Joshua had been a beautiful baby. Gentle brown skin, wisps of thin black hair, big eyes.. It had to make one question why he had been abandoned so carelessly on the steps of a university homed on an isle of scholars. Helpless, hardly guarded, cold, an English professor found him in such a state and thought not to leave him to such misery. He took the boy in, hurriedly showing the other professors and asking what to do. After much discussion, he and his husband – a professor of magic – decided to.. Simply take him as their own. They’d been considering the idea of adoption anyhow, even if they hadn’t expected to go about it in such an.. unconventional way. 

And so Joshua grew up a scholar, and gained a fascination with English and magic just like his fathers. So much so he became rather obsessive, especially when it came to Magic. His own magic was advanced, granting him a form of polyamory. It was.. Strangely unstable, his magic. It was wild. If he wished to change how he looked, he could only control so much of what he’d look like. A few things to keep, some to add, some to remove, and the rest was up to fate. If he wished to change back then he could, but there would always be something left behind from a form. A mark or imperfection. Discovering this, he decided to minimize usage to emergencies. 

When Joshua was in his early twenties, he got in with the wrong crowd. His behavior grew to be what many would consider rancid – theft, drugs, the likes. This led to what he would eventually come to consider his first step towards the stars. He came across a woman one day who was sick and begging for money. She grabbed his coat as he was walking past, tugging gently and begging him to spare her a piece of the bread he’d bought as he had more than enough in his basket. Joshua scoffed and pulled away harshly, spitting on her and taking the small can of change she had out of her hands. Filth like her had no right touching someone of his position. The woman was beside herself with shock. How bitter could one man be? Slowly she stood as Joshua turned away. She raised a hand towards his retreating back, murmured an incantation… and turned to dust. Joshua felt an agonizing pain in his chest and fell to a knee, his bread scattering across the rain soaked path. His heart felt like it was beating infinitely slower, his thoughts moving inexplicably quicker. His ears rang, his blood felt like it was boiling… Eventually the pain dulled, but it never left. Not knowing what had occurred, he picked himself up and went on with his day.

It wasn’t until he was much older that he understood what was wrong with him. 84 years old, standing at the grave of his wife looking no older than twenty-eight. He’d grown used to the sound of his heartbeat in his head, a bump… bump… bump that did not happen frequently enough. His life had slowed. Not even that, it had suspended. He could not age, he could not die of illness or natural causes. He was doomed to age out all he loved and die a lonely, unnatural, painful death. By now he had made many enemies, hurt or even killed people usually due to his interest in their magic.. He had become a monster, a blemish upon his saint-like parents’ legacy. He’d taken so much and yet lost more than any of it was worth… and so Joshua disappeared.

Mishrah was a man not many knew about. A harpy who lived on the edge of the mountains where his kind dwelled. Others knew not where he came from, nor his age, but they did what they could to accept him. He kept himself holed away in his home, unwilling to risk the monster Joshua had been. He put away his interest in magic to commit himself more to another obsession of his; astrology. The stars, cosmos, planets – it all fascinated him, even more so as the world’s understanding of space shifted with time. 

He studied constellations, documented comets, and charted star maps. He read ancient books that suggested such wonderful things – giants who roamed the skies building the universe one breath at a time, birthing stars with sentience and connection to all life as it was known, expanding it infinitely under the rule of an ancient god of the galaxies. Cosmeyus [cos-mey-uuse]. It had once been a common belief that every living, thinking thing on earth had a star link – a special bind to a celestial body, a sort of symbiotic relationship. The star granted personality, passion, drive, and dreams. And in return it was given the experiences of its being, a life it could not live in its place amongst the stars. These beliefs had been long forgotten, aging to be nothing more than ridiculous superstition. 

But Mishrah believed them. He felt a strange pull towards the stars above, an ache to be amongst a world he could not reach even with his wings. The more he studied, the moe he wished to redeem these ancient ways. He set out on his own, traveling in search of old documents, artifacts, anything that pointed to this god and its followers.

After many years, he felt it might be time to try and reconnect with the world he’d grown to neglect. He shared his findings, his beliefs.. But they were radical and new and entirely unprecedented, and an uproar was brought up against him. He was thought to be insane, his beliefs shamed and called an insult to the existence of mankind. He was chased out by all who heard his claims. He tried and he tried… and then he too disappeared.

