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Imperial year 5487

The distant light was so bright it blinded one’s eyes.

The gloom of darkness remained—it always did—but now it was a distant, harmless thing, far away in the cosmos. Branwyn felt a sense of wonder as it rose from under the transparent glass of the observation deck.

That morning two visitors, one dressed in a long red cloth that hung all the way down to his feet, the other in a simple violet coat, arrived unannounced and unexpected; therefore, unwelcome.

Her father was not pleased by their presence and Branwyn less so because that was the day he promised—after many requests met with excuses of being busy—to take her to the Vicsitus so they could shoot birds dead in the grass.

Exploding bits! What fun!

Yet, instead of throwing them out of the house as he should, her father listened to them, and Branwyn felt, with increasing displeasure, that they would not shoot birds today.

Her father, with a fatigued face turned to Branwyn and said, “I'm very sorry. Matters to attend.” Her prediction coming true with these merciless words. She started to cry, tears spilling down her cheeks, along with angry gritted teeth and shallow hiccups. He frowned at her. “I will not have it,” he said. “Behave. We will go another day.”

She wanted to scream something that would undoubtedly get her a psionic beating—he seemed to forget she was only six at those times—instead she turned and stomped her feet away. She stopped at the door though, and pushed her ear against the thin wood to overhear. “...A problem… Church of Emperor… punished… lower level... Julien Rex” The term “lower level” picked her interest.

She had never been to them and was now deeply curious. Were in there perhaps the fabled Xenos that Mother always warned about? Would they try to eat her like Mother said?

In any case Father had said—promised, the word was promised—that he would accompany her today. So, by that—interesting term—logic, wouldn’t she going to the lower level with him not only be perfectly reasonable but also well within the grounds of—that other interesting term—expectations? Indeed, breaking promises was a bad thing and good people like her Father couldn’t do bad things, so she should help him out by making him fulfill his promise to her.

But if she asked him to let her come with, Father would surely say no. So, for the only and pure purpose of not letting him break a promise—and therefore fall forevermore unto the path of evil—Branwyn decided to follow.

Her Father, scowling, walked the pathway through the house grounds toward the street, and climbed the steps of the carriage waiting for him. Branwyn was filled with glee as she realized they were using the large model with three compartments instead of the more modern, more tight, and much more discomforting one with only one chamber.

Her Father and the two strangers entered the foremost chamber. Five more awaited them, surrounding the carriage, and entered the second chamber. Once Branwyn saw them close the door, she bolted from the shadow of a wall toward the third chamber. Some of the servants in the courtyard saw her go, but by the time they warned her Father she would be far away.

Branwyn feared a little that there would be people on the third chamber as well, a group on wait. There wasn’t. Relieved, she sat down as the mechanical wonder rose to life with a silent electric hum, and silently praised her superb augmented intellect as a smug smile rose to her lips.

With a wave of a hand, a plethora of drinks surfaced from a compartment under the floor. They differed from the usual. She opened one and sniffed a positively unpleasant smell. She meant to close it, then realized what they were. Alcoholic drinks! She stared down at the transparent bottle and the red liquid inside, then looked at the glass and ice bowl.

Branwyn wavered, conflicted between the curiosity of drinking whatever the thing was and the good sense of being a good child and listening to her parents. Resolved, she put the bottle back into place. Then she started searching for one with a less displeasing smell, though not necessarily that pleasant—they were all adult drinks after all.

She found one, surprisingly. It was bright green and smelled like candy, or fruit. Something sweet, at the very least. She dipped it on a finger and tasted it. It was sweet, like juice, but with a new strange aftertaste. She was about to pour it into the glass when the machine hummed to a stop.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Branwyn closed the drink-case, disappointed, and waited two minutes until she was sure everyone had left, and left herself.

There was a building. Grey, almost white. Even the doors. It was as large as her house, with high windows and columns in the front balconies of its five floors. Her Father followed the two strangers in and was followed by the other five. All of them seemed very rushed. A sudden guilt filled her.

The last of the five, a blond woman with a grey coat turned around and saw her. Branwyn ran away, of course.

She crossed two streets before almost slamming into a small carriage—even smaller than the uncomfortable one-chamber. Thankfully, it stopped. Branwyn fell, then rose, and dusted her dress. The driver, a brown-haired man with an accusatory frown looked at her, and was about to say something rude. Then he really looked at her, and made a strange startled face and stopped short.

“I’m sorry,” Branwyn mumbled. The man became even more startled and backed away from her.

