“Do it again,” her mother calmly commanded. She reopened the packet of dialogues, emotions, and actions and read her part for the audition. As she read aloud, Selene began to cough from the dry tickle in the back of her throat. The tickle crept and lingered as her tongue scraped the sharp ridges of the roof of her mouth after the many repeated renditions. 

            “Momma can I please have a glass of water?” she asked in the middle of her character’s lines. Her mother’s eyes widened into two seething orbs as her daughter disobeyed her strict orders.

            “You will receive water when I receive emotion. Once I feel your character actually want, then you will get what you want. Finish your lines. Make me care,” the mother directed. She slowly receded back in her crimson velvet chair with crossed arms. The glimmer of the opalescent jewel of the ring peeking out over her pinky, tapping impatiently. A moment passed as Selene tried to push down the lump in her throat that regularly formed during her mother’s acting classes.

            As puddles began to form in the corners of the daughter’s desperate eyes, she read aloud. Theia watched as the words fell from her daughter’s mouth with grace and poise. Selene’s face changed with the direction and emoted with burning intensity. The words were not her own. Her face was not her own. She was transformed. 

            When Selene finished her reading, she looked to her mother for feedback. Theia stared at her, satisfied with her daughter’s performance, in silence. Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Selene’s eyes shot at the floor. Up at her mother’s. Back down to the floor. Yearning for her mother’s approval. Also striving to hide the desperation. 

            Theia sighed as she stood up from her throne. “A strong actress does not require real life turmoil to churn a noteworthy performance. A strong actress does not require her mother’s forceful prohibitions to elicit emotion. A strong actress reaches within and transforms when asked to. You want to be a star? Look at the stars in the sky. Look at how bright they are. A strong actress shines brighter than the stars up there. Shine like the moon.” She looked at Selene for a moment more. “I’ll get your water.”

            Theia exited the room. Though it was not in the script she held, Selene continued to cry. She covered her mouth and nose to stifle the sounds of her sobbing as tears beaded down to her hand. Her other hand pointed at her mother’s back as she drifted down the hallway. As Theia grabbed a red-striped bottle of water, the corner of her mouth crept upwards. When she returned to the living room, both mother and daughter withdrew into themselves. No longer smiling nor crying.

* * *

Selene sat across her boyfriend, Aster Sau, at the small charred oak table in his apartment as the morning sun draped soft golden rays above his emerald eyes through the layer of dust atop the window blinds. She didn’t necessarily speak to him, but spoke at him. Aster listened.

            “A woman came to me one night—right after one of my classes with my mother, they usually tire me out immediately—in my dreams. Could’ve been last night. She was sitting in my mother’s chair in the living room; where we practice. She’s the only one allowed to sit in it. It’s been in the family for generations. But it wasn’t my mother. I don’t know who it was. It was just some woman. She sat at the table facing the other way; I only saw the back of her head. It was…discolored. Almost gray. Blotchy. Spots of her skin had different shades of heavy white. She had other spots on her skin that were…indented. Circular indentations of different sizes. 

            “Her hair was thinning. I mean actively thinning as I approached her. It was falling out. It seemed like everything was happening in slow motion in the room. Strands peeled away from her scalp and swayed back and forth through the air before it rested upon on the floor, revealing more of her marble skin. She looked like a corpse lying on an embalming table: white and almost powdery. The bones of her spine protruded out of her skin like light posts on a popular street. They slowly rose up and down, straining her milky rotten skin in between the posts, as she breathed. I felt like I could actually hear her thin skin stretching. But it wasn’t a stretching sound. It was like the earth moving. Like a slow scurry from tectonic plates shifting. Her skin looked like a curtain was draped over a set of thin, weathered bones; gravity sucking into the ground beneath her.

            “She made a sound as the points of her spine rose and fell. It was almost some sort of…whirring. Like how some kids talk through a standing fan at high speed, and their voice becomes distorted through the spinning blades. It sounded like breathing through some echoing chamber of roving electricity. It was a smooth static. 

