An entry from the journal of the former excerpt "To the prince, we offered twelve thousand flowers, Blooming in an untouched field," leader of the Beloved Nights.

How did I get here? How did I find this home? Pain. Pain was my guide.

For the first half of the year each second was a dozen or more. I have buried my kin, my peers, and myself. I put my love to rest and lived in a marionette corpse for months. Yet I never knew a pain like this until I looked up from Volition's surface and saw a beautiful new world with no place for me in it.

I knelt before the so-called Cadent Under Mirage and waited for an answer. Where could I best serve her? Lacking her own answer, and without her advisor, the priestess, in sight, she deferred to a bureaucrat.

I remember the ship they put me on. It smelled of bleach and rust. it was crowded with those who would I would manage. A cleanup operation. The remains of Privign Station, which Volition's monstrous retainers had crushed into crumbs, and which the pull of the Mirage and brought to us like galleon driftwood.

They all speak of miracles, but the only one that matters to me is that in this broken place, I found reason to live again.

We found her in a pod and when we brought her to, we were moved by the force of her sadness. She looked out on what the Mirage had become, how our leader had shrunk from duty, and vowed to find a place for all of us. She lifted me with a finger and stared through me from behind her veil, and she had my loyalty instantly. And I had a home and a purpose, here, beside the Waking Cadent.

Signet… I wish you had been there. Just so you knew I wasn't a fool.

This Week on Twilight Mirage: This Year of Ours: The Stitch

And I believe you when you say that you've lost all faith But you must believe in something, something, something

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal)

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