Leaving the strange man behind, Branwyn crossed the lane. The carriages had stopped to let her pass. The people—strange people with grey, brown, and even green shirts, tunics and pants, most of all sporting sinfully few coats looked at her with weird eyes and tried to maintain a distance.

The woman from before wasn’t following her, thankfully; but she didn’t doubt she saw her. Her Father would surely know then, and search for her later. She kept walking.

After a few twists and turns, Branwyn was thoroughly lost. She didn’t even try to make sense of the absurd complexity of the landscape. There seemed to be unending curves and twists and the lanes—bursting with people—simply kept going farther still. 

At one spot the ceiling curved upwards, opening into a more distant one. Artificial light rained from that distant ceiling—it never felt so distant, and she wondered if that was why it was called Lower Level—lighting the strange, diverse structures she passed. Some houses were grouped, as if twins, one after the other. Others were strange, flamboyant, ugly, with vibrant colors and shining letters—probably their names though her house was grander than all of them and didn’t have its name plastered on the wall, which would surely be tasteless. Houses with their doors and windows wide open, sometimes with transparent walls, letting anyone see its interiors. Some had items on racks and shelves on display with people coming and going, taking the items with them, and no one seemed to mind. There were lanes above, crossing over her head, or in the walls, with barriers of glass or some other transparent material with as many people and carriages passing through them.

When crossing the street, the strangers pressed on a button on a pole, too far for her to press with a finger, though she could still press it with a psionic touch, of course, but everyone was using their fingers so that seemed uncouth.

The strangers kept giving her strange looks even though Lilim and Milly assured her violet dress was fine. “It’s cute, beautiful,” she told herself.

Eventually she wandered to a plaza with another open ceiling and rows of people standing at an edge. Some wore purple clothing and stood out as the rest put a distance between them too.

An observation deck, Branwyn realized as she saw the gigantic open window, revealing the dreary blackness beyond and myriad distant stars. A similarly gigantic window was in the outer shell, fusing seamlessly with the grey metal that it was made of.

The window covered kilometers horizontally and vertically. Before, it was hidden by the veil of people and buildings but now she couldn’t believe she had missed it. Above, on upper levels, rows of people stood on the edge of similarly long decks, watching the stars from the same window. 

She thought it a rather drab show, but joined the row out of curiosity, and because she was now hopelessly lost and figured she should stop walking.

She soon was at the front. Everyone not in purple gave way. The purple clothed ones frowned at her, so she avoided them.

Then suddenly there was light.

It was white. Unforgiving. Brutal. She felt small, smaller than ever. It was as if from nowhere a great being appeared and disliked her for her smallness. Branwyn couldn’t move, blink, or even look away as the light rose from under the window to the center, like a great giant awakening and staring at her, boring at her heart, exposing her fears.

She trembled. Before she knew it, she was crying. Not the tears of indignation she showed her Father so he would take her with him, not even the tears of fear she remembered crying once when she saw her Father truly angry. Even many years later when recalling this moment, warped by the fog of childhood as it may, she couldn’t answer with any degree of certainty why she had cried.

So transfixed she was, her Father appeared before her, suddenly hiding the light and she didn’t even notice his presence. She also didn’t notice most people had left and only a few were still at the deck.

“Father,” she said, with confusion, forgetting why she or him were there for a moment. Then recalling it and dreading that a beating was now imminent.

He looked down at her scowling. Then he noticed the tears and stopped, suddenly concerned. “Branwyn… are you alright?”

“I am,” she said, realizing the tears streaming down her face and wiping them away. Unfortunately, they did not stop for a while. She felt confused at them more than anything.

“Did anything happen?”

“Nothing, Father. I am sorry I ran away. I know I shouldn’t be here.”

“Yes you shouldn’t,” he said, frowning again. Then sighed, exasperated “please don’t do this again. I hope you learned your lesson this time.”

“Yes,” answered Branwyn, not understanding why she would have learned anything. She pointed to the distant light. “What is that?”

Her Father turned around. “Ah,” he exclaimed with a familiar mirth to his voice. “I had forgotten you had not seen it yet. Sometimes I forget it’s even there. That is the sun.”

“Sun.” Branwyn knew the concept, but did not imagine that a simple floating ball of fire could look like this.

“Yes,” continued her Father. “Connected to the Emperor by the Aether, and bound to me. Eternal and undying, as the Emperor is, as I will be for as long as it exists. The greatest of Psionic majesties, I think.”