Guardian, being a smitten twelve-year-old boy, strongly insisted on doing the cleaning himself and so, as the table was cleared and wiped, Cindy enjoyed the feel of being personally served. And part of her doing so involved giving the Overseer a pat on his head as he collected the dishes.

Thank you.

I am to be a good host, no?

The best.

And she was very giddy when she managed it. She had long been curious as to why John Smith delighted in doing it to her so much and when finally she managed it, she understood. And, on the Guardian's end, the pat actually improved his attitude a little as he had been secretly grumpy from the moment he began the task (after all, wanting to do a task is very different from enjoying it). After all, the boy was very quickly finished with the washing and the drying. And when he was finished, Cindy felt a touch upset afterwards as she liked how he looked in his father's apron; which was white with pink, green and yellow flowers and periwinkle straps.

When they had left the dining room, there was an agreement between them that the climbing of the bifrost was such a hassle that it really didn't need to be attempted if they could help it. And since the Guardian did not have the same authority his mother possessed with her gem- the authority to let them be carried by the bubbles from room to room -it was decided that they would explore the paintings on their present floor. That said, when that decision was still being discussed, something quite peculiar happened. As an off-hand, the Guardian referred to his gem as a Tear (as in the wetness of weeping eyes and not the act of pulling or spilling) and, at the mention, Cindy felt herself move to stand taller and send her shoulders wider and lift her head higher. And she felt, stirring within her, chastity and temperance and charity and diligence and patience and kindness and humility. But Cindy asked no question on the matter, instead choosing to treasure her ponderings in her heart. And so they went on.

Ladies' choice.

He said this because, as is often the case when you live someplace everyday, he did not actually understand the wonder of Stallion's Rest. If she had been privy to his thoughts on the matter, she would've known that he only really wanted two things: To converse with her and to hear her play his favourite song. That said, if he had been privy to her thoughts on the matter, he would've known her to be equally indecisive- but for the opposite problem. When she looked round at the paintings, she saw that some had grand gates which harkened to days of old, while others had enchanting fences which promised refreshing gardens, and others still looked dark and deathly as though terrible things, demanding to be challenged by the brave, were kept on the other side. Looking round the room, Cindy struggled to even pick one half over another.

To pick only one is a lost cause.

Umm... what does the host recommend?

I have no preference

After a somewhat lengthy discussion, the two came to an agreement. The Guardian himself would shut his eyes and reach out his right hand and, when Cindy had turned to face the wall and sounded the signal, circle about round and round in a clockwise fashion until, in her own time, the girl called for a stop. When that was done, they would look to see which door his finger was most directly pointing towards and then take on whatever adventure was beyond it.

When all these things were done, Cindy turned around from the wall to find that she had left him spinning for far too long and he had been left a wobbling mess, with his arm and finger struggling to keep steady. When he finally came to his senses, they decided to call it all a fair game and went for the painting which he ended up pointing to after, rather than before, the wobbling began.

The chosen painting was of a round and deep green door with a golden knob at its centre and a strange rune carved at its side. It was the Overseers' theatre room. And, according to a poll the siblings had made some years ago, it was the Petalwalker's favourite room in the entire palace as well as Boyscout's third favourite and Malachi's fifth favourite, making it one of the rare settings where the three could actually spend delightful time together. With regards to the room itself, it was smaller than the public ones, but that was to be expected. There were four columns and five rows of two-by-two seats. The columns of seats were divided by level lanes, and the rows of seats were divided by tall and wide steps so that enough space was left between each row that your average Who could stretch their legs without issue. And, of course, at the furthest end upstage, there was a large screen from which talkies (which were a fairly recent kind of motion picture with talking and, sometimes, singing) could be viewed.

Guardian, within a minute of entering the room, gave a quick summary of its facets before offering to take his guest to the next room, going clockwise round the ring. However, Cindy, who had not seen a talkie in some time, leastways not in a dedicated room of that calibre, insisted that they stay a while and watch something. In this regard, being a very homely twelve-year-old boy, Guardian had some recommendations at last. And they were all animated and generally revolved around princes and princesses and poetry and disapproving parents and magic. Cindy noted this immediately and had to keep herself from laughing; she had been imagining him to be a connoisseur of detective or horror stories and had never once heard of- in Darius or in any of his fellows -a young boy who fancied romances of any variation. Of course, in reality, any number of them enjoyed such stories in private and it was only that the girls (I am speaking now of the ones who were, in fact, romantics) had the audacity to own to it. Even the Guardian might have kept it to himself if he hung around such a fellowship but the Overseers loved to hear and tell stories of many kinds and held a great many of them, and even the act of storytelling itself, sacred. In any case, once Cindy found a recording of her favourite opera, there was no longer any contest with the exception of Guardian being offended at it having a runtime of over four-and-a-half hours.

