Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Just a bit more, then we’ll be let go, Saturn tried to tell himself, I hope.

“A map made out of supernovae sounds beyond cool!” Tethys excitedly exclaimed beside Saturn, drawing his attention back to the present. The documentary was still underway, continuing with Brian’s explanation of this odd phenomena they were using to navigate to the Big Bang. I need to focus.

“Type 1A supernovae really are nature’s gift to us.” Brian was walking towards them down a corridor of darkness with blue lights scattered around. “Because they all explode in the same way, that means that they all shine with the same brightness.”

“That’s certainly a useful trait.” Jupiter commented mildly, “I’m surprised such a thing is so consistent.”

“Well, if it only happens to white dwarfs after reaching that ‘Chandra limit’, that would suggest a similarity between them all.” Mars pointed out thoughtfully.

“Chandrasekhar.” Mercury corrected.

“That’s what I said.”

“And that means if we see one that’s dimmer, it must be further away. And that allows us to measure the distance to the galaxy that contains the supernova.” Brian explained. “And because they shine so brightly, we can see them tens of billions of light years away. That means we can measure the distance to galaxies all the way out to the edge of the observable Universe.” 

“But how does that help? Sure, you know where the galaxy is now, but do they really find enough of these to re-trace the Big Bang?” Titania questioned doubtfully, her eyes narrowed at the screen. “How do they even know which way the galaxy is moving?”

“I mean, they could wait a bit and see if it moves?” Oberon suggested softly, only to be shot down by Ariel's louder voice.

“Don’t be silly! They don’t live nearly long enough to do something like that!”

“Ariel, don’t be mean.” Titania corrected her fellow moon, “We don’t know what method the Earthlings used, so you can’t know that Oberon is wrong.”

“He is, though.” Ariel’s whisper of insubordination was graciously ignored by Titania.  

“But there’s other information encoded in the light.” Brian was now walking back down the corridor, away from the camera. The screen cut back to the supernova explosion. “When we look at the light from distant supernova explosions, we see something very interesting and very surprising, because the light from every single supernova that’s not in our neighbourhood is redder than it should be. The further away the supernova, the redder the light. It’s called the redshift.” 

“‘Redder than it should be’? How do they know how red it’s supposed to be?” Venus asked, frowning at the screen. 

“I’m pretty sure they literally just answered that. The supernova tells them how far the galaxy is, and maths does the rest, I suppose?” Mercury butted in, finishing with a dismissive hand wave. “But, I guess you weren’t paying attention, as usual.”

“Pay attention to this!” Venus tried to launch himself at the smaller planet, but Sol, who was sitting on Mercury's other side, merely pushed him back. The blow didn’t appear to hurt, and the rocky world only remained on the floor for a second before springing back up again in outrage. “Stop letting the Sun fight your battles! This is favouritism!”

“Hm, I never said I don’t have favourites.” The Sun joked, watching the cloudy planet carefully. “Go back to your seat, Aphrodite. We have a documentary to finish.”

The angry planet glared at the floor for a breath, then stormed back to his seat, fuming in silence now. Saturn found himself nervously shifting in his own seat, incomprehensibly anxious at how close they’d gotten to a real fight. Oh, I really don’t want the others to start actually fighting each other! We don’t even know if we can be hurt in this space, and I’d rather not find out the practical way!  

“Now, light has a wavelength. And the longer the wavelength, the redder the light.” Brian waved his hands up and down for emphasis. “So the explanation is that during the time the light has been traveling from the supernova to us, space itself has been stretching, and that’s stretched the light. And that means that the Universe is expanding.” 

“That’s…weird.” Saturn muttered to himself. “It’s weird I’ve never actually noticed that before.” 

“Never noticed what?” Dione questioned, almost making the ringed giant jump with her sudden appearance next to him. 

“That light changes like that. I mean, I’d noticed that some of you guys have different hues at different times, but I never connected it to wavelengths of light, of all things!” Saturn tried to explain, burying his anxiety from interfering with his voice. No need to be so nervous, Dione hasn’t betrayed me. Yet.

“It’s definitely a weird effect.” Iapetus, who was also closer than Saturn had realised, added. “I am quite impressed that they were able to use such a simple fact of physics to discover the very movement of our Universe.”

“And it’s all running away! Which sucks!” Mimas complained, kicking his feet in front of him. “How are we ever supposed to meet anyone from far away galaxies now?”

“Well, there’s always the ones that are set to crash into us?” Rhea offered with an amused smile, which only grew at Mimas’ frustrated expression. 

“That’s not what I meant.”

“In our quest to find the origin of the Universe, this is a vital clue.” The screen showed red stars, surrounded by red gas clouds. “Because if the Universe is expanding today, then tomorrow, everything will be further apart.” 

“Leaving us all alone.” Caelus summed up with a tired sigh. “We know, Brian, you don’t need to rub it in.”

“If your definition of ‘all alone’ is ‘surrounded by billions of other star systems’, then sure.” Earth responded with a light tone. “I don’t think we’ll even be around long enough to see the galaxy empty.”

“Maybe you won’t, but us ice giants aren’t exactly likely to get nice and barbecued by the Sun.” Planet X muttered disdainfully. “We’ll probably be the first ones sent careening into the void after the Sun blows up.”

“Well then, it’ll be a nice adventure for you.” The Earth countered in a neutral tone that made it hard for Saturn to discern the intent of the words.

“And it follows that, yesterday, everything was closer together.”

“I suppose?” The Sun muttered doubtfully. “Bit of a shaky way to make that conclusion, though.”

“Maybe they will have other proof?” Mercury suggested to the star, “I mean, we still have quite a while left of this episode.”

“We do?” Phobos whined, “But I’m tired!”

“Then go to sleep.” Mars stated plainly, pushing the moon down onto the bean bag until he was sitting beside a dozy Deimos. “I’ll tell you if you miss anything cool.”

“OK! Thanks, Mars!”

“So if we want to understand how it all began, we have to wind back time,” Brian was now in some strange contraption, which was suddenly surrounded by bright, colourful lights whipping past. “Through billions of yesterdays.”

“He’s either going way too fast in that car, or they’ve edited that.” Luna commented, eyeing the speedy lightshow. “He definitely looks way too calm to actually be going that fast.”

“Of course it’s edited, there’s a limit to how fast those cars can actually move, you know.” Earth pointed out to his moon. “If he was going that fast, in that car, he’d break it.”

“Or crash. Or break the sound barrier.” Luna added thoughtfully. “You know, it would be much cooler if they could go that fast.”

“It would not. I don’t want more pureed Earthlings on my surface than I already have.” 

“You have pureed Earthlings on your surface?” Saturn questioned suddenly, feeling distinctly sick even trying to picture such a thing. The living planet didn’t offer more than an apologetic smile, turning back to the screen before Saturn could question him further. Ugh, I don’t think I want to know more, actually.

“We have to go back to a time before the Earth and Sun.” The music was increasing in volume as reversed images of star formations whizzed past. “To a time before the galaxies. And, all the while, the Universe is shrinking. Getting ever smaller, denser, and hotter.”

“Damn, this is dramatic.” Ganymede’s voice rose from in front of Jupiter’s seat, the largest moon nudging his fellow moon. “I wonder if any celestials existed, all the way back then?”

“Why would they? Stars didn’t even exist.” Europa replied dismissively, but Ganymede wasn’t deterred.

“Yeah, but stuff existed, in some capacity. I mean, we don’t even know how celestials form, let alone how small they can be.” Ganymede speculated aloud. “The whole Universe could be a celestial! Or every atom! Every fundamental force!” 

“U-usually, I-I’m the o-one t-talking c-crazy!” Io laughed at the moon, earning himself a rough nudge of his own. “G-Ganymede’s g-gone m-mad!”

“Hey! I’m just saying, we don’t know the limits.” 

“Until we arrive at the most famous point in the history of the Universe.” The screen watched as a massive explosion was reversed into a tiny point. The screen cut to black. ‘The Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago’ was written on the screen of darkness.

“Uh…Brian? Where did you go this time?” Earth called into the dark, and Saturn tried not to think too hard about what being sent back to the Big Bang itself would actually be like. 

From the sounds of it, it would be overwhelmingly cramped and hot, and probably not survivable for even the toughest celestials. Nothing else existed yet, outside of the mess, and nothing would exist for many more millions of years. Would it be quiet? Or overwhelmingly loud? The immense pressure and heat roaring endlessly, with nowhere to escape to. But then, there would be no ears to hear it, so would it even make a noise?  

Saturn was reminded of a few orbits back, when Earth had tried to teach him and Jupiter some popular Earthling quotes. Saturn hadn’t been terribly interested, only really there because he was bored and Jupiter was far too invested to be dragged away. There was one, about trees and forests, that had stood out to him as absurdly silly. Of course a tree falling would make a sound! Why would it not? Physics doesn’t up and leave if no little Earthling happens to be in the area. It seemed a strange thing to ponder, at the time. But now, trying to imagine a Universe before any celestial ever took form, Saturn was beginning to understand the fascination.

 Angelic music played over slow scenes of planets, stars, and galaxies. “Our Universe is a place of infinite variety. There are galaxies of exquisite beauty. Stars of stupendous power. And planets.”

“Ha!” The Sun laughed suddenly, jolting the room back to attention. “Exquisite and stupendous, then just ‘planets’!”

“I’m certain he is not done talking, Sun.” Jupiter spoke up, his tired expression softened by an amused smile.

“Ah, don’t be a kill-joy.” The star laughed, and Saturn was struck by how relaxed the star finally looked. Maybe we’ve been here so long, even the Sun has run out of energy for being tense.

“Countless brave new worlds.” The screen fell towards the ringed rocky world from earlier, showing its beautiful oceans surrounded by the bright rings. “Galaxies, stars, and planets are the things that make our Universe remarkable. They are the things that make it more than a barren expanse.”

“Thank you, Brian. That might be one of the nicer things he’s said about us, barring Earth.” Mercury mused to the screen, smiling.

“Wait, why ‘barring me’?” The living planet protested, his head rising to glance at the smallest planet across the length of the room.

“He’s been singing your praises this entire time.” Venus pointed out dismissively. “It seems like the Earthlings have to say something about how ‘exceptional’ and ‘unique’ you are every time they mention you.”

“Well, they can’t help being correct.” The Earth shot his usual cocky grin at the other rockies, before turning back to the screen pointedly.

“How did a Universe of light and Life emerge from the cataclysm of the Big Bang?” Brian was walking along Earth’s surface, in an area with dark sand and high hills. “Unfortunately, we don’t know.”

“Ha! Well, this was a great waste of time then!” Caelus sighed out with a tense laugh. “Could’ve led with that.”

“I’m sure there is more to learn, even if they are unsure of the whole picture.” Jupiter tried, his gaze studying the pale ice giant. Saturn wasn’t sure what his fellow gas giant was looking for, but his brow only furrowed further in thought as Jupiter turned back to the screen with a carefully blank expression.

