Regulus feels a shiver run through him at the sight of the draping white tendrils. This is a familiar place, but it is also a mournful one. The scattered somatic links hold no life in them now. However, he can hardly think much of them at this time. Strange echoes from an age long gone reach him, eerily intact, and take him back to that place. The death of his second mother haunts him still.
The shimmering strand of light and sound takes him down into a dark pit. At the very bottom, the scenery changes. Lua’s Orokin influence is gone, the grey stone and gilded white replaced with architecture astoundingly... Tenno. He draws a breath - no, not quite. His heart quickens, and he moves along the platform towards an open space beyond.
Tangles of wires and tubes hang down from the high ceiling, and a calm purple haze suffuses the space around him. Something just past the edge of the platform rises, and begins to shift in shape. Regulus continues to creep forward, not so much cautious as anticipatory. Something in his heart tells him not to be afraid.
His heart is wrong. The flower opens, the Lotus revealed at its center, and for a brief moment, Regulus believes she speaks to him, and he smiles. The smiles fades as soon as Ballas steps forward, responding to her as though she had spoken to him instead. Maybe she had. What follows makes no sense to Regulus; Ballas addresses the Lotus with the name of a ghost, and she; she sheds her crown and takes his hand. Together with Ballas, she turns... and disappears.
Another mother, gone. Regulus rushes to her discarded mask, and clutches it to his chest, all joy and fearlessness gone with her. Memories of the Zariman race back to him, but not the ones awakened by the Grineer Queens. The echoes in his head come from a time long before Margulis. His first mother. His real mother. She is gone, Margulis is gone, the Lotus is gone; gone, gone, gone; they have all left him in one form or another.
Tears soak his cheeks, running down his chin and neck, flooding him. No answers lie here, in this place, abandoned. He grips the crown tighter, drops to his knees, and wails aloud, filling the empty space with his grief. He feels more alone than ever before.
