♈ starborn: Lᴜɴᴀʀ Rᴇʙɪʀᴛʜ
Feb 16, 2018 21:59:45 GMT -5
Katanaheart, phantomstar57, and 8 more like this
Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Feb 16, 2018 21:59:45 GMT -5
"Romance, intrigue, action and a 35 year old murder mystery all set within a fantasy world based around the constellations...I was star struck from the first chapter! " - Friendly Beta Reader
Major thanks to Katanaheart for helping me out with the astrology surrounding the zodiacs! She's been an amazing source for me and I greatly appreciate her support through these crazy writing projects. <3
Starborn: Lunar ReBirth
The old gods are dead, but they left their powers behind in the stars.
Now their astral bodies can imbue ordinary felines with their gifts. These cats are called Starborn.
There are the Starborn who are imbued by the minor gods like Lupus, Ursa and Orion among many others. They are stronger, faster and harder to kill than normal felines. They can also shape shift into beast-like forms.
Then there are the Starborn imbued by the major gods: the 12 gods of the zodiac.
Unlike the minor Starborn, there can only be one of each of the 12. All are immortal, and all can shape shift into different forms. They can also wield one of the four elements: fire, wind, water and earth. They act as living gods, hearing the prayers of other felines born under the same constellation. It is their sworn and sacred duty to carry out the old god's wishes; helping the masses and answering their prayers.
But 35 years ago, the zodiacs suddenly stopped answering prayers.
This was because of a string of mysterious murders that wiped out the 12 zodiac's counterparts: the lunar zodiacs; protectors of the 12 major gods. Without the lunar zodiacs, the 'solar' zodiacs lost half of their powers, and were unable to hear prayers once the sun went down. But once the last lunar zodiac had been killed, the prayers went silent all together.
While prayers can no longer be heard, the zodiacs have still ventured out, helping out those who they can reach. Yet, without the lunar zodiacs, their followers have begun to doubt them, the belief in the old gods waning.
But a chance for renewal has made itself known: a lunar zodiac has finally been imbued after all these years. But, will this lunar rebirth succeed, or will it be stopped by the same forces that ended the last lunar line?
Prologue: Lunar rebirth
Star Lore Lecture #1
Star Year 3335
High atop a rocky cliff silhouetted against the bright, glowing lights of the stars and a full moon, a small, light wooden shack stands precariously, its walls tilting and rotting through with ugly holes. Inside, a mother screams through the pain of her first birth.
The new mother is not alone. She is joined inside of the run down shack by friends who have come to aid her through her first kitting. They move quickly around her, buzzing like bees, bringing her herbs to help dull the pain and pressing damp ferns to her skin to help relieve her high temperature. They also bring giant, bright green leaves filled with water from the irrigation channels outside which feed a growing strawberry farm in front of the shack. Yet the mother can barely get any water down as her screams and moans of pain interrupt her every time a leaf approaches her lips.
One of her friends, a young dusty brown she-cat, curls around the mother’s head. The she-cat brushes her tail in long, gentle strokes down the mother’s rapidly rising flanks and looks up at the holes in the walls, her ears twitching as she listens to the whistling sound the wind makes as it passes through them.
“Do you want us to move you into the field, Cass?” She asks the mother gently.
Cass shakes her head weakly, sweat dampening her pretty white fur. “No. I don’t want…my child to be born…under stars,” she grunts through her contractions, leaning forwards and burying her head between her front paws, taking several slow breaths in.
The wind picks up outside, causing the walls of the wooden shack to shudder and creak loudly.
“But…why wouldn’t you?” The dusty she-cat asks Cass, her head tilting slightly to the left, the light from the stars through the holes in the roof giving just enough silvery light to help discern the look of concern on her face.
Cass moans loudly, prompting another she-cat, a black and white tuxedo, to come forward and dab Cass’s forehead with damp ferns.
“Don’t press it, Dessyria,” the black and white she-cat warns her, giving the dusty brown she-cat a stern look with her almond shaped eyes. “Cass has a very good reason to not want her child to become a Starborn.”
“But it is a blessing to receive the powers of the old gods, Nightingale!” Dessyria protests with a quiet hiss, continuing her long strokes on Cass’s flank. “All mother’s pray for a clear night such as this one to give birth under.”
Nightingale shakes her head sadly, turning her gaze back to Cass’s panting form, wiping another water soaked fern onto her forehead. “Not Cass. Not after she saw how the old god’s power turns cats into something that they’re not.”
Dessyria frowns. “Not all Starborn are like the ones who attacked her or her mate, Nightingale. You should know that better than anyone, given your mate is a Lupus.”
“Pl-please,” Cass gasps, the muscles in her flank tensing violently, steeling her breath. “Plug up the holes…no…no stars must see.”
Dessyria looks down at Cass, the nighttime lights highlighting the frustration in her dark yellow eyes. “The stars won’t shine down on this birth, Cass. You don’t need to worry about a few holes.”
Nightingale clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, giving Dessyria a disapproving glare. “Do as she asks, Dessyria. You can at least do that.”
Dessyria sighs, but slowly and carefully stands, settling Cass’s head onto the dry grass nest beneath her. “Fine. Give me some moss at least so I can plug them up,” she says.
As Nightingale passes a giant clump of damp moss to Dessyria, the wind once again rolls against the shack, causing the walls to shake and groan. Cass screams as the wind howls. She is close to the end now.
Nightingale shoes Dessyria along with a hurried flick of her tail. “Hurry, hurry!”
Dessyria starts with the highest holes she can reach, tearing the moss ball apart and stuffing it in the holes and cracks in the wood.
A few minutes later, Nightingale cries out in excitement. “I can see your kit, Cass!” She exclaims from her place at the queen’s haunches, resting one white paw on Cass’s hind leg. “Just one more push and it will be done.”
Cass raises her head, her whole neck shaking with the effort. “Really? Can you see the gender yet?”
“One more push,” Nightingale encourages. “Then we will know.”
Cass nods, shutting her eyes and laying her head back down on the grass nest. She breathes in deeply, and then pushes as she exhales.
Dessyria is plugging the last hole when Cass’s kit takes its first crying breath. A loud, shrill, strong cry; a sign of the kit’s apparent health and vigor.
Dessyria drops her moss and scampers over to Cass’s side, leaning over Nightingale’s shoulder as the black and white she-cat vigorously cleans the new kit’s light orange tabby and white fur.
“Oh, my!” Dessyria cries quietly in awe. “She looks just like her father.”
“She?” Cass says weakly, unable to lift her head up to see for herself.
Nightingale purrs, bringing the freshly bathed kit over to her mother, setting the orange tabby down at the damp fur of Cass’s belly. “Yes. A beautiful she-cat. Your mate would have been proud.”
Tears spring up into Cass’s feverish honey amber eyes as she lays them upon her daughter for the first time. It is true as her friends say, the kit is an almost exact copy of her father.
“Oh…oh,” she gets out as her tears run faster. She curls around her daughter’s tiny body, burying her soft pink nose into the drying kitten fur. She breathes in her kits scent, trying her best to hold back the sobs that want to push through her throat. Her daughter even carries the same caramel scent that Cass’s mate did.
Dessyria and Nightingale lean into each other, their physical and emotional exhaustion coming over them. They too have tears in their eyes, both from sadness for the tom who should have been greeting his newborn child this beautiful starry night, and with happiness for the mother who got a piece of her one true love back.
Dessyria speaks up, keeping her voice low. “What will you name her, Cass?”
“I will name her Lyra,” Cass murmurs loud enough for her two friends to hear. Her entire being seems to focus on her daughter who is snuggling deeply into her white pelt.
“Lyra,” Nightingale and Dessyria murmur together, welcoming their friend’s daughter into the world.
The wind rips into the sides of the shack, the wooden boards creaking in protest. High on the walls, one singular hole is freed from the moss ball that plugs it, letting a small chunk of the night sky shine into the shack without the three she-cats below noticing. The glow from the circle of stars falls upon the tiny body of Lyra, her orange tabby fur drinking in its cold light. This particular set of stars is a constellation that falls between east and west, and represents the head of a horned beast.
The old god who had once walked on the same ground that Lyra now lies upon, and who dwells in that constellation which winks at the young kit, weeps in relief as his power seeps into her fur, given breath by the light of the full moon.
Chapter one: Quantum immortality
Star Lecture #2
Star Year 3336
Running through the strawberry fields, Lyra kicks up rich brown dirt behind her, her pelt flattening against her flanks. Her energy surges within her limbs, propelling her on and on down the various steppes and rows of tiny white flower bushes bursting with ripe, red fruit.
Lyra doesn’t know if it is because she grew up around so many strawberries, but the color of the fruit is her favorite; a brighter red than blood or the common red rose. It is happy, energetic and so much more alive. And the smell…like a mix of sweet lilies and rich caramel; a smell she can assume is permanently interwoven into her own scent.
Today is a typical spring day in the river farms; bees and butterflies flitting around the crops, the air thick and heavy with moisture and the sky tinted a bright blue hue with scattered puffy white clouds. Even the dome-like hills and cliff sides surrounding the area are bursting with bright, vibrant shades of green that pop against the stony faces and intermittent human shacks and floating houses on the winding Eridanus River.
Lyra comes to a skidding halt at the bottom of the steppes, muddy water and dirt caking her orange tabby legs and white paws. She slowly walks over to the last row of strawberry bushes on the irrigated flat, stopping to admire the cute, rounded petals of the wild white flowers that bloom alongside the fruit.
