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[scourgingstars]

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[scourgingstars]

Quite ready, I think. [Ardyn had dressed in clothes that perhaps seemed a little too light for the weather, though if he was cold at all he didn't seem to show it.] Thank you for the invitation.

[iustaegis]

[ For Pyra's part.... she remains unimaginative and has dressed in her same dumb outfit. As usual. She begins with a smile. ] I see you no longer have a tail... [ Turning slightly, she'll walk with him towards the bench. Worriedly, ] But are you cold... at all....?

I brought a blanket.

[scourgingstars]

Perhaps regrettably, I am without any charming appendages.

[He gave a small, awkward laugh--the demeanor almost seeming that of one who had forgotten and begun to relearn how to even do that much.]

You needn't worry for me. I don't feel cold as most people do.

[iustaegis]

[ Indeed, the laugh rings slightly off to her ears, as if he's attempting to speak a foreign word. ] Oh! Then, we can use the blanket to sit upon.

[ Which, she will do, setting it upon the bench like a cushion. As she sets this up, she comments: ] I didn't know you were... extraordinary.

[ His tolerance to cold downright proves it. ]

[scourgingstars]

I wouldn't go so far as to say anything like that. I'm scarcely more remarkable than anyone else, merely...a slight bit different.

1/2

[iustaegis]

[ "A slight bit different", he says.... She seems to mull this over as she takes a seat upon the bench. ]

[iustaegis]

You mean to say... [ To be pendantic, jokingly so as she tilts her head to the side: ]

Extra. Ordinary.

[ Aaaaaaay get it get it because if he's not ordinary like the rest, then he's extraordinary. Aaaaay okay.

And with that, she pats the space beside her. Come join her! ]

[scourgingstars]

[That got another quiet laugh from him; sincere, but uncertain. He sat down beside her all the same, settling in easily enough.]

You must like stars quite a bit, to be so insistent upon such an outing.

[iustaegis]

[ That seems like a deflection, but she accepts it regardless.

Having researched a bit at the library abut the stars here, she wonders-- ]

Well, ah.... Are there stars in your world?

[scourgingstars]

...Yes?

[It sounded like the question caught him by surprise for how obvious the answer was, until after a moment he reached the perhaps equally obvious conclusion.]

Are there...not any in yours?

[iustaegis]

Oh-- no, no. I just wanted to make sure there were in yours [ For a point of reference. ] before I began.

[ YOU CAN'T JUST... ASSUME THINGS ABOUT PEOPLE'S WORLDS. Someone could have a world without stars! How sad would that be. ]

And those stars... what are they made of in your world?

[scourgingstars]

[At this point, Ardyn was fairly sure nothing would have surprised him, not even something as outlandish as a lack of stars.]

What are they-? I don't have the faintest idea. [pyra honey he is from the equivalent of biblical times with some vague modern knowledge] L...light? I don't know.

1/2

[iustaegis]

[ ....She appears... to deflate. Just a little at his answer. It seems she was expected something different. ]

[iustaegis]

[ Then, shyly, as if she's still not sure if this subject may interest him: ]

Well... would you like to... learn more about them? Er, about what they really are, I mean.

[scourgingstars]

...I think I would, actually. [He answered with a hesitant smile that was just as foreign and uncertain as his laugh.] Forgive me, I fear I don't know much that others might assume common knowledge these days.

[iustaegis]

[ But what a smile it is. She likes him having one, she finds. It makes his features seem so much softer.

The smile itself seems to encourage her in turn. ] Oh- then where to start. [ Indeed where? She feels she has to gain a better measure of where he's coming from. "Common knowledge" doesn't quite give her a good picture, unfortunately, because she doesn't know what qualifies as common knowledge in his world about stars.

He also gives away not only common knowledge, but common knowledge these days. It's an interesting choice of words. ] But first...

[ She lifts up a hand... and then curls four of her five fingers down, so only the little finger remains upright. ] You... are not used to touch, correct. Will this be okay? [ Pinky-linking during stargazing. She hopes this is doable for him. Tribute must be paid to help save this world. ]

[scourgingstars]

Oh...er, yes. That's fine. [He linked a finger with hers, scarred and calloused hands chilled by either the winter air or something else entirely.]

Now, what was it you were saying?

[iustaegis]

[ With their fingers linked, she lowers their hands between them. His skin is thick compared to hers. While in the darkness she may not see his scars, she knows they still exist. ] Let's see...

[ Stars. What they are. Her expression turns from him, looking upward. That which is depicted by the barrier may simply be an illusion. But surely there are more beyond it. Surely.

