A New Constellation: Zintila’s Fall
Constellation Name: Zintila’s Fall
Origins: Also known as “Sorrow of a World Rent”, “Sorrow of a World Torn”, or simply “Sorrow”, this constellation appeared during the Valterrian above Lhavit where Zintila fell to the earth.
Description: This is an update on "Zintila's Fall" to add a mythology story to it as well as to put in a shameless call for anyone who knows and understands astrology to help add to these constellations. I will be updating the actual formation of the constellation as well and then will compile the final results into one post. Any advice or criticism is welcome. New ideas for constellations are greatly appreciated.
Mythology:
Zintila was far gone from the face of Mizahar, though She had not physically left its surface. Tonight, the stars were alight with song, and She had become enraptured by them.
In the footsteps of Her parentage, She had turned to creating things, bringing life where there had previously been none. But while Her parents’ focus had been on the face of Mizahar, Zintila’s vision swept farther, delving into the lightless places in the farthest reaches of the universe, the places forgotten, the places that sprang into being beyond the imagination of the first existences and before those existences had learned to think and work those thoughts into actions to shape the world they could touch. They forgot them, but Zintila had not. She had found the empty voids, rediscovered them, and in Her will to create, She breathed into existence the millions of lights to fill the emptiness and, with them, the many worlds they lit.
In Her early days of creation, She set worlds into motion, then let them be, leaving them to their own devices to wax or wither as they would. So many She put into motion that She couldn’t keep track of them all, and many lay beyond Her memory. When Zintila realized this, a sadness greater than any She had known fell over Her, and Her great light faded. In those days, Her eyes had turned to the stars, hoping to find what remained, and what She found returned Her light. In the twinkling of every star as its light burst through the atmosphere came a song, each star singing the stories of the worlds they lit and letting their creator know what had become of them.
It was often that Zintila would be found staring into the heavens, Her eyes looking as if they were worlds away, but as much as She loved these new worlds, Her heart was always fondest of Mizahar. The air here was warm, not always in the literal sense but with the care and familiarity of home. It was on Mizahar that Zintila had drawn Her first breath, and that air was heavy-laden with the scent of Her mother. Earthy and rich, it was the one thing that always drew Zintila’s thoughts back to the world about her. The scent of earth and dirt and rock and the way it changed with the changing weather. The frostiness of winter air, the petrichor of spring. All of it different, but all of it with undertones of Her mother.
Her creative power had hints of Her mother’s but was heavily influenced by Her father’s as well. While Semele had laid the foundations for the world, Her power paled in comparison to Her lover’s. It was from Him that the scope of Zintila’s creative force arose. It was with the strength He had passed on that She reached so far and set the stars into being.
A Goddess to rival the greatest.
That was what Her mother Semele had told the Goddess Zintila when She was young, and Her mother had not been wrong. Tanroa Herself had been impressed with Zintila’s reach, that the younger Goddess could discover the things that existed from times only Tanroa had traversed. Despite it all, the creativity and the power, Zintila always found Herself returning to Mizahar. It smelled of home, of Her mother.
These thoughts began filling Her head, and Zintila took in a deep breath to revel in the scent. But the air that filled Her lungs tasted burnt and choked Her, and in a sudden panic, She was brought back to a full awareness of the world around Her.
The world She came back to was not the one She was familiar with. Fire and smoke and heat choked out the usual greener, earthier scents Zintila had come to love, but this smell was worse than those things. It wasn’t that it was overpowering or rancid, but it had a pervasive quality. Even when She ducked Her face into the crook of Her elbow, She couldn’t hide from the odor. It was in everything, and the heat and smoke and ash bit at Her lungs, causing Zintila to cough. Thick and heavy, the air went everywhere, staining Her skin with a sensation indescribable, and in it all, the scent of Her mother was nowhere to be found.
Panic, a sensation the Goddess had never truly experienced in its deepest aspect, unfettered terror, gripped Zintila’s heart, and for a moment beyond the edge of eternity, She froze, unsure of Herself and Her strength, but time was on Her side. In the moment of Zintila’s doubt, Tanroa pulled Her from the stream of time. Zintila couldn’t describe how She knew this, only that She knew it had happened. Her realization of this brought a calm to Her soul, and steeled in that new knowledge, She was plunged back into the flow of time.
This reentry was perhaps more disorienting than the first. To be pulled from time was to be pulled from existence, and to be free from existence was a sensation that few were ever cognizant to experience. But She was back and had no more time to waste.
Dropping to Her knees, Zintila placed Her palms to the ground, feeling for the familiar pulse of life. In Her childhood, the Goddess had always drawn comfort from this. Beneath the earth, within the surface of Semele ran a current of sorts, something that carried not only Semele’s pulse but a pulse that ran within all living things that walked Her, Mizahar’s Heartbeat that sang in time with Rhaus’ music. It was wondrous to feel the tremor of Semele beneath Her fingers. That tremor carried love, love for all the things that existed upon Her.
But Zintila couldn’t feel it. The loam beneath Her fingers was strained and trembling, and in it, Zintila could not feel or hear Her mother. The Goddess whose reach penetrated the very edge of the universe and existence stood and cried out with a voice She’d learned from the stars, and Her call for Her mother carried around the world, not just around the world but through Her as well. If Semele was conscious, She would hear.
