"Auld Lang Syne"

There had once been a choice like this: ten children had arranged to play on the railway tracks. Nine chose the new tracks, believing them more exciting, while one child stayed on the old tracks. Then a train came. It was too late for the driver to brake. He could only choose between running over one child or nine.

If Pomona had to choose, she would run over the nine children and take the new tracks. There were not only herself but hundreds of passengers aboard that train. She would not risk derailing the train by taking the old tracks.

She liked children very much, but sometimes children made wrong choices. Herd animals survived by relying on their numbers.

A group would offer its young a certain degree of protection, but it would not shield them from everything. Those nine children had chosen their own path to death, just like Muggles teasing the eyelids of a sleeping dragon.

Marcantonio Giustinian faced the same choice: sacrifice the interests of Venice as a nation to keep the Roman Curia alive, or let Rome go bankrupt over financial troubles, ultimately destroying its credit and ending Christianity in Europe forever.

Just as emperors dreamed of unifying Rome, popes dreamed of uniting Europe against the Ottoman Empire's threat to the Mediterranean. Before Pope Innocent XI took the throne, Clement X sat upon the papal seat. Though already eighty, his ambitions remained undimmed, and he sought to crush the aggressive momentum of Louis XIV of France.

Louis XIV continued expanding royal power and tightening his control over the Church, showing no regard for the papacy. In 1673, he issued an edict declaring that the king would appoint bishops to fill vacancies and levy taxes on newly appointed bishoprics. Clement X publicly denounced it in fury. But