“I guess…” Caelus seemed just as unsure of the look, shuffling his notepad’s escaping pages back into some semblance of neatness.

“We don’t even know if the Universe had a beginning.” Brian continued to explain. “But we do know a great deal about how the Universe evolved from a very different state a long time in the past.”

“Really?” Mimas sounded confused, turning to trade glances with Hyperon beside him. “I don’t see how a dense spot can transform into a whole Universe?”

“Ah, at this point, I’ve given up trying to think ahead of these Earthlings. They always come out with the weirdest stuff.” Hyperion complained, shuffling his seat slightly. “I’m just along for the ride.”

“True. But, it’s still fun to try and predict what he’ll say next.” Mimas grumbled good-naturedly. 

“We know that 13.8 billion years ago, this space that I’m standing in now, and the space you’re standing in now, and all the space out to the edge of the observable Universe, containing two trillion galaxies, was very hot and very dense and has been expanding ever since.” Brian explained to the camera.

“Brian, you told us that already.” Luna’s voice complained, the little grey moon almost leaning fully onto his planet with a bored expression. 

“I think he’s just saying it to really nail it in. That everything was once in a very different state.” The Earth offered, attempting to dislodge his moon’s elbow as it dug into his side. “It’s for dramatic effect.”

“It’s already dramatic enough, he can stop it now.” Luna muttered, then hissed quietly, “Quit shoving me!”

“Quit stabbing me, then!”

“Now, that implies that way back, everything was closer together.” The camera continued to back away from Brian as he walked across the black sand to reach it. “Everything was contained in a very small speck. But how small was that speck? And how did it come to be?”

“Do you actually have an answer to this question? You haven't had one for the last few.” Pluto pointed out, leaning forward from his position within the dwarf planet bean bag huddle. 

“I like how everyone seems to have decided the Earthling can actually hear us.” The pale white dwarf planet rolled her eyes with a chuckle. “You keep addressing him, like he’ll suddenly enter the room.”

“It’s more fun this way.” Charon countered with a bright smile. “Makes him seem like a friend!”

“I mean, we’ve been watching him talk for ages now, so that has to make him some kind of friend?” Proteus jumped up to join the Plutonian moon. “I wish we could talk to him for real!”

“That might be a little hard, given how poorly Earthlings do in deep space.” Triton’s words brought the little moon’s smile down, and the larger one quickly corrected, “But, maybe we can ask Luna.”

“Yay!” 

“Well, we used to think that the Universe emerged in that state, very hot and very dense, at the beginning of time.” Brian explained. “And we used to call that the Big Bang. But now we strongly suspect that the Universe existed before that. And in that sense, it’s possible to speak of a time before the Big Bang.”

“This makes less sense every time he opens his mouth.” Mercury sighed heavily, his form folded forwards over the bean bag to render his head resting against the seat. “They barely seem to know how the Big Bang happened, and now they’re going back to ‘before it’?”

“I am curious to see what they think was happening before.” The Sun mused to himself, his bright eyes fixed onto the screen. “I have never even pondered the idea.”

Saturn could empathize with that, heavily. He’d barely thought about the Big Bang, let alone what was happening before. It was almost embarrassing to admit, even if only to himself, but Saturn had never been even half as curious as Jupiter was about these kinds of things. Spending any time on things he could never truly know the full picture of didn’t interest him. His mind would wander and his focus would dissolve, much to his dear friend’s frustration. If the Earthlings actually have an answer, maybe that’ll spark my interest?  

“So what was the Universe like before the Big Bang?” The camera swooped over a wide delta of streams running over the black sand. “The first thing to say -is that it was very strange.”

“I’ll say.” Mars huffed, “It sounds strange already. All matter, stuck in one speck, surrounded by some unknown ‘before’?”

“This is starting to sound like that creation story they were yapping on about earlier.” Venus pointed out with an oddly thoughtful expression. The cloudy planet had sat up in his seat at some point, leaning towards the screen. 

‘A time before time’ faded into view over a dark screen with faint movement. “There was no matter. All that existed was space-time, and energy, an ocean of energy. Almost still, but gently rippling.”

“Sounds quite peaceful, actually.” Ariel exclaimed with interest, watching the dark ripples. At her side, Miranda choked back a snort.

“Any time before you existed sounds peaceful to me.” 

“Rude.” Ariel’s reply didn’t wipe the grin from her fellow moon, but a sharp shove from Umbrial had Miranda smoothing her expression down. 

“Joking. It was a joke.” 

“Before the Big Bang, the Universe was a cold, alien, featureless place.” Brian’s voice echoed, and the screen revealed he was now standing in a dark cave. “Picture it as a near-still ocean of energy, filling the void. Although it contained no structures, that energy did have an effect on space. It caused it to stretch.” The images on screen of the cave began to warp and shift. “Not the gentle expansion we see today, but an unimaginably violent expansion. That expansion is known as inflation.”

“How exactly does that work? It just…started expanding one day?” Titan’s confusion was evident in his voice as he peered up at the screen. At his side, Iapetus frowned thoughtfully.

“I suspect it didn’t take long to start doing so.” Iapetus offered, his voice low. “If the ripples were causing it, it must have started pretty quickly.”

“Or, it could have taken years and years. We can’t really know, can we?” Tethys refuted, trying to find other possibilities. “Or maybe it took no time at all? Or maybe it never even happened?” 

“If it never happened, you wouldn’t be talking right now.” Dione pointed out dismissively, pushing the other moon back down into his spot on the floor. Tethys shot her a grin.

“You can’t know that for certain !”

“If you sit and watch, the Earthling might tell you.” Saturn tried not to let his voice do anything stupid, like crack or falter. Instead, his voice decided to come up oddly quiet and flat, turning his moons’ eyes to him once more in confusion. Ugh, I can’t even get this bit right! How am I supposed to fix the mess with X if I can’t even fix it with my own moons?

“Think of a speck, a tiny, insignificant patch of space. Insignificant, except that many billions of years later, this speck would have grown to become our entire observable Universe.” The screen began to ripple more intensively. “The speck expanded at a phenomenal rate. An exponential expansion that lasted for just a few billion, billion, billion, billionths of a second.”

“W-wooh, I d-did not e-expect it t-to be t-that f-fast!” Io exclaimed in surprise, the blue ripples reflecting off his face as he watched with wide eyes. “T-that’s a p-pretty big e-explosion!”

“More like the opposite of an explosion.” Luna mused carefully, “It sounds like it just…started expanding space. Not terribly ‘explosion-like’.”

“Well, it was also full of superheated energy, so it probably wasn’t the calmest expansion ever.” Europa pointed out with a sniff. “Sounds positively absurd to me.”

“I’ve seen too much to completely right off the Earthlings, but I would be curious to see their proof for this.” Titan added on, eyeing the waving screen as he spoke. 

“Now, the speck continued to expand until it was about the size of this cave, and then inflation drew rapidly to a close. And all the energy in that ocean, that was driving the expansion, was dumped into space and formed the ingredients of everything in our observable Universe.”

“Nice.” Earth’s one word reaction tried to force a laugh out of Saturn, but his undercurrent of anxiety was running way too fast for that to slip through. The living world continued. “What would that even do? And how does a soup of energy become matter?”

“The Earthlings said they are not even sure themselves.” Jupiter recalled, his disappointment hidden well enough that Saturn only picked up a trace of it. “Though, I imagine things would need to cool down first.”

“Yep! And then Forces could separate and start binding stuff together!” Neptune hopped in with an excited breath, his words making very little sense to Saturn. “I mean, there must have been something in the energy? Maybe really, really small particles, so small they could bind together and make all the other stuff, like protons and neutrons! Though, probably not electrons, those guys are odd-”

“Neptune, I think we’ve all heard enough.” Planet X’s deep voice interrupted the ice giant, turning a litany of heads in his direction. “We are nearly at the end of this imprisonment, and I’m sure everyone would like to go home.”

Given the various uncomfortable looks shared around the room, everyone else was just as unsure as Saturn about how to respond. Neptune was oddly focused, staring at X with a thoughtful expression, rather than the anger or embarrassment Saturn would have felt in his place. Saturn could see where X was coming from, it was getting enticingly close to the end; but the whole point of them all being here was to ‘react’ to the stuff on screen, at least as far as Saturn and Jupiter had understood it. It was an odd desire for the mysterious being to have, but no other intent really fit with their words. If we just keep telling each other to shut up, we might even anger the being…

“Maybe, but isn’t this more fun?” Neptune countered, his voice pitching up as he smiled widely at the dark ice giant. Planet X’s face fell into a slight scowl, a flicker of confusion crossing his expression. “We’ll get out of here regardless, so why can’t we make the most of it? We’ll be just as bored and trapped in our orbits. At least here, we can all talk!”

“You make an excellent point, Neptune.” The Sun nodded with a surprised tone to his blue ice giant. “X, there is no need to be rude. But, all the same, I would like to keep the screen moving. I’m sure your moons would love to hear all about it later, Neptune.”

The Sun’s dismissal didn’t ignite any particular expression on Neptune, who only tilted his head curiously at the star, as if he was something new to investigate. Behind him, Neptune’s group of moons and, for some reason, the dwarf planets, held far more expected expressions, eyeing X and the Sun carefully. Saturn began to really wish the Sun didn’t say stuff like that so often. It wasn’t going to help sooth down the tensions growing in the group, even if the true target seemed unaffected. No wonder X has convinced so many others to his side, when our star speaks so carelessly.

“I mean, imagine that -a space about this size filled with enough energy to form two trillion galaxies.” Brian emphasised, his form barely visible in the darkness. “That’s what we call the Big Bang.”

“Sounds like an underwhelming name, at this point.” Mars pondered aloud, gently holding his sleeping moons closer to his chest. “Maybe they could call it ‘Great Expansion’? Or ‘Endless Inflation’?”

“They better not. Those sound terrible.” Earth snorted in amusement. “Big Bang gets the point across just fine, even if it’s a little simple.”

“Agree to disagree.” Mars’ words seemed to leave his mouth before he registered it, the red planet staring almost helplessly after them as if he hadn't meant to voice them. The Earth didn’t seem nearly as bothered, just chuckled politely back before returning his gaze to the screen. Mars, on the other hand, was clearly overthinking this. Saturn fought the urge to roll his eyes physically. These rocky planets are driving me up the wall. If they don’t work this out by my next orbit, I’ll ask the Sun to mediate. That’ll be amusing for me, and character-building for them.

The screen was once again filled with a bright explosion. “So the Big Bang was not, as we commonly imagine, some kind of explosion. It was actually a transformation of energy into matter.”

“Is that not still an explosion? I mean, I guess we don’t see explosions quite that violent nowadays, but if you stood near it, it would still look like an explosion?” Caelus voiced his confusion to the room. 

“That would likely depend on if light was even a thing at that point, otherwise, you wouldn’t see it anyway.” Titania offered her thoughts to the ice giant, who frowned in realization. 

“Ah, yeah, I guess you’re right, Titania.”

