Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes.
Note
Irene is the city you see when you lean out from the edge of the plateau at the hour when the lights come on: in the clear air its pink can be made out below, where the windows are thicker, where it thins out into dim alleys, where it gathers the shadows of gardens, where it raises towers with signal fires. From the plateau people guess at what goes on there. If you arrived there, it would be a different city.
In the scene you stand on the rim of the rock, and Irene spreads out below you in the dusk haze: pink and white houses, dark gardens, towers with fires, windows lighting up one by one.
Come closer with the zoom: Irene dissolves into the haze before you reach it. Draw back, and another grows, different. Touch the city: a fire flares on the tallest tower and the windows answer.
Quotations are brief excerpts for the purpose of commentary. The full text is available in published editions. The Cities of Ottavia, Valdrada & the soundtrack are inspired by "Monument Valley" from ustwo games.