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A galaxy is a large place. It just so happens that most of their enormous size is composed of almost entirely empty space. Without multicellular life, that empty space was also gloriously boring for most beings, if there were any beings there.
For Avai though, after being blessed with the ability to feel it, had found new light in the galaxy that the Dark One had assigned to him.
Every material was different, and when or where it was being experienced changed how it felt. Some were rough, others were smooth. Under the sun, rocks felt soft and pleasant– warm– to the touch. After being kept under shadow for a long time, they felt hard and shocking– cold.
After Avai touched one for the first time, he leapt backwards at the feeling– it was new and overwhelming. After some time though, he was running their hands through them over and over, basking in the different sensations and the wonderful, wonderful, experience.
Even the monotonous replication of the single-celled organisms residing in the water and the endless passing of clouds in the sky didn’t seem so boring anymore. He floated upwards, and passed through a beautiful, white, fluffy cloud. It was cold. Soothing, like the water, but lighter. It flowed through and around them, drifting on the soft wind.
Passing through the atmosphere sent shivers across their body. Space was colder than clouds, colder than water, colder than the rocks that had sat in the shade. The disappearance of an atmosphere that he didn’t realize he had been feeling was strange, but not necessarily unpleasant.
Teleporting had no sensation before, but now it felt somewhat slippery– like the surface of a smooth rock underwater.
Stars were unbearably hot, but after gaining the courage, they felt lighter than a cloud. Oceans of molten metal were cooler than stars, and felt similarly to water, although much heavier. Comets left cold trails in their wake, and the beautiful colors that permeated space felt like all sorts of things.
White dwarves– young stars– were cooler than other stars, but also felt notably heavier. Black holes exerted a strange inverse pressure, but otherwise didn’t feel like anything until touching the impossibly hot and heavy singularity in the center.
No planets had multicellular life yet, but one made of a thick gas– that felt as heavy as water and as warm as a rock left in the sun– had developed enormous single celled life. They weren’t that big, but were big enough that Avai could touch them. The cells were warm, and felt like they would cling to him when he pulled away. Sticky.
The huge, black-stone monuments created by the Dark One were cool, smooth, and flawless, not a crack or imperfection anywhere. He imagined that their hand would slide right across it.
The structures made and scattered across the galaxy by the Dark One were slowly deteriorating, clearly not made to exist in one form forever like the black-stone monoliths. Some parts felt smooth, others felt rough, a few felt so delicate that Avai thought that they might crumble to nothing just at a touch .
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Wind too, seemed to vary with every planet visited. Sometimes it was so strong that he could imagine it carrying him away, sometimes it carried tiny flecks of sand, or rock, or ice, or even red-hot molten metal. Water would sometimes cut through stone, creating caverns full of glittering gemstones and soft sounds, going deeper and deeper until they reached the molten layers of the planets that they resided on.
Every planet had a new sensation, a new feeling, and one day, there would be life, which would bring even more.
Avai could hardly wait.
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The letter was a surprise. It was pinned by a small black-stone slab resting on the corner of the sheet, waved slightly in the wind, as if inviting him.
It was strange. Unique. Written with liquid pigment on a firm, but delicate piece of fibrous material, woven into a sheet. The words were unfamiliar, but still understandable, somewhere in the back of Avai’s mind.
They read it over several times, gathering each and every detail. It was written to be sent to many, not a specific person, and as such had very general and wide language.
The smaller note attached to it was specific however:
To Avai.
Should you choose to attend, you will be provided with concealing garments, as well as temporarily being given the ability to interact and be perceived, so you may enjoy the celebration as intended. Should you have any requests for specifics on the details of the clothing, you will be given an opportunity to customize before your arrival.
Given your current mission, your manner of attendance is different as well. If you decide to attend, travel to the the monolith I constructed on the moon above the planet that you were brought to upon the beginning of your mission. There you will find a temporary entrance to the coronation area.
- I.
It took him a long while to fully process. But the decision was clear. Even just temporarily, they would have an opportunity to see others, and since it took a long time for anything to happen in the galaxy they had been assigned to, they wouldn’t miss much. And by observing those in attendance, he could get a preview of what life may look like in his galaxy. According to the letter, they would all be concealed, but shapes and sizes were still good indicators.
He would have to practice his manners, and ensure that he did not reveal what the mission Dark One had given to him was, although revealing that he even had a mission would likely not violate the rules of the celebration. And if he was correct about the reason that the Dark One had made this galaxy, had fought the Bright One, had sent invitations to a coronation of all things, it might even be encouraged.
This letter, this invitation, had been the last piece of evidence needed for his theory.
Shades had never been particularly intelligent. They were mostly mindless. Avai had not been chosen because he was smart of all things.
But Avai wasn’t a shade anymore. When the Dark One had chosen him, he had been transformed. Whatever he was, he wasn’t a shade. And now, Avai was smart. Not a genius, not by a long shot, but still decently intelligent.
Intelligent enough to see the patterns that few others noticed.
Avai did not know if he had a mouth. He could not see himself in reflections. But if he did, if he could, he imagined that he would be smiling.
No. Not smiling.
Grinning.
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