When the Star Festival came and went, everything went with it. The solar system's been turned to rubble. How I survived? I don't know, I woke up a week ago.
Never thought the comet signaling the Star Festival could be a space ship, but here I am in an observation dome, looking for any "fuel" in range of a ship running on very little power. Whatever destroyed the system took most of whatever powered this ship as it passed through. The mage who owns the ship asked me to find this "fuel" for it, and guided me to a dome with telescopes.
There's no threat behind what she said, but her silence unnerves me, and I'd rather give her reasons to keep me onboard. She still hasn't told me anything about what I'm looking for.
The first thing I asked about was food, and the mage guided me to a store of crystals. They felt solid in my hands, and I got nervous when I popped one in my mouth and it dissolved. I thought maybe these were why she's so odd, but there have been no noticeable effects. They taste like mild maple syrup.
She looked surprised when I tried another one. Did she expect me to shatter my teeth? Do these things have nutrients? I haven't starved to death yet, so they must be doing something for me.
There are star creatures that live here. Most are around half my size and look a like headless cuccos. The sounds they make sound a little like human baby noises. They keep their distance, but a smaller one's been trying to come near; it's a light beige-metallic color. When I try reaching for it, it shies away.
It'd be nice if this all turns out to be a bad dream and I wake up to a hangover after the Star Festival.
Still don't know why I'm alive. No sign of anyone else. Not even a ghost or sprite. It's dumb to think I'd find anyone months later, but may as well have something to hope for... I miss Diamond and Pauline. Maybe Toadstool and Luigi, too. I don't usually miss people, but being stuck on a ship with one other person and a bunch of noisy stars has me realizing how great I had it.
I also miss food.
There isn't any real food here, and the crystals don't count; I don't think they give any actual sustenance. It always feels like I'm running on empty, and I can eat more of them than physically possible. Eating tons of them causes no weight gain, in fact, I've lost weight. Normally, I'd be pretty happy about that, but I'm concerned about slow starvation.
Other than worries over food and a little loneliness, I don't have much to complain about. Been trimming my mustache and keeping my hair short. There's a bathhouse onboard that I use often. I wake up to new clothes, so that's nice.
Rosetta, the maybe-mage, has opened up a little. She was quiet at first, but told me her name and a little about the star creatures she calls the lumas. Rosetta is her given name. Because of it, it's easy to know when she's watching me. I don't think she gets how names work, so maybe she's not a mage. I Doubt there's any intent behind her watching, she kinda just likes to watch things. I never see her do anything other than make picture books, read to the lumas, and watch. There has to be more to her schedule, but I haven't seen otherwise.
The ship, called the Observatory, has been fun to explore. With power still an issue, I haven't seen most of it, but I'm curious. It's sectioned around the core power source, the beacon, and, what I assume is, the engine.
The sector around the beacon is the only one that's functioning. A hodgepodge of gardens, small houses, and observation domes, with passageways and rooms sprawling throughout. Walking around is weird because of the gravity. There isn't enough power going to the outer sectors, so they're pitch black, have no gravity, and the lumas don't hang out on them.
I've learned what the fuel is. Sort of. The ship runs on some sort of magical material. Still not very specific. The Observatory telescopes can pick up on it, and I bring a lens along to locate it. There's also a teleportation device to get to and from planets. It's a lot faster than warps.
A few planets had promise. They weren't interesting, but they had material for the beacon. Been keeping a record of the planets I've visited in a journal Rosetta gave me. I'm not sure if there's a difference between green magical stuff and yellow magical stuff. But hey, the ship hasn't blown up yet, so I must be doing something right.
The little beige luma has been keeping me company when I go out. Compared to the others, he's quiet and only makes noise when he's trying to get me to look at something. He's also been sitting on my head. I think he's why I'm able to fly and breathe in space.
A few of the bigger lumas have shot out into space to form stars and molten planets. I'm not sure what happens to them. Are they still aware? I can put the pieces together to realize my world was a result of a luma. Was it sentient? Wait, I'm made up of luma. I hope they cease when they become celestial objects.
The new planets don't seem to emit anything that the lens can pick up on, so that makes me wonder how the magical material comes about. Does it get absorbed from space and concentrate? As planets cool, does it form then?
We also find lumas on our travels and they stay onboard. How do they come into existence?
I think these questions are going to pile up.
It's been four years, and the Observatory is at around a third of its full power. I don't know why I'm still keeping track of the days.
