The Missing

No one can be certain what languages the Missing spoke, but it can be assumed they spoke the languages of their Houses and the geographic areas they came from.

Many of the Missing are believed to have been Werecats, but some were also Sauropodans and some were Chiropterans as well. There may have been others.

Just because the Missing all seem to have been "literomancers of significance," as you put it, doesn't mean they were. Before I took this throne, who would have noticed if I had disappeared except maybe my mother and kids -- especially if all records of my name and face had disappeared as well? I think about that a lot. How vain, our pretensions to legacy. In a thousand years, if we're remembered at all, we'll be faceless names in a history text, and the language will have changed so much that even if any of our writing remains -- which odds do not favour -- no one will be able to read it.

— Queen Sable Aradia, waxing philosophical to a journalist, New Year's Eve 2022

  There is considerable debate about whether the Missing were all literomancers; and if they were, was it only "literomancers of note" who vanished, or were those the only ones who could be documented?   Sociologists and statisticians believe it is highly unlikely that such a global event would affect only a handful of people, but there is no way to tell. Every possible record of the Missing is simply absent, from birth certificates to creative works, to photos, media, and social media.   The only reason anyone knows that the Missing existed is that some of them have left ripples. For example, the Warren's extensive security footage shows the Lapin royal family repeatedly talking to thin air. The Lapin side of the conversation, however, is fully preserved, except for the names and identifying details of the Missing person they were addressing.   Yet, there remains a persistent belief among a significant minority of the general public that only Literomancers were affected. Sociologists theorize that this belief is born of fear and protectionism; nobody wants to believe that something that was so important to their lives could just simply be erased in a heartbeat.

Discussion is underway to create some kind of memorial for the Missing, but opinions are divided about where it should be located, and what would be appropriate. Should there be one memorial, or many? Should it include the banners of Houses that almost certainly had Missing, or would that not be inclusive to other Houses, who may have lost people they cannot document? Do the mourners follow the customs of mourning the dead, since their deaths cannot in any way be confirmed? Is it death if they were simply wiped from existence? House Leaders have been discussing it privately and publicly, but the general consensus is that it is more necessary to focus on the disruption to those who remain right now, particularly the abandoned Protectorates and The Castaways.

The public as a whole has become even more divided in its opinion of literomancers. Some blame them for this unsettling event and its global impact, and they are calling for greater restrictions on literomancers, or for the Great Houses to be overthrown altogether. Some are even calling for their destruction.  

You know what you're supposed to do with witches, don't you? God tells us right in the Bible.

— Kelly Whyte, Captain of the Human Freedom Militia

  Others have become even more devoted to the literomantic Houses and their Tome Knight protectors, perhaps more than ever acutely aware of how small humanity is in the mysterious universe, even for people who can weave reality with their words.