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Solanum stood timidly, taking a sharp breath in as the light faded in the shrine. Her pilgrimage was almost complete; all of her hard work and studies, for this day.
To the Nomai of the Solar System, she wasn’t treading new ground - this pilgrimage was a tradition passed down through generations after all - but becoming part of this tradition, with all the wonder and curiosity of those before her was a dream come true.
Some of Bells’ words echoed in her head:
“We make this journey, not only for ourselves, but to honour the members of our clan that came before us”
She couldn’t suppress her smile, even through her nerves.
Her three fingered hands grasped her staff tightly, as she twisted it back and forth, boring a tiny divet into the ground at her feet anxiously. She wore her traditional robes, predominantly green, with golden lines etched symmetrically across it in curves and circles. They had never felt so sweltering - although perhaps it was just the current orbit of the Hourglass Twins to blame for that. She repeatedly tried to pat out creases in them that weren’t there every few moments, and she adjusted her mask again, which she swore had fit better just the other day.
After a moment, her thoughts slipped away from the mundane, and back to the task at hand. Solanum turned the lights back on, sliding the dimly glowing, purple orb up the slider. Gradually the space filled with a comforting glow, and the sandy architecture she knew so well brightened as her eyes adjusted. Looking to her feet, she saw familiar grass graze at her boots.
“We’re orbiting Timber Hearth again. This is the third time now… Perhaps the Quantum Moon picks favourites”, she chuckled to herself.
At her core, she believed quite the opposite; that much the same as the Eye, that the Quantum Moon felt nothing at all.
She tried to listen out for the rushing of geysers, or gentle whistle of wind from Timber Hearth, to little avail. There was no telling which direction it was in, and the Attlerock might even be in the way for all she knew.
“I’ll have to take another visit on my way home”, she sighed, running her staff gently over the tiny sprigs of grass beneath her.
Again, she resolved to dim the lights, and even closed her eyes for good measure, as she thought back to her last trip to humble Timber Hearth, only two weeks ago.
***
“Bells, where are we going? Shouldn’t I be preparing for my pilgrimage?”
Bells carefully moved the controls of the shuttle to begin take-off from Brittle Hollow, while Solanum stood anxiously behind them, peering out at the vast expanse of space through the shuttles transparent top. Their robes bore the same golden patterns traced across Solanum’s ones, but had a darker, purple hue beneath. The two fastened their matching masks - sharp edges at the centre, three panels for their eyes, and thick curves at the outermost edges.
Bells looked at their pupil, with a kind smile beneath their mask.
“You’ve done quite enough preparing, I think you deserve a break!”, they replied, after the shuttle left the surface with a start, throwing Solanum off balance for a moment. “Besides, there’s plenty of time before you leave to go over what I taught you today. The Tower of Quantum Knowledge is always at your disposal, after all”
Solanum relaxed her shoulders a little, supposing Bells was right.
“You neglected to answer my first question.”, she mused eventually. “ Where is it we’re going?”
“Timber Hearth, have you been before?”
“I haven’t, but my father told me a little about it some time ago. Do you wish to take me to the mining site? Is there more I can learn from there?” Solanum asked.
Bells sighed lightly, still smiling, and turned away from the vessel’s controls as it arched smoothly through the Solar System.
“While I, or any Nomai for that matter, would never quash an inquiring mind, Solanum, I urge you, don’t always be so focused on your studies! Any great scientist must have some days off, some other interests even! Take Yarrow and Clary for example; they certainly have one interest that surpasses all else, science included…”
“You mean each other?”, Solanum grinned, as Bells gave a knowing nod, and turned back to the controls, slowly sliding it’s orb into position.
