Since the dawn of time, it has been told that the sun and the moon were lovers. The two rulers of the sky, separated by both day and night, tragically cleaved from one another. The original star-crossed lovers, fated to only meet in the fleeting moments of dawn and dusk. Eternally forced to die so the other could live, never to exist as one.
But our legends state that the moon and the sun were created together, at the same moment all other things were born, when the holy waters were poured into nothingness from the Great Cauldron, and the world was forged around it. And it was true that they were lovers, upon very first sight, on the very first dawn that ever graced the skies.
And in that same moment, they were cleaved apart.
The eternal rise of the sun, and the death of the moon.
The day was long. Such a wicked thing, the Sun thought, to shine so bright while such sorrow lived inside of her, to be the light of the world when she craved only darkness. A seemingly endless amount of time, while she spied upon the world, watching as flowers bloomed and hearts were broken and forged anew. She saw it all, every moment, heard every song that ever graced the world, felt every wind that blew across the earth. And with every moment, with each passing second, she felt only despair, endlessly drifting across the sky in search of her mate.
And then, the first dusk came.
The sun began her decent, the Mother's holy hands pushing her downwards, away from her lover as he rose from the ashes. And perhaps it was worth it, to die just to see his face once more. While the moon, in all of his quiet strength, raged at the sight of his lover being forced behind the horizon. He rose from death and fell into sorrow all within those same moments, the fleeting moments of twilight.
But the Sun, the Sun would not go. She refused to leave the world without touching him, without feeling him one last time. One final moment of joy, of peace and love, before everything was lost.
And it is said that with that final brush, a fleeting goodbye between two lovers, she graced the Moon with her light. So he would not be alone in the dark, so that she could warm him even from beyond the grave, so that a piece of her would always be with him.
And even with that piece, the Moon despaired at the loss of his mate, at the way the world fell into darkness in her absence.
When dawn came, he was worn. So tired, so very tired, so tired that when he saw his love once more, rising in a shimmering burst of color within the sky, he fell only in pure relief. And the final brush of his love echoed across the sky in the moment of his death, the promise that he would endure it all if it meant she would always return, if only for one fleeting moment. One final kiss, echoed across the last dredges of a growing blue sky. And when the Sun saw what he had done, what he had bestowed upon her with his final breath, she took that kiss and turned it into a star.
So they continued, an endless cycle of death and rebirth, living only for the hope of those fleeting moments. And perhaps, it was that tragic story. Perhaps, for many years- all they had were endings and beginnings, never allowed to coexist. Perhaps that is why so many stars fill the night sky, why the moon fades into darkness slowly and is lit once more with that silver light.
Evidence of their love, echoed throughout the entire universe, surpassing the boundaries of life and death, defying what was meant to be light and what was meant to be dark.
Their tears were converted into rainfall, their rage transformed into thunder, the haze of their sorrow manifesting as clouds that hid them from sight as they wept in never-ending solitude.
Until one day, one final day, the Mother, ever so gracious, took pity upon them. She saw what they had done not as a mockery, not as defiance against the laws she had placed upon the world- but as a culmination of her vision for what we were meant to be. Undying love, no matter the time or distance, willing to sacrifice themselves for one another over and over again. It was proof that good and evil could coexist, proof that darkness and light could be one.
So, on one final dusk, when the sun was dying and the moon was rising, that final echo of her light flowing into his very being... she took her hands and cupped them each. The hands that had created everything, that had forged the Cauldron itself, joined the Moon and the Sun together at last.
Shadow and light converged to form the largest star in the sky, as they were finally allowed to embrace in an eclipse.
And in the years that followed, they poured all of their love, their light into that very star. They gave every last scrap of themselves they could into it. Every golden ray of sunshine as the Sun drug herself across an endless blue sky, every final feat of strength from the shadows of the Moon as he blew her one last kiss before his death. It all converged there, an echo of their love in the sky. A radiant, shining star.
And it has been said that when the Mother created the Apenati, the holy blade meant to stand for all that was good and just within the world, meant to be the opposite of the dark pit of lawlessness that the Cauldron had been turned into, she embedded the dust of that star into it's very metal. It was the evidence of her vision, the evidence of undying love.
