Chapter Text
Solanum stood there, staff in hand, the mirror of the eye stood above her. Nothing here had changed for the past, well, Solanum wasn’t quite sure how long it had been. It had felt like minutes, but something deep inside her told her that wasn’t the case. She had stood here simply enjoying being this close to the eye, even if it was only an illusion. All that changed however, when she heard a sharp crack and the sky around her lit up, but only for a second. Solanum jumped at this surprise, nearly falling over in the process.
Something was very off, she could tell, but she couldn’t quite lay her finger on it. Perhaps it was how all the rocks around her had shifted somewhat, they did that on their own though due to their quantum nature. Perhaps it was how she could feel the passage of time, something that had been missing from her senses for what she could now tell was a long time. Maybe it was the disappearance of the numbness that had grown throughout her body so slowly she only realized its existence upon its non-existence. Whatever it was, Solanum was excited to figure out what this situation she had found herself in was caused by, she was nothing if not curious.
Solanum took the first step she had taken in a long time, and her leg nearly buckled under the weight of her body. It must have been a long time since she last walked if she almost tripped on the first step.
After a couple more careful steps Solanum managed to fully find her footing. She made the long trek back to her ship. She normally would have hated the long hike with nothing to do, but her legs seemed to enjoy this exercise after such a long time of rest.
Finally she made it to the shrine her people had built. Stepping inside she took a moment to remember what she needed to do to get it to work. She had used it only a couple times before on her journey to the eye’s mirror, and as such wasn’t very proficient with its operation. After a couple moments however, she recalled how to use it and made her way to Timber Hearth. It wasn’t actually TImber Hearth of course, just the moon’s reflection of it, just how she stood under merely the moon’s mirror of the eye. She watched, or rather didn’t watch, as the floor beneath her switched from purple stone to green grass. Opening the door she found herself in a forest, sparsely filled with pine trees, bushes, and small glowing insects.
She didn’t have to walk much more from this point. Her ship quickly became quantum after her arrival and as such all she had to do was blink a couple times for it to appear right in front of her, which admittedly startled her and nearly caused her to blink it somewhere else again.
She stepped under her little vessel and let herself be carried up the gravity stream. She took a moment to examine her ship. It was small, like all personal nomai ships, and decorated with a couple tables, a few plants, and of course, her journal. She doffed her helmet before heading over to the command panel. She took one last glance around the moon she considered a friend, and hoped it too, did the same.
Moving the small orb that acted as the controller for the shuttle, she commanded it to commence a return warp.
It responded with a small dink and a distinct lack of a return warp.
She tried again.
Dink
Nothing. Something must have gone wrong on the gravity cannon’s end, and while she couldn’t blame the team in charge of manning it for a technical error, she was annoyed they had not yet fixed it. She could fly back herself, of course, but it would be more dangerous and take much longer.
With a sigh she inputted her staff into the control panel and began manual control. With a flick of her wrist the shuttle began its accent. She flew higher and higher until at last she broke through the cover of clouds. She began to smile as she took in the majesty of space, until she realized how different it all was. Timber hearth, which she was now orbiting, was no longer only full of empty green forests, but rather these woods were joined by tiny bright lights. The cannon surrounding Giant’s Deep now formed a ring around the planet, and could not have possibly served the same purpose as it once did. Ember Twin was now home to what looked like a checkerboard pattern of what must have been giant tubes. Ash Twin was currently partially covered in sand, but even though she couldn’t see most of it through said sand, where she should have been able to see the massive solar panels, stood nothing at all. Brittle Hollow looked mostly the same, except some of its surface was discolored, being an off white instead of the normal midnight blue. The most jarring thing she saw however, was the large, alien looking space station in a vertical orbit around the sun. The only thing that remained mostly the same was dark bramble, the only thing Solanum hoped would have changed.
Solanum’s moment of awestruck silence was interrupted by a noise from her staff.
Warning: incoming object detected at dangerous speed
Solanum looked up to see what looked like a haphazard mix of sheet metal, glass, and thrusters hurtling towards her. She barely had time to yell before it flew past her ship. She took a moment to breath before her staff once again informed her of its approach, though it was slower this time. She could see it much more cautiously approach her ship this time through the exit to her ship, and watched it as it maneuvered its bottom hatch to align with her ship’s entrance.
It stopped there for a moment, before a small figured emerged from the vessel. It wore a spacesuit, a makeshift looking one but still a space suit. The outside was made from what looked like simple brown cloth. Its jetpack and life support systems were held together with tape.
It made its slow space walk towards Solanum’s ship as she readied her staff in front of her. She wasn’t trained in combat, barely any Nomai were, but she was determined to defend herself if the need arose. She wouldn’t normally have been this aggressive, but she felt it was fair considering the shock she just experienced.
