# Shattered Emotions Docile; Illoili’s bright gaze stretches silently over the songless village. Standing on the other side of the Azurevale lake, it’s citizens begrudgingly take on the mantle of Azurians to survive. Begging and scraping for anything The Holy City will provide them with. One man tolls the muddied village road day and night, housing “comes within the month”. Lone parents feed their children the last of their rations, food comes “every week”. Frail: a forgotten figure drags themselves begrudgingly out of the creaking comfort of their own bed. Lucky to have something to call their own in this fate-cursed hamlet, they can only be thankful for what they are provided with: “This is what I deserve.” They tell themselves, the last word echoing in their mind like a choir to an empty hall. Memory: walking to their dilapidated mirror every morning is the only routine they have. Beaming white eyes and light grey pupils stare back at the small figure, golden locks of unkempt frizzled hair cover the once ballroom dancer, now a marionette to her own morals. Sin; posthumous tales of her deeds now the portent of her posture to the external world. Once the queen’s right-hand woman she and her were two sides of the same emotional song: Truth. Egia, the strong-handed horns of harsh reality. Her, the soft-touched step of comfort. Betrayal: the murmur of the village outside drowns her self-inflicted memories with a crushing wave of rattle. She tenses as the roaring horns of The Holy City spew the queen’s song through her walls; wood and skin both vibrate with a murmur of dread and then, silence. Reality: the door to her docile slowly swings open to a red-horned figure. The darkness of sin swirls in the small figures eyes as the giant figure steps into her house to speak: “Hello, Aubrey.”