Fandom: Original Work
Rating: SFW
Content: The sun is alive and sentient, Celestial bodies, Supernova
Date written: 20th Novermber 2021
Summary: Life has always been difficult for us to measure when it comes to life outside of Earth, especially sentient life. We have no way of knowing what life may look like on other worlds, so far from our reach. But what if sentient alien life was right under our noses?

A short original story written in the perspective of Sol, our sun.

Author's notes: I have always been in awe at the sheer size and immensity of stars, black holes and other large celestial bodies. They are so large and so beyond our grasp of understanding in their largeness, and I always had this thought, this little idea in my head of “wouldn’t it be cool if stars were alive? if they were the aliens we had been looking for all along?” so I wrote a little story about our sun, Sol, being a living being.

She is alive.

It is the one thing she is certain of. She has thoughts, and she can feel. The feeling of gravity on her soul has been present ever since she was formed, and it has changed over time. But the newer, much more interesting feeling of the little satellites’ gravity that orbit her body is what confirms the fact that she lives.

The immense gravity of her own body is what pulled the satellites to her in the first place. Her glow and her heat were mesmerising, just daring them to come closer. They did, and now they live with her, feasting on her heat and her light.

She likes them. Their little trips around her are amusing. They move in patterns, and she can always tell where they are going to go, what stage they are in in their orbit. Some are large, some are small. Some are close, while others are far away. Their little dances give her something to focus on, something to think about as she moves herself through the void, moving along with everything else in the universe. They follow her, always following, and as she moves through the void, she collects more tiny satellites that are there to stay.

Soon, she has an entire family of satellites. She is not sure if they are alive like she is. She hopes they are. She hopes they know that she is alive, too. She knows no language other than the way that she moves and the way that her light twinkles in the darkness, and the way that gravity pulls on her, and vice versa. She could not tell them anything even if she tried. But she hopes they know the truth of her sentience.

She is distantly aware that there are others like her- other beings that are bright and hot, complex and alive. She can feel the slightest pull of gravity from these other beings. It is not enough to pull her in, but it is enough for her to understand that they are there. She secretly wishes she could meet them. She wishes she could feel their gravity up close, but she somehow knows a meeting like that would be devastating to herself and the other beings like her, and all of her little satellites as well. She is a beautiful being of light and heat, but she is also a being of terrifying gravity and power. It is no wonder her kind all live so far from each other, so distant and alone.

Her entire existence, since the day she was born, is built on gravity. It is the only constant that she knows. It is the language most familiar to her. She focuses on it and obsesses over it, any tiny little change in the state of her family or the state of the void, she remembers. She has no sense of time, only change- only gravity. Only heat and cold and the push and pull of the universe.

She knows, from her own experiences with gravity and with the knowledge she has gathered from her satellites, and her very, very distant relatives, that there is something out there that is pulling her through the void. Something so incomprehensible to her that she can’t even guess what it might be.

She thinks for the longest time that it must be another one of her kind. She knows very little of her kind, besides the fact that there are others out there, and based on how her own form exists and works, that they all must be hot and bright, dense and powerful. But what if there are others that are different in size? What if she is considered small for her kind, and the others are so much bigger than she could ever possibly imagine? Could there be an individual so incredibly massive that they are pulling all the others around them? Could she be a satellite to a larger being, in the same way that her satellites orbit around her?

She hadn’t considered these things before. Not before she had satellites, and not before she started taking note of every little change in the gravity around her. The thought almost worries her. She has never once been uncertain about her existence before, uncertain about where she belonged, or what role she played in the universe. She existed, and that was all.

But maybe it wasn’t all, in the end.

Her satellites change in subtle ways. They are so subtle, that she doesn’t know exactly what has changed. But she knows something has happened in her family. They can’t tell her what is going on, or of the small changes that have occurred, but she can feel it. Their gravity changes in the smallest of ways. She knows, yet she knows nothing at all.

She collects a few more satellites. It’s never on purpose, but she cannot help it. Her gravity is too much for such a small being to deny or push against. The changes in her family are drastic, and the orbits of all the other satellites are put out of balance. A collision happens, and one of the satellites is split into two. Another satellite is flung out into the void, never to be felt again. It saddens her, but it’s not the first time it’s happened, and she doubts it will be the last.

