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The following passages have been transliterated from what we managed to salvage from before the Last Great Eruption on Europa. The exact timelines could not be determined, though evidence suggests that these entries were made from sometime before the Dissention, when Europa was still ruled by the two major Empires. For more information, please refer to the Encyclopediae of Europeian History.
The skies are smooth today. Bright, too, but I can feel them thinning. Sometimes I worry that none of us will live to see peace, or ever wake up to remember every reason we must continue to fight on. This was never what I wanted -- was it ever what anyone wanted?
Dated Eur. 109570, Dias 2.
Jimin wakes up to the chinking of chrystals, and he dares not move, because maybe it's a dream, maybe it's too good to be true that he would come back -- those eyes like oxynthian stones, warm and dark and cased round secrets too good to tell the rest of the world.
"You didn't think I'd forget, did you?"
Jungkook’s hair shimmers in the darkness, but his skin is pale as sky. His smile warm as sprouls in steaming season, his laughter just like the bubbles that shoot outwards.
"I thought... you mightn't have come."
Jungkook circles above Jimin's bed with a grin that looks like Saturn rising and Jimin lets him settle into the space he usually imagines being filled by something close to love.
"And why ever would I do that?"
Jimin reaches up and Jungkook flips his tail so that it glides over Jimin's face, before swooping down to press his lips to Jimin's. He tastes of skysugar and sunsong and Jimin's chest tightens. He licks his lips as Jungkook pulls away.
"I shouldn't do that too often," Jungkook says, hair swirling around the pair of them like all the tendrils of space come creeping into their world, as it does every time someone has ventured beyond the sky, that cool, sweet-salty-bright barrier that keeps them all safe from the vastness beyond.
"Why not?" Jimin asks, running a finger down the bridge of Jungkook's nose, tracing his lips over scale-light teeth, smooth and sharp and lovely.
"Because," Jungkook says, and he sounds as soft as wavewhispers, "I'll never stop."
The strange creatures that inhabit the deeps of the Europeian Oceans (though there is only the one, hidden under a thick layer of ice, which acts as the moon's crest and keeps it intact) bear the rarest resemblance to us in their semi-humanoid features. Europeians, as we have dubbed them, might be the closest things in the known universe to what we might call "mermaids". With their long, lithe, and often lethal tails, covered in a kind of marble-metallic scales, stronger than any substance on earth, yet still soft to the touch of those they trust and love, only their torsos have functioning limbs. Their "arms" (seen in diagram 3f) are long and thin, with six fingers tapering off into often sharpened points, connected to their hips by a thin membrane that helps them maneuver in the viscous liquid of subterranean Europa.
For our intents and purposes, we have elected to call them "wings".
He says he has something to show me. I don't know what it is -- but I know him, so I know that I'll love it all the same.
Sometimes, I imagine us pressing our lips together somewhere everyone can see, just to let them see. And maybe then, all this war will stop, and we will make peace with the fact that the sky bleeds just the same for all of us. No matter what side of the reef.
Dated Eur. 109582, Dias 1
"Where are you taking me?"
"You'll see."
"But I'm not."
"Not yet."
Jimin lets himself be pulled through the slow nacsior turrents, the lucid water flowing around him, spinning his mind like the drinks of hiemtide, sparkling as they skitter against his scales. He giggles, tightening his grip around Jungkook's fingers, allowing himself to be carried on the ripeness of the water.
Jungkook's voice flows around him and he opens his mouth to taste. He grins, teeth flashing as they simmer to a halt at the edge of a great canyon. Jungkook nudges Jimin and Jimin lets his eyes refocus on the summit of their travels; he presses his lips together, fingers curling, tail swishing in nervous-excited circles.
"Oh..."
"Watch."
The water around them ripples in coarse waves as the whole world begins to shake, the aestmont's peak shimmering with color, the heat rolling over them in thick plumes before the core of their very universe bursts forth in rivulets and streams, shooting up towards the sky where it crashes against the hard smoothness, sending cracks scattering across its surface.
