Role

Chapter 7

Empress Melememelem. Melememelem, Empress. Empress of Thera.
Melememelem the Smiting Fist of the Tyrant, Empress of Thera.
Her destiny arrived as she knew it would, as she forced it to
by her own strength, by clawing it from the others who would
keep it from her. She does not tire of hearing herself hailed
as the ruler of the Empire, as Empress. She reflects on it
and on what has changed.

Surprisingly, the shadow lord and dread lord both held to their
words and cast their vote for her. These were the right votes
to be sure, but the gods do not guarantee wisdom in mortals,
only eventual death. The question of course was the war master
and what his machinations might have achieved. Nothing, it
seems. Which is as it should be.

Still, the irony is that having become Empress, she has retained
the war master despite earlier professing a preference for another,
at first because she knew that the gods saw enough in him to raise
him to the council, but more because she has spent more and more
time with him. She does not doubt he already plots against her,
desite his statement "I do not betray", but she feels secure enough
not to consider removing him for now. And as she has seen, he is
a skilled fighter, more than merely competent, and that is what
she needs in a leader of the blades.

On a more personal level she has found her new royal status much
to her liking in ways she had not anticipated. Up until now much
of her time and effort had been spent hunting and killing enemies
of the faith and the Empire. And she likes it, very much. It
pleases her to do so both because it improves her status with her
lord as well as inspire fear among other therans. But now she finds
herself no longer worried about how others may feel, for she is now
above them, indeed feels almost parental, albeit in a dark and very
strict way. She now spends significant time simply speaking to those
who have not sworn the BloodOath yet, cajoling them and displaying
herself as the benovolent and even magnanimous ruler of all Thera.
After all she says, if they submit and swear BloodOath to her Empire,
there will be peace, all living in the dark order of Civliziation.
She now seeks to spend her time equally bringing the lesson of death
and also bringing the message in other ways. She is a priestess after
all and must preach in more than one way.