Work Text:
Orange
The leaves were shivering in the solar wind, and the birds shook their metallic wings. The cosmic waves reflected on the glass spaceships that had just landed amongst the budding flowers. The stars showered their droplets on the returning explorers. The five tentacles spreading from the explorers’ noses, were always looking for the gold dust falling with the teardrops falling off the black flowers. The gold dust was littered amongst the blades of grass, highlighted by the golden sunrays, creating the serene calm before the impending storm. Unaware of the approaching danger, the explorers continued their prancing through the universal forest towards the massive Tree that spawned them all.
Soon though, the closer they got to the Tree, the more the world changed and withered around them. The solar wind died. The thrumming of metallic wings beating the air died out as the birds fell lifeless to the ground. The ocean of stars stilled, the waves froze, the flowers withered. Elegant glass spaceships darkened and morphed into hulking monstrosities of metal. The starlight rain faltered and vanished, and in its absence the grass crumbled to dust.
Far behind the explorers an expanding swath of ground turned brilliant Orange, consuming all that existed. With unbelievable speed the Orange raced across the ground, passing the explorers within moments. As it reached them, they tumbled to the ground in agony. Contortions ripped through their bodies as the tentacles that had been tasting their surroundings were ripped away from their faces. Joints popped and reversed, bones cracked and reformed and organs shifted and changed. All the while the Orange continued on its way towards the Tree towering over everything. It paused for a second upon reaching the shadow of the Tree, the shadows seeming to fight back against the Orange, but like everything else, the Orange changed them. Blinding light exploded from the shadows, as if the shadows themselves were tiny stars, and even then the Orange continued. The roots of the Tree put up a valiant effort, groaning and creaking their reluctance to change, but the Orange changes even them. The roots shrink and recede as the Orange makes its way up them to the trunk of the Tree. The trunk changes as well, thinning and shrivelling until the massive Tree is but a shrub. The leaves of the Tree are changing as well, the Orange one by one claiming them all. The leaves shift back into buds and the buds themselves are absorbed by the branches. The branches are consumed by the trunk. All that there is now is a brilliant Orange seed lying alone on the Orange.
And then there is Darkness.
But not complete Darkness. No, Darkness with a tiny little speck of Blue, because there can only be darkness if there is something to compare it to. The Blue grows, the speck now a ball, and now a planet. Faster and faster the Blue grows until there are spots of Darkness between the Blue. Slowly, slowly, the Blue and the Dark stabilize until there are spheres of Blue everywhere surrounded by a sea of Darkness. Eventually, the spheres develop tiny little spheres of their own. All of it orbiting around a Seed that’s just beginning to take root.