The Phases of the Zodiac

[WrenWrenWren]

"Maybe palmistry was about reassuring you that your destiny's in your hands. Maybe." - Landlocked Sailor​

Author's Note: I selected this story because it is my very first attempt to write in the 'space' setting. I'm not entirely sure what I am doing with it. You may have seen me post a shorter version of this as an open RP at one point in the recent past too! As a side note, this is now an abandoned story, so if it interests you, please let me know! I've always been fascinated by palmistry, astrology, and all of the in's and out's of it. Once upon a time, I even worked alongside a physician that was a trained psychic. Seeing things that are beyond our humans eyes and researching the unknown has always been that idle curiosity for me. The point of this story has been to incorporate pieces of that interest and see what happens when it is applied to a new setting for me to explore! I hope you enjoy it, and as always, I'd love to hear what you think!

The Phases of the Zodiac​

It was a green, peaceful planet nestled between the stars of a galaxy far away. It was known, but not traveled to, as the luxuries it offered outside of the lush forests were few and far between. Napinides, the planet, had very little cities that provided entertainment and ports for trade, but The Capitol was as robust as any other. There were tall buildings of a white, marble-like material, and the plant life of the planet was infused into the design. Everything seemed to breathe in unison. Everything was alive.

The Eilons, a human colony, were the most populous and looked just like their earthly brethren. Unlike the Terrans though, Eilons believed in the concept of "Astra'' instead of following the guidance of established earth-based religions, and they thought their lives were etched into the palms of their hands quite literally. Fate was a powerful catalyst in their lives, and they worshipped her like the goddess she was. On the day of their birth, every Eilon's life path appeared in the lines upon their palms, and while most were not made for true greatness, some were.

Janna Arlox was not one of them.

"Two husbands and three children," the dark haired man said as he slapped Janna's hand with a laugh. "I wonder who the poor bastard is that marries you first. You'll probably kill him. Seems to be the only logical explanation as to why you would have two husbands."

She furrowed her brow into a deep frown, but Elot Zand continued his torment as he sat on the stone ledge beside her.

"Will you eat his heart or his liver first? Maybe smother him instead? Perhaps you'll feed him to the monsters of the bog? No one will find his body and you'll get off without any charges."

"Shut up, Elot," Janna said with a huff. She shifted in her spot and fixed her narrowed green eyes upon him. Her annoyance was obvious in her look alone. "Maybe you'll be the first one."

The man laughed and ran a hand through his long, brown hair. Lunches were always entertaining when her friend was involved. It had been a long morning of hard work and the day had her feeling a bit off center. The sun was shining brightly in the sky though, and Jan took a bite of a crunchy fruit as she turned her head up toward it. She wiped her lips with the long sleeve of her white shirt and gestured upward in the same direction.

"I hate these days. Napinides isn't meant to be dark. Even the astra feels like it's holding its breath."

The two moons of the planet encroached upon the bright light in the sky. Eclipses were not entirely uncommon, but leaving the planet in darkness for a few moments was not Janna's idea of a good time. It felt unpredictable, like the world would fall apart if she even considered letting out a breath in the coming darkness. Her stomach was in knots, and her mind had been distracted for most of the day.

"Don't be stupid, Janna. Astra doesn't breathe." Elot nudged her shoulder. "It'll be over soon. No one has ever died because Napinides went dark for a few minutes. It's natural. It helps reset everything. Maybe if you're lucky, it'll pity you and reset your palm."

Janna rolled her eyes. "Yeah right, an eclipse can't change what I was born with. I'll be stuck with my two husbands and three children forever."

"You're right. You're doomed."

They both laughed and Janna pushed a stray red hair from her face. The sun felt good on her pale skin, but too much of it, and she would turn the color of her hair if she wasn't careful. Already her nose was freckled and there was a pink tinge to her cheeks.

"You'll sit here with me until it's over, right?" Her words sounded nervous, perhaps even a tad afraid, but Janna asked Elot nonetheless. He gave her a reassuring nod and grinned.

"Of course. I know you don't like these days."

She hadn't ever been able to explain why it made her feel so afraid, but the darkness did. It was different from nighttime, because even though the sun wasn't out, the planet always seemed to brighten anyway. But an eclipse was different. The plant life didn't seem to store enough energy in preparation. There was no glow around the flowers and the vines to guide their way. The beings upon the planet sat, waited, watched until their lives could resume to normalcy once the sun peeked out again. Jan had experienced an eclipse several times before, but this one would be the longest yet. Most unsettling of all, people whispered about it, and some claimed it was a sign that their world was doomed.

"Look! It's starting!" Elot seemed excited. He even pointed up to the sky.

"Don't look at it!"

"I'm not!"

It took only minutes for darkness to come. Everything went silent. The planet turned still.

"This isn't so bad, is it?" Elot whispered beside her. Jan shook her head, but he couldn't see her. "It's quiet. Peaceful. I wish it was like this all the time so I could take a nap and no one from work would ever know."

