The marble path taps away under our feet, the Lady-King's metal heels making a finer mess of things. Only half a wall's worth of echoes and the howling winds on the other side. An entire city within a mountain for our leisurely viewing. Though, we're not here for that.
Morgihranur is taking me up the path towards an old observatory of hers. Given how well-looked after the path is, however, I doubt I'll find something filled with webs and planked over. In fact, we even had palace staff make the trip back just now. So... So much for an abandoned building, I suppose.
"So, if you abandoned this observatory, why even keep looking after it?" I decide to ask, keeping a decent distance behind her as the path betrays its intentions. Only one person really should be taking this path at a time or any time. Her. The Lady-King.
"Mostly in the event I ever happened to want to come by here again. Circumstances certainly favour us right now, however. My lack of want is exactly why you're able to make use of it so easily." she explains, luck certainly making our situation all the sweeter.
"What even is the point of an observatory deep underground...?" I ask, noting how much... Faker the sky blatantly is up this high. Like how it was back when we were near the so-called Crack in the Sky. From a distance, it looks fine, but as is the case with any poor texture or subtle ugliness.
"I used to design my own night skies early on. I guess you could say the observatory was my own lab, in a way. I would read over all the religious texts I could about Ihtuntar, the night skies he used to make. And I would try and make my own. It never felt right, though. Like something was always off. Imperfect in a way that felt... Impossible to describe." she explains, all manner of emotions shaking away at her voice. Eating at that impossible confidence of hers she seems to be able to put on whenever the Lady-King act is up.
"It might be worth praying to him at some point." I say, the great irony of my knowledge ever so close.
"The dead cannot speak." is all Morgihranur seems to have to say and I linger, a smile coming to my face.
"The dead are expected to speak so much." I quietly chuckle, thinking back to how Undwote actually handles the dead. There's no long line, a judge waiting. We're not weighed against sins and good deeds. Honesty and corruption, it all doesn't matter. He simply talks and listens, to us. His friends.
Keeping to myself for the moment, I look down on Morgihranur's kingdom and take in the view. Messing with some random bauble on the safety railing as I do so. I take one look at the far end, glancing over the villages and towns and their sprawling senses of self. And, I linger on the forests, taking in just how artificially shaped they really are.
It's something, really. Morgihranur clearly has developed an eye for detail in things like this. Blatantly artificial, but, that's besides the point. She's put a lot of time into it and it shows. Which makes her issues with the sky all the stranger.
Are the clouds randomised by mechanical design or artistically done? If she can do something like this, then surely she can do the night sky? The existing night skies are hers too, no? Or is she on about something a bit beyond the stars in the sky...?
"Mm, guess there's a chance to learn." I say, turning away from the railing and minding the mountain-built. There's nothing dangerous about this path at all, but it's certainly worth the effort in looking. Will save me time having to put much thought into this later. I can always have it on the ground, but simply hammering in some pegs and bending them into hooks will keep the piping off the ground.
I hear Morgihranur's voice on the wind and pick up the pace, coming up and turning the corner. She looks the way of my strides, her efforts easing down. She turns away, throwing her arm in a grand arc to highlight the building. I follow the gesture, taking in the surprisingly simple architecture compared to everything else.
It makes me smile a little, really. Everything is more extravagant the more likely it is to be seen. Maybe it's frugality, maybe it's ego? It doesn't matter much I suppose. I'm going to be making a mess of this place either way. Less she needs to repair it, the better, I guess.
"There will be room here?" I ask, not entirely sure what I will need to do to get everything working. I've got a lot of ideas, but it's hard to say what will come close to working and what won't. I doubt the amount of space I will need, though, better safe than sorry.
"More than enough. Much as I would rather you didn't have to demolish or destroy anything, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. The building sees little use, and I'm doubting I'll suddenly be spurred on because of anything you do to it," she explains, opening the door and walking on in.
I catch up and follow, turning each and every way so I can take it in. Lines of books and tablets, all the usual machines to watch the sky... Though blatantly snubbed with how close the sky really is. And in one part of the observatory, so obnoxiously colourful compared to the rest... An art room. The very place still teeming with pieces of art about her and the night sky.
My legs keep me going that way and I stop before some of it. Honestly, I don't see the problem. I know it's never going to match Ihtuntar in the same way no cooking will ever please me again. All food is bad, all bodies are unfit, all magic is crude and all food is bland.
Still, impossibly ruined standards aside, I don't see the issue. It all reminds me of what Ihtuntar did for the sky. The way the blues and blacks come together, the speckles of diamonds and more. Even other colours and shades, not just the night as I tended to see it.
