Chapter Text
There was a world beside Earth.
It was not a moon, though from the darkness of space it could sometimes be mistaken for one. It traveled its own strange path around Earth, hidden for centuries behind curtains of light and shadow, appearing only when the heavens were willing to reveal it.
The people of that world called it **Elyria**.
From above, Elyria looked almost alive.
Its oceans were deep green, its forests stretched for thousands of miles, and its continents were covered in shades of emerald, olive, and yellow-orange. Great plains glowed like fields of gold beneath the sun. Its mountains were black at their roots and green at their peaks, covered with trees that changed color according to the season.
But the most remarkable thing about Elyria was not its beauty.
It was its people.
The people of Elyria felt everything more deeply.
Joy was not simply happiness to them. It could make a person laugh until their ribs hurt. Sadness could leave them unable to speak for days. Anger burned hot enough to make their hands shake. Friendship was sacred, and betrayal could break a person as surely as a blade.
And love—
Love was the greatest force they knew.
They fell in love quickly and completely. They loved loudly, fiercely, and without shame. Marriage existed, but love did not always wait for marriage. Families were large, houses were crowded, and children were considered blessings rather than burdens.
It was not unusual for a family to have six, eight, or even twelve children.
The Elyrians believed that love was meant to multiply.
Their ancient priests said that this was why their population had grown so quickly.
Their gods had given them hearts that could hold more.
And so they loved more.
They created more.
They lived more.
And above them watched the heavens.
The Elyrians worshipped six great powers.
The **Sun**.
The **Moon**.
The **Stars**.
The **Orb**.
The **Earth**.
And, above all, the god of Elyria itself.
The Sun was called **Solara**, the Lady of Dawn.
She was said to have hair like spun gold, so bright that looking directly at her was impossible. Her skin glowed warm like sunlight upon stone, and her eyes were the color of molten amber.
Solara represented **life, energy, power, clarity, and renewal**.
Every morning, when the sun rose, the Elyrians believed Solara was reminding them that nothing truly ended.
Night became morning.
Winter became spring.
Grief eventually made room for joy.
Failure could become another beginning.
To them, the sunrise was not merely an event.
It was a promise.
*You have another day.*
The Moon belonged to her half sister, **Lunara**.
Lunara looked nothing like Solara.
She was tall and lean, with ebony skin and eyes that seemed to contain both silver and gold. Her hair was black as the deepest night, but strands of silver ran through it like rivers of starlight.
She was the goddess of **cycles, time, femininity, intuition, and the subconscious**.
The Elyrians prayed to Lunara when they dreamed.
Women prayed to her before childbirth.
Travelers whispered her name during the night.
And those who were lost—whether in the wilderness or inside their own minds—asked Lunara to guide them.
The people believed the Moon knew things the Sun could not see.
The Sun revealed.
The Moon remembered.
Then there were the Stars.
The Star Goddess was called **Astraea**.
She had skin as pale as untouched winter and long white hair that floated around her like clouds in the heavens. The Elyrians had never seen snow, yet their oldest descriptions of her always compared her skin to something called *snow*.
No one knew what snow was.
But they believed it must have been beautiful.
Astraea represented **divine light, cosmic order, eternal watchfulness, and fate**.
The stars, according to Elyrian belief, were the eyes of Astraea scattered across the universe.
Nothing escaped her.
Not a birth.
Not a death.
Not a betrayal.
Not a promise.
Every person had a star.
When they were born, Astraea placed their destiny among the heavens.
When they died, their star returned to her.
The Elyrians did not always agree with Astraea.
In fact, they sometimes hated her.
If a child died young, parents cursed her.
If a lover was taken by war, the surviving lover blamed her.
But even then, they looked upward.
Because fate was frightening.
But knowing that someone was watching made the darkness feel less empty.
Then there was the **Orb**.
Unlike the other gods, no one agreed on what the Orb truly was.
Some called it a god.
Others called it the first god.
Priests described it as a perfect sphere of white light that existed before the Sun, before the Moon, before the Stars, and perhaps before time itself.
The Orb represented **the unknown**.
It was creation without explanation.
Knowledge without answers.
The beginning before there was a beginning.
Ancient temples contained perfectly round chambers dedicated to it. No statues were ever placed inside.
No face was carved.
No name was spoken during ceremonies.
The priests simply entered, stood in silence, and looked toward the empty ceiling.
The Orb was not supposed to be understood.
It was supposed to be respected.
