Someone was in trouble. Ringing screeched through their heads as the echo of gunshots dimmed. They fell backwards, but where the sand-speckled floor once sat beneath their seat, an emptiness now stood. Instead of their dead bodies slumping to the ground, they kept falling, plunged into a stinging cold embrace as sharp as the alcohol they had downed in the glow of amber saloon lights. The wooden planks gave way to an ocean of ice cold water, and they were sinking deep into death’s embrace – no, not death, thought the woman as her body gave out. Something even worse. There was nothing; no sound nor light as they fell into the abyss. The only thing the woman could make out as she blinked was two corpses floating above in a murky void, where shimmers of stardust from their fresh wounds danced in a nebula. She could see their faces; one she recognized to be her own, the other she knew to be her brother’s. Those faces were still new to her. As they fell, the bodies became dots in the void, stars in the sky. She scowled up at the sight of those bodies. She knew exactly where they were going. She could see it the moment something warm flickered in the space where her heart should be – and when she suddenly slammed onto solid ground, her suspicions were confirmed. The man sat up first as her eyes were still opening. In the darkened space she had fallen into, something was glowing next to her. She squinted to take in the sight, and as soon she saw it, she knew exactly what she saw. A gaseous swirl of stardust sparkled next to her, illuminating the dark like a lightbulb. Arms erupted from its sides, stretching outward. And then it looked at her, its head tilted, a wisp of light curling where a smile should be. Gone were the dark eyes that struck fear into opponents with just a spare glance; instead, starlight took their place, and it was a sight she knew much better than that silly disguise. It was her brother. It seemed he was making the same realization. She glanced down at her own hands – and there those flickering flames were, blazing as bright as the sun itself. The outlaws that tormented the saloon were gone. Instead, two stars returned to their place in the sky, where they could gaze down at their mess and pride themselves on a job well done. They were gods to those specks, powerful, ancient beings; but as they scrambled off the ground in a mad twist of solar flare limbs and broke into a fit of laughter, they sounded much more like spoiled children. They danced around in excitement, the thrill of the barfight fueling the fire in their chests like paraffin. They leapt into the air and spun in circles. Their forms sparked and crackled as if they were fireworks in the night. But just as they had found their ways to each other, they were suddenly thrown into the air, caught by a force of gravity that rendered them weak – until they each landed in a golden cage, separated. 12 In the shadow of space before them a glimmer ignited from the dark, struck up like a spark flying from metal. It was small at first, a simple pinprick in the endless night, until a sudden, violent explosion of light silently tore through the cosmos. Hydrogen and helium detonated into flames of blue, white, and purple, blazing wildly. But just as suddenly as it had erupted, it contained itself, smoothing out the jagged flames. The swirling body of a star stood watching. It was silent for one second – or perhaps a millennia – as it stared them down, a singular eye peering into the cages where the twins were caught. A body unfurled from beneath it; long appendages and fingers made of fire reached up to the cages, grabbing the chains that held them in place and pulling it closer. The chains stretched into the heavens above them, disappearing into the dark. The star was a warden. A warden whose name the twins were far too familiar with, and one who was far too familiar with the games they played. “Castor and Pollux. The Gemini twins,” said the warden. There was no rage in the being’s voice, and yet its form writhed as solar waves oscillated from its surface. It bore some resemblance to the twins, a being that illuminated the infinite void it inhabited, yet as it leered into the cages, the two appeared no larger than the eye of a needle. Castor; now that was a name she knew, one she liked much better than outlaw. Even as the being’s voice dripped with rage as it spoke her name, she wore it like a badge of honor. Pollux was another name that rang in her head; she knew it just as well as her own, if not even better. It was her brother’s, after all. She wrapped her hands around the bars of her cage and let out a laugh, trying to sound humored, yet sounding more nervous than anything. “Solis! Fancy seein’ you here.” The star – Solis, she called it – flickered, as if twitching an eye. “Are you two aware of the mess you just made?” “A mess?” Pollux chimed in. He glanced toward his sister. “Who, us? We did nothin’ of the sort!” She matched his nervous chuckle with fake laughter as the two craned their necks towards the bars, speaking a voiceless language that only the two similar souls knew. Cutting off the laughter, Pollux yelled out – “scram!” 