03x03 - This Stranger's Life

[bunniefuu]

[wind howling]

Interesting.

With light of this wavelength,

there should be some observable

thermal emanation.

[mysterious music]

Energy radiates from the stone,

but not in any form I've encountered.

Hmm.

Tests are required.

[Filomena] Amazing.

The energy seems to influence

the mental states of living beings.

Individually, the test subjects appear

smarter.

They've spontaneously evolved

into a superorganism.

[thrilling music]

They no longer seem to recognize

unexposed members of their species

as anything other than food.

[overlapping chatter]

No.

[grunts]

Father, what a perfectly awful time

for you to be away.

[theme music]

[foreboding music]

[children laughing]

You're so slow!

[laughing]

- I'm gonna get you.

- [pants]

Ha!

- [gasps]

- [girl] Hey!

- [children laughing]

- You're it!

[explosions in distance]

What is that?

- [expl*si*n]

- [grunts]

[boy] Race you there.

[unsettling music]

Can you see it?

[boy gasps]

[boy] By the Dawn Star.

I don't like it.

Hey! Come back!

[overlapping chatter]

[boy grunting]

[screams]

[villager] The damn noise

wakes the entire block.

Surely, His Excellency sees the value

The copper ingots were counterfeit,

and he was rude to my servant.

He must be punished.

filled with villains and scum.

And I see guards there daily.

The Shoehorn must be cleaned out.

The Imperium must not be sullied

by poor policing.

I will speak

with the captain of the guard.

- Your father would have already

- [indistinct whisper]

My father appreciates your concern.

That will be all for today.

[Emperor Zal] Sherzi! Oh, gods, please!

Where is my wife?

Sherzi?

[Emperor Zal crying]

[Emperor Zal] I demand to see her.

Father?

Emperor Zal?

[Emperor Zal] Go away.

It's me.

It's Sherzi. I'm here. Come open the door.

[sighs]

You're all right. I'm here.

Oh, Sherzi. My dear wife.

I've been so worried.

Come sit. Here, you must be hungry.

What troubles you?

Our daughter. She is not prepared.

Mirana is stronger than you know.

[slurps]

There's more to taking the throne

than strength.

Making decisions for which

no one else can muster the courage.

Seeing where others are blind.

Braving the darkness alone.

She will do everything she can

to make you proud.

Every time I look upon her,

I see our failure.

[knocking on door]

[Emperor Zal] Enter!

[Mirana] Captain.

I hope this is important.

I wouldn't have intruded otherwise,

Highness.

Something happened.

An incident in the Hinterlands.

You're needed in the throne room.

Mirana?

Where did your mother go?

Sherzi? Sherzi?

[Emperor Zal crying]

[Mirana] Tell us exactly what you saw.

[merchant] Monsters.

I barely made it out alive.

You must go. Burn them out.

There's more you're not saying.

Out with it.

It's not just what I saw.

It's what I felt, pushed through my skull.

The world spun, and my soul teetered

on the edge of an abyss.

A red glow to swallow up

all law and reason.

I felt the truth. We are nothing.

So, you had a bad dream.

[whimpers]

Pardon her apprehension,

but the claims you make are strange.

[merchant] You want proof.

The proof is in the blood.

[grunts]

[gasps]

[suspenseful music]

[merchant groaning]

[unsettling music]

Alert the guard.

I ride to the Hinterlands myself.

[eerie music]

- [Luna] Three days' march for this.

- Easy now.

Where in the Seven Hells is everyone?

[eerie music]

Where could they have gone?

It's as though they all left at once

in the night.

[hopeful music]

Your Highness.

[gasps]

[Mirana] Oh, I was beginning to fear

you would never come.

More trouble with the Coriel'Tauvi?

Mene's Provincial Governor

in the Scintillant Waste

thought that she might collect tribute

from our border regions.

I relayed your father's objections.

[Mirana] I hope you were polite.

Hmm, things became heated.

Do you think the Coriel'Tauvi

are responsible for this?

[sighs]

No.

The Principality of Shadow

is not usually given to such subtlety.

[Luna] It's the same around the perimeter.

Abandoned property. Empty silence.

Could you see anything from above?

Not through this fog.

So, we're marching blind,

in the middle of the night,

into the arms of an adversary

we cannot identify and do not understand?

Perfect.

Forward then.

[grandiose music]

[eerie music]

- [Mirana] Halt!

- [grunts]

[monster snarling]

[screams]

[soldier screams]

[grunts]

By the Dawn Star. What was she?

[monsters growling]

[Mirana] Hold steady.

