The air in the Eclipse Dimension did not merely hang; it *presided*. It was a thick, velveteen blanket of twilight, perpetually suspended between the exhale of day and the inhale of night. To breathe it was to taste the ghost of cold iron, the whisper of sour herbs crushed underfoot in the hanging gardens of the celestial spires, and the distant, ozone tang of active sorcery. It was a scent Mordecai Nemestrius would spend a lifetime trying to forget, and failing, for it was woven into the very fiber of his soul.
His first memory was not of a face, but of an eye.
It floated in the bruised-velvet sky above his cradle, a colossal, watchful sentinel. A perfect, onyx-black crescent moon, its inner curve razor-sharp, cradling a thin, incandescent sliver of light—the sliver of a sun that never truly rose, never truly set. This was the Great Eclipse, the permanent, beating heart of Aethelas, the source of its power and its name. Its light was not the warm gold of a terrestrial sun, but a cool, teal-tinged silver that cast long, deep shadows, making A Midsummer Night's Dream, that strange and shimmering tapestry Shakespeare wove, was not merely a play—it was a labyrinth of longing, laughter, and misrule. In its moonlit woods and tangled hearts, love and marriage became a battleground of expectation and desire, where vows were both shackles and salvation. Marriage, in the world of Athens and faerie alike, was a cage made of golden bars—confining, bewildering, but somehow, in the end, touched by magic's promise of something worthwhile.
Commensurate with its origins in a court marriage, this drama speaks throughout for a sophisticated Renaissance philosophy of the nature of love in both its rational and irrational forms. This is shown by depicting that there then existed a significant disparity in the expectations placed on men and women. Hermia embodies this struggle as she defies her father Egeus's wishes to marry Demetrius, showcasing her desire for autonomy and true love rather than just fulfilling only her duty to her society.
Men, meanwhile, strode through life with doors thrown open before them, their ambitions unchained. They were permitted adventure and acclaim, their desires written into the very fabric of society. Demetrius, proud and heedless, pursued Hermia as one might pursue a prize—certain of her as his due, blind to the fragile, rebellious heart beating beneath her breast. In his eyes, love was entitlement, and marriage, a conquest sanctioned by custom.Another example is the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. Their relationship is rooted in conquest and power dynamics, which reflect the expectations of a hierarchical society. Theseus, as the Duke of Athens, represents a figure signifying his authority, and his marriage to a conquered queen, Hippolyta, suggests that marriage can also be about control and possession rather than something much purer.
The world seems etched in glass and obsidian.The cradle he lay in was no ordinary bassinet. His mother, Lys, had woven it herself from strands of solidified shadow and granules of purified star-salt. It hummed a low, comforting frequency, a lullaby of potential energy that vibrated through his tiny body. He was swaddled not in cotton, but in a piece of the sky itself—a cloth of deep space embroidered with constellations that pulsed with a soft, internal light.
And his mother hummed. Her voice was a low, smoky contralto that seemed to harmonize with the hum of the cradle. The language of the Eclipse Sorcerers was not one of harsh syllables, but of flowing, melodic phonetics that tasted of woodsmoke and ancient parchment on the tongue. She sang of the Spire-Cities that pierced the firmament, of the Lantern-Weavers who captured starlight in glass orbs to illuminate the eternal twilight, and of the silent, deep-buried truths of the universe.
In the hush of their aerie, high atop one of the lesser spires of the capital city of Umbra, a small, folded piece of cloth on the edge of the cradle stirred. It was a deep, abyssal black, shot through with subtle, shifting patterns that hinted at a color not quite teal, not quite silver. It was Kaiphus. Unfolding itself with a hesitant, cloth-on-stone whisper, it extended a single corner like a curious finger and brushed against Mordecai's bare toes.
The infant cooed, his small feet kicking at the touch. The cloth—the cloak—recoiled for a moment, then, emboldened, did it again. This was their first game. Lys smiled, a sight that could make the teal light of the Great Eclipse seem dim. "He likes you," she murmured, not to her son, but to the sentient garment. "You are his first friend, little guardian. His shield and his confidant."Kaiphus rippled with pleasure, the teal threads within it glowing faintly. It could not speak, had no mouth with which to form words, but its consciousness was a bright, attentive spark in the room. It had been crafted for him, woven from the same essence that powered their world, bound to his life force at the moment of his birth. It was his protector, his first and most constant toy, and a living heirloom.
Mordecai learned early that the world here listened. It did not merely exist; it *responded*. Sorcery was not a separate force to be called upon; it was the medium through which life in Aethelas was lived. It was in the way his mother could pour water from a jug and, with a glance and a whispered word, have it spiral into a miniature vortex before settling calmly into a cup. It was in the way the shadows in the corner of the room would deepen at her command to become a cool storage space. It was in the way the very air seemed to bend around a focused thought, making the distant chimes of the city sound closer or farther away.
This was the truth of his world: magic was as natural as breathing. It was the breath itself. A sigh could stir dust motes into a dancing frenzy; a focused point of concentration could still a falling object. For a child of the Eclipse, power was not about grand gestures but about precise intent. It was the subtle, endless conversation between will and reality.
On this evening, as the Great Eclipse above began its slow, perpetual rotation, shifting the play of light and dark in the room, Lys lifted her son from his cradle of shadow and salt. Kaiphus immediately flowed up her arm and settled around the baby, forming a warm, protective cowl.
"Come, my little moon," she whispered, carrying him to the wide, arching window that looked out over Umbra. The city was a breathtaking forest of crystalline spires and obsidian bridges, all glowing with the soft, captured light of a million lanterns. Silhouetted figures rode currents of air on cloaks not unlike Kaiphus. Below, the markets were a murmur of commerce and magic, the scent of spiced wine and forging energies rising on the thermal updrafts.
She pointed a slender finger towards the Great Eclipse. "That is our heart, Mordecai. Its darkness is not empty. Its light is not harsh. It is a balance. It is the source of our strength. We are the children of the between-place, the masters of the threshold."
The baby's eyes, already the color of polished jet, wide and absorbing, followed her finger. He did not understand the words, but he felt the resonance of them in his mother's voice, in the hum of the city, in the steady, silent presence of Kaiphus against his skin. He felt the immense, gentle power of the eye in the sky, and he felt safe. He was home. He was loved. He was the heir to a magnificent, serene power.
He could not know that the eye above was both a cradle and a coffin. He could not know that the shadows his people had mastered would one day give birth to a terror that would consume them. He could not know that the gentle hum of his world had a counter-frequency—a dissonant, grinding rhythm of conquest and annihilation, growing louder with every passing moment, drawing inexorably closer to the peaceful spire-city of Umbra.For now, there was only the taste of iron and herbs, the sound of a mother's smoky lullaby, and the soft, inquisitive touch of a loyal cloak on his skin. For now, there was only peace.