This book can barely really be described as such, consisting as it does of fragments of strange crystalline media etched with handwriting. There are shadows in the crystal around the words, suggesting that the shapes they form were not always what they are now. The contents of the shattered media appear to be a diary of surpassing age.
Possession of this tome is worth **** Research Points per session, on the subject of The Ocean. You may only use points from one book with the subject in a year of research. If delivered to the Church, this tome is worth **** Church Prestige Point. With a year of study, knowledge of the topic Kiyosawa's Age, and **** Research Points, this tome will provide information on the topic of The En'you.
I am En'you Aral.
The are two prophecies.
When En'you's daughter bears a child by Komaru's son, Komaru will fall.
When the sea bears a child by the sky, the world will die.
...
It has been eight times eight times eight years since our Lady left us for the depths of the ocean. In her wake, we are like the driftwood that surges and falls on the waves. From Rionaisu to Ataranti, the children of En'you weep for her absence still. And though her priestesses struggle to stand against the tides, what is lost can never be truly regained.
...
The king has fallen, and a new queen rises to take her place. We have no choice but to travel to Skytouch. It will be hard on my people. Always, it is.
...
Priestess En'you Tarabia speaks of the Merru's curse before the temples. She is bold, and her words proclaim a quest for freedom, but it does not take a prophet to see what see dreams as she speaks. With but a smile and a gesture, the prince has woven a spell across her heart. I fear what the future brings.
...
The astrologers of the Asawa have predicted when the world will die, down to the very year. Three thousand years has Komaru from its namesake's coming - fifteen short ages in which to rise and fall and rise again. And when those are done, none can know what will follow.
That is when the world will die, but not when the world might die. That could come so very much sooner.
...
When ages fall, the powers that rise come from within Mourn and from without. The hybrid powers are shaped of miko spirits and human hopes. But the pure pacts, the pacts of the Cosmos and the Forces, they are something else. They are from beyond the Cosmos. They may even be Skyborn.
...
Why do I write of this? It is because of Tarabia. She has a dream of the future, a dream of her children by Prince Komaru Ritsuru dancing at the shore of the sea. It is a dream that many of us have had - of hearing our blood sing as we behold the beauty of the Komaru calling to us. It is the same dream that the Asawa and the Minamei share. It is the same dream that shapes the Jitani and Isora in their cycle of love and war. It is the dream that makes the Kodacha and the Hitoshi ache with passion shared but goals opposed. The poets that write that for each of us there can be one other may be wrong about our individual lives, but each pattern of blood within us knows it's mate.
Of course, we are the ones to whom our love is forbidden.
...
Tarabia wishes to seek the answer to the riddle of compelling the Merru to tell her how to break the curse. The first step she took herself, invoking the power of En'you's Bargain and bartering her memories of Ritsuru's touch for an answer. The Merru bargained gently with her, and I cannot but think of this as a sign of doom. They want what we have, and they gave Tarabia a name: Substance Without Form Bound to Flesh.
...
She has raised a priestess, En'you Umi, to mediate with the Merru. Umi has been dedicated to Kyuuketsuki the Vermilion Yearning, with Tarabia herself spilling her blood to slake the girl's hunger. Empty of heart and hand, Umi bore the ordeals of Kyokin and Lethora and gathered all of the power that Damien could offer.
She asked Kyuuketsuki for the power of Substance Without Form Bound to Flesh. Then, Tarabia's veil in her hands, she called forth the Merru and bound it into the shape of a man.
There is no brightness to compare with the shadowy beauty of Umi's slave. His eyes are as deep as the sea, and his skin is as dark as its depths. He moves like the waves against the sand, and his touch consumes. Umi rules him while she holds Tarabia's veil, but his smile already rules her heart.
They cannot be left alone together. But he has done what we could not have done. He has named the one who can lift the curse: Umimatsu, the End of the Sea.
It is too soon. It is the last of the dark moon's Powers. It cannot yet walk the world, but Tarabia means to call it. I cannot know what shall come of this.
We have done a terrible thing.
...
Its child grows within Umi's belly.
She has fled us. We must find her before it is too late.
We have done a terrible thing.
...
At such a price, we have set matters right. Umi is dead, her child stillborn within her womb. It tore Tarabia to take her life, but she had no choice. She took back her Veil and bade the bound creature take its life. It has done so.
I cannot imagine what it has cost Tarabia to maintain the Veil for these three months. She is a shattered woman.
...
The stars are right.
Tarabia calls Umimatsu even now.
It is inside her.
It speaks, and she speaks.
She wishes for the end of the ocean's curse.
It promises that it is done.
That is all.
...
Eight plus eight plus eight months have passed since then, and Tarabia bears Ritsuru's son. He will be born soon. I struggle to feel happy as I ponder this, my arms around Komaru Akiko and the scent of our love fresh in the air about us. Many of us have followed her.
Even in the wake of ecstasy of the moment, the future promises only dread.
...
My name is Komaru Akiko, and I bear within my womb a child.
There is no more Rionaisu, where maidens once danced as the sun set into the sea.
There is no more Ataranti, suspended between ocean and sky by pillars of white.
There is no more En'you, and where once they dwelled there is only sea.
There is no earth from Westwatch to Skye; half of Komaru has fallen.
En'you Tarabia's child was an ocean, now salty with tears for the dead.
My name is Komaru Akiko, and I bear within my womb a decision that must be made.
There are two prophecies.
When En'you's daughter bears a child by Komaru's son, Komaru will fall.
When the sea bears a child by the sky, the world will die.
One has already come to pass.