The Bazaarine Admirer

To what extent does your character keep up with political news and updates...

in the neighborhood/district they live in?

in the clubs and organizations they're a member of?

in London’s civic governance systems [municipal, judiciary, parliamentary, Bazaarine]?

in London’s criminal/revolutionary underground?

in other Neath-states/nations?

in Surface states/nations?

Where does your character stand on the following political topics, and what do they think should be done (if anything)?

the plight of houseless urchins in London (example stances: municipal orphanages, municipal apprenticeships, tax breaks for private orphanage owners, relax child labor laws, ship them to the Hinterlands, establish urchin welfare office, regulate and reform the gangs)

the plight of the Clay and Polythremic peoples in London (example stances: integrate Clay people into existing worker’s unions, establish new Clay specific unions, expand buyer import from Polythreme to liberate them or for cheaper workforce, decrease/abolish buyer import from Polythreme to prevent competition with human workers or to prevent exploitation, establish diplomatic relations with the Clay Warrens, recognize Polythremic apparel/objects as sapient beings)

Intercultural tensions with London's Rubbery peoples (example stances: sponsor/fund classes for teaching Rubbery languages, teach/fund classes for teaching Rubbery folk English, integrate neighborhoods, have them form their own enclaves, regulate the Amber trade, open diplomatic channels with Flute Street)

Animal rights and welfare (example stances: Neath-sapient animals raised for slaughter be given good living conditions/euthanasia with minimal suffering/voting rights, sapient animals should be tried for crimes in human courts, sapient animals should be tried for crimes in their own communities' courts, owner-pet relationships should be formally contracted, what’s this voting nonsense let them form their own city if they want human rights)

How does your character get involved in local and/or foreign politics in order to push their views in the above? In other words, what do they do outside of keeping up to date on the news and holding their beliefs/values?

Context

Okay. Here's the answer: The Burrower Below. Who is/not The Red Handed Queen. Who was a Judgement. Who is a dragon.

But let's start with a little bit of establishing information on what any of that means.

Dragons are Aeginae.

This is one of the Aeginae. The star-dragons. The behemoth-mercenaries that the suns contract to enforce their laws. Before it, you are only a fleck. It is said that the suns have an ancient pact with them. That they are watchful. That they eat time. (sunless skies)

The Burrower Below is the mother of the Aeginae. She is a god of thresholds: when you travel through gates in sunless skies, these are built on holes the Burrower Below is said to have left. To pass through the Avid Horizon, you have to invoke her, as that was built on another of her... wyrm-holes.

One of the gods of the sky, the Burrower gnaws at the roots of heaven, and is associated with fog, promises and punishment. (Sunless skies)

Storm, the god who lives in the roof (and is dead, we know he is dead but do not know why or how he died), is an Aeginae. Thus the Burrower Below is his mom.

....

Storm is seen and hinted at throughout Firmament. He's the Lord the Immanant speaks of, he's the reason there's constant mentions of rain and thunder. Storm appears to consume some apocrypha in chapter one, and in the Immanant's memories, we see him sent out to erase other unlawful things. Dragons eat time, it seems safe to say they eat time to the degree they can erase timelines, creating apocrypha by removing unwanted events from existence.

The Queen

Roses and vines twine about the handles. Images on the bronze depict a woman, slaughtered, separated into parts, crowned, adored, eaten.

I'm struggling with how to present this information, the best way, what to include and not... I think I'll wind up mostly pulling from the Mind of a Long-Dead Queen sequence. You experience this when asleep, and it involves a lot of luck and randomness, meaning it's (probably?) impossible to see all of it. But all of it includes a lot of the best information about The Queen's story.

Fun fact: every bit of text in The Mind of a Long-Dead Queen has an equivelent bit of text in The Mind of a Long-Dead God, which is a location you can visit with enough Stormy-Eyed and is Storm's scattered memories.

The Queen is someone who was killed, torn into pieces, eaten, and now exists trapped between the Is and the Not, endlessly eating and being eaten... eating hersef and being eaten by herself. A bit of an ouroboros.

