Solarel sits in meditation beneath the spirit of the Kathresis' fourth chakra. In the absence of a household, a Knight must make do. In the absence of dedicated spirits, maintenance must be done with patient meditation and negotiation with each component directly. The fourth spirit is responsible for the Kathresis' heart, the cold-burning crystal fire reactor that speaks the secret technique of stillness. 

To be still is to be invisible. To be still is to be in harmony. To be still is to break. To remove energy from the universe is to leave matter drifting and dead, to render steel too exhausted to maintain its bonds, to render the nanite infrastructure of the galaxy inert dust. Stillness is the blade that cuts the spirit world itself. Stillness is the blade that cuts invisible senses. In a galaxy of light and life, stillness awaits with a hidden sword, buried on hollow worlds. 

Frightful? Perhaps. Perhaps the idea of war engines awaiting in secret places is indeed a terrible thing. Perhaps the idea that these predator engines might once again prey upon the gods of Zaldar is an apocalyptic prospect. Perhaps the idea that weapons were built to burn even the digital realm should give her pause.

These ideas never find purchase. Solarel, in her meditation, does not contemplate the destiny of the anti-life equation in the arctic heart of the Kathresis. The past is a blur to her, the future is indistinct. Those things are the domains of queens and empresses; [i]beyond [/i]her. To follow the mysteries of the universe was to follow something other than the Code of Zaldar, and the promises of the Code were superior to the promises of the universe.

Instead her questions were: How much can you give me? When you break, what breaks first? How do your crystals stand in relation to each other? Can you draw from ambient power? How do you interact with hostile spirits? What does your breath sound like? How does it change when it becomes my breath? The Mind-Impulse Connection bridges the gap between thought and action, but there are wise and unwise thoughts. She needs to know which are which for the Kathresis. Needs to understand the rhythm of its pulse and the agony of its seizure. She needs to know how to be this new thing. Someone else might be able to phrase the process in hostile terms; subsuming herself in the machine, breaking herself to fit into its shape. She'd regard those questions as filled with the same ideological bias as the contemplation of the universe. Synthesis was an ideal in and of itself. All the parts of herself she had to overcome to fight in this new way were not valuable merely because they were hers. Solarel did not believe in value, after all.

The delegation enters and she perceives them from the radiant, open heart of the Kathresis and the ice-cold shadows it casts throughout the room. She opens her God's eyes, the enormous machine shifting and adjusting its pose. Partly in ceremonial display of kingship, partly in reflection of mortal mannerisms she had not learned that she did not need in this new form. She sits, cross legged, below this mighty divine warrior and its open heart, a cable descending from its heights to connect to a neck that was long and graceful and sensitive to better wear this silver collar. She wears ritual white, a dress comprised of knotted fabric - part of her meditation and communion with the Kathresis had been to twist dozens of strips of cloth into elaborate knots and weave them together into this ceremonial outfit. It bound her breasts, her wrists, her cascading hair in flowing and tattered lines of torn cloth. It symbolized binding and becoming and had been the work of days. The clothes themselves were meaningless but for the act of donning them; she had woven two such outfits already during previous meditations before the Kathresis and had worn them until they got dirty or burned during an internal energy spike, at which point she'd shrugged and let her spirits garb her again. TC bedsheets made a wonderful source of materials for these dresses and she'd angered a great many hotel staff during her earlier communion with the Bezorel.

As an afterthought she remembers to open her mortal eyes too. Bright and violet amidst the white and tangle, filled with the preternatural awareness of divine senses. There is a stillness to her at first, but she breaks it when she stands. She needs no blade right now. Her tribe had no quarrel with the lords of Zathar, nor did her Empress, nor did her subsequent Empress. That also meant that she had no ritual framework to greet them, no knowledge of glorious ancestors that needed to be praised, no challenges that needed to be made for the sake of honour. It was pleasant, almost, finding someone who did not instantly call for strong opinions and snap judgements, though she privately doubted that the situation would not be reciprocated.

So instead she decides to let this be a matter of spirits. She saw the dress of a priestess here; why not let the Kathresis make the introduction? If there were no ceremonies in the mortal world then why not let her guest present herself ceremonially to her as the Kathresis' divine aspect? And so she lets her God's instincts whir into place, lets violent stillness take her again, lets the air charge with the deafening silence of the Kathresis' anti-noise generators. Can you tread more softly than even this, outsider?