The Alpha and the Omega: Act III | Chapter 5
07 Sep 2018User1355
ACT III - HEROINECHAPTER 5
Maximilian’s death was sudden, his heart giving out as he slept in his private chambers in the city of Caerdinas. He was not a particularly well-loved Patriarch, but he was a respected one. For a week the clansfolk on a dozen systems mourned, his casket spending one day in each of them before being loaded into his personal ship and launched into the Void.
Sola Morgana emerged from her seclusion to oversee the rites. All who beheld her were struck by how swiftly her youthfulness had fled. She was the very picture of Cronish frailty, all cheekbones and drawn skin, pale and unenergetic. For several long years she had largely refused food and human touch, locked in her Sanctum, still desperate to commune with the Crone. Only her handmaids and her high priestesses were allowed personal access to the reclusive Matriarch. Even her very children, now adults, were estranged from her.
The New Cambrian sun was harsh on the old woman’s eyes, and it took all her energy just to deliver the opening lines of Maximilian’s final eulogy. Yet as she spoke, the old feelings of power began to return. Her eyes adjusted and beheld her surroundings. Caerdinas was now a metropolis, numerous hovercars and ships coming and going above her head. The crowd that had turned out to see her speak was a solid mass of humanity, carpeting several city blocks. It was more people than she’d ever seen in her life, and Caerdinas was by now only one of several prominent cities that dotted New Cambria.
Sola was an old hand at oratory, and even as she spoke the proper words, her mind retreated back into itself, marvelling at the changes that had occurred in her lifetime. New Cambria had grown from a sleepy earthlike world- a rare and overlooked jewel, especially in Pegasi- to a population of nearly five hundred million, due in large part to it now being the seat of a clannish empire- Sola’s empire, hers to rule alone. Even as a recluse she commanded reverence and record crowds alike, even among those whose skin bore not a single mark of clan belonging.
Her voice was aged yet clear, her frame weak but her resolve strong, the technical wonderment of the day paling in the depths of her wisdom. Sola spoke of ancient tradition and new beginning, of earthly concerns and divine guidance, and of the place of tattooed clansmen among the polished lifestyles of the Core. That they had persevered so split from the bulk of human society was proof, she intoned, proof of the gods’ favor. The great struggle of Pegasi was not the incipient corruption or cruelty, she argued, for those were traits common to all of humanity. No, she seethed- it was for Pegasi to fight a far more devious war, the weapons of such neither spaceships nor guns. The greatest threat to Pegasi was for it to lose its identity.
What had started as a eulogy was now a call to arms, as the clansmen before her now looked upon their new-come neighbors with suspicion. They were not of New Cambria, they realized, and had brought with them foreign words and foreign ways. Nor were they even of a proper Pegasi clan. No, they were nothing. Nobody. Like a common Bubbledweller, but without the excuse of ignorance.
Out of consideration for the Matriarch's presence and the solemnity of the day, there was no violence- neither in New Cambria nor any of Clan Morgana’s far-flung holdings. But tensions were unmistakably high. The doors had been flung open, allowing all manner of guests and their credits to enter freely and settle among the natives. Times had been good, but-
The reaction was subdued at first, but steadily rose in intensity. Harsh words led to harsh blows, and neither foreign property nor the persons of those who owned such were safe. Matriarchal decrees were issued, mandating that those not native-born pay ruinous fees just to reside within Ts’in Gu. Those with the marks of a clan were tolerated. Those with none were shunned.
The guests had become squatters, and the time had come to evict.
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