They aren’t as gorgeous or elegant as the camellias that grow around the lusher areas of the hills and cliffs, but they are more resilient and, to Lyra, are more unique. She constantly sees cats and humans alike picking camellias and giving them to companions, both platonic and romantic, over these simple white flowers. But to Lyra, these strawberry flowers would be more telling of the giver. They wouldn’t be like everyone else.
Lyra turns her back to the bushes and looks up the slope. At the very top, leaning on its support beams and pale wooden walls, her mother’s shack sits still and stoic atop its cliff side overlooking the Eridanus River at the base. And beyond that, hidden from her viewpoint, is a giant, grey flat-topped boulder. It lies at the very edge of the cliff where the surface dips lower and then suddenly stops where the cliff face is eroding away. At night, it’s the perfect perch to star gaze from.
She looks up at the sky, looking over at the southern horizon. No dark clouds. Hopefully tonight will be a clear night.
Gathering herself, she prepares to launch herself into another run up the strawberry covered hillside, but a grumpy voice halts her movement.
“How will you ever get a mate with mud crusted legs?”
Lyra sighs heavily, clenching her teeth together as she slowly turns and sees her younger brother perching on a fallen log on the main dirt road opposite of where she stands.
At six months old, he is still quite small. Shorter legs and a small frame don’t help to get him out of the “kit” look.
“And how will you ever get a mate with a munchkin disorder?” She remarks back, grinning when his expression turns sour.
“It’s not a munchkin disorder, genius,” he hisses, slipping down the side of the log instead of leaping down due to his inadequate legs. “Cass says it’s because I was born a runt is all.”
“So…basically a runt with a munchkin disorder,” Lyra says, laughing when he takes a swipe at her shoulder. His short limbs don’t help with his reach either.
Not her brother by birth, but by adoption, her short and grumpy younger brother was found abandoned in the strawberry fields some five months ago. Her mother had taken him in immediately, not even considering asking one of her close friends to care for him since she was still raising Lyra.
To Lyra, it had never been a problem. Her younger brother had been loved and cherished, and she had grown to love and respect her mother more for her decision to keep him and raise him as her own.
“So, what are you doing out here, Andre?” Lyra asks him, flicking his folded grey ear with her white tail tip.
Andre snorts as if the answer is obvious. “Cass has been driving me up the walls in that tiny shack. She’s been really tense and paranoid lately. Do you have any idea why?”
Lyra shakes her head, her gaze travelling up to the crooked shack. “No. I haven’t really noticed, I guess.”
Andre snorts again, his one folded ear twitching. “I guess that makes sense. You’re always outside expelling all of your otherworldly energy.”
Lyra chuckles, a grin plastering itself to her face. It is true, she is always outside. It’s like a giant porcelain bowl is inside of her. Overnight it fills up to the brim, sloshing around, ready to spill over and crack the bowl by the time the sun rises. So she always goes out the first chance she gets to expel that energy into some physical activity. This way, by the time the sun goes down, her bowl is empty and ready to be filled again.
She never quite understood where it came from, though her mother claims it was the exact feeling she got around Lyra’s father. He too had had boundless energy and an overbearing presence at times.
“It’s probably just one of Cass’s phases,” Lyra says, flicking her tail dismissively. “She will get over whatever is on her mind soon enough.”
Andre sighs, his shoulders lifting and falling. “Well, we might as well go hunting for our meals tonight. I have a feeling Cass won’t be getting out to get her own.”
Lyra nods in agreement, feeling surprise at the thought that her mother would be upset enough to not want to hunt for herself.
“Alright,” Lyra says, shaking off those thoughts. “First one to catch a rice field rat doesn’t have to carry all the prey home!”
“Oh, come on, Lyra! That’s not fair!”
…
By the evening, Lyra and Andre had caught six rice field rice; two for each cat in the family. This was a perfect amount for Cass and Andre, but Lyra could probably eat all six by herself and not even get a stomach ache.
She would have to go for a midnight hunt, again.
“Would you stop salivating all over me? I’m trying to focus here,” Andre hisses, shoving his taller sister aside as he leans over their catch, checking over the bodies for any growths or apparent diseases. Their bodies rest on a droopy pile of dried grass on the packed dirt floor of their shack, their smell filling the small space.
Lyra swallows back her saliva, wiping her muzzle with her paw. “Sorry,” she mutters, her eyes glued to the fat bellies of the mice.
Andre had been the one to carry all six up the hill since he wasn’t the first one to catch a rodent. The trek up the slope had been longer thanks to his slow pace, but Lyra had been hoping as much. It had given her more time to expel her energy and drink in the smells of the strawberry fields before they were harvested tomorrow morning.
Andre leans back on his haunches, the shadows of the shack walls turning his light grey fur into dark, wet ash. “Alright, I’m calling them good,” he says.
“Can we eat now?” Lyra asks excitedly, leaning forward to snatch one of them up in her jaws.
Andre shoves her again, giving her a glare filled with annoyance. “No, we’re waiting for Cass to get back,” he hisses.
Lyra pouts, dropping the mouse and taking a small step back. “Fine.”
A few moments later, Cass slips through the main crack near the back of the shack, her white pelt messy and sticking out in clumps. She doesn’t bother to greet her children when she sees them, instead she narrows her pale amber eyes at Lyra, noting her mud caked legs. “You need to go wash yourself before you eat, Lyra,” she scolds her.
Lyra’s white ear tips heat up. She nods, licking her chest fur and exiting through the same crack that Cass came in through.
“How are you feeling, Cass?” Andre asks her as she walks up to his side, sighing and sitting carefully, tucking her hind paws beneath her.
“I think I feel worse…has Lyra been alright today? I didn’t see her leave this morning,” she says, looking blankly down at the mice.
Andre tilts his head, worry clear in the way he holds his shoulders close to him. “Yeah, she’s been her normal, energetic, overbearing self. But, are you OK? I know you feel worse, but do you feel ill? Does something ache or hurt? Did you get injured?”
Cass snaps out of her blank stare and turns her eyes up to her son, her eyes shutting as her lips widen into a guilty smile. “Sorry…I’ve been really worrying you, haven’t I? I’m such a terrible mother.”
Andre shakes his head, rubbing his muzzle onto her thin shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry so much if you would just answer my questions.”
Cass sighs, her smile dropping from her face. “I’m fine,” she says, eliciting a snort from Andre to which she replies. “Really, I am. No fever, no aches, no broken bones…nothing. I’ve just been overthinking some things is all, and you know how bad that can get.”
Andre snorts. “Yeah. You are a master at worrying.”
“But everything is fine,” Cass says, more to herself than to her son. “Everything is going to be fine.”
Andre doesn’t reply this time, instead it is his turn to overthink and wonder and worry.
He hopes Lyra’s confidence in her mother’s ability to overcome her ‘phases’ is well placed.
. . .
After the meal, Lyra goes out onto the cliff top, heading for the flat-topped boulder that looks out over the Eridanus River.
She sighs happily as she sees the bright stars begin to wink into the dimming evening sky. The night will be clear; clear enough to see all the constellations.
She remembers a time when she was very young, when her mother took her out to this place for the first time. It is one of her first memories of the night sky, and one of the most potent memories she can recall.
“And do you see that one, the one that looks like a scorpion?”
“I don’t see a scorpion, momma. It looks like a snake with horns!”
Lyra laughs quietly to herself as she gets within sight of the flat-topped boulder, remembering how every constellation her mother showed her looked completely different to Lyra’s young eyes at the time.
But now, Lyra can name every constellation her mother ever showed her, including many more that she has discovered on her own through observation and research.
She pauses at the edge of the boulder, gathering strength in her legs. She then leaps upwards, grabbing the edge of the rock and hauling her body the rest of the way up. Instead of standing she instantly rolls onto her back, squirming in place until she gets comfortable.
Another sigh escapes her, the sky starting to become an inky black, the stars now appearing as tiny, crystalline points, their light winking in the darkness.
According to what she has learned, Aries, the ram constellation, should be in the direct path of the sun at this time of year, the same exact time when she was born.
Happy one year birthday to me, I guess. Tomorrow I’ll have to hunt some extra mice for the occasion.
Hopefully my mother will feel better after a good night’s rest.
…
Lyra doesn’t get up to hunt down extra rice field mice or try to discover a new pattern in the stars, instead she lies down on the stone and sleeps.
Lyra, for once, sleeps through the night.
It is not until, at the first rays of dawn, when a small, gentle paw shakes her awake that she is once more conscious.
“Lyra…Lyra, wake up.”
Lyra groans, the stone surprisingly warm beneath her.
“Mother?”
It is her mother, Cass, who shakes her. It is her eyes though, not her handling of Lyra’s shoulder, that forces Lyra’s eyes to fly open.
Her mother has never shed tears. Her mother is gentle, yes. Maybe even a bit too wound up in her emotions and paranoia, but she is resistant. She is tough. Lyra’s mother is a beautiful wild strawberry flower without weeds or thorns in its roots. Even though, from what Dessyria and Nightingale, two of her mother’s best friends, have told her, her mother’s past was not a happy one.
Yet, here she is, crying. Clean, crystal water weaving in between her mother’s messy white fur. From how red her eyes are, nearly bloodshot, Lyra assumes her mother has been crying for some time.
“Momma…,” Lyra breathes, as if afraid that this is all not a dream.
Cass slowly and gently touches her paw to Lyra’s foreleg, her amber irises shaking at whatever they see.
