both man and god, left abandoned in the fold of space, found it. They built their stories into its soil — some with kindness, others with fury.
The world listened.
Every time someone cried in Elioudra, the ground grew colder. Every time someone forgave, a flower bloomed out of season.
In the heart of Elioudra stands a tree that no one planted. It grows upside-down, roots in the sky, branches under the earth.
They say when it finally blooms, time will split — and someone will choose who gets to stay and who must forget.
⟡~—✦—~⟡༓𖦹❖𖦹༓⟡~ The Beginning Was a Sigh ~⟡༓𖦹❖𖦹༓⟡—✦—~⟡
With eyes wide open, she couldn't believe what she just read.
Wow! I absolutely love it. This story, the Weeping God, a world born out of a sigh, is incredibly poetic!
That's so hauntingly beautiful.
Tears welled up and fell from her eyes slowly. She felt her chest tightening. She held and tugged her chemise.
I feel you, weeping god. Look at me, I'm a weeping mess.
Nameless and alone.
Unlike you, I can't just make other gods exist to accompany me in my third life. I have to find them.
But before I do, I need to find myself.
She took a piece of paper and a pen and proceeded to write possible names for her. She understood how much of a responsibility it is to name a person.
Emi (恵美) – "Blessed beauty."
She stared at it for a moment.
"Beautiful? What if I'm not?" She drew a sharp line through it.
Next, she wrote:
Hina (陽菜) – "Sun and greens."
It sounded gentle. Kind. Maybe too kind. She crossed that one out, too.
"How about something dignified... like Rin (凛)?" she mumbled aloud. But even that name sat strangely on her tongue.
"No... no, it just doesn't sound right..."
She sighed, staring at the page—each name a maybe, a version of herself that didn't quite fit.
She needed a name with purpose—one that mirrored who she was, and who she had been. And the one she's becoming…
Sena (世名) – "Name of the World"
Yukari (縁) – "Fate," "Bond," or "Connection"
Sena Yukari = "The one named by the world, bound by fate."
Sena understood the idea that even her unexpected existence wasn't random—she's tied to this land, this life, these gods… and its secrets.
"Presumptuous as it seems, maybe. Just maybe… "
"This world… What I had gone through so far made it obvious that I was the one named by Elioudra. "
"I was bound by fate. I feel tied to this Weeping God. "
"Or maybe… To the goddess of Azarette?"
"I don't know yet… "
"But my name… Sena Yukari… It sounds right."
After finding it in her heart the name that best fit her, she found a new resolve.
And that was the day she chose to carry the weight of her own name. The day she took on the responsibility of uncovering Azarette's secret…
The reason behind her existence.
Will knowing the truth, be the only way she can truly live her third life to the fullest?
She has yet to find out…