13 In unison, the twins slammed against the bars of their cages, their ribbon-esque arms flailing through the bars as they tried to squeeze their way out. Solis scowled at the twins as their attempt failed. It watched for a moment before leaning back. “Why are you doing that? Stop that. Why would I put you in cages that you could escape from?” Ignoring its question, however rhetorical it was, the twins continued in their frenzy. Solis rested its head in its hand. Its fingers dug into its gaseous form; the surface of its fiery skin swirled around its fingertips. It took a deep breath and let out a sigh. With a snap of its fingers, the cages unfurled into stardust. That was their chance to escape; the twins leapt between the remnants of golden bars and clambered upward into the cosmos, laughing at their newfound freedom, satisfied in how quickly Solis had given up on them – until they were pinched between the sun’s fingers, frozen in place. Solis held the two stars by the scruffs of their necks. As they squirmed in place, shouting and clamoring in protest, the sun ignored them. It directed its attention to the many worlds it watched over, tracing its finger over their orbital paths until it found what it was looking for: the planet West. It had no grander name. It did not sit west of anything; there was no planet called East, nor any called North or South. Alone in its direction, West was a dry, dusty ball of sunburnt sand that orbited Solis. It spent its days loyal to the star that created it, and yet not a single speck on the planet knew its name. Even so, Solis viewed everything on the planet with the same fondness only its creation ever knew – a fondness Castor and Pollux certainly weren’t familiar with. The other stars in the heavens could say much of the same. But now, having faced the wrath of two of Solis’ wayward delinquent stars, fixing West would be a complete and utter headache to deal with. West was scooped into the palm of Solis’ hand. Compared to how it had treated the twins, Solis doted upon the planet with great care; it surveyed the rusty surface, searching for imperfections – and when it found one, its flames flickered white. Wind whipped around the twins as they were pulled closer to inspect the planet just like Solis had done. A mess of pristine white clouds swirled over the mesas and deserts. Steadily they grew, darker and darker by the minute. Pollux reached his arm out to poke at it. Solis smacked it away before his fingers could dip into the atmosphere. “Do you even realize what you’ve done?” Solis scowled as it spoke, every word slow and deliberate. It pulled them closer, glaring down. Its light consumed the stars in its hand, dimming them into weak flames amidst a howling wind. “Your arrival on West has caused a massive ecological shift on the land. There is a reason I don’t allow stars like you to enter my domain. 14 You’re an outside force entering an enclosed terrarium. A virus. And in order to run you out of it…” Its hand hovered over West’s pole. That mass of clouds Castor had admired were darkening. A storm was steadily rising. “The land had to fix itself.” With a flick of its wrist, Solis spun the planet. Days passed, then weeks, then months; and in the long span of time, the clouds grew and grew, covering the planet like a blanket of snow West had never once seen. Storms tore through the sky, devouring the sand whole. The twins flickered with the force of the wind. It was just as Solis called it: a mess; a pure, total deconstruction of order that was destroying the land. The desert was an ocean. It claimed towns and all the people that lived within them. Within less than one rotation, they were gone, as if they never existed in the first place. Solis stared down at the planet, thinking to itself. Its fire was dim in the face of the disaster; as if dropping into the soft glow of candlelight, it held vigil for hundreds. Castor and Pollux outshined it then. “It flooded to rid itself of you,” it said, its voice soft. “Which permanently altered the trajectory of countless lives – and ended the stories of hundreds more.” A grave weight was settling on the three stars, trickling in like sand. Silence reigned. In the wake of tragedy, that was all that could be given. Yet as Castor tilted her head, annoyance lurking in her demeanor, her devastation was misplaced; not on the lives lost, but at the lecture she’d endure as a result. She twiddled her fingers at her waist, leaning back. “So I see Procyon didn’t do a good job distractin’ ya.” Solis’ hand twitched as it held West. Its fingers curled in, annoyed, before abandoning the planet and instead reaching up into the night sky. The cosmos bent around its wrists as it filtered through the edge of the heavens, like light twisting around a black hole, as if reality itself was bending around its glory. Its hand found a star in the night sky. As it reached, the star swirled away from its fingers in an attempt to escape; but escape from Solis was futile. It was caught and plucked out of a constellation and brought to the twins. The other stars watched, twinkling with curiosity. There in its hand was Procyon, hanging loosely between its pinched fingers. It was nothing more than a ball of light, a grain of sand between Solis’ fingers. 15 “You mean your dog?” Solis muttered as it flicked the speck over to the twins. Without a care for the stars, Solis tossed them all up, catching them together in the palm of its hand. Procyon landed in a splat before them, then bounced back into the air. Little flares kicked out like feet as it scrambled to a stop before Pollux, who picked it up and checked it over for any sunspots. Castor scowled. Her plan had failed. Maybe she shouldn’t have trusted a protostar like Procyon to distract an all-powerful god like Solis. Ah, well; it was certainly worth the trouble. If they played their cards right, they could go off scot-free, with a mere slap on the wrist before Solis demanded that they leave its presence. Surely her brother thought the same; Solis was easy to tire out, as long as they didn’t get on its bad side. She shot Pollux a glance as he lowered Procyon, then puffed out his chest. “We were just havin’ some fun, is all! I mean, you can just… reuse some of your dust and make more of them, can’t you?” Motherfucker. Solis’ form flared out. The inky black sky exploded into yellow and white. Castor reached over and punched her brother on the arm. Good going, she mouthed, but the sight was nearly blinded by Solis’ light. “Reuse some of my dust… and make more of them?” Castor shoved her brother