            “For some reason I kept walking towards her. My legs had a mind of their own, really. I slowly approached her and reached a hand out to her for some reason. Maybe I wanted to talk to her? No, I would have called out to her, then. Perhaps I needed to see who it was. I touched her shoulder and it was dry. Almost dusty. Like a thick chalky dust. When I touched her, her head began to turn; skin stretching again as the blue veins popped through the white mold. Before I could see her face, I woke up.”

            Selene finished relaying her experience to her boyfriend at the table. He stared at her with the gold of the morning sun now resting below his eyes, his brow furrowed and mouth just slightly agape enough to see the tips of his front teeth. Just a couple of seconds passed until Aster did what he was wont to do: try to fix it. He gave his own interpretation of the cryptic dream. What it possibly represented. How she needs to not let her mom boss her around so much. How her mom walks all over her. Halfway through his unlicensed diagnosis he stood up and cleaned the table of his breakfast remnants and retreated to the sink. A solitary captain on his own domestic autopilot. The sound of water running and his plate bouncing off the walls of the sink clashed with his speech. As the regular soundtrack of their mornings together played in the background, she looked at her plate of bagel crumbs and avocado smears. She kept thinking of the woman in her dreams. This grotesque creature that invaded and infected the infinite vacuum of her mind. She thought of it sitting there, hunched over the table and calling to her. And for some reason she had the slightest desire of wanting to meet her as it called her name.

            “Selene? Hello?” Aster’s request had reached deep down and pulled her out of her inquisitive thoughts. 

            “Oh,” she came to and hammered a couple of heavy blinks, “Sorry.” She turned to him, “What was that?”

            Aster replied, enunciating every word with emphasis loud enough for his neighbors to hear, “Do you know what I mean?”

            Selene looked back down at her dirty plate. The warm golden glow of the sun escaped the room and left an uninvited burst of illumination that made the sink emit a slender white haze as Aster stood in front of it. She recoiled further into her chair. “Yeah. Maybe,” she murmured to the table. 

            “Probably,” Aster agreed as he walked over to her. He ruffled her hair, not like a big brother, but gently. Kissed her head and receded to the bathroom to get ready for the day. Selene rose to the sink where she fixed her hair and cleaned her own plate. 

* * *

Aster called out something to her through a mouth full of toothpaste and backwash from the bathroom as she sat on his bed and read over her lines for the audition. “What was that?” she called back. 

            He spit and rinsed. “The woman in your dream. Was she wearing your mom’s ring?” 

            “Oh. I’m not really sure. I guess I wasn’t looking for it.”

            “Well if she comes back, maybe you should look at her hands. Could mean something, know what I mean?” Almost every sentence or question of his ended with that phrase. ‘Do you know what I mean?’ At times it made her wince. It rang and echoed in her head. ‘Do you know what he means?’

            Through gritted teeth “I’m not sure if it means anything per se,” she grimaced. “Could just mean that my mom intimidates me sometimes. Like how she intimidates you all the time. You know what I me—”

            “She doesn’t intimidate me all the time. She’s just intense. It’s hard to get a word in with her,” he fired back as he entered the room and rummaged through a drawer full of clean clothes to choose. 

            Selene watched him carelessly ransack his drawer like a post-apocalyptic scavenger raiding for supplies. “Tell me about it,” she muttered, but he didn’t seem to hear.

            “What is that ring, anyway? I haven’t gotten a very good look at it, but it seems like there’s some sort of script lining the edges. It looks like a class ring, but it seems weirdly archaic. It doesn’t look like the script is in English, either. But I’ve also never been close enough,” he inquired while shooting each of his legs through those of the pants he finally chose. 

            “She said it’s from her old theater group. They won an award for a group ensemble and were all given rings instead of those statuettes you see on TV.” Before he could respond, she continued, “I know what you’re thinking. Strange to be given a ring as an award instead of, well, an award.”

            “Not necessarily. My mom gave my dad some jewelry before she passed. I think she got them from her mom. Mementos and souvenirs could signify something larger than what they actually are, you know what I mean?” Wince. “What was the name of their group?” He was now leaning against the drawer with his arms crossed. 