She mourns for her lost satellite. It will likely be the last time it ever feels the warmth and love of a large being like her. She hopes that another being will pull it towards them, to love and care for them like she had. She says goodbye, but she knows it can’t hear her.

The idea of death and finality is a concept she learns as she ages. It’s not knowledge she is born with, like the knowledge of gravity. It is something she learns through experience. Feeling her satellites being ripped in two is not quite the same. They become two different individuals who continue to orbit around her, but they do not crumple and cease to exist altogether. No, she learns this lesson in the most horrifying way she possibly can.

In the distance, one of her relatives that had been born somewhat recently has suddenly grown larger. She can feel their gravity change, almost in the same way she can feel her satellites’ gravity change. It concerns her. She thinks that perhaps they have gotten too close, and they are both about to collide, but she learns quickly that that’s not the case. Suddenly, they are dying, and their death is felt throughout the void. It rocks her to her core.

She doesn’t know how to describe it. She’s never felt something like that before. Every single part of that individual is thrown out of their body into the void in a large expulsion of energy. She feels their gravity crumble and become something horrific and vile, but she feels them on her own physical body, their torn parts sprayed on her flames. It’s overwhelming in the most awful way imaginable. She feels the heat and the elements of the being’s body on hers, elements she’s never felt before. They stick to her body, and they don’t leave.

For the first time in her own life, she is afraid. This isn’t supposed to happen. This cannot be good for her, nor her satellites. She can still feel them, but she knows they too must have been sprayed with the body of the other being, as well. She knows not how it will affect them.

She knows her satellites are not made of the same stuff as she is, and although they orbit her, they do so at a distance. Only a few are daring enough to orbit so close to her heat. Her kind are full of energy and power, and she knows- almost innately- that her satellites can’t come too close, lest something bad happens to them. So to have her satellites be covered in the remains of one of her kind who has died...makes her worry.

What worries her more, is the knowledge that her kind can die at all.

Over the course of her long- almost endless- life, she eventually comes to terms with death. She feels more of her kind die around her, and although she is not splattered with their remains like the first time it’d happened, she still feels it vibrate through the void. Her satellites change and morph, grow and shrink. She gains new ones, and loses old ones. She allows herself to mourn, but she tries not to let the grief consume her. She must move on, she must continue on with her life. Her satellites and their movements make her happy, and she does not want her grief to ruin that.

At some point though, she too can feel herself coming to an end.

She changes drastically. Her light changes, her heat changes, her gravity changes, and so does her size. She grows to an immense size she’s never been before, far larger than she thinks is healthy. Inadvertently, she consumes one of the satellites that had orbited very close to her. It's the first time she has ever directly caused the death of one of her satellites, and she feels horrible shame at the knowledge...but she knows it’s not her fault. She can’t help what is happening to her, and she knows that her death is near. She knows that with her death, her satellites will die with her, too- not just lost to the void, but completely destroyed.

She wishes things could be different, but she knows her wishes could never come true.

She has lived a life of peace, mostly; A life of harbouring and loving these little satellites that dance and move around her in the most interesting ways. She has gathered much knowledge about life and death, about gravity and its effects on others. Some things will always remain a mystery to her, but she’s not too bothered about that.

She wishes she could share the knowledge she’s acquired with others of her kind. She wishes she could communicate with her satellites, to tell them goodbye, to tell them she loves them, to tell them that she’s dying and that they’ll die too, and that it’s not her fault. She wants them to know it’s not on purpose, that she would never wilfully harm any of them.

In the end, she hopes they know. She can only hope.

She dies spectacularly, her heat and light growing so bright that it bursts outwards. She’d expected pain, but all she’d felt in her death was bliss. Her own elements and energy are ejected out towards the void, creating a spectacle unlike any other. It’s a fitting end for a powerful being such as herself.

Over time, others of her kind are born in the ashes of her corpse. They, too, collect satellites that they love and care for. Two siblings circle around each other, playing and talking to each other for aeons as they gather their own families of satellites. Some are completely alone, and they wonder to themselves if their consciousness is unique. Some are happy, some are sad.

But all of them are bright, and all of them burn.