Lyra looks down then, her own amber eyes widening.
Black. From the end of her paw up to her shoulder…her fur has been stained black.
“What is this?” Lyra asks, the volume of her voice increasing with her panic.
Cass brushes her paw along the new black fur, her white paw trembling. “You're in the process of being…,” she pauses, swallowing thickly, lifting her eyes back to her daughter’s. “Of being imbued by a god.”
Lyra’s heart bursts, her pulse scrambling away from her like the rice field mice do when she hunts them. She knows, without her mother explaining, what is happening to her.
“Starborn…I’m a Starborn.”
“Yes, Lyra. You are.”
“But…my fur is turning black. That means…mother, what does that mean?”
Lyra’s voice breaks, her own tears of fright and disbelief threatening to overtake her. Even she, who so prides herself on never shedding tears just like her mother, is prey to sudden and violent change.
Cass’s paw slides itself up Lyra’s leg and rests on Lyra’s shoulder. She shakes her head, casting aside her tears, and says, “You were chosen by a god of the zodiac. It’s…it is an honor and a blessing.”
“Don’t spout crap like that to me, Cass,” Lyra hisses, unable to help herself.
Cass, to Lyra’s surprise, laughs.
“Using my name now? And I thought I was the nervous one,” Cass teases, flicking Lyra’s nose with a shaky tail tip.
“I don’t know how many more times I’ll get to say it to your face,” Lyra protests, her tears running free now.
Cass smiles gently. “As one of the Zodiacs,” she says. “You will have all the power of one of the old gods. Nothing can stop you from coming to see me whenever you like.”
“Even…even after I have outlived you?” Lyra asks, her voice trembling with grief. “Will they still let me come back to an old abandoned shack?”
A few silent moments slides away between them under the brightening rays of the sun, until Lyra finally asks, “They are going to come for me, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Cass answers without hesitation, guilt crawling inside of her from being unable to answer the last question. Immortality was not something she could speak of, since she herself knew nothing of that kind of loss. “In twelve days’ time, once your transformation is complete.”
Lyra wipes at her tears, turning her gaze up to the rising sun. “Should I be afraid?”
“No. The Zodiacs are not like the other Starborn. They hold themselves to a moral code, bound by the old god’s wishes. You will be safe,” Cass assures her daughter as much as she is assuring herself.
But the brightness of the sun does not burn away the grieving darkness inside Lyra’s stomach, so she bends over, burying her nose into her mother’s fur. “I don’t want to leave, Cass,” she whispers brokenly, not willing to let her sobs run free.
Cass’s eyes refill with tears, and she embraces her daughter, holding her tightly as the sun rises without signs of stopping into the sky.
“I will stay, Lyra. I will stay.”
chapter two: the zodiacs
“I don’t see any markings yet.”
“That’s because I’m not fully imbued yet, rice-brain.”
“Rice-brain? So now I’m a runt with a munchkin disorder with the brain the size of a grain of rice?”
“Yep.”
Andre and Lyra sit just outside the entrance to the shack, using the hanging roof as shade from the bright sun overhead.
“Is it really true that they have stardust in their fur?” Andre asks, perking up after a few moments of tense silence.
Lyra shrugs, unable to distinguish the shadows of the roof from her pelt. Nearly all of it is black now besides a single tabby patch on her forehead. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. Apparently Cass has though.”
“Really? I guess that makes sense, given that she knows so much about them.”
“Yeah.”
Andre sighs, nudging Lyra’s shoulder with his nose. “Don’t be so down. It’s unsettling. What happened to all of that energy you usually have?”
Lyra lightly shrugs, rubbing the spot where Andre nudged her with her paw. “I don’t know. It’s like it was all sucked up over these past few days.”
Andre’s yellow eyes soften, but he does not ask further about Lyra’s condition. Instead he looks across the harvested strawberry field that slopes down away from them, his eyes peering in between the bushes.
It is in that moment that they appear.
Two of them steadily walk up the main path toward the shack, their black fur swallowing up the sunlight and the multitude of colors around them. A kind of haze shimmers around them, like heat coming off of a human road or black roof top. And almost like a mirror, their fur reflects these lights, colors and shimmers it in a brilliant manner. It is not overbearing as to be blinding, but rather a soft sprinkle of star dust that twinkles just like the night sky.
But that is not all, as their forms become clearer as they near the shack, Lyra can identify glowing circles on their heads: the symbol for the sun. And then along each of their flanks, the stardust gathers into distinct patterns. The constellations of their gods. As the two zodiacs weave through the plants, Lyra can automatically identify who these two zodiacs are.
Aquarius and Taurus.
Despite the fear and uncertainty inside of her gut, Lyra can’t help but feel overly nervous about meeting them. Would they approve of her? Would they like her? Would they be offended that such a wild young cat raised in a decaying shack was chosen by one of the twelve old zodiac gods?
The Starborn come within a fox-length of the shack, stopping a respectable distance away from the shade, letting the light of the day shine upon their distinct features.
Taurus is a tom with a long, broad snout and tall, lean limbs. He stands over Aquarius like the intimidating stone statues that Lyra sometimes sees half buried around the village, like silent guardians waiting for their moment to be summoned to battle. His earthy green eyes are slightly slanted like his tall, triangular ears which barely twitch as a breeze moves through them. His expression is one of polite patience, his eyeballs lazily sweeping the farm without judgement.
Aquarius is a she-cat with a slender build and overly glossy pelt, as if she had once been a river pebble who was slowly polished by the waters of the Eridanus River over thousands of years. Her violet eyes speak volumes to her otherworldliness, despite the somewhat overly friendly grin she is plastering to her semi-rounded face.
“Hello, young ones!” Aquarius greets warmly, her smile, to Lyra, seeming forced. “We are here for the new Starborn.”
Lyra and Andre exchange a glance, both of their pelts slightly bristling in response to who stands before them. It is Andre, with a shake of his grey head, who prompts Lyra to take that first step forward.
“I am Starborn, Aquarius,” Lyra says with surprising calm.
Both Aquarius and Taurus’ eyes widen as she moves forward out of the shade of the shack, the zodiac’s green and violet eyes roaming over her new black pelt. Simultaneously, they both take a step towards Lyra, the expressions on their faces ones of awe and disbelief.
Lyra winces but remains where she is as the two Starborn get a closer look.
Being this close to them, Lyra can now feel their presence like a physical weight. It pushes against the bones of her body as if someone or something is leaning up against her. It’s like gravity, but instead of pulling her to them, it repels.
Aquarius backs off first, her head slightly shaking back and forth. Her violet eyes move away from Lyra, looking up at the sky with a searching look in them.
Taurus, after sniffing Lyra’s ears, backs off as well, but lowers his head so that he is eye level with Lyra. “I am Taurus,” he says by way of greeting, to which Lyra nods, swallowing back that intense feeling of repelling gravity. “What is your name?”
Lyra jolts, her tail lying flat against her hind leg. She already expected them to know her name, to know a lot about her actually, given their god-like natures. “I’m Lyra,” she answers quietly, not entirely sure if she should be looking at Taurus’ face or gazing into his intense green eyes.
Aquarius lowers her gaze from the sky, her mouth opening slightly. She comes closer once more, her violet eyes popping against the glowing white circle on her forehead and her midnight black fur. “Lyra…,” she murmurs, her tail-tip twitching as a soft smile begins to grow on her lips. “Whose golden touch could soften steel and stone, make tigers tame, and make monstrous leviathans forsake unsounded deeps to dance on stinging sands.”
Lyra’s heartbeat thunders in her chest, unable to rip her eyes away from Aquarius as the she-cat quotes some long forgotten poem or story.
Taurus smiles too, looking at Aquarius with a knowing glint to his gaze, his head nodding ever so slightly.
Aquarius nods back, her smile less forced and more genuine as she speaks once more to Lyra. “You will be coming with us, Lyra.”
Lyra dips her head, taking a deep breath in through her nose, and letting it out through her parted jaws. She turns to Andre, who had been silent through the entire exchange. He reveals nothing as he meets his sister’s eyes, though from the way his shoulders tense as Lyra leans down to nuzzle his cheek speaks volumes of his feelings on the matter.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of ridiculous laws I break, I will see you again, runt,” Lyra murmurs playfully in Andre’s ear, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to look at the shack behind them one second longer.
What am I even saying? Once a Starborn who is imbued by one of the zodiacs is taken away, they are never seen again. Everyone knows this.
Andre’s shoulders loosen slightly, a breathy laugh tickling her ear fur. “At least bring back a mate so I don’t have to spend so much time teasing you, sister,” he says right back, though his voice is straining to remain calm.
Lyra pulls back, her throat constricting, but she does not look at Andre again. She turns her back to her brother, her home and her future, and trails along after the two zodiacs whom lead the way down the path through the bare strawberry fields.
. . .
It isn’t until they reach the bottom of the hill that Cass appears.
Lyra’s mother pushes through the empty strawberry plants and slowly steps out into the middle of the dirt path, her white pelt glowing almost as brightly as the glittering sun symbols on the zodiac’s heads.
Instantly, Aquarius and Taurus stop moving and tense up on either side of Lyra, their expressions wary as Cass slowly walks towards them.
Lyra takes a deep, shaky breath. “Cass-”
“Stop! Do not come any closer,” Aquarius warns Cass, stepping in front of Lyra.
“Wait! Let her pass, she’s my mother,” Lyra insists, nearly pushing Aquarius away until she remembers that she is no normal cat and may just very well smite Lyra where she stands.
