The war was over, but the work of a Manomi never ended.
Omari Imani walked through the tall, purple grass of the High Pastures. The air here was thin and sweet. Above her, the Celestial Lantern was in its morning cycle, the golden wheels spinning at a leisurely pace.
She wasn't wearing her stiff court robes. She wore a simple linen tunic and trousers, though her Mursi headdress—with its dangling elephant tusks—remained perched on her head. A Rancher was never fully dressed without her artifact.
"Easy, girl," Omari murmured, extending her hand.
In front of her stood a Moon-Grazer, a massive, six-legged bison with fur that shimmered like starlight. The beast was agitated. During the invasion, the Dildillaac storm had upset the electromagnetic balance of the Cosmosphere, and the sensitive creatures were still twitchy.
"The sky is fixed," Omari soothed, projecting a wave of Violet Huenergy (Calm/Spirituality). "The Astraposphere is sealed. The Cosmosphere is quiet."
The Moon-Grazer snorted, pawing the ground. It was not convinced.
THUD.
The ground shook.
The Moon-Grazer panicked, rearing up on its hind legs.
Omari sighed. She didn't need to turn around to know who had just landed in her pasture. There was only one man in Akogwa who had a landing signature that heavy.
"Authority Oba," Omari called out without looking back. "If you scare my lactation herd, you are paying for the sour milk."
"I landed softly!" a deep voice protested.
Azure Oba strode through the grass. The Sanguine giant looked out of place among the delicate flowers. He wasn't wearing his Isiagu today; he wore a loose red dashiki that exposed the massive muscles of his arms. His natural dreadlocks were tied back, but his Red Aura (Root Chakra) still hummed with a low-level intensity that made the air feel dense.
"You landed like a meteor," Omari corrected, turning to face him. She calmed the bison with a final pat and shooed it away. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Is there another invasion? Or did Scribe Agyenim run out of ink?"
"The Scribe is busy writing names in the 4th District," Azure grunted, stopping a respectful distance away. "And the border is quiet. The Tohunga is in session."
"Ah, yes," Omari nodded. "The new Council."
Since the crisis, the Tohunga had been restructured. It was no longer just Dibias. Now, Elder Stage people from every Role sat on the advisory body—Elder Akins who had survived hundreds of wars, Elder Manomis who remembered the old seasons. It was a more balanced wisdom.
"My presence was not required," Azure admitted, scratching his beard. "The Elder Akins talk too much about the 'Philosophy of the Shield.' I prefer the practice."
He shifted his weight, looking uncharacteristically awkward. For a man who could shatter obsidian towers with a spear construct, he looked terrified of the small woman in front of him.
"I brought you something," Azure blurted out.
He reached behind his back and pulled out a crate. It wasn't a military crate; it was a cage made of gold wire.
Omari raised an eyebrow. "A cage?"
"Inside," Azure pointed.
Omari stepped closer. Inside the cage sat a lizard. But not just any lizard. It had scales that absorbed light and eyes that burned with a tiny, internal fire.
"A Sun-Eater," Omari breathed.
It was a rare reptile native to the Desert Mirror. It fed on pure solar radiation.
"I found it near the ruins of the Obsidian Needle," Azure explained, rubbing the back of his neck. "Before the Erasure. It was... lonely. I thought, since you like things that are difficult to manage..."
Omari looked from the lizard to the Warlord.
"You brought me a predator from a hostile dimension," she stated.
"It purrs if you scratch its chin," Azure offered helpfully.
Omari suppressed a smile. She opened the cage. The Sun-Eater hissed, flaring its neck frill. Omari didn't flinch. she reached out with her Manomi senses, tapping into the beast's simple consciousness.
Hunger. Heat. Fear.
"It's cold," Omari noted. "The atmosphere here is too thick for it."
She unclipped a Cosmic-energy-bank artifact—a small warmed stone usually used by Albinos—from her belt and placed it in the cage. The lizard immediately curled around it, its scales turning a contented orange.
"Value," Omari murmured. "A Sun-Eater is worth a hefty vow in the open market. And I get one as a gift..."
She looked up at Azure.
"It is irrational," she said softly. "Why did you go back for it? The tower was exploding. The beam was active."
Azure shrugged, his Red Aura flushing slightly darker.
"You said you wanted to expand your collection of 'Exotic Fauna'," he mumbled. "And... I broke your fruit platter."
Omari laughed. It was a rare sound, bright and unguarded.
"Azure," she said, stepping into his personal space. The height difference was trope-comical—he towered over her by two feet (he's only 7')—but she held the power in the moment. "You saved my life at the banquet. I think the debt for the fruit platter is settled."
"I am an Akin," Azure said seriously. "I do not leave debts unpaid. It is bad for the Makoma."
Omari reached out and touched the Elao tusk hanging at his hip. The artifact hummed at her touch.
"You are a strange man, Azure Oba," she whispered. "You are Severity and Violence... but you save lizards from burning deserts."
"I protect what is valuable," Azure said, his voice dropping to a rumble that vibrated in her chest.
He looked at her, his green eyes intense.
"And I protect the Rancher."
The air between them grew heavy, charged with Ase. It wasn't the explosive Ifunanya of the King and Queen; it was something slower. Earthier. Like the roots of a mountain settling into the bedrock.
Omari tipped her head back.
"The lizard is accepted," she said. "But the cage is ugly."
Azure grinned, the tension breaking. "I am a soldier, Omari. I build forts, not jewelry boxes."
"Then come inside," Omari said, turning back toward her ranch house. "I have some Palm Wine. And you can tell me why the Elder Akins kicked you out of the Tohunga meeting."
"They didn't kick me out," he argued. "I left when Elder Kojima started reciting poetry about the 'Honor of the Parry.' It was excruciating."
Omari smiled to herself. The war was over. The sky was safe. And the most dangerous man in the Empire was currently worried about whether she liked his lizard.
It was a good day.
Meanwhile...
The Arctic Mirror – The Glacial Spires
Far from the warmth of the Royal Ranch, in the monoclimatic reflection of the Arctic Mirror, the wind screamed.
This was a world of eternal ice and biting cold. The Celestial Lantern's light barely reached here, filtered through layers of atmospheric frost.
Inside a cavern carved from sky-ice, a meeting was taking place.
These were not humans. Their skin was white as salt. Their hair was blood-red. Their mouths were filled with rows of serrated shark teeth.
Asuras.
But these were not the mindless beasts that raided the border for food. These were larger. Broader. They had saber-like fangs jutting from their upper jaws and warthog tusks from their lower jaws .
Rakshasha Asuras.
A figure sat on a throne made of frozen bone. He was immense, his body covered in scars that glowed with a faint, necrotic blue light.
"The Needle failed," a lesser Asura hissed, groveling on the ice. "The Brotherhood of Dust was weak. The Logic-Men erased the tower."
The Rakshasha King did not speak immediately. He picked up a skull—a human skull—swirling the blood within.
"The Brotherhood of Dust tried to pull the sky down," the King rumbled. His voice sounded like a glacier calving. "Fools."
He stood up.
"The Servitor Supreme thinks he has won. He thinks his Ubuntu is strong because he married a gardener."
The King smiled, a horrific display of teeth.
"But the Nommo of the Dibia has a weakness. It relies on logic. It relies on rules."
He turned to the wall of the cave. Embedded in the ice was something ancient. Something that pulsed with a rhythm that was neither Ase nor Iku.
"We do not follow their rules," the Asura King declared. "Prepare the Legion. The Desert failed."