Player: Gasmask

Link: http://earwig.deviantart.com/

Character Name: The Underqueen

Age: Unknown

Sex: Female

Species: Unknown

Height/Weight: 8'6"

Social Status: Outer Class?

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From a recording of Tay Elliot Jonson, "THE LIGHT IN THE DARK CORNERS OF THE MANY THOUGHTS OF MANY JARS OF MANY CHILDREN OF MANY HOMES OF A CREED OF ONE PERFECTION", speaking to an unknown listener.
Date: unknown. Location: unknown.

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My Queen, my beloved. My Mother. The Voice of Reason against all untruths.

She is called the Underqueen.

To you, She is a fairy tale- a metaphor- to teach children morality, or humility. To those who misunderstand Her purpose, She is a poltergeist to call upon when you curse the name of someone who has slighted you. Sometimes, She is a mere phantasm that children play with- spin in front of the mirror three times with the light off, chant Her name, and you may see Her face instead of yours in the reflection. But I know the Truth, and I have seen the beauties of the awe-inspiring, twisted Deep; I have supped from the trough of wisdom that She offers all her Children, and I know things you will never know, and I dream things you will never dream.

The Queen had a name, in another life, a life before this life. A life I was blessed to be born from. I know Her previous name, but I mustn't say. Not to you. Names are power, and She deserves to hold Her power, to not be trivialized to a previous existence. Indeed, She has a name in this life as well, and it is a name that is different, but twice as powerful. And through it all, She and Seven carry The Name together like a banner of secrets that unravels and weaves as they walk their paths... xix. That name is so strong, nothing you can do will weaken it. It is Untouchable, even by those who lord over this city. This is a name that is older than those paper kings.

Ah, my Mother! My beautiful Gardener of Knowledge! I have said before that many things are lost in the heat and despair of the Undercity, but the adoration for the Queen is something that has held strong, for spirals upon spirals of time, mollusks and snails twisting in a breathtaking golden ratio. You will see the signs of Her godly passings; mosaics and carvings- even statues! Go deep enough, you will start to see the giant stone lotuses, the last flecks of golden paint glittering dolefully from their smooth obsidian faces. They are older than any can imagine, and certainly older than any have proof of. They were carved by the loving hands of previous followers, from generations so far past that the Sun and xix may have danced as the last petals were chiselled from the stone. Imagine the beauty that time must have held. Imagine the Purity of Her step.

Yes, her holy symbol is the Golden Lotus, and that flower holds meanings that crosses into many religions- religions that are no doubt splinter groups of the original xix-worshippers. They say that the Queen created the Lotus, Which when it blossomed it birthed the world, and Seven cut the stem, so that the sap of the stalk dribbled its blood out over the skin of the planet; life sprang from the mix of nectar and earth. They say the Lotus' many petals each represent another fraction of the reality She steps so gracefully across. As the Lotus opened for the first breath of the Planet, they say that in the Planet's final breath, the Lotus will finally close again, its nectar bled out in its entirety from the fierce cut Seven made so long ago.

Gold was the color of the stars and the Sun, before Seven leeched the Gold from the Lotus and drained the color from the sky. Gold is the color of her eyes hidden behind artificial lenses, so that Seven does not cut into them, as well. Though Seven hates Gold, He holds a piece of the Gold inside of Him with great greed, where none may see it. So you see, the Gold of the Lotus is tied to all things, including us. Dig deep enough and you'll have the Gold too, even if you've hidden it away like Seven has desired you to.

"Believe, and you will be Unified. Trust in Me, and you will become More."

These are Her words- all our words, Children or not, are Her words. Once you understand this, you will find a beautiful key- but there isn't yet a door. There will be, though! Hold strong, keep your Faith! She told me this Herself, and I would not lie...

You look surprised, but yes, I speak to Her, and She to me. She loves me. I am a special Child, a Child thrice-found.

You will understand soon.

Before She died, only a year or so ago, Her body was ragged and old, torn and mended again, frail and broken. She wore a skull-shaped, red mask that many would call Her face, but the truth is more complex; it was Her sister's face, a sister that is unimportant, a sister I do not wish to speak of, as she was sister only in body. She does not wear the sister's face any longer. She does not need it. Now the Underqueen wears only Her lenses and breathing mask, to protect her from the filthy fumes and twisted horrors of our world.

It was the same body then as it is now, you see. Just terribly old, unfit for our air, and our weight of guilt. We killed her, slowly, through our hatred, but She still walked among us and handed out Her Loving Touch, risking Her own life for our pathetic, insignificant ones.

She lost Her Heart to the cruelties of the man in white. No, friend, I do not speak in metaphor- a man, dressed in white, literally stole Her heart from Her body. For some reason, She had trusted this man; Her only flaw is that She loves all equally, unwaveringly. Somehow, despite the crushing loss, She continued on for a long time, though She was weakening and lost in the black world that was even more heartless than She. Eventually, such a mundane, despicable betrayal took Her mighty life.

She died, oh, the pain of this loss was too much to bear! You see, eventually She became so weak She fell into a sleep, never to awaken in that lifetime. Her savage guardian and Her other half, the Red Knight Seven, carried Her comatose body to the very core of the planet, and the Children who wanted to keep feeding from her Goodness followed like lost baby lukulings; and they died like worthless keeyirats to the heat and fumes because of their mindless greed.

We Children are so very fragile. So very stupid.