Cass’s amber eyes narrow as Aquarius carefully looks over her shoulder at Lyra, her gaze calculating but also sympathetic. “I am sorry, but we cannot risk your safety. You may speak with her, but she may not approach.”
“Why?” Lyra protests, her heart thumping loudly in her ears.
“Protocol,” Taurus says, his eyes unmoving from Cass’s position. “You are in a very vulnerable state, being not fully imbued yet. You can still die like any normal cat.”
“Why-?”
“Lyra, it’s ok. I am here to see you off, but I wanted to speak with them.”
Lyra’s face slackens with shock as Aquarius faces Cass once more, the Starborn’s head tilting slightly to one side. “What did you want to speak with us about?”
Cass’s eyes bounce between the faces of the zodiacs and her daughter, her body stiffening as she draws in a breath. She speaks upon release of that breath. “I’ve come to tell you my story, in hopes that you won’t let it happen again.”
Aquarius and Taurus exchange a glance, then return their attention to Cass.
“We are listening,” Taurus says.
“One star year ago, I prayed to my zodiac to help my mate come home,” Cass begins, lifting her chin. “I was pregnant at the time with Lyra, so my mate had gone out to hunt for me since I was too far along to do it myself.”
Lyra leans forward unconsciously, having never heard this story before about her father.
“A cyclone had come in without warning. The winds were strong enough to rip the roof off of the shack, so I had to take shelter with my friend Nightingale in her home. Lyra’s father hadn’t returned, and I feared he had been caught in the storm.
So I prayed, I begged, for you, Aquarius, to protect him.”
Aquarius’s spine stiffens, her shimmering pelt seeming to dull just slightly.
“But you didn’t come. No one did…not until it was too late.”
Lyra begins to feel her eyes stinging, but she can’t discern yet what emotion is provoking them. Is it shock? Betrayal? Anger? Fear? The only thing she knew about her father’s death was that it had happened before her birth. She had never been given details.
“A tom came to Nightingale’s home, soaked and chilled to the bone, covered in so much stinking mud that I couldn’t distinguish the symbols on his black pelt, or what god he represented. But he…he brought my mate to me…he brought me what was left of him after a Starborn had attacked him during the storm.”
At this Taurus swings his head to Aquarius, but Aquarius does not acknowledge the question in his eyes.
“It was your duty,” Cass spits. “Not that brave tom who I knew was one of you, because he suffered wounds he should not have healed from, and bled blood the color of gold. I never got to thank him, but the entire time he was there with us giving time for his body to stitch itself back together, he only ever said one thing: ‘I’m sorry’.”
Lyra finally gasps, her breath hitching as her emotions overcome her. “Mother, why did you never-?”
“You must promise me, Aquarius, that you will not fail my daughter like you did my mate. Because if you do, and my Lyra dies, I don’t think I can stop myself from what comes after,” Cass growls, her amber eyes becoming smoldering pits of rage and grief.
“Are you threatening a zodiac?” Taurus hisses, his claws slowly coming out of their sockets.
Cass tail trembles, but she lifts her chin a hair-length higher. “No, I’m threatening a deserter.”
“I swear.” Aquarius takes a step towards Lyra’s mother, her voice steady. “I swear upon my immortal life, that I will protect Lyra with all the power bestowed upon me by the great god Aquarius, and with every ounce of physical and mental strength passed down to me by my own mother and father, may they rest eternally among the stars.”
Taurus sheathes his claws, his eyes widening a fraction. “You didn’t have to give her an oath, Aquarius.”
“Yes, I did,” Aquarius says quietly, not lowering her eyes from Cass’s. “I failed her once. I will not fail her again.”
Cass’s shoulders slump, and she sighs. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I haven’t earned your gratitude.” Aquarius then walks around Cass, keeping a healthy distance between them as she continues on down the path, as if the confrontation had never happened.
. . .
Lyra’s mind reels as she follows the two zodiacs alongside the Eridanus after saying goodbye to Cass. They stop every once in a while to let Lyra drink or relieve herself as they trek under the oppressive weight of the sun and the humidity it brings with it. Every pore on Lyra’s body feels like it’s being squeezed for each and every drop of moisture they ever held, making her pelt feel slick, slimy and simply awful. What she really wants to do is jump into the river, but she would rather drown herself first then embarrass herself in front of these god-like cats.
What truly pains Lyra, more than the sweat weighing down her pelt, is what she heard about her father and Aquarius from her mother.
My father could have been saved. My mother prayed to Aquarius, but she didn’t answer. Why? The zodiacs are supposed to act in the old god’s stead, caring for the ones born under their sign. They are supposed to hear every prayer, no matter how small or large, important or trivial…surely a cat in danger would have prompted Aquarius to follow the source and take action?
“Lyra, we will not be arriving to the Godspire until this evening…if you need us to stop for any reason, even just to rest, please let us know,” Aquarius says, her violet eyes gentle as they roam over Lyra’s almost black fur.
Lyra dips her head, dropping her gaze to her unrecognizable paws as they stir the green grass she walks upon. “Thanks.”
“You must have a lot of questions,” Taurus says then, falling into step with Lyra and keeping a steady space. “I would be happy to answer some of them now for you.”
Lyra looks up at him. “They’re stupid questions, really.”
Taurus shakes his head. “No question is stupid, Lyra. Please, ask away.”
Lyra’s tail twitches, her gaze roaming to her right where the river Eridanus flows lazily past, the sunlight making the watery surface sparkle.
“Why are we following the Eridanus? I heard…I heard that the Godspire was in the clouds.”
Aquarius, who is still walking ahead, lets out a snorting chuckle.
Taurus frowns. “Aquarius-”
“Sorry!” Aquarius says, her ears flattening in embarrassment. “I have forgotten how warped the truth becomes from the mouths of normal cats.”
Lyra glares at the ground. “My mother told me about it.”
Aquarius is silent.
“There is some truth to that,” Taurus offers after a few tense moments of silence. “The Godspire is very tall. At the top you can stand among the clouds, but it is attached to the ground like any tree or mountain.”
Lyra’s ears stand up at that. “Really? What about the stars? Are they closer too?”
Taurus smiles, sensing her excitement. “Yes, they are closer as well. As close as you can get without sprouting wings.”
Lyra nods, suppressing her facial expression to one of indifference. She won’t be telling them that the first thing she will do when darkness falls is run away to the top of the Godspire and spend all night stargazing, keeping as much distance between herself and the god’s below.
. . .
Evening comes faster than Lyra expects. Her heart hammers nervously in her chest as she and the zodiacs crest the final hill on their journey to the Godspire.
Lyra doesn’t gasp at the sight that reveals itself in the mist and ethereal glow of starlight. It is shock and wonder that she feels so overwhelmingly that ties her tongue from moving.
Below them, rising from bright red rocks in the earth, the Godspire pierces the heavens, its slender shape cutting the moon in half in the sky. Lyra has to tilt her head all the way back to even get a glimpse of the tiny point that must be the top Taurus told her about. The most stunning view that she will soon feast upon with her eyes.
The Godspire appears to be made of silver and grey rock, the moonlight giving the structure’s lighter surfaces a slight shimmer, but casting the rest of it in intimidating shadow. The base is wide enough to hold hundreds of shacks worth of walking space, and the spire tapers gently enough that Lyra imagines at the top there is plenty of space to lounge around underneath the brilliant night sky.
“It still takes my breath away,” Aquarius murmurs, her violet eyes wide as she takes in the sight. “It is the one constant thing in my life as a zodiac.” Aquarius turns to look at Lyra, the wind lightly ruffing the Starborn’s sparkling fur. “I hope it brings you some comfort.”
Lyra meets the zodiac’s gaze, and a tiny part of her aching heart eases. “Thank you, Aquarius…I…I actually wanted to ask another question.”
Aquarius nods, giving Lyra a small, barely noticeable hopeful smile. “Of course. What is it that you wanted to ask?”
“It’s about what my mother said,” Lyra says, her heart beat picking up its pace inside of her rib cage. “I wanted to know why…why you didn’t answer her prayer?”
Aquarius opens her mouth to reply, but is interrupted by Taurus. “We should wait to discuss that when you meet the others.”
Lyra looks between Taurus and Aquarius, her eyes wide and pleading. Aquarius only nods, taking in a shaky breath and looking away from Lyra. “Alright.”
Without another word, the three cats descend onto the Godspire, the details of the rock becoming clearer and clearer with every step they take.
It isn’t until Lyra is in the spire’s shadow that she notices one particular detail that outlines the arched entryway into the Godspire.
Two giant pillars, and a giant serpent.
The pillars are very tall and very thick, perfect for the gargantuan size of the Godspire. The right pillar is like the rest of the stone that makes up the spire, but the other is like the red rock that the Godspire comes out of: bright red, with thick dark, parallel lines running through it.
Entwined around the pillars is an equally giant, glittering pearl colored serpent whose scales clink like jewels against the stone. Its face is the thing of dreams and nightmares, full of long, pale scars and cracked scales. In the middle of its forehead, a star shaped cluster of gem-like scales remains untouched, and glows brighter than the rest of the scales on its body. Lyra’s eyes are drawn to it instinctively, unable to rip her eyes away from the star-crowned serpent.
The serpent leans forward, coming further out of the shadows, and shows off another crown of two branch-like horns protruding from either side of its head. Upon them are thousands of strange markings that Lyra cannot make sense of, but their dark, soot color makes her wary of how the creature got them.
