It's been said that one's existence is dependent on the perception of others.
As Cobalt anxiously sat, the constant ceaseless thoughts and philosophies danced aimlessly around in his head.
Around and around. Around and around.
If you only exist by the perception of others, then all of your thoughts, all of your words, all of your actions…
What exactly was Cobalt?
He didn't feel like the hero of his own story. But more than that, he knew for a fact that he simply couldn't be.
Perhaps there was a time Cobalt was a valiant knight. Where he was a simple, goofy, and genuinely kind person who was the center of the entire universe, just by being himself.
The sole observer of Cobalt's existence was the girl who meant everything. And just by existing, Cobalt was, too, everything. That sort of simple existence… Just two lost souls who were the center of their own universe… Lost in space and time… But found within each other.
Shifting in his seat, he felt the stings of that reality fade from his eyes. As well as from her's.
Then now… Was Cobalt just the character who was meant to be killed off? All of his words, his beliefs, his hopes… The only people who held any perception of him at all… Those two, formerly named Nick and Hydeira.
Maybe in their eyes, he was just the villain.
He felt unhappy with that conclusion. Everything was relative, and searching for answers was always… Fruitless. He had a knack for embracing that meaninglessness. But he wasn't used to doing that alone.
From a distant world, Cobalt Aspire looked up towards the night sky in hopes of grasping the bright, hot webs of stars that sprinkled the black vastness that acted as a ceiling to him.
What was he now?
What type of story was he living?
Basking under unfamiliar stars, he had nearly agonized over the perception of himself.
Beaten into cobblestone. Then freed by a man who had become solely lost within his eyes.
What did the stars believe?
Was there anything left within Cobalt to be perceived?
A tree that falls in the forest, with no perception from man nor animal…
Cobalt knew there was no sound. He could confirm this for himself. Alone within the vastness of space, abandoning his only perceptions, abandoning his own self. There was no true self left for him. He was falling, falling, but he never knew if his soundless decay of bark would ever hit the ground. With no one to perceive him… With no one to hear his cries… To listen to his voice… To see his face… And understand him…
Was he just waiting for his existence to be erased for good?
A sudden jolt shifted him from his deep thought as the cart he was riding in hit a large bump. Startled, he jumped a bit, followed by the chuckle of a man in white.
"—Hmh. You must have really been lost in thought—isn't that right, Cobalt?"
This man, seemingly bleached in white from head to toe, had perceived Cobalt effortlessly.
"Yeah… You could say that."
"Do stars interest you?"
"Hm?"
"Stars, constellations, the stories behind them. You've been looking at them for quite a while."
"Oh," Irvelle was right. Well—partly. "I don't know their names or anything. But they're intriguing, definitely."
These stars, although beautiful, were a universe away from what he knew.
"That one right there - do you see it?" He pointed in the direction right behind them, until he realized the redundancy of his question, and let out a soft chortle. "I say that, but it would be impossible to miss."
He was right. That star, which Cobalt believed was located to their south, was by far the brightest star in the night sky - almost as if it carried half the luminescence of the entire black canvas. That's where Cobalt was staring through most of the carriage ride.
That star, dwarfing everything around it, beamed out in all directions, taking the flaring shape of a cross over Cobalt's perceiving retinas.
That star, shining with enough radiance to put any other star to shame, took hold as the centerpiece of the night sky - the beacon of opulence.
"It's official name is Primara - but no one particularly calls it that. Everyone knows it as the 'Great Southern Star', and some nights it's even brighter than the moon."
"The Great Southern Star…" He repeated softly.
"It almost hurts your eyes, doesn't it?" Irvelle joked.
"Almost, but… I don't mind it." To Cobalt, in this moment, that star was certainly the most beautiful thing in his world.
How did the Great Southern Star perceive Cobalt? Did it return his gaze?
"You've heard the old story behind it, yes?"
"I can't say I have."
Showing a mildly shocked reaction, Irvelle leaned in a little closer. "You really haven't?"
"I don't think so…"
"Strange… It's really popular around here. Festivals and that kind of thing," he added, his soft eyes lighting up at the opportunity to share. "Want me to tell it to you?"
Smiling a vaguely solemn smile, Cobalt nodded his head. "Sure."
The skinny, frail-appearing man stretched his arms into the air before gingerly cracking his fingers against each other. Setting the reins onto his lap, he made sure the horse trotting ahead of the two was safe and on-course, before turning his undivided attention towards Cobalt.
"Let's see…" Irvelle's eyes somewhat sparked while thinking of the story. He appeared to be perhaps the romantic type, where tales and legends were a passion of his.
"From what I can recall, it goes somewhat like this…" He scratched at the back of his white fluffy hair, trying to recollect the exact details of the legend.
"It was quite a while ago, perhaps centuries. Trapped utop a tall tower in the Amalthean fjords, there was a prince who was said to gleam in just about every color of the rainbow. His silver hair was said to shine subtly with several different hues, while his clothes held all of the colors independently. I believe his necklace was bright gold, his shoes emerald green, his earrings ruby red, his tunic amethyst violet, his cloak was sapphire blue… And I believe his leggings were topaz orange." He paused to himself.
