“What are the Stars and the Glimmers?”

Frost opened the emergency meeting like thunder. She summoned the trusted board of the Amalgam’s Summit on a terribly short notice.

Frost ordered a sudden emergency meeting with the trusted board of the Amalgam’s Summit. It was on terribly short notice, but the power of the Reception allowed Nav and the Receptionists to broadcast a call to all relevant individuals so long as they were within the Nexus.

The limitation was unfortunate, but it was planned to be bypassed using CogitO’s Transmitters made from a special kind of consciousness – the Red Giants. Through them it was possible to extend their reach by a considerable amount, although the item containing said consciousness would be far larger than an ear cuff.

Of course, that was if the Red Giants couldn’t be brought back to their side.

That being said – this was not the focus of the meeting.

An entirely different Star was on Frost’s mind, and she asked the Arbiter directly in the presence of Jury, the Archetypes, the Three heads of Security, Satania, Galia, Descartes and finally – Weave. The reason why Weave was here was because she was old enough to remember the very inception of the First Advent.

She had become one of the more trusted people in her carefully selected circle.

The Arbiter raised her hand and exactly four tails behind her. They formed a giant compass above her head, like that of a lodestar.

“What do you think a Star is? A Glimmer? The so-called droplets that fell from the skies?” The Arbiter answered with a knowing rhetoric. “It’s all abstract muses of the mad. The metaphors of the wanderers that can no longer speak the language of common folk. The songs of the demented that no longer have a way to convey the unfathomable.”

Her regal tone carried the weight of utter authority. Imagery was laced into every word in an effort for her knowledge to make a semblance of sense.

“We have different definitions of Stars. On Earth and the worlds beyond Elysia – those stars are remnants of a fathomless beginning. Ours and worlds of our similar nature acquire Stars of an incomprehensible end. Shall I ask another question?”

“So you do know.” Frost glared at the Arbiter with scrutiny.

“Does she?” An unlikely Satania vouched for the Arbiter, but not because she was trying to defend her. “She only knows the same phrases she’s always repeated like a parrot. That knowledge of hers is the same thing. Because like many, she’s trapped in a vicious mental cycle. I’m not doubting that she knows something. I’m more concerned that she is incapable of uttering it. Lucy is no different. Both of you are tied by the weight of your pride.”

“That is half true.” The Arbiter claimed, excusing Satania from her mockery. “I sometimes don’t understand the musing of my own. But I know precisely what they refer to as the Stars and Glimmers. May I ask my question to this great Summit?”

The Star Child eagerly nodded before anyone else could answer. The light in her eyes had intensified ever since the Lull-A-Goodbye was archived in the Floor of Desire. Unfortunately, the Floor itself was still just bleak void.

“Why do civilizations seem so lonely in a universe so vast. No… Allow me to rephrase it. Pardon my arrogance. My question is: why does life not propagate in every corner of existence?”

What the Arbiter asked was the equivalent to the answer to the Fermi Paradox. An innumerable number of theories were able to answer the paradox, but the problem was that none were able to be proven nor disproven. Hence why it was a paradox.

A chill ran down Frost’s spine as the Arbiter’ tails created seven rings above her head.

Then, she spoke with reverence unlike any other. Her voice was guttural yet held unimaginable grace.

“The reason are the Stars and the Glimmers. Their names are interchangeable. Some will see Stars. Others will see the Glimmers. In truth, Glimmers are smaller Stars that have a more conceivable form. Stars are incomprehensible. Those things usually stay in the sky. Glimmers are what they are called when they fall or fragment. Sometimes, those Stars themselves can fall in full, shooting like streaks in the skies, burning in an atmosphere we believed to only protect us from stellar emissions.”

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Her words were worthy of being etched into a tablet. They reverberated through their chests as they breathed the incomprehensible weight of her knowledge.

“At some point civilization will be met with a fallen Star, and the course of its inhabitants will change. Knowledge from beyond will bless them. Their achievements will awe future generations and will shroud them in mystery for millennia to come until one day, the very source of it all reaches one hand. One hand full, but billions more empty. So they thrust their hands to the skies in a collective yearning.”

The Arbiter painted it so clearly. Enough where Frost was able to understand what happened next.

“… and those stars fell into their hands?” She uttered.