Lyra stops as the serpent stills a few tail-lengths above the rocky ground, its milky eyes staring straight at her.
“Do not be afraid. She is friendly,” Aquarius assures Lyra, waving her tail up at the serpent. “Her name is Ningishzida. She is the protector of the Godspire and the Pillars of Knowledge. She is also the one that retains the history of the old gods and the zodiacs.”
“You can also just call her Nin for short,” Taurus whispers in Lyra’s ear with a soft, humorous chuckle. “She is just an oversized guard dog.”
Ningishzida, or Nin, hisses loudly, flashing her terrifyingly long fangs in Taurus’s direction.
Taurus rears back, his black ears flattening as he winces. “Sorry, Nin! You know I did not mean it.”
Nin seems to accept the apology as she pulls back, returning her horns to the darkest part of the shadows beneath the Godspire. Her eyes also return to Lyra, where they remain as Lyra turns to face her two escorts.
“She’s staring at me,” Lyra hisses at them.
Aquarius’s forehead stretches upwards, while Taurus laughs.
“She knows you are not fully imbued yet,” Aquarius explains. “She will not take her eyes off of you until the transformation is complete to insure the safety of the others inside.”
And what could I possibly do to harm a zodiac, let alone a spire full of them?
“I think she’s eyeing me because she wants to eat me,” Lyra mutters, her fur crawling at the pressure of the giant creature’s gaze.
Amusement twinkles in Aquarius’s violet eyes, swiping at her muzzle with her paw. “Do not fret. Nin has not eaten flesh in thousands of star years.”
Lyra tilts her head. “Then…what does she eat? I mean, she has to eat, right?”
“She feasts on knowledge.” Taurus nods up at the serpent, a thoughtful smile on his rectangular muzzle. “It is believed that she was once a normal snake until she happened upon the pillars and realized she could read the words on them. By reading the ancient secrets, she was transformed.”
“Right…” Lyra turns to face Nin, narrowing her eyes. She’ll make sure to never go through the entrance alone, and hopes that if Nin decides that she is hungry for something more than words, Lyra will appear the least tasty of the passerby’s.
Aquarius gestures with her tail at the ground. “Now we sleep, Lyra, until you are truly Starborn.”
“I have to sleep with that thing watching me?” Lyra looks between the entrance and Aquarius, pure disbelief coating her words.
The thing rattles her scales, the sound echoing off of the rocks around them.
Aquarius finds a clear space of soft dirt up against a boulder a few tail-lengths away, turning around in a few circles before settling down. “Would you rather try to go past her while you are still mortal?”
Lyra gulps, fear running rampant up and down her spine, turning it to water. “Nope. I’m good. Sleeping on some rocks sounds great.” She briskly walks up to Aquarius and settles into the cool ground a mouse-length away.
Taurus laughs, his head tilting back. “I like this one, Aquarius. I hope the Bull gave her his gifts.”
Aquarius grins, the first genuine one Lyra has seen the she-cat give. “She is more likely to have been blessed by the Water Bearer. The Bull is simply too lazy to pick up such an expressive she-cat,” Aquarius teases.
Lyra watches as Taurus approaches and settles next to Aquarius, their pelts blending into each other’s. Aquarius casually leans against his shoulder and laughs, continuing to teasingly argue with him about how much more beneficial it would be for Lyra to be imbued by her old god than his. He retorts right back, his green eyes flashing with every point he makes.
Lyra almost smiles. Watching them reminds her of how Cass interacts with her best friends, Dessryia and Nightingale. She too would lounge around with them and talk to them about the silliest things. They were not related by blood, and yet they loved each other just as well, if not more than real sisters.
Lyra lowers her head to her paws and closes her eyes, praying for the first and last time to Aries-her zodiac-that she too will find friends among strangers.
. . .
That night, Lyra dreams of another horned creature of god-like visage, with a star shaped crown of flames floating above its head. The fire blazes brightly, dancing erratically like the wings of a hummingbird.
You must finally choose, star of the moon, if this is something you are prepared to accept.
Before her eyelids flash images of cats struggling to find food and shelter, cats being torn apart by predators, cats drowning from floods and being captured by humans, and cats dying from horrible diseases. She also sees Starborn using their powers to take advantage of the normal cats, using whatever terrible power they have inherited from the lesser of the old gods. Their pelts are not black like the zodiacs, making them near impossible to distinguish from others unless they use their gifts.
Then, playing more steadily before her eyes, is a scene she can barely wrap her head around. The twelve zodiacs gathered in what looks to be a giant open space in the Godspire, their heads bowed, their expressions ones of defeat, grief, and rage. A few outright cry or scream, but Lyra doesn’t understand why. What do the zodiac have to grieve about?
They need you, Lyra. You can help them all.
The images fade, and Lyra is left with the foggy image of the fiery horned beast before her. A sense of recognition and awareness settles into her bones, her flesh, and her skin. She knows this creature. She saw it in a dream long ago weeping tears of relief and joy.
“You’re Aries…”
I heard you’re prayer like a whisper on a dying wind.
Lyra opens and closes her mouth, unable to form words. She continues to gaze up at the flame, the horns, the broad muscular shoulders and senses decay in the god’s eyes.
“Shouldn’t you be dead?”
Gods do not die. They simply cease to exist.
Lyra shakes her head, her eyes narrowing. Aren’t those two concepts the same?
Will you accept this power?
“I didn’t know I had a choice,” Lyra tells the God, her eyes widening. “I could go back home? I can be normal?”
There is no such thing as ‘normal’, Lyra. There is only the difference between being powerful and being powerless. But yes, you could return to the strawberry farm with your mother and brother and live out the rest of your life in relative peace.
“But you showed me that the zodiacs need my help…and if I help them, I help others who are like me. I could help stop things that harm others, like what happened to my father. I could stop that?”
The god nods solemnly.
“I could stop that,” Lyra whispers in wonder. “I can stop it.”
And will you? Will you help those in need? Will you answer the prayers of those born under my starlight?
Lyra breathes in deeply, that familiar restless energy beginning to grow in her limbs, her stomach and her heart. She feels like she could run to the top of the Godspire, swim down the entire length of the Eridanus, and maybe, run across the entire world, helping those who were once like her.
“I think I will be taking your powers now,” Lyra says, grinning from ear to ear.
The god bellows with laughter, smoke rising from its nostrils as it paws the ground with a giant hoof. Then it is done! Long live Lyra, the lunar Aries!
chapter three: aries
Star Lecture #4
Star Year 3336
One of her friends, a young dusty brown she-cat, curls around the mother’s head. The she-cat brushes her tail in long, gentle strokes down the mother’s rapidly rising flanks and looks up at the holes in the walls, her ears twitching as she listens to the whistling sound the wind makes as it passes through them.
“Do you want us to move you into the field, Cass?” She asks the mother gently.
Cass shakes her head weakly, sweat dampening her pretty white fur. “No. I don’t want…my child to be born…under stars,” she grunts through her contractions, leaning forwards and burying her head between her front paws, taking several slow breaths in.
The wind picks up outside, causing the walls of the wooden shack to shudder and creak loudly.
“But…why wouldn’t you?” The dusty she-cat asks Cass, her head tilting slightly to the left, the light from the stars through the holes in the roof giving just enough silvery light to help discern the look of concern on her face.
Cass moans loudly, prompting another she-cat, a black and white tuxedo, to come forward and dab Cass’s forehead with damp ferns.
“Don’t press it, Dessyria,” the black and white she-cat warns her, giving the dusty brown she-cat a stern look with her almond shaped eyes. “Cass has a very good reason to not want her child to become a Starborn.”
“But it is a blessing to receive the powers of the old gods, Nightingale!” Dessyria protests with a quiet hiss, continuing her long strokes on Cass’s flank. “All mother’s pray for a clear night such as this one to give birth under.”
Nightingale shakes her head sadly, turning her gaze back to Cass’s panting form, wiping another water soaked fern onto her forehead. “Not Cass. Not after she saw how the old god’s power turns cats into something that they’re not.”
Dessyria frowns. “Not all Starborn are like the ones who attacked her or her mate, Nightingale. You should know that better than anyone, given your mate is a Lupus.”
“Pl-please,” Cass gasps, the muscles in her flank tensing violently, steeling her breath. “Plug up the holes…no…no stars must see.”
Dessyria looks down at Cass, the nighttime lights highlighting the frustration in her dark yellow eyes. “The stars won’t shine down on this birth, Cass. You don’t need to worry about a few holes.”
Nightingale clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, giving Dessyria a disapproving glare. “Do as she asks, Dessyria. You can at least do that.”
Dessyria sighs, but slowly and carefully stands, settling Cass’s head onto the dry grass nest beneath her. “Fine. Give me some moss at least so I can plug them up,” she says.
As Nightingale passes a giant clump of damp moss to Dessyria, the wind once again rolls against the shack, causing the walls to shake and groan. Cass screams as the wind howls. She is close to the end now.
Nightingale shoes Dessyria along with a hurried flick of her tail. “Hurry, hurry!”
Dessyria starts with the highest holes she can reach, tearing the moss ball apart and stuffing it in the holes and cracks in the wood.
A few minutes later, Nightingale cries out in excitement. “I can see your kit, Cass!” She exclaims from her place at the queen’s haunches, resting one white paw on Cass’s hind leg. “Just one more push and it will be done.”
Cass raises her head, her whole neck shaking with the effort. “Really? Can you see the gender yet?”
