The Origin of these Wandering Stars

Formation

Love makes monsters out of us. Frothing, mindless, ravenous beasts who would crawl belly side down to this altar of pleasurable pain, and worship this merciful, cruel master set before them. It does not discriminate, for the shackles are bound to neither creature not god, serving its own agenda across the universe as it would. Yet in its cruelty, it relieves. To drink from its fountain cannot quench the thirst of existence but it creeps; a touch of silken vines embracing and moving to and fro calling out to desperate prey.

That is not where the lone creature was born however. In the great ocean of the universe, there exists a most strange galaxy. Its worlds and inhabitants all appear quite similarly to that of blue marble and several of its sibling worlds another lifetime away. It is a cauldron of oozing, bubbling change, fervent and impatient to spring life and change into the worlds it serves. And amidst the chaos, a little scorpion is born. Her carapace soft and pale, eyes nearly useless and she all alone in her forest. The wind brings a smell of freshness, cold and crisp and so distance a feeling from the bearer she knew but for a few seconds.The dark is comfortable but in the distance there is a dim, glowing ball above her, shining and giving off a warmth she wants. She feels the tickle of grass on her belly, moving her self to that strange light in the distance. The first few minutes of her life have begun and already she is learning to navigate her world, her claws feeling the earth beneath her and the wind blowing a cold breeze despite the brightness around her. She made it a challenge to follow that ball of light, to whatever place it would take her, as long as the coldness did not creep into her again.

The sun is never kind to those who stay close to the earth. He can the feel the weight on him, somehow burning and comforting all at once, keeping constant vigil though the fiery ball would never know who he was, a never ending burden despite living for more than three ages. His journey home almost always brought by to a lush meadow, a sea of glistening colors bursting and weaving their way through the old corpses of trees, and yet there is something odd here. The rustling is faint, like tiny feet moving a thousand miles with no direct, his gaze turned downward and his face blooms with the most sincere of emotion. He saw the whole of the cosmic world before him, and he took a deep breathe as though his whole life he had never once taken a true breathe, as new to him as the little one before him. He crouched, steadily and gently moving through the tall wild grass tickling his face, and moved to face the little creature before him. He could tell she was new, the color of her carapace too pale for the distinctive mark on her and as he made a move to her, she rose her stinger to defend small eyes searching for the figure before her. He smiled and allowed himself to be found, knowing he had an advantage to the little one before him. To her, he was too big for her kind but he smelled of something dry but clean and underneath all the strange things on him, he smelled quite like the her. She felt conflicted, her bearer had gone away and all her siblings along with them and she had waited, only moving to find the strange light above her keeping her warm and comfortable. The stranger moved toward her and she let him, wanting the comfort of another scorpion, even in another body. His smile paled the implications of a little stinger all by their lonesome not lost on him and he extended his arms in welcome, a new life, a home and she felt the change and rushed into the arms of a strangely soft body, but he was warm and she could not deny that she missed the company of her kind.

He held the little scorpion and he felt the little trembles of effort, tiny claws grasping him, but he could not let himself shed his guise after all, the trip home was still a ways away and he could not wait to introduce his newest child into his ever expanding family, and to his lovely partner who would no doubt look to the little creature in his arms with the same awe as he had just moments ago. The little scorpion was grateful to the stranger holding her, feeling a familiar warmth to those precious seconds with her bearer and her siblings. He was strange and tall and soft in comparison to herself, but she did not mind so as long as he did not drop her. The next days were fill of the little scorpion venturing beyond her meadow, the bright light above her turning fainter and dimmer with each passage and the stranger becoming a guardian, teaching her to feed using her mouth parts and learning liquids were a strangely satisfying meal. As the days passed and the two became kin in habit and practice on the horizon the sun set a blaze a field of purple red leaves, bathing the land in a glow of liquid light, the whiteness of the bark guiding the stranger and the little scorpion to a home just beyond the field. His face grew calm, a gentle warmth of deep breathes and eyes drinking the land and in his chest the weight of his child added to gentle joy he felt. She felt the ease and though her eyes could only read the barest of colors, she knew that warmth of that home would welcome her and never let her go.