mark5

Fallen leaves return to the treetops, moss recedes from the walls, spires sink into the ground, and time peels away from around you. This memory seems to have no owner.

Arts weave into structures all around you; pavilions, domes – you recognize this as a theater. This theater is not in Zwillingstürme; it was destroyed before Zwillingstürme was born.

It is dark all around the theater, with the lights focused on the stage. Beneath the lights, people in dazzling attire are putting on an opera.

A battleship plows onto the stage, interweaving the spire with soil. Wilted flowers are thrown all over the ruined walls, and a mother kneels down clutching her two daughters.

'The tyrant tramples the promised land!'

'Sorcery and filth have defiled our home!'

You've heard these pieces. You've seen the opera. It's been performed countless times. <i>Leopold</i>.

The soldiers march out of the battleship and drag the mother away. The mother tearfully says goodbye to her two daughters.

The actor playing the mother cries, still in operatic manner: 'No, these children cannot go without their mother. Leithanien cannot go without its mother!'

The theater lights up, and you look around the auditorium – only one person is seated there. He rubs his signet ring, burn scars covering the hand that holds his cane. You notice that his hand is made of steel and stone. You notice that you have seen him before – he is the portrait, the monument, the heroic legend of Leithanien. He is the opera itself.

'Leithanien cannot go without its mother...' Großherzog Leopold repeats these lines. 'Leithanien cannot go without its mother.'

There is another figure inside the otherwise empty theater, an emaciated old man who appeared behind the opera-goer.

'You shouldn't have let them act out this vulgar drama of yours, Leopold.' The old man's excoriating words rain down without mercy. 'Herkunftshorn's power is not your plaything.'

'Their power was indeed born from Herkunftshorn's secret chamber, from Herkunftshorn's manuscript...' Leopold is not downcast. His eyes continue to fixate on the stage, not parting from the two girls there. 'However, I am the one who shaped this power. It should know why it must be strong.'

'Leithanien cannot go without its mother. Wouldn't you agree, Fremont?'

The girls help each other stand up, and you suddenly realize that they are brighter than gold, and deeper than night.

The performance on the stage continues. The two girls swing daggers concealed in their bosoms, and the colliding weapons release sparks that blossom into rays of light as the harmony sings.

'The hero swings her fabled sword!'

'The tyrant is no more!'

The lights dim, and darkness engulfs the theater. First to disappear is Leopold, then his play, then the two girls – the last to disappear is the face of a black-haired girl among them. The memory without an owner ends thusly.