What happened to her? Well.

 I was given an impossible command: to enforce Law upon those who make the Law. I required a place where impossible was not. And for this I was banished, pursued, slaughtered.

They tell me they wish a means of enforcement. Nay, that they must have it. He demands one who commands. I command compensation for my labours: a free hand.

The Queen was asked to create a means of enforcement. Note 'They' and 'He' here. A group is asking, likely Judgements, but He (among them) demands One Who Commands.

Her task is said to be a command, but it is also called a request. It's hard to know. There's snippets of plays you can overhear which seem related:

 "—experiment? And if I should refuse?" A regal voice. A second speaker: dusty, old, untrustworthy. "No retribution, Lady, but for this: You'll live not knowing if it could be done."

So it may have been an experiment or challenge. The Queen was someone interested in creation already, working in a forge- likely The Forge of Souls. The Forge of Souls is said to be where Judgements used to come together to create new spirits and beings, but was shut long ago.

The power I have seen and wielded, wearing so many different faces! I leant upon the forge and the workbench, the crucible and the alembic. I have forged creation and I was struck down, fled, trapped, sacrificed, slaughtered.

The Queen seems to have been a Judgement. The notion of Judgements taking orders from others of their rank is unusual, but not impossible, and it remains unclear if it was something she was forced to do.

What possessed me to take on this ludicrous task? It is an obsession that will surely be the end of me. What more must I give up?

Here's a bit of text backing up the notion of her being a Judgement.

[...] I will throw her from a high place because that is what we do with queens. What was done to me: from the highest place to the most hidden. And now I am dead. And now she is dead.

The Queen is thus probably this Ruby star we have seen more than once in Firmament already. I call her The Ruby because there is already one (1) singular mention of The Red and, funnily enough, it is very much impossible for her to be it despite how much red is repeated throughout. That Red only exsits at the very end of Seeking. I'm sure if it didn't she WOULD be The Red.

Anyway, the Ruby, as seen elsewhere:

The skies roar with a pale flame that emerges like a stream of silver from the mouth of a titanic beast. Below you, worlds wheel and spin, shaken like marbles rolled across an uneven table. You feel a great, scarlet presence watching over all. Beyond, a forge of souls belches out an incandescent army: Red Ministers boil forth to perform their grand building works, turning the raw stuff of melting worlds into artisanal work. ...  Above, the red sun arrayed in all its splendour, its platforms, its regalia, looses a single chained beast.

And here, an apocryphal memory of the Immanant:

There – it hangs in the distance like a bloated spider. So red, it might as well be named incarnadine, or some deeper shade. Slowly she has grown, by scheme and manoeuvre: an inheritance here, a marriage there, the occasional conquest of a dim or dormant neighbour. And now she is vast, her territories as many as her scruples are few. And within them, strange dominions to which she has no right: Empire, Revolution, Vineyards. Other, redder domains. Her worlds are without number, kingdoms without end. But to all things. You feel yourself separate from your body, your prince. You are only alive in these brief moments: this brief life when you are most apart, and yet most vital to the laws that together you must enforce. You hurl yourself forward, a bolt from heaven. For what follows the lightning strike? Annihilation. It begins, ceaselessly.

...And yes, this seems to be a memory of Storm destroying The Ruby, even though I'm proposing The Ruby is The Queen who is his mom BB. It's an apocryphal memory, so not what happened in our timeline, but... yes, it's an odd bit, and I'll get there.

So. We have The Queen, who I believe is a Judgement I'm dubbing The Ruby. She was tasked, or accepted, a commission to create a way to 'to enforce Law upon those who make the Law'. After, she was killed.

The Creation

A thing devoured exists yet in the stomach of the devourer. Thresholds may be crossed in both directions. One eats, or is eaten, but both continue to be. It cannot be done here.

The Queen created the dragons to do this impossible task, but came across a problem. What was eaten still exists. We all know you are what you eat, that what you eat can become part of you, even rule over you in this universe. Dragons could eat crime but this would not erase it. Even in digestion, what was continued to be in some form. It was impossible to erase things because of this.

