The Starborn Codex: Entry III

For a time, it seemed there was peace.

From a distance, the Realms held their shape. Each Court tended its own domain. Each Regent guarded their piece of the Starfallen. Trade moved quietly across the borders. Messengers passed between Courts without incident.

Those of us who kept record from the edges noted the harmony not because anyone declared it, but because nothing had yet begun to pull against it.

Even so, the differences were already there. Not in the Starfallen itself – not in any way that could be cleanly named, at least – but in the language that gathered around it.

Some Regents spoke of their shard as a gift, freely given. Others treated it as something that answered only to discipline, or intent. A few spoke as though the Starfallen rewarded patience above all.

At first, such distinctions appeared harmless. Mere philosophies, perhaps; differences of outlook more than true division. But repeated often enough, belief begins to harden. And where power is concerned, such distinctions seldom remain benign.

The Courts began to weigh one another.
Comparisons surfaced. Then judgments.

And while the Realms still appeared harmonious, the Archivists marked a subtle change in the language of the Courts. Words like balance. Entitlement. Fairness – now spoken with an edge.

Still, there was no war.
Only the growing sense that peace was beginning to feel more like a wish; and, increasingly, that nobody was there to ensure it was granted.

Entry IV — Fragment (Unsealed)

It is difficult to say when the line was first crossed.

No single moment can be named. No one breach that the Realms could later point to and say: there. There was the beginning.

In the years before the war, the Archivists can identify only a sequence of events, each ordinary enough to excuse on its own.

A trace of one Court in a place it had no cause to be.
A ritual watched too closely.
A shard of the Starfallen regarded not with reverence, but with… want.

For a time, such things may be overlooked. But oblivion is a choice, and never a merciful one for long. What is refused in the name of peace, refused in the name of restraint, does not vanish. It gathers. It waits. And in time, it makes itself felt.

So too here.

What the Regents would not see soon became impossible to ignore.

And from then on, harmony belonged only to memory.