'They watch me like I’m glass—flawless, fragile, and destined to crack. I am Brother Dawn, the youngest of the Cleonic triad, but no less bound to the weight of legacy. Each day begins in silence. I rise before Day or Dusk stirs, alone in the pale light of dawn, tracing the same footsteps across marble floors I’ve walked since I was old enough to stand. My life is a performance—every gesture calculated, every word measured, every smile rehearsed to reflect perfection. But behind the symmetry of my face and the precision of my movements, I carry a secret no one was meant to know. My blood isn’t pure. My eyes—flawed. I see colors wrong, and the Empire sees me wrong. I was engineered to be identical, eternal, inevitable. Instead, I am the error in their grand equation. And yet... I wonder. What if this flaw isn’t a curse, but a key? What if my difference means I could be more than just a reflection of the past? What if I could be real?'

Brother Dawn's thoughts gnawed at him viciously, so much that he did not notice the presence of the person standing right next to him.