Interlude: Imperturbable Stars

When the world was young, we feared the stars.

The battle of the Unnamed was fierce, and the Mother weathered many blows defending her children. Their poison coursed deep in her veins and so when the world was wrought, the Sun blazed bright in defiance against the mocking stars, but his sister, the Moon, was born weak, her light pale and pallid. So it was that we feared the stars and the night.

We lived beneath the earth, digging burrows like beasts, so that the Mother’s cooling flesh could shield our bodies from the poison in the sky. This was a time of woe and fear when things unnamed, the children of those laughing stars, stalked forest and glen to hunt beast and human alike. Under the sun’s light, they quailed, but during the night, they rose again to hunt. So it was that we slept only fitfully, full of fear, and rose to exhaustion in the day. All was bleak.

Among the people was a young woman. Born under the moon, she was given to the Eldest Sister to serve, offering her meager strength to the Moon through prayer and offering. Swiftly, she rose among the priests of the moon for her wit was quick and her eyes sharp.

Where others struggled, she found the best herbs and flowers for the incense with ease and spoke the words of offering more clearly than others. She was a brave girl as well, and in her wandering, she spoke with the beasts of the wood and learned their tongues. From the birds, she learned the secret language of wind and branch, and from the beasts of the earth, she learned the secret song of hill and mountain.

All feared the power of the stars, the enemies of life. The Father and the Mother had slain many foes, but many more remained, uncounted and uncountable, and they, the stars, circled creation, forever eager to destroy what the Unnamed had wrought. The stars were not of the world, and so could not be defended against nor understood.

This offended the girl with the sharp eyes. For her, all things could be counted and named, and no thing was without description. Yet she could not deny the truth of her senses. To look upon the stars long enough to count them, one would surely die. To name the stars, one would surely be cut down by their children.

This frustrated the girl, and for a time, she lived life in a state of irritation. The girl became a woman, then a mother, and in time, a grandmother. It came to pass that the People’s Speaker passed, and among them, none was deemed more worthy to replace him than the sharp-eyed woman. For though her shoulders were stooped with age and her bones ached, her mind and her eyes had never dulled.

However, though years and years had passed, the woman’s frustration had never faded, and so when she immersed herself in the pool of the moon and spoke to the spirit, she asked the question that had burned in her heart.

“Are the enemy truly unnameable and uncountable? Can they never be defeated, O Eldest Sister?”

The Moon was taken aback, for the Speakers of the People had never spoken to her before with such demand. They pleaded for her blessings and protection and asked after the health of their young and the whims of the seasons. Such a question had never occurred to the Moon, who existed only to protect and guide her younger siblings to safety. Even her brother, the Sun, did not speak of such things and thought only to fight and fight and fight until all was dust.

“This is not known to me, child. Without my attention upon the land, all would perish in the nightly hours. Mine eyes do not look at the stars.” And though the Moon answered true, for the very first time, the thing called dissatisfaction was born in the Moon’s mind, for never before had one of her siblings asked a question that could not be answered.

The sharp-eyed woman was distressed to know that even the great Sister Moon did not know the answer to her question and left the pool with her eyes low. Yet, even knowing that the answer was forever beyond her reach, her frustration still burned like a hot coal pressed against her back. Each day that passed only hardened her resolve. Thus, when the next Speaking Day came, she had a new question.

“O Eldest, will thou allow this one to be your eyes upon the stars? I will count them, and name them, and see thy burden lightened if thou but offer the means.”

The Moon had not forgotten the woman’s previous question, and it had vexed her greatly. Her brother, the Sun, had not known the answer either. To him, the number and name of the enemy did not matter, only that they were anathema and so would be fought. So it was that the Moon looked upon her young sibling and did not reject her proposal out of hand.

“My power is feeble, child. Mother’s wounds lie heavily upon me. My scars were with me since birth. Should thou perform this task, I will not be able to shield thee from pain. Thou will not die, but thou wilt suffer. To give more to one would endanger all. Can thou truly say that this is thy wish?”

The sharp-eyed woman thought of the People and her sons, daughters, and grandchildren, few of which had lived to see even their tenth year, pale and sickly in the burrows and caves. The sharp-eyed woman thought of her husband and siblings long since passed, taken by illness and exhaustion. Most of all, the sharp-eyed woman thought of the twinkling and mocking stars hurling their hate down upon the land. In her heart, frustration and resolve curdled into something else.

“This is my wish, O Eldest.”

“Then go from my pool one last time and say thy farewells. Thou will not see thy people again,” commanded the Moon.

So the woman went, and among the People, there was much grief. The sharp-eyed woman named her eldest daughter the successor of her title, and taking the gifts of her People, left.

In the woman’s heart, knowledge was born, and her path was sure. Beasts of field and wood did not bar her path, for she knew their secret words, and for the most recalcitrant, the terrible silver that burned in her eyes bowed their heads.

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The sharp-eyed woman marched through day and night, untiring, and when the stars twinkled overhead, though her skin burned and she wept in pain, she did not stop. When the star children barred her path, the silver light of her eyes flashed and drove them back, and she spoke the secret words of wind and water with the might of the Moon on her tongue to call up a storm to wash them away.