Ami walked to the edge of the forest, thoughtful. 

The light was gloomy, but inside, it seemed, a luminary of hope began to rise. An annoyed kantinian waved it away. 

“Please roll back into the swamp. And don't show your face again. How many times have you done this suddenly, when it seemed that I was going to succeed? How many times have I had this vain hope”... 

... However, the news was interesting... 

The Temples of Prime, Omill, Kantine and Zeth exchanged service people. 

“To improve networking and simplify interactions,” is written in the general message. Well... A very vague formulation, what can one say. 

But you don't give a damn if you've been chosen to represent the Kantine Department. 

And we have to go to Omill! Not bad! To put it mildly... 

And it’s absolutely awesome when you are ready to go literally anywhere, just not to stay here. 

What does Ami remember about Omill from her last business trip? 

It's a pretty quiet and nice place, there's not much lawlessness and the Temple staff is small. They are mainly involved in logistics, checking and accounting for cargo passing through town and patrolling the local woods to see if anyone has got lost or into trouble... 

Something like that. Sounds a bit boring. But truly anything is more fun than the usual local land disputes and accounting for food shipments in caravans. 

... Exchange of service people, hmm. 

Some of these poor losers will end up here. Although for many, this is not such a big problem. There is even such a concept as the 'simple life', which people from all over the Mainland come to Kantine in search of. 

To live freely, to build one's own big house in the middle of vast fields. To work for oneself on one's own plot of land, to be dependent on no one, to grow one's own food, to eat heartily, to admire nature at sunset, to sleep well after a hard light. To communicate with ordinary people, simple, straightforward hard workers, nothing extra... 

At least that's what it looked like in theory. 

Ami's life did not resemble this bookish idyll at all. She avoided construction sites, harvesting and socialising. Maybe that's why life here has never been “easy” for her. 

Perhaps for some people, it was a good idea to calm down after an eventful life. But for the young, active Ami who was born here and had already had enough of this  “simplicity" and predictable regularity, this was the real “complexity“. 

In addition to external conflicts, it was torn apart by numerous internal ones. Excessive “peace” also does terrible things to people. Especially those who are not yet ready for it. Those who have not yet had enough of all the worries that distract those who are not yet ready to calm down and watch the chthonic monsters that live there begin to emerge from the depths of their souls... 

Probably, Ami’s “replacement”, who will arrive from Omill, will be somewhat similar to Ami herself, who loves courier work, does not disdain operational work and knows not only her native language. 

However, it is not difficult to learn the most popular languages: Kantinian, Omillian, Zetish and Primish. They are grammarly so close to each other that it is unclear how learning languages ​​could even become a problem for someone. 

Only if this one doesn’t want to. Or a group of people, not finding other, more constructive points of contact, decides to form a “commune of the chosen ones” on this basis.

So… Primish language is the closest to Kantinian. The language of the persecuted witches has not deviated much from the original. The differences were only in a number of words - their pronunciation and use. And they are just as big as in other languages, and not as big as the Kantinians wanted to show with all their appearances, demonstrating that they do not understand the speech of strangers at all. 

“Can’t these clayheads speak normally! Why distort our words so stupidly? Sounds like a moron.” - was the aunt's vivid indignation. 

At a young age, as was her sad habit, the addicted Amelia was unable to choose one language and had begun to study them all at once. The textbooks were hard to find, but nothing is impossible if you set your mind to it. You can find it even in the shed of your house.

So, with youthful enthusiasm, Amelia set about studying everything she could get her hands on, and soon began to confuse languages, unconsciously switching from one to the other, causing another barrage of ridicule. 

Even not mentioning this, Ami was already considered quite strange. 

But the purpose was to make some efforts to end up speaking only Kantinian. She wanted to see the whole Mainland.

It is true that her pronunciation of non-native languages left much to be desired, as she taught them from old, half-decayed books that she was only able to find in the city Archives thanks to her perseverance. 

And… with a huge help of notes from mother found in the barn. Which she was generally forbidden to approach. But once again her persistence paid off. 