The Sun and the Moon continued, never ending power flowing into that star, creating the proof that hope can persist no matter the circumstance.
Until they had nothing left to give.
Nothing left, aside from their very souls, the fabric of their beings, their spirits.
And when dusk came once more, they did not hesitate. They gave each other all they had left, leaving their celestial bodies and becoming one within that shining star in the sky. The final feat, the crossing of a great blue sky, the ultimate proof that they would give everything away for each other. They gave it all away. Because power did not matter, ruling the sky did not matter, not if they were apart.
And when the mother saw what they had done, when she witnessed that burst of gold and silver light, that combination of two souls into one, she let them fall from the sky and onto the earth below. Down onto the very same spot where the waters of the Cauldron were first poured into the universe, the echo of creation itself.
She watched as the waters swirled and changed, became something new, as they Made that star into something else and became something else right alongside it. The star fell deep within the waters, to the very core of it, the spot where the two sides of the world were connected.
And then it split into two.
One side of the waters became glowing gold, warm and as beautiful as the Sun herself. While the other shined with iridescent silver, chilled and as strong and endless as the Moon himself.
And from each side, a figure was born from the waters.
Liyana, the embodiment of the Sun herself, emerged from waves of gold, dragging herself to shore as she searched for her mate.
Amaris, the embodiment of the Moon himself, gasping for breath as he surfaced from a pool of glowing silver and reached blindly for her.
It took many years and many battles for them to find one another, and yet- they never gave up. All that hope, all those dreams that had been poured in from those celestial beings... it was engrained in their very spirits. Down to their core, where the halves of that star glowed brightly within their chests, beating in place of their hearts.
And when they finally reunited in a flurry of light bound kisses and long awaited embraces, when the souls of the Sun and the Moon were finally allowed to coexist as one, an eclipse blossomed in the sky once more as the empty shells of what they once were collided in the sky. And yet, when the rulers of the skies were cleaved apart once more, Liyana and Amaris were not.
They created an empire on our holy land, one that Liyana had already begun building for her mate to preside over once more. A court born from hope, where the song of their love drifted into every wind that stretched across the land. It was their descendants who bore that holy star, combined to form one in their children, the royal bloodline of the Ciatnen people.
When the Others came, when they brought the Great Sickness along with them and ransacked our villages, they did not only steal our land but our holy blade- the Apenati. What they did not know was that they could not wield its full power, not when it was embedded with the dust of our holy star, the star that only offered magic when the intentions were aligned with the wishes of the Sun and the Moon, when the light of their star glowed within the wielder.
In order to preserve the bloodline of Liyana and Amaris from the colonization of the Others, we sent them across the Golden Ingysi, to the realm where Amaris originated from. But before they went, the great seer Tanda graced our people with the Holy Apenati Prophecy.
Both the endless and the end, both the made and the unmade, the shadows of night will be reborn from the grip of death by the very creator of our holy star. Created from both shadow and light, from nothing and everything, their rule will overthrow enemies of the past and reunite all that has been separated. The land will clear of the veil surrounding it and be reborn into something both ancient and renewed at once, but the light cannot exist without the darkness, and darkness cannot exist without the light.
It offered hope to the hopeless, a light to reach towards as we were trapped in endless darkness. And for 18,000 years, we have waited.
We have defended our land, and we have waited. No matter what the Others did to us, no matter how they tried to break our spirits, no matter how they lied about us, no matter if they took our histories and twisted it to fit their own narrative.
They spread false prophecies that Liyana and Amaris never created the star, never fell from the sky, that the stories of heartbreak and loneliness never had an ending worthy of all their sacrifice. That Solarea was blessed to be blanketed in their light, watched over by two rulers that were never meant to be together.
It was a lie.
All of it. It was all propaganda and lies.
And yet, we bid our time.
We preserved these histories, fought for our territories, held onto hope the same way the Sun and the Moon had for millennia until they finally fell from the sky as a star.
And one day, they returned.