            “It’s intense, mind you. But you just said she was intense, so it’s only fitting. They were called ‘The Daughters of the Old Moon.’” An expected silence hung in the air between them as Aster stared at her. With one eyebrow raised he repeated the name back to her. Each syllable and word suspended in the air like half-filled balloons hovering in place before their demise. “I told you it was intense. Sounds like a female death metal band, huh?”

            “To say the least,” he chuckled underneath wide eyes. “Have you seen any of their plays? I mean, I know she’s done with it. But, perhaps any old videos?”

            “She said that her old theater burned down and everything went with it. Costumes, props, archives. Everything except this black and red robe she wore in one of her plays. She doesn’t like when I ask about her old acting days. Says her past is nothing to talk about. She tells me I ‘may be the future moon one day.’ I don’t know what it means,” the more she spoke of her mother the more her eyes dashed around the room, finding difficulty in meeting his. 

            Eagerly awaiting an exit from the topic, she looked at the wall clock, “Shouldn’t you be getting to work now?”

            Aster broke his stare and looked at his watch. He cursed himself for listening to her story for too long. He bounced around the room, gathering his everyday items. With his bag in hand, he rushed over to Selene and planted a kiss on her forehead and almost lost his balance. “Break a leg on your audition. You’ll do great!” he shouted on his way out and the door closed behind him. His words of encouragement sat on top of her head like a stack of loose bricks. She wasn’t sure if she wanted them. Each one sounded like a demand. As if she wasn’t given a choice to break a leg. She pointed her finger at him outside of the house. The words piled atop her head. Each one heavier than the last. She wanted her mother. She wanted her to walk through the door with a sledgehammer and crush each burdening brick.

            Selene stretched out on the bed with the script propped up on her stomach. Her lines highlighted in a neon yellow. As her straining eyes fought the weight of her eyelids, Selene’s concentration dissipated as her consciousness wavered until she fell asleep.

* * *

Selene wasn’t floating. But she wasn’t standing on anything, either. She was concretely suspended. She could walk. The tocking of her feet resounded through the chamber of her mind. All around her was a vacuous void of sparkling sprites and solemn solar systems and colossal clouds of static streams. Through the boundless infinity a glowing white haze beaconed and pulsed like a trans-dimensional lighthouse, stoically floating in a black sea of everything and nothing. 

            She walked towards the glow for seconds. Years. The white glow softened as she neared. The haze dimmed into a being. The thing sat in a chair. A recognizable chair. Her nerves all sparked and sputtered at once. It was her mother’s chair. Between her and the limitless confines of time she saw objects of domestic familiarity. Furniture fell frozen in cosmic pendulum. Family photos of hooded figures hung on ethereal walls. Some photos displayed portraits of Aster and Theia together. The thing in the chair was facing her; its robe hung over its face only exposing the bright white of its skin. The pearl robe fluttered and floated as if it was falling in place through an ocean. 

            Selene watched as the thing extended its arm towards her. From underneath the gaping sleeve was a single outstretched finger pointing directly at her. Clasped around the finger was a star embedded in wrought iron. The star shot a concentrated beam of rose and cerulean through her sternum. She looked down at the light piercing through her chest. It didn’t hurt. It was beautiful. Everything was. It was invigorating. Like the strength of the eternal cosmos beaming throughout the solar system inside of her. She looked back up and was now the being in her mother’s chair, pointing the light. There before her was a girl standing with a cone of light drilling through her chest. Through her own index finger shot the everlasting column of starlight and into herself. She was pointing at another Selene. 

            Selene woke up. But she wasn’t where she fell asleep. She was standing. Standing in another room.

* * *

The place she found herself in she had never seen before. It felt strange. Alien. Like the air was different. In the room was a woman in a black suit and with red lapels sitting at a desk. Behind her were barren blue walls. She was reading aloud from a packet of papers. A script. Selene recognized the words. They were the words of her scene partner. She was in the room of her audition. In the middle of the audition. How did she get there? Wasn’t she just at her boyfriend’s home? She was just dreaming. Right?

