🌹 A Rose By Any Other Name 🔥

[The obsidian throne room, lit by braziers of cold flame. The Lich Duke approaches and takes the knee, clutching a rose that burns, then smolders, its petals curling into ash. A squat, infernal frog—wreathed in unholy fire—croaks at his heel.]

Lich Duke Jerret of the Nightmare Dominion

My liege… I bring thee tribute most fair.

A bloom of mortal craft, plucked from the gardens of the living.

Yet—alas!—thy servant’s familiar did trespass too near,

and the rose hath caught fire.

[He holds forth the charred flower, smoke curling to the vaulted ceiling.]

Lich Emperor Supreme

A rose… aye, or what remaineth of one.

But heed me, Duke—

that which men call a rose, by any other name,

would still wither, still burn,

still crumble beneath the march of eternity.

[The Emperor takes the blackened petals, letting them fall like dust between skeletal fingers.]

Lich Emperor (continuing)

So call it “rose,” or call it “ember’s jest,”

it mattereth not.

All beauty, in my dominion,

smells alike of ash.

[The flaming frog croaks again. The Emperor’s burning sockets turn upon it.]

Lich Emperor (with faint amusement)

And thou, fiery toad—

wouldst thou name thyself ‘herald of ruin,’

or ‘garden-warden’?

It is all one to me,

so long as the bloom be ash

and the silence of graves be kept.