“An explosion isn’t defined entirely by being visible, is it?” Oberon countered, trying to turn back to Caelus’ point. “It still caused a load of heat and stuff, so shouldn’t it count as an explosion?”

“Sure, if explosions continued to expand exponentially until they formed entire Universes.” Miranda rolled her eyes, fiddling with a stray string from the bean bag. “I agree with the Earthling, this isn’t an explosion, not really.”

“Guys, as fascinating as this little debate is, we really do need to focus on the screen.” Caelus’ anxious voice and quick glance at X told Saturn entirely too much about how much control X had gained over the pale ice giant. Uranus…or I suppose Caelus now, was always a very socially anxious little planet, always padding after me and Jupiter. No wonder X picked him out for this. Maybe if we’d been more attentive…?

“And the fossilised remains of these momentous events, the memory of the rippling ocean of energy that drove inflation, became imprinted into our Universe. In fact, these fossilised ripples shaped our Universe. Influencing where each galaxy and star emerged. Each planet, and moon.”

“Moon mention!” Ganymede waved his hand pointedly at the screen, voice tight. “How long has it been since moons were even brought up in this? I can’t even remember if they have been mentioned at all!”

Saturn tried not to make his sudden embarrassment show in his body language. As the very highest example of ‘moon forgetting’, the ringed giant couldn’t help the way his face lit red with shame as he tried to recall any mention of moons. Even if there had been one, he was honest enough to admit to himself that he’d probably glossed over it without a thought. Saturn, the second largest planet with the most moons, but he can’t remember anything about them.

“But how do we know all this? How do we know that there was a Big Bang?” Brian spoke over dark red clouds of energy. “How do we know that there were ripples in an ocean of energy before the Big Bang?”

“Yeah, how do you know that, Brian?” Venus sneered, flicking his bean bag in bored agitation. “It feels like this whole episode has been stretching itself out. Like they really needed this to last as long as the others.”

“This may have been a very round-about way of telling this story, but the information is fascinating all the same. I’m sure you have learnt something from it.” Jupiter disagreed with the cloudy planet, who only huffed at the largest planet’s words. Jupiter’s shoulders fell slightly, and Saturn tried not to glare at Venus. 

“The answer is,” A rocket launch countdown began. “That we’ve seen them.” The rocket was sent into space, where it began to lose sections until only a space telescope remained. “Planck scanned the entire cosmos looking for light. Not light from galaxies or stars. But light from the beginning of time.” The lens warped the light of the Milky Way across the screen. 

“Another. Bloody. Telescope?” Caelus stamped out in disbelief as the rocket rose above Earth’s atmosphere. “They have to have run out of names for these damn things by now.”

“Uh, not really. They just pick another scientist who did something interesting and slap their name on it.” Earth laughed lightly. “They’re not running out any time soon.”

“Ugh.”

“What kind of light comes from the beginning of time?” Ariel questioned, her voice excited as she turned to Titania. “Maybe you were wrong! And it did make a bright explosion!”

Titania didn’t look terribly bothered by this possibility, just firmly nudged the loud moon back into her spot that she’d begun to rise from in her excitement. “Then I was wrong. That’s why we’re being forced to watch this. To be wrong, and then corrected.” 

Listening in, Saturn turned this framing of the situation over in his mind a few times. Was that why they were here? Saturn had been quite happy to just attribute the whole thing to the mad whims of some higher being, but maybe it was far more calculated than that? The last one had shown many hidden truths to the light, exposing secrets kept buried in the system for billions of years, ripping off veils that had been shrouding the celestials from the past. What is this one trying to uncover? If anything at all?

“This is a photograph of the distant past.” Brian held up an odd picture of blue and orange splotches. “It’s the most ancient light in the Universe. This is light that’s travelled for almost 13.8 billion years to reach us. It’s a photograph of the entire sky, it’s like the celestial sphere, if you like. Every direction that we can look. And it’s been laid flat, so we can see it all.”

“Uh, it’s kinda boring looking?” The dark, reddish dwarf planet tilted their head at the screen, trying to get a better view of it, as if the mess of colours would suddenly resolve itself into clear images. “And…oddly patchy?”

“I wonder what the colours mean? It’s awfully messy.” The ringed dwarf planet added his questions excitedly, turning to his fellow celestials. 

“I can only imagine it is related to differing amounts of radiation.” The pink-ish dwarf planet deduced. “I can’t see what else it would be, though that does bring into question why those fluctuations even exist?”

“It’s called the cosmic microwave background radiation, and it’s an almost featureless glow.” The picture filled the whole screen. “There are no stars and no galaxies in this Universe.”

“Is it everywhere? All the time?” Mercury queried, his voice pitched in curiosity. “Why don’t we feel it? Is the heliosphere blocking it?”

“No, not really. My heliosphere is more useful for supernova radiation, or stuff like that.” The Sun admitted. “The background stuff is pretty weak and its wavelengths are very long, so it isn’t likely to harm anyone, or even be felt.”

“So, the whole Universe just has this…mild radiation all over it?” Mars tried to understand, to picture it in his mind. “And it doesn’t do anything?”

“I mean, not as far as I’m aware. It probably gives the Universe a temperature, at least above absolute zero.” The Sun hummed, looking back at the display on screen. “I hadn’t even connected it back to the Big Bang before this, so who knows?”

“Wait, what did you think was causing it before?” Mercury asked in bemusement. 

“I don’t know? Big stars? Some weird quirk of physics?” The Sun shrugged dismissively. “I wasn’t terribly curious, honestly.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“Now, you might ask the question, ‘well, if there are no stars and there are no galaxies, then where’s the light coming from?’” Brian asked the camera. “The answer is the light is coming from the Universe itself, because this is only a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, so the Universe was hot. So what you’re seeing here is the afterglow of the Big Bang.”

“Must have been pretty hot, if the radiation is still hanging around.” Triton muttered with a wary tone, trying to move a dozy moon from his lap without waking them. “Kind of hard to imagine.”

“Hot enough to have all the energy of the Universe in one place.” Pluto agreed with awe in his voice instead. “I’m surprised it took less than a billion years to cool down.”

“Well, when the energy had loads of new space to spread out into, it wouldn’t take long to calm things down a bit.” The pink-ish dwarf planet mused thoughtfully at the mess of colours. “But, clearly, it left its mark.”

“The most revealing thing about this picture is the detail.” The camera zoomed into the splotches. “The variation.”

“Staring at this is giving me a core-ache.” Saturn rubbed his eyes in an attempt to clear the impressions that were being stamped onto them. “I can’t see any kind of pattern or anything in it. What are the Earthlings so interested in?”

“I’m not sure, my friend.” Jupiter sighed, analysing the screen with gold-flecked eyes. “The variations are likely as Makemake said; fluctuations in the radiation. The Earthlings must see something of note in them.”

Saturn tried not to scold himself at the ease at which Jupiter recalled the pink-ish dwarf planet’s name. Jupiter had so many more things to think about, to worry about, than Saturn; but he still remembered the names of even the furthest, oddest members of this Solar System. And here was his best friend, still fumbling his own moons’ names. Stop it, this isn’t going to help anything. I can’t hope to stand up to X if I’m beating myself up ahead of time.

“This pattern is one of the most important discoveries in all of human history, because it represents one of the necessary steps in the story of how we came to be here.” Brian was sitting in the cave again, lit in faint blue light. “See, that still ocean of energy that drove the rapid expansion of space during inflation, could not be entirely stellar. There has to be ripples in the ocean.”

“Yeah…you said that already?” Caelus cast a quizzical look at the rest of the room. “I swear he said something about ripples already, right?”

“Yeah, I remember that too.” The Sun nodded, tilting his head at the screen in confusion. “This feels very circular.”

“I think he’s trying to explain why they know about the ripples.” Earth jumped in, trying to steer the room back to understanding. 

“Maybe, but is he going to explain what the ripples even are? Where did they come from?” Luna countered his planet, turning a doubtful eye to the screen. “I’d prefer an explanation of that.”

“It’s a consequence of the laws of nature, as we understand them.” Brian explained. “And those ripples in the ocean were imprinted into our Universe through the Big Bang, and emerged as those areas of slightly different density in the young Universe. And then as the Universe continued to expand and cool, the regions that were slightly denser collapsed to form the first stars and galaxies.”

“Ah, so the ripples became that ‘Cosmic Web’ we saw at the beginning?” Mercury connected, his voice rising in comprehension. “That makes sense…I think?”

“OK, but what caused the ripples?” Venus repeated Luna’s previous question more forcefully, glaring at Brian on the screen. 

“He literally just said they’re a consequence of the laws of nature.” Earth glared back, voice hard. “Are you even listening?”

“Calm down, geez.” Venus cringed from the Earth with an eye roll, huffing. “That answer doesn't tell me squat, and quite frankly, I’d prefer an incomprehensible explanation rather than more questions.”

“Well, I’m sure I can find you a nice big physics book to read through, if you’d like.” The living planet shot back sarcastically, “I’m sure that’ll explain everything to you!”

“Yeah, that book will end up in the Sun before you finish a rotation.” Venus laughed, ignoring the growing glare from the Earth.

“It will not!” The Sun interrupted anything the Earth was planning to send back, turning his bright gaze on both rocky planets. “Quit arguing. We don’t want to hear it!”

“Yes, Sun.”

“So without those ripples, we would not exist.”

“It’s starting to sound like we wouldn’t exist without a lot of things, actually.” Neptune mused aloud, blinking at the screen as he listed, “Ripples, black holes, gas, nebula, the Sun, physics, the Big Bang…”

“That just makes this all the more amazing!” Proteus jumped up beside his planet, grinning at the screen. “All that cool stuff! And we get to know about it!”

“Yeah!” Neptune returned the smile widely, scooping his moon up and settling him back onto his lap. “Very lucky!”

“But there’s one more extraordinary thing about these ripples. And that’s the fact that we predicted them before we knew they existed.” Brian spoke over images of galaxies and stars. “And then we ventured into space to test our theory. Planck’s observations of the afterglow of the Big Bang is strong evidence for our outlandish creation saga, the story of the speck, the ripples, and inflation.”

“Not as epic sounding as some of the other creation stories, I must say.” Luna criticized, throwing an eyebrow raise at his planet. “Wasn’t there one that involved a giant getting killed? And then they dug into it to create you.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” The Earth groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “At least that one isn’t as bad as the puking one from the Congo, or the Egyptian one…”

“Yuck! Don’t make me think about that again!” The moon protested, trying to cover the planet’s mouth in case he decided to bless the room with the story too. Saturn couldn’t completely smother his chuckle as he watched the two, half-curious to hear the sordid tale that nauseated Luna so much. Knowing the Earthlings, it probably involves something unnecessarily messy.

“These ripples, then, are the seeds of our creation, and we dared to guess that they exist, from our vantage point here on a small planet 13.8 billion years after the moment of creation.” Brian’s face was the only thing seen in the darkness. “And then, because we’re scientists, we decided to launch a spacecraft out into space and capture the oldest light in the Universe.”

