[ketsup]

#200 Staff Litter: The Aether

You may be here,
but nothing was there...
and that's when you realize—
it was there all along.

This is the element of aether—the space "above" the terrestrial. Mysterious and cosmic...
To win this lambie, create a mythological story surrounding them. It can be any kind of story and other characters/entities may be incorporated to flesh out the tale!

Won by bakuraas.!
RUs to: rem sleep, MalignantSpirit, Makoto Kino

No word limit, but must be more than 200 words.
1 extra art piece is allowed!

⇣⇣⇣ Contest! ⇣⇣⇣
✨ End date 11/23✨

Code: Select all

[i][b]I'd like to enter![/b][/i]
Lambicorn name:
Gender:
Mythology:


[rem sleep]

I'd like to enter!
Lambicorn name: Orion, often called The Void
Gender: Agender, male presenting. [ they / he ]

click on the image to view the full resolution image!

Mythology: - posted to r/supernatural at 8:36PM by user rainorshine


They say, when you look out into the starry night sky, and see all the twinkling gems hanging in the celestial sphere, that there is someone in that vast expanse looking back at you, down upon the lively surface of the earth from the lonely realm of the outer space.

Does it have a name? A face? A shape you can see, if you squint your eyes really hard?

According to the rumors, no.

I used to hear them all the time at school, buzzing around at my ears like flies and gnats. In the small town I grew up in, there wasn’t much else to talk about, so supernatural gossip was all the rage. People talked ad infinitum about that one time they probably, definitely, almost-certainly saw a ghost, or that one time they were confident a deer they saw in the woods was not a deer at all. They also talked about the being in the stars. They called it The Void, I assume because they didn’t know the first thing about astronomy, and they said it was a being that could create and destroy whole planets, and that it watched with impersonal distance as its experiments at life played out from above. A cruel deity sort of character he was, at least according to the myths, watching us like ants in a farm, insignificant but perhaps, at the very least, fascinating.

This isn’t the truth of the matter. He isn’t anything like that at all. And his name most certainly is not Void.

I guess you could say I always had a flare for astronomy. I was one of those kids who got their older sibling’s telescope second-hand for Christmas, but unlike the vast majority, I actually really took to it. I don’t think my older sister had an astronomically inclined bone in her body, but anyone can get a kick out of stargazing. That being said, I don’t think she took the telescope out of its box more than three times in her natural life before it became mine to have and to keep. It was a nice one, one of the Newtonian models, a real expensive specimen. When I brought it out to the roof to stargaze, I felt like a real, genuine astrologist, studying the movement and behavior of the stars.

My high school didn’t have a great astronomy program. I think there was one half-baked class where some idiot with a teaching degree made sound effects and hand gestures to describe the scientific terms that characterize the collapse of a star. Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed. I’d been reading astronomy books since I was little and studying the stars myself even longer. I didn’t have any dignified achievements, but I definitely didn’t need some joker who hadn’t star sighted a day in his life to tell me how the cosmos worked, as if he’d seen it or something.

I’m telling you all this, so you realize why the following makes some lick of sense. It’s not a normal thing for teenagers to do, even in a rural, middle-of-nowhere town like this, but I did it anyway. I wanted to go camping for a weekend, to get away from it all, even though there wasn’t a lot to ‘escape’ from. I just wanted it to be quiet, without all the gossip and the buzzing. Without the conversations about the future, which was still so uncertain for me. Everyone kept asking who I was going to be, what I was going to do. I hadn’t a clue. I still don’t. So, to quell these fears and satisfy my flare for astronomy, I set out to the woods for a weekend with my camping set up and my telescope. I figured I’d get a higher perch on one of the nearby hills-that-are-almost-mountains to increase visibility. The forecast said the weather was supposed to be good, nice and cloudless, so I figured I’d have good luck. And that’s how I went off the grid for the weekend, alone with my telescope and the stars.

On the first night nothing weird happened, at least, nothing that I noticed at the time. I thought I saw some stars flickering, but I didn’t note it as anything odd. Maybe my lens was acting up, or it was a trick of the light, or I was just way too tired to be leering through a telescope, there were tons of plausible reasons, reasons more plausible at least than a star temporarily disappearing, and reappearing, like it was some mighty eye that had just blinked at me.