[expl*si*n]

[monsters snarling]

[grunts]

[screaming]

Shields! Form ranks!

[grunting]

[grunting continues]

[groaning]

[overlapping chatter]

[grunts, gasps]

[groans]

[snarling]

[Mirana grunts]

[grunts]

The villagers.

It's all of them.

They're all

- Burn it to the ground.

- Done.

[grunts, screams]

[monsters growling]

[Lina screams]

[tragic music]

[overlapping chatter]

[mysterious voice] Remember.

[Lina] Give it some room, Highness.

You saw what it did to these people.

[sighs]

Yes. You're wise, of course.

[somber music]

[Luna scoffs]

One damned rock did all this.

I'm more disquieted by a question.

What if there are more?

What if this is only the start

of something else?

Something worse?

[grandiose music]

Princess, I hope the soldiers

I lent the throne served you well.

They did.

My father and the Empire thank you.

Oh, your father.

I have not seen your father in many suns.

The demands on his time and energy

are difficult to overstate.

Hm. And the demands on you, Princess,

what of them?

Spit it out. You want something.

Only the opportunity to serve the throne.

I see how restless you are, Princess.

Name me Regent.

Perhaps I can ease the demands

on you both.

Your kind concern

is always so appreciated, Legatus.

And thank you again for the troops.

Your Highness.

[groans]

She's more snake than a woman.

[door opens]

[approaching footsteps]

Mirana, you have returned.

Father, you seem to be having a good day.

The days are always good

under our unflagging sun.

In the night, though, I must admit,

dark times do visit upon me.

How was your trip?

I encountered something.

Something awful and powerful.

A stone that glowed crimson.

- A stone?

- [Mirana] What is it?

A half-remembered dream or a nightmare

that came to me while you were gone.

I saw a red rock, in a cave

in the snow.

You were lost in its song.

It was only a dream, Father.

Do not trust me. Do not rely on me.

Even sanity feels like madness now.

Oh.

[shushes]

Don't say that.

Death comes for me. Prepare for it.

When you were born,

the Oracle offered you a gift of prophecy.

He told me I would know when the time

had come for you to collect it.

Find him. Take the stone.

Find your answers.

[Mirana] I don't want to leave you again.

You must.

Just remember,

the Oracle speaks truths

that sound like lies

and lies that conceal the truth.

He foresaw this.

Or perhaps Or perhaps,

I just imagined it.

[Emperor Zal sobbing]

Sherzi! There you are. Sing with me.

Of course.

[Mirana humming]

[grandiose music]

[Mirana] You know that little voice

in your head,

the one that chimes in

when you're trying to decide something?

It always leaves me wondering,

is that the true me or is that the devil

tempting me to error?

You're still thinking

about those monsters in the village.

No, the Oracle.

What if he tells me things

that wouldn't have come true

if he hadn't spoken?

Fate always seemed a noose to me.

Well, there's fate, and there's destiny.

Fate is for cowards and fools.

Destiny is what you make it.

[tranquil music]

Destiny.

Mirana, daughter of Zal,

Princess of the Sun

come to say farewell.

[Mirana] You must know why I'm here.

Oh, not even you know why you're here,

because you have not yet arrived.

I don't understand.

[Oracle] Of course not. Not now.

Not yet.

I will make you some tea.

Under the shadow of this red rock,

you will see what blinds you.

Come in, under the shadow.

You will have your answers,

and you will wish

you never sought them at all.

Do I have a choice?

[Oracle] You are free.

You can leave my temple now, as you will.

But we both know,

as much as it feels like a decision,

your path has been set

since the moment you saw the Direstone.

Direstone?

[intense music]

[mysterious voice] Remember.

[pants]

I remember.

I'm not me.

Not this me.

[Oracle] Hah. The hiss of fate.

He did this. The Invoker did this.

No. The Pillars of Creation did.

He used them,

collapsing all realities into one.

This one.

He silenced infinite souls.

But your voice,

a god's voice pierced the void.

The Pillars of Creation?

If they made this,

then this can be unmade.

With more difficulty than you know.

I'm afraid your divinity has fled you.

What power you have

is granted by your father and destiny.

Your Radiance, the prophecy you came for,

I would speak it.

Thank you, no.

I've heard your prophecies before.

The Devil of the Moon

would turn Selemene's lotuses against her,

heralding the return of Mene

and the destruction of all things.

That came true, it seems.

Yes, it came true.

But tell me, was it fate,

or was it destiny?

You'll forgive me

if I leave that question to you.

You will travel into darkness,

and save what you love

by allowing what you've loved to die.

[Oracle] Restoration requires destruction,

Princess of the Sun, Princess of the Moon,

Princess of nothing at all.

