#THE STARS GREW DISTANT AND LONELY IN THEIR ORBIT / * MUSINGS . ❞

[sunoflegend]

tag dump !

[little-wintry]

To The Stars - A Miniseries I Feel Like Posting Somewhere

Summary: In a world not too different from this one, Humanity has achieved space travel. The International World Bureau of Space now has a program where the average person (after passing a series of tests) can travel into space with the aid of a Veteran Space Traveler. Valerie Rink has, by some miracle, won the lottery and now gets the chance to see distant planets, all with the aid of Liz Conar, an exceptionally young Veteran Traveler. 

**Note: I’m not sure how much more of this I will write, if I’ll post it, or what. Honestly I just had this idea a full 48 hours ago and feel the need to write it. It’s... romance? Sort of? With science-fiction grounded in actual science.**

Don’t panic, don’t freak out, don’t panic, don’t freak out-

I quickly shoved more clothes into my bag. Pack light, they said. That’s a good piece of advice until 3 months in you’re completely out of underwear and socks, and you’re next destination is still two weeks away.

I tried to remember my breathing exercises. I tried to remain calm. But every nerve in my body was screaming in terror.

I zippered my bag up, staring at it blankly.

“Attention,” A robotic female voice echoed in my room. “Units A-25 to A-39, please report to the loading dock.” 

I felt my throat close up, but I grabbed my bag anyway and started heading towards the dock, my strides surprisingly steady. Everything felt loud - oppressively so, to the point where I thought I could feel my ears ringing.

I reached the small terminal. A bored looking 50-something year-old woman glanced up. “Your card?”

Sticking out a small slip of plastic, plastered with my name and image, she scanned it, glanced lazily at the results, then handed it back. 

“Enjoy your journey,” She muttered in a monotone voice. “And remember: Human future lies in the stars.”

I continued my brisk pace, brushing past business men with earpieces and families with luggage rolling behind them. Large screens were everywhere.

“Welcome to the Utah National Space Station,” A voice blared. “Where you’re future lies in distant planets. Sign up today for-” My foot caught on a tile that stuck upwards. I almost lost my balance before I kept going. 

A second terminal - the crowd was thinning now. A giant banner ‘NST MEMBERS ONLY’. 

I passed through. I could feel my heart jump a little bit with each step.

Finally, I passed through a set of sliding doors, and into a blank white room with chairs arranged neatly around tables. Each table had a placecard, and a handful of people sitting at each.

A man dressed in neat navy blues met me with a smile. “Hello! Name, please?”

“Valerie Rink,” I said, my voice wavering more that I had hoped.

“Great! Nice to meet you, Valerie.” He used his pen and ran down a list of names on a clipboard. “Alrighty, you’re at that table right over there,” He pointed to a small table with two red-headed men and a dark haired woman. “You’re Veteran should be with you soon.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “But who is my Veteran?”

“Hm? Oh, Liz Conar. She’ll be here in 10.”

Liz Conar, Liz Conar, Liz Conar… I know her, don’t I? Or I should?

I was shoved by someone behind me and I shuffled over to my table.

The two men were engaged in a fierce argument. One had his hair cut short, with wild curls flying everywhere, and the other had it even longer, long enough to make a small ponytail.

“A gravity assist from Jupiter could get you there in less than a decade,” The long haired one said.

“Yeah,” The other said. “Only if you could time it right.”

The woman peered up from her book and noticed me, nudging the other two.

“Uh,” I croaked. “Hello…?”

The woman sat up, smiling. “G’morning. You must be Valerie, right? After all, there’s only one place left at the table.”

I nodded sheepishly.

She stuck out her hand, which I noticed was covered in charcoal smudges. “Caroline, Caroline Vellino. I’m the ship’s certified therapist.”

I turned my attention to the men. The long haired one grinned at me.

“Felix,” He said. The freckles on his cheeks were scattered and easily noticed against his pale skin. “Nice to meet you.”

“Edward,” The second one said, more subdued. “I’m his older brother.”

“Great,” I muttered. “I’ll just-” I slid the chair out and sat down, hugging my luggage to my chest as I tried to calm myself down. Caroline buried her nose back in her book - sketchbook, maybe? - as Felix and Edward stopped their argument.

“So,” Felix said, leaning forwards. “Why do you want to go to space?”

My brain paused. “Well… I don’t know, it’s always been fascinating. My mom also works with the Stations, so she wanted me to go, too.”

“Cool!” Felix said. He was beginning to remind me more and more of a 3rd grader hyped up on Pixie Sticks. “I mean, I’ve always found space cool, and I’m a little sad we won’t get to see way out in deep space-”

“It would take several decades to get there,” Edward interjected.