I didn’t figure that bit out until the second night.

If I had to guess, he wasn’t impressed by my first reaction, so he was a little more forward the second night. From the nothing I saw the stars connecting, forming into something larger—a great and imposing beast was visible through the telescope’s lens, its body composed of so many stars and galaxies, its eyes of planetary brightness. I was frozen in place by sheer and utter shock. It was also at this precise moment that the rumors of The Void who watches its ants toil came to mind, and as if it sensed my thoughts, it replied—but not with words, no, I heard its voice in my head, as if it were telepathically mingling with my own thoughts.

“Do you know me, mortal?” It asked.

“I don’t think I do?” I thought in reply, unsure if my words would even reach this cosmic spirit which was completely and utterly beyond my mortal comprehension, “I’ve heard rumors of something like you, but I don’t know that they’re true. They’re just things people say, but…”

“But you think there’s some truth to them?” It asked, peering back at me through the telescope with those brilliant glowing eyes of its. I didn’t know what to make of it. The conversation was casual and easy, as if there wasn’t a cosmic horror speaking directly into my mind. As if I wasn’t totally scared out of my wits.

“I don’t know, I don’t know anything,” I thought, and I felt like it was true. I had always been an advocate of science, and yet this thing defied any explanation I tried to think of for it. Living stars? Some sort of deity? None of that made any sense at all. I was lost, and I felt small in front of its massive eyes, as if I were really one pathetic, tiny speck, an ant to be observed and laughed at.

“But you do know something,” The being replied, its tone shifting to something somewhat warmer, like a consoling parent perhaps, “You know the stars. You knew where to look for me, whether you knew you were looking for me or not. I’m glad for it, for the stars are very lonely.”

“They are?” I replied, without even thinking.

“They are,” It echoed again, its tone somewhat sad, somewhat longing, as if it had somewhere it desperately wanted to be that was still out of its reach. “I was once on the earth’s surface, like you. It was, however, many thousands of years ago, when the earth was still young and life still new. I do not remember how I came to be embodied here in the sky, I know only that I was once where you stand, looking up at the Heavens, rather than within them. I know only that my purpose now is to observe and to make sure nothing goes awry. It is my duty to guide this planet along and shepherd its people with my North Star and with my astrological prophecies. The stars are the only way I can communicate with those mortals below any longer and it is only those few who look up to the sky who hear me. So, it is very lonely.”

“That’s sad,” I replied, picking up on the increasing tone of despair in the creature’s voice. It wasn’t outright, it was more like mourning, more like wondering what could have been, if all had not been lost. They were like me once, somehow, impossibly, and they had been asked to fill an impossible role. I couldn’t begin to fathom the immense stress they felt, watching over people who they felt were like them, who they could not speak to, or warn of dangers more easily seen from the sky than from the ground. “Who are you?”

“I have many names, at least according to you mortal folk,” The spirit began, “I believe in this town you people call me The Void. In other places I am called The Cosmos, The Observer, The Deity of the Sky—I am seen as a stellar entity in all cases, a mystical beyond comprehension who, for some mysterious reason, keeps watch over the mortals and their affairs. Some say I am malicious, that I wait for you to fall and that is what motivates my attentiveness. Others say I am completely indifferent, that what happens to you does not interest or bother me, and that I watch only for the small entertainments that you can provide me. Few still say I am beneficent, and that I want what is best for mortal man, that I send you good omens and star signs, that I guide you away from disaster and calamity.”

“Well what of that is the truth?” I replied, stunned at my own sudden boldness in front of this impossible being who I was coming to see more and more humanness in, “Who are you really? I don’t care what people have said, I want to know what you think.”

“Me?” The being echoed, its stellar eyes widening somewhat as it peered back at me through the telescopic lens, “Well, I was once called Orion, and I think of myself as a beneficent helper of mortal folk. I want what’s best for you, though I cannot always help you to find your right path. I am not so strong as you all give me credit for, I cannot rend the earth and raise the tides, my realm is only stars and space, and so I struggle to reach you through the layers of ozone and superstitious doubt. I wish I could communicate with you all more often, for I feel I have important things to tell you, if only you would listen.”