Unless...

I will breathe into these vessels life. I will be their mother and their queen. It is not ordained, but they have given me the task and I will birth them red and wriggling! Look how they scatter: the will is enforced, the creation imperfect despite my perfect origin. The egg hatches, the threshold crossed. See how they burrow, see how they squirm. See how their bellies gorge and distend.

The dragons are connected to the Is-Not. By eating, they make things Not. The will is enforced. They eat and what they eat is gone.

But Parabola is forbidden to Judgements. They are beings of the Is, and she created something which Is-Not... and Is... It seems her dragons are born in Parabola and hatch into our world, perpetually connected to both.

A domain of the Burrower Below is thresholds, after all.

Once I was a doorway. No, I made doorways. I made one too many. But every crossing splits an infinite of possibilities into one of two states: I am here, I am there. I am in, I am out. I am in the Is, I am in the Is-Not. I am dead, I am alive. Why must I be any one thing? Why can I not be everything? I created it once. Yet I am bound by what has been ordained. I am pierced to the slab like a Red Admiral to the pinboard. They wanted me to cross the boundary. They had few uses for me after.

But as she says here. They wanted her to cross the boundary. They had few uses for her after.

I will explain What have I done; what was needed to be done. Why give me the task unless they wish a boundary breached?

What she did was forbidden, but it appears the others very much knew there was no other way for her to fulfill her task, and planned always to punish her for it... while still accepting and using her creation.

Her punishment is that she was torn to pieces. And eaten. This is repeated often, and I believe we ought to accept it quite literally. I think the other Judgements divided her up and ate her. As dragons still serve Judgements, perhaps it is in the devouring of her that they gained some of her dominion over her children.

I see through these boundaries between worlds and I sliver through them! I breach the barriers so the slithering embryos can peer through! I remember them. They answer my call. I remember them but they answer others now. Who am I?

After the Queen was slaughtered, she shattered into as many pieces as she was cut. Some aspect of her is what lives in the castle, trapped between mirrors in some realm that seems to be in Parabola or perhaps between Parabola and the Is. Another aspect of her is The Red Handed Queen, who she refers to as her 'sister-self'.

 the pieces of her which must be placed in each of the hollows in her Flaw: where her first hatchling opened its eyes, where she first saw her sister-self, mantled in the rags of her, watching her and smiling.

She is not who I am! She is a dream, a memory, an echo. She is what escaped when they cut me into little red pieces.

The Burrower Below is another of these, I think. After all, Burrower Below is known of in the High Wilderness, and may still physically exist, but we know the Queen's mind is shattered and trapped elsewhere. Is BB some remains of her body/mind that escaped into a bestial form? Is it something the Judgements made to act as a mother? The truth of who The Queen is has been forgotten and erased.

They look up to the stars and fear the shadow of my servant's wings. I am seen; I am gloried; I am the mother of law! It is only as I wake I see the eggshell. It is only as I wake that I remember that dreams are forbidden to me... Why do they ask who is mother of their servants? Why do they not speak my name? Where are my triumphs, my chariots, my memorials scored into smoking red worlds? Why am I buried? Why do I dream?

....But not fully erased. For a society which loves to use dragons to erase things, The Queen was not erased, she was eaten. We have that apocryphal vision of The Ruby, which might be the Queen, being erased, but it's from a failed timeline. Perhaps they tried to erase her and it didn't work. Do they need her 'alive' to remain in control of the dragons? When we see her at the end of the chaptter, she is clearly creating more dragons. Who knows how dragons die, but it seems she is forced to keep creating more.

You stand in a castle that is illuminated by distant starlight. A woman moves among a field of eggs, each unique, ornate and placed upon an ormolu pedestal. She sings to each, caressing, touching, breaking. Those that survive her touch are moved to another dais, even grander. The yolks of those unborn creatures, long and elongated and squalling, are left to write and die on the ground. She does not bother even to step on them.