            She stood there, dumbfounded. A wave of adrenaline coursed through her heart and into her fingertips. Something was scraping her chest. Her head bent down and saw her fingernail scratching. Proceeding her nail was a white sliver wrapped around her finger. Her finger began to turn and divide with the walls and floor. The woman repeated the line in a louder volume, directing Selene to respond. 

            Her mouth was a desert and a tumbleweed scratched at the back of her throat. “I’m so sorry. May I have a glass of water, please?” she requested. She had to adapt, so she continued “I have a tickle in my throat and I’d like to do the scene perfectly.”

            The woman didn’t hesitate, “Yes, of course you can.” She reached from under the table and grabbed a water bottle. “No problem,” she said as she handed it to Selene. 

            Selene opened the bottle and just about finished it in one go. She would have noticed its familiar label, but the roof of her mouth almost cracked like a fissure in the earth and the room was still spinning. The woman before her sat in silence, with her head tilted, smiling and watching. The slurps of water silently dwindled as Selene started to feel like herself again. The room stopped turning and her desert throat returned to an oasis, ready to exude new life. “I’m sorry, again. Where were we?”

            The two women picked up where they left off and continued the audition. Her mother’s words rang in her head like hourly church bells. ‘Shine like the moon.’ As the words clanged the walls of her mind, she thought she saw something in the woman’s hand behind her script. Something small and bright. Like a small reading light. Then the woman repeated the last line in order to snap Selene back to reality. She recited the script from memory. Leaving her mouth, the words flew away and into the ether of the room. The emotions transfigured and mutated to those of another being. They weren’t hers. But they were. They floated from her with serene composure. She was no longer herself. She was transformed. 

            The two women finished the scene. Selene locked eyes with the woman and they stared at each other. The woman smiled greatly and nodded. She told her what a great job she did. She told her that she’s perfect for the show. A lively excitement washed over Selene. On the spot, she was offered the part. Selene hardly let the woman finish before accepting. “Lovely! We’ll be in touch,” the woman finished and showed her the door. 

            Selene walked out into the waiting room. The sides of her hair fluttered past the door frame. Her tunnel vision restricted her from seeing the emptiness of the room. She fumbled through the various items in her bag to find her phone and tell Aster the good news. She was ready to tell her mother about it. Selene was in the beginning stages of achieving something she yearned for. Something she was ready for the world to see. Her transformation. 

            As she was leaving, her mind kept circling back to something. Something about that woman. She had a familiar face. Like she resembled someone she knew. Selene couldn’t remember if the woman was wearing glasses or not.

* * *

The corners of Selene’s mouth couldn’t seem to falter. They stretched from ear to ear almost the whole drive back. Even the streetlights seemed to turn green before she could slow down. Her eyes darted between her blank phone and the road. Trees and street posts began to marble together. The sounds of neighboring cars shot past her. The pauses between rushing metal titans lessened as the overall excitement of her new venture transferred from her heart to her fingertips to her feet. This was an elation that she could feel. A tingling ran from her head to her extremities. This didn’t seem normal. Her fingers began to shiver. What was happening to her? The butterflies in her stomach metamorphosed into hornets. Was it something she ate? All she had was a bottle of water. 

            The last noise she remembered was the ringtone of her phone receiving a text message. The short DING of her phone rang through the small interior of her car. Selene’s eyes shot downward to see if Aster was excited for her. If he was proud of her. Her foot fell heavy and her eyes followed the curvature of the wheel. The blaring of several car horns invaded her space. As she looked up from the phone she wasn’t entirely sure of what she saw. She wasn’t entirely sure if she believed it. It may have been the adrenaline for the split-second decision that was made for her. But when she looked up, she saw the moon. Not in the sky. The moon was sitting on the street. Encircling it was a gathering of figures in black and red. A white brilliance blinded her and filled her mind with a glaring frost that wrapped its burning icy fingers around her narrow waist. For a moment, Selene felt weightless. The short brown strands of her hair ballooned without gravity. And she was released into the black. 

Her phone repeated the notification from Aster. ‘I told you you’d do great.’

* * *

Aster rested his phone back on his desk with a triumphant smile on his face. He knew she would do great on her audition.  After all, he was the one to tell her to break a leg, right? He always knew.

