Epilogue

This place was not a true vacuum. As much as it looked like one.

Black and airless. Full of specks of light.

The stars and galaxies in this black gave off a light like in space. But it was only a sign of the realized-possibilities swarming elsewhere

A formless thing, more a presence than even an identity. Floated in this place. Recently the presence had become a passive observer. Watching and waiting as possibility became hard reality. Somewhere and at some time.

Ideas incepted here. Whole worlds and universes lived and died here.

It watched, it waited. There were others like it, all older, and stronger. Even if time was spongy here. Space as well. But for all intents and purposes, this thing was alone here.

For now. It was alone, formless, and nearly light-less. This presence's own light was dim with few possibilities. It knew what it was, beyond the lights around it. But there were very few choices of what it could do here. Few possibilities in it's future with which to cast any light. For now it could only choose to watch and wait.

A nebulae had formed nearby a long time ago. A virulent green star had gone supernova an unmeasured amount of time ago. It felt an eon ago, twenty-three years, or yesterday.

Now it was gathering into the spherical shape of a new star. A new possibility, but calling it a 'star' was the simplest description.

This presence had not been witness to many new 'stars' forming from exploded older ones. In this place it was a rare occurrence. Not because the watcher was young, but because a new idea from an old one, the same one, made of the same stuff, was rare here.

Usually such a nebulae went wasted. Or cannibalized by clusters of new stars. Other galaxies passing through to suck up all the remains and move on, to vomit new ideas and possibilities elsewhere.

But here, this new idea, this thought, this dream. It took on a new shape as it incepted a new star. Shining it's light on the dimming sympathetic stars around it. Limning the watcher's formless shape in a purple glow of the new star. Not quite indigo, not quite purple. If color meant anything in this place. Everything was relative here.

Ideas did not quite have shape, and they did not quite give off light. But in this place ideas could be observed and grasped by the type of mind that currently watched them.

The purple star continued to be observed. As it pulled in the older, smaller ones, forming a new galaxy in this dark place.

If the presence had eyes, they would narrow. The watcher could make out some amount of possibility with this new mega-star. And some of it was not good. It was one of those could-be realities that could spread to other places, like a virus. It could break the bonds of what held it in place, taking it's possibilities and it's future to new heights, or lows.

Such things could be dangerous if spread unchecked. So the watcher made the decision to wait here. By moving the stars to them, or they moved to the stars. In this place, the difference did not matter. Space was as fluid as time could be here. Space and time had an order here, one thing followed another in a linear fashion. But that linear sense did not flow for this being in ways that one might be used too.

He searched until the thought gave him pause. Him, the lights of the surrounding galaxy gave him shape. That detail was new.

It was time.

He moved faster, or the stars blurred around him more. One of these orbiting possibilities gave him shape, perhaps they could also give him a name and he could, finally, move on. No longer be one of the least of the others. He could at least be a little more than he was now.

He searched more frantically. For the spark that had reached out unseen and watched Him in return.

These sparks, that danced around the stars. They were the least of what was here, but the ideas and possibilities would not exist without them. The ideas, the larger stars, were the manifestations of thoughts. They were realities born in the minds of others. With no awareness of this place, the individual sparks held a power here they did not know of. Even over things like Him. And one of them had started giving him definition.

But if he did not find the right one, it could be burned away, or pulled in too close. To the purple star at the center of this reality reborn.

A 'death' as these things counted, or worse a still-birth. Would only make his situation worse. And be even worse for the one that such a mishap could happen too.

He knew what he was looking for, without words. He reached, now with hands, pulling himself closer to the one that saw something in him. They were kin, or they would be. They could be if he did the next thing in the right way.

'You will hate me for this' he thought. As he searched for that potential, the one that saw something in him. While the other spark-stars dreamed and their thoughts-made-light. While they orbited the purple center of this area. One on the edge of becoming something more, like him.

Or they could be, if he only found the right star in time.

He had been told that this could happen at any time. And now that it was, he thought he would hesitate. But the danger was too great. He would not be the only thing attracted to that sort of unprotected power. Once it expressed itself. Once it became something more than it was.

A small, dimmed, gray spark appeared before Him. It was brighter than some others. But not most of them. It was not the smallest. And nowhere near the biggest. Nowhere close to the purple mega-star. And entirely too close in orbit to the purple light to be safe from all of it's possibilities.

'How did you get so far from home?' He wanted to ask the star in his hands. This was not their local cluster. 'It's worse than I feared,' he thought. 'You were drawn here.' Most likely by their own meanderings.

