Chapter Text
Tamitra Ars Goetia sat on the moon, watching her planet burn.
Every friend she’d ever made, every party venue she’d ever rented out, every person who owed her money, gone in an instant.
She sighed as she labored over her tablet, her stylus clinking against the rock rhythmically. She’d been taught from a young age to translate the movement of the planets and stars into poetry to guess the future. However, training in translating her own feelings into words had been neglected in the process.
She felt a heavy claw clutch her shoulder.
“Tamitra, come now. We must look for our next world.”
She looked up, her husband leaning over her. Their youngest was bundled in his front-pack, downy feathers covering her soft head as she napped.
“Paimon, I have an idea. For next time.”
Paimon sat next to his wife. “Tell me.”
”What if, hear me out, we don’t tell the leaders everything.”
His crest narrowed as he thought over the strange idea. “But, darling, our pact with the stars states that we must translate their story.”
Tamitra shook her head. “I’m starting to wonder if the stars have something against life. This is our third planet in just a million years, and it seems like they’re lasting less and less each time.”
Paimon nodded, uncertain. “That’s true, but if we violate our pact, we could lose our command over space.”
”Our pact just says we must bear witness to the songs of the stars. It says nothing about sharing every song. What if we listen to the songs, and then only share the ones that lead to the future we desire?”
He tilted his head in wonder. “What future do we desire?”
Tamitra sighed, patting her small, soft daughter on the head. “Stability. I don’t want to move ever again.”
“Mother, Father, we’ve found our new world,” came an imperious voice behind the couple. They turned to where their nine other children were coming up behind them.
One of their other sons rushed up in his youthful eagerness. “Yes! It shall be even more fun than Celene!”
Tamitra turned her gaze back on Celene, the only planet some of her children had ever known. Through their guidance, it had been a truly wonderful place. What a shame the stars had declared its end. From here, she could see the metaphysical realm connected to the planet burning as well.
Little claws tugged at her sleeve. “C’mon, Mom! It’s only a few light-years away!”
Her son’s youthful exuberance was infectious. She laughed, banishing her tablet back to her own metaphysical pocket and getting to her feet.
—
They spent the next few centuries traveling through the stars to their new home. They had time to kill, the stars said it was still being built.
Tamitra left the songs of the stars to her husband and her children, during the journey. She spent the time trying to write her own poetry.
She looked down at the little owlette in her front-pack. Her first since Celene. The child looked up at her with big, innocent eyes. The eyes started to fill with tears, which Tamitra shushed with a soft lullaby
A time, A place
Way out in space
I see your face amongst the stars
How did we get so far?
We’re out of time
We’re in our decline
But maybe sometime soon
We’ll find somewhere new
Oh to be young and innocent
Nary a care upon my mind
Oh to be young and innocent
Not knowing all we had to leave behind
A time, A place
Way out in space
I see your face amongst the stars
How did we get so far?
We’re out of time
We’re running out of rhyme
And reason’s long gone too
Where did we think we were going
When we thought that we could only go up?
Where did we think we were growing
When we never left any room to grow up?
Somewhere, somehow
We’ll make a vow
To treat our new world with some respect
No need to genuflect
Oh, to have time
To save the day
Not working every moment
And wasting away!
Oh, to have time
To save the day
‘Cause it’s going, going,
It’s going, going, gone.
The little owlette snoozed gently in the carrier, soft coos coming out of their tiny beak.
—
The family sat upon a new moon, watching over their new planet. At this point it was just a rock, no metaphysical realm, and the gigantic extra-dimensional beings who were building it hadn’t noticed them yet.
Tamitra looked up from her baby when a huge explosion expanded through space-time. She saw a metaphysical realm bursting to life, a huge axis of power stabbing up and down through the planet’s poles. Huge rings burst off of the axis point.
She reached up, grabbing a screaming, flying thing that had nearly whizzed past her ear, having exploded out from the planet.
She held up the thing in front of her.
“Tamitra, what is it?” Paimon asked as he reached her from where he’d been watching the stars.
The thing, a nebulous cloud of star-energy, opened up one big eye. Then a huge, sharp smile. ”Oh, a man! I love men! Do you want me to clean anything for you? Do you like back rubs??”
The thing wretched itself from Tamitra’s claws, instantly draping its arms around a startled Paimon.
Tamitra glared at it. “It’s a soul, but there’s something wrong with it. It looks like it was patched with a different soul. Badly.”
Tamitra reached out to the soul, now sitting happily in the arms of her husband, and plucked off the second soul. She flicked that one back towards the planet absentmindedly.
The soul in Paimon’s hands froze as it was bisected. It looked around, then immediately pushed itself out of Paimon’s grasp and landed on the ground.
She stood, dusting off her dress robe. “Can you owls by chance tell me what’s going on?”
Tamitra and Paimon tilted their heads. The change was remarkable.
“We were hoping you could tell us what’s going on. We’re planning on moving to your world, helping to guide it towards progress and comfort,” Tamitra responded.
The soul blinked up at them, but turned her eyes to the planet. She blinked. “Were those rings always there?”
Paimon shook his head. “No, we just watched them come into being seconds before we caught you.”
The soul nodded. “I think that’s my old body. It was never meant to die, you see. I think it glitched while I was falling.”
”Ah, yes. Many realms are born of the expanding body of a dying immortal,” Paimon explained.
“Really? Interesting. Have you seen the birth of many worlds?” The soul turned to him, hunger in her eyes.
Paimon laughed. “We haven’t been properly introduced! This is my wife, Tamitra, and I myself am Paimon. We are the royal Ars Goetia family, tasked with translating the prophetic songs of the stars.”
The soul bobbed her head. “Your majesties, quite an honor. I was the second ‘human’ female to be made on the Earth, the planet we’re orbiting. They called me ‘Eve’, but I’ve just now come to realize I hate that name.”
Tamitra nodded. “You had a nasty second soul attached to yours. It almost certainly warped your mind.”
Paimon struggled. “If you hate the name Eve, what shall we call you?”
The soul played around with different sounds in her metaphysical mouth, then finally said, “Steven, for now. I’m a man.”
Paimon nodded. “Very well, Steven. Please tell us everything.”
Steven shrugged and began his story. It’s not like he had any other plans, currently. And these space owls could be of use to him.
Now that his mind was finally his own, he could begin to plot.