It seems Fingerkings are a byproduct of her creation of dragons for the Judgements.

The eggs bob away, fewer and fewer. And yet more and more hatch in the reflections in the water. She gives them a fond look, but already her eyes are hungry.

And perhaps part of this process is finding eggs which can hatch in a certain way, bound to something which solidly Is one thing rather than Is-Not possibilities.

It is the moment before birth that is most precious. When there is only you and the egg, waiting for it to warm. Waiting for it to hatch. She is yours and you are hers and she is everything because as of this moment, she is nothing. She is all potential. I open my eyes and I open the door because that is what a mother must do: she must ruin the possibility of her child by binding it to a single outcome. All mothers know best. I did. I could weep if they had not plucked out my eyes.

The Questions

Way back when, I pointed out text which referred to a He and a they.

They tell me they wish a means of enforcement. Nay, that they must have it. He demands one who commands.

Who is He?

...I'm fairly sure it's The White. Spymaster of the Skies! Judgement who keeps sending agents to blow up Sol's secrets! The one who sent Salt to the Neath, who commands The Old Man In Vienna.

He's probably that play exerpt text voice who is 'A second speaker: dusty, old, untrustworthy.' too.

When you take on a form to strike down The Queen at the end of the chapter, you can play the part of The King.

Play the King Once, she was struck down by his word.

And being him includes:

You are pale king, mighty in your craft. The sceptre of office in your hand, the rod of authority in your other. You feel the tines of your crown like battlements atop your skull. You make your voice known: whatever was done to her, this is not permitted. You are master of yourself and you do not consent to your part in her game. You are white and white does not bow to red —

The King represents the color white here, sure, but the use of 'pale' further cements it.

This is one of her send offs.

where she first saw her sister-self, mantled in the rags of her, watching her and smiling. Where she saw the Beleaguered King, and hid to brood upon what this had taught her of the schemes of her destroyer. When you bury her head, it is laughing. "Tell him the Queen of the Myrmidons sends..." But she is gone, diminished, another wound in the red.

(Dragons have been called myrmidons in a few places, btw.)

Here, her seeing the Beleagured King causes her to brood upon the schemes of her destroyer, suggesting a direct link.

The Beleagured King, the White King... could be The White, or an aspect of it. She seems taken by the sight of him. After all, The White is the most lawful (presenting) of Judgements, the one who seems to have led to her to her doom and sealed it, yet may be striding into Parabola. The very act she was punished for.

Interestingly, the Red Handed Queen and the Beleagured King are married. And at war. What might this say about The White and The Ruby? Were they once lovers before all this?

And if The White is that He, what does 'He demands one who commands' mean? She made the dragons, but He requested... a dragon which can command the others? Planning for her absense, perhaps, or simply a tool only he had which would let him avoid the punishements of others.

And who is this Command Dragon? Perhaps it is the Burrower Below, who now serves as the mother of dragons but is not properly The Queen.

My other guess would be Storm: The Immanant has a crush on him, but does refer to him as a "A prince among myrmidons, entrusted, unyielding, devoted to his duty which is himself". Storm's role in this story is Something, and it would tie things together: perhaps the White wants into the Neath because his precious special dragon is there, perhaps The Queen influenced Storm to come here and die so that the White couldn't have him. The RHQ and the BK have a son together named the Silver-Eyed Prince. Is that a Storm connection, silver so like stormy eyed? I can tell you the dreams about the Silver Eyed Prince include a fountain that shows up in the stormy eyed dreams as well, but that's a connection that makes me feel like I'm building a conspiracy board for how little I know what to do with that information.

(Thunder dreams) You dream you are in a garden, an achingly familiar one. Some things are in the same old places – flower-beds, paths. Some have moved. But the real change this time is the weather. The sky is dark and the air has a rotten orange hue. .... You reach the fountain you love and find it coated in shimmering ice .... You reach the fountain you love just in time to see it topple and smash

(Chess dreams) You dream you are in a peaceful garden. This place is very familiar to you; there are the graceful avenues of planes, over there the rose-bower, and here is the beautiful fountain you love. Water splashes and sparkles in the sunlight. You are talking to a small child – the Silver-Eyed Prince – about mathematics.

