Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 56: The Night

I felt a shock run through me as I realized there were no stars in the sky. I didn't know why I expected to see them in this pocket dimension. For all the power of the djinn, they could never create the far-off galaxies, light years away. Even if it was fake, maybe I wanted to see a tapestry of lights flickering across the sky.

There was no Basilisk's Tail. No Struggling Ascender. The Lightning Spell was nowhere to be seen, the galactic pocket nonexistent in this other realm.

Looking up at this starless expanse, I was forcibly reminded of my previous life. Pollution blocked out the night sky, the fires of industry taking the constellations as fuel for rampant progress.

The Unseen World washed over my vision. Lady Dawn was peering at the sky herself, a strange longing in her burning eyes. As part of our routine, Lady Dawn would help me assimilate, and then I'd withdraw one of her books on the distant suns from my dimension ring for her to read.

"Why do you love the stars so much?" I found myself blurting out. "I don't know much about your life, Lady Dawn, but I see how you watch the sky every night."

The phoenix didn't look at me. The absence of the stars seemed to strike her even deeper than it did me, hints of repressed emotion bleeding over our bond.

I suddenly felt guilty for asking. It seemed to be a far more personal question than I had expected, like tearing at a scab before it had fully healed. Lady Dawn and I, while I liked to think we were allies, still kept a certain distance. And my question bridged that gap. I opened my mouth to retract my question.

"Asura live a long, long time," Lady Dawn said, her voice softer than I was used to. "We don't even know how long our natural lifespans are, especially phoenixes. I lived for thousands and thousands of years. I am old for an asura, Toren Daen. I am old for any form of life."

Lady Dawn's brilliant outline seemed to dim. She was the only star silhouetted against the sky. "Most of us, when it becomes too much, we simply... fade. Existence grows too tiresome, the burden of opening your eyes day after day beyond daunting. Each and every step is the same as the ones you took a year ago. The same path you traveled a decade ago. And a century, and a millennium. And so we pass on our Wills, and then drift away. It is an end to monotony and endless repetition. The final chord in a symphony of pointlessness." The asura tilted her head. Her hair rustled in the breeze, covering part of her face. "But over the many millennia, we have found a way to combat this gradual exhaustion. We focus our minds on a single concept; an idea to Anchor ourselves. It has its own downsides, but we live."

I listened intently; this bit of information was new to me. The Beginning After the End never spoke of the intricacies and the sorrowful end these gods-in-flesh experienced.

"The djinn... They were much the same. Not in lifespan, or in the weariness of existence. No, the djinn were as short-lived as any man. But a djinn would dedicate their entire life to discovering insight around specific doctrines and studies. They could change it whenever they willed, but it was rare."

"And was your focus the stars?" I asked as silence overtook us.

"No," the asura said, a slight smile pulling at the edges of her lips. "No, my husband loved the stars. They were his passion and his joy. He wanted to visit them one day. He promised me he would find a way to brave the vacuum of space, taking me with him. We would see the Dawn from up close."

I knew from the melancholic emotion that threaded over our bond that she had never been able to see the sun as her husband had promised.

"In my... previous life," I said, speaking up, "Our greatest scientists wanted to reach the stars. We sent men to our moon, landing them there and planting a flag of our country. We had all sorts of dreams ourselves of visiting distant galaxies, spreading our influence across the universe." I ran my tongue over my lips. "I wonder if there is a universe out there where man reached the stars. The physicists of my previous life–people far smarter than me–came up with a dozen dimensional theories. It could be possible that there's a world out there that could bring you to the sun."