She needs one more answer from him. ]

...How far away, have you learned the stars to be?

[scourgingstars]

I'm afraid I don't know that, either.

[iustaegis]

[ Ah.

Well, she can only tell him at most of how it is in her own world, and a bit of what she's found in the libraries of the stars in this world, here. But to start with: ] You guessed... that the stars are made of light.

[ She pauses to glance at him, dipping her head slightly. ]

In my world, light has a speed-- almost three hundred thousand kilometers per second. [ She pauses, then, wondering if such a measurement is useless. ] And a light-year is what some incredibly smart people in my world [ And this she says with both awe and pride. How amazing it is, that sentient life could develop such formulas once more? ] have developed to measure the distance in which light might travel in a year. [ Which comes about to roughly about 9.5 trillion kilometers. ]

The sun itself is a star.

It takes about, ah, ...a whole eight minutes for its light to reach the earth. [ A sigh. ] Can you just imagine, Ardyn. Our closest star--

And so far away.

[ He just might also imagine how distant those other stars are as well. ]

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn looked to the sky with a small, pensive frown--the idea of light having a speed was a simple concept to understand. After all, warp magic was itself the ability to travel as light; obviously that much made sense. But to go a step further he'd never truly contemplated the stars' distance or indeed their making; only that they lit the night sky. What a remarkable thing, to know that in some era on some world people had so accurately measured their distance as some in his own time charted their motions.]

I've never given much thought to them before. I certainly don't have the knowledge needed to calculate such a thing, myself.

[iustaegis]

[ The hand raises, lifting as if to wash across the sky, as if she could erase the painting of the heavens all at once. ] A long, long time ago.... in my world, there were no stars. [ Having his attention like this, she seems encouraged ever more. ] That... warm, beautiful shine you see up there begins within a star begins like... this.

[ With her other hand, she holds up two fingers. ] With two particles in space. In my world, the name given to these important ones are protons.

When they have the same charge, [ A pause. ] they wish to-- just.... repel each other. They don't wish to connect. They may go millions and billions of years without combining! For a star's furnace to finally ignite, there must be a force powerful enough to puuuush these two together. But once it's done, it doesn't stop. [ She draws a breath, holds it for a moment, then continues. ]

When the strong nuclear force between the two protons overwhelms the positive charge keeping them apart-- er, when they combine-- one of the protons becomes a neutron, expelling a neutrino, as well as the anti-particle positron. This proton-neutron combination is call deuterium. [ This, unfortunately, is spoken quickly, as if she's trying to brush over it all at once. The mechanics aren't important. And frankly, too simplistic. These explanation, however, exhibits what those in her world have discovered in the past. ] When another proton meets the deuterium, it turns into Helium-3.... and a photon.

[ And here is the answer to his question: ] That photon? [ Lowering her hand, she turns her eyes to him. ] Is the first spark of a star coming to being. [ She snaps her fingers, as if to symbolize striking a match. ] Light.

[ She holds that word for a moment longer, and then the corners of her lips curl upward. ] The brilliance of the stars... is the energy they release when they make all the elements of life! [ Life is spoken reverently with a hush. Finally, she uses that hand to point up to the sky. There is something longing in her expression. This is the most important part: ]

What you see up there, that light of a star... It is Creation.

[scourgingstars]

[It sounded a bit like Verstael's incomprehensible science lecturing, but...well, much more tolerable, for one thing. Ardyn might have only barely recognized half of those as words, but he kept up as well as he could while looking up to the sky.]

[Creation, hm? That much made sense to him, too. 'Light' as he knew it was a benevolent force--to humans, at least. Of course it would be aligned to life and creation in worlds where it wasn't some destructive and terrible force. (He still didn't quite understand how things could be so backwards with Era's realm, and it was beyond him to contemplate now.)]

It truly is a sight to behold, when one phrases it like that. Is such a field of study common in your world?

[iustaegis]

[ She shakes her head. ] Only for those who have interest in it. [ There are books in the library about what this world's stars are made of as well. Similar things to her world, some different things as well. But what it all comes down to, it seems, are particles and physics. ]

...But if the gods here created this world and the stars... then they must be far older than when people existed to offer them touch. It doesn't make sense, does it?

[ Which means the gods might be younger than the stars! Or they survived on some other energy before! Or maybe the stars here are as young as sentient life, which is crazy to think about. ]

[scourgingstars]

It makes sense enough to me. Legend upon my own world does not go into creation itself in any great detail, but it does claim that mankind were made in the Astrals' image. So I would presume that it was not long at all before the gods created mortals to rule over and permit tribute from.