"Horrible, aren't they?" she asks, coming up to my side, her voice and a whole lot more lingering on the memories they bring. I don't understand it, I never will. Putting this much effort into things and not having it work out is... A similar experience. Though, it seems so strangely off to say such a thing.
This is all a passion project. The actions of someone's daughter who is simply trying to enjoy her life as she is allowed to. Many might say it's unfair, the Tobaballian in me, long gone as he is, certainly thinks so. So much to her gluttony and pretentiousness, and she's barely worked for it. Even running her kingdom is a glorified affair.
Yet, none of it matters. I get what it means to put a lot of effort into something, to pour your everything into and about it. Our goals and aims are so different, but I get it. That's all that matters.
"You stopped because you couldn't get them right?" I ask her, picking up one piece in particular. An awkwardly half-done thing. It's blank in lots of places, but effectively complete in others. Her process is an interesting thing to behold, but, I guess that's what defines us all. We all do things differently even if we desperately try to fit in with others.
"I wanted to get better at it, but when there's only one master to follow and he's a god... It becomes a hard thing to do much about." Morgihranur clarifies for me, and I can't help but linger on that.
"No one else tried to do right by Ihtuntar's work? I know there's not a whole lot of references. But one case always means there's going to be more. You can't be the only one who's inspired to carry on the Dead God's work?" I go and she shakes her head, walking over to what appears to be a simple cupboard.
Her shifting fingers quickly prove it wrong, and she pulls a whole sliding compartment out. A room that builds itself the further she pulls on it. The whole contraption carries on some more and it clicks to a halt. Morgihranur gets moving again, and I follow her on in.
She pulls out some pieces, many of the other racks following on in an automated process. A whole array of other night skies, yet, none of it bearing the signature of the other pieces. Her inspirations? Competitors?
"I don't quite understand, there's only one master, but all of these people have worked on it, too? Some quite a long time ago, it seems." I ask, pointing out the carefully laid dates on some of them. There's a couple of pieces that go back to the first millennium of the Emerald Awakening. And I'm certain there's going to be some older pieces about here and everything.
"No one here gets what makes Ihtuntar's art so beautiful. The holy texts say a lot, but only so much can be true even then. Ihtuntar is not like Thurnmourer or the others... Nothing of his exists any more. It's just that. The holy texts, our inspirations, are all imperfect. They'll never be right and you just know when you do it yourself." she goes, pulling out more and more pieces.
I don't see any pattern to it, but she can see it all. She knows what's missing even if I don't. Spoiled brat or not, she's got a talent and a knowledge I simply don't have. Claws aside in all their meaning, both sincere and cheaply snarky.
"Can you elaborate? I'm no artist." I say, though, I'm certainly an acrobat by trade these days. That has its own artistic method, I suppose? I certainly make use of it like that.
"I don't think I can. When you work on trying to make art in the style of a night sky... You're overwhelmed. There's so much space that needs something while so much more needs nothing. A cloudy night with light pollution is one thing, but a clear, galactic spread is also something, too. Auroras, gas clouds and planets. So much and more." she does her best to explain, much of this terminology seeming so alien.
Like, it sounds like slang, but I know it's not. Planet, aurora, gas clouds and giants. Stars, galaxies and solar systems. All-That-Remains is a planet, but we never call it such because... Well. The moons are not proper either. The gods within aren't even moon gods. We just know them as such.
So much about Creation was lost in the Dietic Betrayal, so much we'll never see again. Maybe, who knows? Ihtuntar is alive and he has as much capacity to change as anyone does. Eqkilibral is much the same, he can just as easily change his rules about Creation. The gods and all can come back if the right things happen.
"I think I get it." I say, letting out a thoughtful huff as I try to consider what really is going on about the art.
"This right here... Is one of the oldest surviving pieces of art relating to Ihtuntar. An impossibly rare find bought from the claymen of the Land of the Founders." Morgihranur explains, pulling out a fully encased piece of art. A slab of cave rock painted on in all its glory.
"As old as Anvil-Peak itself." I whistle, no truth to my statement whatsoever, but the point remains. It's a piece of art that's older than most of recorded and remembered history. Before the Age of Heroes, the times of the floods and all that, that has changed the calendars and history.
This is primeval humanity, when the clay still clung to our skin as it should've. Before humans really turned out to be just that, humans. We were all claymen once upon a time. Not just the natives of Founders Point.
"This is one of the oldest known paintings of Ihtuntar's night sky... And, do you see, even in such a crude manner you can see his impossible genius. How the sky just naturally forms shapes to see without being intentional at all. Genius so impossible it makes things look... Natural," she explains, leaving me with a curled up fist to my chin as I think this through.
She is fine with me having a magically explosive set up in a place like this...?