Dawnlight Plaza lay bathed in a light that did not belong to the mortal world.
It was a translucent amber radiance, formed by precisely filtering the searing sunlight.
In that light, the buildings' shadows were so short they almost vanished.
Reliefs and murals lined both sides of the streets in orderly rows.
Their subjects were strikingly uniform: reenactments of divine miracles, the suffering of saints, the descent of radiance.
The lines were precise and the compositions rigorous, yet no trace of their creators' individuality could be found.
Any attempt to introduce personal emotion would be regarded here as an impurity of the soul, gently and thoroughly erased.
A faint scent of pollen drifted through the air, neither sweet nor cloying, but sharp enough to clear the mind.
It came from the golden feather flowers blooming along the edges of the plaza.
These flowers did not follow the spontaneous rhythms of growth. Instead, they slowly opened and closed at an eerie, uniform frequency.
Every movement was uncomfortably precise, as though an invisible conductor's hand were setting the tempo for the entire plaza.
There were no hawkers calling in these streets, nor the sounds of children chasing one another.
A woman pushing a cradle walked across the plaza.
The infant inside had its eyes open, neither crying nor smiling, merely gazing quietly at the dome above with clear, vacant pupils.
Just then, a synchronized metallic clatter came from the other end of the street.
A squad of Golden Feather knights approached.
Their strides matched perfectly. The sounds of their armor clashing resembled the synchronized meshing of precision clockwork gears, without a single unnecessary echo.
Sunlight fell upon them and reflected off their golden full plate, yet it seemed cold and hollow.
This armor had not been put on. It had grown.
Through