The Mourning Star

The Mourning Star

By Stephanie R.M. East



         A quick glance to the vibrant heavens reminds me of the births that happened at the beginning of the years. The stars that shine brightly in the midnight sky wink at me with their golden irises, fighting each other for their right’s to have me as their own. Shana-Cie reigns over all, singing to me with her tender voice. Whoever said that there is no sound in space was not born there.



         From the beginning of the years of sentient beings, there have been stars set in the heavens to light the paths on which those conscious beings walked. Yet, also from the beginning, there has been the Darkness: a corrupting force that causes those beings to blot out the heavens with their pollution of death and despair. The stars have attempted to steal back their heavens by forming the Hanypa, or Corporeal Stars.

Shana-Cie was one of the First, called the Hanypa-Kai by our people. In the battles that were raged between the sentient’s and the Kai, nearly all of the First Children were exterminated. Shana-Cie is the only Hanypa-Kai that may still live on the land.

Though we do not truly have parents, other than our God and Goddess, called Han (Hăn) and Ypa (Ē-pĂ) respectively, I can call Shana-Cie my mother. By the rights that I have given myself, as one of the first Hanypa-Kho, or second children, Shana-Cie is the Hanypa-Kai that watched over me as my “conception” and “birth” took place.



I am hundreds of years old, though I only look to be a mere sixteen in the eyes of the sentient beings. The reasoning for this is not just that I am a star – we call ourselves celestials – but it is that my “conception” and “birth” took place in the Era of the Ageists. The Era of the Ageists, which has since been overrun by the Era of Glamour, contained one common goal – to never age. Han and Ypa respected the goal of the sentient’s, giving their children born during this era an eternal youthfulness until death. (In a manner of speaking for the ways of the Celestial’s, the death of a star’s Hanypa is not the death of the star itself. A supernova, or the death of the star itself, can happen several of thousand of years after the death of the Hanypa. The Hanypa-Kai are an example for this, in that though the Hanypa were killed off by the conventional human methods, the stars still shone in the sky.)



At my true age of two hundred and sixty-seven, when I looked to be a mere four-year-old, Shana-Cie sent me from the heavens to watch over the people of conscious thought. It is in this manner that I call Shana-Cie my mother, for she sent me to the world.

I was delivered to a couple of magnanimous stature known as Marianna and Nicolas in their language. At the home where Shana-Cie had placed me for them to find me, I was the only child to have such a unique appearance. On the human world, it seemed, every child looked the same. When Belinda, the caretaker of this home that contained parentless children, found me, she gasped in either fright or wonder. (Since I was actually over two hundred years of age, I understood her language when she declared that I was either a child of a witch or just a child who looked different.) When Marianna and Nicolas came to Belinda, unable to bear their own children, they were immediately flabbergasted by my ruby red hair and my silver eyes.

“Who is she?” Marianna asked Belinda.

“A girl I found on the road. She’s very smart. Told me when we got to the house that her name’s Sarana and she’s four-years-old. I ain’t never heard that name, before. Mrs. Dalina, what about Katy or Lisa? They ain’t got no … quirks.”

“I like difference, Miss Marcus. Sarana,” she said to me, kneeling down to talk to me. “What else do you know other than your name and age?”

“I know you’re pretty,” I said, remembering that Shana-Cie had told me that in the Era of Glamour, women needed to be told that a lot.

“Well thank you, but looks really don’t matter to me. What happened to your mommy and daddy, sweetie?”

“Momma gone and daddy … I never knew daddy.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, Sarana, do you want a new mommy and daddy?”

“I’d like that, ma’am, but who?”

“Well, me and my husband.”

“Oh.”

After papers were signed and the identification chip was pulled out from the skin at my wrist – which is put in orphans so they don’t run away – I went home with Marianna and Nicolas. That night, after my new parents had put me to bed, Shana-Cie came to my balcony and we spoke until morning. Before she left, Shana-Cie took my hand and told me something I’ll never forget.

“Sarana, do you know what your name means?”

“No.”

“Sarana, in the language of the Hanypa, your name means sadness. Just as Han’s name is the morning star of the conscious one’s, the sun, your name is the mourning star of the conscious one’s.”

“I must know which star I am within the sky. It’s my right, mother”

“You are the star that is seen between Han and Ypa. When you die, you will bring about their death, for your star’s collapse will collapse all space around it. My darling, your duty is specified within your name. You are sadness; you are despair; you are the end of all.”