“One more push,” Nightingale encourages. “Then we will know.”
Cass nods, shutting her eyes and laying her head back down on the grass nest. She breathes in deeply, and then pushes as she exhales.
Dessyria is plugging the last hole when Cass’s kit takes its first crying breath. A loud, shrill, strong cry; a sign of the kit’s apparent health and vigor.
Dessyria drops her moss and scampers over to Cass’s side, leaning over Nightingale’s shoulder as the black and white she-cat vigorously cleans the new kit’s light orange tabby and white fur.
“Oh, my!” Dessyria cries quietly in awe. “She looks just like her father.”
“She?” Cass says weakly, unable to lift her head up to see for herself.
Nightingale purrs, bringing the freshly bathed kit over to her mother, setting the orange tabby down at the damp fur of Cass’s belly. “Yes. A beautiful she-cat. Your mate would have been proud.”
Tears spring up into Cass’s feverish honey amber eyes as she lays them upon her daughter for the first time. It is true as her friends say, the kit is an almost exact copy of her father.
“Oh…oh,” she gets out as her tears run faster. She curls around her daughter’s tiny body, burying her soft pink nose into the drying kitten fur. She breathes in her kits scent, trying her best to hold back the sobs that want to push through her throat. Her daughter even carries the same caramel scent that Cass’s mate did.
Dessyria and Nightingale lean into each other, their physical and emotional exhaustion coming over them. They too have tears in their eyes, both from sadness for the tom who should have been greeting his newborn child this beautiful starry night, and with happiness for the mother who got a piece of her one true love back.
Dessyria speaks up, keeping her voice low. “What will you name her, Cass?”
“I will name her Lyra,” Cass murmurs loud enough for her two friends to hear. Her entire being seems to focus on her daughter who is snuggling deeply into her white pelt.
“Lyra,” Nightingale and Dessyria murmur together, welcoming their friend’s daughter into the world.
The wind rips into the sides of the shack, the wooden boards creaking in protest. High on the walls, one singular hole is freed from the moss ball that plugs it, letting a small chunk of the night sky shine into the shack without the three she-cats below noticing. The glow from the circle of stars falls upon the tiny body of Lyra, her orange tabby fur drinking in its cold light. This particular set of stars is a constellation that falls between east and west, and represents the head of a horned beast.
The old god who had once walked on the same ground that Lyra now lies upon, and who dwells in that constellation which winks at the young kit, weeps in relief as his power seeps into her fur, given breath by the light of the full moon.
Running through the strawberry fields, Lyra kicks up rich brown dirt behind her, her pelt flattening against her flanks. Her energy surges within her limbs, propelling her on and on down the various steppes and rows of tiny white flower bushes bursting with ripe, red fruit.
It is not until, at the first rays of dawn, when a small, gentle paw shakes her awake that she is once more conscious.
“Lyra…Lyra, wake up.”
Lyra groans, the stone surprisingly warm beneath her.
“Mother?”
It is her mother, Cass, who shakes her. It is her eyes though, not her handling of Lyra’s shoulder, that forces Lyra’s eyes to fly open.
Her mother has never shed tears. Her mother is gentle, yes. Maybe even a bit too wound up in her emotions and paranoia, but she is resistant. She is tough. Lyra’s mother is a beautiful wild strawberry flower without weeds or thorns in its roots. Even though, from what Dessyria and Nightingale, two of her mother’s best friends, have told her, her mother’s past was not a happy one.
Yet, here she is, crying. Clean, crystal water weaving in between her mother’s messy white fur. From how red her eyes are, nearly bloodshot, Lyra assumes her mother has been crying for some time.
“Momma…,” Lyra breathes, as if afraid that this is all not a dream.
Cass slowly and gently touches her paw to Lyra’s foreleg, her amber irises shaking at whatever they see.
Lyra looks down then, her own amber eyes widening.
Black. From the end of her paw up to her shoulder…her fur has been stained black.
Cass brushes her paw along the new black fur, her white paw trembling. “You're in the process of being…,” she pauses, swallowing thickly, lifting her eyes back to her daughter’s. “Of being imbued by a god.”
Lyra’s heart bursts, her pulse scrambling away from her like the rice field mice do when she hunts them. She knows, without her mother explaining, what is happening to her.
“Starborn…I’m a Starborn.”
“Yes, Lyra. You are.”
“But…my fur is turning black. That means…mother, what does that mean?”
Lyra’s voice breaks, her own tears of fright and disbelief threatening to overtake her. Even she, who so prides herself on never shedding tears just like her mother, is prey to sudden and violent change.
Cass’s paw slides itself up Lyra’s leg and rests on Lyra’s shoulder. She shakes her head, casting aside her tears, and says, “You were chosen by a god of the zodiac. It’s…it is an honor and a blessing.”
“Don’t spout crap like that to me, Cass,” Lyra hisses, unable to help herself.
Cass, to Lyra’s surprise, laughs.
“Using my name now? And I thought I was the nervous one,” Cass teases, flicking Lyra’s nose with a shaky tail tip.
“I don’t know how many more times I’ll get to say it to your face,” Lyra protests, her tears running free now.
Cass smiles gently. “As one of the Zodiacs,” she says. “You will have all the power of one of the old gods. Nothing can stop you from coming to see me whenever you like.”
“Even…even after I have outlived you?” Lyra asks, her voice trembling with grief. “Will they still let me come back to an old abandoned shack?”
A few silent moments slides away between them under the brightening rays of the sun, until Lyra finally asks, “They are going to come for me, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Cass answers without hesitation, guilt crawling inside of her from being unable to answer the last question. Immortality was not something she could speak of, since she herself knew nothing of that kind of loss. “In twelve days’ time, once your transformation is complete.”
Lyra wipes at her tears, turning her gaze up to the rising sun. “Should I be afraid?”
“No. The Zodiacs are not like the other Starborn. They hold themselves to a moral code, bound by the old god’s wishes. You will be safe,” Cass assures her daughter as much as she is assuring herself.
But the brightness of the sun does not burn away the grieving darkness inside Lyra’s stomach, so she bends over, burying her nose into her mother’s fur. “I don’t want to leave, Cass,” she whispers brokenly, not willing to let her sobs run free.
Cass’s eyes refill with tears, and she embraces her daughter, holding her tightly as the sun rises without signs of stopping into the sky.
“I will stay, Lyra. I will stay.”
“Rice-brain? So now I’m a runt with a munchkin disorder with the brain the size of a grain of rice?”
“Yep.”
Andre and Lyra sit just outside the entrance to the shack, using the hanging roof as shade from the bright sun overhead.
“Is it really true that they have stardust in their fur?” Andre asks, perking up after a few moments of tense silence.
Lyra shrugs, unable to distinguish the shadows of the roof from her pelt. Nearly all of it is black now besides a single tabby patch on her forehead. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. Apparently Cass has though.”
“Really? I guess that makes sense, given that she knows so much about them.”
“Yeah.”
Andre sighs, nudging Lyra’s shoulder with his nose. “Don’t be so down. It’s unsettling. What happened to all of that energy you usually have?”
Lyra lightly shrugs, rubbing the spot where Andre nudged her with her paw. “I don’t know. It’s like it was all sucked up over these past few days.”
Andre’s yellow eyes soften, but he does not ask further about Lyra’s condition. Instead he looks across the harvested strawberry field that slopes down away from them, his eyes peering in between the bushes.
It is in that moment that they appear.
Two of them steadily walk up the main path toward the shack, their black fur swallowing up the sunlight and the multitude of colors around them. A kind of haze shimmers around them, like heat coming off of a human road or black roof top. And almost like a mirror, their fur reflects these lights, colors and shimmers it in a brilliant manner. It is not overbearing as to be blinding, but rather a soft sprinkle of star dust that twinkles just like the night sky.
But that is not all, as their forms become clearer as they near the shack, Lyra can identify glowing circles on their heads: the symbol for the sun. And then along each of their flanks, the stardust gathers into distinct patterns. The constellations of their gods. As the two zodiacs weave through the plants, Lyra can automatically identify who these two zodiacs are.
Aquarius and Taurus.
Despite the fear and uncertainty inside of her gut, Lyra can’t help but feel overly nervous about meeting them. Would they approve of her? Would they like her? Would they be offended that such a wild young cat raised in a decaying shack was chosen by one of the twelve old zodiac gods?
The Starborn come within a fox-length of the shack, stopping a respectable distance away from the shade, letting the light of the day shine upon their distinct features.
Taurus is a tom with a long, broad snout and tall, lean limbs. He stands over Aquarius like the intimidating stone statues that Lyra sometimes sees half buried around the village, like silent guardians waiting for their moment to be summoned to battle. His earthy green eyes are slightly slanted like his tall, triangular ears which barely twitch as a breeze moves through them. His expression is one of polite patience, his eyeballs lazily sweeping the farm without judgement.
Aquarius is a she-cat with a slender build and overly glossy pelt, as if she had once been a river pebble who was slowly polished by the waters of the Eridanus River over thousands of years. Her violet eyes speak volumes to her otherworldliness, despite the somewhat overly friendly grin she is plastering to her semi-rounded face.
“Hello, young ones!” Aquarius greets warmly, her smile, to Lyra, seeming forced. “We are here for the new Starborn.”
Lyra and Andre exchange a glance, both of their pelts slightly bristling in response to who stands before them. It is Andre, with a shake of his grey head, who prompts Lyra to take that first step forward.
“I am Starborn, Aquarius,” Lyra says with surprising calm.