“I’d love to know how they predicted such a thing, before even checking.” Makemake’s voice rose predictably from the back of the room, curious as always. “If it was a ‘law of nature’ as they said, I have to imagine it has something to do with how energy itself interacts with space, or appears to?”

“Like relativity? I guess it fits…” Neptune joined in, tapping his knee absentmindedly. “I really, really, really want to read one of the Earthling books now!” 

“This documentary has broken my mind.” Pluto complained, flopping forward to rest his elbows on the edge of the bean bag. “I can’t even tell if you guys or Brian are making less sense right now.”

“I think it’s all of them. We should find a way to trap all three in a room like this, let them sort it out.” The pale white dwarf planet agreed, leaning back with a defeated sigh. 

“And we saw that our guess was correct. We dared to imagine a time before the dawn, and we proved that our creation story is not a myth.” The cave pool had ripples spreading across it. “So here is the creation story as told by science.”

“O-oh yay!” Io grinned happily at the screen. “M-maybe the s-story version w-will make m-more sense?” 

“That’s optimistic.” Callisto doubtfully replied, searching the screen with dull eyes. “Science hasn’t been making sense for a while, at this point.”

“In the beginning, there was an ocean of energy that drove a rapid expansion of space, known as inflation.” Brian began. “There were ripples in the ocean. As inflation ended, the ocean of energy was converted into matter by the Big Bang. And the pattern of the ripples was imprinted into our Universe, as regions of slightly different density in the hydrogen and helium gas that formed shortly after the Big Bang.”

“Already lost me, mate.” Caelus sighed, rubbing furiously at a spot on his notepad with a cursing whisper. “This damn room didn’t even give me an eraser.”

“I suppose this is our creation story as well, in a way? We’ve never really had it spelled out to us like this before. I can see why the Earthlings like them.” Rhea smiled softly at the images that passed by, her gaze catching on the freshly birthed stars now littering the whole view. 

“At least it’s not likely to involve bodily fluids.” Luna shivered viscerally at whatever thought had passed through his mind at those words. 

“The denser regions of gas collapsed, to form the first stars, and the first galaxies.” Bright blue stars and vast galaxies filled the screen. “And nine billion years later a new star formed, in the Milky Way. The Sun.”

“Wow, that creation story got to me really quickly.” The Sun noted in surprise.

“Yeah, he skipped, like, most of the rest of our Universe’s history.” Saturn hummed, a bit disappointed that the story had jumped over so much. Though, I suppose they don’t know anymore than we do about that stretch of time, and can’t really fill in the gap.  

“The star was joined by eight planets, including Earth.” The screen fell over the living planet. “And nearly 13.8 billion years after it all began, we emerged, blinking into the light.” 

“Ouch, always gotta mention the ‘eight’ part, don’t they?” Pluto joked awkwardly to his group, who offered polite chuckles. 

“He makes it sound like they walked out of some cave on Earth one day, rather than millions of years of evolution leading to them.” Mars pointed out with a dry tone, frowning minutely at the living planet.

“I think he’s just trying to be poetic about it.” Earth voiced, keeping his gaze forward as he spoke. “They did like caves for a bit, though. Lived in them.”

“Yeah, I think you mentioned that, once.” Mars finished awkwardly, trailing off as he turned his eyes away, adjusting his sleeping moons absentmindedly.

The Earth, from the view of Apollo 8, appeared on the screen, rising over the moon and lit by the Sun. A different, new voice began to speak. “To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold. Brothers who know now they are truly brothers.”

“OK, that shot was kinda cool.” Titan admitted with a smile, tracing the light as it faded over the living planet’s physical form. “Not sure what that quote was going on about, though.”

“They didn’t need to add the ‘small’ bit.” Earth huffed, but his face soon relaxed into a grin regardless. “I think he’s trying to explain that, regardless of how different the humans always think they are from each other, they’re all still on the same planet and should probably be a little nicer about it.”

“Ah, I guess that makes sense? Seems like every other episode ends with similar sentiments, though?” Tethys asked inquisitively, peering over Titan’s head to see the living world. 

 “It’s taking a while to sink in.”

“We all have moments of wonder.” Brian’s voice was back, speaking over more images of Earth’s atmosphere. “We all dream. Our thoughts float free, soaring across the Earth and out into a canopy of stars.”

“It would be pretty weird if Earthling thoughts could actually do that.” Neptune blinked in thought, maybe trying to picture it in his mind. “Just float away into space, getting caught in our gravity so we can hear them!”

“Sounds nightmarish.” Saturn shivered, throwing his own attempt to imagine it out of his mind. The mental image of thousands of hundreds of Earthling thoughts jumping around in his already crowded thought space was nauseating. “I don’t want random thoughts invading my head! We’d never get any sleep!”

“Yeah, and most Earthling thoughts probably aren’t that interesting anyway.” Earth pointed out with an amused sigh. “‘What am I going to eat?’, ‘Where am I going?’, ‘Why is my stomach hurting?’. They’d get dull very quickly.”

“In our most reflective moments, I think we all understand that small though we are, we are connected to the Universe. We are collections of simple atoms. But atoms arranged remarkably. With the urge to explore the Universe and comprehend it.” More footage from the Apollo 8 mission was shown. “And celebrate our own place in this great cosmic saga.”

While the Earthling spoke, Saturn couldn’t help but feel taken by the words, by the sentiment of them. Sure, Brian was billions of times smaller than Saturn himself, but on the scale of the Universe, on the scale of stars, and black holes, and galaxies, he was small too. Just a ball of matter, clumped together by laws of nature he did not comprehend, spinning around an equally naïve star, alone in a void of questions. And, maybe he should try harder to answer them, or at least stretch a brave hand of curiosity once in a while. Usually, he kept a distance from such things, content to merely watch others as they interacted with the world around them. It was safer, less likely to get him or anyone else hurt…usually. Disconnecting and sheltering behind reluctance was nice, easy and predictable; but, if something as small as an Earthling can stare into the void of unknowns and see something worth jumping in for, maybe he could too? 

“Determined little guys!” Makemake smiled widely at the screen. “So ready for exploration!”

“Man, if only they didn’t immediately expire in the void of space.” The sigh came from the pale dwarf planet, laying her head against her propped arm. “Could be fun to talk to them.”

“Well, there is that one guy, Astrodude.” Pluto piped up, glancing forward at the Earth’s moon. “Where did that guy get to?”

“Don’t look at me! I don’t have a clue!” Luna protested.

“And if we follow that saga back, it takes us on a pilgrimage.” Brian was walking on a path of oddly flat rock, surrounded by flat, dark sand and grass. “To a time before the dawn, and to strange ripples that existed in a Universe before our own.”

“Mate, how many words do Earthlings have for journeys?” Caelus waved a hand at the screen in exasperation. “Odyssey, quest, and now pilgrimage?”

“To be fair, all those words imply slightly different types of trips.” Jupiter explained, “Though, I’m surprised they used all of those for similar adventures into the Universe.”

“It certainly sounds like it covered all those bases, though.” Callisto pointed out with an obscurely dull tone. “Monsters, gods, cool findings.”

“I think we all must wonder about the meaning of it all.” Brian spoke, beginning to wrap up the documentary. “What does it mean to be human? Why do we exist? Why does anything exist at all?”

“Does it need a meaning? Seems like happy little accidents to me!” Neptune grinned widely, tilting his head at the questions. 

“I’d rather not reduce our existence down to an accident.” Caelus’ response was quiet, muttered under his breath, but Neptune clearly caught it all the same. The blue ice giant merely froze, blinking at seemingly nothing for a beat, before offering an unseen smile to Caelus.

“Accident or not, they are obviously looking for more meaning than they’ve found.” The Sun mused, frowning to himself. “I never would have guessed that Life could be so hard to please.”

“Can’t blame them. Not having answers about your own existence is beyond frustrating.” The Earth huffed, a touch more bitter than Saturn expected to hear from the living world. Ah, I suppose this is why Mars was worried.

“These do not sound like scientific questions. They sound like questions for philosophy, or theology, even.” Brian was walking towards the camera slowly. “But I think they are scientific questions, because they’re questions about nature, they’re questions about the Universe. And the way to understand the Universe is to observe it.”

“I think they are at least on the right path by looking towards our Universe as a whole for answers.” Jupiter considered with a gleam of fascination in his eyes. “Even we could benefit from such observations.”

“Benefit from what, exactly?” Ganymede hummed doubtfully. “All I’ve seen for the past few hours are reasons to never try leaving the system and all the ways our Universe is doomed to end. Full of dying black holes or forever getting further apart, it all sounds pretty hopeless.”

“They have seen the potential out there, stuff we never would have known about.” Saturn tried, hoping his underlying anxiety wasn’t reflecting in his voice. “Other planets, and stars, other galaxies, and black holes even! If we know more about others like us, we can hopefully know more about ourselves and each other!”

“Um, that’s kind of hard to picture, especially when half the room seems to be arguing constantly.” Callisto butted in with a dismissive shrug, eyeing the various split groups scattered around the room. “Not a lot of understanding going on.”

A few bristled at the comment, but none moved to dispute it. Saturn forcefully resisted the urge to snatch glances at his own moons, painfully aware of a whispered conversation igniting just outside his hearing. 

“I mean, we’ve seen ripples in the most ancient light in the Universe, laid down by events that happened before the Big Bang. We’ve seen billions of galaxies written across the sky in a giant cosmic web, and we’ve seen thousands of planets orbiting around distant stars, worlds beyond imagination.”

“Definitely leaves a lot to think about.” Pluto’s low voice noted, pulling his arms up into a lazy stretch. “I’ll be glad to do it in my orbit.”

“ If we actually get to leave.” The pale white dwarf planet hissed quietly, drawing anxious ears to her words. “We don’t know who that celestial even is. How do we know what they’ll do next?”

“W-well, they let us out last time!” The nervous, ringed dwarf planet pointed out. She turned a disbelieving stare to him.

“And re-captured us barely an orbit later. We can’t even know if this is the last time this will happen!”

“So, what, you think they’re going to just keep trapping us over and over again, forever?” Pluto countered. “What are we supposed to do, then?”

“I don’t think there is anything we can do.” Triton offered doubtfully. “Whatever is doing this is far more powerful than our system. We might just have to get used to it.”

“It’s not the worst thing in the world!” Neptune sounded far more calm about this than Saturn was currently feeling. “We all get to hang out and talk! And it’s so warm here!”

“Now, the lesson, to me, is clear, we won’t answer the deepest questions by being introverted, by looking inwards.” Brian explained. “We will answer them by lifting our gaze above the horizon and looking outwards into the Universe, beyond the stars.”

“How many more things are they hoping to find? They’ve already found a bunch of stuff. I’d take a nap for at least a decade after all that.” Mercury muttered in disbelief.

“Well, they’re still looking for other living worlds, for one.” Mars pointed out with a sigh. “And I can’t imagine they’re done looking at black holes, given how much maths they seem to have dedicated to them.”