Shana-Cie shimmered away from me, the imprint of her long fingernails within my palm. My truest mother’s words would stay with me for the rest of my days on earth.



I met my first boy when I was sixteen in the eyes of the sentient’s. His name was Ionis Crane. He begged Marianna and Nicolas to allow him to escort me to what was called “the promenade,” a long sheet of wood situated above the waters of Ala’Itara, a lake in the middle of their land. I still remember walking along that wooden plank hand-in-hand with Ionis. Ypa was awake in the sky, her lunar face frowning at me. Yet, when I looked to the waters, I saw the reflection of the very star the sentient’s named their lake after. Ala’Itara was one of the Hanypa-Kal, the fourth children. (The third children [Hanypa-Kana] include Gyantha and Soro, the twin stars of the sky that have completely opposite mind-sets towards Han and Ypa, and the most important elders of their class, Kanara and Kanari, the twins who share their likes and dislikes. [The Hanypa-Kana were born during the Age of Duplication, in which all sentient couples requested from their lord two children at once.]) Ala’Itara winked at me, the waters of her lake rippling with her star’s movement.

“Look, Sarana, a frog just jumped into the water,” Ionis pointed at where the ripple caved in on itself. “Make a wish.”

“Why?”

“I thought you knew everything, Sarana. Oh, well, I guess you can’t know everything. Every time that a frog jumps into the lake of Ala’Itara, a wish is granted.”

“Then we’re too late.”

“You are too logical. You think too much, Sarana.”

“Why is that such a problem to you, Mr. Crane?”

“Why are you calling me Mr. Crane? My dad is Mr. Crane; I am merely Ionis.”

“Mar … my mom and dad taught me that I must be respectful to others.”

“You were respectful of me from the moment you agreed to go on this date with me. Sarana, you are so … different from the other girls.” He said this and brought his hand up to brush a strand of my ruby hair out of my shining eyes. My eyes always shone more at night when my star was most illuminated.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing to apologize about. I like that you are unique, Sarana.”

“Well, thank you. Mr. … Ionis … may I ask you a question?”

“Of course. And you don’t have to ask me if you can ask me something. Just go ahead and ask it.”

“Alright. Ionis, do you believe in spirits?”

“Why do you ask?”

Because my truest  mother told me that I could tell the first person I believed to be a true believer [in the spirits] about us, I wanted to say. But I didn’t. I looked Ionis in his eyes, for we were of the same height, and simply stated, “Because I do. I believe that there are spirits for everything.” I didn’t tell him. To this day, I do not know why I didn’t tell him. I truly wanted to, but something stopped me. I believe the sentient’s call it their conscience. Or is it consciousness? I could never remember the separation between those two words when I was in school.

Ionis walked me to Marianna and Nicolas’ home, in silence. When we had reached the stoop, he looked at me with a face I had only seen on one person’s. That was Nicolas’ face whenever Marianna wore her nice gowns of sheer fabric.

“You are so beautiful, Sarana. I cannot believe that someone would actually give you away.”

“Well, my mom and dad chose me.” I stated. I didn’t even know that other people knew I was adopted. Who was this boy?

“Why don’t you bury all of your thoughts?” He asked. Could he read my mind? And how? Who was Ionis Crane? “For I want to kiss you with a free mind.”

Oh, I thought, as his mouth came onto mine. I struggled for a second or two, not understanding what a “kiss” was, and then released all of my tension. His arms went around my back. His eyes were shut. Should I have shut mine?

Do not dare! A voice bellowed in my mind. I flew backwards, away from Ionis, and grabbed my forehead. It was pounding. The voice continued. How dare you go with the human ways! Sarana-Nyen, you are not to follow in the paths of the humans! I immediately knew who it was when the voice called me by my full name. Ypa. I glanced upwards, still trying to grip the ache out of my head, and found the moon to be ablaze. I knew that only I could see it, though, and for some reason, it hurt me. My heart pounded inside of my corporeal form. I looked for my own star, thinking that it would probably be dying, for I felt that I was. When I could not find it, I felt that I would faint. No, you will not be seen by the humans. My true mother’s voice came into my head. I understood: Ypa had crossed over my star so that the sentient beings could not see it. The glare that usually covered my vision, one that I had gotten used to in the past twelve years, was gone. 

