Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

She's begging me again. Begging me to fuck her.

File name: Untold Stories

Passcode: 8675309

Six billion— six BILLION views! I stared bug-eyed at my pad and the summary numbers Peydran had sent me. I hadn't seen him in person since our trip to Equi, and he'd been keeping me updated with the stats from the launch. Jasen and Alen's launch was blowing up as they had hoped, and Peydran was fielding calls for potential clients. He was so busy that he'd asked if we could schedule our next video for 3 weeks from now, but wanted me to keep transmitting articles on my site. It was amazing news for all of us.

There were 19 Chaludra graphics stacked near me, and I turned to them, "Chaludra, my queen! You angel! You have propelled us all into greatness, but I am afraid that it is time to return you to your library shelf. Thank you, dear sister."

As I slid Chaludra onto her library shelf, I heard behind me, "Sunshine Ryst. Nice to see you in clothes!"

"Ha, ha, Sorchen," I replied she pulled me into a hug. "You saw, then?"

"I saw, they saw, there was a lot to see," she leered at me. "You've come a long way from the quiet gal who sat outside by herself."

"Yeah, my inner crazy had to take a back seat for a bit, but she's back. What're you doing in the library?"

"I thought I'd find you in the erotica section, giving wardrobe ideas to fair maidens, but, alas, your heart only beats for Chaludra, I see."

I snickered. "Chaludra is a fount of wisdom, don't insult my muse. And how did you know I was in the library? And, you know, how did you know back those months ago when I was asking about the Siblin Lone Warrior Nun? Do you have another sense like me? Are you Talented, Sorchen, 'cuz I could really use some help figuring things out."

"Hmmm, what is Talented, really Ryst? Just a word. A label. I don't like boxes that people can tick off to describe me and define me."

"So cryptic, Sorchen," I said rolling my eye exaggeratedly. "Are you really not going to help me with this and leave me guessing?"

"I am helping, in my own way. Let's walk and talk on our way to lunch." I followed her out of the library as she continued, "What does it mean to 'have a Talent,' Ryst? Was Michelangelo less talented than you? Are you so different from him? And what of the child who didn't speak until he was five, and then was a virtuoso poet? Is he talented? We want to say some people are 'normal' while others are 'Talented.' We like to define things into categories; and I concede that we need to, otherwise we wouldn't be able to communicate with each other."

"But at what point do our classifications become limitations? We start thinking of people, or circumstances, or cultures as one thing. And then they go and put on a sexy costume and shock unflappable comedians. So, thank you, Ryst Nova, for proving me right! Putting you in a box in my mind and then watching you break out of it was an excellent confirmation that labels can lead us to false assumptions about identities. We only look like fools in the end!"

There was some sort of bewildered and honored "Hunh!" bursting out of my lips that wasn't quite a snort or a giggle. "You're sort of turning my head upside down right now."

"Returning the favor, Ryst Nova!"

"So, are you saying that when I zapped your mind at that dinner a few months ago— yes, I saw you turn your head. You and three other people. You heard me, didn't you? Are you saying that isn't a Talent? That Talents aren't real, because you were there, and I saw it, Sorchen."

She shook her head, "I'm not saying that it wasn't real. I'm only asking questions, Ryst. About how we define ourselves. If Michelangelo were here right now, would you be asking him if he has a Talent? Maybe what we call Talent is just who people naturally are. It's just who you naturally are."

My face twisted up in a confused grimace. I could see what she was saying, but my brain couldn't compute it. I needed to journal it or something. I couldn't quite grasp such an abrupt change in the way I thought about myself.

"But, Sorchen, I thought I was going mad when I came to Shurwinn. I really thought I'd been so traumatized and stressed that my brain was breaking down. I kept hearing people's thoughts, and feeling their anxiety. That didn't happen to me before. It started after a coma! Something happened to me— a dream or a vision or something when I was in the coma. Then everything changed."

"When I finally started talking about it to Denten, he told me about Talents. And it was a huge relief! For the first time, I wasn't alone. So, I don't want to go back to thinking that I don't have a Talent. Because there's something going on with me that isn't normal."

"I didn't mean to suggest that what you're experiencing isn't real, Ryst. I know it is real. What I am saying is that you asked me if I am Talented. My answer is that I don't like labels like 'Talented' or 'seelee' because I think that those labels limit us. It's as though, at some point in our history, we saw children who heard the animals and called them 'seelee.' Then all the other children were 'non-seelee.' And we stopped there. We stopped asking questions."