“Yeah, but, even if they do find other living planets, they don’t have any way to get to them, do they?” The edge in Venus’ voice turned the words more bitter than he probably intended. “So, it’s useless.”

“They’ll find a way, some day.” Earth stated, oddly certain and calm in his words. “I can’t imagine they’ll let something like distance stop them. They’ve risen to seemingly impossible challenges before.”

“We used to look to the sky and see only questions.” Brian pointed to the blue sky above him. “Now, we’re beginning to see answers.” The intro song (Neptune by Foals) began to play as the camera zoomed away from Brian before fading to black.

As the music flowed to its end, Saturn was left feeling oddly underwhelmed, as if Brian should've launched another rocket or spoken some unknown truth right at the end. Instead, they were left with more questions, more gaps between the gaps that this documentary had decided to fill. Answers may have begun to show themselves, but so much was still unseen. And, unless the Earthlings made very fast progress, they would be stuck with these questions for maybe another century or more. I’ll have to make sure Jupiter tells me any new developments he hears about…just for curiosity's sake.  

“Is that it? Are we done?” Caelus frowned at the fading pictures, spinning a pencil nervously between his fingers. At his side, Planet X was still, focused eyes trained on the star. The ringed planet felt his anxiety rush into his core, forcing his form to tense and coil.

“Wow, well, that was…interesting.” The Sun squinted at the screen suspiciously, as if he worried it was about to start up a whole new episode. But the screen, unlike during the breaks, had turned a pale grey dotted with specks. If Saturn stared hard enough, they seemed to move softly. “I think I speak for all of us when I say, ‘I’d like to leave now!’”

“No.”

Stiffening in his seat, Saturn tried to glance behind himself without a head turn, feeling his core beat faster. The moons in his lap startled as well, staring up at him in confusion as his form tensed, and a few of them opened their mouths to ask. X’s next words silenced them.

“Not all of us, I don’t think.” His deep voice stepped deliberately into the Sun’s notice, as the dark ice giant drew himself up. Around him, Saturn could see others also tensing, eyeing X or the Sun with nervousness, or in some, with anticipation. At his own side, Jupiter held himself remarkably calmly, only his clenched hands giving Saturn any indication of his feelings.

“What? What are you going on about?” The Sun’s bemused expression contrasted strongly against the cold light in Planet X’s eyes as he moved to stand before the screen, the star rising to face the planet in turn. “Why would anyone not want to leave?”

“Oh, we definitely want to leave. And I’m sure we will.” The dark blue ice giant’s voice had caught the attention of the whole room by now, only the sleeping moonlets were unaware of the rising energy. “But first, we should take advantage of this unique situation for some…requests. I mean, how often are we all in one place, close in size, and entirely stripped of our powers?”

“What are you saying, X?” The Sun’s voice turned hard, eyes narrowing in new suspicion as he stared down at his planet. Even in similar forms, the star remained taller than any other celestial in the system.

“I’m merely suggesting that, given the convenience of this situation, we could voice some thoughts we might be reluctant to in our orbits.” Planet X drawled, letting the star maintain a burning eye-contact as he spoke, refusing to look away. “I mean, you're not exactly a calm centre for this system, and we’d much prefer not burning under a solar flare for daring to speak.”

“H-how dare you suggest I’d do such a thing! If any celestial had reasonable requests, I would listen!” The Sun hissed furiously, steam rising from his forms once again. But, as Planet X said, he could not do anything further than mere theatrics, no solar flare followed his anger. 

“Well, I fear you are proving my point.” X mused with a knowing hum, turning to the rest of the room with a calm stare. “I barely touched an issue, and already I’d be melted in our physical forms. How can anyone be happy with this?”

Trying to find something, anything, to say in response, Saturn cast a nervous glance at the room of wide-eyed celestials. Most of the moons appeared struck between curiosity and caution, watching this play out without any move to jump in. A few moons stood out, mainly the ones Charon had called out, who stepped forward to stand at various points around the star as X spoke. Caelus was also up, but hesitantly so, his notepad still held to his chest and seat barely left as he fought with himself. Beyond him, the dwarf planets were already up, standing with expressions ranging from fear to fury, their eyes trained on the front of the room. Neptune remained nearby, but he was speaking low and urgently to his major moon, who was frowning deeply.

With the rocky worlds, Saturn couldn’t even puzzle out who was mad at X or at each other. Mars and Venus were engaged in some hushed argument, sharp words punctuating each point. Mercury was trying to interrupt them, his frustration growing with each ignored word, while across the room, Earth and his moon exchanged wary glances as the scene played out in front of them. Beside Saturn, Jupiter had his eyes carefully trained on X, his hands still held in tense fists. 

“I-I, I would not have hurt you.” The star backtracked, suddenly aware of how few celestials in the room shared any disagreement with X’s statement. Saturn tried not to feel hopeful for a peaceful resolution as the Sun tried to compromise. “Very well, what do you want to say?”

“Where to begin? I’m afraid we’d be here quite a while if I listed them all.” Planet X joked, his smirk blatant and wide. “Let’s start with my banishment, shall we?”

“That was not a banishment! I was not aware of it, and I would not have done such a thing!” The star protested, but X’s grin only rose, his eyes indicating towards the largest planet.

“Maybe. But the one who did throw me out is unbanished, unpunished, and still held in your trust.” X’s grin morphed into a sneer as he spoke. “While I have been pushed into the furthest orbit in the system, further than the orbit everyone has seen the damaging effects of. That is not my old orbit, nor should it be anyone's orbit. It is a punishment, fit only for the greatest crimes.”

As the ice giant trained his gaze squarely on Jupiter, Sol blanched in outrage, barely containing his fire as he replied. “Yes, your situation was unfortunate, but Jupiter has been punished, and throwing the orbits into disarray on some whim of revenge is not going to happen. His placement is vital to more than can be weighed against petty desires.” 

“Hm, so you say. But does the rest of the system agree? Were they asked? Were they even informed of this decision of yours, that some individuals can suffer just fine, as long as your ‘order’ is protected?” Planet X interrogated, stepping forward once more with a harsh tone. “Or are we all just expected to bow and scrape to your word? The way I see it, you are abusing your power as our star. And we won’t put up with it any longer.”

“HOLD YOUR TONGUE! You have no right to speak to me like this! I AM THE SUN!” The star’s hissing voice rose into a blaze, scorching Saturn’s ears with terror. He didn’t understand why X was riling him up like this, getting him angrier and angrier. The star continued to spit. “My word is final, I am the most massive thing in this system, you cannot force my hand! Moving orbits is not up for debate!”

“Maybe not in our obits, certainly. But here? We don’t know the rules of this space…” Planet X trailed off with a smirk, unflinching in the face of the furious Sun. Saturn was dismayed to see other celestials listening to his words, some even exchanging hesitant nods or intrigued looks. “Who knows, maybe we can come to some agreement with that mysterious being, and they will help us? Maybe they can hold you to whatever word we want, despite your ‘power’. They are certainly more powerful than you, and by your own words, you’d have no recourse to object to them.”

“And if not that…for all we know, this place has no rules about dead celestials.” Those final words of threat from X were the ringed planet’s last straw. Throwing himself forward to stand beside the Sun, Saturn glared at X.

“You cannot threaten our star, X! You cannot threaten anyone! This will solve nothing!” Saturn snapped, pushing between them as much as Sol would let him. The Sun remained silent, a confused expression replacing his fiery one.

“Why not? Nothing else has worked, not in the whole history of this system. Every celestial I speak to has some reason to despise the current state of things.” Planet X implored, his attention now on the rest of the room, trying to reach them. “Here we have our only opportunity to have our voices heard without the threat of the Sun’s power hanging over us! If we don’t take it, everything will stay the same for eternity, until the Sun kills or abandons us!”

“I agree there are issues we need to address,” Jupiter’s voice startled Saturn as his friend stepped up. “But threatening violence won’t solve anything. We need to talk, first and foremost.”

“Talk? You think talking will work? It didn’t work for me, when I tried to get my orbit back. It didn’t work for Caelus, when he told you he hated his orbit. It’s barely been helping you! You’re still as scared of the Sun as you were all those billions of years ago. You were afraid to talk to him then, and you still are! And you’re the biggest planet!” Planet X turned his cold gaze on Jupiter, eyeing him critically. “How do you think the rest of them feel?”

“I-I-” Jupiter didn’t seem to find a reply quickly enough, interrupted by the ice giant before he could counter his words.

“Exactly! We need change in this system. Those who have been hurt should have justice. And  those who have hurt others should be punished for it!” X’s glare turned so abruptly to Saturn that the ringed giant almost flinched, forcing himself to even keep his eyes on the ice giant’s face. “I can see a pretty clear way to do both.”

“Wait, X, we didn’t agree to this?” Enceladus’ voice was quiet and unmarked by X, but the icy moon pushed his way forward to continue regardless. “I don’t want my planet sent to a further orbit! We’ll end up there too!”

“You are more than welcome to join me in my new orbit, if you wish.” Planet X’s smile was far too similar to his smirk, raising Saturn’s concern for his moon. What has he gotten himself into?

“B-but-I thought we were trying to improve things for everyone? What if we don’t want to be your moons instead?” Enceladus stammered, his uncertainty breaking Saturn’s core. His moon looked far more confused than Saturn had expected. I guess Jupiter was right, X didn’t tell them everything. 

“Don’t you get it? He was never going to do that, Enceladus.” Dione surprised Saturn with her passionate, angry tone towards the icy moon. “He doesn’t care about moon rights, he just wants celestials to stand behind him and help him punish Jupiter, Saturn, and the Sun!”

“B-but-” His poor icy moon cut himself off with a nervous twist of his body, heading back into the perceived safety of the moon group. They parted to let him back in, and in his place, a large grey moon marched forward. 

“X. We can talk about any appropriate punishments at a later time. Our goal was to be heard by the Sun, and I think we’ve got his attention.” Ganymede stated, keeping his head oddly angled away from Saturn and Jupiter’s gazes. “We need to secure the proposal for moons I gave you. We don’t know how much time the celestial running this place will give us.”

“Proposal? This isn’t going to be anything like your last attempt, is it?” Venus jumped in, shoving past a reluctant Mars and nervous Mercury. “Your little Moon Uprising blew up in your face, so now you’re sucking up to him? ”

“Venus, that was put in the past.” Titan stepped up to counter the cloudy planet. Ganymede was almost as surprised as Saturn. No, Titan can’t also be a part of this mess! “We went about it the wrong way before, please don’t drag it into this.”

“Oh, so that the whole system doesn’t have to hear about it? Is that the problem?” Venus pitched his voice louder as he spoke, glaring at the moons. “You have the audacity to side with this random planet over your own, just to get back at them! If you didn’t want them to know, don’t try that crap again!”

“Venus, what are you talking about?” Jupiter peered in confusion from the rocky planet to the moons, brow furrowed. “What is this ‘Moon Uprising’?” 