“But I’m still excited! I can’t wait to see Jupiter, mostly. And Neptune. And Eris, that dwarf planet beyond Pluto, but I doubt we’ll get that far-”

Edward cleared his throat. “Caroline? What about you?”

“Space has always been an interest of mine,” She said, rubbing the pencil dust off of a page. “A muse, you might say. And, of course, interstellar journeys can be hard on the mind, so I thought it would be good if I tagged along.”

The intercom blared overhead. “Attention, your Space Veterans are entering. Please remain seated.”

I craned my neck, trying to see over the ocean of heads. People passed by the crowds, the Veterans. Thomas Toan, Quinn O’Malley, Lily Zhou - all the heroes of my childhood, gathered inside one room.

“Ooh,” Felix pointed. “I think that’s her.”

A woman walked out of the crowd. Liz Conar.

I had seen posters. I had seen her face plastered on billboards and TV screens and on lunchboxes and backpacks - she was an icon, and I felt embarrassed I hadn’t even recognized her soon. I had grown up seeing her face everywhere, but I had never seen her in person.

She walked like she was on clouds, like gravity didn’t even affect her. Her hair was this light, caramel brown, and she beamed at the faces around her as she walked by, just like the superstar everyone knew her as. A low-cut V-neck, a pair of dark jeans - she hardly even looked like she was trying.

Her eyes landed on our small little table and she came over, grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey,” She said, leaning on the table. “Liz Conar. You probably know me. Everyone has their luggage?”

I lifted my piece off my lap, Felix and Edward showed off their backpacks, and Caroline tapped the luggage at her feet.

“Great,” She said. “Let’s get going. It’s always best to launch first.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“So,” Liz came up beside me, a good head taller. We were standing just outside of the spaceport, the clear blue sky and the endless plains of Utah stretching out beyond.

“You’re Valerie, right?” She asked.

“Mmhm.” I nodded. “Rink. You might know my mom.”

“Name rings a bell.” She turned around and leaned on the railing, with a smirk that gave me butterflies. 

Stop that, or you’ll never get through this trip. Just be normal for once.

“You seem like the type that’ll like space,” She said. “Some people just aren’t well suited for it, but I got a good feeling about you.”

I could only nod - my throat had gone dry.

There was a siren, and Liz tilted her head up. “Sounds like that’s us. Strap in, and get ready for those G-forces.”

I was not ready for those G-forces.

Lying parallel to the ground made things worse. I could almost feel myself trembling. Liz was directly to my left, a foot away, Edward and Felix were sitting behind me, and Caroline was in the far back.

Liz tapped her earpiece. “Strapping in now. Ready when you are.”

There was only the blue sky above us. This might be my last view of Earth for a long, lone time. I tried to enjoy it.

There was only a light rumbling, and suddenly we were off.

You know those carnival rides, the one where you’re in the dark room only lit by horridly bright primary-colored lights? And you spin faster and faster until you’re plastered to the walls, and when you come out you can’t tell if you’ll fall on your face or throw up?

Imagine that, times ten.

My vision started to go gray. That I counted on. My heart felt like it was going to come out of my chest, and my panicking didn’t make things better.

Remember your training, and you’ll be fine. Just don’t be an idiot you normally are.

The gravity grew greater, to the point where my vision started to dim. I was just starting to see the dark blue of space when my head rolled to one side, and I passed out.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

“Huh,” Liz tilted her head just a little bit to see Valerie unconscious.

Felix squeaked. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’ll be fine once we get to microgravity. High G-forces are a pain.” Just as she said that, her vision tunneled - a sensation she still wasn’t quite used to.

A minute or two later, the gravity lessened, and lessened, until finally Liz’s body began to float against her safety restraints. She unclicked the latch and turned back to the rest of her newfound crew.

“Welcome to microgravity,” She said. “And welcome to Earth orbit. We’ll reach the moon in  2 days or so. Feel free to make yourselves comfortable, there are small rooms behind you.” She watched as they all unbuckled themselves, awkwardly hovering in zero-gravity before finally getting the hang of how to move.

Liz turned towards Valerie, undid her harness, and started preparing a makeshift bed. If she was going to wake up in an unfamiliar place, she might as well be comfortable.

She secured Valerie to the wall of the ship, not an unusual place to take a nap. She groaned, a quiet noise like a sigh, and Liz almost had to laugh. She could still remember when she was the new kid, passing out every time they reached high g-forces.

She began to think she would enjoy being the teacher this time.