Ionis came to me, as my true mother returned to her placement in space, between the land and my star. He reached his hand out to me, for I had fallen on my bottom. I brushed it aside. When I stood and was eye-to-eye with Ionis once more, he fled from me. I did not understand, and voiced it as he whooshed down the path that led from the road to Marianna and Nicolas’ front door. He continued to run.

I turned inside, heading up the winding stairs to my bedroom on the third floor. At first, Marianna and Nicolas did not understand why I wished to sleep in the room that was once an observatory. When I told them who I was, after trusting that they believed in what I was, their comprehension grew.

“How was your walk?” Marianna’s voice came from the second-floor corridor as I began my ascent to the third floor.

I looked down and saw that she had walked from her bedroom, a modest little thing that contained a table with makeup (a “vanity” table, Marianna explained,) two dressers (one for Marianna and one for Nicolas) and a large “king”-size bed. (I questioned this, wondering if Nicolas was a king. Marianna told me that the “king” was just the size of the bed.)

I loved Marianna’s hair. As I looked down upon her head, the streaks of silver that matched my eyes shimmered in the auburn brown. And her eyes. As she looked up at me, her beautiful emerald eyes glittered.

“It was okay, Marianna,” I declared. After discovering who and what I was, Marianna and Nicolas allowed me to call them by their christened names, for they realized that it was difficult for a star to recognize a mother and father (usually).

“Are you sure?” Marianna could always tell when I was lying.

“Well, we walked along the lake, talking. When we reached the house, we kissed. And then She came to me.”

“Ionis kissed you? Nicolas might not be too thrilled about that. How about you let me tell him?”

“Okay.”

“Who is the woman you were talking about? That Shana woman?”

“No, it was not Shana-Cie. I wish it had been. I would like to speak to her about this. No, when I say She, I mean Ypa.”

“Oh. Is that the sun or the moon?”

“Ypa is the Goddess of the Lunar Face. Han is the God of the Sun Rays.”

“I can never keep those two straight.”

“I understand,” I said. Marianna and Nicolas, though accepting of what I was, still did not comprehend all of my people’s peculiarities. “Anyway, Ypa came to me. She said that I was not meant to follow in the path that people like you follow. She said that I am not meant to be as human as I have made myself out to be. Marianna, why can’t I be like you? Why can I not be free from all of this? Why do Han and Ypa have the ability to control me so?”

“Oh, Sarana.” Marianna came up the stairs and met me where I stood near the third-floor landing. When she looked at me, her face as well contorted into the features of fear as Ionis’ had.

“What is it?” I asked her as she pulled her arms away from where she had readied to wrap me in them.

“Sarana, your eyes. They’re … go to the mirror.” She pointed my way to the mirror she had hung on the wall of my bedroom. When I had proclaimed that I was hideous, she had placed it there so that I could see myself every day and know that I was not.

I strode to the mirror and looked into my reflection. My ruby hair flowed down my shoulders in lengthy locks. But it was my eyes she had spoken of. I tilted the mirror so that I could see my eyes. The silver in them glittered, but when I looked deeper, I understood. The silver was shining only in my reflection for it was dying. Darkness was stealing it away. Black as my shadow in the night was overlapping the silver. I was being taken over by my true person: the mourning star.

Marianna, unlike Ionis, stayed at my side when I began to cry for fear of being released to my fate.

“Isn’t there any way to change it?” I cried into Marianna’s chest. She held my head there. I was so comfortable.

“To change what, Sarana?” She whispered into my crimson locks.

“What I am destined to be. Please, tell me, how do I change this?”

“Sarana, I don’t know much about how your people work, but in fate I am pretty sure. There is no way to change who and what you are. You are the star that will birth the apocalypse from your core. Sarana, your heart has warmed in your life here with Nicolas and me, but your destiny has not. Your destiny, your fate, your doom is still as cold as it ever was.”

I cried into my foster mother’s chest, and she held me there for the rest of the night. When Ypa disappeared from the sky and Han awoke, I recognized his heartless glare as it peaked through the cracks of my blinds. I had never drawn them. I had fallen to sleep in Marianna’s arms. She said that she didn’t want to wake me. I knew the truth. She didn’t want to let go of me.

“Sarana, who is that?” Marianna asked when she reentered my room just after dawn. (She had descended to retrieve food for both of our nourishment.)

I looked to where she pointed, and saw Shana-Cie standing on my balcony. Though I had told Marianna about her plenty of times, my foster mother had never met my star mother.

“Marianna, this is Shana-Cie.”