Jan squeezed her eyes shut tight and shrank into her seat. She drew her knees up onto the ledge and held them into her chest. She hid her face into the material of her pants and focused on her breathing. Counting seemed to be an effective grounding tool for her, so she started at one and kept going.
She didn't even make it to ten before her palms began to burn. Her skin felt like it was on fire, and her chest was heavy. Breathing was a chore. She lifted her face and gasped loudly.

"You're panicking," Elot said as he pressed a hand against her back with reassurance. "Take a deep breath or you'll faint."

That was easier said than done. She moved to put her hands on her knees and wheezed during her attempt to inhale. It took everything she had to draw in air through her nose and mouth. Her mind started to race and her panic was driven by the feeling of suffocation. Her skin had never felt like it was being burned raw during a panic attack. In fact, Jan started to realize that it didn't feel like it had started with like a panic attack at all.

"Help," she choked as she reached her hand over to clutch Elot's thigh. Janna wheezed again and slid herself offf the stone ledge onto the grassy path beneath her. Her knees held her up. The material of her dark pants soaked with the dew from the grass. Still, Jan couldn't breathe.

"Come on, you're gonna faint! Take a deep breath. Listen to me!"

The sun began to peek from behind the moons. Light shined brightly back upon The Capital. Shouts of joy echoed all around them. Still, her hands burned hotter and her palms felt as if someone had scraped her skin with a thousand razor blades.

Then, in an instant, it was over.

She could breathe again.

Her head hung toward the ground and sweat pooled on the back of her neck. Her red hair clung to her skin, despite being tied back into a thick ponytail. Elot's hand massaged her back with comfort, but tears streamed down her cheeks.

"You're alright," her friend said softly, but everything inside of her knew that wasn't true. She moved herself so that she fell from her knees onto her rear, then she sat back in the grass and wiped her hands on her pants.

"Really, Jan. You're good."

She swiped away her tears, but that burning feeling on her skin had been so excruciatingly painful that the thought threatened to bring them back. Never in her life had she felt anything like it.

"It hurt!" Jan finally sobbed and thrust her hands toward Elot. Her palms faced him and she held them still to show him. "Right along the lines of the two husbands and three children you were teasing me about!"

Elot looked down at her hands but remained silent. His brow furrowed as he looked and then his eyes darted to Janna's nervously.

"That's....that's because they're gone, Jan." He licked his lips and cleared his throat. "The two husbands and three children...they're gone."

Jan went still. "What? What do you mean 'they're gone'?"

"Your palms. They're blank. Even your life line doesn't exist."

Jan turned her hands toward her face. Just as Elot said, her palms were empty. No lines or fingerprints existed. Her entire life had disappeared. Jan's eyes widened.

"What? I don't---" She began, but a chorus of screams interrupted her. In the next minute, the sky darkened again, and both Jan and Elot looked up at the sky. Instead of a second eclipse, they found a fleet of ships blocking the sun.

"What...what is happening?" She asked.

"I...I don't know." Elot replied. They sat in stunned silence for another breath, then he grabbed her hand to pull her to her feet. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

Through the streets of The Capitol, the pair ran, and while others fled in the direction they had come from, neither Jan nor Elot opted to stray from their course. Their destination was pointed, and the tallest, white building in Napinides loomed ahead.

The building was located in the center of the city and was surrounded by a luscious green park. It stood tall and was considered a beacon of sorts for the Eilon people. Inside was an institute of higher learning, full of academic archives and collections of items that documented their known history, but at the very top were the offices of the Chancellor and various other high ranked Eilons that had been destined for greatness.

Within one of those offices worked Mirah Lange, a well respected intergalactic translator, and her personal assistant, Camran.

"I hope the Chancellor hasn't made them evacuate," Jan muttered, but she walked through the lobby doors anyway. The entrance was a cluster of activity, as people moved in and out of the building in a fluster.

"They've requested a meeting."

"They're demanding to speak with the Chancellor!"

"Who are they?"

A cluster of information waifed from person to person, but Jan remained focused and headed toward the lifts. Elot lingered, caught up in conversations as he weaved through the sea of people, but once the lift arrived, he joined Jan at the back of the platform.

"Foreigners," he said quietly. "They're looking for something."

Jan stared straight ahead as others filled into the lift in front of them. "What?"

"Dunno. Chancellor Ximon will be hosting an address shortly in the square out front."

"We'll find Mirah first."

"Right."

The lift closed and rose up toward the top of the building. After several stops, the pair filed out of it into a long, well lit hallway. Four offices later, and they stood outside a door with a name plate that read 'Mirah Lange, Translator'.

Talking with Mirah had always been enlightening to Janna. The other woman had discovered Jan's abilities with linguistics when Jan was nine years old. Already at that point in her life, Jan had learned three languages after traveling with her father, and after some convincing, he allowed her to stay in Mirah's care instead of traveling more with him. While Jan had not been given a robust destiny like Mirah, her father had, and he represented the Eilons and The Capitol throughout their galaxy. Jan never knew her mother - she had abandoned their family shortly after Jan's birth, but Mirah stepped into that place. She was one of the only people Jan could trust.

