The Empress of Beforus
I was recently asked by someone what I remembered about the Feferi who was empress of Beforus. I’ve pretty much copied what I said to him, here.
She was fairly short, and she was kind of pudgey. She aged very well. Keeping her sort of smiling , youthful appearance. But the age showed around her eyes. Which gave her kind of a tired look when you were close enough.
She had curling, teeming hair, that seemed to move , like the tendrils of the underwater beasts. She almost never stopped smiling , even when she was clearly unhappy.
She was aggressively kind. Preaching charity and kindness to all. Reinforcing that the world was to be peaceful, and community focused. She had this high, sweet little laugh that she’d do when genuinely amused by something, and another, more regal and refined one for obliging. She cared about my wellbeing, and seemed increasingly upset as I grew more and more unhappy, sneaking off to swim, or ignore her.
She sometimes followed me, and we would swim silently, before she asked me to listen to what she had to say.
I would comply.
The thing I remember most was how tired she looked, sometimes . In her eyes, or the strain of her smile .
She looked like the society, the constraint worry for her subjects and obsession with charity was eating her from the inside.She looked like a captive you forced to keep smiling , in those moments. And it terrified me. It was like seeing the future.
The weight of all that responsibility crushing down on her. And eventually me.
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