Special 4: The Vagrant Star

Special 4: The Vagrant Star

The Stars were fixed no matter how many times they cycled.

I was there in the center of it all. I searched for a meaning in what was only the whims of nature.

But for the aspiring vagrant such little thoughts were the reason why our legs carried us over the ruined world whence we had fallen into.

I roamed the expanses beyond comprehension. Surrounding me were the living cosmos that brought about my existence. I walked forward because it was the only direction I knew.

What was sense in this place like this? What was meaning to a vagrant star that treads between the twilight?

Even the cadavers of fallen Stars served a purpose. The blue flower that sprouted as I wandered the endless deserts knew what it was.

But I...

... Could not describe the sensations in that moment.

I believe it was sorrow.

Fragments of the past come back to me time and time again. I remember when the Stars fell in the outer rims. The bastions of civilization beyond the walls of the City during a time when Stars still filled the desolate skies.

The advent of the Stars and Glimmers heralded the end and the beginning of everything. Gifts born from our cadavers caused humanity to implode on itself.

Nests of life became calderas where rivers from The Source flooded as though something irreplaceable had given way. Yet humanity and creatures alike lapped from the rivers that had washed away their homes, searching for something.

How I envied that they could.

At the borders I stood at a place that was neither the end nor the beginning.

A purgatory unraveled before me.

Rivers ran endlessly from a point of no origin. And I eventually came to a place where I rested for perhaps eons.

I wondered within my cocoon:

“Why do people look up to Stars?”

“Because they’re something we want to reach. Hello!”

The voice of a child greeted the Star.

I remember the innocence. The fearlessness. The idiocy for a human to approach a Star.

A hunger swelled within.

But I could not move from my place.

I pictured that child as something strange. Though they did not have wings I imagined them as such.

Perhaps I saw them as a dove that had willingly walked into the nest of a spider.

But I did not pounce.

“It doesn’t look comfortable in there. Are you ok? I have something I can give you if you’re hungry.”

That was how I met ‘Her’.

Another vagrant that was far from a Star.

But they were my...

* * *

The Arbiter stroked the flat of the blade in her arms like a lute. It was cradled close to her body as she gazed up into the starless ceiling of her Floor of Judgement moments before she sealed her eyes.

Then, she brought them back down to stare longingly at her blade – the False Price of Paradise.

“... I await the day of my Awakening. Until we meet again.”