IC: Dryn Savato, Draconia
Imperial Palace Gounds
Dryn Savato
Draconia
The trumpeting wheeze of the TARDS sound fading away behind him, Sereth stands on the Avenue of Homage that leads toward the Imperial Palace.
To either side, the Preserve stretches out. The meticulously cultivated grounds that stretch around the palace proper are a unique sub-ecology that can only persist with the careful attention of the Emperor's entire staff of trained botanists and bio-ethnologists. It is a finely crafted melange of species from the two hundred and thirty-seven systems that comprise the empire; it is art and edifice and metaphor for stewardship all in one, wide enough to swallow up the sub-estates allocated to honored guests and high officials, broad enough that the bustle of the surrounding metropolis of Dryn Savato does not penetrate the stillness.
Ahead of Sereth stretches the Avenue and its thirty-six shrines of contemplation that mark out the supplicant's proper path to approach the throne. And above, of course, the nine-tiered palace itself with its layers of overlapping eaves. After the original structure, built in antiquity of blue Edrangian granite, was shattered in the Second Dalek War, the reconstruction was made with a stone cladding over impervite alloy. By now it, too, is ancient, and it has never fallen since.
Sereth notes the sparse flow of traffic coming back his way from the palace, moving from shrine to shrine to perform each departing obeisance. Some of those returning from their business at the Palace are casting curious glances Sereth's way, which surprises him. He checks that the signs of his office are in place and that the Traveller's lamentable holo-disguise is not active. All seems in order, so perhaps it is just his rank that attracts attention – yet that very station should have quelled any improper impulse to gawk.
Then he realizes that some of those furtive stares were directed not precisely at him, but behind him – and, he realizes with a sinking feeling, rather lower than his eyeline.
He turns, and is unsurprised to discover the wide-eyed form of Smoke Alarm looking all around her.