Some stories start with a plot.
This one started with a tension.
Duty versus personal cost.
I’ve always been fascinated by systems — cultural, political, familial — and the quiet pressure they place on us. The way they ask for loyalty. The way they reward obedience. The way they sometimes demand that we deny parts of ourselves to belong.
And at some point I had to ask:
What happens when the system is wrong about you?
Or worse — when it refuses to know you at all?
Embers of Harmony grew out of that...