It shakes the very foundations of their world, shatters their skies, makes clouds of an ocean that flows stagnant till it breaks and Jimin is held still by the enormity of it. Jungkook giggles next to him, tail swishing till it sweeps over Jimin's, letting their scales slip over each other’s, the friction making Jimin's scales go soft.
Beads and brucclets of aestgems rain down around them, still scalding to the touch, but brilliant as they come to rest against the glyssian floors, lighting up the entire ocean like makeshift stars (because sometimes, if you peer through a bit of sky that's thin enough, the universe beyond winks back in thick, dark, deathlessness, filled to the brim with stars).
"Here --" Jungkook reaches down and scoops up a handful of aestgems, still smoldering, their colors shrinking off his face and scales, their light giving his entire body a whole new kind of glow, the kind that only their sun might, or one of their sistermoons, when it passes by close enough to crash into them.
"Aw, you shouldn't have," Jimin says, laughing as he leans in to sink his fingers into the bubbling warmth of the cooling gems. They are close enough over their interlaced hands to kiss and Jungkook is the one who breaks first, pulling Jimin close enough to swallow him whole, and never mind the burns starting to form along his wings where the aestgems are burning through the thin membrane, leaving tiny scars that will one day be nothing but ghostmarks.
"That," Jungkook says when they break apart, still simmering and smoldering and soft, still sinking into the chaos of their makeshift starfields, still spinning out of control as the ocean around them straightens itself over a terrain that is made new by all this shivering.
"That?" Jimin asks, their hair tangling as they settle into the glyssian sands.
Jungkook grins that grin of his, dark and daring and demanding, like swallowing secrets whole with a belly already full of lies, but Jimin knows how they taste, knows that even if Jungkook tried, he wouldn't be able to lie. Not to him.
"That, is how you make me feel."
The Europeians seems to have a complicated political system that mirrors the process by which Dalai Lama's are chosen in our world -- something (it is yet unsure what) chooses an Europeian child when they are birthed from their shells, and within the span of one Europeian year (which is 3 Dais, or the time it takes for Europa to make one full round of Jupiter), that child is crowned Prince of the territory. Just before the last Dissention, there were two major Empires, separated by a great series of reefs down the longitudinal lines of Europa, splitting the Galilean moon in halves.
It is unsure if The Great Eruption was the reason for the end of this bi-emperial reign of Europa that seems to have lasted for the past century or so.
We met at a crowning. I've never wished so much so that I was not chosen, as he was.
Maybe the war will take us both, and in our next cycles, we will be blessed as the merelings that surround us, uncrowned and free.
Or maybe, we'll find a way to escape this war, go somewhere that no one can reach us.
Dated Eur. 109602, Dias 1
"Let's go see the Lightspinner."
Jungkook's eyes go wide.
"We can't."
Jimin tumbles backwards, cycling through the water, fins flashing almost as bright as his eyes, drunk and giddy on skysugar he's licked from his fingers after pressing them to the surface of the sky for much, much longer than he'd ever be allowed to.
"Why not?"
Jungkook catches him mid-spin, simmers them both down till they're curled round each other, scales soft against the sand, the water around them thick and thick and thick, dark and dark and dark, but Jimin lights up the darkness in a way that not even aestgems can, not even aestmonts have the power to. He has a glow that is innate to him and him alone, caught in the ball of his throat, where Jungkook sometimes likes to lean in and bite because that is where they are most vulnerable -- where Jimin places his trust, where Jimin trusts him the most.
"Because," Jungkook tries to laces his wings around Jimin's body, to keep him still so he'll stop stirring the water around them thicker and thicker, darker and darker, his lips so sweet with skysugar Jungkook might not be able to stop himself from kissing much longer. He bites his own lips and keeps on, "he's the only one we're not allowed to talk to."
"And we're the only ones we're not allowed to love. And yet here we are."
Jimin's logic spins circles round Jungkook's head but he shakes it nonetheless.
"He's seen things... he knows..."
Jimin nods, taking Jungkook's cheeks in his fingers, kissing him so hard Jungkook thinks he'll go drunk as well, bubbling up on sunsong, and Saturn setting, and all their sistermoons aligning.