“Oh, big guy, you are gonna wanna hear this!” Venus crowed, smirking at the now fearful moons. “These moons of yours, all of them, tried to push their way to the top of the system. They attacked Mars and I, and even tried to wipe Life off of Earth’s surface!”

“What!” Saturn’s gasp escaped without his say, drawing the eyes of his moons. As he turned to face them, they lowered their gazes away from him. “Is this true? Why?”

“That’s not fair! Venus, you’re leaving out quite a bit of context.” Europa butted in with a huff, returning her own glare. “It was you rocky planets that started it! And the way all the moons were being treated before that! It didn’t just come out of nowhere. Moons were rightfully scared and desperate.”

“Oh, so that makes it OK to beat us up? I didn’t do jack shit to you!” Venus hissed at the pale moon. “Just ‘cause we didn’t let you try and have a go at Earth, you needed to pelt our surfaces with asteroids?”

“Quiet!” The command came not from Sol, who was still taking in the ever growing mess his system was devolving into, but from Jupiter. The largest planet turned a stern gaze onto Venus and the moons, forcing them to silence their bickering and listen. “Clearly, I have missed something. Can we start from the top, without arguing?”

The two groups exchanged wary and reluctant glances, but nodded to the gas giant. Saturn was suddenly filled with trepidation, painfully aware that his beloved moons had been involved in this, likely before he’d been able to apologise. Oh no, did I cause this?

“Thank you.” Jupiter softened his gaze, looking at the major moons gathered nearby. “Who will start?”

“I can. I kind of set it off, so this part is my fault.” The voice came from deeper in the crowd, pushing past Mars and Mercury, Earth approached Jupiter. Behind him, his moon dogged his steps, glaring at anyone who tried to interrupt. Or maybe he was just glaring at Mars and Mercury for fun?

“Earth?” Jupiter turned a surprised and confused frown to the living world. When none of the others objected to Earth’s claim, Jupiter sighed. “Very well. How did this begin?”

“I insulted Titan.” The blunt admission caught Saturn’s attention, igniting indignation in his core. Well, I can’t be too mad at Titan then, he clearly had a reason! “In fact, I insulted all moons. I was being stupid and insecure, because Titan had the conditions for potential Life. He didn’t deserve it, and I don’t blame them for getting mad at me.”

“What did you say?” Jupiter asked carefully, frowning in dismay. 

“T-that- that moons should know their place.” Earth forced out, shoulders rising and head dipping in shame. “I’m sorry. I was being a massive idiot and a terrible planet.”

“Earth.” Jupiter’s voice lowered to a soft sound of disappointment. Saturn was surprised too. Sure, the Earth could be cocky at times, especially in recent centuries, but those words were harsh and cruel, odd for a planet with such a close moon. Though, I can’t really say much, given my insensitive words in the past. 

“Don’t worry Jupiter, we let him know pretty quickly that was the wrong thing to say.” Mars mentioned to the gas giant, though he did not seem reassured by the words. “I’m not sure what finally convinced him, but he went to apologize to them later.” 

“That doesn’t mean my actions aren’t what started this mess. So, again, I’m sorry, Titan.” Earth faced the orange-green moon, who dipped his head with a smile of acknowledgement. “I don’t know what happened after, but I know Titan left and Luna followed him.”

“I followed Titan until I found him trying to find out if he has Life.” Luna took up the explanation from his planet. “Astrodude found something, an organism of some kind. Titan wanted to use it as proof that moons can be just as important and respected as planets.”

“Titan, is this true so far?” Saturn asked nervously, not looking forward to the rest. He vaguely recalled that point in time, when he'd frantically looked for his largest moon, all while ignoring the rest. And then, all of them had been gone. I guess this explains where they were...

“Yes, Saturn. Me and the other moons, we were tired of being dismissed or forgotten, especially after the ‘ring’ incident.” Titan admitted, then added hurriedly. “But that was before. You’ve made so much progress since then! Things aren’t nearly as bad!”

“But, they’re still bad?” Saturn asked in a pained whisper. Titan shook his head, but the looks exchanged by his other moons drowned out his efforts. “I’m sorry! I’m trying! I can be better! I promise!”

“It’s alright, Saturn. We know it’ll take time.” Iapetus assured him. “We might get frustrated at times, just like you, but we know you’re trying.” 

Before Saturn could do something really embarrassing, like cry or hug the moons, another voice spoke up impatiently.

“C-can we g-get to the b-bit w-where we s-show up?” Io interrupted, turning the room’s, and his moons’, attention back to the front. 

“After that, we gathered all the moons that would join. It ended up being all the gas and ice giant moons, eventually.” Titan admitted, casting a glance at the rocky moons. “Luna, Phobos, and Deimos ended up leaving. We split into two groups, to try and recruit more moons…and because we were having disagreements about how to progress.”

“What he means is, Europa and I decided to try and recruit Venus and Mars. They were avoiding the Earth for some reason, I guess because of the insult to Titan, so we thought we’d have a chance.” Ganymede faced Jupiter head on as he confessed. “We did attack them. It was to prevent them from helping or warning the Earth.”

“Ganymede.” The disappointment in his friend's voice twisted his core. He knew well enough how much he cared for his moons, and how much it must pain him to hear that they attacked his other charges, the rockies. 

“I’m sorry, big guy. I-I was angry and caught up in the idea of earning respect from the system. You command their respect so easily, I was…insecure about it. The largest moon, from the largest planet...” Ganymede lowered his head, avoiding Jupiter’s searching gaze. “I know now, that as the largest moon, that doesn’t automatically get me respect, I have to prove I’m worthy of it, and I was not.”

“Ganymede. I’m…disappointed to hear of this,” Jupiter’s words seemed to shrink the moon further, “But, I can see you are sorry, and I know you have been working hard to improve yourself. I did wonder at the cause of your recent attitude change, and while I'm not happy about the cause, I am glad you learnt something from it.”

“Venus, Mars, is this true so far?” The Sun seemed to have regained some of his voice, peering into the conversion critically. “They attacked you and threatened Earth's Life?”

“Yes, Sun.” Mars nodded reluctantly, casting a glance at the Earth as he spoke. “I understand why they were mad, but killing Earth’s Life was going too far.”

“Certainly!” The Sun turned a scanning eye over the moons, searching each in turn. “So, what happened after that? Why did I not hear of this back then?”

“We hid in the Asteroid belt. After Titan, Callisto, and Io got back with the moons of Caelus and Neptune, we began to plan an ambush.” Europa explained calmly. “Luna came back to try and stop us, so we captured him and used him as bait to lure the Earth into the belt with us, where we planned to attack him with asteroids. As you can probably tell, it didn’t go as planned.”

“And thank the Stars it didn’t. We almost did something very stupid.” Titan added, continuing in a more confident voice. “When the Earth showed up, he apologised. I wasn’t expecting it, but he was being sincere and I couldn’t justify attacking him if I’d already accepted an apology. I tried to call the ambush off, but-”

“We did it anyway, or at least tried to.” Ganymede looked even more reluctant as he admitted to even more of his actions. “A bunch of other moons also decided to protect Earth instead, so we never landed a hit. And, Triton must have run off at some point, because Pluto and his moon randomly showed up to talk some sense into us.”

“Oh yeah, that was fun though.” Charon grinned beside her planet. 

“So, you all just agreed to stay quiet? Not even the rockies tried to mention it to anyone?” Saturn was in disbelief that so much had happened under his watch, or, more accurately, the Sun’s. His usual reluctance to speak so bluntly to the star was nowhere to be found as he swung to face him. “You saw none of this? The Asteroid belt isn’t that far from you!”

“I was a bit distracted at the time.” The Sun replied stiffly, glaring at the floor uncharacteristically. “My priority wasn’t exactly on watching all of your moons.” 

“Where was it, then? ‘Cause it certainly wasn’t on us.” Mars pointed out. “We got pelted by asteroids till we passed out, and you didn’t even notice.”

“Um…” The Sun hesitated, glancing at Earth and Mercury for reasons unknown to Saturn. Neither planet seemed surprised by the look though, and Mercury only shrugged his shoulders at whatever question the star was asking. Earth looked far more conflicted, wringing his hands nervously; but the star didn’t rush him, just waited for him to respond. Instead, the Earth moved to open his mouth. His moon whispered urgently in his ear, but he continued regardless of Luna’s reluctant expression.

“That was me, again, oops.” Earth tried to joke, but Sol’s expression smothered any levity he was trying to inject into the conversation. 

“What are you talking about, Earth?” Mars asked, his eyes searching the two celestials for any clues. Earth opened his mouth to speak, but his moon tried again.

“Earth, you don’t have to tell them any of this.” Luna’s words only stirred more apprehension in Saturn, who turned to Jupiter in confusion. His dear friend’s furrowed brow was threatening to become a permanent feature, so deep it had carved into his face. Earth shook his moon’s words off.

“I do. I can’t exactly hide it forever, and it explains why the Sun was distracted and couldn’t help my friends.” Mars and Venus looked surprised to be referred to as such, while Mercury was staring at the Sun. “After I insulted Titan, Mars was understandably annoyed by my comment. He left, and Venus left soon after. I-I wasn’t a good friend to either of them, and they were right to want space from my toxicity. I was hurting them.”

“Earth-” Mars tried to speak, but Earth pushed on. 

“I-I didn’t know what to do. My mind was kind of messed up and the pain from the Earthlings was getting to me. I couldn’t think of any other solution,” The Earth drew in a breath. “So I tried to throw myself into the Sun.” 

The surrounding celestials’ expressions twisted in dismay at the living world’s words. Saturn felt Jupiter physically jolt next to him, and reached over to offer a hand. How did we miss so much?

Ignoring the round of exclamations at this statement, the Earth faced the room. “That’s why the Sun was distracted, trying to convince me not to. In fact, the only reason I didn’t was thanks to Luna and Mercury. They helped me to improve myself and find other ways to deal with how I was feeling.”

“Thank you for telling us, Earth.” The Sun tried to turn the conversation, facing the moons again with a tired, pained expression. “After hearing all this, what do you think I’m going to do?”

“Um, call it even?”

“Throw us out of the system?”

“Ignore it?”

The Sun studied the moons, his form tense and his face lined with stress. “You hurt my planets, threatened another, and nearly killed trillions of organisms! And you hid it from me! YOUR STAR!” The Sun hissed glaring down at the moons until all were shrinking away from him. Quickly, the star drew back and released a breath, continuing in a calmer voice. “Clearly, I have been missing some things in this system. A lot of things. Moons and planets should be living in harmony, yet it is obvious you are not, and have not been for a while. This can’t continue.”

"It would probably help if the rest of us got a say in what goes on." Ganymede pointed out daringly, meeting the Sun's eyes. "And if moons were respected by our planets, and by you!"

"You're very bold for a moon, aren't you." The Sun squinted down at him. "I suppose it would be one of yours, wouldn't it, Jupiter."