A prince which glowed with every color…
"Yes I believe that was correct. Nevertheless, kilometers away there was a princess who was a simply grey - monochrome. At nighttime the hues radiating from the prince's tower were so captivating to her, that she refused to sleep, staying awake all night and sleeping during the day just so she could see his colors. For she was trapped as well within her own tower - and with nothing else to do, her sole reason for being awake was to count all the different colors she could see.
"That… Sounds familiar, for some reason."
Blurting the words, Cobalt spoke truthfully, as well as candidly, from the heart.
"Oh, so you have heard of it?"
—Perhaps too candidly.
"Not this version of the story," was his cover-up.
Traveling to a different universe like this…
He knew the dangers of being in Crestia from the beginning.
After the last war, they probably thought they would never see us again…
But with Cobalt's own rash decisions, that fate was unfortunately stolen from them.
"Well, they say the colors that radiated from his towers looked like an incredibly bright star."
With the pieces clicking together…
"That's where the Great Southern Star came from?"
"Oui! However, there's more…"
The man in white let out a reminiscent smile leaning against the seat of the cart.
From the other side of that seat in the carriage portion, practically back-to-back with him, Cobalt watched out from behind towards the focal point of their discussion: The Great Southern Star.
"Across the fjords, the prince began to notice something which shimmered and glowed during the nighttime. Sadly the woman had long since turned grey, falling from the hope she once had long ago, and she appeared quite cracked and brittle as well. However, the gaze she cast every night to the prince was returned, once he himself stopped sleeping during the nights just to watch the light at the other side of the fjords."
This legend… Seemed like a story between two lost lovers.
"She had firmly believed she had lost all of her color within those cracks long ago, but the prince saw through that. Just as bright and vibrant as his star, her moon shone with just as much splendor, from far across the fjords."
Irvelle closed his eyes and sighed nostalgically. "All of her color which she had believed leaked out of her sorrowful cracks still shone just as beautifully for the prince. And so, every night they sit and stare at each other, enchanted by their radiance…"
"…Two people who didn't see the beauty in themselves… Saw the beauty in each other… For each other."
"Voila! You understand it precisely!"
"It felt… A little personal? Is the word?"
"It is quite touching, yes…" Irvelle reflected his sentiments wholeheartedly.
Two people on opposite ends of the sky… Always following one another's light…
Personal had been an accurate description.
"There were clouds earlier, but they appear to have passed. Look East—just to your left. There would be the princess."
He turned around, and-
"—!!!"
Completely caught off guard by the shocking reveal, he finally caught a glimpse of the full story in its entirety.
From the Star in the south, and the Moon in the east…
But that moon…
He wasn't kidding when he said cracked…!
Splintered and shattered like a ball of glass, the moon appeared to have been dropped multiple times.
Or no, that may not be accurate. Perhaps something had smashed into the moon just centuries ago.
He couldn't contain his surprise, looking stunned over Irvelle's shoulder.
Swirling and oozing from those cracks lay very very thin lines of orange and red. Faint, but visible from the near Full Moon he was viewing. There was an enormous crater which appeared like a glass window which had been shot with a bullet.
The beautiful spectrumed star of the South
And the spectacularly shattered moon at his East.
These were the two lovers which shown radiantly for one another, night after night.
"You see the beauty in such a tale too, yes?"
Caught between the two extremes, the shattered grey and the incandescent white.
"How could you not…?"
Between the two, it was clear which one he had identified the most with.
Cracked, shattered, splintered, and waxing and waning its subtle beauty over periods of darkness. Forever peering out over the sky for a beautiful lover separated by distance.
That's way too on the nose…
So much so, that the beauty behind those nuances almost hurt him.
"Sadly, just like stories like this in our own world, there's no true happy ending. Following the endless path from East to West, the cracked and hollow Moon never transits across the lustrous Southern Star… The eclypse between the two is impossible, but nevertheless, the Moon still searches endlessly, hoping to find him. To me, that is part of the beauty at its essence… C'est la vie."
Such truly was life…
If one's very existence is based on the perception of others, then what is the Star to the Moon? What is the Moon, in turn, to the Star? And what was Cobalt to either of them? Ceaselessly hoping the Great Southern Star would return Cobalt's gaze, what was Cobalt's existence within that microscopic narrative?
The horse slowed.
"Ahh—" Irvelle said silently to himself, reflecting from the tale he had just recollected.
"It appears that we are finally here."
Peering across the rocks and trees, the path dwindled from its range, merging into the overgrown greenery around them. The carriage having no where left to travel towards, Irvelle calmly lowered himself from the cart and stood facing the trees.
The "adventure" that Irvelle had promised him before inviting Cobalt onto the carriage.
The excitement and wonder that came with his self-motivated quest.
The bottled anticipation that fluttered around within the hope of finding an aspiration—of finding a purpose.
I'll find it all…
Right here. Starting right now.
Cobalt enthusiastically and impetuously followed in his footsteps, lowering himself from the safety of the carriage, and towards the enlivened opportunity of meaning.