"Could the sealees teach other children to do what they do? We don't know. Can you teach me to do what you do? We don't know because we don't ask. We assume that there are Talented, that they are rare, and that most people will never be Talented. What if our assumptions are incorrect? We aren't even asking the questions, Ryst. And I think that we are loosing out as a people because of that."

"Hmmm," I murmured, looking off into space. "I see what you mean. You're sort of challenging the idea that some of us are just naturally Talented with these extraordinary gifts. But we might be missing that the gifts could be developed, right?"

I shook my head, "I don't know Sorchen. I don't think I'd want to teach this to anyone. First of all, it's really overwhelming. Second of all, what if someone unscrupulous found out and wanted to use me? Like a corporation, or even a research institute? I mean, they'd want to use me as a spy or something, and that would ruin me. I'd rather have died in that coma than be used by people."

"Yes, and I agree with you Ryst. That's one of the things that IS helpful about us having labels like seelee and Talented. Because our whole sphere knows about it, and we are all in agreement that we protect our vulnerable. The seelees usually start communicating with animals, usually mirkas, but sometimes more, when they are very young, just toddlers. And no one, no one on this sphere is going to allow our children to be used or studied. That's part of the martial art of Tindin. We train and protect. We nurture a mystical connection. We watch for people who are demonstrating connections to mystical forces so we are ready for the challenges that could surface."

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I nodded slowly, "Yeah, I'm seeing it. It's starting to make more sense. So, do you know much about Talents and people like me?"

"That's what I mean about labels. We don't know much. We assume it's rare. Is this happening across the Known Cosmos? We don't know. So we don't look much further than Tindin. Which is basically saying, 'Your path will take you where it takes you and Tindin and your Teacher is there as a witness, not a guide.' It's self discovery, but it's not mastery that comes from the outside. It's very hands off."

"And so, most people generally ignore it because it doesn't make a lot of sense. It makes more sense in a person's daily life to just say, 'There are seelees out there. There are things we don't understand. I think I'll go make dinner.' You know?"

"Yeah, I see what you mean. There's not a lot of help for someone like me because the process is self-directed? I guess that's what I'm already figuring out. Maybe it would be helpful to try and teach other people. So it would be more than me. I don't know. I think I'll have to push 'pause' on all of that for a while. You say you're not an expert, but you seem to have thought about all of this a lot."

"I have recently had a very good reason to think deeply," she replied looking pointedly at me.

"What do you do in the library all the time? You knew all those Art books in the Preservation Library, and the Erotica books. Have you read all of the books in the sections labeled Art or Erotica or Family?" I asked with a smirk.

My snark was met with a throaty laugh. "Many, yes. I haven't read every book in the library here, but most of the Art, Erotica, and especially History. Particularly Shurwinn and Earth."

"Woah, really? I barely touched on the Ancient Earth stuff, but it's all throughout Chaludra, and it was really profound for me to engage in it, even though I had no idea what all the gods were and why there are so many naked, pale people on their temple ceiling in the Sistine Chapel."

"Yes, you may not know this yet, but here in Media, we have a prized collection of books. It's a type of repository for knowledge of our ancestors, and I find it particularly interesting. No, no, I'm not a 'scholar,' or 'academic, or anything, it's just my personal interest. The Shurwinn have a fascinating history, and what has happened with us since we left Earth is remarkable. How we got to where we are today, where we are heading. Media is the middle oasis, yes?"

I nodded. It was in the middle of all the oases stretched across the equator of Shurwinn; oases that sprang up in a line across the desert sphere.

"And Media is the smallest developed oasis. When our ancestors settled here, they were diverse peoples, and they wanted to live in harmony with each other. It's a beautiful story. It's how this monastery came to be."

"Please, tell me! I have no knowledge of religions, or monasteries other than stream shows, and I really don't even know what this place is."

She continued eagerly. "The founding nomads who colonized Media were people who didn't share common history and cultures. They were from a variety of places and languages on Earth. So they decided to work together with a common goal: preserve knowledge of their Earth history while moving forward together into something new. They wanted to find what they called the Middle Way— 'Media' is 'Middle,' see?"

