The Smaller Things (Sky: Children of the Light)

Chapter 11: Summer Nights of Endless Light

It was difficult to not take things at face value. Something would happen, it would be processed, and then added to the same clutter of memories that just grew larger by the day. "It is what it is" was a phrase that somewhat encapsulated Vionn's philosophy. Semi-immortal being or not, if proton decay was real, then, in the words of Tears For Fears's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," nothing ever lasts forever.

Those views had been challenged a couple of months back, when a new area in the realms had been discovered. A new non-sky-child friend had been made, secrets crucial to understanding the fundamentals of the earth itself were revealed, and a trip to Eden was required to breathe life back into forsaken ruins.

The new friend had stayed, contrary to the near similar experience with the old one. No dying in Eden to return home, no shattering a recently formed attachment... none. The Hopeful Steward, referred by others as "Hope" or sometimes "Stewart," had helped Vionn see, quite possibly, the first glimmer of genuine optimism they had in a while.

By appreciating what was and what could have, by noticing and acknowledging the smallest of details, it seemed as useless as entropy to forever dwell on inevitability.

Vionn had taken that at face value as well. Why would they take any advice if they always elected to simply acknowledge it and never consider the emotional depth of it? What growth had been aborted because of a refusal to to just accept, but to respect and reflect? Could a weed become a blossoming dandelion if it refused water and sunlight? Then again, weeds could be manifested anywhere, really. Was it a plant's own fault if its seed had landed in a desert under the shade of a tell rock?

Yet, some weeds had prepared for that. Cacti, palm trees, even the smallest blades of grass. They took what little they had and adapted to utilize it as efficiently as possible. So, maybe, Vionn could apply that same logic to themselves.

They recalled their train of thought earlier that day, before they embarked to the prairie. Maybe a seed from a plant would miss its sprouting parent. Sure, it didn't have a brain, let alone a neurological system that could even suggest mental capabilities such as grief, yet plants still felt pain in the simple ways of biology. Lack of water, nutrition, sunlight... a hierarchy of needs needed to be fulfilled before a plant could repeat the process of pollination.

What about the pollinators themselves? Their roles were to either purposefully or accidentally spread seeds and pollen to wherever the wind carried them out of their forms. Pollinators had the biological requirements of a plant already fulfilled, so now a species could focus on itself and evolution.

Time stopped for nobody. Not for plants, nor their pollinators. Not for anyone. One can only hope that they can find the ability to move and change along with it.

Still, when the universe is reduced to nothing but pure radiation noise, time won't even be able to adapt with itself.

"What's the point of anything, really?" Vionn asked their now long-time friend, Fazaki. The same brief moment of silence passed before they clarified, "of life?"

"I think," Fazaki answered with a bold yet caring voice, "maybe the point of life is to live it."