Jupiter offered only a small frown at the star's words, which didn't seem to help his mood. Scowling, the Sun addressed the moons again. "We will discuses this later! Do you have any idea complicated it would be to change the system in such a way? And after all your sneaking around about it! This system is exhausting!"

“This is exactly my point. This system is poorly managed, poorly led, and forces those within it to lie and sneak around in fear of your wrath.” Saturn had honestly almost forgotten Planet X was there. The ice giant had silently watched as the strings of this system came undone right in front of him. “We will be taking back that power. Ganymede, will you start?”

“Dude, I’m not doing this shit, not this way, not anymore.” The largest moon backed away, copied by his fellows. X’s eyes turned icy. “The whole reason you even got us to entertain your idiotic plan was the threat of revealing the Moon Revolution. That asteroid is already out of the wormhole, I’m done.”

“Me too! I never signed up to hurt people!” Enceladus snapped, shouldered by Iapetus and Dione, who were glaring dangerously at Planet X. The ice giant drew back in disgust, huffing.

“Very well, I never should’ve trusted a moon to do a planet’s job. Caelus, stop hiding back there and join in a bit.” Despite the growing shake in his form, Planet X kept his voice steady. X turned to wave a hand at the nervous ice giant, before facing back to the Sun, who’s fire had smouldered down to glowing coals at this point. The star was eyeing the room with something Saturn had never seen in his gaze. Uncertainty, and maybe a touch of fear. 

“Now then, Sol. We have made our position quite clear. Relinquish your power, agree to our terms with a binding promise, and we won’t have to do any experimentation into the limits of this room.” Planet X repeated, startling the star’s focus back to him. Saturn pushed forward until he was between X and the Sun, ready to fight the ice giant himself if necessary.

“A-a binding promise? You don’t know what you’re asking, Planet X.” The Sun seemed to gain some confidence back in the face of this idea, offended by the very suggestion of it. Saturn only had Jupiter’s words to go on, but even he knew that wasn’t a great way to force a star’s hand. “If it’s broken, either by accident or not, you will all be doomed as well. Getting rid of me would hardly help you!”

“Then don’t break it.” 

“Wait, X, are you sure this is a good idea, mate?” Caelus finally spoke up, having moved to stand hesitantly behind X. “I mean, I don’t really want to risk our whole system imploding just from wanting a new orbit.”

“Without that risk, we’ll never be able to force any change.” X hissed, swinging a frustrated glare at Caelus, who shrank back warily. 

“Do we have to force change, though?” Saturn, along with seemingly the whole room, had not noticed the pale ice giant had been shadowed by his bluer counterpart. Neptune watched X with a tilted, searching expression as he spoke. “Seems like change is happening anyway, all over the system. Those moons changed a lot, even if we didn’t know why. I’m sure it’ll keep happening.”

“Really? You’re actually mad enough to think anything about this system will change on its own? The moons had to almost barren the Golden Boy of the Solar System to be noticed! And it still changed nothing!” Planet X stepped towards the blue planet, an incredulous edge to his words. “This system rewards the Sun’s favourites, and leaves everybody else. You might be so crazy that you don’t even notice your orbit, but the rest of us do. It’s hell out there, and they deserve to feel it too!”

“Ah, so this is still just revenge?” Neptune’s voice was keeping its calm far better than X’s was, the dark ice giant now glaring holes into the planet in front of him. “Revenge is lame! I like Jupiter’s idea better! Or hugs? Hugs might work?”

“Ugh! Why does anyone even bother trying to talk to you? All you say is nonsense and jokes!” X, despite his controlled air from before, was almost nose to nose with Neptune now as he sneered at him, his frustration boiling over to lash at the blue ice giant. Neptune remained still, meeting his gaze with his usual blinking. “You have more right to anger than anyone! They sold your sanity for a stable system you barely get to be a part of. Doesn’t that make you furious?”

“Um, not really?” Neptune tilted his head at the question, considering the words. “I have plenty of fun in my orbit! I have my moons to keep me company! And if it helps the system stay safe, why should I want to change it? It wasn’t deliberate. I can manage.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t you want to change it?” Planet X hissed, his confusion reflecting in his face. “No celestial willingly suffers for no reason! Unless they’re madder than I thought.”

“Hey, mate, maybe lay off him a bit? Like you said before, it’s not his fault.” Caelus tried to catch X’s attention, nervously stepping closer to Neptune. “I’m sure Neptune doesn’t wanna argue about this either, right?”

“Nope! I could totally argue with him if he wants! Or, I can talk to him! Or, maybe a hug?” Neptune’s joke didn’t seem to land with its intended audience, who gave him only an unamused stare. “Anyway! Why don’t we have a proper talk, a real one, without threats? And maybe we’ll find a nice solution instead!”

"Mate, you really think that'll work?" Caelus turned to his friend with a painfully conflicted expression, caught somewhere between doubt and hope. "The Sun'll never listen, he never has. Why would that change?"

"Why wouldn't it? Things change all the time in our Solar System!" Neptune smiled, but Caelus' face remained despondent. "You changed! You manged to apologise to your moons! And got a new name!"

"Y-yeah, maybe." Caelus frowned in thought while X glared at the blue ice giant.

“I’m not listening to a mad planet’s ideas.” X snapped, moving to turn away from the two ice giants. By now, even the dwarf planets had crept closer to the mess of planets at the front of the room, glaring at X from behind Neptune. Saturn felt his whole form tense as X stalked back towards the Sun. “I’ve had enough of this.”

Before Saturn or Jupiter could even blink, X shoved himself at the star, sending him to the floor with a thud. Jupiter reached out to stop him from getting any closer, but X slapped his hand away harshly. 

“Don’t preach to me now, Jupiter. You know he deserves it! You know you deserve it!” X hissed harshly as he shoved Saturn away, forcing the ringed giant to step back in fear of joining the Sun on the ground. “This is the only way to communicate with celestials. All they understand is power and pain!”

“No!” 

“No!” The little voice repeated after a silent pause that filled the whole room. X, already reaching for the star’s throat, froze. In front of his hand, blocking him from the Sun, was a little moon. 

“Proteus! Get away from him, now!” The gravelly, stressed voice of Neptune’s major moon called from beside his planet, who was equally as focused on the little moon. While Triton was trying to edge forward to get to the moon, Neptune was glaring. It was an odd sight, not one Saturn had seen before, had not expected to ever see. He’s scaring me, and I’m not even the target!

“Proteus, listen to him. This isn’t the business of little moons.” Planet X sounded almost nervous, drawing back his arm from where it nearly brushed the little moon’s neck. “Go back to Neptune.”

“No! Not until you stop trying to hurt people!” Proteus snapped again, planting one foot forward to glare straight into X’s face. “You’re being a bully!”

“Proteus, this is what is needed for the future we want! Don’t you want a better orbit for you and your planet?” Planet X tried, eyeing the Sun behind Proteus, who was starting to slowly get up. “Just…let me do this.”

“No! You’re just hurting him because someone else hurt you!” The little moon continued to move forward, forcing X back a step to avoid colliding with him. “You said you were going to make things better, but now everyone is arguing and upset! A better orbit doesn't mean anything if you're just sticking someone else in it! I don't want anyone getting hurt!”

“T-things will be better, if you just let me-” X tried to move past Proteus, but the little moon was faster, once again standing between him and the shocked star. “Proteus.”

“Leave them alone! Leave everyone alone!” Proteus cried, his frustration rising and over spilling his small form. “I don’t wanna do your plan anymore! I don’t wanna be your friend anymore!”

“P-Proteus…” X gazed down at the little angry moon, his eyes glazing over with confusion. 

“Just go away! Leave us alone!” The moon’s words seemed to hit X, forcing him backwards. As he stumbled away, the Sun rose back to his feet with a wary focus trained on Planet X, following him as he tried to move away from the crowd. But, there was nowhere to go. The room was as small as always, and X was trapped. Saturn felt a twinge of pity, and a lump of regret. If only we’d never…would he have been different, if we never threw him away?

Unfortunately, that line of thinking only revealed itself to be impossibly tangled, wrapping around parts of Saturn he fought to ignore. As X stood, faced by a room of angry or irritated celestials, the line tugged painfully at the ringed giant. If I can fix this…I have to at least try.

“X. I’m sorry.” That got his attention. In fact, it got the room’s attention, unfortunately. Saturn tried not to give up. “I-I never said it, and I know it does nothing to fix what happened, but I need to say it now. I am sorry. We never should have done that to you, and hiding it from the Sun out of fear was cowardly.” 

“You think that changes anything?” X glared, but the bite wasn’t there. He was tired, scared, and his plan had imploded faster than he could comprehend. “I’ll never forgive you, or Jupiter! You sentenced me to exile in the dark, for 4 billion years! The only reason I’m not madder than Neptune is my desire for revenge. To finally see you feel even a second of my suffering!”

“That’s OK. I’m not looking for forgiveness. We hurt you.” Saturn felt Jupiter press reassuringly against his side, filling him with more conviction. “But we can’t let you hurt others, just to get back at us. This system is fragile, and clearly already full of issues. We have to work on them together, not divided by threats. You could help, and fix your own damage as well.”

The dark ice giant eyed him cautiously, tense and looking for the next words. But Saturn let the silence linger, hoping his offer would be seen for the olive-branch it was. If we leave here without reaching an understanding, the Sun will surely do something stupid…or X will.

“That’s it? I try to turn half the system against you, try to get your orbit changed, try to kill your star, and now you want to fix this.” Planet X’s disbelieving hiss almost sank Saturn’s hope, before he returned a broken smile. “You’re madder than I gave you credit for, Saturn. I-I suppose it’s worth a shot…I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“We’re not seriously letting him stay, are we?” Venus snapped, breaking Saturn’s triumphant internal cheering. “He just tried to strangle the Sun! He threatened to kill him!”

“I agree. He is clearly too dangerous to remain.” Iapetus growled, his firm words catching Saturn’s ear.”

“Wait, we can’t just do exactly what he almost did.” Luna pointed out urgently. “If we kick him out for doing something wrong, isn’t that what he wanted for Jupiter and Saturn?”

“The difference is, he’s not done anything to make up for it.” Mars argued. “Jupiter and Saturn have been aids to the system for millennia. They’ve done their time.”

“He can’t do anything to ‘make up for it’ if you toss him out!” Earth jumped in sternly. “He deserves at least one more try. Planets can change, I know they can!”

“We banished him first. It was our fault to begin with.” Jupiter agreed, turning an imploring gaze to the Sun. “I’ll vouch for him. We knew reintroducing X would be hard, and I should have been keeping a better eye on him to begin with. This can still work, Sol.”

The silence from the star clenched Saturn’s core. If the Sun disapproved, X would be exiled, punished, or worse. And Saturn couldn’t really blame him. The planet had attacked him, turned half the room against him,  tried to kill him, all for revenge against two other planets. 

“W-we will put it to a vote.” The words startled the room, confused glances turning to the Sun. “I-I can see that this system is…broken, or at least close to it. And I know I’m significantly to blame for this. But, I don’t know how to fix it, at least not without some kind of change. X was right in that regard, at least. You live here too, so the say should not be mine alone. We will vote for whether or not X remains.”

