The sovran that rests in dire times

  (In the clasp of time, right after the chapter afore)

  "This cant be real this canno-. I can't I can't I ca..." Starlove exclaims as she slides down a titanic pile of bones and slime.

  All she can grab are loose bones who would, in turn, join her in the journey to fall beyond. Occasionally her momentum slows nearly to a stop, movement caused only by her breathing. In the small moments of rest she takes off pieces of her plate armor yet nothing slows the descent. Starlove frantically thinks, and for her freshly beaten/addled mind all she can conjure are the nearest, dearest brightest memories. Not always good but always the most precious. Sure she's far from the bottom, it still seems reasonable to climb back out, however right now she just needs a moment to think. The short rest takes Starlove to one of those near and dear memories.

  ---

  Almost two decades ago Starlove, a young child denizen at the time who went by the name Stell, lived in the city under the moon, Nocturnia. Denizens, a being which was made on Dorrad Den, are coveted in the city under the moon. Going without a home for all of her childhood was almost a blessing, the city itself was a home enough. Stell knew all the streets and waterways, secret areas and scenic spots, the city felt like it was made with orphan denizens in mind.

  On the night of this memory, Stell was sitting in the lower garden admiring flowers. An entire field of flowers had been planted this Reflection and near the center was Stell's favorite, Snap Dragons in full bloom. Stell loved to admire their faces, some looked silly with a smile and others looked like they were trying to scare you off from the pack. Looking down with her childish wonder Stell smiled, what a sight to behold it was, an entire spot in the field full of those beautiful flowers and like magic they were all looking back up at her. Soon the entire field of flowers was looking up at Stell and then, up she went. Like a leaf falling off the face of the Den, up she went with a bundle of Snap Dragons in her hand.

  That night Stell was taken out of the garden by the city's Gyn Queen the Enchantress. The leadership of their capital city was all very confusing to her young mind but she knew from conversations with older denizens that the government was Gyneocratic who's queen was appointed by the Goddess April. In earnest she had NO idea what a Queen did or why they were only allowed to have one of them. She wanted so badly to have a chance to be a Queen herself and had no illusions that a denizen from the bottom of Nocturnia would EVER become Queen, especially if they only ever aloud one at a time. Those dreams seemed to drift these days, she could feel that thing they say happens to denizens, growing up.

  And here she was now, called out by the unmistakable hand of the moon goddess. Quite literally taken, almost in an outer sense, she slipped up and over the city. For the last eight moons she had been a normal child but on that night, she was removed fully from the reality of it all. Forced to watch her body from a distance, joined by Chaos, she sat still in a stagnant flood of anxiety. Up Stell went to the moon above the city and it was only until she made it to the moon that Chaos and his anxiety left her.

  There was so much on the throne of the moon, her youthful imagination wide open to the idea of something so fantastic yet the doubt that it might be a dream lingered. It broke her mind in strange ways. On one hand she was in awe, there WAS a throne up there on the still Moon; one the other hand she did not like being so far away from home. The memories of what occurred on the Moon were always mixed up in puzzling ways, there was a lot that she learned in a few short moons, a fracturing experience, but she did retain one thing through the moons. To hold everyone close, never let one escape your love, an odd lesson but an important one for a ruler of so many. Oh and how magnificent it was up there, basking in the enchanting glow, Her life forever changed on that night.

  And again Chaos' anxiety.

  "Oh. right." Starlove said, lucid, returning to that dark place.

  "This will be hilarious." Chaos says in a grotesque satisfied voice.

  Starlove awakes from her imagining to return to the titanic pile of horrors.

  ---

  With no ability to measure how long it had been, Starlove can only guess and to her it feels like moons have passed in this place. She gives it a pitiful effort nonetheless, never having healed from the old pilgrim's wrath, never able to sleep, slowly closing in on the bottom of the pile. She can see it now, a pit of nothing. Sure this is where she would die, knowing the Dorrad snake probably planned to have it happen right at the end of their moon long agreement. Starlove, no longer the woman she'd been when this began, was coming to terms with her fate. Using the last of her energy to remember a few good things in her life. Determined to give herself that gift.