aside before he could cause any more damage. She held out her hands, as if reaching out to the blazing star. If her brother couldn’t be trusted to clean up this mess, then she would have to pick up the slack – which begrudgingly included groveling at Solis’ feet for forgiveness. “I think you’re bein’ a bit dramatic,” she said, her voice pitched higher than normal. “These are just characters. Toys! Their existence is… feeble.” Its fingers curled inward as its anger grew. Wrong comment, she deduced quickly as she held her hands up in fear of being crushed. It would be embarrassing to be snuffed out by Solis in front of all the other stars; two stars reduced to novas just for stepping out of line. It had punished other stars before, and it would not hesitate to do it again. Its voice boomed through the galaxy, sharpened by its rage as it cut through the sky. “These characters live as vivid of an existence as you and I. Don’t you even realize that? Their stories may be shorter than ours, but that’s what makes their existence worth more.” Stardust rose around its hand in streaks of ultraviolet and infrared. It swirled within the sky, trailing behind its fingertips, painting the sky for West’s midnight canvas. 16 “Their weakness is what gives them meaning,” it continued, gentler this time. “Their fragility is what makes them strong.” The planet was raised closer, twirling under Solis’ careful watch. It was searching for its imperfections once more, looking for any sign that Castor and Pollux still remained. As if trying to convince them, it let them look once more. They were silent as they stared; peering over the side of Solis’ hand, their gazes turned from the planet to each other. It was as if they had struck an epiphany in their silence – – until smiles cracked on their faces and they doubled over in laughter. Pollux rolled onto his back. Castor pounded her fist against Solis’ palm. The sun could only stare. “You two think this is funny.” “It’s a little funny,” Pollux said in between his laugh. With a sniffle and a wipe of her eye, Castor sat up. Her giggles made her woozy, threatening another spell of laughter. Even so, she rose, fluttering into the sky to try and reach the sun that wanted nothing more than to extinguish them. “Ah, but hey!” She said. “Water under the bridge, or however the phrase goes – right, Solis? What say we put this little incident behind us so Pollux ‘n I can get right back to tearin’ up nebulas?” She clapped her hands together. Pollux rose to her side, leaving a trail of shimmering starlight behind him like a comet’s tail. Excitement sat on their faces. They were quite pleased with themselves; Castor, especially, considering how easy it was to make Solis angry. If anything, it was the one thing she was good at. “No.” Her confidence sputtered to a halt. She glanced at her brother, then looked up at Solis, brows knit in confusion. “No? What do you mean, no?” Pollux asked. Solis scowled. Its flames flickered yellow. West was ignored as it turned its attention entirely to the twins. Behind them they could hear the whispers of their sibling stars, just as shocked as them, swapping gossip and commentary outside of their reach. Castor’s body flared red with embarrassment. She wanted to twist around and attack them all, silencing them for 17 ever looking down on her. But sitting on Solis’ hand, she would not be allowed to move; if she tried, another cage with her name on it would trap her in less than a millisecond. “Why should I allow you to return?” Solis said. “When you tear others from their homes and rip families apart for fun – why do you think you deserve to return?” Castor opened her mouth to speak. Solis silenced her. “Don’t speak.” It brought its hand closer. Its face blazed with a hot fire. “You will not return. Not after this mess you’ve made. You’ve dug your hole, now lay in it.” The twins froze, wide-eyed. To be thrown from the heavens was a fate worse than death, worse than anything they ever knew; Solis couldn’t be serious – could it? She tried to speak once more, voice coming through in a hesitant murmur; but as soon as Solis’ chromosphere flared out in a blinding rage, she shut herself up. Shoulders heaving, Solis leered at the twins. It spoke slowly. The stars of the heavens watched with bated breath. Anticipation rippled through the night sky. “I will give you three chances.” A collective hush covered the starscape like a blanket. Castor and Pollux stood in the center of it all. Solis continued. “Three, and only three. Should you fail, everything you know about being a god will be wiped away, and you will be nothing more than a memory.” Castor narrowed her eyes. “You’re bluffing.” “You can’t actually do that,” Pollux said at the same time. Solis leaned forward. They were inches from its omniscient eye. “You cannot even begin to grasp the scope of my capabilities. If you compare my creations as mere insignificant dust, then you two are nothing more than the gnats that fester upon that planet. You are pests in comparison to me. You just happen to be able to talk –” Wind whipped around the twins as Solis’ hand rose high into the sky, well above its head, tightening into a fist. They squirmed between its fingers. With West held in its other palm, Solis was leaning further and further back. “– and I just happen to show mercy.” 18 Not allowing the twins to beg for their freedom or escape its wrath, it reared its arm back into the depth of the cosmos. The sky warped around them, sparkling, as the other stars swirled away from its stretching arm. There was no heat nor cold in the heavens, but a cold wind chilled the twins’ flames as they anxiously looked down upon their place of exile. With a mere flick of the wrist, Solis pitched the twins down onto the planet, their forms dissipating into dust as they fell from the heavens, two wayward stars fizzling out of the dark