Both Aquarius and Taurus’ eyes widen as she moves forward out of the shade of the shack, the zodiac’s green and violet eyes roaming over her new black pelt. Simultaneously, they both take a step towards Lyra, the expressions on their faces ones of awe and disbelief.
Lyra winces but remains where she is as the two Starborn get a closer look.
Being this close to them, Lyra can now feel their presence like a physical weight. It pushes against the bones of her body as if someone or something is leaning up against her. It’s like gravity, but instead of pulling her to them, it repels.
Aquarius backs off first, her head slightly shaking back and forth. Her violet eyes move away from Lyra, looking up at the sky with a searching look in them.
Taurus, after sniffing Lyra’s ears, backs off as well, but lowers his head so that he is eye level with Lyra. “I am Taurus,” he says by way of greeting, to which Lyra nods, swallowing back that intense feeling of repelling gravity. “What is your name?”
Lyra jolts, her tail lying flat against her hind leg. She already expected them to know her name, to know a lot about her actually, given their god-like natures. “I’m Lyra,” she answers quietly, not entirely sure if she should be looking at Taurus’ face or gazing into his intense green eyes.
Aquarius lowers her gaze from the sky, her mouth opening slightly. She comes closer once more, her violet eyes popping against the glowing white circle on her forehead and her midnight black fur. “Lyra…,” she murmurs, her tail-tip twitching as a soft smile begins to grow on her lips. “Whose golden touch could soften steel and stone, make tigers tame, and make monstrous leviathans forsake unsounded deeps to dance on stinging sands.”
Lyra’s heartbeat thunders in her chest, unable to rip her eyes away from Aquarius as the she-cat quotes some long forgotten poem or story.
Taurus smiles too, looking at Aquarius with a knowing glint to his gaze, his head nodding ever so slightly.
Aquarius nods back, her smile less forced and more genuine as she speaks once more to Lyra. “You will be coming with us, Lyra.”
Lyra dips her head, taking a deep breath in through her nose, and letting it out through her parted jaws. She turns to Andre, who had been silent through the entire exchange. He reveals nothing as he meets his sister’s eyes, though from the way his shoulders tense as Lyra leans down to nuzzle his cheek speaks volumes of his feelings on the matter.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of ridiculous laws I break, I will see you again, runt,” Lyra murmurs playfully in Andre’s ear, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to look at the shack behind them one second longer.
What am I even saying? Once a Starborn who is imbued by one of the zodiacs is taken away, they are never seen again. Everyone knows this.
Andre’s shoulders loosen slightly, a breathy laugh tickling her ear fur. “At least bring back a mate so I don’t have to spend so much time teasing you, sister,” he says right back, though his voice is straining to remain calm.
Lyra pulls back, her throat constricting, but she does not look at Andre again. She turns her back to her brother, her home and her future, and trails along after the two zodiacs whom lead the way down the path through the bare strawberry fields.
. . .
It isn’t until they reach the bottom of the hill that Cass appears.
Lyra’s mother pushes through the empty strawberry plants and slowly steps out into the middle of the dirt path, her white pelt glowing almost as brightly as the glittering sun symbols on the zodiac’s heads.
Instantly, Aquarius and Taurus stop moving and tense up on either side of Lyra, their expressions wary as Cass slowly walks towards them.
Lyra takes a deep, shaky breath. “Cass-”
“Stop! Do not come any closer,” Aquarius warns Cass, stepping in front of Lyra.
“Wait! Let her pass, she’s my mother,” Lyra insists, nearly pushing Aquarius away until she remembers that she is no normal cat and may just very well smite Lyra where she stands.
Cass’s amber eyes narrow as Aquarius carefully looks over her shoulder at Lyra, her gaze calculating but also sympathetic. “I am sorry, but we cannot risk your safety. You may speak with her, but she may not approach.”
“Why?” Lyra protests, her heart thumping loudly in her ears.
“Protocol,” Taurus says, his eyes unmoving from Cass’s position. “You are in a very vulnerable state, being not fully imbued yet. You can still die like any normal cat.”
“Why-?”
“Lyra, it’s ok. I am here to see you off, but I wanted to speak with them.”
Lyra’s face slackens with shock as Aquarius faces Cass once more, the Starborn’s head tilting slightly to one side. “What did you want to speak with us about?”
Cass’s eyes bounce between the faces of the zodiacs and her daughter, her body stiffening as she draws in a breath. She speaks upon release of that breath. “I’ve come to tell you my story, in hopes that you won’t let it happen again.”
Aquarius and Taurus exchange a glance, then return their attention to Cass.
“We are listening,” Taurus says.
“One star year ago, I prayed to my zodiac to help my mate come home,” Cass begins, lifting her chin. “I was pregnant at the time with Lyra, so my mate had gone out to hunt for me since I was too far along to do it myself.”
Lyra leans forward unconsciously, having never heard this story before about her father.
“A cyclone had come in without warning. The winds were strong enough to rip the roof off of the shack, so I had to take shelter with my friend Nightingale in her home. Lyra’s father hadn’t returned, and I feared he had been caught in the storm.
So I prayed, I begged, for you, Aquarius, to protect him.”
Aquarius’s spine stiffens, her shimmering pelt seeming to dull just slightly.
“But you didn’t come. No one did…not until it was too late.”
Lyra begins to feel her eyes stinging, but she can’t discern yet what emotion is provoking them. Is it shock? Betrayal? Anger? Fear? The only thing she knew about her father’s death was that it had happened before her birth. She had never been given details.
“A tom came to Nightingale’s home, soaked and chilled to the bone, covered in so much stinking mud that I couldn’t distinguish the symbols on his black pelt, or what god he represented. But he…he brought my mate to me…he brought me what was left of him after a Starborn had attacked him during the storm.”
At this Taurus swings his head to Aquarius, but Aquarius does not acknowledge the question in his eyes.
“It was your duty,” Cass spits. “Not that brave tom who I knew was one of you, because he suffered wounds he should not have healed from, and bled blood the color of gold. I never got to thank him, but the entire time he was there with us giving time for his body to stitch itself back together, he only ever said one thing: ‘I’m sorry’.”
Lyra finally gasps, her breath hitching as her emotions overcome her. “Mother, why did you never-?”
“You must promise me, Aquarius, that you will not fail my daughter like you did my mate. Because if you do, and my Lyra dies, I don’t think I can stop myself from what comes after,” Cass growls, her amber eyes becoming smoldering pits of rage and grief.
“Are you threatening a zodiac?” Taurus hisses, his claws slowly coming out of their sockets.
Cass tail trembles, but she lifts her chin a hair-length higher. “No, I’m threatening a deserter.”
“I swear.” Aquarius takes a step towards Lyra’s mother, her voice steady. “I swear upon my immortal life, that I will protect Lyra with all the power bestowed upon me by the great god Aquarius, and with every ounce of physical and mental strength passed down to me by my own mother and father, may they rest eternally among the stars.”
Taurus sheathes his claws, his eyes widening a fraction. “You didn’t have to give her an oath, Aquarius.”
“Yes, I did,” Aquarius says quietly, not lowering her eyes from Cass’s. “I failed her once. I will not fail her again.”
Cass’s shoulders slump, and she sighs. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I haven’t earned your gratitude.” Aquarius then walks around Cass, keeping a healthy distance between them as she continues on down the path, as if the confrontation had never happened.
. . .
Lyra’s mind reels as she follows the two zodiacs alongside the Eridanus after saying goodbye to Cass. They stop every once in a while to let Lyra drink or relieve herself as they trek under the oppressive weight of the sun and the humidity it brings with it. Every pore on Lyra’s body feels like it’s being squeezed for each and every drop of moisture they ever held, making her pelt feel slick, slimy and simply awful. What she really wants to do is jump into the river, but she would rather drown herself first then embarrass herself in front of these god-like cats.
What truly pains Lyra, more than the sweat weighing down her pelt, is what she heard about her father and Aquarius from her mother.
My father could have been saved. My mother prayed to Aquarius, but she didn’t answer. Why? The zodiacs are supposed to act in the old god’s stead, caring for the ones born under their sign. They are supposed to hear every prayer, no matter how small or large, important or trivial…surely a cat in danger would have prompted Aquarius to follow the source and take action?
“Lyra, we will not be arriving to the Godspire until this evening…if you need us to stop for any reason, even just to rest, please let us know,” Aquarius says, her violet eyes gentle as they roam over Lyra’s almost black fur.
Lyra dips her head, dropping her gaze to her unrecognizable paws as they stir the green grass she walks upon. “Thanks.”
“You must have a lot of questions,” Taurus says then, falling into step with Lyra and keeping a steady space. “I would be happy to answer some of them now for you.”
Lyra looks up at him. “They’re stupid questions, really.”
Taurus shakes his head. “No question is stupid, Lyra. Please, ask away.”
Lyra’s tail twitches, her gaze roaming to her right where the river Eridanus flows lazily past, the sunlight making the watery surface sparkle.
“Why are we following the Eridanus? I heard…I heard that the Godspire was in the clouds.”
Aquarius, who is still walking ahead, lets out a snorting chuckle.
Taurus frowns. “Aquarius-”
“Sorry!” Aquarius says, her ears flattening in embarrassment. “I have forgotten how warped the truth becomes from the mouths of normal cats.”
Lyra glares at the ground. “My mother told me about it.”
Aquarius is silent.