“I suppose you’re right.”, Solanum conceded, “It’s rather difficult to keep my mind on anything else though, Bells. You must understand, it’s especially difficult to forget with the Tower being so close to the Hanging City, and the Eye Shrine District even closer still”
“Of course, you’re right, friend. That just gives me all the more reason to bring you out today. Overworking is a foolish endeavour. Trust me, many of your elders would agree, our studies of the Eye are a wonderful thing, but a taxing one all the same”
The shuttle continued its trajectory toward the lush green-brown marble of Timber Hearth that Solanum could spy in the distance. She caught sight of an even darker, mottled brown farther behind it - Dark Bramble’s sprawling tendrils. It’s milky, hollow core gazed out across the emptiness at Solanum. She held it’s gaze assertively, until its orbit took it slowly out of sight.
“Almost there now”, Bells breathed, seemingly unaware of the tension Solanum shared with the distant astral body. The shuttle began its descent onto the surface of the planet below them. Solanum reached for her staff, to steady herself for the inevitable jolt of a rough landing, but it never came. Instead, the three prongs at the base of the ship made contact gently, not even making a dent in the soft dirt - Bells had taken great care.
“A rather clean landing, by your standards”, Solanum spoke without thinking, before realising what she had said, and raising a hand to her mouth. “ I mean… I’m so-”
Bells let out a hearty chuckle. “You’re not wrong. I’m taking care out of respect for the current, and future, inhabitants of this planet. Have you ever met them?” they asked coyly.
“Current inhabitants! Why has no one mentioned them before!?” Solanum threw her arms up excitedly, much the Bells' delight.
“They’re a relatively new discovery. In fact, they’re the reason we moved our mining operations. Some of us posited that mining in our first location would be a detriment to their survival and development - I think they show remarkable promise! I thought an afternoon studying them could be good fun for us”
“That would be wonderful!”, Solanum hopped slightly from foot to foot, as Bells headed to the base of the small shuttle, and the small gravity lift hummed to life, ready to lower the two down. They stepped in, and floated down the short distance to the ground, shifting to be upright with the planet as they fell. Solanum followed suit eagerly.
The planet of Timber Hearth was aptly named. It was covered in dense thickets and trees, the Nomai could perhaps walk without their masks on here and breathe in the rich, fresh air. Bells removed theirs, placing it at the foot of the shuttle, and Solanum immediately did the same. Her white, woolly mane spilled out from inside, and had caught a little in her wiry horns. She tried her best to untangle it as her three eyes adjusted to the change in light without her visor to look through. Everything seemed greener, and brighter without it, although she hadn’t thought it possible. Bells watched her taking in her surroundings with a wide grin.
“It’s such a pretty place, don’t you think?”.
The two wandered from the clearing that Bells had landed them in, through the tall pines, hearing the powerful beating of geysers every so often, but not quite seeing them over the trees. As covered in plant life as this place was, it was still easy enough to traverse, each tree seeming to keep a comfortable distance from its neighbour. The two Nomai were only walking for a minute or so before the trees grew less dense, and the noise of the geysers became secondary to the gurgle of a modest river. It was no wider than the channel outside the gate to the Sunless city, Solanum pondered; a route that she knew very well.
Bells stopped walking a few paces from the thin slip of mud at the river’s edge, and Solanum watched them, expectantly.
“We may have to wait a moment, they can be a little shy,” Bells spoke quietly, looking out across the river. “In the meantime, there’s been something I wanted to discuss with you, Solanum.”
Solanum noticed their tone shift; not exactly stern, more thoughtful. The kind look on their face reassured her, however.
“Go ahead” she breathed, smiling back meekly.
“Well, I found some of your writings, from a long time ago, back when you were still a young resident of the Sunless City.”, they began slowly, ”You put forward a most reasonable idea; maybe the Eye isn’t something good, and maybe it wanted to bring the tragedy that our search led to.”
Solanum’s mind flashed to the harrowing tales of the Vessel crashing in Dark Bramble, and the bones of her descendants remaining unsalvageable at its core. Her father had tried his best not to cry recounting that story to her when she was young.