The rest of us remaining Children, those too cowardly or wise to follow Their holy steps, held onto hope- we survived, we waited... for even death had no meaning without Her, you must understand. It was when we felt a subtle flicker, like a hush of breath over a candle flame, that we rose up again, twice as strong, twice as elated, twice as alive! It felt as though a new soul bubbled from the core of our first, we were so layered; She is back, She is strong, stronger than before, perhaps stronger than She has ever been.

You ask me with your mind, 'what is Her purpose here?' I would reply, 'what is yours?' For She needs none, She merely Is, like the crack of thunder after the flash of lightning, or the stars that hide, a forgotten backdrop behind a curtain of boiling clouds, trapped in the black, black sky. She is not a being so much as a natural occurence, just as Her darker counterpart, Seven, is. Nature is xix, and xix is natural process. The sooner you can accept this, the sooner things will begin to fall into place for you. Do you beg fire for the reasoning behind the destruction of your home? Do you demand answers when a rock wall collapses upon your family?

...But no, these destructive situations are better suited to explaining the Red Knight. I suppose better examples would be whether you thank or curse the fates that be for every good thing that befalls you- the air you breathe, the water you drink, the coolness and warmth that breezes over your skin... of course you don't. You take it for granted, like the fool you are, like every fool that mills around like unworthy mites on this planet. To be Her Child is to be grateful, not to expect the good things to come as though you are supposed to receive them. Do you understand now?

You owe her.

From the moment you were born into this world, for every hardship your parents got through, to carry you in relieved arms to Life's gate, you have owed Her, for She personally shielded you, She deflected all of Seven's blows that could have struck you, and She even knew which ones to let strike you, to make you that much stronger when you opened your eyes to Her wondrous, horrible world. You walk with your head held so high because you don't realize that you were chosen to be here, you are here by privilege, not by right. There are no accidents. We Children can respect our loving, giving Queen, and we do our favors to Her and take Her burdens with glad, grateful hearts.

The Red Queen is perfect. She knows Everything.

She knows every thought you have had, every sinful fetish and overwhelmingly powerful rage you have held in your heart... and She accepts them, for She is not a false deity with misconceptions of the individual's range of emotion. Mortal morality does not play into Her grand scheme as much as many would think; for surely if it did, Seven would not even exist. No, the Underqueen is a neutral force, though in this neutrality She is benevolent. She is a thread-puller, a tale-weaver, a fate-spinner, a Creator. Seven is the blade that comes to snap those strings while Her eyes are distracted away. This is the game They play with eachother, the game They have always played, and the game They will perhaps play forever, past when everything we know is less than dust, crushed under Seven's heel like chaff. From those atoms, the Queen will weave new threads, and the cycle will begin again.

You ask me with your eyes, 'How will I recognize Her when I am lucky enough to see Her?' You will know before you ever have to see... but I will humor you with a physical description.

Rotating, whirring colored lenses fixed in a morose-looking gasmask are the Queen's eyes, Her rainbow gaze like a hit of acid in the dark, a fae mood where all else is misery. She stands tall, nearly nine feet at the top of her sleek, covered skull, though her presence seems to feel like She is taller than is physically possible, taller than the Universe is long; She almost seems to flicker, shrink and grow before your vision. Look away if this begins to happen, or you will be lost. To truly look at her, you must be insane, and if you are insane enough to truly see, you will never return to this miserable, pointless life.

Not the worst way to go.

Rising from Her leather-covered neck and shoulders is a soft black mink-like fur, somehow untouched by the gloom and dirt, trimmed beautifully along a heavy scarlet cloak that is lined with visages of the stars and planets. To gaze into that cloak of the cosmos is to see Forever. From beneath the hem of this great cloak, a rolling blue mist gently whispers.

She is no longer infested with unnatural wires, pumps, fuses and mechanics- Her body, born anew, is lithe and tall, strong and alien, not needing life support other than a simple respirator. The few places where She is not wrapped in black leather gleams with a strange ethereal light on pallid smooth plating; one could say it looks chitinous, like the armor of the creatures in the deeps, but you can see soft skin and even fur when the wraps move in the right ways. She has two arms and two legs in approximately the 'right' places, but then another pair of smaller, slender arms flex from her lower ribs, facing backwards. I do not pretend to know what species this form is, if it even has one... nor do I claim to know Seven's, for though He is similar, He is so much different from Her. Perhaps it is another game They are playing. The only ones who have seen Her uncovered face are unknown to me. I, sadly, am not one of those few.

So, we come to the crux of the matter, a question I have asked myself a trillion times before, and the one you ask now within your heart: 'What does Her existence herald?' For, in the past- from the walls and the writings, from my adoptive parents' memories of xix, from my own experiences, and what the Queen Herself has told me- xix was always here, but never here in such a way, for the pattern is similar, but always morphing, as is the way of Seven and his thread-splitting. They were believed in long ago, but never did they walk among us so unhampered and powerful. After Her most recent rebirth, The Red Queen moves outside of time and space in such a way that I begin to have memories of Her appearing to me in my past... memories that did not seem to happen before... for She is moving forward in a spiralling, unpredictable way, and changing the threads of fate in ways She was locked from doing before.

I can only come to one conclusion for these altercations, one that breathes a zealous, invigorating air into my heart:

The End Times draw near.

>>End of recording.

Weapons/Equipment: The Underqueen has no need for weapons.