"They built the monastery and the library, particularly the Preservation Library as a repository of knowledge and as a communal space. Rather than adopting just one religion or one set of customs, they mingled all of their beliefs, practices, and differences into a family. Just blended everything together. Obviously, they had to have a very clear goal to be able to live that way, and they really needed to work together to survive in the desert. Media was too small of a community to be divided; they had to work together. So, they used knowledge and preservation as the glue that could help bind them together."

"We don't have the largest library on Shurwinn, but we do have the largest collection of Ancient Earth books, and many rare books. That's why we get a lot of visitors. People from all over the sphere come here for the unique library and the experience of the monastery. This type of monastery caught on in other oases as well. It's a sort of common place for people who like to think, reflect, study, contemplate, and martial arts developed out of that and blended with it as well. The monasteries became desirable rest and retreats for travelers. History and culture just keep on blending."

"It's of particular interest to me to look back at the past, and reflect on what I see now, and speculate about the future. I see a lot of changes, and I know our people aren't just one thing. We will continue to blend and change. And I think that you, Ryst Nova, are a part of Shurwinn history that is going to be a very interesting chapter of our story."

"What? Me? You mean, because I'm an off sphere? I don't know anything about Earth, and very little about the Shurwinn; just the public stories that are on the stream that the whole 9 Galaxies can read."

"We have a unique history, I think. I can't claim to be an expert, but I have read widely. Each of us has our own stories, shaped by our parents and grandparents and those that came before. But think about it, Ryst. How many separatist spheres are there in the Known Cosmos? Millions of Earthens spread out across the 9 Galaxies, and blended with the peoples they found there. But the only sphere that isn't a melting pot of Earthens and off spheres is Shurwinn."

"So, we left Earth. Vegetarians from all over the sphere of Earth. Groups of people who had different religions, different backgrounds, different languages, different customs. These weren't all the same nomads. They were tribes of disparate peoples who banded together because of a common goal: they wanted to get away from Earth because they didn't trust the leadership."

"They thought that the warring governments of the past would continue in a new form. So, they rejected what everyone else had surrendered to and devised their own plan. They weren't all vegetarians at first. That came later. Mostly, it was any and every pacifist on Earth who didn't trust leaders to make decisions for them. A wide, wide variety of people pooled together, invested in starliners, and colonized a far-away sphere in another galaxy. And over time, they mixed and mingled, and you get what we are today. And we've had other off spheres join us in the past; you aren't the only one."

"See how you're blending worlds? Look at your clothing. You wear Shurwinn clothing, but you have a tailor design things that are a bit different. You twist your hair, but don't use braids, you use the style from your home world. I won't be surprised if people start mimicking you. That's how cultures blend."

"And you're bringing a lot of disparate pieces together: 'Medica may not work for everybody. Live outside your comfort zone. Instead of getting stuck in a pattern and throwing yourself into a diet religiously, experiment.' You're putting forth ideas that challenge us, and you aren't doing it to be provocative. It's coming from the core of your being. It's just who you are."

She continued, "And I know you don't see it because you're too close to it, but the world is seeing it, and that's not the end of this story. We don't know what the melting pot of Ryst Nova and Shurwinn will be because we will have to live it to find out, but something is shaking the foundations we stand on, and I am glad I'm here to watch."

And I felt it, that gong. The one I seemed to be feeling rather than hearing from time to time. It was like a reverberation in my bones. All I could do was nod.

Dream Journal

Something prickled at me, bothering me, and I didn't know what it was. I needed out. I needed space. I needed to stretch out.

I was walking. I didn't know where. I needed to be up. To be out. To stretch out.

There was a path. Behind a garden. It was stony and sandy and brown and hot. I kept walking. Going up. Not a mountain. Not like my home world, full of mountains and snow and cold and damp. Just a rise, a bit of height. So I could see out and stretch. I let go.

There was a bench beneath two palm trees. Shade from the high sun above. Shade in the desert. Heat— and protection from it. I sat down, with my legs crossed and intertwined. I closed my eyes and breathed. In. And out. In and out. I stretched. I was vast. I moved beyond. I loved the desert. It went on forever. And something inside me wanted out. It wanted to stretch and stretch and stretch across the desert. I was at home there in the desert. Home. I felt it pulling me. Home across the desert. Home. To the west. In the desert. But not the desert. Home.