Clef was a man of many years, by which one should understand he was about 25. He was, by all means and measures, diligent, steadfast, and thoroughly uninterested in variety.
Indeed, he was someone with a preference for routine: At the same early hour of morning, he ate the same breakfast (Plain bread, toasted for three minutes; coffee, with two and two-thirds cubes of sugar; the morning newspaper, though only reading the first fifth of it). For the same amount of time between breakfast and noon, he compiled astronomical publications (Rotating between magazines daily, so as to let each accrue an appropriate amount of new information). He ate the same lunch at precisely noon (“Contentment from sandwiches,” as he would pretend his aunt said, even though his aunt very much did not say that and they hadn’t spoken for the better part of a decade). Then, exactly thirty-eight minutes after lunch, he’d get to work. By which one should understand a hobby which was very much not a job.
Every evening, he would spend considerable time working on endless orreries, dioramas, models, and maquettes. These would represent just as many landscapes and scenarios from across the world and time: Here, the invention of flight in the Burlywood system; there, the kaleidoscopic gardens of the Coquelicot sun; the twinned mirrors of Xanadu; the curved stairways of Sarcoline.
One could explore the cosmos at a glance by merely standing in the room with all these maquettes, and imagine the songbirds and breeze sing through the intricate mechanisms that made each system spin in facsimile of their real counterparts.
But miniatures could, of course, never compare to those real counterparts. Clef was quite aware of this, which is why he also collected tourism brochures in addition to astronomical publications - And why he consistently reserved a Sunday ticket through the Observatory of his system.
Because one could explore the cosmos at a glance by merely looking through that great telescope, and skip to any corner of the universe in less than a blink. It was something he always enjoyed greatly - The sights of worlds far from his own, the circles in the air traced around suns green white gold lavender azure.
Today was a Sunday, which meant that immediately after breakfast, he made his way to the observatory and queued (There was no one there, it was 8 in the morning for goodness sake). The operators and clerks of the observatory greeted him familiarly; he was a periodic appearance in their lives - It was a common effect he had, that of becoming a clock.
They prepared the telescope, oriented it to the precise degrees and angles he told them, pointed it to Atrovirens. He looked through the lens, and then he was away.
He blinked, slightly dizzy. Skipping always left him rather disoriented, which in fairness is a natural reaction to traversing immeasurable distances through the threads of space in the blink of an eye. Regardless of how likely it was that he’d stumble, he pulled out his notebook and began to take notes.
Atrovirens was a system of parallelisms. Twin green suns which illuminate two pairs of planets, with three moons each in the inner pair, and one moon each in the outer pair. What grows in one planet grows in another: As a fern blossoms here, so it blossoms in there, and so two ferns wilt elsewhere; as a rainstorm pours over a river isle, so is another drenched a diameter across, and so two isles are torn by droughts; as an eclipse shades a mountaintop in one, so does it shade in the other, and so are two valleys bathed in midday.
A perfect clockwork of mirrors that extend across planets, and one which Clef was rather distasteful of interrupting - Yet, even if he himself was a disruption of reflections, he appreciated the hidden nature of these systems.
He believed it a privilege, a privilege that he alone was allowed to visit these places, to observe them with the appropriate respect, to appreciate them like most others couldn’t, and to be their biographer when he calqued them into models and maquettes.
There was such endless, enduring, unchanging, unflinching beauty of this solitude, of the geometries and patterns and repetitions of nature. In the fact that none of it could be changed regardless of the will of people. In the fact that none of it could be disturbed or sullied by those who did not understand it.
And so, he sketched the fractal pine leaves, and the symmetry of the rivers, and the conjunctity of mountain ridges. A week later, every one of these identicalities was dutifully recorded in sculpted clay pebbles, and placed atop the spoke of a clockwork mechanism, and all would repeat in perpetuity and placidity.
Yet clocks break, and gears erode. Perpetuity is the folly of machinists, and so it is the folly of those who revel in it. Years passed, and the Observatory was decommissioned in favour of personal telescopes. Less in quantity, sure, but which allowed such tragic versatility, such insulting spontaneity.
Clef got one, how couldn’t he? But it lacked the appreciated repetition of getting tickets, greeting clerks, looking through the lens of a great machine. It wasn’t rare, now, to be interrupted by a passerby, by a bothersome pedestrian who is merely stopping here because their telescopes don’t allow them to skip this star.