“Could I help you with that?” I asked, “I’m hearing you right now, who’s to say that I couldn’t communicate your messages for you?” I didn’t know whether any good would come of carrying his prophecies, but he did seem so very lonely, and I didn’t have it in my heart to isolate him further. Even if his words changed nothing, I felt that someone needed to hear them—to hear him. This lonely being, trapped in a way, inside the sky.

“You’d do that for me?” Orion asked, staring again with wonder in his eyes that sparked and glowed like suns, “I… would like that, yes. Please if you would be so kind.”

And that was how I discovered Orion and found out who and what he really is—not some Void Being nor some impersonal beast, but a very earnest, sometimes shy spirit who does his best to help those who he toils for but cannot reach. He’s a curious one, to be sure, but he makes for better company than my classmates, and I enjoy taking my weekend hikes to the mountain to see him again with the help of my handy telescope. I write down the stories he tells me about things he’s seen and things he anticipates will happen, and I post them online to whatever board will best suit them. They probably come off a little eccentric, to say the absolute least, but when I tell Orion that people are responding to his words, it makes his solar body glow a little brighter, and I feel the gloom that burdens him lessen its vice grip if only just a little.

I understand that this all may be hard to believe. How can you know I haven’t just invented a new story for him, a new myth altogether? That this Orion is just one of many names that this fabled beast goes by? Well, you can’t exactly. I have only my word to back it up. But such is the nature of myths and stories—like astrology, and like Orion’s predictions, they’re all based on faith. Whether you believe me or not is completely up to you, but I know that I, for one, have served my purpose. I’ve told the story of my good friend who lives in the stars so that other people will know who he is behind that veil of myth and superstition that keeps him even farther from the people he wants to help. He is no impersonal observer, nor any apathetic being, but a very odd constellation who can’t help but care about the people moving underneath his stellar glow.

On that note, goodnight and fare you well. I’m heading to the mountains again to see what story Orion has for me tonight. The seeing is supposed to be phenomenal, and I look forward to seeing again my unlikely friend.

- - -

note, the other character in this story is vendel!
thank you for reading!

[EchoGirl765]

m

[•boo•]

Ahahahah

[lilpupin]

I'd like to enter!
Lambicorn name: The Devourer
Gender: male
Mythology:

Listen and attend
oh love so dear
the fate of the end
for it is so near


The stars sung their song on the night in the clear
the beginning, it sprung with a roar
It was mighty and loud, my ears rang, I was filled with fear
The world it began and life, it soared

An unfortunate fate I was given
with galaxies in my eyes my hate, it was hidden
I became elusive, madness driven
gazing upon the world was forbidden

my hate festered, my peace was gone
the cosmos were loud with song
it was the beginning of a new dawn
and everything, everything was wrong

the air was hot
the winds they sighed
everything fit and I did not
my heart, it broke and died

.
.
.


time passed and not I
I lived and stayed unchanging
in my ways, in my mind, in my sky

I lived far above the lower class
the heavens were my fortress
my tears fell like glass
for a world no longer chartless

.
.
.

hundreds of thousands of years passed and the day finally came
to visit this world I had looked on with hate
I found that the inhabitants all were the same
they found their existence a simple cruel fate

I gawked and I peered, what could ever be wrong?
the fields they all glistened their towers they shined
The world was of beauty, t'was simple, but strong
whatever was impure within their mind?

I made it my duty from then on out
to make their world heard to make them all see
there was beauty before them, they just had to not pout
this was my calling now, I would no longer flee

.
.
.

My life I poured into the world before me
I began to love it as my own to keep
so I let out a silent plea
I prayer alone that their souls would leap.

Very Unfinished :\

[Hypnagogic]

Mark! There maybe nothing, but there are sure some pretty lights in that void. Makes the nothingness feel like its little bits of something.

[~ moth ~]

mork

[Griff]

Mark!

[186lilly]

mark

[Monorail2.0]

Mark