Chapter Text
Perhaps, if the last scientist hadn’t passed billions of years earlier, the phenomenon of Gaia would have been documented and examined for decades to come. Perhaps, if the last musician hadn’t perished billions of years earlier, inspiration would have been drawn from Gaia’s current events and spun into an orchestral masterpiece. Perhaps, had the last fine artist hadn’t died billions of years earlier, the spectacle of Gaia would have been painted thousands of times over by careful hands and mindful eyes. But no one bears witness to the performance of a dying planet, not man nor plant nor beast. The only witness of such events is Gaia herself.
Gaia began its serenade three eons ago. Humans had long since died out from the surface of the star, dying one by one as an end of an age came about. There was nothing to do for it; every species comes to an end one day and humans are no different. Plants and animals and monsters had remained after the last human had passed. They spent their time reclaiming cities and towns and settlements one by one until nothing would have been recognizable to the humans who had once ruled. Cities became ruins, and ruins became rubble. Life spread across the planet just as it had before over tens of billions of years ago. History forgotten, stricken from the records that could no longer be maintained, peace lay on Gaia’s lands.
But all eras must come to an end eventually. Time wears everything to dust eventually and Gaia is no different.
As the sun Gaia circled began to expand and the rotation of the planet began to slow, life began to falter. Plants shriveled and died, either from the lack of or the overexposure of too much sun. Rains slowly stopped, leaving land drier and drier until where water once flourished, only dust remained. Animals and monsters perished, numbers dwindling until populations were too scarce to recover. One by one, animals, plants, and monsters grew too weak to weather this changing world and rejoined the Lifestream.
Gaia had trusted in the life on its surface a little too strongly. She assumed for too long that life would readjust and regrow. She reacted too late to defend her once flourishing life. Mako burst forth from the earth and froze in place, slowly but surely crystallizing into natural caves and mountains and cliffs. Places for wildlife and monsters to hide, shade to keep plants from burning away. By the time she had acted, no amount of shielding mako crystals could stop the decay. When the last plant had died, there was no hope for recovery.
Gaia was dying and she knew it. With no one left to bear witness, Gaia wept. The earth and seas cracked and split. From the fissures surged a storm of greens and teals. The Lifestream. Billions upon billions of souls mixed together with no hopes of revival poured over the land and seas, enveloping everything in lights and sound. Though the wind no longer ran across Gaia’s surface, the Lifestream danced as if pushed by the gentle breezes she remembered. Though nothing could listen to it, the Lifestream sang long, low notes, a song of grief sung through the resonant hums of metal, earth, sea and souls.
For three billion years, Gaia mourned the loss of life. Gaia wept for the fate that steadily marched towards her. Inch by inch, day by day, the sun Gaia circled grew redder, grew hotter, grew larger than ever before. The sun's time was running out, and when that happened, Gaia’s time would be up as well. Planets closer to Gaia's sun were consumed as the ever continuing death march continued. With each brother and sister lost, her song grew louder, each soul singing with the movements of the Lifestream. It's how the picture has now come to be.
A few pitiful years before the inevitable end, with the light of the dying sun growing fatalistically stronger, the crystallized mako glittered. Refractions of light in all manners of colours and shapes covered the landscape, painting the star in an abstract glow. The Lifestream moving overhead cast simple, stark shadows, chasing the light across the surface of the planet like Gaia's oceans had once bent the light on the sandbars to its will. There is a beauty to her death, Gaia knows, but it does not stop her from weeping. The beauty of an end does not stop Gaia from trying to protect what matters most.
It was time for Gaia to take a page out of her own book.
There is no hope for a star days away from being consumed in cosmic flames. There is nothing Gaia can do to save her shell.
But there’s still a glimmer of hope
A star, farther away than any naked eye on Gaia could once see, calls out to her. Energy pulses in that distant star, energy so soft and fragile and new calls to its dying sister. Gaia responds, a terrible cry from deep within space. An offer is made, and young magic reaches out to her. Gaia agrees willingly.
