They told us to make our world.
We were still children, Kira and I, holding each other there on the bright white stones of the castle, her body's heart beating fiercely where it had been silent only moments before. Like children we watched in awe as the UrSkeks merged with the light of the crystal and left the world behind, leaving us to make our own, and having no idea how.
We did not speak for a long time. We looked at the large opening in the castle roof where the three suns shone down, looked into the crystal until it seemed our eyes would burn away, though we felt no pain. We had lived our lives always in the shadow of darkness and death, and to now be surrounded by so much light, to feel every breath moving through us with such urgency, made us drunk with joy.
Aughra harangued us from the balcony. "Make world!" she shouted. "You, gelflings, you hear them! Make world!"
I stared up at her, but it was Kira who spoke. "How?"
Aughra shook her head and growled. It seemed we would always disappoint her. "Questions, questions, too many questions. You go. Learn. Make world. No one know how."
She hobbled away. I wondered if she would return to her orrery, to wait and watch the movements of the suns and the planets until another thousand years had passed. Maybe she would not live that long. I felt somehow that she would.
Fizzgig bounded down to us from where he had perched with Aughra, and Kira greeted him as though she had never seen him fall to certain death. We lay their on the floor, the three of us, still drunk on the rays of the sun and the crystal.
Again it was Kira who spoke. "We should go now."
I did not move. "Where?"
"I don't know."