She heard the hiss of its oxygen tanks refilling as it finally crossed the threshold of her ship, and it took off its helmet, revealing a blue, scaly head. Two long pointy ears sat atop either side of it’s cranium and it looked at her with four large eyes.
It chirped and craned its head to the side, still eyeing her keenly. Solanum took a step away from the creature, but it only responded by taking one forward. They stood there like that for what felt like an hour for Solanum. The creature broke the silence however when they let out another small chirp. Solanum decided to return the favor with a small bleat of their own. Solanum’s retaliation seemed to give the creature a realization, and they rushed back to their own ship, almost forgetting to put their helmet on. Solanum hoped they might be leaving, but as quick as it had left it returned, holding something in its hand this time. It looked like a choker, one you might wear around your neck, except this one didn’t look like its purpose was fashion, instead it seemed technological in nature.
The creature held the device out to Solanum, but Solanum simply stood there staring in response. The creature shrugged and pressed a button on the device, in response to which it opened, it then began to reach for Solanum neck with the device, though Solanum hit it away, nearly knocking it out of the creature’s hand.
The creature shook its head before slowly approaching Solanum, odd choker in hand, they got closer and closer before it pounced on her like an animal. Solanum tried to block her aggressor, but it easily overpowered her despite its small frame. With some struggle the creature managed to place the device around Solanum’s neck, though this action left it open and Solanum gained the advantage, managing to pin the creature beneath it. The creature stopped struggling, instead opting to go for a more diplomatic approach.
“Heya, I’m Bas, It’s short for Basalt.” It said, a bit too cheerfully for its current situation. Solanum loosened their grip upon hearing the creature speak, not because its introduction had convinced her it wasn’t a threat, but rather out of sheer confusion.
“What did you do? What is this thing?” Asked Solanum, tugging at the thing around her neck, not at all attempting to hide her confusion.
“Oh that? Just a little external translator. Most of us get one implanted at an early age, but it seems you weren’t so lucky. Anyways, you mind getting off me?”
Against Solanum’s better judgment, she got up, releasing the pin on the creature, apparently named Bas.
“Who, er- what are you?” Solanum asked.
“Like I said, I’m Bas, I’m a hearthian from that planet right there.” They pointed to Timber Hearth through the front window. “The real question is who are you?” They inquired, moving their finger’s point away from the planet below and towards Solanum.
“I’ll start answering your questions if you answer mine first.” Proposed Solanum, wishing for the curiosity and confusion to be sated as soon as possible.
“Fair enough.” They responded. “What do you wanna know?”
“First, why is everything so different?” Solanum asked, gesturing to pretty much everything in the solar system.
“I dunno whatcha mean by that. Nothing much has changed out there recently, the only thing new is that moon you just left.”
Solanum was dumbfounded, this creature who’s species had not even been here before her pilgrimage had the audacity to say its arrival was ‘not much.’ The discovery of a new system-traveling species was a pretty big occasion if you asked Solanum. And what were they talking about with the Quantum Moon being new. It was as much of a staple in the night sky as any other planet, even if it lacked the politeness to sit still.
Solanum expressed these concerns to Bas in a way that could be described in most any word except ‘calmly’.
Bas took the question one part at a time, from back to front. “Well, I suppose the Moon might be a staple now, but just two hours ago it didn’t exist for all we knew. Then all our sensors started going haywire because some giant satellite started teleporting around.”
Solanum was concerned by this answer, but not nearly as much as the one Bas was about to give.
“As for the ‘being interstellar’ part,” Bas began, “I guess we could make it to another system on account of your folk’s technology, but we’ve never really tried, still too much stuff to find here I suppose.”
Something awful clicked inside Solanum’s mind. If these creatures were native to this system, that would mean they had had to naturally evolve here, and that would mean… oh.
Solanum stood there staring into space for a good while, despite Bas’ best attempts to bring them back to reality.
Thoughts were racing through her head.
This was impossible, it simply just wasn’t possible.
That would mean everything, everyone, is gone.
Her father, her mother, her aunts, her uncles, her sisters, her brothers. All of them were ash and dust by now.
Did they know where she was? To them did it seem like their baby girl had simply vanished? Had the moon gone with her?
Had they looked for her when she disappeared, only to find nothing? How many sleepless nights had they spent thinking about how things could have ended differently?
Would their graves even still be there? Would their memories have faded away, just like their corpses?
Solanum was finally brought back to reality by Bas tugging on their arm.
“Hey, buddy, hey, what’s wrong? Talk to me buddy.” pleaded Bas.
Solanum simply looked at them, tears in her eyes, and broke.