Dead Star Dockyards

055 Tidings of Destruction

A vine was wrapped around the Arboreal Maiden's wrist. She was still seated at the table, watching over the foreigners as they slept. Part of it was her duty to make sure that they were safe and that nothing happened in their sleep, but an even greater factor was that she was bored.She was conversing with the Great Csillacra, a luxury that had hitherto been granted to her alone.

'

'

She looked over at the couple. A rare emotion washed over her, envy. They had something she had long since stopped looking for, it vanished from her world long ago.

She sighed at this response.

The nameless Maiden nodded, knowing full well the Great Csillacra could not see such an action.

The Arboreal Maiden reminisced at what she had seen in her time watching over them, over Earth. War was commonplace in the beginning, something she had initially assumed to mean failure given the similarity it held to the rest, but the Great Csillacra had still urged her to watch on. She was thankful for that push.

War may have been something of a theme, but it was never the same. War was always being influenced by their ideas, their innovations, and their moral codes. No two wars were exactly alike, and what came about from them was always capable of peaking her interest. Cultural growth, spread, and decay, as well as the fusion of two different cultures also brought about interesting traditions and peculiarities.

Triumph and atrocity alike brought about grand pieces of art. The imaginations of these tiny specks of life unhinged in their creativity, and in their insanity. She had known they would eventually escape the bounds of their terrestrial home, the Great Csillacra had guaranteed it, but she never could have foreseen them using volatile explosives to do the job. But what other choice did they have? They couldn't use split!

The Maiden was sent deep into thought at this revelation. Out of respect for the sole person the Great Csillacra considered a friend, it did not intrude upon her thoughts. A few minutes of waiting was nothing for a being as long lived as it.

Indeed, hegemony was going to be a difficult thing to accomplish. It is hard to keep the entirety of a planet under the control of a single entity, so there could only be more problems when it came to uniting several. In fact, the only reason that multi-planet conglomerates existed in the first place was owed entirely to this universe's equivalent to the divine right to rule, the blessing of the Great Csillacra. That didn't mean that these empires stayed together for very long though. They could be built up through wars and marriages, but they always crumbled under the weight of incessant wars along the borders or an inheritance dispute.

Ultimately, the culprit could always be traced back to the fact that were required in order to run these bodies. People that made mistakes. People that were incompetent. People that had malicious intentions and grand ambitions. It wasn't uncommon for a family to come to power over a grouping of star systems, rule peacefully for a generation or two, and then be slaughtered by an indignant faction that demanded war and glory.

The Great Csillacra portrayed a signal of disagreement, its equivalent to shaking its head.