A shudder squeezes the star, Gaia's last cry filling the empty space as mako formations shatter and vaporize. All mako returns to the Lifestream that swirls and shifts, sluggishly gaining power and speed. And all at once the Lifestream disappears, every last tendril surrounding Gaia departing into the frozen unknowns of space upon the call of a distant star. It's barely soon enough to escape. Gaia succumbs to the cosmic inferno, stone and metal and heat in the centre all reduced to atomic structures beyond ashes.
The Lifestream, however, escapes.
Lost, alone, and following the distant call of magic on a distant star, the Lifestream moves. All souls swirl in its confines, untouched by the cold that surrounds it, unhindered by the stars it passes and the planets that could house it. The call grows stronger, more voices joining the sounds. The Lifestream responds, planetless and afraid. The rumble of metal striking metal, the crash of waves against land, the crack of stone and metal splitting, the roar of lightning splitting skies, the sighs of snow and ice dancing in the sky, the rampage of fire and smoke across lands. It sings out to the Lifestream, and the Lifestream, desperate for succor, sings back.
An eternity passes before the calls of the distant star are not so distant anymore. A hymn of life surrounds this star, so different from the psalms of life on Gaia, yet so achingly familiar. Six magics draw upon the Lifestream, and the Lifestream yields. Browns, blues, whites, purples, blacks, and reds usher the Lifestream closer, and it listens, rushing now to the star that had responded to Gaia's last desperate calls.
Eos.
Six magics welcome the Lifestream to Eos, integrates it properly upon the star.
Eos does not hide the Lifestream as Gaia once did. Though younger than her late sister Gaia, Eos beckons the Lifestream to disperse amongst the atmosphere, encourages it to dance on the darkest of nights and to light up the parts of the world bathed in the darkest shadows with greens, teals, blues, and violets.
Souls, restless from their journey through space and time, are coaxed from the safety of the collective. Mako, pure and untainted, rains down upon Eos, different from the kind Gaia had harboured. Solid crystals. Gaia's tears and Eos' new hopes. Materia. It descends upon the new star, colourful orbs dotting the land and glowing with the soft lights of souls inside.
New beings are born to Eos. Through the mighty hands of Bahamut, Leviathan, Ramuh, Titan, Ifrit, and Shiva, humans are born. A spirit, Carbuncle, coaxes new life into existence, both flora and fauna alike. Monsters appear, muddled mixes of souls who refuse to release their hurt and pains. Kings and queens, born of souls who had been the first to heed Eos' distant calls.
And, the most rare of them all, summons.
Souls too powerful to be torn apart like the rest, souls too unique, too full of will. These souls were captured through the hands of the astrals and hidden deep within glittering red crystals. Summon Materia.
One by one the Summons were placed on Eos, sequestered away in the depths of nature for their own safety. The beings that reside in Summons are too powerful for human hands, the Astrals decree. No mortal should wield the powers these souls offer. They do not believe such power in the hands of mortals would lead to anything other than destruction. Eos feels different. One by one Summons find their ways into human hands. The Astrals can do nothing to stop the will of Eos. And so they fight amongst themselves, debates taken too far and too seriously.
This, too, eventually comes to an end.
One by one the Astrals decide to teach humans to master Gaia's gifts to Eos. Ifrit and Leviathan teach destruction. Titan teaches creation. Shiva and Ramuh teach defense and sleight of hand. Bahamut teaches Summoning.
One by one humans wield their gifts against them.
One by one humans are cut down, lessons undone and teachings forgotten.
But the Summons do not forget. The Lifestream does not forget. Eos does not forget.
The Lifestream does not forget the Calamity that calls in broken chirps and harsh notes. The Lifestream is familiar with the pain of the Calamity punching a hole in the atmosphere, tainting the mass of souls that dance in the Southwest. But Eos is new to the pain of being struck with the Calamity. She cries out, and the Astrals fall quiet. The Lifestream doesn’t forget when Materia corrupts, when people fall ill and when daemons begin to rankle upon the star. And the Summons, the Lifestream, and Eos too, will remember the plot the Astrals conceive to rid the star of the Calamity.