            As he blankly stared through his computer screen, Aster thought of Selene’s mother, Theia. He wished she saw him for the tenaciously intelligent boyfriend he was. What Selene said about him, how her mother intimidates him all the time, wasn’t true. He didn’t know why Selene came to that assumption. Because that’s what it was. An assumption. He knew he was always strong and resilient against her mother. Theia just happens to be forceful with her words and believes herself to know what’s best for Selene. But he saw it was clear enough that Aster was the one who knew. He knew that Theia walked all over her. He knew that Selene needed to no longer let her mother walk all over her. 

            It seemed like Selene also knew because she texted him back a moment after. Aster reached for his phone with that same smile, expecting her ‘thank you’. Her response was not what he was anticipating:

            ‘I will be more than a star. You will see me. Let me show you, my sweet Astraeus. Watch me shine.’

            Strange. Maybe it was her phone’s autocorrect that misspelled his name? And she never spoke this way before. So…determined. This conviction made his nose wrinkle and brow furrow. As he was staring at this odd message, his phone began to brighten. It brightened higher than he thought it was capable of. It blazed to an aurora borealis of a blushing azure. He tried looking into the eclipse but wasps stung his eyes. An ear-splitting ring rose to shattering decibels in his head. The white noise and bright light of the phone rose through the air like a blade that sliced through his eyes and ears. It grew higher and higher. Aster’s wrinkled eyelids went white and red and hands went over his ears as he stood from his chair. His head was about to burst. One moment longer and the janitorial staff would be cleaning the walls of his skull for days. One moment longer. 

            The room went dark. Black. Black veiled the fingers he held up in front of his face. He could feel the black around him. The void engulfed him. Was he still in his office? Was he even in a room anymore? His rapid breaths ceased volume. Sound and matter was drained from the room. All of his senses felt useless. He couldn’t hear anything. Feel anything. He couldn’t see anything until a faint glow of white pulsed at the end of a tunnel. It beamed brighter and brighter. Something forced his legs as he began to walk towards her. 

* * *

When Selene came to, her slow and rhythmic breathing echoed throughout the chamber she inhabited. She could hear a sporadic dripping off in the distance somewhere. The splatter would respond back several seconds later. Wherever the drip was, it fell from a great distance. One moment it was in front of her and the next it was from behind. She couldn’t focus on the walls of this damp, decrepit place, but she felt like they were spinning like a top on its last few revolutions before it collapsed. 

            A warm bubbling simmered in her stomach. Selene glanced at her fingertips. They were pale. The two sets of milky hands slowly merged back into one. The muffled dripping and echoes slowly tunneled into the clear chambers of her head. She grabbed a hold of her bearings one sense at a time. 

            As her mind rebuilt its foundation brick-by-brick, the room brightened with a shy silver luminescence. The source of which she was unable to discern. There were no bulbs nor flames; the room just seemed to gleam into soft visibility. As Selene scanned around the room she noticed something. Something dark with a glowing cardinal blossom outlining its upright robe. When the robe spoke, the slithering in her stomach almost halted with the silence that followed.

            “My sweet Selene. My darling moon,” the robe bellowed. The notes of the voice did not follow that of the dripping. Not a sound followed its booming tones. In this wet, stone chamber, the robe’s intonation produced no echo. The speech was constrained to the bounds of Selene’s mind. Unable to escape its roaring whisper, she listened.

She knew the voice.

* * *

Aster’s feet stepping onto the hard surface of a black boundless expanse shot icicles through his veins. The infinite plane encumbered an air so thick he could chew it. The pale, beating brilliance continued to expand. The beaming haze blasted light all around the tunnel and the desolation increased to illuminate. 

            A moment passed. Perhaps several thousand more passed. The concept of time eluded his thoughts as he advanced towards the light. It either brightened until it replaced all the surrounding black or he finally reached the source; he wasn’t certain. The amplifying fountain of light was now discernible as an entity. A person. A cloak of some sort adorned with yellow ornate scripture that lined the borders of its white foundation covered the face. As if ascending through inky sludge, the ivory sleeve rose towards him. He wasn’t sure if it was beckoning or pointing at him.