"That's why we have to go."
"We might --"
"Not come back?" Jimin finishes for him.
Jungkook bites his lip so hard the waters around them go thin, but Jimin licks the salt off his skin and Jungkook forgets the meaning of pain all over again. Or remembers it -- there is only pain with Jimin, the pain of loving, the pain of not being able to love, the pain of loving anyway.
And the love of pain. That too.
"What's so bad about that?" Jimin throws his head back and Jungkook leans forward to bite at the juncture of his neck, tongue laving over the skin there, feeling Jimin's tail curl around his own, "what's so bad about that? The aestmonts will flare like they always do, and our sistermoons will keep on passing us by, bringing the heimtides and the nacsis and someone else will be picked. And we'll be..."
"Free?" Jungkook finishes for him, voice flat as the seafloor.
"Something like that..." the sugar is wearing off, and Jimin rests his head against Jungkook's shoulder. Jungkook rocks them both till the sunsong stills.
And then, he says, "Okay."
The reef that divides one half of Europa from the other is a vast line of crystalized minerals (not unlike stalactites) that form a kind of fence-barrier along the entire circumference of Europa's subterranean landscapes, splitting the moon in half lengthwise. Its formation seems to have coincided with the formation of the moon itself, via the collection of minerals as a pair of much smaller moons, that orbited Jupiter at the same speed and rotation, collided. During collision, their cores melded, forming one singular celestial body. The collision caused a massive explosion that shook the moon's core, causing it to burst outwards, then immediately cooled when the material encountered the liquidous membrane already forming over the moon.
The Great Europeian Reef is perhaps one of the most astonishing underwater structures in the known universe to date.
We are going to see the Lightspinner.
Dated Eur. 109604, Dias 3
The reef gapes at Jimin, and from the way Jungkook's tail slips against his own as they approach, he's not entirely unaffected either.
"Where does the Lightspinner live?" Jimin asks, lips brushing Jungkook's cheek.
Jungkook points, and there, hidden among the thousands of caves that mark the reef's surface, lies a string of glowing ones, like a set of stars tied to one another by a ripetide. Jungkook's hesitance makes the water around them go thick but Jimin tugs on his hand and their wings flumber over the warming waters. They enter the cavern together, tails schwicking against the narrow cavern walls, all emitting a faint, pulsing glow.
Jimin had worried that they would lose their way, but he realizes quickly that there would be no such danger -- there is only one way to go -- up. And so, they do, hands laced, tails tapping and chinking against each other, against the smooth-rough-ribbed-edged walls of the cavern as it lilts up towards the sky.
They reach the end of the skyward tunnel and hover at the mouth of an opening that spreads farther out than their eyes can make out. In the lightness, their eyes shy away, shutter themselves, and perhaps that is why the war has gone on for so long -- because both sides refuse to see the futility in it all, the truth hidden so deep in their pasts that neither can be bothered with remembering.
"Yes?"
The Lightspinner's voice is deep, but not rough or scary like Jimin had always imagined. No, it is solid and slippery and so heavy he wonders how it doesn't weigh down the entire reef.
Jimin whirls around but Jungkook is already speaking.
"H-hello -- we are --"
"Oh, I know who you are," the Lightspinner says, eyes huge and the color of burning aestgems, so hot Jimin can't bear to look for too long. He blinks and chooses a corner of the Lightspinner's silver-scaled shoulder to stare at. His hair is the color of the Skystreams when their sistermoons draw close enough to paint their skies with colors they never get to see except then.
"Please," Jimin says, taking a brave stab at conversation.
"Namjoon," says the Lightspinner.
"What?" Jungkook asks.
"Call me that name for now -- and now tell me what I can do for you, my darling Princes"
Jimin shutters his eyes and opens them again, glancing around as if anyone might spot them so damn high and away from the seafloors.
"We want..." Jungkook hesitates, glancing at Jimin, who picks up with all the courage he can muster whilst feeling small enough to tuck into a shell.
"We want out," he says, squeezing Jungkook's hand.
