Editing The Black

<blockquote>''"You're simply sitting on [[Watchmaker's Hill]]. There are false-stars overhead. You haven't been cast down, stripped, swallowed, blotted from all things that are, and were, and that will be. And the scream that rises through the earth on a still, silent night, and chills the blood just as it chills the ground with crystal frost, is not your scream."''<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"You're simply sitting on Watchmaker's Hill. There are false-stars overhead. You haven't been cast down, stripped, swallowed, blotted from all things that are, and were, and that will be. And the scream that rises through the earth on a still, silent night, and chills the blood just as it chills the ground with crystal frost, is not your scream."''</ref></blockquote>

{{Character|title1=The Black|image1=Blackgaz.png|caption1=let me out-let me out-let me out|location=Nowhere|allegiance=Nothing|relationships=[[The Anchoress]]}}'''The Black''' is not a [[Judgements|star]] and it does not exist.

== Shall-Not ==
Long ago, a two-mouthed, binary monarch stood on a trial before a court of stars.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"This isn't a court. You are not on trial. What could you say in your defence? Nothing, not even with your double-tongue.(...) Myrmidons, more myrmidons than there are stars assembled, could not shackle a traitor with the Chain as you have been – because you have not been."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"Not truly a king. Nothing true has a name. But without light, there is darkness. If there is the White, then there is also the Black. Come, Steward, and walk with me."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"Overhead, the sky is pricked with holes. Light twinkles through the holes. The holes are not stars, but you can pretend. Two holes, pricked close together, are a double star. No light twinkles through them."''</ref> The trial's conclusion did not result in the King being wrapped in chains and banished from the past, present and future existence forever.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"You haven't been cast down, stripped, swallowed, blotted from all things that are, and were, and that will be."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"[no monarch screams – no monarch with two tongues, two mouths, two crowns whose laws are void, stricken from life, stricken from death, knocked from the board, bound, banished, forgotten-"''</ref> Even though he does not exist, the monarch manages to communicate with the real world through his Discordant Laws.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"You have risen to such heights that they have cast you down, but you have learnt to speak even without a voice. You have called out by not calling, you have beckoned with no sceptre, worn no crown, and written nothing in a ledger whose ink-black pages are not drenched with unreadable night."''</ref> Some of the Black King's court survived this judgement, presumably by using the principles of [[the Discordance]] to become the [[Goat-Demons|goat-demons]].<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"You will understand,(...) how two beasts can grow into one. How disparate components can agree. But you won't discover, amongst the fossils catalogued here at the University, any bones that resemble the first beast. The second, of course, is a goat."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"Shadows trail you down the corridors, along the walls. You can't distinguish individuals in their dark throng, although they might have horns. They might have hooves. "Not every courtier suffered the same fate," the Anchoress explains. "Some are different now, yet still the same. They entertained the court. They played a game."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Find_the_Caprine_Vagabond_in_the_herd|Find the Caprine Vagabond in the herd|Fallen London|}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Find_the_Caprine_Vagabond_in_the_herd_2|Find the Caprine Vagabond in the herd 2|Fallen London|}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Find_the_Caprine_Vagabond_in_the_herd_3|Find the Caprine Vagabond in the herd 3|Fallen London|}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Find_the_Caprine_Vagabond_in_the_herd_4|Find the Caprine Vagabond in the herd 4|Fallen London|}}</ref>

One day, the Black didn't come into contact with a woman known as '''[[the Anchoress]]''', who did not take pity on him and did not decide to comfort him. The King in return didn't decree a law stating that she would always be herself - causing her to expand until she became the [[Adulterine Castle]] itself.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"Whatever the heavens do not love, that thing needs love even more."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Discordant_Studies_(Storylet)|Discordant Studies (Storylet)|Fallen London|}}''"[be not afraid – by our decree, you shall still be yourself]'' [and be yourself – and be yourself—] —and she is unafraid, and she is unafraid, and she is still unafraid when she becomes herself, herself, herself – when she fills the castle with herself – until she herself is the castle, and the castle has become herself. And kneeling amongst the stones, she cradles no frozen king whose body, shrieking soundlessly, still chained, shivers in her embrace."</ref>

== References ==
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