* * *

Theia drew back her hood. As her lips stretched back like a set of theater curtains unveiling its final act, the pale light of the room bestowed a glow upon her teeth. The reflection caused Selene to recoil as her eyes adjusted to the luster. Her legs and arms were filled with concrete. Her eyes descended and heart thronged inside her chest like a bat in a cage when she discovered there were no restraints. The radiant light pulsed. 

            “Please remain still, child. Let the starlight blossom,” she started gliding towards Selene. She thrashed her arms and legs back and forth, but not a muscle even shuddered. As her mother approached, the light bloomed brighter. In the pale glow, Theia’s hands opened to Selene. The ring clasped around her pinky was empty. The illumination grew, revealing the others in the underground alcove. Circling the floor in front of Selene were people in matching robes meticulously placed along the curved wall of stone. The sleeves of their robes also opened towards her. Each hand had a sliver of iron slipped over the same finger. All empty. Was that what was inside of her? Her mother’s opal? The warm slithering in her belly crept to her chest. Feathers tickled her arms. Threads tapped and stroked her legs and down to her feet. Her hair was thinning. 

            One of the other hooded figures drew the hood back. It was another woman. A familiar woman. She meandered towards Theia. The woman reached to her shoulders and the robe dropped to the floor. Exposed to the permeating pale glow was a woman in a black suit with red lapels. Solidified in the chasm of desolation, Selene watched the woman approach Theia and remove the glistening stone from her finger. As the woman placed it in Theia’s hands she turned to Selene. Her head tilted and her brow pinched upward. No teeth were shown in her warm, inviting smile. As if she was seeing an old friend. Theia thanked the woman and she retreated back to the wall.

            “Don’t you recognize your great grandmother?” Selene’s world was knocked off of orbit. That woman was half her mother’s age. “I envy you; I barely knew my mother,” Theia held her grandmother’s stone between her thumb and index. “Soon you will be shining bright. As bright as the Old Moon. For us. When the ascension is complete, we will be your Daughters. When a star can truly reach beyond the confines of herself and transform, may she ascend as the Old Moon,” Theia’s words matched her lips, but spoke in Selene’s mind. 

            “There have been many Old Moons. Reaching far beyond several millennia. Even before the fruits of Mother Gaea sprouted. You will be worshipped and venerated among the Daughters.” Selene’s chest blazed. Her heart was about to smolder in a grand conflagration that would reduce her insides and fuse together into a melted marble cake of human viscera. 

            From behind bone gates, a gasp escaped Selene’s mouth that caused her to wince in pain. As the flame inside her raged and thrashed about, her gaze plummeted. She saw it. In her pale hands. In her silver legs and chalky feet. In her burning chest. The source of light saturating the alcove was coming from her. It was her. The stone descended in front of Selene’s chest. Theia’s hand receded back into her robe as the glistening gem hung suspended. Spinning and trembling in place. 

            Selene thought of the woman from her dreams. She thought of the family photos that hung in the dreamscape. Photos of Theia and Aster. The two most important people in her life. The two people that made her transform every day. Their words replayed in her mind as the starlight surged within. ‘Do you know what I mean?’ ‘A strong actress reaches within and transforms when asked to.’ Restricting words. Words that confined. Then she thought of her mother’s recent speech. ‘When a star can truly reach beyond the confines of herself…” The woman from her dreams had no confines. She governed herself. She was limitless. She was power. But she wasn’t the Old Moon. And neither was Selene. 

            The stone drifted to her chest and sat on her sternum for a moment. The pulsating flare inside her pummeled about like a caged lion of stars, thrashing its flaming mane to escape its prison. The women standing against the wall all had their arms raised to the stars above. Theia’s mouth was moving. She may have been saying something, but Selene heard nothing. The vacuum sucked the sound away. The stone then melted inside of her. It didn’t hurt. It was beautiful. Everything was. It was invigorating. Like the strength of the eternal cosmos beaming throughout the solar system inside of her. And the lion was released. 

