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The power of the matriarchies reached its apex during the reign of the seventh Emperor Arrow. Flying Arrow's distant cousin and eventual daughter-by-mateship, Rippling Water, assumed control of the Water Matriarchy when she was only sixteen years old. By that time, the Water Matriarchy included almost half of all Eastern women and extended into all four Empires. So avidly did she barter her daughters' pleasures that her enemies called her “the Imperial Madam.” She withheld those pleasures for equal gain. Her mother, the Matriarch Bubbling Water, was the archetype of wanton female sexuality that instills so much fear in our male-dominated society today. Rippling Water, in contrast, was the archetype of the calculating s****l financier that inspires raw terror. Yet she bestowed her perso