Over time, I've shared various adventures. Rosetta listens with intent, and the lumas gather around.
I don't know why we understand each other. We can't be from the same planet, can we? Her ship is the comet that signaled the Star Festival, a comet that's been around for at least as long as people had lived on my planet. But she's human, so I'm not sure. Are there other humans in other galaxies? I haven't seen any others here, or their remains.
She has a picture book that tells the story of a girl with reddish-blonde hair who was brought off her planet as a child. Obviously, the girl's Rosetta and it's fairy tail-like. There are versions of this book that are a bit different. More lucid maybe? Not sure of when each book was made, but as the art and words gained polish, the story got less sad. The other versions are in the farthest corner of the library, and she doesn't read them.
I don't think she's been all there for a long time. She's child-like in an unsettling way. It's uncomfortable being stuck with her. She's too out there for me to have any real talks with. I often find myself treating her like a kid, and I try to correct myself when I realize it. The weird thing is that she doesn't seem to mind or notice it.
It could be because of the lumas.
She wanted me to be part of her... family? I think it's too weird, I told her to consider me a crew member on her ship. She looked a little sad, but I don't want her and the lumas calling me uncle, brother, or anything like that.
On a nicer note, I gave the little luma a nickname. I couldn't keep calling him luma all the time, so I started calling him Tycho. He seems to like it. That was before the books. I'm not sure I want to have him under my hat anymore. He makes me feel happy, but I'm not sure why. The worrying part is the sadness when alone for a long time. I don't get sad from loneliness.
No sentient life to be found. There are plants, animals and microscopic life, but nothing sentient.
I haven't found any spaceships because they're either too small to see, or they don't emit anything detectable. The Observatory has a radar, but it's more for tracking things that are nearby.
There was a planet that had a civilization on it. Had. The buildings were advanced looking, but the star the planet orbits seems to have gotten hotter. The planet's a wasteland without liquid water, and barely has an atmosphere. At least, the people did all the work finding fuel for me.
Been practicing magic. I didn't have the time before, but now there's no reason not to. Turns out that with enough testing and practice, fire magic can be used to blast mine. The shadow magic's great for sifting. While it still gives me heartburn, it's been affecting me less. Or I've gotten more tolerant.
Not sure if I'm missing something, but shadow magic seems like a really good tool. Yeah, it causes some discomfort, but manually going through tons of rock is probably worse.
The Observatory isn't all that interesting anymore. Even at a third of its power, all of the habitat areas are functional, it's just power for shields and travel that we need now. The gardens are synthetic. There's no soil, and the plants aren't alive. Everything's made with magic, even the water. It's all stagnant.
Breathing's a thing of the past, and eating's not a requirement. No hunger, either. The weight loss, which I feared was a sign I was going to eventually starve, had slowed to a stop. I'm still chubby, but noticeably less than before. Did I become immortal? When'd it happen? Before or after my planet blew up?
Did I get resurrected?
I asked Rosetta about it. She shook her head, looked confused. Was it the lumas? I think the Observatory was built by them, so maybe. Is it the shadow magic? I'm confident there were still people with shadow magic on my home planet before it blew up. They aren't still around.
What conditions did I meet to survive? I'm pretty sure I wasn't the most powerful or durable thing on the planet. Rosetta and the lumas would've probably saved any other survivors or found bodies or something.
Nothing's really answerable with whatever I have at my disposal, but I need things to think about.
Seventeen years. It's getting harder to find fuel.
Whatever the lumas have been doing to me, it's gotten worse. An hour away from them is bearable, but any longer won't do. I held Tycho in an hour long hug when he found me wallowing in a cave. He hugged back, but we both knew something was wrong. The sheer delight I feel in seeing them happy is unnatural, too. Maybe the lumas don't intend it; maybe it's something they can't help.
Now that the shields are steady, we can fly around at high speeds and I can use the full-powered radar to see ships as we pass by.
Every time a blip appears, I stop to take a look. Rosetta makes fun of me for it, but I like to see whatever pops up. She's more lively nowadays. Still fairly emotionless, but I get her to grin every once in a while. She comes along to explore planets now.
I've been finding ghost ships of various makes with dead crews of various alien species. Most of them appear purely technology based, but there were a few that ran via magical means. Most of them are in the galaxy's outskirts.
Many of them look blocky and have giant, bird-like corpses in them. Maybe they went out too far? There's a spiral galaxy that's closest to this one. I want to try visiting it, but Rosetta says it'd take a decade to reach it at full power. A decade of nothing but dead space with no stars or planets.