Then… another difficulty arose. Well, where without it. There was nowhere and no one to practise on.

For obvious reasons, aliens rarely appeared in Kantine, which was unfriendly to neighbouring witch cities. So Amelia had to grow up, enter the service of the Kantine Department of the Order, and give herself the opportunity to continue her own education. She acted as a courier between the towns, accompanying the trade caravans, and asking them for some assistance. 

She was in the service of all kinds of business trips. It was the only one of her initiatives that her own department was enthusiastic about. 

But still, it was beyond their comprehension. How could anyone want to tear themselves away from their native fields, drag themselves through hunger and lack of comfort to gnats knows where? Then they waste precious time on such nonsense as studying those idiotic, distorted dialects of those filthy “for-the-next-eternity-not-to-see-their-faces” witches. There were few. To be more precise, there were practically no such people willing. 

And now… Well. Theoretically. Sort of… Kinda…  

For Ami, there is the opportunity to go for half a big cycle with joy, envy and curiosity to have a close look at the life of such interesting and attractive “filthy witches” and to improve her language skills in Omill. 

The vagabond always carried a few dried beans and a few trinkets from her travels to remind her that her way of life wasn't the only way. There are other ways. More interesting, more joyful, more meaningful. 

Somewhere, even if it is hard to find now, there is freedom and fresh new knowledge. And the main thing is not to stop jumping. 

One light you can reach it by pumping your muscles. Or you can grow into it. Or you can accept failure, but first do your best.

“Yes. It doesn't hurt to dream… It hurts a lot to fall back from a cloud. Nothing will work out again. It’s obvious. How many times has it happened that everything is going to get better, and... the bag is full of holes and gnat swamps. And no improvement of the situation at all... Our fate is still a sadistic humorist”. 

Dreaming is good in this case.

Especially when life has squeezed you so tight that you can't even move, and there's nothing left but to dream. And if you really want to dream... 

Then why not talk about Prime right away. 

... Prime. 

Ami closed her eyes. 

The chic, charming city seemed like the ideal place to start a new life.

There is always a whiff of something that will provide her with a meaningful, promising and interesting existence and a worthy future. 

The prospects are vast, like the unforgettable view from the cliff on which the city was built, of the endless Ocean and the equally endless and beautiful bottomless sky above. All this gave an exhilarating sense of freedom and unlimited possibilities in this incredible corner of the Continent. It is said that in the cold season, when there’s no clouds and no fog. From this height of a Mountain Prime you could see the Continent from the Wastelands almost all the way to Zeth, and even draw a map of it... Many who were able to catch this rare moment probably did. 

To see the rest, one had to descend from these dizzy heights and go into the Northern Wastes beyond the high hills to Youlle or the Elven Forest. Then walk to Zeth and look over Mount Omill, go through the Great Forest. 

But even if you don’t go far, Prime is a place where you can get a lot of information about anything in the Mainland without leaving the city. Practically, we can say that this is such an awesome enormous Archive. 

It is not established with certainty who was more hungry for knowledge—the Prime academic witches or Ami, but the first ones, unlike her, had exactly what everyone needed. Information, which they painstakingly gathered from all possible sources and poured into the Prime Central Archive in deliciously wide streams and the Royal and University Libraries. Knowledge here was truly power and wealth. Prime was not only a place to obtain information of a scientific, technical and magical nature, but also a large Market for trading information from all over the Mainland. 

This was done by large, almost monarchical organisations like the VST Agency, as well as influential scientists and royal families, small offices and private intelligence agencies. Everyone who could was trying to find something, to find out something, to make a discovery, to profit from something... Of course, this was not without its intrigues and rivalries among the competitors. 

Primers are obsessed with knowledge and information, and as it turned out, it was a valuable resource, thanks to which the city lived and prospered. 

... Even for Amelia, who had no practical use for it, whose ever-hungry, inquisitive mind was in desperate need of new stimulation and nourishment, this approach was close at hand. Prime is the perfect place for people like her. 

