Story 17 | Cosmic Love
Inspired by Florence + The Machine's "Cosmic Love," an immortal woman rushes to rescue her mortal love, kidnapped by the barbaric people of the dark side of their planet.
Today’s story wouldn’t be possible without the support of my parents who offer child care and my dream baby’s extra-long nap last night.
If you follow me on Instagram, you already know I wrote this story yesterday afternoon, cutting it pretty darn close to my publishing deadline. Usually, my goal is to have these posts queued up a week in advance - not finishing them hours before they’re due to go live.
Though I’ve wanted to write a story based on “Cosmic Love” by Florence + The Machine for a long time, when I sat down to write yesterday, I didn’t have any ideas of what this story would entail. I knew it needed something otherworldly. Something extraterrestrial, perhaps? No, aliens aren’t my thing. And it wasn’t right for this song so rich with imagery and surrealism.
Where I landed, this fantasy, well, it really requires more. Like, a whole world of description and magic and rules and suspense. There’s a lot here that works - and works well, but this is an abbreviation of what could be a bigger idea.
Meanwhile, Celine is beside me as I write this, drifting in and out of sleep, yawning and falling asleep on her pacifier, smacking her lips and playing with her tongue. It’s a wonder I’m focused at all. She’s the absolute best. And she needs to go to bed. (So do I, probably.)
Read on! I’m going back to baby watching.
Cosmic Love
There were no shadows in the land of the Nocturna, still she shrugged off any concern for detection. Better that they know she was coming, hence the path of destruction behind her. She had pitied their initial bands of resistance, no match for her. Power roiled under skin, impatient for an outlet, as she tracked his heartbeat through the darkness.
She had never felt this before. Simmering rage, building in intensity, barely contained at the surface. Were she to dip lower to access another emotion, there would be regrets to spare.
I have to find him, she thought. I will find him. I don’t care who stands in my way.
Centuries ago, the planet of Elysia’s rotation had seized, plunging an arbitrary half into unrelenting night, and the other hemisphere into eternal day, never to see the stars again. Choked for resources, the one half succumbed to darkness and chaos, the old world order falling and reshaping its people through hardship and necessity. The immortal Celestials of Elysia, their leadership system as old as time, ceded control over the Night itself and a new, darker power emerged: the Nocturna. There was enough to do to help the Elysians manage and channel the sun’s light.
What started as desperation for food and water warped over time into greed for power. The Nocturna waged a bloody, decades-long war on the Elysian people, pitting light and dark. The wars began to feel pointless; so much loss of life for nothing to change. A tenuous peace settled between the two sides, borne largely of fatigue. Each state turned inward, ignoring enemies in favor of nurturing their own people and development.
But now, there was something malignant in this peace. This peace was a lie.
The youngest of the Celestials, Rapture had tapped into the oldest power, blessing and cursing her with even hands. She would represent the embodiment of love, yet her loves could never be. Content with her power and role in Celestial governance, Rapture did not dare touch the temptation of romantic relationship. Despite her best efforts, she fell – and not with another Celestial, but a mortal man, against Celestial law. If her love was bound to be doomed, why not go big? Orion seemed destined for her, his name calling to her Celestial being, his strength and purity of spirit like a drug. Their bond had manifested in her very body; she could hear his heartbeat, filling the absence of her own.
Her gossamer cape fluttered behind her as Rapture alighted on the palace wall, having made her way through the capital of Nocturna, a city pulsing with blacklight, casting a garish glare on the night sky. The Nocturna flag adorned the palace’s turrets, bearing their crest of a waning moon and three stars in a circle, a striking opposite of the Elysian flag’s sun.
Scanning the courtyard and surrounding palace walls, she reached out with her power to sense where Orion might be held in the complex. From Elysian lore around the Nocturna, she knew their dungeons and torture chambers wound deep under the palace. There was no telling what they might be doing to him, so there was no time to waste.
Strangely, the palace was quiet. There were no guards on patrol, no courtiers or savages or whoever would walk these grounds. There was no one. Rapture was well aware she was likely walking into a trap. Why else would anyone kidnap Orion, a lowly mortal who stood as a threat to no one, unless an attempt to ensnare her? She was on high alert for their shadow trickery. She had never been so deep into Nocturna, now at the very heart of their seat of power.