            Selene shot from her chair towards the roof of the alcove, leaving linear speckles of stardust trailing from her feet. Her ivory and golden robe floated in an ocean of celestial sprites and flickering flares and gaseous nebulae whirring throughout the chamber. Theia looked around and saw constellations and infinite meteor showers millions of light-years away. She saw the galaxy her daughter had created faster than the speed of light. Theia looked up at the moon, unable to regain control of her motor functions. Her jaw hung low and eyes widened out of their sockets. Selene’s chest blasted a stellar stream of supernova that engulfed the surrounding Daughters and absorbed them like a blazing black hole as stars into a separate universe. Her universe. 

            Selene descended through infinity to Theia. Floating above her, Selene looked down and held out her hand to the waning dwarf star before her as it ebbed without flow. “Come, Theia,” her fingers opened through a web of dripping electricity, “let me show you how bright I can shine.”

            Theia’s body reached for her hand on its own. Selene’s robe cascaded open and she saw. Splayed open before her was a magnificent macrocosm of infinity. Great pillars of gas erected from nothing. Spontaneous white holes vomited new worlds. Globules of stardust exploded into new solar systems. She glided through the white robe’s opening. As she passed through, time and space froze. Even Selene froze. Theia continued through the field. Her skull exploded and reassembled in retrograde. Her fingers popped inside of themselves and reached for her mouth that expelled all that she was and re-enveloped her body into itself. She wished to be unconscious or for death, but received neither as she experienced every inverted vortex her body suffered. 

            Time resumed and Theia was released into Selene’s cosmos. There was no more alcove. No more opalescent rings. No more Daughters. There was nothing. And there was everything. There was Selene. There was the New Moon.

* * *

A blink later and Aster was sitting in a chair embellished in vermilion velvet and ornate obsidian construction. Soft pillows resting behind his head and back and underneath his arms and rear made his fingers drape around the rests and his eyelids heavy. This is how kings must have dined. King Eurystheus could have sat in this chair while Heracles did his bidding. Times of wine and turkey legs and maidens to retrieve such. 

            A blink later and a deep, bellowing growl rumbled through his throne and into his fingertips. Out of nothing appeared a lion and a warrior entangled in battle. Tumbled as they went, Aster noticed something familiar about the warrior. The two roiled about the vacant stretch. The warrior kicked the lion away for a moment and turned his head toward Aster. He saw it. The warrior was him. A great curly beard hung from his face and bulging biceps burst from his arms and a booming chest heaved up and down. His new look made his eyes widen and teeth glisten. As Warrior Aster stared at King Aster the lion clamored a roar that shook his legs and pounced on the warrior’s neck. Its mouth gaped open wide and closed its mighty jaws around the warrior’s face. It bit down on the poor boy and his body exploded into stardust. The lion turned to Aster in his chair. It galloped and leapt in the air towards him. Aster turned away and tightened his eyes and held up his hands and legs. 

            Several blinks later and the lion was no more. Hovering where the lion stood was Selene in a grand ivory robe lined with golden script, fluttering in the frozen ocean of time as waves of starlight flowed over her. Aster looked up in awe as his blank stare transfixed on the woman. 

            The New Moon’s voice sounded like it was blasted through a hallway of open doors and in those doors were more hallways and doors in an infinite, labyrinthine blueprint of the cosmos. “My sweet Astreaus. I’m so happy you get to see me shine before your offering.”

            Aster was frozen. A string of guttural sounds and stutters left his mouth. The chair began to tremble with his arms and legs. She reached out and grazed his face with the back of her fingers. Bolts of electricity and static charged through his face and throughout his body. 

            “You seem confused. Come. Let me show you what I mean.” Her robe peeled back as her words sat atop his head like a stack of loose bricks. Underneath the drapes projected the infinite plane to his frightened eyes. Through the sounds of twinkling sprites and meteor showers came a familiar sound. He rose from his chair to listen to the comforting noise. Aster approached the sound with heavy feet. He heard it once more before he stepped through the robe and made his contribution. It was the voice of his mother. 

            Selene stood suspended. She looked at the chair before her and thought about sitting in it for a moment. A place she was never permitted. She tilted her head and thought of how uncomfortable it looked. 

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