Chronicles of the Errai

[Karmotrine Dream]

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[07/07/827]

A dead end. Another, and another, and another.
All we have collected are dead ends; nowhere we search, no matter what we do, nothing is what we find. No signals, no hulks, no beacons, no wrecks.
As if some dark beast of the depths surfaced and swallowed them whole, never to return.

Two years have gone by, on this very day. A less festive occasion we cannot recall, and what kithmen still remain with us are similarly dejected; they have given their all in the search, as have we, and yet it amounted to nothing.
Not even the brother's visions could shed light on this mystery.

Does it even matter, at this point?
To us, it does; to our laws, it does not. The chieftain has been missing for this long, with none able to find them or their men - by rights, their successors are now the chieftains.
Thus was decreed in centuries past, to ensure the Kitha would endure and prosper in the face of adversity, and we have always seen the wisdom in this.

It still caught us by surprise, the realisation, when one of ours came to us and asked, "what shall we do now, kithai?"
He was taken aback, she recoiled. We never thought this would happen; that our venerable, wise and brave father would join the ever-growing ranks of fools lost to space and greed, and not make his triumphant return at our stardock.
That we would become chieftains not by the virtue of our merits, charged in solemn ceremony by him and his advisors, but by his absence and an expectant question, spoken in a deserted hangar bay.

She was the first to recover. A glint in her eye, as sparks struck from metal, and the shade of a smile accompanied her words.
"We pay our dues and our respects. We scrape by what resources remain, salvage what we can, and rebuild our fleet. We endure, and we will prosper."

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