Editing Mr Wines
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<blockquote>''"WE SAT AMONGST THE STARS. WE ENTERTAINED TRADERS FROM DISTANT SUNS. WE OPENED GATES. WE BROKERED FATES. WE COUNTED CITIES IN OUR PALM LIKE COINS."''<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London'']</ref></blockquote> | <blockquote>''"WE SAT AMONGST THE STARS. WE ENTERTAINED TRADERS FROM DISTANT SUNS. WE OPENED GATES. WE BROKERED FATES. WE COUNTED CITIES IN OUR PALM LIKE COINS."''<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London'']</ref></blockquote> | ||
[[File:Ring broken.png|thumb|A WORD, BROKEN]] | [[File:Ring broken.png|thumb|A WORD, BROKEN]] | ||
Mr Wines was once a merchant-king of unimaginable power and privilege, whose domain stretched across the [[The High Wilderness|High Wilderness]].<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London''] ''"TO CHART OUR KINGDOM'S BORDERS, DRAW A CIRCLE FROM THE FIRST STAR TO THE LAST. | Mr Wines was once a merchant-king of unimaginable power and privilege, whose domain stretched across the [[The High Wilderness|High Wilderness]].<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London''] ''"TO CHART OUR KINGDOM'S BORDERS, DRAW A CIRCLE FROM THE FIRST STAR TO THE LAST. Planets crash and splinter in the words as you listen. THEN DRAW A CIRCLE BACK AGAIN. Confetti falls, each speck a galaxy. You are dewy with mornings that dawn over a thousand horizons. Trade winds roar through stellar ports, through sinews in your flesh. CREATION. DESTRUCTION. BEHOLD. [...] HOW MAJESTY IS MADE."''</ref> Though not a [[Judgement]], the authority it wielded was nigh comparable; its will was law, its desires were instantly fulfilled, and its wealth defied calculation.<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London''] ''"WE COULD POINT. WE COULD SAY: BRING IT HERE. AND IT WAS DONE. Mountains uprooted. Poles reversed. Continents plucked and civilisations displaced. You can hear tectonic plates break in each syllable. You can hear great beasts of burden wail beneath the weight of their transport. You can hear gold actually glitter. WE SAT AMONGST THE STARS. WE ENTERTAINED TRADERS FROM DISTANT SUNS. WE OPENED GATES. WE BROKERED FATES. WE COUNTED CITIES IN OUR PALM LIKE COINS."''</ref> And of course, it held revels on an interplanetary scale, with a degree of excess that made its current debaucheries look like a birthday party.<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London''] ''"ALL THINGS WERE LIGHT AND LOVE. All things are light and love. NOW POUR THE WINE. It pours, it pours, into a thousand yawning mouths, across a thousand horizons. LET OUR SUBJECTS REVEL. Dignitaries pass you, drifting through the speech, their skin stardust, their lips red with red wine. Bubbles rise from champagne seas. Things with wings, and things with diamond eyes, and things with tongues longer than time, present themselves to kiss your hand. They eat moonbeams. They drink daylight. They dance. WE REVELLED FOREVER."''</ref> Courtiers of every kind flocked to its court, pleading to be elevated above their station in exchange for worshipful devotion.<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London''] ''"WE COULD RAISE OUR SCEPTRE AND RAISE UP THE BASEST SLAVE TO THE HIGHEST TETRARCH. Entire peoples grovel at a throne whose seat is a sunrise. Lords with flashing eyes, ladies with floating hair, knights kneeling to pledge endless fealty. You count them in your mind's eye, as their numbers are announced, and numbers lose meaning. THEY STRETCHED FROM YESTERDAY TO TOMORROW. THEY QUEUED ACROSS THE AURORA TO BEG OUR AUDIENCE. WE GAVE OUR WORD THAT WE WOULD MAKE THEM GODS. THEY GAVE US EVERYTHING."''</ref> The arrogant Wines promised them both ascension and affection,<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London''] ''"BEAUTY. PASSION. MORE BEAUTY. WE WERE SURROUNDED BY BEAUTY. OUR FAVOURITES WE GAVE ASTEROIDS. WE DRAPED THEIR THROATS WITH JEWELS THAT WAXED AND WANED. WHEN COMETS BLAZED, WE SNIPPED THEIR SCARLET TAILS TO FASHION GARTERS BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHTNESS ITSELF. WE PROMISED WE WOULD LOVE THEM FOREVER. WE GAVE OUR WORD. WE GAVE THEM WINE. THEY GAVE US EVERYTHING."''</ref> but failed to keep those promises.<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London''] ''"THEY GAVE US EVERYTHING. AND WE – AND WE – Mr Wines sobs. It is a sob that wrenches every lie apart, that calls a cosmic monarch to account. Hordes swindled, deceived, rise around the merchant king who gave a word that meant less than nothing. Armies. Legions. Defrauded. Starlight blades, and sunlight shields, and vengeance as red as the final twilight."''</ref> Eventually its empires crumbled; it lost everything, and was cast down from glory. Now it drinks, to drown the memory of its fall from grace in endless intoxication.<ref>[https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Cricket,_Anyone%3F_(Story) Cricket, Anyone?, ''Fallen London''] ''"WE GAVE OUR WORD! WE GAVE OUR WORD! Its crown freezes. Its sceptre crystallises with celestial ice. Its wings enfold its body as it plummets with dead stars, cast into a darkness where love atrophies, where it shrinks and shrinks until it sits before you, trembling: Mr Wines, just Mr Wines at the toasting table, fumbling for a bottle to drown out the memories."''</ref> | ||
== References == | == References == |