//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 - Luna // Story: The New Dawn // by gjhorst //------------------------------// Chapter Three - Luna She looked down on the darkened mountains and valleys of the Earth; its blues and greens and browns all muted to the pale grey in her light. Once in a long while, a little twinkling of light hinted at some torch or fire lit way down there amongst the little ones, although most were asleep and dreaming. She wondered if her sister was down there, near that twinkle of light, or another. There were just so many of the little fire-lights, but only one of the Sun. She had thought she would have had an easier time finding her by now. It had always been so easy to find her before. She just looked to the light. Wouldn’t her sister be the brightest of the lights? She turned her gaze once more toward the light that had been her sister. It sat there, silent. She tried calling to it once more. There was no response from the orb. Sister was not there. She wanted to go over and be near the fireball once more but the push from the Earth wanted her to go a certain way. She saw no need to argue with it tonight. Turning away from the Earth who had swallowed her sister and the Sun who was not her, she busied herself with work on the stars. They dazzled brilliantly and shone their very brightest. She gave a cosmic smile. Sister had always enjoyed her stars. When Sister went away she had busied herself making sure each and every one of them were at their very brightest for when Sister came home. She and her sister had always been together, circling the great orb of the Earth. Together they made the light for all the world to see. For as far back as she could remember, they had circled around and around the great blue ball. She wondered what it had been like before them, how dark and cold it must have been. It was much better now that they were here. Well, now that she was here. Sister was going to come home soon, wasn’t she? “Sure”, she spoke to herself, “why wouldn’t she? She’ll be back just as soon as she is done.” She had told herself that when her sister had gone away. That felt like an eternity ago. She wondered how long it had been since her sister had left. An hour? An eon? Time seemed to stretch on and on when she was alone. Alone with her stars. Why did the stars seem so empty? What was she doing down there anyway? “Something very important of course. She wouldn’t just go down there and leave me here, all alone,” She spent some time and focused on Cassiopeia, despite the constellation already being rather shiny already and immaculately arranged. She gripped one of the stars and gently tuned it’s fusion. It glowed brighter and brighter as she worked. “She said it had something to do with the little ones.” Sudden worry crossed her amorphous features. “She couldn’t have gotten angry with me for looking in on the little ones? Would she?” Still the star glowed brighter. “Its not like its any harm, right?” Brighter and brighter the star went as she rubbed it in her aura, completely absorbed in her own thoughts. “They are just dreams, and sometimes they are so funny. But Sister never liked when I talked about it.” The star burned intensely but she did not take note. “Its not like that is why she left me, she is on a mission. Sister said so. A very important mission.” The little star struggled to maintain itself as its energy was pummeled and abused. “She wouldn’t leave me forever, right?” The star burst into a Supernova, her agitation of it’s aura just become too much for the little thing. “Oh no!” She looked on in horror as it’s stellar cloud expanded and became more and more dissolute. “I didn’t mean to do that! Oh no! My baby!” She cradled as much of the stellar mass as she could, like a mother would her foal. “Its okay, its not your fault. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. Mama didn’t mean it.” The star, or what remained of it, did not respond. The stars never responded. They were nothing to her. Just little quiet balls of plasma, just like the Sun was without Sister. The stars were not her. She was suddenly reminded of that fact. “What am I doing?” She let go of what nebulous cloud she had collected and let it disperse into the cosmos. “The stars can’t hear me! Nothing can hear me, save Sister and the little ones.” A thought spawned in her head, “But if she went down there, then so can I!” She gathered her conscious close to the lunar surface, in the bright dusty wastes of a crater. She had to focus as her sister had. She had to gather her will and condense it. Distill it down to its very essence and use that to manifest the matter that would make her form. Take moonlight and dust and everything else and make a body like that of the little ones. She had done something like this when she had made her stars so very long ago. “Oh won’t sister be surprised when I arrive? She was probably getting lonely without me after all.” The soundless vacuum began to pulse with the galactic energy that was to be her heart. Gently, the black folded with the grey soil and the white regolith. Swirling in the cosmic winds, energy formed down into the very building blocks of matter. Tiny quarks meticulously were arranged, bit by bit and particle by particle. Bonds formed from her will, and she began to materialize. What had started as a ghostly haze slowly became more substantial. In mere moments a body lay upon the dusty ground, dead and cold and lifeless. She had based its design off of Sister’s. She wanted to make sure they would still be sisters, even in these new forms. It was dark blue and black primarily, for she had always liked the darkness of the veil. It was covered in hair and had two large appendages sprouting from its spinal column. She knew these were for propulsion through the air. She had seen many of the little one’s dreams that had described it as flying. In addition, there were four thinner appendages she knew were for locomotion on the ground, or walking. Firmly attached to the skull which held the tightest nerve bundles was a long bony spike which she was pretty certain was used to manipulate mana. Most important she had marked it with the image of her orb upon the field of stars. “Sister might not recognize me without it.” She had placed her markings where her sister had, on the rear. She thought the cartoonish impression of her true form was more than a little cute. Now, all that was left to do was animate her new form, like the puppeteer would a doll. It looked so small, she was certain she would not all fit in there. “If Sister could fit in her’s, then so can I!” Gently probing, she began to pour her essence into the inanimate creature through the spiral horn. What had started with only arcanal pulses soon transferred to chemical action. The body began to warm from the subzero cold as more of her dissolute essence channeled down. She felt herself being compressed down into her purest form, gently imploding into a pure liquid energy within the body’s structure. It felt cramped and tight, forcing herself into the form. She knew however it was necessary else she could lose herself that deep within the earth’s aura. She opened her eyes, feeling their limitation. They could see so very little. She sighed in the airless vacuum, and then realized she had begun breathing. How novel! She took the moment to notice the small intricacies of her heartbeat. It thumped in a slow rhythmic pattern as it moved viscous red blood to the various tissues of the body. “Enough of this lying about! Time to walk!” She sprung to her hooves, and immediately tumbled about in an uncoordinated fashion. This was tougher than the breathing part. It took her some time before she was able to get the new form bounding about on her own four hooves. It was so strange just how big everything had become in this tiny form. Her moon seemed so massive below her hooves and Sister’s sun seemed just so very far away. When she finally felt comfortable enough trotting about in the dust she looked up at the earth orb high above her. “Soon Sister, I will see you soon!” As if all at once, she noticed something was wrong. There was something... No... A lack of something. She turned to the giant star. The eternal aura that had always pervaded that space had suddenly dropped away, she was certain. The solar aura her sister had always held was gone. She focused on the plasmatic husk that had been her sister. She could see it’s subtle movements from even here. When she realized what was happening she gasped in the soundless void. The sun, was falling to the earth.