[pensive music]

Marci?

Oh, gods, Marci.

Let me look at you.

[sentimental music]

[Luna] The Oracle

said something obnoxious.

I would have separated him

from his tongue long ago.

But the bastard always saw me coming.

He was obscure.

And why do you look like

you just came from a funeral?

It's nothing.

It seems more than nothing.

Have you ever had a dream

where someone you love wronged you?

You know they did nothing,

yet, the sting remains.

I wronged you in a dream.

You were wronged more gravely.

My father, he is not well.

I know you will care for him

and care for the people.

[Lina] Princess?

[Mirana] I will not be returning

to The Imperium.

Where you go, we follow.

Where I go now, the guard, their captain,

and The Slayer would be noticed,

and quite unwelcome.

You're headed into Shadowlands.

I won't leave you unescorted

to the tender mercies of the elves.

You can, and you will.

Please, stay by my father's side,

both of you.

Do not trust Tihomir,

and do not trust my uncle.

You're not making any sense.

Trust I am trying to set things right.

Lina.

You worry you are capable

only of destruction.

I know better.

[Mirana] I'm not from this world.

I'm not the Mirana you grew up with,

and loved, and served so selflessly.

And you're not my Marci,

but I watched you

watched her

Gods, it's

[sighs]

The Mirana you knew

thought there was no greater pain

than looking into her father's eyes

and seeing a stranger.

But in the other world,

the one I come from,

Father was right. I failed.

I lost you. I lost I lost everything.

[sentimental music]

There are two paths before me.

Down the first,

righting a wrong so perverse,

I can't even comprehend it completely.

Down the other, this life.

This stranger's life.

[sighs]

I feel trapped in someone else's dream.

Where is it?

It's gone.

Well, how could it be gone?

There's only one moon.

[Filomena] The thr*at is unprecedented.

The stones have fallen all over the world,

even here in the Nightsilver Woods.

Where they land, chaos follows.

And where are they falling from?

The moon, Highness.

Our moon is crumbling

and raining this down upon our heads.

The moon.

Then they are gifts from Mene.

This must be her will.

If they are gifts,

they are strange and troubling gifts.

N Not every creature, so exposed,

is reduced to a gibbering cannibal.

A few, a very few, seem able to resist

the worst of the effects

and are visibly empowered instead.

Just a handful of such beings

could pose a thr*at to the Dark Moon Order

and our Lady's ability

to maintain peace across her dominion.

The Helio Imperium

and Zal's Praetorian Guard

have already been troublesome.

You're saying that those troubles

would grow?

Perhaps exponentially, Highness.

I would request an audience with our Lady.

If she has some intent,

I would like to divine it.

[Althing member] Impossible.

Forgive my daughter.

She isn't usually given to overreaction.

Disturbing the goddess

is quite unnecessary.

The stones can be collected,

their effects contained.

I will personally see to it.

[Filomena] Overreaction?

These stones may be a conduit

for an entity

whose power could surpass any of the gods.

Quite a conclusion.

I don't imagine you shared it

with The Althing.

[scoffs]

Of course, I didn't.

Something like that? They're not prepared.

Correct.

What are you

Some mysteries

are better left as mysteries.

That applies to them, not me.

Filomena, for once,

when I tell you something, listen.

I always listen.

Listen and obey.

[scoffs]

This is dangerous. This is death.

Leave this problem to me.

Trust that I know best.

Fine.

[Invoker] I am proud of you.

You're all that matters to me.

Trust that, too.

[mellow music]

You're wrong, Father. I listen.

It's the obey part

I've never been very good at.

[lively music]

[indistinct chatter]

He said, "Tonight, we dine!

Tonight, we drink!

The village is saved!"

- [crowd cheering]

- [patron] To Bram!

I'll return with fresh cups for everyone.

Barkeep, another round.

It's good to see

some things haven't changed.

Sorry. What hasn't changed?

Your love of jumping in front of lines

at bars, Davion.

[suspenseful music]

Of course. It's you.

Took me a second in this dim light.

Um, let me get you a drink.

Your favorite is something strong.

Whiskey, right?

We had a wild night after

[Mirana] I'm not one

of your nameless conquests.

They all have names, lovely.

But I'm in my cups, and my memory

just isn't what it was when

Yeah, I'm not here

to share a drink or your bed.

I have a need of a Dragon Knight.

I have need of you.

This wyrmling you've slain.

I'm hunting something bigger.

- [gulping]

- The Crimson Devil.

The Father of Fire.

I'm hunting Slyrak.

[closing theme music]