Fragments of Tomorrow

A small new project, originally created for a guild Housing contest. It's not a huge project, and it's nothing as expansive as my Sparkling Abyss, but I had a lot of fun building it. And of course... I couldn't resist writing a little story to accompany it.

*"I still remember the stained glass windows.

They gathered the colors of the desert and scattered them across the marble floors of our home, at the heart of the Realm of Dreams. Father laughed. Mother had given a name to every flower in the garden. We were together, as though it were the world's very first morning, certain that nothing could ever reach our sanctuary. Then the banquet began.

The poison arrived before the blades.

I watched Amé raise the cup to his lips. I watched his eyes search for those of his sons, unable to understand. And when Father collapsed, it was Shilah's own children who drew their weapons against the woman who had given them names, voices, and hearts.

I will never forget the look in her eyes. It was neither anger nor fear. Only bewilderment. My brother spoke of order.
He spoke of the future. But on that night, he brought only one thing into existence: the first true night.

The blood of the Firstborn traced a seal that should never have been conceived. The incantations tore through the Dreams themselves.

And Time shattered. Shilah did not die. A crueler fate was chosen for her: an endless moment in which she would relive, forever, the banquet, the poison, Amé's final gaze, the weapons of her children, and the betrayal of those she had loved more dearly than the sun itself.

Since that night, our home has been neither standing nor destroyed. It is forever building itself and falling apart within the same breath.

Its stones drift between creation and ruin. The opalescent stained glass survives only as fragments suspended in the air. The floor still bears the beauty of a broken world. The banquet tables remain, veiled in blue dust, surrounded by shadows of sand that endlessly reenact our final gestures.
The hourglasses have long since ceased to flow. Even Time refuses to cross this room. Travelers say that on certain nights, when the wind passes through the shattered windows, they can still hear the gentle clinking of goblets... the first bursts of laughter... and then... silence.

Everyone believes that Shilah's sons never felt the slightest remorse.

That they followed Khaleel without regret.

They are mistaken. For I, Israk, have never left that night.

And it was from this regret, carried longer than the mountains have carried the sky, that the first ember of the Resistance was born.

So perhaps... as long as even one of her children still asks forgiveness... Time itself may one day begin to flow again."*