“How are we going to manage that? The planets are easy to count, sure, but the moons?” Mars muttered in dismay. “We’ll be here all century.”

“We could have representatives? It’s something my Earthlings have in some countries.” The Earth offered. “Each moon group will pick a leader, then that leader will tell us the vote they all agreed on.”

“But that would mean each planet’s vote is equal to as many as 274 moons! That’s not fair!” Enceladus pointed out with a frown. 

“And what about the dwarf planets? Do they get one vote each, or a collective vote? What about their moons?” Ariel also joined in, seemingly just to poke holes for fun. But she did have a point. 

“Oh, this is starting to sound way more confusing. Can we go back to letting the Sun decide?” Mercury bemoaned as the room dissolved into chatter on the merits and downsides of various voting systems. Saturn was feeling that core-ache coming back with a vengeance. 

“Why don’t we split everyone into equal blocks?” 

“How big are those blocks? What if an entire system of moons gets stuck with a bunch of other moons in the same block and they never get their voice heard? Not all groups are the same size!”

“We could assign points? Big blocks get more points, smaller blocks get less?” 

“Are we assigning these points by numbers, or mass?”

“Why in the Universe would we assign by mass?”

“How are you guys almost perfectly recreating arguments my Earthlings have been having for decades now?”

“Quiet!” The Sun called, drawing the hum of conversation to a thankful close. “We can work out the details later. For now, we’ll do hand raises. And no, before you ask, I won’t ignore short moons. Jupiter and Saturn will count too, and we will compare to get a more accurate number. Everybody ready?”

The room stood up, or at least the moons did. Most planets remained sitting, quite aware of the disparity in height, and merely nodded in readiness. Saturn only registered Sol’s request for him to count a second before the first vote was cast. Oh no, I’m so bad at counting quickly.

“All in favour of Planet X remaining in the system?” As the hands rose, Saturn forced himself not to get distracted by who was raising their hand and stay focused on how many. 4, 68, 200…

“OK, and now, all in favour of X leaving the system?” 6, 45, 133, 210…

“What is the verdict, then?” The Sun turned to him and Jupiter, “I counted 220 for and 213 against.”

“200 for, 233 against.” Jupiter reported reluctantly. Saturn was suddenly way more doubtful of this method. Maybe multiple counters was a bad idea?

“I got 218 for, 215 against.” Saturn whispered, disliking the feeling of being the tie breaker. What if they think I’m lying? What if I am!

“Well, that settles that then. X, you may remain, if you wish.” The Sun faced the planet, still holding an air of caution for him. Planet X, for his part, looked about as doubtful of this vote as Saturn felt. He nodded to the star, though.

“Thank you, Sun.” X’s voice was remarkably calm, given his subdued form. He’d slunk into a corner at some point, and now the rest of the room warily avoided him. They may not want to banish him, but trust would take a while to fix. Even Caelus was reluctant to approach him, staring across the room with a conflicted expression. Neptune stepped up to his side with a small frown, talking softly to his fellow ice giant. Saturn couldn’t pick out the words, but Caelus’ expression crumpled. The two ice giants leaned against each other as the paler one turned his head against Neptune's shoulder. Going off the shaky breathing, neither of them were dry-eyed. 

“We still need to get out of here.” Earth spoke up, staring back at the screen. “We’ve been talking for, like, at least an hour. Shouldn’t they have let us out by now.”

Just as the room began to question the same thing, the screen flickered to life again. The almost familiar celestial floated onto the screen with their wide eyes and feathered head. 

“Well, well well, you sure took a while this time!” The three eyes twitched upwards. “I almost thought you were fitting to stay! Oh, wouldn’t that be fun!”

“Not a chance.” Venus sneered up at the screen. “Let us out. We watched your silly doc!”

“True, true, true. You fulfilled my task, well done!” The eyes stretched into crescents as they squinted. “I’d be happy to send you back, only, I think I have a solution for you.”

“What? What are you talking about?” The Sun snapped. “Just let us go, we don’t need your interference anymore!”

“Oh, but you do. You very much do!” The voice was starting to grate on Saturn’s exhausted ears. “I couldn’t help but overhear, you seem to be having an orbit problem. Too many giants, not enough space?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Maybe not, but I don’t want one of my favourite systems to drive half of its planets mad.” The head on screen seemed to float closer. “I have that issue all the time with my…well, I really shouldn’t say! All's to say, I have a solution that has worked for me!”

“That’s great, but we don’t care.” Venus snapped, his glare almost molten. “Let. Us. Go.”

“What solution?” Saturn almost cursed the speaker, then realised it was himself. Oops.

“This!” When no more words followed the celestial's statement, Saturn glanced around in confusion.

“The room?” Sol asked, equally perplexed.

“Yes, yes, yes! The best way to fight void-sickness is company! Lights! And a good bit of entertainment!” 

“Are you trying to get us to agree to more of this?” Earth questioned incredulously. 

“Well, you can always just…leave your fellow celestials to sit in the void, as you seem to do already. I’m merely offering another solution. Every two Earth obits, I’ll show you something new, and you all get to sit and talk and have fun together!” The grinning eyes were getting a bit nauseating to stare into. “ All for the low price of letting me watch your reactions!”

“Sounds like we can fix it on our own.” Planet X put in, his low voice moving hesitantly from the corner. “If we plan our own meetings.”

“Maybe, maybe, maybe, but will those meetings have bean bags? And a lack of orbit and gravity and mass to worry about? You know what happens when planets get too close, right?” The voice lowered for a moment, before rising again. “It’s up to you! I’m happy to do whatever you prefer!”

“Really? You’ll leave us alone after this? Forever, if we asked?” Jupiter queried, peering into the celestial’s eyes. 

“Of course! I’m a celestial of my word, after all!” Saturn wasn’t too sure of this proclamation, but he wasn’t about to argue with it. 

“Should we do it?” The Sun asked quietly, turning to speak with only his gas giants. “I-I dislike the idea of being subject to this unknown being, but…we don’t have any way to replicate this.”

“We should ask the rest. All of them need to agree to this. We can’t force anyone.” Jupiter advised, turning with the Sun to face the group. Most were already talking about the idea, whispering excitedly to friends or eyeing the celestial suspiciously. 

“What does everyone think?” That seemed a tad bit broad of a question for the room, but Saturn wasn’t about to criticize the Sun on speaking to large groups.

“It could work? I mean, it’s been pretty fun getting to talk with others I’ve never even met in my orbit!” Makemake offered with a grin.

 “And if we know it’s coming, it wouldn’t be so scary!” The ringed dwarf planet agreed beside him. 

“I wanna do it!” Proteus crowed, standing on his planet’s knee to be seen over the crowd. The little moon was still streaked with tear marks, but his eyes were brighter than Saturn had last seen. 

“I-I don’t know. I guess it’s been entertaining? Certainly better than my orbit…but do we really want to do this forever?” Caelus brought up carefully, his voice choked and quiet as he lifted his head from Neptune. 

“I mean, the alternative isn’t a lot better.” Titania pointed out to her planet. “We’re picking between a consistent interruption, or endless orbiting.”

“I do think they’re right about the benefits.” Neptune turned his thoughtful gaze from Caelus to his moons. “This has been mostly fun and I enjoyed getting to speak to so many others! But I’m happy to do whatever everyone else wants!” 

“I don’t care.” Planet X mumbled from the corner. “If my voice counts at all in this-"

"It doesn't." Venus interrupted. 

"-I have no objections either way.”

“We’ll only do this with 100% agreement.” Jupiter announced to the gossiping room, heads turning to him in a flash. “Please, raise your hand if you object to this.”

Saturn was briefly tempted to say no, to follow the part of himself that feared this unknown and scary idea. His orbit was predictable, calm, and where he’d lived for almost 5 million years. The dark of his orbit wasn’t nearly deep enough to hurt, and the company of Jupiter was a balm no ‘video’ could hope to replicate. But, he couldn’t think only of himself, not as the second oldest planet. The benefits it could bring to the ice giants, the ones he’d failed to help for centuries, would make any annoyance or boredom worth it. So, he held still. It’s only a few hours…I can manage that.

“OK.” The Sun nodded thoughtfully as the silence stretched on, unbroken by the watching room. “Is that no opposition? Is anyone near anybody who looks unsure? We need to be certain of this.” The quiet remained, only a few heads turning to check on friends just in case.

“Very well.” The Sun sighed, drawing himself up to turn back to the screen. The strange celestial had watched the whole display with curious, narrow eyes that now re-focused onto the star. “We accept your proposal. Every two Earth orbits, no more or less, until we vote to stop. Do you agree to these terms?”

“Interesting. Bold for such a small star, you are.” The words weren’t terribly reassuring to Saturn. Oh no, did we just sign a deal with a black hole or something? “I accept your terms, little star! And as promised, I will return you to your orbits!”

The room rose in anticipation, ready to be out of this room and quickly. Saturn tried to prepare himself for the nausea he was sure to be struck by once the switch happened. The feathered celestial grinned widely again, eyes almost closed.

“See you in two orbits! I’ll bring some old friends along too next time!”

Before Saturn could even process the implications of that, he was weightless. Floating so suddenly it felt like falling. His core expanded, no longer a measly feeling in his form, but a ball of molten pressure and gas turning around so quickly it threw off radiation enough to spread beyond his atmosphere and past his moons. The gas was back, huge clouds of thick atmosphere, wrapping around him and shielding the ringed giant from space itself. As he settled into the familiar embrace, he reached for his other senses.

His gravity could feel all 274 of his moons, all orbiting in their rightful places. His precious rings were also present, spinning just fast enough to avoid engulfment. Electromagnetic pulses from his core reached out to shield them, fending off the solar radiation of his star. And, distantly, he could feel Jupiter’s powerful tug, drawing him along his orbit as Saturn pulled his back. 

Home. Finally. Saturn felt crushed by more than his gasses. The exhaustion that had been plaguing his core since the mess began was trying especially hard to be noticed. All he wanted was a nap. A sleep where no one and nothing would bother him. I can’t. I have so much to do! I have to speak to Jupiter. I have to talk to my moons. I might even have to talk to X, make sure he’s behaving! Oh, so much to do…

But as he relaxed into his orbit, it seemed likely his core wasn’t going to give him an option. Inactivity seemed almost painfully inviting, and every attempt to move or resist was met with more waves of exhaustion. Maybe it’ll be alright if I just have a quick nap? I’m sure my moons don’t want to be disturbed by the gravity so soon…and Jupiter will likely already be asleep. 

Mind made up, the ringed giant gave up his fight, letting the pull of rest wash over his core, pressing every thought, worry, and fear deep into the sands of his mind, unseen. As he drifted off, he was vaguely aware of his moons beginning to move, to talk and zip around his orbit. I don’t know where they get the energy from, honestly. I’m sure I’ll wake up to some new disaster, but for now, I sleep.