Fortunately, the seats were comfortable enough to sustain them for the whole session and the temperature was just right to prevent shivering or sweating (not that Cindy needed to be afraid of shivering). With such considerations in order, all that was left for the telling to decide was whether the affair would be dull or not. If it were, the four hours would seem like days. If it weren't, mere minutes would have passed between the overture and the postlude. The latter proved to be the case for the present.

The opera in question was, in fact, an adaptation of one of the stories which the Overseers brought with them to Ardusk; a retelling through the lens of one Master Terence Pullman who was, himself, a vehement critic of the Overseers. "The Garden of Delight", as the opera was called (the ancient story had no specific title), focused on Man and Woman who were said to be the first of the Talking Apes and, thus, the forebears of all of their kin.

The first act began with a great procession of High Fates walking upon the waters of chaos: the corpse of butchered Leviathan. The procession was made up of seven High Fates who danced about the stage in circles six times; one for each of the six verses preceding the last. When each new verse began, a different High Fate came centre-stage until the seventh verse began and all the Fates became still and the seventh High Fate, the last to shine downstage, began a baritone solo which was almost like a lullaby. And he put the other six to sleep and he himself fell asleep and they all became as stars in the constellation, droplets in the ocean, stones in the mountain, breezes in the hurricane of the King Fate, Causality, revealed to be the composer himself.

In the second act, Causality began to sing a song. With a ballad of love, he turned to the Ape who had been born in the light of the sixth Fate, and his song had the force of all seven Fates and more. In fact, it was not even only the Fates or only the choir or only the instruments but the sum of them all in a perfect harmony; in that way he was greater than the sum for he was the transcendent one to which all the parts proclaimed allegiance. As he sang, his voice leapt into the Ape so that it became a Talking Ape and the composer proclaimed him Man and gave unto him the composer's baton and clothed him with a robe of many colours; that is, all the colours of the Fates and the orchestral players and the choir singers. And then the composer showed the Man the sheet music around which his whole play was written and shared the spotlight with the Man. Then he left the spotlight to the Man and returned to be with the orchestra. Then, there was silence.

When the music began again, still in the same act, it was not the composer instructing the hosts but the Man himself. And he raised his hands and he never brought them down; only ever bringing them slightly lower. For several minutes the firstly timid Man became more and more confident and his music became more and more wild; and though the notes were in accordance with the sheets, he moved them in such a manner that the once beautiful melody emerged loud, vain and endlessly repeated. Throughout all this, there was no sign that the Man could even hear the music; rather he seemed deaf and sure of his own brilliance. And none of the choir singers, nor the actors, nor the instrumentalists could rebuke him or help him for they did nothing which he did not command. Then the great and terrible song ended and the composer sang from behind the scenes with the very baritone of the seventh Fate so that the Man fell asleep.

And when the Man was lying on his side, the composer returned to the stage and sang, in the voice of the Man, the first part of a duet. As he was singing, he knelt down and cut, from the robe of many colours, the very colour of the sixth Fate in whose light the Ape and all beasts had been made. As he laid the colour on the ground, he paused again and the second part of the duet began. From his own mouth came forth the voice of the sixth Fate as the colour rose higher and higher off the ground as, from beneath it, came forth Woman who moved her lips as the composer moved his lips. And then the third part of the duet began and the Woman sang her own part. While she was singing, the composer sang as well but he was singing the part of the Man and while he was singing, the Man awoke and saw the Woman and the Man began to sing in accordance with the singing of the composer until, at last, the composer was gone and only Man and Woman were singing.