Next came Sariah, a Naga who lived under the sands of a grand desert. Rejected once more from society he felt angry. He had been a monster, a kook, and now a snake. His blood was changing, growing hotter as he aged. It was a strange orange hue, and the heat attracted many of his cold blooded brethren. He decided he wanted for something simpler this time. He ignored the stars, hiding them from his longing view deep beneath the sands. He made friends, met someone new… loved again. For a moment, he forgot what he was. Who he had been. He became a linguist, and for a time, he was… content. Not satisfied, not complete, just… content. 

But as his family grew beyond him, he was reminded of what was to come. He would lose them once more. Be cast into loneliness. One day in a fit of grief, he broke through the barrier of sand into the cold air of the desert evening. The stars glittered in a cloudless sky, giving dim lighting that reflected across the desert. But he could not even focus on that. His scales were hot, his blood boiling worse than before, he felt as if he were burning from the inside. He clawed at his skin and watched glowing orange blood spill and absorb into the ground, but it gave him no relief. His thoughts were speeding up again, memories screaming in his head, grief already overtaking him as if his family were already gone. He ran.

Then there was Lilayah, the shortest lived life. She lived in the depths of the cold arctic seas, a mermaid with glittering gold fins and dark skin. By now her blood had turned more of a golden hue, but the water kept the burning calm. She refused company, hid away from others of her kind, threw herself into studies trying to understand what was wrong with her. By now she couldn’t go back to who she had been even if she tried. She had long since forgotten what it was like to be Joshua. Her ache for the great above had only grown worse, into more of an agonizing need that grew the deeper into the sea she dove. She could not hide under the waves for long. Her dreams of the stars had become nightmares of colliding celestials, voids where she fell into nothing, beasts, the end of the universe… she was going mad. 

One day she awoke in startling agony. She had gotten so warm that even the frigid waters had begun to boil. She screamed out as her skin glowed like fire, and in her pained panic she rushed for the surface. Flashes of memories she knew and places she did not flashed past her eyes and as she burst through the water… she became something else.

Meytan was very.. Very old. Old enough to withstand what was to come. His body became black as night, his hair long and just as dark. He sprouted grand horns and claws, golden blood causing his veins to glow with the might of nebulas. His face and hands were dusted with gold splotches of freckles, his legs thinned into points at the end, his mouth gained upper tusks, his eyes glowed like headlights. He was nothing like he had been. Human, Harpy, Naga, Mermaid… Celestial. Colossus of the stars, servant to the dormant god Cosmeyus, awoken by the years of faith and study the creature of many names had held to. Meytan had been many regretful things… but all had led them to this point. No longer was he some simple mortal with a less than stable magic pool scorned by all he came to know.. He bled galaxies, carried nebulas on his breath, formed stars in his palms and spoke their language. He traveled the universe, expanding it the way many before him had. He met the star who had known him all his life, felt his experiences alongside him, the one thing who had never left his side. And when the time came, he laid the star to rest and took the event horizon it became as a centerpiece in the grand staff Cosmeyus gifted him.

This was who he was for many many centuries. Earth aged beyond his understanding of it, and for so long.. He nearly forgot of its existence. It wasn’t until a star asked him a very simple question. Who was he? All stars asked similar questions when formed. It shouldn’t have shaken him as it did. But his answer – that he was Meytan, servant of Cosmeyus – had not been enough for the little celestial. It simply repeated it. And repeated it. Later Meytan would find it humorous that the star was bound to a girl on his very own planet earth, a woman who asked many people that very question in hopes to help them through life. But that’s another story.

The question rang in his ears for many year-long days. Who was he? He was Meytan. But he hadn’t started as him, so could he really say that with such certainty? He did not originate from the stars, he had not been born with his cosmic powers, he had not known Cosmeyus his whole existence, so how could he say “servant of Cosmeyus” was his sole identity? The crisis caused a strong bout of homesickness. He wanted to see what had become of the planet whose dirt had long since forgotten his footsteps. And so, after receiving blessing from his ever glorious god, he returned to earth as a much smaller version of himself – the cosmic sized colossus, now snuggly tucked into a simple 11 feet. He was given some stars to keep watch over while away, his staff, and a limited version of his abilities so that he would not be a danger to himself or the state of earth. He hopes to find himself here amongst the simple planet, and he hopes even more that what he does find isn’t as ugly as the faces of cruelty he once wore.