Luna Falling

Luna Falling
	When the God-Moon Ajlan’Olgotta fell from the sky in a blaze of silver fire, crashing into the Silk Forest and setting it aflame, the warring nations of Pengol and Enjek sheathed bloody swords and saddled weary horses. Soldiers from the fields of death and entourages from the rooms of luxury all began an exodus to the spider-infested Silk Forest.
	The soldiers and ambassadors of both nations arrived to a dying inferno of silver fire. The giant webs of giant spiders had all been burned away by the moonfire. Everyone rejoiced, for the spiders of the Silk Forest were worse than wolves, ravaging Pengolian and Enjeken country sides alike. The spiders showed a cold intelligence in their attacks. At twilight, two small spiders the size of rabbits, forerunners, would move silently into a farm. The livestock went first. Injected with paralytic venom, they made no sounds as they died. Then the forerunners would invade the houses, in search of sleeping prey. Dark and sinister leg stood around a sleeping baby in its cradle as they lowered dripping fangs to its neck. Venom flooded the dreams of sleepers as they perished.
	Once everything on the farm was dead, the forerunners wrapped the corpses in web to be transported back to the forest. In the morning, all that’s left is an empty farm.
	These raids have taken a heavy toll on both countries. The spiders were getting bolder, moving farther from the forest every year. In just a few years, the Enjeken capitol itself would have been at risk. The thoughts were present in both parties of ambassadors: The God-Moon, Ajlan’Olgotta itself, had delivered retribution on a dangerous thread to both countries. Favoring neither, he was obviously calling for peace.
	The fact that the war was leading to mutual financial ruin incubated these thoughts rather nicely.
	So, a treaty was signed in the clearing of the God-Moon. The soldiers and ambassadors returned home, to new prospects. Now that the spiders had been eliminated in a silver inferno, farmers could make use of the rich soil near the Silk Forest. The lumber companies could start harvesting the trees. The few remaining webs were harvested and sold at extortionate prices. Economic growth was on the rise. Opportunity was everywhere.
	Inside Ajlan’Olgotta, in a space far too massive to be contained purely within the moon, a great inner eye stirred. The mind it belonged to cast its gaze to the moon’s immediate surroundings. Witnessing the Silk Forest without the filter of sensory organs, the mind found a clutch of spider eggs. Narrowly spared by the silver eggs, the arachnids within slumbered fitfully. If they hatched, they would repopulated the Silk Forest and begin the raids again. This could only cause needless death.
	Opportunity was everywhere, and the great mind had found one. It narrowed its gaze and viewed the atoms that made up the clutch’s body. With miniscule effort, it began to move and shift them. The spider’s physiologies and anatomies began to change.
	When the mind was done, decades later, a new species flourished in the forest. They had the lower bodies of spiders, with eight hydraulic legs, spinnerets, and armored carapaces. Their upper bodies were also armored by carapaces, and retained the physiologies of spiders even though they resembled the torsos of humans. They had four hydraulic arms, sporting hands with opposable thumbs. Their heads contained four to eight eyes and venomous fangs.
	They never left the forest. They bred and grew and weaved but they always stayed away from humans. They hid inside the confines of the forest, careful to stay away from loggers. They started using tools. They developed language. They became sentient. Then, and only then, did they leave their Silk Forest.
	Upon first contact with humans, both races were surprised to discover they could communicate telepathically. Their psychologies were perfectly crafted to receive the thoughts of the other race. This aided communications immensely. Their physical languages were drastically different, and the humans remembered the stories of their fathers, of raids on farms built too close to the forest. Without the telepathy, war would have been sparked almost immediately.
	The spiders sold their silk to the humans, and seeds of fruits and herbs found only in the Silk Forest. The less scrupulous spiders sold their venom. The spiders, as a whole, quickly became a fierce power in the world. Their armies were unbeatable and their economies unshakeable. They turned all of the Silk Forest into a massive city of wood and web pathways between trees and buildings, blending human and arachnid architecture. It became a capitol city comfortable for both races.
	Centuries passed, and the myths of the God-Moon are forgotten as the great round moon in the Silk Forest becomes a cone-shaped mountain. The mind inside awakens many times in those centuries. Each time it looks out into the world, it changes something. It guides the planet towards a single goal: Restoration.
	War tears the world. Nuclear bombs are detonated, and oceans bleed into the sky. Jungles burn and armies are slaughtered. The spiders and the humans have finally come to blows. The planet is enveloped in nuclear winter, and only small pockets of people have survived, eking out a living underground.
	Millennia pass. The nuclear winter has ended and both humans and arachnids emerge into unfamiliar sunlight. They have no memory of the fear and hatred that caused them to lash out at each other, so long ago. The two of them begin to rebuild.
	Eons pass. The first rockets in millions of years are created. Technology is perfected. Primitive chemical fuels are replaced with driving energies. The first ships leave the solar system. Other planets are colonized. Meanwhile, the strain of supporting its population causes Earth ecology to wither and die. The majority of the people leave for a new planet. A few stay behind to restore the planet.
	Oceans are refilled. Forests are regrown. Animals are cloned and released back into their natural habitats. Tundra’s are refrozen and the skies are cleansed of pollution. It takes centuries, but the planet is brought back to life. The people leave again, to let their celestial mother live and evolve naturally. It’s the least they can do. No trace of civilization mars the planet, and sentient life never evolves there again.
	The mind awakens once again. It opens its third eye and sweeps its gaze across the planet. It sees the lifeblood of Earth flowing smoothly across the continents. It sees the jungles. The tundras. The animals. Evolution. Life. It’s time.
	The mind awakens its body. Ancient muscles stir to life as the heart begins pumping blood again. A mountain cracks as an egg hatches. Exotic energies flash and crackle as Ajlan’Olgotta emerges. The moon under the mountain crumbles and splits. Lightning flashes, purple and green and black. A massive arm rises from the ruined mountain, far too big to have been contained inside the mountain. It has no color a human mind could perceive – the light it reflects is outside the natural spectrum.
	The rest of the being followed. Another arm. The arch of a serpentine neck. Two wings. The head. Eyes shining like supernovas. When it has completely emerged from the tiny moon, it was bigger, by far, than the Earth. Like a song or a book, the moon contained a whole world inside of it.
	By force of will, the dragon did not alter the orbits of the other planets in the solar system. It loomed over the earth, wings flapping silently and needlessly in the vacuum of space.
	Ajlan’Olgotta gazed upon the green and blue and white orb spinning below it. Countless centuries flowed through that planet. Change and life and death and stories. Now it had infinite potential. Evolution ran unchecked as the planet constantly adapted to itself.
	The dragon opened a fold on the underside of its neck. Coiling its neck around the Earth, Ajlan’Olgotta enveloped the planet in this pouch. Earth crystallized and smoothed out. Its life became eternal as it and the dragon became one.
	With the Pearl of life nestled in its neck, Ajlan’Olgotta dipped its head out of regular space and into something deeper. A slipstream of ethereal energy carried the dragon through the roots of creation.
	Towards the center of the universe.