Photograph

There is a photograph nestled right under my dress, right above my heart, of a woman I have never met in my life.
She poses stiffly for the camera, hands folded over a grey-scaled dress, her lips pursed. Her glassy stare evokes a sense of distance from the camera.
It wasn't my fault, she seems to say.
But if it wasn't her fault, where did the rifts come from? Why did the rifts come, and take Quentin? The revolution? Where am I?
There are too many questions.
Quentin is gone. I must find her, this woman. She is my only hope.


Statistics

The revolution happened a long, long time ago, when Queen Fyora first took the throne. Neither the bourgeois nor the lower class could go on like this. The crippling taxes. The segregated social classes. The lack of justice, or even a voice in the government. The nobility and the monarchy, all faeries, were exempt from the taxes, continuing to gorge themselves while those below them starved.

The flame of revolution started slowly, gently. A few anonymous essays here and there, not quite criticizing the government, but pointing out more appealing methods of governing. When the King--the last male faerie--censored all literature against the crown, the authors went underground. They published seemingly nonsensical works about Terror Mountain, when in reality they were addressing Faerieland. They whipped up satirical novels, plays, and short stories. As other bourgeois read them, they nodded their heads in agreement. Something must be done.The peasants, though illiterate, too began to feel the rising heat, and took up their own torches and pitchforks.

Celestine, a writer for the revolution took part in drafting essays. She liked working late into the night, writing until her candle reached a waxy stub, and then stuffing the composition into her desk's hidden compartment. Between her writing frenzies, she went down to Quentin's flat, right below her's, where they had tea and talked about the current crisis on their hands.

It didn't take long for her to notice the fissure in her bedroom floor. She ignored it. There were more important things to finish. But then the guards swept into her flat one late night. They toppled tables, overturned papers, shouting, Treason. Disloyalty to the crown. You will have the guillotine tomorrow.

Celestine stuffed the papers into the linings of her coat, when a guard grabbed her from behind.
You little rat. He snarled.
She rammed her elbow into the guard's throat and he sprawled backwards, gasping for air. But she too, stumbled backwards, momentum pushing her back, back, into that glowing crevice on her bedroom floor. Then, a burst of light, and then, darkness.

When she awoke, she found herself 140 years into the future. Queen Fyora had become a figurehead, and the revolution was over. Gone.

Why was she still here, then?

Name: Celestine
Age: 18
Gender: Female

Height : 5'5"
Occupation: Writer
Residence: 1910's Neopia

All right!

Reptiles

Arguing

Writing pamphlets for the revolution

Quentin

Studying antiquity

Nah...

The monarchy

Angst-filled romantic plays

Injustice

Time-travelling

Asking for money

Petpet

There's something quite unsettling about this monster of a petpet. A few days after Celestine had been around Neovia, it turned up. She tolerates it, but she can't shake off a weird feeling about it.


Story

There are an infinite number of parallel universes. A parallel universe is a universe that coexists side by side with another universe, and contains similarities with the universe next to it. However, each universe has its own unique characteristics. Such as, one universe may hold Neopets and Neopia, and another universe may have humans in a modern world but with domesticated dinosaurs, while yet another may contain an ordinary world like ours...but with little missing pieces here and there: The lightbulb was never invented, some famous people were never born, etc. Obviously, the world would be a very different place. Each universe thinks it's the only universe in existence and doesn't know about other universes existing alongside it.

However, someone or something out there produced a spell that took energy from multiple universes. The sheer amount of energy taken in such a short span of time caused fissures to form in the universe. These fissures caused the wrong people to fall into the wrong worlds, and all sort of paradoxes occurred.


Han is busy writing out her latest pamphlet, when an ominous fissure appears on her bedroom floor...

Two.Two

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.

~Victor Hugo

1.

We're not the only ones who can speak. The trees whisper, too. The river likes to listen more that speak, but you can sometimes hear it talk, loud and clear, of what it has seen. And if you bend closer to a flower before you pick it, you can hear it murmur. They were all there, in the apartment inhabited by Celestine's family.
And the wind?

A picture can tell a thousand words, but Celestine's words told a million pictures.

That's what the North Wind could tell you. He loved it when she read them aloud, the words pouring out of her like a river of gold. Yes, they all loved Celestine and her stories.

She loved her parents and her elder sister, but even as a little girl, she was enamored with the political sphere. Her first essays were awkward and crude, but as she continued to read them aloud, her words echoing through the empty alleys, they grew stronger and more succinct.
Don't read them, her mother warned her. Or you'll be sentenced for treason. But she continued.

And then the rain started pouring. The sky turned inside out, black and bruised. One moment her parents were there, and then they were gone. Two days stretched to two weeks, and then to two years as Celestine and her sister waited for their parents to come home from a nighttime excursion. Her face pressed to the huge window at the front of the castle, waiting for the familiar faces to appear while the rain made a steady rat tat tat against the pane. She knew the State had taken them, barely leaving a trace—just two heartbroken girls.


2.


Memory is a beautiful, and terrible thing. It can haunt you then slip away when you need it the most. As Elayisa tried her hand at poetry, she remembered her mother and her rosy face, clear as day.
But nothing came out of her mother's mouth.
Celestine froze and tried to recall all the times her mother had spoken.
She could conjure nothing. Nothing.
Her stomach gave a heavy lurch as she realized she had forgotten. Why? Why? How could she have forgotten? With trembling hands, she ripped the paper to shreds, and threw the pieces out the window, down into the city streets. As they floated away, a few tears dripped down her cheeks. She missed her whimsical yet humble parents, their light attitude yet strong moral standards, their smiles. Yes. Her sister sat in her own room, missing her father's laugh. The trees were still, remembering and missing their kindness. Yes. Missing is all around this grieving city today.



3.


In the midst of all of this, there was quiet chaos. The people were disillusioned with their government. As science progressed, so did the drive to create a more perfect society. Salons sprang up, where the middle class gathered and discussed the political situations of the day. When Celestine attended her first meeting, the older citizens bowed to her.
Your parents performed invaluable services for us,they said. Celestine simply stared in shock. Her parents, the ones who had warned her against speaking out, were rebels? Impossible.

Friends

Quentin

Oui, he's quite lovely, really. That brain of his really is something special, too. He had quite good taste in tea, too. Although I never really understood those things he called atomos. Or his obsession with dissecting all those petpets. But we did have the loveliest talks together. I'll find him. I know I will.

Art Box

Drag and drop for full image.


lmao I actually drew something for once. Celestine's alternate design, I guess.

Sitely & Credits

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Sitely & Credits

I will continue until I find her. It is all I have left. I, a symbol of a time long ago.
DO NOT REMOVE THE SITELY & CREDITS SECTION ABOVE.

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