You have been here before, in a dream.
Not the dream of Tellus. That was a world of steel and ferrocrete, of crimson carpets and crimson banners and the awesome power of a united humanity crammed into a single ball. Once humanity's empire had spread as far and wide as the Endless Azure Skies before being crushed into a single point, all of its joys and cruelties stacked cheek to jowl until they all blended together. You would remember the dream of Tellus, but this dream slips through your fingers. Where have you seen it before...?
The room is small, built for no more than twenty seated. The floor is wood, poorly laid - each step creaks, and walking is almost musical, no matter how softly your feet fall. The walls are paper, beautifully painted, but not fully blocking out the fire and noise of the war outside. Three quarters across the room there is an open channel, filled with ever-burning fires, forming a veil to separate you from the Empress. It is not there for her protection - it is there for yours, for the Empress that sits upon the Throne of Regret is a ghost.
Her hair is long and lank, rotting through its elaborate bindings. Her fingers are withered into claws. Her eyes are sunken into a beautiful face, shining with the metal pins where it has been stitched together. Her robe is the palest white. The morticians of Ceron have done the best they could, but this is still the face of death - the twisted projection of a soul trapped in the Underworld.
Above you sits the Dead God.
"Re... da... na..." the words come from breathless lips. "I knew this burden was not too heavy for you."
Dolce!
"Hm, hm, hm~" Artemis hums with every step across the floor. She brings out the music of it; the nightingale melody of footsteps. She twirls on one toe, then steps down hard. There is joy here, in the sounds footsteps make in this haunted place. Even you, trained for stealthy service, cannot avoid the music of these floorboards - but you knew before you entered that the mistress of this house has no fear of assassins.
Then this is not a weapon in a game of murder. This is a toy. A thing of happiness, amidst the fire and darkness. As you step across the floor something of that mysterious dream comes into your head: the memories of the Starsong, and what it means to turn battle into music.
A precariously permitted toy. Were a single one of those great urns of coals to be kicked over this entire building and its paper walls would go up in a conflagration. Indeed, it feels like this entire place is intended to be flammable. Easy to destroy. An impulse that exists in tension with this beat of playful indulgence, so...
"It'll be easier for her to leave one day, if there's nothing here to return to," said Artemis. "It'll be easier to ensure that there is nothing to return to if the smallest spark might burn it all."
Dyssia!
You know the glyph-crest of Dekal Lawgiver, Knight of the Publica. One of the Publica's legendary warriors, liberator of a dozen worlds and author of some of the most insightful legal codes in the Order's library. A renowned champion of the Grav-Rail and eternal enemy of the Endless Azure Skies, she has not been seen for a hundred years after resolving to launch a strike on Capitas itself. Of all the places her legend might have taken her, serving in the Imperial Court was always more likely than dead and unremembered.
She is unchained. Proud. Strong. But she has given all of her Publica's red for the ghostly white of her corpse empress.
"You look as tired of this as I am," she said in a voice like tarnished copper. "Come, sit with me, young Knight. Tell me of the worlds outside this eternal war. Remind me that there is peace out there, somewhere."
Not the dream of Tellus. That was a world of steel and ferrocrete, of crimson carpets and crimson banners and the awesome power of a united humanity crammed into a single ball. Once humanity's empire had spread as far and wide as the Endless Azure Skies before being crushed into a single point, all of its joys and cruelties stacked cheek to jowl until they all blended together. You would remember the dream of Tellus, but this dream slips through your fingers. Where have you seen it before...?
The room is small, built for no more than twenty seated. The floor is wood, poorly laid - each step creaks, and walking is almost musical, no matter how softly your feet fall. The walls are paper, beautifully painted, but not fully blocking out the fire and noise of the war outside. Three quarters across the room there is an open channel, filled with ever-burning fires, forming a veil to separate you from the Empress. It is not there for her protection - it is there for yours, for the Empress that sits upon the Throne of Regret is a ghost.
Her hair is long and lank, rotting through its elaborate bindings. Her fingers are withered into claws. Her eyes are sunken into a beautiful face, shining with the metal pins where it has been stitched together. Her robe is the palest white. The morticians of Ceron have done the best they could, but this is still the face of death - the twisted projection of a soul trapped in the Underworld.
Above you sits the Dead God.
"Re... da... na..." the words come from breathless lips. "I knew this burden was not too heavy for you."
Dolce!
"Hm, hm, hm~" Artemis hums with every step across the floor. She brings out the music of it; the nightingale melody of footsteps. She twirls on one toe, then steps down hard. There is joy here, in the sounds footsteps make in this haunted place. Even you, trained for stealthy service, cannot avoid the music of these floorboards - but you knew before you entered that the mistress of this house has no fear of assassins.
Then this is not a weapon in a game of murder. This is a toy. A thing of happiness, amidst the fire and darkness. As you step across the floor something of that mysterious dream comes into your head: the memories of the Starsong, and what it means to turn battle into music.
A precariously permitted toy. Were a single one of those great urns of coals to be kicked over this entire building and its paper walls would go up in a conflagration. Indeed, it feels like this entire place is intended to be flammable. Easy to destroy. An impulse that exists in tension with this beat of playful indulgence, so...
"It'll be easier for her to leave one day, if there's nothing here to return to," said Artemis. "It'll be easier to ensure that there is nothing to return to if the smallest spark might burn it all."
Dyssia!
You know the glyph-crest of Dekal Lawgiver, Knight of the Publica. One of the Publica's legendary warriors, liberator of a dozen worlds and author of some of the most insightful legal codes in the Order's library. A renowned champion of the Grav-Rail and eternal enemy of the Endless Azure Skies, she has not been seen for a hundred years after resolving to launch a strike on Capitas itself. Of all the places her legend might have taken her, serving in the Imperial Court was always more likely than dead and unremembered.
She is unchained. Proud. Strong. But she has given all of her Publica's red for the ghostly white of her corpse empress.
"You look as tired of this as I am," she said in a voice like tarnished copper. "Come, sit with me, young Knight. Tell me of the worlds outside this eternal war. Remind me that there is peace out there, somewhere."