Strawberry's Descent

The naming question came up almost as an afterthought, days later, in the middle of an otherwise entirely practical planning session with Petrov, Gorthruk, and, increasingly, now that the city concept had solidified, a rotating handful of representatives from every race with a stake in the project.

"It needs a name," Petrov said, tapping the growing architectural plan spread across the table. "Something on every map, every rail schedule, every piece of signage we're about to mass-produce across five different kingdoms' worth of stations. Can't keep calling it 'the crossing station' forever."

"What's actually there, though," Gorthruk mused, stroking his beard. "Under the Wastelands, I mean. Before any of this. Any settlement, any ruin, any claim at all?"

The answer, once they actually checked: old maps, ancient survey records, even a few grudging consultations with Elven historians who apparently kept meticulous records of exactly this sort of thing, came back resoundingly, almost eerily empty.

"Nothing," the Elven historian said, sounding faintly put out by having to admit it. "No settlement has ever stood there. No battle was fought on that exact ground during the First Heavenly-Demonic War, despite it sitting near the war's broader theater. No kingdom has ever claimed it, contested it, or recorded a single event occurring there in the entirety of our written history."

"...Huh." Arista turned that over, genuinely struck by it. "So it's not just neutral because we're declaring it neutral. It's neutral because there's nothing to be neutral about. No history to erase, no claim to override, no prior owner to offend."

"A blank slate," Petrov said. "Structurally, historically, politically. All at once."

Gorthruk considered that for a long moment, then said, almost idly, "There's an old phrase for that. Human scholars used it, back when I did some trading with their universities. Tabula rasa. The blank tablet. Mind before experience writes anything onto it."

Arista sat with the phrase for a moment, turning it over, feeling the specific rightness of it settle into place the way the best names always seemed to, not chosen so much as recognized.

"...Tabula Rasa," she repeated slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's exactly it. Nobody's history. Everybody's future."

[City Officially Registered: Tabula Rasa][Governing Body: Independent Council — Founding]

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Beelzebub sat in his throne room in his true form, vast and shadowed, wreathed in the dense, shifting swarm that had always simply been him, when Steve landed delicately on one massive, indistinct claw.

The fly buzzed, long and pointed.

"...What do you mean, I am scary?" Beelzebub said, genuinely wounded.

Steve buzzed again, unrelenting.

"I am not frightening. I am dignified."

A second fly joined, then a third, their combined buzzing taking on the specific, layered quality of a chorus that had clearly rehearsed this particular grievance before.

"...You have been discussing this amongst yourselves," Beelzebub said slowly, something between betrayal and suspicion creeping into his massive, half-formed voice. "Behind my back."

The flies did not deny it.

"Give me one example," he said, folding several limbs he did not typically bother making visible. "One instance of anyone finding me remotely alarming."

Steve buzzed at length.

"...The dwarven trade envoy fainted," Beelzebub repeated slowly, disbelieving. "That was six months ago. He'd been drinking."

More buzzing, considerably longer this time.

"...The elven delegation left early three separate times."

Gerald added something.

"The human merchant who sold me tea now sends an assistant instead of coming himself."

Beelzebub sat with the accumulating evidence, mounting, specific, and — he was forced to admit, privately, reluctantly — difficult to argue against.

"...That is a considerable amount of documented incident," he said finally.

The swarm pulsed in what could only be described as vindication.

"I simply assumed people were busy," he admitted, quieter now. "I did not consider that I might be the actual variable."

A long silence followed, the flies waiting with the specific patience of a council that already knew which way this would end.

"...Fine," Beelzebub said finally, mildly irritated, mostly at himself. "I will tone it down."

The swarm around him shifted, thinned, gathered inward — not vanishing, simply consolidating into something smaller, more defined, until a considerably more human shape stood where the shadowed mass had been, dark hair settling, robes forming from what had been formless shadow a moment before.

He studied his own hands, turning them over, genuinely unfamiliar with how small they now looked.

"...This feels ridiculous," he said, voice entirely different now, no longer layered with the weight of the swarm beneath it.

Steve landed on his newly formed shoulder, buzzing something short and satisfied.

"...Yes, yes, I heard you. You're pleased with yourselves." He glanced sideways at the fly, dry. "I want it on record that I am doing this under considerable protest."

The record, as far as any fly present was concerned, would show nothing of the sort.

He stood, testing the unfamiliar proportions of his own restrained form, and found, somewhat to his own surprise, that it didn't feel diminished so much as simply... quieter. Less effort spent holding a shape that had, apparently, been quietly terrifying half the continent for reasons he'd never once bothered to properly examine.

"...I suppose I should test this properly," he said, already composing his next move.

Steve buzzed, encouraging.

"Don't get smug about it," Beelzebub said, though there was no real heat in it. "You're still not allowed to name a fly after me. I looked into it. I have standards."

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