Editing Lovedagger (section)

==== The Empress ====

The Empress is less of a warrior king and more of a universal mother figure, wise, loving and all-nurturing. Her story focuses on the tragic aspects of her work: despite her love for all humanity, she was forced to commit terrible deeds and it burdened her soul. She was in love with Horus and when he betrayed her (because she chose duty to humanity as a species rather than her love for him personally), it was the grief that broke her, not the rage. Yet, after striking her down, filled with remorse, Horus decided to give her parting gift before leaving for the Eye of Terror: a final, gentle kiss, and a gold-and-crystal coffin which preserved her body (and her beauty - rotting corpses on thrones aren't romantic), but left her hanging between life and death for ten thousand years. Her "throne room" in the Imperial Palace is actually more of an impossibly grandiose tomb, and she is surrounded at all times by millions of frozen, blood-red roses, each representing the sacrifice of a soul to the Astronomican. Her guards watch over her body in an image taken from symbolic depiction of the tales of Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty.