Moonspear a bullet on fire

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Midnight falls on the Moonspear. It is a crisp and quiet evening, the crescent moon shining on in the cloudless sky. The only sound now is the wind whistling between the evergreens, and perhaps the occasional howl of wolf or coyote.

Suddenly, a light high above. Like a shooting star, but then much bigger and brighter. And it keeps growing, and turns from something angelic to something unholy. A fiery trail is left in its wake; the ball of burning metal hurtles through the atmosphere. There is a moment of calm before the explosion, the meteor obliterated against the north side of the mountain, far up the peak, near its precipice.

A thin plume of smoke rises from the Moonspear, only a fox-sized smouldering pit where the asteroid had landed. Has anyone living on the mountain seen something like this with their own eyes before?

Written by @Lily

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the boy had been gazing into the dark sky as teenagers were wont to do, staring at the distant celestial bodies that, insensate to his mourning, stared back.

most of the sky was still. arcturus had from time to time caught the burning glimpse of a shooting star streaking across the sky -- but never had he seen the simmering ruin of a downed star coming straight towards him.

or at least, that was what it looked like to arcturus -- as if one star had grown tired of its lonely perch in the immense and isolated sky, and had thrown its soul downwards in a fiery arc.

arcturus watched as the spearing star howled across the earth's horizon, a flare of white announcing its penetration of their atmosphere.

downward it went, in a rapid descent -- its white tail flaring behind it like a winter fox's. and then there was the snarling noise of burning, shredded air -- a high pitched and oscillating wail from the sky that the boy had never head before.

his ears pinned instinctively as the impact washed over him -- the dark world suddenly became illuminated in a harsh glare of flashing white; everything around him was a white or silver sheen -- and then darkness resumed its reign, leaving him in a shocked stupor.

he was slow to rise, his hair on end and heart beating rapidly; whatever he had just witnessed seemed unearthly. there were no other wolves around him, and fearfully the boy crept towards the smoldering spot, where grey plumes still rose in thin columns into the navy night. arcturus held his breath as the nauseating scent of burnt ozone hit him -- his eyes locked on the blackened, corrupted star that sat smoldering in the center of the crater.

was this what stars looked like when they abandoned the high seat of their celestial perch?

Slavik had been in the midst of a hunt when the star fell. A fat and late bird pecked through the leaf litter, unaware of the predator that followed them. The boy used the cover of night to hunt, his golden pelt only twinkling occasionally in moonbeam. His eyes were locked on his prey, he was mere feet from launching himself at this prey. Suddenly there was a loud whistle, like no sound he’d ever heard before. Ears flattened to his skull and his heart skipped a beat, his eyes for once leaving his prey and looking to the sky.

What he saw was horrific. A glowing, burning speck falling from above. A star, at first so slowly, but once it had broken their atmosphere it was like a rocket, and the impact came only seconds after that. He could feel it, the groaning of the earth at the angry heavens, a rumble at his feet. He could see it, at one of the higher peaks of their mountain a plume of fire followed by its simmering breath.

A voice in his mind told him not to go after it, but every other primal instinct tugged his paws towards it. At a hurried pace he left behind the bird, which had since flown away in fear, to hunt a star instead. When he arrived at the crash site, Arcturus had already gathered there looking at a blackened crater with a disgusted face. Slavik moved to stand by the boy’s side, the sulfuric scent filling his nostrils as well. He said nothing, just marveled over the simmered fire ball, and how much smaller it looked from here.

When the star roared through the skies, the Alpha dropped the rabbit he had just caught and stared in awe. Fire blew through the sky only to land not far from where he was. The force of the impact was felt in every way -- in his paws, in the way that his fur was blown away by it. He woofed a short call to @Amekaze who he'd been hunting with that he would check it out, and without waiting to see if she would follow suit, he left the rabbit where it was -- figuring he'd find it later -- and immediately started trotting towards impact.

Satin had already made it there before him, and when Charon looked better he saw that his son was also there (who he hadn't noticed at first due to his black colour and the smouldered earth before them).

There was only one conclusion that Charon could draw from all of this... It's a sign from the stars. But what it meant, Charon had no idea of. Was it good? Was it bad? Was this a fallen wolf who'd passed, become a star, and then had been expelled from the midst of the other spirits for some reason or other? It was impossible to tell, but the only thing Charon was quite clear about was that it meant something.

Comfortable, and thriving in their moonlit hunts, Ame's attention soon derailed from any catches, trails, and other pursuits to be drawn skyward to the bizarre sight as it streaked across the night--a star? She squinted, listening, watching, and  A strange sound echoed, and presumably an impact followed that spiked her furs up instantaneously. As she took this in, strangely enough, some distant piece of her remembered the lightning.. but this was a far cry from exactly similar by any stretch, aside from being from the sky, too. While strange, and leaving her thrumming with a new sensation in the wake of it all, she wasted no time considering it from afar and took off after Charon's route to go find out more herself.

In due time, she honed in on the smoldering crater, noticed Arcturus and Slavik already there easily, and stuck close to her mate when she got close enough to do so. Her nose twitched at the scent wafting on the cold winds now, overpowering, familiar and not at once--undertones of it reminded her of times, places elsewhere, but there was also something about it she could not place. When she closed in to be able to see the peculiar ball responsible for this, she squinted down at it--it was smaller than expected to have caused this, but maybe there was more that she could not yet see? For all of her years here, many of them upon peaks reaching to the very heavens, never had she seen anything of this sort.. not exactly.

A sign from the stars? Perhaps, and she rumbled her agreement quietly with a thoughtful sort of hmm sound. But why? And to what meaning? Maybe a star itself, she supposed. Or a piece? Since it did not seem like much, not face to face like this. She couldn't take her eyes off it, though.

last post from me <3

arcturus fell back as his family approached, each inspecting the blackened star with their eyes lit in wonder. he remained pensive and silent, disliking the burnt smell of ozone that this malign star had brought with it.

he wished neither to touch it nor to witness it any further -- shrinking behind slavik, and then trailing to amakaze's hocks, the boy looked to the sky with uncertain apprehension, as if waiting for more stars to throw themselves down from their lofty perch, and sunder his sky with flame anew.

A star itself? It seemed almost too crazy to be true to Charon, as he wondered about this. A piece, perhaps. Admittedly Charon knew very little about the actual stars, so he had no idea on that one. All he knew was that this was something, this was big. Maybe, he said, though sounding as though he had little interest in the exact what's and how's of it all. He needed to figure out what this meant. Was it a reminder that he was destined for greatness and he had not worked upon it apart from building a legacy for his children to proudly follow up on? What did it mean?

I must think on this, he said with a serious expression and he, too, turned his eyes skyward. He was glad that Arcturus got to witness this so that he, too, was reminded of his duties as Ostrega of this mountain, got to experience the greatness of the stars themselves from so up close. It was an amazing thing, and hopefully inflection and thought would tell him what it meant.

also my last :)

Remaining unchanged, she stared down the mysterious space rock while the others began to turn their sights skyward already. She would get there eventually, but the scent, sight.. she didn't like any of it but felt drawn to it anyway, something deeper than just the curiosity; this unknown went further, almost uncomfortably so deep into her marrows.

But, she sighed softly, hoping to chase off the scent a bit before she too turned her sights skyward. We will see, she thought idly, and skimmed a glance across the sky's horizon just to check one last time. None other caught her eye, all just where she knew them to be.. so she went right back to at her paws. For now, she would leave it be (to air out at least..? to make sure it didn't change?) but she was going to be keeping track of something like that. A smoldering piece of star from the skies was worth that at least. Maybe later, alone, she could poke about it more herself.

For now, when she was done here, she swept a nudge down her son's side and chuffed to her mate before she took off on her own, with or without them. If they wished to watch the skies longer, then so be it. She was onto new trails for the time until she decided exactly what to do with and about it.