This is a bit of an interlude, and I don’t know how important it is, but it is so strange, and seems to come from a culture predating our parent ship that ultimately led to the creation of the Sunspot, that I feel compelled to include it. It was, apparently, originally told in Fenekere, the command language of the ship. Maybe it gives us an even older context for who we are.

Jenifer heard it from xyr grandmother who heard it from her grandmother. “Her”. A pronoun never used on the Sunspot by anybody.

Everyone has heard the story of how the world was created. About how the Great One, in an attempt to protect Their 900,000 children from a chaotic universe, built the world out of their own body. About how the Sun is Their right eye, and the Moon Their left. And how They wrapped this all in Their hide, scales pointed inward, to become the night sky. And this kept us from learning about Outsiders for many years.

Well, one night, while participating in their favorite game, the Hunter and the Storyteller made a mistake.

The two were great friends and would spend much of their time together. And their favorite game was that the Storyteller would point at something in the distance and the Hunter would hit it with their arrow. Just as the Storyteller could tell any story, the Hunter could hit anything with their arrow. Every child of the Great One has their Art, and these were theirs.

But at the end of this night, the Storyteller pointed at something they had never pointed at before. A star. The Morning Star. The jewel that had once been the Great One’s lure.

Their thinking was this. If the Hunter could hit it with their arrow, it would make a great story. And if the Hunter could not hit it with their arrow, it would also make a great story.

The Hunter, without even thinking about it, fired their arrow at the Morning Star.

It took a very long time to fly there, because the Morning Star is very far away.

It took longer than the Hunter expected because, for the first time in their life, they had missed, and the arrow had to travel further before it hit the sky behind it.

To the horror of both of them, the arrow tore a hole in the sky, creating a great big gash. Stars, the scales of the Great One, fell to the ground, followed by a stream of Outsiders entering the hole to take refuge from the chaotic universe without.

And that is how we met the Outsiders and began to learn of our true place in the universe.