  In this moment, with these thoughts, it didn't matter that she was slipping down the hill. Certainly there was something left in there, some good memory that hasn't been ran through so thoroughly that it doesn't even function anymore; and then, the memory of smelly freshly roasted chicken in a bar.

  ---

  Denizens are born on Dorrad Den. They are crafted, whether by rune or womb, and for that reason they are looked down on by some. It was always a strange term in Stell's opinion 'Those Who Dream' meaning beings who were summoned by the Den. You could never prove to be a dreamer but you could easily be outed as a Denizen. No one actually knew what makes a Dreamer, they are called that because Denizens do all the dreaming in their sleep while Dreamers do no sleeping (by necessity.) Really it made sense once you understood but even some of the brightest minds she met never learnt the difference. Explaining it was always a once-a-week bit of trouble that seemed to land her in one or another argument.

  So when Stell walked into the room where Old Pilgrim was having a drink with Stell's Hierophant and heard Kren stutter on the word 'Denizen' as he made eye contact with her, it wasn't *really* upsetting. She *understood* no matter how many Denizens the old coot knew he would always hold his tongue when he remembered a human Denizen could manifest as a kid. He probably thought of himself, they all had to wonder right? Where DO they come from? They always know left from right, how to talk and tie their shoes right from the start so they had to be taught somewhere; just not... here.

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  "I uh... Well I mean to say it's not always their fault." the Old Pilgrim finished with a swig of his pint.

  "She's got better hand writing than you and you have to be an embarrassing amount of moons older than her mate! HA!" Hierophant said.

  Stell wasn't aloud to know Hierophant's name, strictly business it was between them. His job was, well he was her Hierophant, to usher in her reign as Queen some day. Unfortunately he was terrible at his job, for starters he spent all of their donations on alcohol and on the other hand heralded maybe once a week. All last week they had planned out a trip across the city only to end up spending the entire week at the first destination, a bank, because Hierophant couldn't stop drunkenly crying over the teller and got himself locked up. She made the best of it and honestly for all her complaining she really did prefer the slower pace, wanting to be Queen and seeing the dream come to life were two different things and Stell was happy taking her time figuring out every detail. Stell knew Hierophant's, it was Bausti?o Alfonz XCVII, apparently all the Hierophants were family and VERY proud of their name.

  A quake of noise shot Kren and Hierophant to their feet and out the door towards the noise. The three stood at the entrance to the bar in shock as the great Dorrad Chaos himself, perched upon the city top, took one sip of air and blew the Gyn Queen to ash in a fiery whip. The city filled with cries, Kren and Hierophant acting quick to evacuate. That night the Dorrad took the throne. In an instant she was Gyn Queen, ruler of nothing, mother of tears. At the last hill overlooking the city they stopped to catch their breathe, both men having gone exhausted from running and carrying Stell however it took no time for Hierophant to fall to his knee and bow to her highness, or her Stellar-ness? Kren copied Hierophant and seeing them both so easily accept her as their Gyn Queen moved her, youthful at heart but still knowing this wasn't how a Gyn Queen would respond, not her at least, she ran back to the city.

  Heart pounding. Anxiety boiling. She ran right back to that hideous snake.

  And again Chaos was with her, watching even then, through her now. He saw every part of their plan. She gave it all up like Cordon giving up the primitive ages.

  But there was something else here, a secret, something well hidden and only now Starlove noticed it, she would have it, and given the chance she would know this secret Chaos was hiding from her.

  "You aren't their heroin" Chaos said in Stell's mind. "You gave it all up so freely, they wont even care to know what you endured. You will be remembered as the link that broke the chain."

  ---

  Starlove can't know for certain just how much he has, obviously she gave him the chance to see it all but really how much was Chaos paying attention to? how much did Starlove even know in comparison to the rest of her people? The plans of the Moon Goddess go back to before the conception of Dorrad Den, even if Chaos saw every single memory she had it would only amount to a tiny fraction of the whole picture.

  "You can try all you want to forget but you caused what happens next, thank you for your compliance. I have no need of you any more." The chimeric evil crap heap's breath right behind her. Chaos was here, finally, willing only to take a peak when Starlove's life was in jeopardy "Die now, knowing they will happily forget the things they loved about you."