There was a loud 'thump' on the other side of the door.

"Mirah?"

No answer, but another 'thump' followed.

"Mirah? Are you alright? Open the door!"

A rustling noise came next and the door flung itself open to reveal not Mirah, but her assistant, Camran. He was short and mousey, and the sight of him made Jan's lip curl. They were not friends, not even close, and many times, Janna had asked Mirah why she even kept him around.

Camran appeared disheveled and stressed. He brushed them off as soon as he pushed out of the office.

"Mirah isn't here," he spat. Behind him, he tugged a large bag that nearly burst with each movement. "Probably won't be back either now that they're here."

He mumbled some more to himself and moved down the hall.

"Where are you going?" Elot asked.

"Away."

"But I need to talk to Mirah about something."

"So?" Camran turned on his heel and looked at Jan. "There is nothing that could be that important when there is a fleet of foreign ships invading our airspace. Who knows what they want? Maybe they'll invade the planet and destroy us all."

He turned back around and continued his march.

"Wait, wait!" Elot chased after him. He placed a hand upon his shoulder. "If she's not here, maybe you can help. The eclipse....Listen, something happened to Jan."

Elot waved her forward and when Jan came to stand next to him, he grabbed her wrist to tug her palm toward Camran. The other man huffed, but his eyes drifted to the lineless hand placed in front of him. He looked up at Janna with surprise, then back down at her palm, and repeated the action a few times until he stopped.

"Your lifeline is gone." He stated, and both Jan and Elot nodded.

"I don't know what it means. I hoped Mirah would."

Camran dropped his bag and it fell in the hall.

"You don't know what it means?" His voice seemed soft and sincere, but then it quickly turned venomous as he repeated the question with narrowed eyes. "You don't know what it means!?"

His lips twisted into a scowl and he grabbed his bag again. "It means you should see a doctor, you idiot! Why do you think a translator would know how to fix your hand? It's not like she can sing a song or tell a story to your hand and miraculously it's fixed!" He carried on down the hall, earning him a few looks as people pressed around him to get to their own offices. He approached the lift and it opened to take him down.

Jan and Elot shared a look, but still they followed.

"Well, do you know where she went at least?"

"No." Camran lifted his chin and pressed his hair down from it's wild state with his free hand.

"You have no idea at all?"

"None."

The lift opened on the bottom floor, and the three of them filed out. Camran evaded several more questions asking about Mirah before they made it out the front doors and into the heavily crowded square in front of it. The fresh air was welcome, but the sea of people was not.

Camran made a noise of frustration and pointed his finger into Jan's chest.

"This is your fault. You and you," he pointed to Elot too, "wasted my time and now I'm stuck here until this is over. We are being invaded. There are foreign ships in our airspace! Who knows what they---"

"They are looking for individuals that Fate has rejected," the Chancellor announced to the crowd upon a raised platform. His associates stood next to him with their arms behind their backs and their stern faces overlooking the crowd. The trio turned to look at him, their attention captured as he answered the lingering questions that everyone seemed to have.

"Those that Astra has rejected. We need to find them and heed our new ally's warnings. They say the ones we search for will cause the downfall of our communities, of Napinides. They are the enemy we fear." The Chancellor swallowed hard and wiped his brow. "They will possess a blank palm - no lines at all, no fingerprints. If you find one of them, you should alert the authorities immediately. There will be a reward."

A commotion to the side drew everyone's attention, and the Chancellor gestured to a group of people in restraints. Among them was Mirah.

"As you can see, we have already found several of them in our midst."

The voices of the crowd began to swarm, and as they did so, Elot gently nudged Janna.

"You need to leave," he whispered in her ear. "Now."

His tone was stern, but soft enough that only she could hear it. With a firm nod, Jan began to take a few steps back. Camran looked at them, then back at the Chancellor.

"Hey!" He shouted and waved his hands. His bag fell into a pile at his feet. "I've got one over here! She's a bit feisty, so I think I should get double!" He gestured toward Jan with his hands, but that was the last she saw of him before she turned away.

It was easy getting out of the crowd and down the street, but it wasn't easy to evade the authorities. They carried weapons and had tools at their disposal to catch up quickly, and Janna knew she would need a miracle to escape them completely. The only reassurance she had was that Mirah was captive, and at worst, she knew she would not be alone if they caught her.

She wasn't an enemy though. She was just a girl who once had a boring palm and now had nothing at all. Being arrested was not in her interests.

"Over here!"

"She's getting away!"

Their voices carried as Janna pushed herself to move faster. Her legs were strong and her body in shape, but with the racing of her heart already, she felt the stitch in her side come sooner than she had expected. Still, she pushed through it, dragging in deep breaths as she hopped into the green park and got lost in the sea of trees. She found a small alcove and hid under some shrubs as the feet of the authorities rushed past. Jan could only shrink further into the bushes and close her eyes with a prayer on her lips. There had to be somewhere safe she could go.

She waited until there were no more shouts nearby before she left her temporary hiding place, then she headed north toward the ports. Maybe she could find passage on a ship. Maybe there was someone that could help her there.