A Guide to Meraki

Lore

Perhaps things could've been different.

Perhaps his choices could've changed the future.

But he lacked the one thing he needed most;

Love.

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Once upon a long, long time ago (and I do mean hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of trillions of years) when the known universe was nonexistent, there was a place. 

Another universe, another version of the Physical Realm connected to ours through a portal (what your science may call a black hole) that had yet to form. When this portal did open, when this "black hole" formed, it created the phenomena that most creatures call the Big Bang. But back to this origin universe (the one that the black hole eventually sucked the matter out of to create your adorable, little, young world). In this universe, there was intelligent life. And where there is intelligent life, there are dreams. 

And - as you may already know - where there are dreams, there are Meraki. 

The Realm of Dreams began small. Very, very small, barely large enough to house it's first inhabitant. This being - this entity that called itself Tacenda - was the first Meraki. 

It was lonely at first. Unlike every other Meraki in recorded history (save for one other individual we will get to later), Tacenda had no partner. 

He was not the strongest, nor the smartest, nor the biggest Meraki - although he was far more powerful than some - and the one thing that set him apart from his peers, the one thing he lacked that everyone else had? A partner. 

A being of like or different mind that would serve as a companion to him as him to them, a creature to stem his loneliness and boost his magical prowess, and he had none. He was trapped between the thin, twisting, squiggly line that drew the difference between Ferly and Selcouth. He belonged everywhere and nowhere. And this made Tacenda bitter. 

He watched as the realm he lived in expanded, as more Meraki (these with partners to love and cherish) came into existence and began to help shape their universe with a magic Tacenda did not have. Friendship. 

At first, Tacenda tried to be kind. He tried to be happy for the other Meraki, with their nice clean lines of Selcouth and Ferlies and their smiling faces and cheery existences. He even made a few feeble attempts to get a partner - first by spending time with other Meraki and hoping they would turn to his side, or wishing to the universe to make for him a being to spend the rest of eternity with, alone on a green hillside overlooking the others. 

But the longer he watched them from afar, the longer his insides turned rotten, and the longer his eyes dripped with frozen inky-black tears of hatred until he drowned in them. 

Finally the first Meraki was pushed to a point where he could no longer bend. Something snapped. Inky tears became obsidian daggers. Hatred and anger bubbled out of him and death followed in his wake. If I can't be happy, was his reasoning, then no one can. 

Tacenda was, of course, stopped and defeated. That is what always happens in stories - the bad guy dies and the good guys celebrate - and a story is all that Meraki has ever been. The remaining Selcouth and Ferlies took their last reserves of magic and sealed Tacenda in a bubble, a blinding white and blue and pink and yellow magical prison that prevented him from escaping. Then the last Meraki fell, and their names became lost to time. 

The bubble, still too bright to be looked at, remains where it was placed, hovering over a sickly grey-brown tree that will occasionally shoot tendrils of violent black lightning into a dark, cloudy sky. This tree marks the center of the Nightmares, a place where (most) bad dreams are sucked into whenever you wake up or use one of those gimmicky "dream catchers". 

And in the bubble of light, Tacenda still lies, his eyes firmly closed and his two tails twitching violently as if in a dream (as if Meraki were able to dream). Ink(?) pools around his talons, staining his underbelly black. Sometimes, a dark purple-black aura pulses from his closed eyes, and - were you actually able to witness it - for the first time since seeing this dragonlike creature trapped in an eternal, forced, restless sleep, you may believe that perhaps Tacenda's eyes weren't closed because he was dreaming, but because he was trying to keep something in. 

But the Nightmares, the heart of this world of dreams, are far from where most of the normal Meraki live. As a matter-of-fact, the main settlement, a place called Cockaigne, is built on the far outskirts of Meraki, where most of it's inhabitants will never have to catch a whiff of the Nightmares for as long as they live (which happens to be for quite a while). 

Now, you may be wondering, But what about the Meraki who died? As Meraki happen to do, quite a few more have popped into existence since then, seen the carnage dealt by Tacenda, and put the rest of the puzzle pieces together. Meraki can only die when they are killed, whether it be through poison, slashing, or a whole manner of other wondrously violent things. This means that they can live for millions, even billions of years under the right conditions. 

But back to the present day. Since humans have arisen, along with their brains stuffed full of dragons and dingoes and dangers of what hides in the dark, the Nightmares have been growing. As someone once said, "The human race has built-in self-hatred." I haven't the faintest idea who said such an... interesting set of words, but it seems that they were unfortunately correct. 

But in any case, most Meraki (whether they be Ferly or Selcouth) live in relative harmony. There's always that one individual who decides to go on a  killing spree and is locked up in the Nightmares, or whatever other problems one might face, but typically the towns of Cockaigne, Sonder, Exulansis, and plenty of other charming little places built in this shifting mass of fantasies, ideas, hopes, and - most importantly - dreams are safe, sunny, and warm. 

And thus the Realm of Dreams remains, with it's unpleasant past and uncertain future; it's cheery, naïve inhabitants; and it's whimsical, ever-changing landscape, in a state of relative peace. That is, until the next adventure comes along...