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The chains of fate had been forged long ago, waiting for her to wear them.

Aurelia, the only child of the Emperor and Empress of the gods, was raised with the knowledge that she would one day inherit the divine right of rulership; that one day she would ascend to true godhood and join the omnitheon who had been cast from rocks and stones, feeling, thoughts, concepts. She was special, for like her parents, she was made not of an idea, not of a single confining trait, but of love, real love between the first two beings. As time went on, the milk of her creation spoiled. Real love faded. Truly nothing lasted forever, just as the stars dimmed into nothing and the moons crumbled into dust.

Now that she was grown, an adult, her coronation and apotheosis impending, she hardly remembered her mother, but it was to her that she prayed whe she couldn't sleep, when the ceaseless obligations of court life, of her tutoring and training, pushed her to sob alone in her confining cage of velvet and gold. The bird sang, the fading memory of a lullaby, she sang so that she would not forget it, forget her mother, even though it grew harder to remember every day. And when she finished, she sat on the windowsill and implored the impassive sky that her mother would return and save her from her father and the court's plans for her, her life decided, her future sealed. Her father could not make another child like her, and so it was her obligation to carry on the blood. She was to be wed and provide issue, and quietly fade away while the men carried on the lineage of the God-Emperor.

And yet, she could not consign herself to the unflinching will of those around her. There must be something more...

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Art by my dear friend  parfaitbunny