Bells continued. “After hearing of so many deaths in our clan, I can’t fault you for theories such as those, not one bit. I simply wondered, friend, do you still believe these theories now? Or have they developed in this time since you first wrote about them?”
Bells turned to her. Their old, wizened features showed a curiosity recognizable across the entire Nomai species. Their leftmost eye blinked, followed by the other two in tandem, as they awaited a response.
Solanum thought for a moment before responding. “I no longer believe, as I did as a child on the Ember Twin, that the Eye of the Universe wishes to harm us. But it may not want to be found, either. In fact, the Eye may not have wishes at all. We have no evidence supporting this. The terrible circumstances of our arrival here were almost certainly exactly that: circumstance. I suspect imagining we are special to the Eye in some way is wishful thinking. The Eye might have called out to any sentient species”
As Solanum broached this, with a quiet splash, what appeared to be a small, blue head, broke the surface of the river. It peered up at the two Nomai, with two… no, four, round, black eyes. Solanum realised quickly it was in fact a fish-like creature, with a tiny tail trailing behind it in the water like a ponytail, and below, she caught the glimpse of some small fins, pushing against the gentle currents of the river to keep it in place.
Bells looked knowingly at Solanum, who had to try her best to contain her excitement and not frighten the creature.
Another two heads broke the surface; one a little longer in shape, with slightly smaller eyes, and the third seeming much more confident than the others, not attempting to be subtle about its staring directly at Solanum’s horns. This one began to move to the muddy lip of the river, easing itself out of the water a little to rest on the edge.
Solanum’s gaze didn’t leave it for a second, mouth puckered into a small, “O”.
“I wonder if this species heard the call too” Bells pitched, almost as a question to the creatures bobbing in the water.
“An interesting idea.” Solanum kept her voice as soft as she could muster in the presence of the tiny creatures. “This would further back up my theory. It’s very unlikely that they had the means to comprehend any signal in the same way, unfortunately, so we may have no way of knowing for certain.”
Solanum blinked her lower two eyes, and the creature staring up at her did the same, its upper two eyes remaining focused innocently, now looking to her single, third eye.
“Sometimes I wonder that the Eye might not have been calling out at all, and that our ancestors heard the Eye’s signal holds no great deep meaning. This wouldn’t be so bad, I think”
“I think so too”, Bells stroked at the wool below their chin in thought. “We don’t need to have been chosen by the Eye for it to be an incredible discovery after all. In fact, the more we can confirm, or perhaps even deny that idea that we were chosen, the closer we get to fully understanding the nature of the Eye, and that in itself is wonderful!”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself, Bells”
The Nomai were silent for several moments. Solanum still found herself staring down at the most confident of her new aquatic friends. She hoped it didn’t mind if she thought of it as a friend; something about their encounter felt special.
The Quantum Moon passed overhead, and the Nomai looked up quietly. Bells noticed a few of the semi-aquatic creatures in front of them doing the same. They weren’t exhibiting looks of understanding, but curiosity, and Bells relished in it, imagining the potential for these creatures to thrive in the long run.
Solanum’s eyes remained on the grey mass orbiting above. She didn’t want to close her eyes and have it disappear. After a brief moment, it moved over the horizon, leaving her no choice but to lose sight of it for now. She pondered on where it might visit next, and allowed herself to blink finally.
***
Solanum opened her eyes. The shrine was still dark. She didn’t feel grass and soft earth beneath her feet anymore. It felt more sturdy than that, but equally, it seemed like it was shifting at the same time, in a way she couldn't quite express.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing in the dark, but her nerves certainly felt more manageable. Her pulse had stopped thundering in her head, and breaths had steadied. Her hand still shook minutely as she raised it to slide the orb upward for the lights.
Looking to the dial on the wall, her breathing wobbled again; it showed her orbit was around the Eye of the Universe.
Tears welled in her eyes, as she turned herself towards the door, and reached for its respective controls. This was it!