Earth, too, had a place among their gods.
The Elyrians called Earth **the Mother Below**.
She represented **fertility, life, creation, and the foundation of all existence**.
They believed Earth was the great mother who had given their world a place in the heavens and all living things a place upon it.
But Earth had not one divine child.
It had two.
Twins.
A brother and a sister.
They were known together as the **Earthborn**.
The sister was **Terra**.
She had brown, curly hair, bronze skin, and a wide smile that seemed to brighten every room. She was warm, generous, patient, and endlessly kind.
Terra loved everyone.
She loved children.
She loved animals.
She loved farmers and fishermen, kings and beggars.
She was the goddess people prayed to when they needed forgiveness.
When a child was born, families placed flowers before her statues.
When two people fell in love, they asked Terra to bless their union.
She was the gentle side of Earth.
The part that grew gardens.
The part that fed families.
The part that gave without asking anything in return.
Her twin brother was another matter.
His name was **Caelus**.
He looked nothing like her.
Where Terra had bronze skin and brown curls, Caelus was pale, with straight blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, with the kind of beauty that made people stare even when they knew they shouldn't.
Caelus knew he was beautiful.
He knew he was powerful.
And he knew people desired him.
He had fathered many children among mortals and immortals alike, but he had never married.
He saw marriage as a chain.
Love, in his opinion, was something to be enjoyed—not something to surrender himself to.
He was arrogant.
Proud.
Possessive.
Sometimes cruel.
Yet he was not completely heartless.
There were moments when his temper disappeared and something gentler emerged.
Once, according to the old stories, Caelus found a starving boy sleeping beneath the steps of his temple.
Instead of sending the child away, he carried him inside.
He fed him.
Gave him clothing.
And ordered his priests to find the boy's family.
When asked why he had bothered, Caelus simply said,
"Because I wanted to."
That was Caelus.
He could be selfish one moment and unexpectedly kind the next.
He was the storm and the harvest.
The mountain and the earthquake.
The desire to create and the desire to destroy.
Terra and Caelus were not enemies.
They were opposites.
They were the two halves of Earth.
Good and bad.
Mercy and pride.
Creation and destruction.
Love and desire.
Together, they represented everything Earth could be.
But Elyria had one final god.
Its own god.
The one who ruled over the green-and-golden planet beneath the people who worshipped all the others.
His name was **Elyon**.
Unlike the other gods, Elyon was not worshipped for one particular part of existence.
He was the spirit of the planet itself.
Every river belonged to him.
Every tree.
Every mountain.
Every field.
Every creature.
Every heartbeat.
The ancient Elyrians believed Elyon had not created Elyria.
They believed something stranger.
**Elyria had created Elyon.**
When the planet was young, it had been nothing but fire and stone. Slowly, oceans formed. Plants appeared. Creatures crawled from the water. Life multiplied.
And when the first Elyrian child was born, the world itself became aware.
That awareness became Elyon.
He was the living soul of their planet.
The oldest paintings showed him as a towering man with green skin marked by golden veins, as though sunlight ran beneath his flesh. His hair was dark at the roots and faded into brilliant green at the ends. His eyes were said to change color depending on the land he stood upon.
In the forests, they were emerald.
Near the ocean, they became turquoise.
In the deserts, they turned amber.
And when someone died, his eyes became completely black.
Elyon represented **belonging**.
He was home.
The other gods could guide the people.
The Sun could give them life.
The Moon could give them wisdom.
The Stars could give them destiny.
The Orb could give them mystery.
Earth could give them existence.
But Elyon gave them somewhere to belong.
The people believed that when an Elyrian was born, Elyon felt their first heartbeat.
When they fell in love, he felt the warmth in their chest.
When they cried, somewhere across the planet, rain would fall.
And when they died, their spirit returned to the soil.
Nothing was lost.
It simply became part of Elyria again.
For thousands of years, the people lived beneath the watch of their gods.
They built temples beneath the golden sun.
They held festivals beneath the silver moon.
They named children after stars.
They planted crops in honor of Earth.
They whispered questions to the Orb.
And whenever they stood barefoot upon the green soil of their world, they thanked Elyon.
They believed the gods loved them.
They believed the heavens were orderly.
They believed their planet was safe.
They believed the stars knew their fate.
And most importantly, they believed tomorrow would always come.
They were wrong.
Because one night, the stars changed.
And Astraea, for the first time in the history of Elyria, looked away.