Nanori

“That one? They don’t watch the falls, they watch the counterweights on the water lifts,” a boatwright once grumbled. “Nanori is hungry, but not for fish.” It’s true. While others trade in the grand plaza or fish the rushing river, Nanori is always elsewhere, sketching the erosion on the stone stairs or timing the gears of the city’s mechanisms. Everyone sees a wizened explorer with an azure visor, obsessed with how their ancient home was built, a historian preserving the past. They are mistaken. Nanori isn’t creating an archive. They are creating a blueprint, meticulously documenting the present for a future they have seen, a time when everything will have to be built again from memory.