“There is some truth to that,” Taurus offers after a few tense moments of silence. “The Godspire is very tall. At the top you can stand among the clouds, but it is attached to the ground like any tree or mountain.”
Lyra’s ears stand up at that. “Really? What about the stars? Are they closer too?”
Taurus smiles, sensing her excitement. “Yes, they are closer as well. As close as you can get without sprouting wings.”
Lyra nods, suppressing her facial expression to one of indifference. She won’t be telling them that the first thing she will do when darkness falls is run away to the top of the Godspire and spend all night stargazing, keeping as much distance between herself and the god’s below.
. . .
Evening comes faster than Lyra expects. Her heart hammers nervously in her chest as she and the zodiacs crest the final hill on their journey to the Godspire.
Lyra doesn’t gasp at the sight that reveals itself in the mist and ethereal glow of starlight. It is shock and wonder that she feels so overwhelmingly that ties her tongue from moving.
Below them, rising from bright red rocks in the earth, the Godspire pierces the heavens, its slender shape cutting the moon in half in the sky. Lyra has to tilt her head all the way back to even get a glimpse of the tiny point that must be the top Taurus told her about. The most stunning view that she will soon feast upon with her eyes.
The Godspire appears to be made of silver and grey rock, the moonlight giving the structure’s lighter surfaces a slight shimmer, but casting the rest of it in intimidating shadow. The base is wide enough to hold hundreds of shacks worth of walking space, and the spire tapers gently enough that Lyra imagines at the top there is plenty of space to lounge around underneath the brilliant night sky.
“It still takes my breath away,” Aquarius murmurs, her violet eyes wide as she takes in the sight. “It is the one constant thing in my life as a zodiac.” Aquarius turns to look at Lyra, the wind lightly ruffing the Starborn’s sparkling fur. “I hope it brings you some comfort.”
Lyra meets the zodiac’s gaze, and a tiny part of her aching heart eases. “Thank you, Aquarius…I…I actually wanted to ask another question.”
Aquarius nods, giving Lyra a small, barely noticeable hopeful smile. “Of course. What is it that you wanted to ask?”
“It’s about what my mother said,” Lyra says, her heart beat picking up its pace inside of her rib cage. “I wanted to know why…why you didn’t answer her prayer?”
Aquarius opens her mouth to reply, but is interrupted by Taurus. “We should wait to discuss that when you meet the others.”
Lyra looks between Taurus and Aquarius, her eyes wide and pleading. Aquarius only nods, taking in a shaky breath and looking away from Lyra. “Alright.”
Without another word, the three cats descend onto the Godspire, the details of the rock becoming clearer and clearer with every step they take.
It isn’t until Lyra is in the spire’s shadow that she notices one particular detail that outlines the arched entryway into the Godspire.
Two giant pillars, and a giant serpent.
The pillars are very tall and very thick, perfect for the gargantuan size of the Godspire. The right pillar is like the rest of the stone that makes up the spire, but the other is like the red rock that the Godspire comes out of: bright red, with thick dark, parallel lines running through it.
Entwined around the pillars is an equally giant, glittering pearl colored serpent whose scales clink like jewels against the stone. Its face is the thing of dreams and nightmares, full of long, pale scars and cracked scales. In the middle of its forehead, a star shaped cluster of gem-like scales remains untouched, and glows brighter than the rest of the scales on its body. Lyra’s eyes are drawn to it instinctively, unable to rip her eyes away from the star-crowned serpent.
The serpent leans forward, coming further out of the shadows, and shows off another crown of two branch-like horns protruding from either side of its head. Upon them are thousands of strange markings that Lyra cannot make sense of, but their dark, soot color makes her wary of how the creature got them.
Lyra stops as the serpent stills a few tail-lengths above the rocky ground, its milky eyes staring straight at her.
“Do not be afraid. She is friendly,” Aquarius assures Lyra, waving her tail up at the serpent. “Her name is Ningishzida. She is the protector of the Godspire and the Pillars of Knowledge. She is also the one that retains the history of the old gods and the zodiacs.”
“You can also just call her Nin for short,” Taurus whispers in Lyra’s ear with a soft, humorous chuckle. “She is just an oversized guard dog.”
Ningishzida, or Nin, hisses loudly, flashing her terrifyingly long fangs in Taurus’s direction.
Taurus rears back, his black ears flattening as he winces. “Sorry, Nin! You know I did not mean it.”
Nin seems to accept the apology as she pulls back, returning her horns to the darkest part of the shadows beneath the Godspire. Her eyes also return to Lyra, where they remain as Lyra turns to face her two escorts.
“She’s staring at me,” Lyra hisses at them.
Aquarius’s forehead stretches upwards, while Taurus laughs.
“She knows you are not fully imbued yet,” Aquarius explains. “She will not take her eyes off of you until the transformation is complete to insure the safety of the others inside.”
And what could I possibly do to harm a zodiac, let alone a spire full of them?
“I think she’s eyeing me because she wants to eat me,” Lyra mutters, her fur crawling at the pressure of the giant creature’s gaze.
Amusement twinkles in Aquarius’s violet eyes, swiping at her muzzle with her paw. “Do not fret. Nin has not eaten flesh in thousands of star years.”
Lyra tilts her head. “Then…what does she eat? I mean, she has to eat, right?”
“She feasts on knowledge.” Taurus nods up at the serpent, a thoughtful smile on his rectangular muzzle. “It is believed that she was once a normal snake until she happened upon the pillars and realized she could read the words on them. By reading the ancient secrets, she was transformed.”
“Right…” Lyra turns to face Nin, narrowing her eyes. She’ll make sure to never go through the entrance alone, and hopes that if Nin decides that she is hungry for something more than words, Lyra will appear the least tasty of the passerby’s.
Aquarius gestures with her tail at the ground. “Now we sleep, Lyra, until you are truly Starborn.”
“I have to sleep with that thing watching me?” Lyra looks between the entrance and Aquarius, pure disbelief coating her words.
The thing rattles her scales, the sound echoing off of the rocks around them.
Aquarius finds a clear space of soft dirt up against a boulder a few tail-lengths away, turning around in a few circles before settling down. “Would you rather try to go past her while you are still mortal?”
Lyra gulps, fear running rampant up and down her spine, turning it to water. “Nope. I’m good. Sleeping on some rocks sounds great.” She briskly walks up to Aquarius and settles into the cool ground a mouse-length away.
Taurus laughs, his head tilting back. “I like this one, Aquarius. I hope the Bull gave her his gifts.”
Aquarius grins, the first genuine one Lyra has seen the she-cat give. “She is more likely to have been blessed by the Water Bearer. The Bull is simply too lazy to pick up such an expressive she-cat,” Aquarius teases.
Lyra watches as Taurus approaches and settles next to Aquarius, their pelts blending into each other’s. Aquarius casually leans against his shoulder and laughs, continuing to teasingly argue with him about how much more beneficial it would be for Lyra to be imbued by her old god than his. He retorts right back, his green eyes flashing with every point he makes.
Lyra almost smiles. Watching them reminds her of how Cass interacts with her best friends, Dessryia and Nightingale. She too would lounge around with them and talk to them about the silliest things. They were not related by blood, and yet they loved each other just as well, if not more than real sisters.
Lyra lowers her head to her paws and closes her eyes, praying for the first and last time to Aries-her zodiac-that she too will find friends among strangers.
. . .
You must finally choose, star of the moon, if this is something you are prepared to accept.
Before her eyelids flash images of cats struggling to find food and shelter, cats being torn apart by predators, cats drowning from floods and being captured by humans, and cats dying from horrible diseases. She also sees Starborn using their powers to take advantage of the normal cats, using whatever terrible power they have inherited from the lesser of the old gods. Their pelts are not black like the zodiacs, making them near impossible to distinguish from others unless they use their gifts.
They need you, Lyra. You can help them all.
The images fade, and Lyra is left with the foggy image of the fiery horned beast before her. A sense of recognition and awareness settles into her bones, her flesh, and her skin. She knows this creature. She saw it in a dream long ago weeping tears of relief and joy.
“You’re Aries…”
I heard you’re prayer like a whisper on a dying wind.
Lyra opens and closes her mouth, unable to form words. She continues to gaze up at the flame, the horns, the broad muscular shoulders and senses decay in the god’s eyes.
“Shouldn’t you be dead?”
Gods do not die. They simply cease to exist.
Lyra shakes her head, her eyes narrowing. Aren’t those two concepts the same?
Will you accept this power?
“I didn’t know I had a choice,” Lyra tells the God, her eyes widening. “I could go back home? I can be normal?”
There is no such thing as ‘normal’, Lyra. There is only the difference between being powerful and being powerless. But yes, you could return to the strawberry farm with your mother and brother and live out the rest of your life in relative peace.
“But you showed me that the zodiacs need my help…and if I help them, I help others who are like me. I could help stop things that harm others, like what happened to my father. I could stop that?”
The god nods solemnly.
“I could stop that,” Lyra whispers in wonder. “I can stop it.”
And will you? Will you help those in need? Will you answer the prayers of those born under my starlight?
Lyra breathes in deeply, that familiar restless energy beginning to grow in her limbs, her stomach and her heart. She feels like she could run to the top of the Godspire, swim down the entire length of the Eridanus, and maybe, run across the entire world, helping those who were once like her.
“I think I will be taking your powers now,” Lyra says, grinning from ear to ear.
The god bellows with laughter, smoke rising from its nostrils as it paws the ground with a giant hoof. Then it is done! Long live Lyra, the lunar Aries!