Rapture slipped through a darkened door and stole down the hallway. Still no one. She followed his heartbeats, where they led her. As she made her way through the palace halls, she found she wasn’t being pulled down to dungeons, but up. She should have been drawing closer to him, but the beats were slowing, dragged out and faint. He must be suffering, hanging on to life. She flew down the halls, her power picking up on her fears and surging through her body, a low roar in her ears.
The heartbeat pulled her to ornately carved double doors, telling a story of day and night, but there was no time to admire wicked craftsmanship when Orion was in danger. As much as she had barged into the palace without a plan, she couldn’t do so here. What was waiting on the other side? Was he indeed inside? Rapture placed her hand on the door handle – and his heartbeat stopped, like the invisible string between them had been brutally plucked. She steeled herself for the horrors ahead, both what she might witness and what she might do.
Forget a plan, she thought, summoning her power as one plays a harp, wrists and fingers stroking air, preparing for release. One blast blew the doors down, blowing the thick carved works of art off their hinges and slapping them to the floor. Rapture recklessly ran full force into the room, instead of clearing the room, as her training dictated.
She was not three paces into the room when two things hit her at once: the wildly unexpected scene before her – and some sort of invisible cushioned wall. Her power was instantly stilled, and she found herself unable to move forward, toward the four figures before her – including an unscathed Orion.
The room was the coziest of living spaces, walls lined with shelves of books, plush chairs pulled close to a roaring fire in a majestic round stone fireplace at the center of the room, multiple intimate seating areas and games tables dotted around. Three men and one woman stood directly in front of Rapture, as though in wait. But not like hunters stalking prey or soldiers laying a trap. Like hosts welcoming a guest.
“Orion?” she gasped, his name unwittingly coming out like a question.
“I’m okay, Rapture,” he said, his voice calm and even.
“What is this?” Rapture gestured to the room and the foursome waiting for her. “Are you under an enchantment? You wouldn’t be able to tell me. And what. Is. This?” She pounded in frustration on the invisible wall in front of her, no power coming to her aid. She was momentarily afraid but then felt a flicker inside her. It would still come for her if she asked.
“I’m sorry about that.” Orion waved his arm across his body, as though wiping the wall away, and it was gone, her power restored in a rush.
That’s not possible, Rapture thought instinctively. Or is it? Pay attention. She noticed how Orion’s three companions appeared to defer to him, standing back from their interaction. How his clothing, though still plain, carried more ornamentation than their complementary garb.
“You’re not in danger, Rapture. After what you did in the city, I pulled my people back in the palace, so no one else would be hurt. I cushioned your entrance here, as I knew you’d come in strong.”
He said my people. He is magic.
“I can explain. But first, hear me,” he moved slowly toward her, reaching for her hand. To her surprise, she did not pull away. “I’m the same person. There’s just more to know.”
She pushed out with her power to check for enchantment, for hurt, for outside controls. She found none. She searched his eyes and found what she always did: his open soul being honest with her.
“I trust you,” she said simply, answering his question before he could ask. This was not the trust of a lovestruck woman, blinded by affection. This was the trust of a powerful being, unafraid of vulnerability.
“I brought you here to reveal a truth I didn’t think you could understand without seeing it for yourself.” He paused for a moment to allow his words to sink in, to give her time to prepare herself. “What if I told you the Nocturna are not the evil, corrupt people you were taught to believe? What if I could prove that the Celestials can control the planet’s rotation? And how they have oppressed and enslaved my people to serve the Elysians?” Orion stopped again, his eyes now searching hers, aware of how much had just been said. He would have been killed outright for uttering such thoughts in Elysia.
Rapture nodded ever so slightly. “Go on,” she whispered. She felt sick. What he said felt unfamiliar – but not untrue. It was the gentlest knocking of perspective, where the view settles into a new focus one previously didn’t think possible.
Orion tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and continued. “They’ve systemically conned Elysians into believing a false narrative. You’re not the bringers of light and goodness. We’re not the amoral, ruined monsters. The Elysians are not the good guys. You’re the bad guys.
“And you’re the only one who can help us,” he finished.
Rapture’s heart was overcome by his wild truth, and she became darkness, too.
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