[ammonia_lemon_antiseptic=acrid mélange. collapse. collate. recall(suppress shame, enhance clarity)]

'For posterity. So that others may recall my private thoughts and reasoning. For if I die or am rendered hollow.

'Awoke in the desert unknown.'

[sand silver, like dreams. blue-hour/dawn eternal/interwoven with twilight. a long walk's beginning]

'Trained to serve masters I would rather have not. Grew strong. Grew wise. Served under the Barant. They taught me which of us would be spent and which of us would be valorized. Not me. Not my kind.'

[selfsame overlay. sister and sister. mother and mother. two winds together.]

'Asked myself: What price would I pay to be a shepherd to my siblings? Assessed unavoidable context. Appraised options. Decided: I would become a left hand. A red shadow. I will hunt the foe, hone my allies. Cut both ways. '

[see a blade, hidden. see an eye, hidden behind a hand. see a dream, covered over with a lie. see a mirror and the blood upon it]

'Lume is a soldier, not a dreamer. He has his massif, but he needs a stream; that is the Totality Division. The stream that spills from the massif, a water-knife that seeks the pliant path.

'I give Lume an indispensable expendable asset. Lume leaves us be. The massif forgets the stream. The stream flows free.

'It is in this way that I will protect my kind. My sisters and siblings. A division of dreamers and killers, insulated from Lord Bael's hideous work.'

- Enforcer Rao, First of the Totality