Lexicon/Horizon
Horizon
A parable, retold by Shataina, Protectress of the South, Lady of Legends:
Horizon was a beautiful satrapy: so named because, when walking through the fragrant fields of its temperate climes, it seemed that the eye could see forever. Tiny animals scurried, playfully, among the gracefully bending grasses of the fallow fields; wind soughed, with the loveliness of pathos, through the stately pines.
It was large, and pleasant. The famous Lord Crystal Raven was awarded the post of its Justicar in recognition of his work during the Age of Amarnath, when he put down the ill-fated Jacquerie of Five Kingdoms without shedding a single drop of anyone's blood.
Indeed, Lord Crystal Raven served admirably in that post for many years, but, alas, as with many of the Solar Exalted of the time, his true expertise and incredible skill became clouded with hubris. It is known that he had many conflicts with Falling Star in a Clarion Sky, daughter of Saturn, who then held spiritual domain over Horizon.
These conflicts took a deadly turn when Falling Star dared to criticize Justicar Crystal Raven's handling of a minor spirit's infractions against the Hierarchy. Justicar Crystal Raven, irritated, performed the now-lost Soul-Extinguishing Gesture using only his fingertips and annihilated Falling Star utterly. As her Essence flickered out, screaming in perfect agony, he decided that he would brook no further spiritual "interference" within Horizon.
Accordingly, he banished the gods from Horizon -- utterly. His wards and sigils chased even the least gods from their tiny tasks and shut them out of his satrapy, destroying them without warning if they came too near.
The animals still ran in the fields, but they no longer seemed playful. The grass had lost its grace, the pines their stateliness. When the wind sighed, it had no sadness within it; it was merely a sound with no feeling or meaning.
The people of Horizon sickened. Some simply died; others caught strange, wasting plagues, and many went insane. The world was a blank, lacking colour, texture, and emotion. Animals hid in their burrows, and humans walked the streets, faces expressionless, with agony hidden behind their seemingly-vacant eyes.
Justicar Crystal Raven dealt with the situation for over a month. The deaths mounted; people began to commit the vilest of crimes against each other, showing no fear or regret. Creation itself whimpered, desperate for what it had lost.
At last, Justicar Crystal Raven met with with she who had been Zephyr of the Clean Rain, cousin of Falling Star in a Clarion Sky. Her nature had changed drastically after the death of Falling Star, and she had taken a new name: Zephyr of the Bitterest Tears. She was, at first, unwilling even to see a representation of Justicar Crystal Raven's face or hear his name spoken; but at last she agreed to meet with him, for she was moved to pity by the suffering of Horizon. They spoke at length, negotiating, and he finally permitted the gods back into Horizon, forced to agree to place no further sanctions upon them.
"For," his lover Grieving Curtain of Flame wrote later that he said to her, "I have indeed been made to recognize the fact that we, the Exalted, though mightier by far than all but our patron gods, cannot match their abilities; and they are as needed in their sphere as we are in ours -- perhaps even as necessary to Creation itself as we." One extant copy of Grieving Curtain's journals adds, "... perhaps more," after this last, but the other two show nothing but, respectively, a blot and a blank where the addendum would be.
Justicar Crystal Raven was thus forced to allow the gods of Horizon to remain, but he did his best not to interact with them unless absolutely necessary; and his punishments, when the spirits of Horizon trespassed upon the Divine Law and fell into his power, were truly draconian. His refusal to communicate with such an important part of his realm led to several tragedies that could easily have been avoided, most notably the Dying Scream of Shattered Adamant.
It is said that Justicar Crystal Raven's later death at the hands of Grassblade was influenced by the divine hand of Saturn herself, whose sorrow at the loss of her daughter had been unparalleled.
References:
~ Shataina
See also Shataina's other Lexicon entries
