Hubris

The Emperor stands before the assembled remnants of court, beside the bier of the Empress. Smoke rises from distant fires; the sounds of rebellion echo through broken walls.

Friends, subjects, citizens of this empire of ours once vast

Lend me your ears, though they be deafened by the thunder of our ruin.

I come to bury my beloved, not to praise the stars that led us here,

Yet praise I must, for in this flesh, now cold, within which a heart once did beat

Is one who dared to dream beyond the prophecies of old.

Thou know, and history shall remember, if any live to write it

That from my youth, many hath spoke of doom:

"A crown of stars shall grace thy head," they said,

"But lo, that crown shall burn, and burning, fall,

And with it, all the worlds thou holdest dear."

Mark you these words? I marked them well.

And yet, what is a prophecy but chains of words,

Forged in mouths of those who fear tomorrow?

I would not be bound! This heart still beats

Though soon it may be stilled by rebel blades

This heart refused the fetters of foretold fate.

Was that ambition? True, that many call it so.

Was it pride? Let it be writ upon my tomb.

But know this: it was love that drove me hence.

Here, lies the architect of all my striving,

The one who whispered, “Challenge heaven’s decree.

Make of thyself not what the stars have ordered,

But what thy will and courage dare to forge.”

Together, we defied the cosmic page,

And built an empire from scattered worlds

Not through paths that prophetic minds proscribe,

But through our own design, our own ambition.

They call us tyrants. Perhaps we were.

What is a tyrant but a ruler who refuses

To bow before the march of chaos?

I brought order to thousands,

Bent worlds beneath one law, one voice, one vision.

And yes, I crushed dissent as one would

A serpent ‘neath the heel, though not with cruelty,

But necessity. For a prophecy says empire falls,

Then the grip must tighten, must it not?

To hold, to keep, to change the end of ones own tale?

But see what mercy brought me! See what kindness hath earned!

I spared the houses when they plotted treason

My beloved begged for mercy, and mercy I did give.

Now their fleets besiege our very gates.

I pardoned their rebellions on distant worlds

For mercy is the quality of kings, is it not?

And now those worlds light fire to our skies,

Each a fallen star of prophetic fulfilment to spite my efforts.

And worst of all, oh cruellest irony

The one who urged me to defy the fates,

To seize the cosmos in iron grip,

To change what was foretold by force of will alone…

That one lies here, struck down not by enemies,

But by the very stars we sought to conquer.

A plague from some forgotten moon, they say,

Some microscopic vengeance of the universe

Against those who would rewrite its sacred text.

Was it hubris? Speak, you silent counsellors!

You who once proclaimed my glory to the stars

Where are your honeyed words? Your songs of triumph?

The prophecy said empire falls. It falls!

The prophecy said crown would burn. And burn it soon shall!

But it did not say that in my striving,

In my desperate grasping to change the end,

I would become the very instrument of its demise.

For look! I held too tight, and worlds slip through my fingers.

I struck too hard, and bred the hate that now consumes.

I loved too well, too well, and in that love,

Found reason to make monsters of us both.

We built this empire not on hope but fear,

Not on love of subjects but on terror of text,

The prophecy that hung above our heads

Like execution’s axe, forever falling, never fallen

Until this day.

And yet… And yet, my dearest heart,

I would not change a single moment of our war with fate.

For though prophecy proves true at last,

Though rebel fires consume our palace halls,

Though I shall soon lie beside thee in the dark—

We tried. Oh, how we tried!

We seized the stars themselves and said.

“Not so! Not by thy rules shall our story end!”

And if that ending comes regardless, what of it?

Better to rage against the dying of the light,

To build an empire in defiance of the void,

To love in spite of doom, to rule despite the cost,

Than meekly accept what fates dictate.

Go then, my subjects! For thy art subjects no more.

The prophecy is fulfilled; the empire falls.

But let this be remembered in whatever age shall come:

We were not passive in our end. We fought.

And though I ruled with iron fist,

Though my crown sits heavy with countless sins,

I did it all for love. Love of this soul here departed,

And yes, perchance, love of the power to say

To destiny itself: “Not so. Not yet. Not ever.”

But destiny, it seems, steals the final word.

As it was written, so it comes to pass.

The Stellar Empire falls. The Emperor falls.

And with these falls, let fall the curtain on this cosmic stage.

Oh, my beloved, forgive me. Forgive what becometh of me.

I built thee an empire when thou wanted only starlight.

I made thee Empress when thou wanted naught but to be loved.

And in my frantic striving to protect thee from it all,

I lost the very thing that made our love worth saving.

Its gentleness. Its grace. Its quiet joy in simple things.

The cruellest truth? ‘Twas no prophecy that killed thee.

But my endless war against it. Had I but let us live,

Truly live, unfettered by the fear of future doom

Perhaps thou wouldst still draw breath.

Perhaps yet, these halls would,

Echo not with fire, but with laughter yet still.

But alas, I cannot repent. For every stolen moment,

Every dawn we watched together from these very walls,

Every whispered word in darkness while our empire slept,

These were ours and ours alone.

If, indeed, I could speak to those young fools again,

Would I bid them walk away? Forswear their love to spare this pain?

Never. A thousand times never. Better to have burned with thee

Than have never known thy light at all.

Sleep now, my beloved. Sleep, for I shall follow soon.

Our war with heaven ends—not in victory, but in surrender.

The prophecy is kept. The stars have won their ancient game.

But mark this well, ye cosmic powers that decree our fates:

Though you have taken empire, crown, and life itself,

Though you have proven prophecy immutable as stone—

You cannot take what we had in those stolen moments,

Those precious hours when we were not rulers,

But two souls, defiant and in love.

And so I go now to that undiscovered land,

To join thee in that dark where no prophecies can reach,

Where crowns are meaningless and empires turn to dust.

Perhaps—oh, let it be—we shall find again those first stars,

The ones we named in youth, untainted by ambition's weight,

And trace their patterns once again,

Not as conquerors, but wide-eyed dreamers

Who knew nothing of prophecies or doom,

Who loved not wisely, perhaps, but loved too well.

So falls the Stellar Empire. So falls its Emperor.

But let the stars themselves bear witness as I go:

We defied you. We fought you. We loved despite you.

And if that is hubris, then let hubris be my final crown.