Ashes

I was once the brightest star in a flourishing empire. My warriors were innumerable, my lands were wide beyond wide. My craftsmen were brilliant and ever advancing; I was clad in mail and girt with sword that far surpassed my contemporaries. Yet I was not alone in my glory, I too was under the emperor, I too had both masters and servants. There was one man and one flag to whom I must bow my head.

Long I was content with this, and my star burned brightly among its companions, and under the one highest star of all. After a time I began to suspect that this fire above me was not far lighter than mine. Indeed, some nights mine shone the fairer of the two. Both waxed and waned, as do all celestial things.

When the nights were darkest, all the barons stood with the emperor, our armies acted as one and none stood before us. But in the milder hours, such vigils did not hold. We would speak among ourselves of small things, and each would try and outshine the others.

The fire burned on, and the empire spread far. Mountains, cold and high, rivers, wide and swift, jungles, dense and foreign to us; all of these we overcame, one by one. But the more we conquered, the more we saw there was to conquer. This is a wide world.

But as a fire spreads, it often weakens, or separates into many smaller fires. The emperor waned as we waxed strong with battle. His flame flickered, and many thought to blow it out that their own lights might better be seen. But of its own accord, in its own time, it fell and did not rise.

Then all the flares and blazes on the distant borders of the realm whirled back to the center from which they had sprung, long ago. In our very capital our armies clashed, drew back, and clashed anew. The northerners in their white mail, the jungle fighters with their paint and their battle cries, and my own men, with their gold lances and high horses.

That day, all the fire burned down to ashes, and that was all that remained.