“Ah. I’ve heard much about you. It is a pleasure to finally meet you face-to-face.”

“Likewise, Mrs. Dalina. You have watched over my darling Sarana-Nyen for many years. In your care, no wrongs have happened to her. And I thank you so much for that, mareshi-a.”

“What did she call me?” Marianna whispered to me.

“Mother, remember that though Marianna believes in us, it does not mean that she understands our language.”

“Oh, I am very sorry. A mareshi-a is what you may call a savior of some sort. You were able to discontinue my darling’s transformation for as long as possible. But it cannot be torn away any longer.

“Sarana, come here to my side.”

I looked at Marianna, who was standing in the doorway, and then looked back at my balcony. There was something different about Shana-Cie.

“Are you all right, mother?”

“Why do you ask, Sarana?”

“There’s something wrong. Tell me.”

“Darling…” She was not going to answer me.

“Please, mother.”

“Excuse me, Mar’,” I heard from the doorway. I turned to see Nicolas enter.

“Nicolas, everything is all right,” Marianna assured her husband. “This is Shana-Cie, Sarana’s … star mother.”

“I am not here about the light emanating from Sarana’s balcony,” he replied. He walked forward to stand between me and Shana-Cie. “Sarana, I have just received a call from Mr. Crane. Ionis never made it home. Do you know…?”

“He ran from me,” I said. “When I … began to transform. I was sure he would have made it home.”

“I can answer that for you both,” Shana-Cie interposed. “It is why I am here, Sarana. Not only has your Celestial transformation begun, but so has Ionis’.”

“Ionis is a Celestial?” I asked. “Which star, mother?”

“Um…” she said, motioning towards my foster parents. 

“They are believers,” I assured her. “Marianna and Nicolas have taken care of me for twelve years; they must be believers. Which star is Ionis? I know that that name is not one of a Celestial.”

“Many Celestial’s do not keep their star names as their own.”

“I know that as well. Why are you dodging my question, Shana-Cie?” I rarely ever used my star mother’s name, but she was beginning to strike my patience.

“Ionis Crane’s Celestial name is Sarovil-Nyen.”

“But, that is my ending,” I proclaimed. No Celestial shared the same “ending,” like Cie or Nyen.

“I know that, Sarana. I was there at your identification ceremony. It was also Sarovil’s.”

“But no Celestial has shared a ceremony since the Hanypa-Kana.”

“I know, Sarana,” she said, her voice slipping into the deep tone of frustration. The aura about her body, which was faded and the reason I questioned her health, deepened its silver color.

“Forgive me for making you angry; I just do not understand.”

“Senators’ Dalina,” she said to my foster parents. They looked at her and cringed. Her own crimson locks were rippling in a nonexistent breeze and her silver eyes had deepened to black. I was afraid of what my own appearance was, as most stars shared appearances. (I had only ever seen Han and Ypa with different looks.) “I do not know if Sarana has told you which star she is. She is the mourning star, the star of death and despair.”

“She has told us,” Marianna said.

“Well, for all of you, she is not the only one. The mourning star has two parts, one of death and the other of despair.”

“Which one am I, mother?”

“Sarana, I once told you that your full name is translated into the mourning star. Yet the star is your Celestial being, and is not in a part of your name. Instead, Nyen means mourning, whereas your beginning, Sarana, means despair. Sarovil’s name is death.”

“I am the mourning despair? But what does that mean for me, Shana-Cie? What does that mean for Sarovil? How were we both created for one fate?”

“Slow down, Sarana. You two are the unique Celestials of the Hanypa-Kho. Just as I was the unique of the Hanypa-Kai as my corporeal body still lives. None of the Hanypa or the Celestials understand why you two were both created. Usually, except for in the Age of Duplication, Han and Ypa worked together and formed one body for each star. Yet in your case, they fought each other and in the end Han created you and Ypa created Sarovil.”

“Yet Ypa can still come to me?”

“She is still your Goddess; she is just not your factual mother.”

“Why did they fight?”

“Mourning is the state of grief over the loss of loved ones. You and Sarovil were the first of the Hanypa-Kho, created when the lost Kai were still being returned to their full Celestial bodies. Han and Ypa were both sorrowful over the loss of the Firsts, but Ypa was much angrier whereas Han was sadder. Ypa was even angry with Han for not being angry. I suppose that is why there were two made for the mourning star.”

“So Ionis and I are both transforming?”

“Yes, darling.”

