#also didn't wait 2 taint the main post with this but. NO FKCIN WONDER. gray ends up with this strange attraction towards reina [nonromo!!!!

[nerice]

good morning i am thinking abt!!!!! ok it's technically spoilers but also really not bc u know black cat/nerice story is the first in a huge saga lol but i do think abt framing a lot. abt it being reina's world story and her struggles for acceptance and navigating the complex political peace/war factions all vying for her power (ultimately a tool) due to her immortality but the thing is!!!!! she's a god. conventional narrative arcs tell us that things get worse and then there will come a point where she figures things out where all sides can be pleased and she avoids her world being torn apart by its warring factions

but no,

the war lords are the least of her problems bc in her desperation she breaks the entire moon engine responsible for metaphysical equilibrium. and that's what ends up destroying her world, tearing it from its foundations, a fiery death for the wicked and the virtuous alike all is equal in death when faced with the inevitable apocalypse. except reina is still immortal and endures watching everything she loved (and/or hated, deep down) meet a gruesome end with only herself to blame. yeah the failsafe mechanism would have destroyed her, in the end, as well; alas

she just decides to not do that. largely desperation driven ofc (an invulnerable fist driven against the observer's sanctum for hours but he will not open, will not speak to her no longer) utterly, desolately alone. her world gone her only friend gone only she herself a forlorn, crestfallen all-powerful, powerless ruler with nothing to even pretend to call her own anymore. but she refuses to accept that & i think abt this moment soooo much!!!!! if all has to bow to her will, her wishes, then. so do the moons. and she fkicn forces the eternal cities into a touching orbit, not once but three times. successfully overriding the pull of the invisible moon that keeps them apart THREE TIMES. granted it's only the first one that is a genuine touch (which is why linnea is as powerful as she is, though still a pale imitation of what reina once was by comparison) and for the two subsequent world/rulers her own melody substitutes the needed spark, but man. the sheer power of that & it's literally. reina going outside of her narrative (after breaking it. however inadvertently) true rulers are intrinsically tied to their worlds, for one to exist without the other? unheard of. if peace cannot be found where it was promised her, she will make her own. however many worlds it takes, no matter what she has to break in the process. the black cat has left the box etc.