They passed through the arches, and into the entrance hall. To either side, those same fierce statues were frozen in the positions they had been in at the moment of Serenity's corruption. All, save the occasional few caught in a look of surprise, were turned towards the arch ahead.
And the throne that lay beyond.
Perhaps they had pleaded with Endymion to save them in their final moments, as their tragic features suggested. Tanzanite did not know. She did not care.
“Those of you who have no homes will find more than enough space here, but be warned. This city is no longer meant to support
human life. You may stay here, but you will still require trips to the outside world. There is no running water, no electricity, no heat. Nothing that lives here now requires it.”
All was said and done, and the Youma Queen quietly ascended the steps that led to the crumbled throne. It was little more than a pile of rubble now, sitting in the middle of the decaying room. There was nothing grand left about the place. The statues, once shining white in the likeness of rulers past, were now faceless and misshapen the stone was black as onyx and reflected the churning stars above. No light reached that distant place, only the bleeding skies above them illuminating the darkness.
The throne itself was barely a throne at all. Whatever cloth might have once cushioned its surface had long since been torn away, decayed by time until all that covered the stone was a thin layer of dust. The symbol of Earth had been ripped away by claws long before Tanzanite had ever had them, only a shapeless chunk of rock remaining. If Endymion had sat upon that throne and it had meant he was the Prince of Earth, then certainly Tanzanite was the Queen of Nothing.
“I have brought you here and shown you this for a
purpose,” she said, and there was a noticeable change in the way she spoke. There was no human undertone to her voice, now. Even if they listened closely, they would perhaps only hear the faintest whispers of Aree Cadence's human voice.
“We are a family, and it is that
trust which allowed us to enter this place.”
Slowly, she looked from one face to another, until her silver eyes had met with each of them for a brief moment. “But we are also an
army. Look around you,” her hand swept in a broad gesture to the shattered city below, “because this is what will become of Earth if we lose this war. Everyone you know. Everyone you love will be enslaved or they will
die. If the senshi find their Moon Princess? If they awake enough of their comrades to somehow bring her back? She will wait until the moment of our victory and she will destroy
everything.And then every death will have been in vain. Every loss we've ever suffered, every comrade we've had to bury. It will all have been for naught.”
There was nothing motherly about Tanzanite as she spoke. Nothing friendly. Nothing kind. She was in every way Metallia's servant in that moment.
“A family forgives, but we no longer have that luxury. We cannot
reason with them. We cannot
teach them. We can keep them from ever daring to embrace their power, we can corrupt them, or we can
kill them. There are
no other options.Senshi, above
all have a reason to prove themselves, and
this is that chance. The Earth may very well die because of the actions of your former comrades. Some of you stood beside them,” her gaze focused first on Lyra, and shifted for a brief moment to land even on Alkaid, “and some of you have proven your loyalty,” she held her gaze on the dreadlocked girl before it skipped over to Alunite.
“Some of you never had the chance, but it does not mean you were not a part of this in your past. Unlike those who stand against us, your crimes are forgivable. But do not think that means they are yet
forgiven.”
That last was spoken so sternly, so forcefully, that it did not welcome disagreements. The senshi would have the chance to prove themselves, but she could not dishonor those who had fallen by not holding them accountable. It was spoken to remind them that while they had formed new levels of trust and brotherhood, this was not a democracy.
“This is the end of our
tolerance for their invasion. Today, we have not only found our home, but we have found our
fortress. Here, their lies cannot reach our ears. Their power cannot touch us. We have proof in every youma, in every shattered stone or broken statue, that they
cannot be trusted.
Anyone found to be aiding them in any way that does not result in their demoralization, death, or conversion will join Linarite in the ranks of the traitors, and I will be the first in line to cut them down.
Is that understood?”
((You are now free to set up your own RPs in the
Rift Subforum. Please take care to read the information threads to understand the Rift, and to find out more information about youma bonding!))
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