Time cultivated in him disillusion. Sunday outings became a monthly thing, then yearly, then never. He was content with his orreries, with the spinning machines that kept the memory of a system when it was still unique.
Atrovirens had become a throughfare. Perfectly between three great metropoli, no shortage of commuters stepped on its rivers, and paved its valleys, cut its pines.
Clef wasn’t a father, nor an uncle. He had no family, but he had a protégé. One much less reticent to change than himself.
Perhaps they could use his telescope instead.
When Chorie, bird of purpurate plumage, was asked where she came from, her answer had the unenviable tendency to falter. As a matter of fact, she was never entirely sure of what answer to give.
There were many ways to interpret the question. The answer could be distant, in which case it’d be somewhere rather far and probably unknown to the questioner. The answer could be metaphorical, in which case it was rather personal and none of their business. The answer could be literal, in which case she’d just point to some point in the sky, because she did just fly from there.
In truth, she had been a wanderer for quite some time, a vagabond of many worlds. She had seen the brilliance of asteroid rings, the blooming of chiaroscuro flowers, the antonymic sides of tidal planets.
But none of these sights, all of these wondrous, incomparable sights, were quite right. They were beautiful, so beautiful little else could compare, but they were lacking. Lacking of people. No amount of beauty could overcome their loneliness.
Less was the case of inhabited systems; those she remembered more fondly. While flying the vast distances between stars, she pondered on the ones she had seen before: Chartreuse, which aligned its operas and concertos to the periods of its planets; Gamboge, where worlds swam in clouds of incenses and every inhabitant was concerned with their perfume; Eburnean, where marble monuments eroded and mossed to the indifference of its people; Celadon, so concerned about keeping its fragile structures that no person moved at all, and Cerulean, where everyone had decided to break everything they could.
Each was wondrous, unique, and could be reasonably accused of being completely made-up. But each was also isolated - The symphonies of Chartreuse did not allow new composers. The perfumes of Gamboge were terrible to one’s nose, yet everyone wore them because that’s what should be done. The great structures of Eburnean were so wonderful, yet not a single person there truly saw them. The porcelain detailings of Celadon couldn’t be appreciated by anyone, too afraid that in being beholden they would break. Cerulean had such bitter hatred that fragility was forbidden.
She never fit, never could fit, never tried to fit. Given time, she knew she’d adapt. She knew that if she so chose, she could stay in any of those worlds and mould herself to fit it, but what would be the point? A house, but not a home. Forbidden from herself to the satisfaction of others. Intolerable.
So, she flew. Alone, but truthful. While flying the vast distances between stars, she imagined her idyllic world, her elysian destination just after the horizon: Warm, cozy; allowing of change and revision; where variety would be embraced and any shape of expression would be welcomed, would be celebrated. Perhaps it would be snowy.
In her endless travels, she had met quite a lot of people, but it should be clear that none were as permissive as she fairly demanded. Polite, proper, but not permissive, and so inacceptable as an ending.
Eventually, however, she came to land on a rainy worldlet. Mostly uninhabited, but it did house a single individual up to her standards. She allowed herself to rest with them, after their invitation to do so. It wasn’t the first time she’d done such a thing, of course, but for the very first time she found herself enjoying their company.
She spent with them a week, double the time she had spent with any other host. In that time, the two spoke avidly. They showed her tricks and skill of all sorts, they shared knowledge and wisdom, they gave her amazingly good tea.
And then, she mentioned her elysium, her imagined reprieve and destination. Simply as a curiosity, as a dream she had, nothing more.
They replied not with interest, not with acceptance, not with curiosity. They replied with directions.
And so, she flew where they told her.
She found a warm, cozy world. One that allowed change and revision. One where those who are different are celebrated and accepted unquestionably. It was snowy as all heavens.
She kept flying, of course. She was an explorer at heart. But now, she had somewhere to return to: Not a house, but a home. Neighbours to greet and share holidays with, friends to tell about her wondrous, beautiful sightings.
She also returned to the rainy worldlet many times, spoke with her once-host just as many. In them, a friend. She explored other places near: A quiet, dusty necklace of asteroids, a string of geodes to rival an emperor’s crown.
In one occasion, she visited a dark cluster of vibrantly-forested rocks. It wasn’t her first visit, but a friend had asked for notes and observations on it. While flying through, she saw someone else. They were young, scared, lost. Alone.
How could she not offer to guide them home?