The Alpha and the Omega: Act III | Chapter 6
10 Sep 2018User1355
ACT III - HEROINECHAPTER 6
Decades passed, and the Clan Morgana continued to gouge its own entrails, its Matriarch ever seeking to purify those who called her far-flung domain home. The Clan was at its height, yet roiled by internal tensions. Without the moderating hand of one more practical-minded and tolerant, Morgana society became a rigid, stagnant thing. Business suf ered, and before long even the clan’s great wealth began to decline. Nor was there any hope of a redeeming alliance. Sola’s red moon was long departed, and even an honorary warrior mating was out of the question for her. The Matriarch ruled alone.
Life continued as it had for years, with the wheel of clan politics ever turning. Cadfael and Auron were warrior-mated, both in the old fashion and both of them producing of spring in the proper manner. For these reasons Sola was pleased with her younger two children, the topic of Arcturus a taboo one. There had been hope, once, that grandchildren might soothe the old woman’s soul, but these hopes were soon dashed. No sooner did Sola Morgana’s grandchildren enter the world than new intrigues were hatched, the woman already corresponding with other clan nobility as to advantageous pairings. The Matriarch was long accustomed to power, and her designs for the future reached into the decades. She was brilliant in her own way, a wizened old spider at the center of her web, ever weaving plots within plots.
Yet she lacked the common touch, and in her fervor to eliminate the non-clanners among her holdings alienated the very people upon whom her clan’s power was built. She had shipped away millions from her domain, it was true- but at eye-watering expense in terms of wealth and public support. Though a clansman’s loyalty to their kin was strong, not all were as willing to sever ties to their non-marked neighbors as Sola would have liked. Grumblings turned into discontent, and discontent turned into open revolt, people taking to the streets of every settlement under Morgana control.
It was at that moment that her clannish enemies struck. Fleets of ships appeared above her most valued holdings, opening fire on all that resisted. Without the watchful eye of a Madoc or a Maximilian, the stringent controls over the Quirium supply that had guaranteed the clan’s supremacy were loosened, and soon other clans began to raid Gal-Cop shipments, secretly building their own stockpiles of the precious fuel. Sola’s image had long been transitioning from one of awe and admiration to one of dourness and tyranny. Her priestesshood was despised by all save herself, and her gleaming city of Dinas Wrach seen as a symbol of shameless decadence.
Sola emerged from her seclusion, donning the armor and cape of the Matriarch, with the Wheels of the Crone upon her shoulder plates. She was an inspiration to those still loyal to her, yet as a commander of warriors she was out of practice by decades. Hers was the experience of a raiding party captain. The tactics and mentality of a fleet commander were altogether new to her.
Yet the old fire returned to her eyes, the woman’s mind as sharp in her twilight years as it had been in her youth. She engaged on all fronts. She employed tactics as honorable or treacherous as the situation called for. She attacked politically, and she attacked with brute force. For a time it seemed that her very presence would turn the tide of the war, that the great alliance of clans that had long lived in the shadow of the Morgana empire would turn upon itself and collapse. A few less stalwart clans did, bribed or intimidated into neutrality, but the greater bulk of the opposition remained united. Slowly, the war turned against the children of the Crone.
There was another matter, one far more dire. The war swiftly depleted the great stocks of Quirium on New Cambria, and a significant portion of the Morgana fleet was diverted toward acquiring more. Yet their harvests were less and less successful. There was something happening in the Bubble, something happening to the once-great Gal-Cop organization. None could have known at the time, but the formula and ability to manufacture new supplies of Quirium had been lost. All of humanity was now consuming the remaining supplies of such like wild dogs feasting upon a carcass.
Thus did the Clan Morgana face extinction from two directions: the first, from the volcano of resentment and hatred that nearly a century of dominance had fomented, and the second being the swift disappearance of the very lifeblood of its wealth.
Yet Sola did not lose faith, leading her personal fleet to victory after victory even as her clan lost asset after asset, system after system. Soon her holdings were only that of New Cambria itself, with the remnants of her personal fleet in high orbit above it to fight a final, heroic stand. She split the force into three groups, her in command of one and Cadfael and Auron- loyal to the end- commanding the other two.
Sola Morgana would never relent, and Sola Morgana would never break. She looked to her sides, the vessels of her clan without number, knowing that her children stood alongside her. The enemy was coming, she knew, coming to finish them all in an orgy of greed and envy and treachery.
The Wheel had turned upon itself- and Sola Morgana, the greatest Matriarch to ever rule a clan of Pegasi, would fall like a titan back upon the same soil from which she had risen.
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