Carefully, she pulled herself towards the cockpit of the ship, put in the coordinates for the Moon, and relaxed back in her home away from home.

[rileywrites-reylo]

Dancing

Kylo Ren x Rey

Summary: Ben Solo has always been there. He was always burnished brass, starlight eyes, and a voice like the breeze through green leaves. The shadowed man had plagued him, too.

In which the Force provides a balm for two lonely souls.

Credit to the maker of this gif.

Sometimes, when the rays of the sun beat down on golden, freckled shoulders and heated tiny hairs on a tiny neck, she found her eyes tracing the lines of a shadow that wasn’t quite right; wasn’t quite her own as it kept time with her, moving over fine grains of sand with a finesse her scrawny legs had yet to discover for themselves.

Dust laden, sand paper wind pushed at fine, wispy tendrils of hair that were still too short to pull up; teasing at shadowed ears that were too big; the lines of her profile, button nose a little too long, too harsh in contrast with the softness of youth.

When the yellow light of the moons danced overhead and the warm flickering light of the sunset imbued flames crossed over each rusted patch of the walls protecting her from the night, that shadowy figure loomed over her, hovering, encasing, engulfing her in companionship that she greedily clung to despite the dark of it; lessening the sting of the horizon of solitude as the moons tracked across the black.

She liked to pretend that the dark silhouette, that day time companion that always followed, was someone known and loved. She knew it was likely the shimmering heat gliding over the dunes playing tricks; hazy azure skies sparkling with whispers of a sun that teased and offered a quiet, yearning heart an imagined friend.

On clear nights when the winds had blown themselves out and the sands had settled, she always found herself stretched out over radiant sheets of blasted metal, skinny arms beneath a heavy head, bony ankles crossed over the other as she looked up at distant points of glowing warmth; places where she could be, where it might be. On nights where the moons were too low to brighten the sky, too low to welcome the company of her shadow, she told it; loneliness, stories while she picked at dirty, ruined hemlines of a shirt she was quickly growing out of. She sang to it, the feeling of it, that ever present darkness that held on to her even when she couldn’t find it for want of light, the songs she only half-remembered and others still that she’d half made up.

“Are the stars the same where you lie waiting?”

“Maybe one day…”

“Will you feel me, too?”

As arms and legs lengthened, the days and nights grew longer, too; stormy line of weariness and the quiet rolling in to push at the dunes of her heart, shifting each granule, altering the landscape. Rationing of her affection and trust became as important as carefully guarding water. Seediness and mal intent were woven into every interaction of Nima Outpost.

When she’d started bleeding, she’d cried herself to sleep, scolding her eyes for wasting precious fluids, for wasting time, but the fear that chilled her scalding veins as soon as she’d felt the stickiness between her legs had begged for release.  She thought immediately of another girl who traversed the scrap  heaps as she did, a few years older, and how the light in her eyes had gone, how it was like the exposed wires had snaked their way into her bones and pulled down at her soul, her smile. She remembered how the looks of others had changed around the outpost when someone had taken note of her purchasing scraps of fabric with a heavy frown on her face. She thought of how small she’d looked with bruises on her arms and a scream caught in her throat.

She’d thought of what it must be like to be a shadow.

With the red came hours of practicing with the staff she’d made; sunlight beating down on her, on it, ends of that sturdy metal glinting with hints of ‘No,’ ‘Unbroken,’ and ‘I’m sorry;’ lines of her shape-shifting daylight companion, shoulders strong, torso long and made up of words that read: ‘You are stronger than you know.’

With her staff came many sweaty nights woken from sleep with wide eyes and a heaving chest as pain blossomed in her heart and welled at her eyes for reasons she couldn’t understand; her shadow curling into her body, clinging to every crevice of her skin as she waited for the sun inside her metal cage that dripped with humming musings of terror coated in glowing green.

As years passed, her shadow loomed, it darkened, it crackled; the edges of it slowly fraying and tangling. On those particularly hot days, sun blistering, where the wind dried out her very bones and the blasting sand rubbed the freckles of her skin raw, she swore she could hear that dark thing that followed crying out in protest of the sun.

“Tearing apart,” it would sometimes whisper, sound of it like the breeze blowing through the tapestry hanging over rusted edges of holes too big to be patched.

Slowly, her companion took on a whole new form, the shape of her head now odd and too smooth, far less human than the lines she had grown used to, too big ears gone; the whole of it bigger and terrifying in the way that made tiny hairs raise and skin to pucker. Its presence weighed her down, pushing at the golden sand as she moved, and it moved, they moved.

She had stopped singing to it and instead took to whispering.