How did these people end up here? What was the objective? What killed them? What was it like on these crews? How's the food they ate?
Some have human skeletons in them, which means... What? Am I part of a stray space colony? How would a space government even work? That's a lot of territory to cover.
There was an organic ship made of a fleshy material. It was frozen and partially rotted on the inside, with a crew of serpent-like skeletons. I drew the ship and its crew in my journal like the rest, naming it the Meat Ship. Rosetta's grossed out by it and won't let me take anything onboard to necropsy.
Other than looking for fuel, I've been using the increased capabilities of the domes to watch the galactic center. I can't really see it, but I can tell where it is by the way stars move around and into it. The distortion and warping.
I think it's alive.
It's been destroying star systems. That's probably what happened with my star system, and it's doing the same to others. At any distance, it mulches entire systems. I don't see how it attacks, but I do see the systems being destroyed and something being pulled to its maw. Everything I see it doing, I record.
There's no plan to attack or stop it, I just want to know what it is.
I showed Rosetta my findings and asked if the Observatory could be piloted to the center of the galaxy safely once we were at full power. A thought occurred to me that maybe she doesn't mind it, maybe it was just the way things were. But she accepted. She didn't know what it was, either.
Traveling to that other galaxy might take a decade, but maybe it'd be worthwhile after we see the thing eating the stars. Rosetta might want to stay, but maybe she could be convinced.
So now I have something to look forward to.
The thing at the galactic center was indeed alive. Not sure what it looked like beyond the dark atmosphere that cloaked it, but it's gone now. Never to be seen again. I'm not satisfied, but oh well.
Rosetta had come to some conclusion about it and wanted to kill it. Not sure on her logic, but she had the lumas sacrifice themselves to end the creature.
I had no idea what was going on when they started flying into the thing. Tycho waved goodbye and dove in with the rest of them. Everything got really bright. I think the whole galaxy started collapsing because when we got farther from the center, all I could see in the distance was other galaxies.
Rosetta was out of it, so I was piloting the Observatory to avoid getting destroyed. Got the ship far away from the epicenter of... whatever that was, before the galaxy suddenly reappeared.
The Observatory had no lumas, and Rosetta was still unresponsive. It took a while of looking around to realize that everything was reverted. The galaxy was somehow restored by the lumas' sacrifice. It's a lot more dense, there's more stars now.
I was in a bad state after the lumas went off, but Rosetta was worse.
When she didn't move for a long while, I carried her to her bedroom and tucked her in. She stared when I stayed by her bed, but never moved or spoke. I didn't know what I could do, so I read to her, piloted the ship around, and found lumas... I also found my planet, though I didn't take a visit.
After she was up and moving again, I introduced her to the new lumas. Her behavior was eerie; following me around, no speech. She came out of it and recovered, but it took a while.
The lumas don't affect me so much anymore. Maybe those miserable, luma-less years were enough to kick most of the effect. Now it's manageable.
I thought it'd be fine to visit my planet, but she didn't want me going. We settled on a compromise and she came with me. She's far from helpless; she's got strong magic, keeps to herself, and I reminded her to come up with a fake name... which is Rosalina. Not ideal, but it works.
The planet's... just dandy, it's as it was before it got destroyed.
My mistake was that I didn't disguise myself when walking around. Someone freaked out when they saw me, causing people to start crowding me and Rosetta. They were asking questions about what happened to me. I got panicky and fled with Rosetta. I didn't know why people were so shocked, I thought everything would be as if nothing happened.
Now I understand the overreaction. I'm an idiot.
After the lumas restored the galaxy, I took a while to get back. A few years had passed. To everyone, I'd disappeared for several years without warning, coinciding with more stars appearing in the sky. Everyone thought I'd died... Some also thought the world was ending. I'd call them morons, but I can see their point.
My shapeshifting's beyond rusty from lack of use, so we changed our clothes, and now I'm wearing a scarf over my nose and no red clothing. People think I'm Rosetta's son and we roll with it.
I'm going to contact Pauline. Nervous, though. I weirded out a bunch of people while getting hotel rooms. Wasn't very socially skilled before, but this is exceptional! What if she thinks I'm a fake?
As for Rosetta, she's always hovering and wants me to stay at the Observatory. It's selfish, but I want to live on my own again. She isn't a child despite how she acts. She can manage without me. I can teleport to the Observatory, she can teleport to me. We can visit each other at any time.