I'd also like to, humbly and madly, point out the appearence of white dragons. White is not generally the color we assume of dragons, yet recently London had a collective dream of a white dragon (an amalgamation of many things which haunt the city, with Storm on the list), and during the plays in the red castle, one line mentions a white dragon where there really was no need to specify the color. Coicidence?!? Perhaps yes!

...

You know what else is very mysterious?

Salt!

Salt is.... here! I can't really help with this one, but let me show you the pieces.

Firstly, there's the Frostfound bit, which has a tie-in to an ES related to Salt.

Frostfound Colours speculate in prismatic conspiracy. I am myself and not. I have dragged myself in rags, red and green. They will not be sufficient.

I will become green I will cross the threshold. I will go in glory. I will lose myself and become myself.

Gold, gold, gold All boundaries were once mine. I will midwife myself, ripped through my own form, render my flesh to carry in rags as I, newborn, birthmother, attend the grave of my birth. But it will not come – or if it does, it goes on without me. I see the green disappear like snow in the heavens and I am alone and I am red again. I am myself again.

This doesn't immediatly scream Salt, but there's connections. Green and gold are the colours of the East, and Frostfound is where Salt left his memories and much of self before departure.

Then, in dismissing her at the end, you can play the Knave. Who is... Salt??

Play the Knave Usurp her. Do unto her what was done unto her.

Scarlet shadows It is Parabola and all things are accessible, even and especially masks. You change your face, become taller, rise and rise up. You feel paradisal winds from elsewhere buffet your skin which shimmers in hues green and gold. The smile stretched across your face, the flensing knife in your grip. You feel the mask buckle and contort, to become a parody of her, better than her because it is young and new and agile – You will show her what she would have been had she only been better, faster, quicker. You are what should have been – how could she harm you? The face above contorts, You become wet. There is rain from the sky, thick red clots of it. The face changes, mirrors your own. The Queen is yearning to become what was taken, but she cannot know, not truly, what would have been. There are gaps in the sky, great cracks, as she seeks to chart an absence and hollows herself further and further like a drill. Something breaks above and you are falling upwards as gravity inverts, into one of the great hollow cavities of the Queen— 

Those winds, that green and gold... Salt is someone who crossed a great boundary by Going East. He did what she couldn't and escaped elsewhere entirely. Is that how he is the usurper?

Salt was an agent of The White, and in this scrap of play dialogue, I think we see him talk to her.

"With our teeth so sharp as starlight – begging, of course, your pardon." Bright and keen and crystal, like an ocean breeze. "You belong to him. I see crystal poison in your orbit." Her voice is thick, and wracked with suspicion. You can hear her interlocutor's footsteps, like the tick of the clock.

Ocean breeze is salt-like, though tick of a clock is less so. But it is the crystal and poison lines which are important here:

From Sunless Sea

The sixth letter: a palace of poisoned crystal Recall that place of white and black, so cold after its season of heat.

Latticed corridors You walked a while, considering his offer. Radiations tugged at your sleeves; vapours swirled at your feet. The Neath was far from everything you had done and known. You might never return home. But that need, that need... Six letters. Look up. Hard gemmy lights in the black of the endless sky.

So the Queen noting 'crystal poison' and 'you belong to him' confirms she is speaking to someone who is linked to The White. What is Salt (?) saying here? No clue. Weird thing to say. But I think it suggests when Salt came to the Neath, he spoke to The Queen. Perhaps learned about thresholds from her, and used that knowledge to Go East.

...

I am sure I am forgetting something else I meant to say, but this has been a lot of text, and I hope it puts some information together for you well. We don't know a lot. Knowing about BB and RHQ and BK and Storm and Aeginae ahead of time can help put things together but also not that much... There's plenty of mystery left.