The Lost Tales of Anerudo: A Rogue Moon

Anerudo is a small, round planet. Smaller, in fact, than our own that we call home. But she is far from alone. From the viewpoint of her sibling, Anerudo might be mistaken for a moon revolving around the larger of the pair, known as Hel, a giantess in her own right. Hel's gaseous visage resembles that of Jupiter, adorned with stunning clouds in hues of pink, red, orange, gold, and occasional purplish storms obscuring her countenance. Nevertheless, her severe climate, much like our own, gaseous giant, renders her environment inhospitable for life.

However, as the legends go, the goddess Aizivaishe deemed Anerudo her favorite of the two. Positioned at an ideal distance from the sun, Anerudo enjoys mild temperatures and a plentiful water supply. Interestingly, Anerudo's orbit around the colossus takes an arced path, making total eclipses from Hel an exceptionally rare phenomenon—so rare, in fact, that one hasn't occurred in the small planet's lifetime. Yet, trouble brews in paradise, not just one but two predicaments loom on the horizon.

One is known as Rogue, a diminutive moon situated squarely between Hel and Anerudo for the majority of its path.

One is known as Rogue. He is a peculiar case, often leisurely oscillating between Hel and Anerudo, reminiscent of a celestial game where two children pass a ball between them. Here he spends most of his path, the diminutive moon occasionally pulling the tides of Anerudo’s waters in towards Hel, but otherwise having little to no effect. As that seems to be his sisters’ jobs. 

The sister moons, Figate and Spurl, gracefully wind around the planet's orbits in their predictable and non-diverging patterns. Rogue didn't get his name by being predictable, however. In fact, he has a penchant for being flung randomly out of his usual path. His trajectory is nearly impossible to predict, yet somehow in the end, he consistently returns to his initial position, eventually settling into a lazy rhythm of bouncing between Anerudo's gentle pull and Hel's powerful embrace.

Each time Rogue veers off course, the disturbances ripple through Anerudo and Hel as well. Aizivaishe found herself joined by the dragons the first time she witnessed Rogue's peculiar trajectory streaking across the sky. While Hel experienced more storms, swirling in massive funnels of destruction. The waves on the smaller planet shook and crashed against what little land had been obtained, and the goddess had to exert all her power to maintain the little progress she had achieved while battling an enraged Zvazve, the first evil. This being the second predicament that Anerudo endured.

The initial expedition concluded with the apprehension and presumed eradication of Zvazve. Rogue navigated cautiously back to his position, orbiting Hel akin to a child clinging to its mother's skirt. As tranquility settled, Aizivaishe, now empowered by the dragon's assistance, embarked on a creative journey, breathing new life into the land previously unattainable by the blight of Zvazve.

However, Rogue’s antics were not at an end. 

The second time Rogue careened around the planet, nearly endangering his sister Figate in the process, Mal the dragon fell victim to Zvazve's corruption. He turned against the goddess Aizivaishe, and attempted to destroy her. A massive battle ensued for not only the gods, but for the people that had been born out of Aizivaishi’s creative state. Those who followed the dragon Mal fought against the whole of everyone else. In the end, both Mal and Aizivaishe were recorded to have perished just as Rogue came to nestle back between the two planets. 

The remaining dragons mourned the loss of their son and brother and the first goddess respectfully. The humans had done their part in fighting back against the followers of Mal, vowing to shun any remaining followers from society so that they could die off alone and unseeded. Dask and Opsola, the first dragons, carried on the goddess’ work in creation, now that Zvazve had been effectively contained. And life began anew once more in Aizivaishe’s honor as Rogue once again nestled back into the embrace of the planets safely. 

However, in the new age, scientists have meticulously calculated the trajectories of these moons. They have studied their paths and concluded that Rogue's erratic movements are influenced by his sisters. With Rogue's push and pull, Spurl's spiral and reset, and Figate's figure-eight pattern, there are moments when the moons align and exert opposing forces, causing Rogue to deviate from his usual path and hurtle through space with increased velocity. These men and women of science speculate that with sufficient force and the correct trajectory, Rogue could be lost entirely, or he could collide with Anerudo or traverse through the gaseous giantess.

Due to these extensive efforts to understand these patterns, scientists have also determined that the phenomenon is most likely to occur when the three moons are in complete alignment. Fortunately, in the three instances since they acquired the technology, Rogue has been slightly off course each time, allowing him to continue on his path without causing disruption.

That is: until now. 

Everyone who knew anything about what lay beyond the surface of their planet were filled with anticipation to witness whether Rogue would deviate from his trajectory. They gathered in their rooms, placing bets, sharing laughter, and eagerly observing through their telescopes in hopes of witnessing the first significant shift in their lifetime. However, for others, this occasion wasn't a cause for celebration at all, as they were mindful of the possibility of Rogue veering off his path and posing a catastrophic threat to the planet.

The men and women all watched in stunned silence as they witnessed Rogue's sudden divergence for the first time. He appeared and disappeared in an instant, moving too swiftly for their equipment to track. An uproar ensued as they anxiously attempted to trace his trajectory amidst yet another rarity that had caught everyone unaware.

So fixated on Rogue and the potentiality of his deviation, everyone had dismissed the realization that today, of all days, Anerudo would indeed begin her first descent in orbit around Hel. At its peak the partial eclipse would cast half of the planet into shadow for the next few weeks, for the first time ever. 

As everyone hurried to catch a glimpse of the rogue moon, the scientists in D’mirsk fell silent yet again, enveloped by the eclipse. With the sky dark, no one noticed immediately that a peculiar dark shroud of clouds had begun to obscure their telescope.