Zintila was drawing another choked breath to call out again when a crack so heavy it rent the air in two, a crack sounded so shattering all of Mizahar heard it, so devastating the Goddess was thrown to Her hands and knees. This time, She felt Her mother scream, heard Semele’s agony through the groaning of the earth, and as She cast Her eyes about for answers to this pain, lava burst into the bitter air through a crack in Her mother’s skin.
Ivak.
But why? Semele had only ever mentioned Him in the highest regards. After all, the two had crafted the current face of Mizahar together. The ground upon which the people walked, the mountains, the valleys. Those had all been the combined efforts of the God of Volcanism and the Goddess of Earth. The two had continued their work, altering Mizahar here and there as they pleased, but their interactions had always been for the benefit of all, for the benefit of the world itself. Though there had been some give and take, there had always been unanimity in their decisions, a friendship built upon the building of the world itself.
Semele cried out again in a colossal shuddering of the earth, and then there was silence, one Zintila had grown familiar with in the song of the stars. It was the same silence that came with the sputtering of a star, just before its light was forever extinguished. Even their great light was not infinite. Even Goddesses and worlds could die.
That was something Zintila would not allow. She was a Goddess to rival the greatest. Her creative force was perhaps peerless. If Her followers were asked, the reason astrology had credibility was because Zintila Herself had placed the stars and had a hand in fate. Her strength was measureless. She was immortal, and though She had lived ages, Zintila was too young to lose Her mother. An eternity without Her was something Zintila couldn’t bear. Her strength was measureless, and She would not let Her mother die.
Stepping between the thin fabric that separated this world from the Ukalas, Zintila found Herself free to move as She wished without the binds of gravity. Her footsteps took Her quickly to a place that existed far above the face of the world. At the very edge of this world and the space beyond, between the Ukalas and mortal existence, on the cusp of the atmosphere, Zintila took in the catastrophe below. Mizahar was splitting. In the center of its great continent, the earth had split, letting loose the vicious orange glow of molten earth that lay beneath. Thousands of lives were gone with that singular cataclysm, but there was only one life Zintila was concerned about, a life that still held on, Her mother’s.
The immense scope of the thing She was facing though left Zintila at a loss. She didn’t know how to quell this, whatever it was, whether it was rage or sorrow or hate. Ivak’s was a power that had forged the face of Mizahar, and this was it at its most impressive. Other fissures began to form, and the western coasts found themselves uprooted, gentle coastlands now rocketing skyward to form mountains the likes of which Suvan and Alahea had never known.
And as She watched with still no plan in mind, She heard something. It was all around Her, a song of a far-off forgotten star dying and shedding its last light. It sang of the many deeds that had taken place under its light, and not a single note of its song carried sorrow. There was hope for the deeds its song would inspire, hope that they could be taken up again elsewhere. It was the song of a fallen star. In that moment, Zintila knew what had to be done.
But the star wasn’t alone. All around Her more starlight cracked the atmosphere and broke into song, and only the smallest fraction of the sum of Her creative efforts was told in their singing. Gathering Her courage and strength, She took hope in the stories Her stars told, set several dozen more stars burning in the depths of the cosmos, and then let go of Her hold on the immortal realm. For a moment in time, She was suspended above Mizahar, freshly existing and free from its influence. Then, Her mother beckoned, and Zintila fell to Her call.
The fall seemed to last forever, though it was a blink of the eye in the lifespan of a Goddess. With the wind rushing in Her ears, She fell, but it was not a haphazard fall. There was purpose and direction in it, guiding Her to the western coast as it rose up out of the ocean. She needed to act quickly, and Semele was practically extending a hand to Her. The longer She fell, the more of Her strength She gathered to Her cause until no sliver of Her gnostic might was left unharnessed to this singular will and purpose.
With every portion of Her godly energy coursing about Her, no light every shone so bright as Zintila in Her fall. Syna was dull in comparison, and the light from the fires burning in and on the earth was inconsequential. As Her mother rushed up to meet Her, Zintila breathed purpose into Her power and set it free. Her body struck the rising mountain and broke, breaking the mountain in the process, sundering it in five, but Her strength sank through these new fissures into the surface of the world and, in an instant, spread through it, spreading until it found itself halfway around the world and sinking through the crust until it met molten earth.
Zintila did not see what happened as Her creative power met Ivak’s destructive one. The fall would’ve killed any mortal being, but even immortality couldn’t protect Her from this. She was broken, brought to the edge of death, and Dira shuddered at the feeling of an immortal being knocking at Her gates. But Her fall had not been in vain. Driven by grief and anguish and rage, Ivak’s power was no match for that of a daughter’s love for Her mother.
Where the earth was still in the act of rending, layers of stone grew anew, and Semele began the long act of healing Herself and tending Her wounds. It would be a long while before the world was right again, before Semele was habitable, hospitable for the things that walked and breathed, but She was alive, the greatest bleeding wounds stemmed. Earth quaking ceased, and only the subtle tremors that were reminiscent of Her heartbeat remained. Pressed as she was against the earth, Zintila felt this and smiled before the world she had just saved slipped from her notice into the emptiness of dreamless sleep.
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by Ambrosia Alar on March 1st, 2018, 12:29 am 