A city of ageless students. Ami walked for a long time between the buildings of the educational institutions, mingling with the crowds of students, anxiously hurrying somewhere, imagining that she was also hurrying somewhere, alone. For something meaningful and interesting... What can you get now if you go into one of those carved towers, get a stack of tablets full of tasty knowledge and disappear from this world, swept away by an exciting stream of new, tasty information. Like a speck of dust in the rays of light passing through those beautiful, infinitely varied, multicoloured windows of which there were so many in this City... 

…The Kantinian sighed dreamily. 

This is life! Damn it. Somewhere... Where she is not. 

Well… Let’s return to some positive and pleasant thoughts, if there are any. 

About food. Food for a stomach, not just food for thoughts. Food is fine, you can’t go wrong with it.

Prime includes chic restaurants and refectories. Local magical fruit dishes, famous for strange and unusual combinations, refined and simple, traditional and regularly appearing innovative, which were an eternal reason to snort for those who preferred simple and satisfying vegetable dishes from the Kantine. If Ami had enough dried herbs and grains to trade, and enough time to try everything... she would probably go mad with happiness, because there would be no more pipe dreams in her life.

Eating and wandering around the city had always been her favourite pastimes. 

Here, the pleasure was multiplied tenfold. An incredibly bizarre architecture, Om houses that could hardly be mistaken for dwellings, a fairy-tale city that could already boast of magnificent views beyondeven on the approaches to the city, with a huge number of coloured stripes of fabric and ribbons stretching across the streets, fluorescent plants of different colours and glowing witch lanterns that looked absolutely fantastic at sunset, attacking the visual receptors with a rainbow of coloured pebbles on the paved paths. Incredibly beautiful stained-glass windows and shining glaze covering the buildings complete the picture perfectly. 

An enchanting, hypnotic sight that for a long time took away the will and the desire to live... somewhere else. 

The Om houses themselves and their interiors were the main source of pride for those who owned them. Everyone tried to build something fundamentally new and different from their neighbours. As a result, the shapes varied - from buildings that looked more like strange vegetables or local sweets, to transparent structures, looked like the crystals of the Zeth Mountains, they all attracted the eye for a long time. Witches could take some liberties with reality.

All this was already amazing, even if one had never seen one of the bright and abundant local festivals with all kinds of entertainment and delicacies... 

Ami sighed enviously. 

... Prime also meant for her five unsuccessful attempts to settle there, the complete collapse of all hopes for the aforementioned bright future and a dull resignation to the dark present... 

“I'm going to sit here, in this beautiful place near my personal swamp, and I'm not going anywhere. I've had enough of this...” 

Ami reached her only true love in these places - the soothing green edge. 

... When she was a teenager, her parents threatened her to be taken to the edge of the forest and given to the elves, if she continued to be naughty. When she grew up, she did not stop being naughty. And also began to come to the Forest herself, hoping that the elves would take her. 

Of course, no miracle happened. Again. 

But Ami found a wonderful place for herself, which helped her a lot to come to her senses and calm down. 

Thoughtfully, Kantinian sat down on the log, slided down to a comfortable half-lying position, and exhaled, staring at the sky and the treetops... 

... This place consoled her every time she came here with confused feelings, it was the only being that understood her, giving her, if not rest and inspiration, then mind saving indifference to the world.

...which helped her not to go mad after each successive failure... 

She had already internally agreed to this swamp, a “pit” with slippery slopes, having decided in some kind of humble detachment that if she sits here until the end of her time, then so be it. 

Without wasting any more strength and nerves, she will do it with maximum indifference. 

She will not struggle to climb and slide down again. 

... Everything is pointless. Everything is meaningless... 

Everything in this life. 

And Ami gave up her long-held idea of running away from here, and let herself be drawn into a boring daily routine in the form of her relatives, into plans to renovate their shared house. They lived with their whole large, unfriendly family, according to the bad old Kantine tradition. 

And... That's it. Sometimes it’s just simple like that and there’s nothing else. 

…And it was definitely the Bottom…

Now Amelia knew what it looked like. And could examine its slippery, viscous base in detail. Feel with her cheek the wet, viscous cold of despair slowly seeping into her core...