Starry Love

There are two lovers in the wind: one whose hair shimmers like spun gold, and the other, whose beauty is less vibrant. The other has a more subtle type of beauty. Her skin sings with starlight promises, with a softer, more mysterious lilt than her lover.

Her lover is more outgoing, more passionate. But she is more loyal. More kind. For the fiercest power lies in being gentle. The lovers leave the other for several hours. The vibrant girl smiles, saying her time away does not seem as long as it is. In fact, she enjoys her work as much as her love life. But the sun is away for longer than her lover.

But she's smiling more than her lover. The Moon complains, to which the Sun replies: "Only for you, my love," with a look that turns her lover into melting adoration.

But the Moon does not forget that out of the twenty-four hours in a day, they spend two minutes together.

As for the remaining one-thousand four-hundred and forty-eight minutes, they shadow each other for seven hundred and twenty each.

The Sun is written about in chronicles and legend. Epitomized in myth and fiction. The Greeks worship her most, having several different gods of varying power to represent her.

The Moon only has one Greek goddess to symbolize her: Artemis. Sometimes, she likes thinking of herself as a virgin goddess—she certainly feels like one. Other times, she pictures herself as the blood-thirsty and revenge-exacting goddess of the Hunt, and smiles softly, knowing she could never be so brutal.

In those times, she looks to her side on instinct and sighs, feeling the absence of the Sun—though, with the centuries that pass, it feels like her lover was never there.

The Moon idles her time by threading starlight into lines and shapes and life. The mortals call them constellations and the Moon sighs with even more pain. Even her own creations are not named after her.

The Sun’s creations are always written on elegant parchment scrolls in gold ink.

The Moon often cries herself to sleep during the day. It is the only way to not be blinded by the shadow of almost-stranger in front of her.

And as the Moon cries quietly, blotchy grey patches sinking into her skin, the Sun cannot see her cry. When she casts her grey-speckled shadow at night, she is alone.

When the Sun shines without a care in the world, she forgets her lover.

The Moon lives every day with only one thought: Save the humans. Give them cool shadow and let their crops have rest. Let the Sun take care of everything else.

Let the Sun take care of everything else. She sucks in a breath at the last thought. The only thing she never takes care of is me.

The original Greeks die off and generations pass the new ones by.

Still, the Moon feels neglected. The only words said to her with a hint of romance are: “You look quite pearly today. But a little… je ne sais quoi…perhaps grey?” and “You always make me feel so powerful when I tower over you, darling.”

Her responses to the Sun are giddy and excited, like the bunny rabbits and darnwoggles that scamper across the farmers’ fields at precisely midnight.

Later, the Moon realizes how lacking she must be in love to jump at the first sign of it.

When she confronts her, the skies turn black and clouds storm from their seats.

The Moon looks at her beloved. “Why must you do this to me? We have such little time. Our happiness is even more so fleeting. What joy lies in this? What joy lies in being alone?”

The Sun tries to hide her tears. “You have no idea what I feel for you, dear one.”

The Sun never cries. This is new. The odd satisfaction that spills into the Moon and pervades through her bones makes her writhe in guilt.

“I do not feel like a dear one.” The raven-haired Moon spits. “That is the issue, love.” Her take on the word is a warped, fractured kaleidoscope one.

“How would you want to go about solving it?” The Sun wants to call her darling instead of dear, but she restrains herself.

“I cannot bear to see you. Cannot bear to be in your shadow. Leave me, as I will you.”

The Sun has never been surprised, not since the beginning of time.

But the Moon’s words carry the sort of piercing finality that shocks her to her very core.

The Sun sets in the east that night. The Moon goes west.

Months pass.

The humans are left without harvest. Sunshine no longer graces their crops with a benevolent smile. Wheat grows dry and brittle, grass shrivels up and dies.

The only songs sung are the ones at funerals.

The Moon wants to beg the Sun to come back, but she knows a few days of happiness can never easy a lifetime of pain.

The Sun wants to flit west to the Moon as fast her rays will take her, but she is too prideful.

One day, they give up. Seeing the mortals suffer is too much, and eternal darkness is too much to handle for any being.

The Sun rises up and the Moon follows, albeit reluctantly.

This morning, the Sun and Moon do not even speak to each other.

It goes on for days and weeks and months.

Decades and centuries and millennium.

The days grow quieter, only filled with soft chirping crickets and the toiling farmers in the sunshine-covered farms.

Bickering banter from the heavens does not float on cloudy winds to the Earth anymore.

The mortals frown in confusion, their usual entertainment going.

They tell their children of the Sun and Moon’s love story. Their children perk up, bright button-eyes gleaming, lusting after the stories the spill from parents’ and grandparents’ mouths, tangling and twining into ripe, impressionable memories.

The Moon smiles when she sees the scriptures and poems and depicting the “epic love” that hides in the pores of every page.

She knows that though a shred of truth lies in them, nothing written will ever change.

The Moon creates her starry constellations, but she takes pride in them now.

She shines moonshine on her favorite mortals.

She does not revolve around the Sun anymore like every being and planet in creation.

Whenever she feels as if she is falling back into the toxic pattern, she grabs one of her stars, wishes on it, and drops it to the earth.

The mortals cheer her on.