  Chaos was right on time. Starlove could see the beginning of a VERY long fall, in a matter of seconds she would be there. She braced and tried her absolute hardest to come up with something, some good thing to image but she was all out of memories, so she made one up.

  ---

  After they cast out the ugly Dorrad; Starlove and the Old Pilgrim never really got up to much chatting. Starlove wasn't really his biggest fan, in fact it wasn't until that journey into Original Den that they got around to meeting each other officially. He was a master Zealot, practically the right-hand-pinky of their Moon Goddess April. She was the great Warmonger Enchantress, deadlier than any other Gyn Queen in recorded history. All this to say it surprised her they never met up for a reunion, it was really quite the show they did to kick that old Chimera off the throne. Back then Starlove had wondered what Kren would say and now she could use that wonder to fuel this lie.

  There was a party that lasted a Shimmer and covered the entire valley around Nocturnia. People from every stretch of the garden came to celebrate, this actually did happen but Kren was gone by then. In this memory he found his way back on a lonely night when Starlove, she had earned the name by now... Chaos gave it to her, stepped away from the party to watch from that same hill where she made her choice to return to Nocturnia. Moons had passed while Starlove served Chaos, she lost track of her age but she could not have been older than thirteen moons (In fact she was fourteen, it had been nine moons since the beginning of her servitude. Nine moons since she became the mother of tears.)

  "I heard there was a massive party happening on our behalf but clearly that was an understatement." The make believe Old Pilgrim exclaimed with a pleased chuckle. Kren had snuck into the scene behind Stell, she didn't dare look at him. Instead Stell looked up at the sky and counted the moon's craters.

  "It's not fair that I get all the attention, most of them probably don't even know you helped." Starlove said, something she truly felt back then.

  "No they know, April would make it known. It's just something they needed, a Denizen saving the city has more of an impact." There was no disgust but... why would he say that?

  Starlove turned to look with shock, jaw agape. However she did consider it for a moment and eventually, painfully, Stell agreed, her people needed a miracle and she gave it to them. Something about this was off though, wasn't she supposed to be making this up on her own? This simulacrum of the Old Pilgrim was certainly acting independently. It distracted her for a moment; until she remembered her goal and then, it appeared. A glowing bit of Chaos' mind, something truly thoughtful, it was hiding in the trees. A thought with such manifestation had to be important, and so Starlove leapt after it.

  One magnificent leap put her right on top of it. Starlove grappled the thought, wrestled with it, rolling along the ground. Kren ran up to her in a panic, pulling out the blade they had used to drive off Chaos all those moons ago. Starlove rolled onto her back, presenting the idea in full to the Old Pilgrim and he sliced it open, spilling its contents.

  Starlove saw a relic in the Vogel Badlands, she saw Chaos wielding it to move the sun.

  "Drat!" Starlove Exclaimed as she brought herself to her hands and knees.

  "Please tell me this wasn't a waste." Kren mumbled. However no physical representation of him remained, he was gone from this place.

  "It's too late, what's happened happened, it was just some memory of his about the pilgrimage of the sun." Starlove, unable to get up, was EXHAUSTED from the moon's worth of interrogations.

  "Everyone must take their Pilgrimage eventually, go and see for yourself." That didn't sound like the Old Pilgrim, but Starlove couldn't pin it either way. Whoever was with her now didn't understand how badly she had failed.

  In this moment, unable to stand, Starlove awoke in a peculiar position. Hugging the snout of the Dorrad Chaos, Starlove gave a silly smirk and then a full burst of laughter, she had jumped across the pit in her imagining. The Dorrad was not so amused and took the moment to grab her by the shirt, hanging Stell like a pup; and then she saw it, down their in the bottom of the pit was death consummate. All these poor souls in their most exploded form, skeletons exposed, had been damned to consumption by the Deathal Void down there. Lady Starlove closed her eyes and braced for her final moment.

  "All the wrong and all the right, I take it with me. No more of what I have, good or bad. It goes with me never to bother the living again." A tear forms on Starlove's Cheek and Chaos lets her go.