It dominated the atmosphere. It loomed above our city with its massive, dark blue frame, eyes knife shapped and shining. If it wanted it could have decimated our society in seconds. I imagined its blinding beams tearing apart the roads and alleyways and my entire body tensed. In its presence I had power only to pray.
I heard rumors of the machine's sentience, that it operated like an insect, with instinct and precision. Sure we all saw videos of that; the titanous mecha blowing up ships that approached from behind, without turning, and how it attacked with a thin laser so focused it could strike between the eyes faster than a blink. I wasn't sure what to believe- being a woman of logic I decided to believe nothing until I saw it myself. My grandfather raised me that way, but in the shadow of the machine so huge I held no doubt of its abilities. I noticed straight away the presence of thought and reaction in the way it looked at me, like it knew everything about me without caring all the same. My knees felt weak. I stood in the wake of a great God indifferent to my smallness.
Its "foot"- the tapered end of its lower leg- hovered above our embassy's rooftop. I noticed a little door on the side, facing us. I pride myself on my composure, the Ophician mark of stoicism that I practice through my day to day. Yet, when vapor hissed from the seam of the door I held my hands at my chest. Then, when that door opened towards us I held my breath. The machine's pilot walked out, and we all froze.
He stepped onto our modest roof with lightness, his lithe body graceful as he saluted. Behind him the robot lifted into the sky, and the surrounding trees quivered in the wake of its jets. We cowered, but the pilot remained unbothered. His starlight-blonde hair sheened in our sun. When the turbulence subsided I looked to him and found my mouth partway open.
The rumors were true, a big piece of metal stuck out from his back, and a suit stuck to his body from the neck down. And his left eye- I don't know how to explain it. Like it was there but not. A rippled reflection of something far greater than human creation. It looked like a black pearl in a ripped bed of dark flower petals, on account of the scar surrounding it. He was like a different person depending on which eye you looked at.
And when he walked his every movement embodied awareness. Not a single movement went to waste. We could see his intentions in the stroke of his arms swaying with his gait. Then, when he spoke, all hushed. The man raised by a dictator, ethereal in his every mannerism, discussed his intentions to protect us from the Galial Enterprise. I couldn't divert my stare from his face, soft in shape yet intense with command. I could think of nothing else but to listen.
How different a world if Paulos Rheingheld didn't care about our well being. Had we lived in another era we could be incinerated in minutes- not even enough time to call for help. Paulos looked to me, and my stare swallowed him whole- and when he smiled he resembled a white sun.
REST IN PEACE to the custom profile that used to be here. Sakura made it forever ago and it was amazing.
Discord upon request
