Takes place the evening of June 30, 2017.
Happy National Meteor Watch Day, Northstar Vale!
Happy National Meteor Watch Day, Northstar Vale!
The end of the month was marked by what felt like a particularly early sunset. The sun seemed in a hurry to dip below the horizon, leaving in its wake a brilliant green flash, quick as an errant thought. The cloudless summer sky was a swirl of purples and blues; and when the waxing gibbous moon tiptoed up through the tenebrae, her light shone especially brightly.
Though the moon was still about a week shy of her full illumination, her unnatural luminescence and the pale cyan halo that appeared around her made it seem that she’d skipped ahead in the lunar cycle. Moondogs glimmered to life like a pair of symmetrical parentheses — and then, in scant trickles at first, the stars began to dance across the sky.
They came in ones and twos — trios and quartets, quintets and sextets — and then they lanced the darkness in the tens and twenties, filling the balmy summer night with kaleidoscopic light. The stelliferous light show was bound to last for a few days at least, but this was its brightest hour. The vale’s shadowed sanctuary was for once utterly illuminated; and the thickness of the trees made it impossible to tell where each individual star might fall. It seemed that they sprang up from one side of the high-walled fortress only to arc and disappear on the other side. They reflected in little rainbows on the surface of the Clandestine Stream and created a mesmerizing mirror effect in the Lotus Spring, where the fireflies seemed to dance with special fervor, like sentient fragments of celestial light.
Though the moon was still about a week shy of her full illumination, her unnatural luminescence and the pale cyan halo that appeared around her made it seem that she’d skipped ahead in the lunar cycle. Moondogs glimmered to life like a pair of symmetrical parentheses — and then, in scant trickles at first, the stars began to dance across the sky.
They came in ones and twos — trios and quartets, quintets and sextets — and then they lanced the darkness in the tens and twenties, filling the balmy summer night with kaleidoscopic light. The stelliferous light show was bound to last for a few days at least, but this was its brightest hour. The vale’s shadowed sanctuary was for once utterly illuminated; and the thickness of the trees made it impossible to tell where each individual star might fall. It seemed that they sprang up from one side of the high-walled fortress only to arc and disappear on the other side. They reflected in little rainbows on the surface of the Clandestine Stream and created a mesmerizing mirror effect in the Lotus Spring, where the fireflies seemed to dance with special fervor, like sentient fragments of celestial light.
posted by coelacanth.
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Messages In This Thread
at night, we name every star - by ThE nArRaToR - July 01, 2017, 09:34 AM
RE: at night, we name every star - by Liffey - July 01, 2017, 10:07 AM
RE: at night, we name every star - by Rannoch’s Ghost - July 04, 2017, 04:08 PM
RE: at night, we name every star - by rip gemini - July 08, 2017, 12:22 PM
RE: at night, we name every star - by Liffey - July 08, 2017, 05:46 PM
RE: at night, we name every star - by Rannoch’s Ghost - July 08, 2017, 08:36 PM
RE: at night, we name every star - by Liffey - July 24, 2017, 05:13 PM
RE: at night, we name every star - by Rannoch’s Ghost - July 24, 2017, 06:50 PM
RE: at night, we name every star - by Liffey - July 24, 2017, 07:27 PM
RE: at night, we name every star - by Rannoch’s Ghost - July 25, 2017, 01:55 PM
RE: at night, we name every star - by Liffey - August 13, 2017, 03:22 PM