She swore to never speak to it again when its darkness had spread so far and so violently that the inky black of the backs of eyelids had turned into an abyss, a swirling vortex of something that pulled and tugged on every fiber of her being, darkness like a glove reaching into her chest and ripping her from beneath the surface of nightmarish dreams full of screaming and fire.

The whole of the horizon had been made of thick, acrid smoke that prickled at her neck and fingers, sent her heart into a frenzy. She found that her shadow was no longer at her feet, but in the sky, teasing her from within the ashes carried on the wind.

“It’s you,” she’d whispered, embers on her breath and the night in her eyes.

��What girl?” It had echoed, voice made up of the same fraying edges and less than human form.

Suddenly, that monstrous friend was no longer just a shadow she thought had been part of a cruel trick the Jakku sun had been playing, but a fully formed  being when it split from her toes to manifest from the trees as this menacing, blackened soul; breathing, asking, breaking as that same gloved hand from her dreams reached out, hovering; the lines of it solid, but still unraveled as fingers bled into thick arms and a dusky chest. She’d found herself frozen, incapable of understanding, but at the same time, everything abruptly making sense to her amidst the shimmering green of the forest encasing two shadowed souls meeting for the first time under a different sun.

“Scavenger,” he, and she now knew it to be so, had spat at her; her whole being confused. He was a scavenger, too, had always been; just as she. They had scaled the same dunes and climbed through the same discarded relics together, picking at things that were still good but unwanted.

How could he so easily forget the songs, the stories and all of those star-kissed wishes?

Had her whispers fallen on deaf ears? Had there been too many nights where moons had been too low and the light too fleeting?

“I feel it, too,” and a part of her ached for golden sand and skinny arms.

When he’d pushed and she’d pushed, she’d seen it: a too small, too skinny, sun-kissed shadow walking alongside another that had been made up of moonlight.

Reds and blues had swirled and danced wickedly across the flurries that traced the outlines of that threadbare, bleeding man. Terrifying; consuming. When the hills and valleys of his strange, familiar face; lines of that long nose, freckles and moles on cheeks in the same constellation groups as the ones that mapped her shoulders ran purple, her heart pounding in her chest, she was suddenly not so sure if she had always been afraid of her shadow or was only now that after all this time, it, he, had a face and a name.

Kylo Ren.

Ben Solo.

She decides on both.

She strikes it down; that shadow, that man, and rips that bruised darkness in two, leaving the lines of him gaping; dying; cratered moon of a man having fallen out of her orbit. Or at least, she allows herself to believe it, he, has; the ferocity of that glowing blade shearing that thread of gravity, of something, that had sewn his shadow to her, and hers to his, a long time ago, ripping at her flesh in time with his; blue blending with the red spilling from him to make this ugly cauterized purple stamp on her soul.

As she climbs into the light of a new day, she does it with a thready pulse pushing at her fingertips that nudges its way up her arm to lap at her hollowed chest.

When he appears again; her shadowed man, it’s in a dream. In sleep, he’s made of burnished brass and wears this quietly crooked smile that disarms the fury prickling behind her eyes in an instant. His shoulders aren’t mountains and his eyes aren’t made of the same vicious, loamy waves that pound away at cliff sides on Ahch-to, but of the night sky instead. When he speaks, it’s with a softness that so vastly contrasts with the man she knows that when she wakes, it’s with a furrowed brow and question marks in her heart as “It is you,” plays itself over and over again in that tone of bewildered reverence murmured from cashmere dreamscape lips.

It’s when a set of pale fingers, looming and huge in a different way, reach out to her for a fourth time, on different terms, where darkness hides in the subtle shadows cast over his knuckles and those ears, lips, and nose, where his hand and dark eyes are alight with sunset imbued flames, that she realizes Ben has always been there. He was always burnished brass, starlight eyes, and a voice like the breeze through green leaves. The shadowed man had plagued him, too; had attached its self to his shoulders with needlepoint claws and had wrapped its threads around his chest, knotting at his heart, cutting at his soul. He’d been there in the shape of her shadow and the notes of her voice when the cords in a too-tight, too-dry throat rasped for water that her dark companion had always had, could have been, but could never share.

So now, as she walks alongside his dark, brooding figure; aura brassy, not-so distant points of light in the night of his eyes, his own twin and hers bleeding together in a menagerie of grey lines and curves, she feels a spark of fondness; a tickle of something from hot, burning days past where big ears bled into the shape of hers to blend with strong jaw; where his long wispy hairs crashed into the waves of hers like all souls eventually do in the cosmos.

Please, let me know what you guys think!