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It was a matter of adoration. For a Celestial, it always was. That’s what kept them going, after all.
What kept them alive.
It was also a matter of honor. Their very existence was an honor - to be the breeders and guardians of Life, to look upon a World and know that their existence was the difference between Everything and Nothing.
Humans would call the resulting notion a form of god complex. They would be mistaken. A god complex would be both too diminishing to their actual power and too narrowing in terms of their understanding of Existence.
After all, while honor and adoration spoke to individuality, they couldn’t possibly exist without a sense of community. With honor and adoration, came team work and humility - the knowledge that their individual worth were the exact same. That however vital one Celestial was to Life, it meant nothing if they didn’t all look after one another.
Another human misconception would be that Celestials were eternal. Well, not a misconception so much as an oversimplification.
See, eternality is relative. A Celestial Team’s assigned World would never outlive one of the Members themselves, so from a human standpoint, the notion would not be incorrect. However, in the Grand Scheme of things, Celestials were born, matured, evolved, and eventually, with tire and age, dimmed.
In many ways, they weren’t so different from the beings they looked after: the basic yet rapid learning of Infancy, the radical changes of Maturation. They formed familial and platonic bonds. They fell in love.
In Academia, they learned their true natures - their Duties, - and how to fulfill them. There were numerous kinds of Celestials: Waters and Fires, Weathers and Winds, Stars and Satellites. All joining forces with the sole purpose of being the keepers of Life.
Of course, they weren’t seen by the beings they protected in true form. No, that would have been catastrophic. Instead, they were sensed through their most essential natures, their Life Forces.
It was in the first eons of Academia that Kara met Lena.
Falling was inevitable. Lena glowed beauty in her eyes. She carried sadness on her shoulders and kindness in her heart. She fit perfectly between Kara’s arms and together they found an entirety of newness to the worn concept of happiness.
Revelation couldn’t have come sooner. The idea of finally finding out what their roles as keepers of Life were meant to be, after eons of learning the basics, was exhilarating. And for some reason, they knew with certainty that they would be working side by side. Either that, or they hoped really strongly for it.
Evolution was collectively known as the most exciting part of a Celestial’s lifespan. After training for their Duties and graduating Academia, Celestials were separated into Teams, each of which were responsible for the creation of one World.
A World’s success depended on the strength of its assigned Celestials, and that relied on adoration. The recognition of their contribution to Life by the beings that reveled in it - for example, the acknowledgment that Waters were needed for growth.
Of course, in Worlds with beings that religiously adored, in some way, Celestials, those would grow stronger. They would evolve, and in turn, the Worlds would grow more complicated. It was a Celestial Team’s greatest honor to be assigned additional Worlds.
Kara always knew that would happen in her Team, so it wasn’t a surprise when, eons later - long after Maturation was done and over with, - they were assigned to cultivate Life on Mars, like they had on Earth, and so many after that. She was right about that, just as she was right that Lena would be working by her side.
Lena, who looked at her like she was Life itself. Lena, who found her face among the crowd during Revelation, a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes, and mouthed “Told you so”.
Lena, who’d always known Kara was a Star, and in some respect wasn’t at all surprised when she herself turned out to be a Satellite.
When she cried in her lover’s arms that night, for the first time, Kara wished time would slow down.
The rule of adoration worked differently for every kind of Celestial, but only Satellites weren’t even meant to expect it.
Their duties were simply too random for normal beings to acknowledge - controlling tides, length of days, stability of seasons… Not very easy to put together. Not when they couldn’t even be seen in the sky, outshone by the light of the Stars.
It was ironic, almost. The way that the thing that made Lena feel most alive was also responsible for her agony.
She’d been drawn to Kara’s light - her smile, her laughter, her warmth - long before Revelation. For eons, it healed her. Like a balm to a wound, it sealed her heart whole.
As Kara grew stronger - her light brighter, her powers more evolved with earthling adoration that was strong, yet no match to what Lena herself felt for the Star she was fated to love, - it became physically harder to stay close to her. And just as excruciating to stay away.
It slowly suffocated her, being increasingly overshadowed and forgotten. She knew the lack of adoration wouldn’t Dim her. Not at this stage, not a Satellite. But it felt like it. Her powers were basic and weak, and she couldn’t evolve. She wasn’t alive, not in the way Celestials cherished. And at the same time, she was exhilarated to watch their World come to Life as Kara shared her essence.
She could survive, if she got to see Kara’s megawatt smile grow every day. That was all she needed, she thought, and maybe it was Destiny. After all, this was what all Satellites were meant to do (even if no Star shone quite like Kara did).
On a more personal level, it fit them. Kara lit up the World, and Lena hovered around the one she couldn’t be without.
Eventually, Kara grew too strong.
She’d felt like it was happening for a while - Lena looked too weak, too pained. They were barely ever together, but distance didn’t seem to soothe her beloved either. And every time she voiced her worries, Lena would put on a smile and say how proud she was of Kara’s light.
Decades turned to centuries, centuries to ages, and eventually, light and smile - duty and happiness - broke apart. How could they not, when it seemed she was fated to never see her love again, yet feel Lena’s pain in her own bones?
In Academia, they’d learning about Voluntary (and Temporary) Dimming, but almost as a myth. Who would ever willingly diminish their power, their relevance, their own essence? Not to mention the consequential lack of adoration, and the pain that followed.
It seemed counterintuitive.
The first time Kara did it, she was desperate. Every part of her ached, and she knew Lena ached so much worse. She just wanted her to breathe . It was so natural, almost instinctual - then again, stopping Lena’s pain always had been.
She simply closed her eyes, balled her hands into fists, and suffocated her powers, her light.
It hurt, of course it did. But it was so insignificant compared to the last millennia. And out of the blue, there she was.
Raven-haired and grass-eyed, and oh so alive. Stronger than Kara had sensed her in so long. Closer than Kara had felt her in forever.
And maybe Lena’s chest heaved too quickly and her face frowned in desperation as she held a Kara as weak as she had ever seen her, but she was there . And she was breathing .
It was incredible, how stronger Lena grew in the matter of hours before she managed to force Kara to shine again. It was only logical, though.
Lena’s beauty had always been too captivating to ignore.
Kara’s light was always the center of attention, but to her, Lena’s ability to glow through the darkness was far more beautiful.
So Kara did it again the next night. And the one after that.
In the absence of Kara’s light, Lena glowed. And she Evolved.
Kara reigned over the Day, and for Lena’s gracious rule, she created the Night.
They both grew stronger than any Satellite and Star before them, and Earth thrived, as did every World that was added to their Domain in the following eons.
Such power, however enviable, was also their sentence. One was always in pain so the other could thrive, and that sacrifice was unsurvivable if they weren’t kept apart. However, perhaps as a gift from Life itself, sometimes when conditions were just right, they could meet briefly and sink into each other free of the shackles of pain.
Humans named them Sun and Moon, and nothing captured their adoration quite like an Eclipse.