Even if there were not threats clamoring to tear down the golden walls, our society could not withstand realization of the truth, or the breaking of the pact. The mechanical caretakers sustain the folk, and the land provides without anyone shedding sweat or blood. Even we of the First Estate know little of true manual labor. The bountiful trees are picked by the caretakers. Fields never need plowing; most people do not know what a “plough” is.
The masses that are the Second Estate would perish to a man if they had to fend for themselves. We of the first detest their inane existence, and yet we envy their innocence and ignorance. They regurgitate mindless beauty because they know no different, nor can they ever know. Lacking true souls, we create dazzling emptiness. Small living dragons made of metal with amethyst eyes and pasteboard trees with leaves made of pages from another time; why is it we only emulate the living using dead things? Why is that we clamor for the death of living things?
For we do truly clamor. We drum up gilded stories and obscenely convoluted tales, all still so empty of true “imagination,” for the excuse to see a man stab another man. Once we even had true trial-by-champion. We of the First Estate manage the law now; we employ a circus of court and skew the results as we need. The people enjoy the show (don’t they always?) and feel that justice has been done. But it is never enough. Claiming that a man stole one’s fiance by pretending he was one’s own self drives the masses to the theatre for the bloodsport.
There is little other use for the fighters, so I should be less embittered. Their masks were created with defects, or their masks were wounded later. They are almost feral; they foam at the mouth constantly. It is better to use them and cage them than to make them Thirds, or kill them.
For there is a Third Estate. The First Estate is talked of in whispers and rumor; the Third Estate is talked of by no one. It is the underclass, the unpersons, the mad maskless fools. They are those who are forced to see the world as it truly is, full of squirming, living “masks” and caretakers that are not stolid automatons (for many creatures serve under the contract, and the automatons are only the most palpable to the human mind). We only know the truth; they see it.
Children are born feral. Everyone knows it. Soulless monsters. The forebearers create masks that change and grow with the child as it ages, and a mask grants the child compassion and the ability to see past itself. Masks change as one changes; improving one’s reputation adds embellishments.
Some children remain mindless after the masks try to pin a soul on them. Les enfants terribles are the penalty exacted upon those who refused the crescent-grin man’s offer of sanity. They do not age. They do not consider others. They are sociopathic and mindless. It is possible to control them, but never to rehabilitate that which was broken from the start.
The masses that are the Second Estate would perish to a man if they had to fend for themselves. We of the first detest their inane existence, and yet we envy their innocence and ignorance. They regurgitate mindless beauty because they know no different, nor can they ever know. Lacking true souls, we create dazzling emptiness. Small living dragons made of metal with amethyst eyes and pasteboard trees with leaves made of pages from another time; why is it we only emulate the living using dead things? Why is that we clamor for the death of living things?
For we do truly clamor. We drum up gilded stories and obscenely convoluted tales, all still so empty of true “imagination,” for the excuse to see a man stab another man. Once we even had true trial-by-champion. We of the First Estate manage the law now; we employ a circus of court and skew the results as we need. The people enjoy the show (don’t they always?) and feel that justice has been done. But it is never enough. Claiming that a man stole one’s fiance by pretending he was one’s own self drives the masses to the theatre for the bloodsport.
There is little other use for the fighters, so I should be less embittered. Their masks were created with defects, or their masks were wounded later. They are almost feral; they foam at the mouth constantly. It is better to use them and cage them than to make them Thirds, or kill them.
For there is a Third Estate. The First Estate is talked of in whispers and rumor; the Third Estate is talked of by no one. It is the underclass, the unpersons, the mad maskless fools. They are those who are forced to see the world as it truly is, full of squirming, living “masks” and caretakers that are not stolid automatons (for many creatures serve under the contract, and the automatons are only the most palpable to the human mind). We only know the truth; they see it.
Children are born feral. Everyone knows it. Soulless monsters. The forebearers create masks that change and grow with the child as it ages, and a mask grants the child compassion and the ability to see past itself. Masks change as one changes; improving one’s reputation adds embellishments.
Some children remain mindless after the masks try to pin a soul on them. Les enfants terribles are the penalty exacted upon those who refused the crescent-grin man’s offer of sanity. They do not age. They do not consider others. They are sociopathic and mindless. It is possible to control them, but never to rehabilitate that which was broken from the start.
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