The Arbiter smiled, a tail coiling back to her body.

“It did. Stars and Glimmers are entities of the void. They come from the Beyond and respond to powerful resonations of cognitive beings. Something came from nothing. But those blueprints came from the minds of the living, no doubt, even if they are fundamentally incomprehensible existences.”

Descartes 3’s expression didn’t change a bit, but one could tell that she was deeply disturbed by the talk of the old world. Galia did not care so much. Magus kept a hand on his tie, as if locked in reminiscence.

Anna seemed to remember something, and the Star Child wore a saddened look on her face as the plentiful star she drew above her slowly fizzled away.

“They predate the Corrupted and they were the reason why the things you call technology exist. Those living Stars are miracles in themselves, beginning in a soup of primordial nothingness. They offer gifts that enable civilization to prosper. No… It’s more accurate to say that civilization is what morphs them into such. The old world was plenty advanced even before the conception of the Captured Star. To the point where they were able to capture a Star even in their skyless nights.”

The Arbiter had been holding onto this information this entire time. It was not known how much more she knew. She only revealed this because the White Rabbit had revealed fragments of it to them. Whether she felt obligated or did it simply because it was time was also unknown.

No. It wasn’t any of it.

It simply did not concern them until they brought it up.

“But fear not. This world has yet to have them. Rather, they are long dead – buried in Ruins and in a place far away from the habitable. Stars and Glimmers are entities without purpose, unlike the Corrupted that exist, even though it all seems meaningless. We instead have the Faux Angels of GEN-06 – the Advent of Wrath. I am vaguely aware that they were created to replace the Stars that were long extinguished.”

Another tail fell, and her mouth, just for a split second, morphed into something hideous.

“Oh how they have failed.”

She had revealed so much, and yet it only felt like the tip of the iceberg. What she implied was that beyond the oceans was a place where corpses of those Stars existed. And more than that, it was where the Faux Angels roamed.

This explained why Elysia was condensed into such a small portion of the world. It was not that the lands were so separated that communication with those far away was impossible.

It was that it was utterly inhospitable.

“The Impuritas… Is that what Iscario is after? To bring back those Stars?” Jury wondered as Magus immediately responded with:

“It seems unlikely. Rather, it’s more likely that they are aware of their existence. Or at least tales of their magnificence. It perhaps served as the primary inspiration for some obscure groups. What hasn’t changed is that they seek the Piece of the Fallen Star to incite their own Corruption, and…”

“To eliminate me. Basically, all of that doesn’t really concern us. What matters is what’s here, not out there.” Frost summarized, pleasing Satania, Galia and the Arbiter. “… yet I can’t help but to feel like we’re inevitably going to get wrapped up into something huge.”

“That is for certain. Even my explanation does not do it justice until you see it with your own eyes.” The Arbiter dropped another tail, leaving her at only four remaining.

They formed the same lodestar as before, causing Frost to further scrutinize the Arbiter.

Just what is she?

“… I have a question for you now.” Frost allowed the others some time to digest what was still essentially just the echoes of the White Rabbit’s explanation. “How do you know all of this? It’s easy for you to tell me that you just heard this or are knowledgeable as the leader of all Angels.”

The Arbiter folded her leg over the other, erecting her posture as her breathing patterns abruptly shifted. She sealed her eyes shut, predicting precisely what Frost was going to ask with a telling grin.

“But all of this predates the Captured Star. In fact, it was because of the Captured Star that Angels can exist. Not only that, but Lailah was created by you to nurture it.”

Frost had reached an epiphany that caused the Star Child to nod once.

She realized that the Arbiter was not an Angel, nor a being born from the ‘light’. The answer was on the tip of her tongue. But she wanted to hear it from the Arbiter herself.

And so she asked:

“Michaela – Just what were you.”

The Arbiter’s eyes fluttered open, revealing an emotion that she herself did not understand. But there was longing within. A longing so deep that Frost was nearly absorbed by it. Then, the Arbiter’s tails blossomed like a rose, their tips emitting a sacred light that could only be described as one thing.

“Something meaningless that was given meaning because I shone brightly in people’s eyes. I was, by definition, a Star. My existence was meaningless for the longest time.

That was until I crossed paths with ‘Her’.”