Jungkook nods, "Yeah -- we've had enough of... of all this." He waves at his side of the reef with his free hand, and Jimin chews on his own lips. The water around them thickens, churning, churning, warm, warm, warm.
"All this?" Namjoon asks, gesturing at the open waters to either sides of them.
Jimin nods, "Of... of this war, and... and disbelieving."
Namjoon settles against a particularly flat patch of reeftop and gestures for them to join him. They do.
"And what is it that you believe in then?" he asks, voice calm as heimstide evening, when the waters are so cold and still no one can stand to move more than a few paces at a time.
Jimin fixes his eyes on his side of the reef, and then on his and Jungkook's interlaced fingers.
"This... I believe... I believe in this, and I wish for this, too" and he holds up their hands.
Namjoon smiles, a smile that is all sharp and glint and oxyncia. His eyes look like Saturn's rings, bright and edged, as he reaches beneath them and breaks off a shard of the reef, holding it out to Jimin.
"Find the place where the sky is thinnest," he says, pressing a delicate finger to the tip of the jagged shard, "And push." He offers the shard to Jimin, who reaches out with trembling fingers.
"And," Namjoon says as their skins brush, "believe."
And so, they do.
It is undecided as to the cause of the last Dissension, and all we have of the event is the geological evidence that it happened. There are countless wreckages scattered along the ocean floors, the remnants of a war long fought and long lost, the skeletons of Europeians litter the waters like flotsam and jetsam.
But those who survived seem to have forgotten their timeless disputes, and are continuing to live in peace and harmony.
"There are no more entries found after this one?"
"Well, that's generally what 'the last one' means."
Jimin peers at Jungkook over the rims of his glasses, heaving a deep sigh as he cards a hand through his hair. Jungkook makes a loud, obnoxious sucking noise as the pulls the lollipop out of his mouth and makes a show of licking it.
"Ew, isn't it your bedtime or something?" Jimin asks, crinkling his nose as he sets down his glasses. Jungkook feigns a look of offence before jumping out of his swivel chair and bounding across the room to throw himself at Jimin.
"Yep, and you know whose job it is to put me to bed? Yours." He shimmies his way into Jimin's lap, straddling him to his chair, their noses brushing.
"Since when did I go from your boyfriend to your mother?" Jimin sighs again but laughs nonetheless, shutting his notebook and leaning back into his own chair, the back creaking indignantly against the strain.
"Since you agreed to be my boyfriend, duh," Jungkook grins over his lollipop and glances over his shoulder at the pictures of carvings taken by the subterranean rover on Europa. "So, how are the mysterious space-mermaids doing today."
Jimin rolls his eyes, "Oh, just peachy, y'know -- war and star-crossed love and all that fun stuff."
"Damn, so the little mermaid is really an alien? We gotta call Disney and let them know."
Jimin pats Jungkook's ass appreciatively, "We did that months ago -- they're not redoing the movie."
"Goddamit," Jungkook pouts, lollipop stick shooting straight up out of his mouth.
Jimin pecks his nose, "It's okay. We can still watch it at home tonight."
Jungkook laughs and hops off Jimin's lap, bending over another pile of photos, all of the same strange hieroglyphic language that these creatures seem to use.
"What's this one say?" he points at a random photo.
Jimin pulls it over, shrugging, "Not much -- just a couple of words that don't make sense without any context."
"What's it say though?"
"It says 'we believe', but we can't find the rest of it so... we don't really know what they believed."
"Oh... that's kinda... I mean it's kinda poetic, right? We get to make up an ending for them." Jungkook watches as Jimin shuts off the lights at his work desk, shuffling the stacks of photographs and notes.
"I guess... what would you have them believe in?"
Jungkook shrugs, "Uhm.... peace and love?"
Jimin shakes his head, hapless, hopeless, in love, "Sure, let's go with that," and he leans over to grab a notepad, jotting down a sentence before slapping the sticky on top of the photo.
They lace their hands and head for the exit of the museum, Jungkook musing aloud over what to get for dinner.
Behind them, in the dark of the room, the sticky note reads 'We believe in another life -- one full of peace and love.'