Come closer, little ones, and I will tell you of the Living Sun.

Radiant is She, bearing the warmth and light that gives us all life.

Gracious is She, sharing with her sister, the Living Moon.

Together, they form our days, and our nights. Together, they balance each other, and keep our cycle of life.

And, for a time, that was how the world functioned.

Over time, however, the Living Moon fell out of favor.

Her grief over her Sister’s attention and the gifts from their people transformed her into a monster; one born of envy and despair.

The Living Sun made a choice. She protected their people, and banished her Sister.

The Moon still bears the scar, little ones.

Though the Living Sun has lost her Sister, she still yields the nights as if the Living Moon still walked.

She mourns her fallen sister, watching the skies and the stars for the day she returns.

Though the Living Sun still mourns, still yields, little ones, pray, do not test her patience.

For though she yields, and has patience unknowable, she lacks her Sister to keep her balanced.

The Unyielding Sun is not to be trifled with. Where the Grieving Moon was born from despair, her Sister is born from rage.

It will burn hot, and consume you, and leave naught but a shadow of glass and ash.

Little ones, do not fear the Living Sun. While that rage lives within her, she, too, does not wish it to be without.

What she does in maintaining the cycle, she does for us all.

And most of all, she does it for the Living Moon, in hopes that the grief will pass when she sees us all again.

—Everfree Sarosian Colony Matriarch, Gifted Love.

Recorded by Sunny Skies.

_{Written December 8, 2023}