Before anything else found this floundering potential, he started wrapping it. There were no other words for the process. If this was a more terrestrial place, one description could be like a caterpillar could spin its own silk and protect it's own pupae.

But this was not exactly that sort of place.

He 'spun' a protective layer around the tiny star. Protecting it by keeping it hidden from all but himself. He would have to reach out and explain something to them. When she. No, They, it was confusing. Either impression worked. He could get that much of a feel for the one in his hands.

The now-cocoon blurred that line. But for sure she would be safe to finish changing for now. Thanks to Him.

He set her on a safe orbit around the purple star. Though the math was too complicated to pull the gray spark completely to safety. Not between the three of them. Him, gray cocoon, and purple-mega-star. But he could keep the star safe enough. Until she, or they, could move away on her own.

This close to the shell around that gray star, and the large Central star. He could see the connection. He had long understood how space was as different as time here. But it was more than proximity of the lights. It was the reality that wove between them. And that connecting trail shot off into the darkness.

The purple star and the gray one were orbiting each other. But he could also calculate the point of origin of the gray star. That itself was not good news to the presence.

When reality shifted to take more into account. This was more than just a Becoming. The larger mega-star was pulling other places to it. And they was finding them by the pull of the stars that orbited nearby. Even the greater distances between these light had some effect on each other. And this new star brought force and pull with it.

Like the star that was now wrapped in a cocoon, for it's protection until they could Become.

This close to the central star, where ideas were the most real, would be dangerous. Communication would have to be made, even while in the cocoon. That was dangerous too. But it would be more dangerous to leave the cocoon to pull whatever it liked into the local space, where the purple mega-star could grab it. Just a flick of the 'string' and He knew. Home. Her home. And even from within the cocoon, she ever-so-slowly pulled the purple star on a new path. Drawing another cluster to this place. It was even worse than he had feared.

All these orbiting bodies were pulling on each other, changing their path in subtle ways. An oversimplification was that the cocoon was towing the mega-star back to her point of origin.

The danger of this place was the metaphor of physics and mechanics was too similar to physical space. These lighted bodies pulled on each other, in ways that brought them together. To collide and consume. And the purple mega-star was shifting on a path to swallow up everything in it's path. To spread it's bright possibilities elsewhere. Including back to the origin of the cocoon He cradled in his hands.

Holding the cocoon once more. His hands becoming more real the more time they were near. He said what had to be said. A physical mind on a physical plane, somewhere else, would stretch out this simultaneous burst. She would see it, hear it, as something far more drawn out. Something her current mind could understand.

Then the cocoon was plucked from His hands and shot into the heart of the purple light, yet unable to reach an escape velocity. He had thought that they both were far enough away. He grasped after it in vain. And only caught the thread that led off back to where the gray cocoon had come from.

Against his wishes, the Cocoon was trapped exactly where He did not want it to go. Out of his reach, where he could keep her safe.

Trapped in the star. The cocoon would not burn like an object cast into a real star in a physical vacuum. One of the differences of this place, compared to physical space. But now the cocoon was wrapped up in all the rules that governed the purple star's reality. She was trapped until she could get herself out. There was also the movement towards it's point of origin, where the purple star, a whole galaxy of ideas and people, could scoop up any stars between here and the gray one's home.

A convergence.

He knew of such things but he had never seen it happen. And that journey was only stretched out relative to him observing it. To the cocoon, things would happen much more quickly.

He could still follow the trail from where the gray star had come from. Where it's origin existed near here, and over there at the same time.

Without letting go of the thread that was not-a-thread. He followed it with hands that were not-hands. To see what he could find from where the gray one had come from. He would need to gather what he could from wherever he could, get aid from her home. Before the purple galaxy.

Already? It used to be just a larger star.

He had to travel, somewhere he could understand after communicating with the one inside the cocoon. And find tools he could use to help get the cocoon out of danger.

He took no shame at the thought of using whatever he could grasp. Whatever or whoever he could understand to grasp. If it meant that she would be safe, he would do it. And people like where she had come form. They had a power here, one they did not understand. They could go where he could not, safely at least.

And while they did what they needed to do, for the cocoon. He could do what he could to slow the convergence. Until the Cocoon could do it's work.

The purple galaxy would not be allowed to consume where she had come from. And she could Become. Into something like Him.

Once She completed the Chrysalis.


End of Book One "Skyfall."

To be continued in "Crossroads." Book Two of the Chrysalis Series.