The slats of the door slid away piece by piece, and Solanum glimpsed the moon she’d only ever experienced vicariously through her ancestors' texts. The sky roiled with dark grey cloud, constricting the moon low to its surface, making it almost feel more confining than the tight chamber on the shrine. Piercing the cloud layer in places, great juts of rock zigzagged upwards, coloured like the inky technicolour hue of oil on concrete. They were crooked and craned. Solanum couldn’t tell if this was just a reflection of how the Eye truly looked, or it was just some caricature of its properties like she’d observed with the Quantum Moon orbiting other astral bodies. She noticed the striking resemblance between these monolithic rocks and Quantum Shards the Nomai had discovered all across the Solar System, but these were much larger than any she’d seen before. Stepping out of the shrine, she next looked to the ground. It exhibited the same oily swirls as the rocks, but was significantly brighter, tending closer to lighter greys, and again unlike the rocks around her, the ground was unnaturally smooth. It was by no means perfectly shaped, but any contours the surface had took the form of polished curves, rising and falling gradually like waves never breaking. For something theorised to be an origin and something wholly natural, Solanum couldn’t shake the uncanny synthetic feel this moon had as she took her first steps.
She began walking slowly, awestruck, gazing into every crevice light enough for her peer into. There was no space in her psyche for nervousness any longer, as her Nomai intuition overthrew her emotions with pure curiosity and wonder. Curiously, while this moon was littered with rocks, there was a stark lack of any directly in front of her at any given time; nothing blocked her way, like a path had been laid out directly from the shrine door.
“Surely that shouldn’t be possible…”, Solanum murmured.
Suddenly, a chill coarsed up her spine in an instant, like ice water to a campfire, she felt a light inside her go cold. A part of her somewhere she couldn’t quite place - in fact, in multiple places - cried out silently, and she stood in the sobering sting.
Looking herself over, she was unscathed physically, but intellectually, she felt… unmoored.
Her feet eventually began moving again, taking her further from the shrine, and closer to the south pole of the moon. She didn’t feel nearly as driven as before, she was more just looking for anything to do.
The clouds got more restless above her, seeming more and more untamed, arching away from the surface into a spacious expanse. Her sunken eyes barely registered them. Her focus was trained inwards.
Where the clouds fully parted, and a dark patch of space opened above her, she stopped, leaning a little on her staff, next to two smaller rock formations, and she stood.
All Solanum could do was stand, and think. Perhaps it’d been minutes, or years. She was unsure, but it seemed like her journey had reached its end. She thought of Bells, and Yarrow, and Clary, and Connoy, and all of her friends in her clan. Her heart longed to see them, and be back home with them, celebrating her pilgrimage, but for the first time in her species’ history, a neverending curiosity had ended.
She waited, unsure of what exactly it was she was waiting for. She began mulling over everything she’d studied leading up to her pilgrimage, and every story her father told her in the dark nights in the Sunless City when she was young. She recounted every property of a quantum object she could recall, and every tender, hopeful, inspiring moment she’d shared with her clan members in all her time.
Solanum wasn’t sure if she even had “time” anymore. Slowly that variable was excluded from any equations she ran through in her head, and any theory she conjured to explain what state she existed in now.
Perhaps it’d been minutes, or years. She was unsure. But somewhen as she stood on the Quantum Moon, a figure broke its smooth horizon. With quiet footfalls, a lean figure walked toward her. They were bipedal, and Solanum noticed an air of confidence in them. They wore a bulbous helmet, with a large golden-sheened visor, and had simple brown, patchy clothing. Had the visor not been so polarised, she might’ve caught a glimpse of four, round, black eyes behind it.
Currently, this new presence was alien to Solanum. Nonetheless, it was comforting to her; a dim, warming light. She didn’t feel much connection to it, but still, this encounter felt special to her.
She hoped it wouldn’t mind if she thought of it as a friend.