Imperial City

Luthien

October 7th, 3056, 1214 Hours

For a house that will endure
one thousand years carve its beams from honor.

Haiku by Coordinator Siriwan McAllister-Kurita 2579

Omi walked through the halls of the Imperial Palace with a purposeful gait, her steely-blue eyes narrowed slightly in an expression that she had learned from her father's example. Rounding the corner, she came to an ornately carved teak door decorated with the Dragon insignia of House Kurita and guarded by a trio of Pillarine monks in their hooded brown robes. The clack of wood on wood sounded as two of the monks crossed their staves to halt her passage.

She halted, locking her eyes with the eyes of the third under the black armorplast visor that the monks wore to cover their faces. For long moments the corridor was silent, the four of them standing like statues before the monk bowed formally and the others returned to their guard position.

"Guard me on the path that I must walk now, Adept Gozen." Omi commanded in a very controlled voice. "Let no one enter the Sanctum until I am finished here."

The whisper of ballistic polymer fabric was her answer as the silent sentinels bowed in obedience to the command of the Keeper of House Honor and head of the Order of the Five Pillars. The door opened soundlessly, then closed behind Omi and Gozen as they entered the Sanctum Arcanum.

Inside the air was thick with incense and tradition. The room was dimly lit by indirect lighting from hanging braziers, each one shaped in the form of the Dragon wrapped around a pearl. Fragrant smoke issued from the nostrils and mouths of the symbols of the Combine as Omi walked beneath them then halted at the foot of a low platform that reached her knees and was covered by a Persian-style Azami carpet showing an ornate Oriental dragon . To either side of her knelt two more Pillarine monks on their heels in positions of deep meditation and guard. However Omi's focus was not on them, but what lay ahead.

The platform was dominated by a circle of five massive ivory pillars mounted in masterwork gold bases and capitals. Omi's eyes flickered first to the leftmost one from her perspective, a column as clear as glass from a hippopotamus on Thimphu. She knew that if struck with steel it would give off sparks, so hard and rigid it was. So too, was the honor codes that bound her in this endeavor.

The one behind it was a stark contrast, mottled brown, rough and unfinished...one of a pair of elephant tusks from distant Terra from a kill that Urizen Kurita I had made on humanity's home world in the days of the Star league. Just like the Combine's citizens, it was waiting the hand of a sculptor to guide it to a finished state.

Omi's eyes then flicked to the near one on the right. The matching tusk to the unfinished one, it had been carved into a pillar supporting the roof, both strong and flexible, it showed her that the code could adapt and change to handle circumstances like those that she-and the Combine-were faced with. Behind it was a vivid turquoise blue column formed from the ivory of a woolly mammoth from distant Terra which had leeched metallic salts into the ivory from it's resting place in humanity's home world to give such a striking color.

Finally the last column was a spiraling Asian dragon rising to the ceiling carved from the horn of the extinct Giant Narwhal of Labrea. None of those were the focus of Omi's attention, however.

That was the simple black lacquered sword stand resting in the exact center of the room. The katana there was ancient, with chips taken out of the blade from the clash of steel and the etching that the salt of blood had scored into the patterned steel forged by the hands of a master on her family's ancestral home of New Samarkand. Omi reverently approached the sword, then knelt with a whisper of fabric from her robes, prostrating her head onto the carpet before the sword carried by Shiro Kurita.

The First Egg. The Founder of House Kurita. The First Coordinator. Her Ancestor. The warlord who with cunning, blood, and steel had unified his planet, then raised his Dragon banner across the stars. The example that all the Sons and Daughters of the Dragon strove to model themselves after.

The immortal whose sword, whose soul, was now threatened by the barbarians storming the Black Pearl of the Combine. Omi clapped once to summon his spirit as she sank back from her prostration to rest her weight on her heels and knees. Beneath her the dragon on the tapestry writhed in the lighting as she drew breath.

Her reverent whisper filled the echoing silence of the room. "Kurita Shiro-dono, your child brings news. The Jaguars attack us now, and the Coordinator in his wisdom has decreed that even if Luthien falls, our Honor shall yet remain untainted by their unworthy hands. He has entrusted me to carry you to my brother Minoru Kurita so that your spirit may guide him as he rallies our forces from the Galedon District...if such is necessary in these evil times."

Silence filled the room after Omi's words, then the whispered hiss of oiled steel on bamboo ending in a click as the tsuba hand guard met the mouth of the scabbard. Another whisper of silk as the sheathed sword was placed in a black silk bag hand-embroidered with five dragons writhing around each other. Ivory white, steel-gray, jade green, teak-brown, and thread of gold flashed as they all chased each other endlessly to represent the Five Pillars of the Combine: Religion, Military, Economy, Culture, and Government.

The first part of her duty done, Omi turned and walked from the Sanctum Arcanum with a slow, dignified stride ahead of the monk guarding her. The other Pillarine monks prostrated themselves as she passed them, her spine straight and face calm and reverent, reflecting none of her thoughts at the duty assigned to her by the Coordinator, no, her doomed father.

After all, she was Kurita, as he was. For both of them, duty was heavier than mountains.