“Why did Ionis run?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Last night,” Marianna explained for me. “Ionis and Sarana walked together. When he brought her home, he leaned to kiss her. Rising, she was beginning her transformation. He ran away from her and he has not been seen since.”

“That is because Sarovil does not have as drastic a transformation as Sarana, so it probably had not begun yet.”

“Yet?”

“Mrs. Dalina, you said that Sarovil has not been seen since he left Sarana?”

“Yes, Shana.”

“Well, then it has begun. Sarana, I must leave now. Han and Ypa call me. You will receive your own call very soon. Hurry and say good-bye.”

“What do you…?” I began to ask.

Shana-Cie shimmered out of sight. I ran to the balcony and saw Han glaring brighter than he ever had. Before Marianna could release a scream, my God shot a tongue of fire out of his star. It touched down a few miles away, over the lake. I ran past Nicolas and Marianna, down the stairs and out the front door. They followed me. We stood there on the front lawn like a real family. Suddenly, Han’s tongues of fire ceased their conflagration. The sky went dark except for a shining ball opposite Han’s. Ypa.

Ypa moved slowly, but with my acute hearing, I knew that she was pulling the water around our land. The lake surged over its banks, and I could hear screams from the marketplace that was situated on the boardwalk. And then Ypa was gone as well.

“We need to get inside!” Nicolas yelled over the roaring water.

Ypa had completed her duties; the tides had come in and swelled the oceans and the lakes and the rivers over their banks. Nicolas, Marianna and I ran back to the house and back upstairs to my bedroom. We stood on the balcony together and saw over the division of houses that separated us from the downtown sector and the beaches beyond that.

“Look there!” Marianna screamed. I followed her shaking finger into the sky. Every star glowed with an ominous red light. One large planet-sized star was only half lit. It was mine; Sarovil was already there.

I found Shana-Cie, five stars away from mine. Between us were four of the Firsts. Han and Ypa were shrouded, but I knew where they were instinctively: right behind mine.

Ala’Itara winked at me once more. She was to the right of Shana-Cie. I had never realized that she was a Kai in her days of life.

Then, the lights from the stars turned off. All of them but one. The light from my bedroom slipped around our bodies. I looked up into Marianna’s face. Her green eyes overflowed with tears. I turned to look at Nicolas. He was crying as well. They wrapped their arms around me once more, and the sky dropped white flakes upon their graying head.

“We love you,” Marianna said.

“Never forget us,” Nicolas included.

“I could never forget you,” I cried. Their bare hands froze my skin straight through my blouse. I looked into their faces; their tears had frozen in place. Screams and cries filled the deadly night while families froze mid-step. The last screams echoed off of my home, and I felt the pressure of my Celestial being wearing upon me. Despair filled my heart. I fought myself out of Marianna and Nicolas’ grips. I fought myself away from my destiny. But my destiny caught up.

I stood on the pier overlooking the frozen waters of Ala’Itara. I could no longer see my reflection in the cloudy ice. A warm hand touched my shoulder. I looked into Sarovil’s black eyes.

“It is time, Sarana-Nyen,” he said in that same soft voice of Ionis.

“I will never follow you, Sarovil,” I replied.

“Then you will die with them as one of them.”

“Take the star for your own. I do not want to mourn forever.”

Sarovil shimmered away and it was the last thing I saw. My eyes turned black. My red hair dripped down my back. It had turned to the very blood it was made from. My pale skin warmed.

“NO!” I screamed into the night. “I said I would not be a Celestial any longer!”

You cannot turn from who you are, Ypa said within my mind. This is your destiny. This is your doom. You are Sarana-Nyen, the Despairing Mourner. You are not a star in the sky, Sarana-Nyen. You are a star on the land. You will be full of despair for those you have lost. Ypa cackled, and left.

The only sound I have heard since that moment was my own crying. The frozen world could not speak except for its chattering frozen trees. The frozen bodies could not be moved. I waited for centuries for this day. This is the day that I finally get to die.

Sarovil’s star has been engulfing those around it for the past two centuries. Now, its horizons have reached the land. All time has slowed. I can actually see the waves of ice now. And even my voice has slowed to the point that it has taken two years to write this. But it will all be over in a few minutes. The world has faded around me, and only the pier where I still stand next to the waters of Ala’Itara retains its color. It is finally time. I am ready to die.

Whoever said there was no sound in space was not born there but now the only sound shall be Sarovil’s sorrow for he is the last being left.