Scene: “The Court of Eyes and Echoes”

 Shared memory-thread from Prince Gawain Torryngton, Sovereign of London, April 25th, 1550—just past the midnight bell. Transmitted to the Malkavian lattice of Avalon and the Continent. Especially vivid for Lady Maxine Marcella, seated just below the throne of alabaster thorns.

Ah, midnight—when the clock sighs like an old bishop and the city exhales its secrets into the Thames mist.

The Court of the Camarilla of London hummed beneath the stone-vaulted ceiling of Lamia’s Hall, tapestries shivering though there was no wind. My court. Or perhaps just my stage. My realm of ghosts.

I remember it not as a man might recall—a sequence of sound and sense—but as a mosaic of moments, each lit by its own fevered moon. So I will give you this vision as I saw it, dear Kindred of my blood, my butterflies of lunacy.

The Scene Begins.

Lakshmi, Princess of Madrid, stood beneath the cracked mural of Mithras and the Serpent—eyes aflame, voice ringing like broken stained glass. She is taller in her anger, her fingers flicking with the force of her words, each one carved from marble wrath.

"Catherine’s aunt, Sophia, bathed in the blood of scryers! She unbound the wards over the White Grove! Are we now to invite her kin into the wedding circle of Edward, in this city?"

She did not speak only to us. No. She cast her fury into the pillars, the shadows, the very air.

And Harkin Odinson—that wolf-chained man of the northern wilds, stood still, grim as a cairn. His silence was louder than her rage, until it broke.

"My claws will not kill without cause. The Pact of 528 was forged for defense, not execution. Four Knights must agree. Or would you make me a dagger again, Princess?"

Ah, dear Harkin, he always smells of peat and pine. The moss clings to his blood.

Then Lakshmi unfurled it. The pact. The one no one speaks of aloud, save in war—the skin of a wyrm, burned and blessed, inscribed in draconic script. Her eyes gleamed as she held it forth.

“Your mark is here. You swore to Avalon, to the Order, to Mithras himself. The de’ Medici mage is dangerous.”

Her voice cracked. Like something breaking underneath the fire. A memory? A wound?

I felt the air between them harden like old ice. Both their gazes turned to me. To me!

And oh, what a thing it was. Two titans, screaming through porcelain masks, looking for my judgment.

But I was far away, wasn’t I?

Maxine, dear Maxine, you were so close—your hand half-raised, eyes darting between them like a curious raven. I remember your lips forming the word "Gawain?"

But I wasn’t there.

No.

I was in the Dreaming.

Where the air smells like violets and parchment, and the sun is gold as honey.

And there she was, Lakshmi, not a Princess, but a little girl in the sun-drenched fields of southern France. Her laugh was a bird's call. And beside her, padding softly on massive paws, her white wolf—unnaturally pale, eyes like silver coins.

They played among the flowers.

She whispered secrets into his fur.

I think... I think he answered her.

That wolf... it had seen the fall of Troy.

It had licked the tears from her cheeks when she buried her mortal mother.

And in that moment, in the dreaming, I understood: She was never afraid of monsters. She loved them. Harkin included.

Then the court's chill touched me again. Voices, real ones, scraping at my thoughts.

“Prince Gawain, your word.” “You must choose.” “The Order demands it—” “The Masquerade cannot survive another bloodletting—”

I blinked. I smiled.

I said, very gently:

“Have either of you asked the wolf what he remembers of France?”

Lakshmi stared. Harkin frowned.

Maxine—oh, clever Maxine—you gasped. You saw it too, didn’t you? The field, the child, the wolf.

I do not know what answer I gave after that. Perhaps I didn’t give one at all.

But I remember the way the shadows shivered. As if something ancient and dreaming had just rolled over in its sleep.

And somewhere, far away, I think a white wolf howled.

End shared memory-thread.

 For the lattice of Malkav alone.

 Filed in the Library of Whispers, under “Dreamscapes: April 1550, London.”