"The cosmos did not break it. Loneliness did."
Drifting. Wandering. Watching.
Forgotten.
A single speck of Stardust floated through the void, a remnant of something ancient, something lost before time had a name. It had no voice, no form, no thoughts—only the faint echo of existence that carried it from place to place. It was the silent witness to creation itself, moving with the currents of the cosmos, untouched by time.
It saw the birth of worlds. Stars igniting in the vast emptiness, their brilliance carving light into the dark fabric of space. It watched as galaxies took form, spinning like celestial dancers in an endless waltz. It saw planets bloom with life, civilizations rise from dust, carving their stories into history, only to be erased by time's merciless hand. Kingdoms flourished under golden banners, only to fall into ruin, swallowed by the very ground they once ruled.
The Stardust saw it all. It saw legends take their first breath, warriors carve their names into destiny, scholars unlock the mysteries of existence. It saw emperors rise and fall, heroes celebrated and then forgotten. It drifted, an unseen spectator, a silent chronicler of all things.
For millions upon millions of years, it waited.
Alone.
Until one day, it saw something different.
A Lynx.
A majestic feline, sleek and powerful, its golden eyes gleaming with intelligence beyond mortal comprehension. The Stardust watched as the creature played at the feet of a lone figure—someone wrapped in mystery, someone unlike any it had seen before. The figure moved through time with grace, untouched by the decay that claimed others. The Lynx followed him, loyal and unyielding, as if guarding something sacred.
The Stardust observed. It always did.
But then, something changed.
For the first time in eternity, acknowledgment touched it. A presence turned toward it, and suddenly, the formless dust was no longer just a speck lost in the wind. It became.
It felt something it had never known before—purpose.
And in that moment, it transformed.
The dust coiled into a cocoon, suspended in the figure's palm, encased in a shell of cosmic energy. It pulsed, shifting, changing. The cocoon absorbed the knowledge of ages, weaving the memories of the universe into something new.
When it finally broke free, it was no longer just Stardust.
It was a moth.
Delicate. Beautiful. Ethereal.
Its wings shimmered with cosmic energy, carrying within them the wisdom of forgotten stars. It was no ordinary creature—it bore the weight of history itself, the knowledge of countless generations, the whispers of a world long past. It had seen too much, learned too much. And in the process, it had gained something that made it different from the cold, detached universe it once drifted through.
It had emotions.
But emotions, when left alone for too long, can twist.
The moth was left behind.
The very being that had once acknowledged it was now gone, vanished without a trace. The moth waited, as it had been told. It remained still, watching, yearning for that same recognition once more. But as the years turned to centuries, and the centuries turned to eons, no one came.
The silence swallowed it whole.
The whispers of the Throne filled the void, creeping into the spaces where warmth had once existed. The loneliness that had been mere existence before now became pain. The longing for acknowledgment became hunger. The need to be seen, to be recognized, grew into something far darker.
The purity that once defined the moth shattered.
It no longer sought to be acknowledged—it sought validation. It craved a presence that would never leave, something that would see it and never turn away. And when it could not find such a thing, it fell into madness.
It withdrew from the world, isolating itself in a prison of its own making. It feared rejection. It feared being forgotten again. And so, it chose to be forgotten first.
It hid itself deep within a cavern, surrounded by the echoes of its own despair. It abandoned the light it once carried, drowning in the very loneliness it had tried to escape. The cosmic beauty it once embodied faded into something cold, something terrifying.
And for countless ages, it remained that way.
Until something changed.
Until he arrived,
The White Serpent with the Red Thread descended upon the upper lands, his presence breaking through the prison of silence. The moth felt him before it even saw him—the weight of his existence shaking the very fabric of the world it had long ignored.
And then
The cocoon shattered.
The energy that had been sealed away for untold centuries surged forward, free once more. And in that moment, the Serpent Code recoiled in fear.
It saw the truth.
It understood the danger.
And so, in a desperate act of instinct, the Serpent Code sealed the moth once more—this time, within the Stardust Gem.
A prison within a prison.
Locked away, never to be unleashed again.
"It was never stardust that feared the dark—it was the memory of light that drove it mad."
But some prisons are not meant to last.