When they had sung together for eight bars, the Man raised his baton and the Woman took her stance; a dancer's stance. Then the music began again but when the Man became again loud, vain and endlessly repeated, he saw the Woman pained and groaning as she danced to the tune of the broken song. Where once he was deaf, her dancing moved him to hear the real music as it was. He slowed his movement and he became gentler and she became freer and happier. And for the sake of her happiness, his music fell ever slower and ever gentler until it demanded nothing of the Woman at all. And all the lights of the stage were dimmer for it. For her sake, he shut his eyes. For his, she broke her turn.

When all came to stillness, she took up for herself a new dance which she danced for a bar before repeating. And again did she dance that same bar over and over until, at last, the Man took notice. Until at last he knew that she would not move a step further without him. And so he was spurred. Guided by her dance his own strength sprung anew. Imbued with courage and boldness, now tempered with a grace not formerly possessed, his spotlight grew larger and brighter than it had ever been- for it was no longer a spotlight for one but for two and shared by two. And the united light dwarfed even the light of the first Fate in majesty. And so, in dancing, she began leaping and spinning and running and laughing and singing so that when the last few bars were played, the music was even louder and faster and more jovial than it had ever been.

Then, when the last bars of that verse ended, and the new verse was beginning, the Woman grabbed hold of the baton and pulled the Man into a waltz and they began dancing together and was discarded since it no longer moved the music; and neither did the music move the Woman's dancing. Rather, their dancing, both their dancing, seemed to be moving all the orchestra and the choir and, no longer, did the Man need to keep his eyes on the music sheets. The song was known to him and his feet and his heart. And it was known to her and her feet and her heart. All their desires were bound into those very writings since they wanted nothing more than to dance a perfect dance and the composer's music was the only music to that end. And so they danced in perfect accordance with it. In this way, the second act ended: the music slowed and they both fell asleep; the Woman in her Man's arms and the Man in his Woman's arms.

Then the third act began. But it did not begin with the Man or the Woman or the composer. Rather, this bit of the recording began with an overhead view of the live audience as a very deep and fiery light came upon them and what looked like their own shadows began to stretch out and claw their way closer and closer and towards the stage to join the shadows of the Man and Woman. When all the shadows had become one shadow, the one clawed its way upstage and from behind the scenes emerged a very villainous and very handsome person. For his own reasons- which he never felt very compelled to explain -old Pullman played the villain himself; and he was a very handsome man.

It was shortly after his appearance that something very real happened. Suddenly, the whole room began to shake terribly. And I'm not speaking of the room in the recording. Rather, all the theatre room suffered a terrible quaking. Then the violent part of shaking stopped. But there was no ignoring that they were still moving- if only very smoothly. Cindy did not make much of the event. It was hard for her to consider anything odd at that point so she simply chalked it up to some strange Overseer occurrence.

An interactive theatre, perhaps?

Then another very sudden thing happened which she did not neglect. The Guardian's Tear (the jewel on his steel-grey bracer) then began to glow. At once, there was a halo shining from it. And the halo was rainbow'd. And it was very distracting because Guardian had turned off all the lights before the talkie began (as any decent person would do) and this was the first light not to come from the screen since then. Cindy had less than half a mind to be impressed by the new, colourful, shimmer but she had more than half a mind to be annoyed; as one tends to be when one senses anything like a rogue ringer going off in the middle of a show.

Boohoo!

She yelled out at him, not totally joking. Yet, he didn't seem to pay her any mind and instead gave off that very dutiful and funny look that made him seem very deep in thought. In fact, he was deep in a thought just not one of his own. As Cindy later learned, this was one of the special ways that Overseers spoke to each other and it was especially needed at Stallion's Rest. As he listened to the message, the light grew dimmer and dimmer until the colourful sphere retreated back into the Tear entirely, at which point the Guardian got right up with urgent mannerisms and put a stop to the viewing. When the screen went black again and the lights were back on, Cindy, who thought her host was simply upset at the "boohoo", began whining and jeering (it was, after all, her favourite opera).

Come off it Guardian! I was only joking!

I guessed as much. But we've still got to leave. Now!

Cindy, for her part, would have liked to hold her ground and refuse to leave until she had been given an explanation, but his urgency and his panic infected her so that she began running up the middle lane with him in spite of herself. That said, even then, she made no attempt to keep her protests and questions quiet until the room shook again, with even more ferocity than before. As you may have guessed, the room was not moving alone but with the whole island. It had been mustered to battle. It had been on the move. And, just then, it was struck by something very large.

Is that...

Don't panic. We're only under attack.