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Fellstar didn’t need to eat, or drink, or rest. He didn’t age in the way life like the rest of us does. His enthusiasm for life, whatever life was for him, never lessened.
But he was not immortal - and the way it was revealed to me was, perhaps, even worse than if he merely slowed down.
Fellstar simply fell apart… piece by piece, bit by bit, over the years, like a skeleton on the plains.
He didn't mind... but I did.
When too many parts had been lost and it grew hard for him to keep going, I improvised. The inner strings and structures of animals left behind in death extended his time a little longer. But he was slowing down... once brilliant patterns now muddied and worn with age.
Star creatures, it became apparent to me, did not live long. We kept exploring, my friend and I, and for him each day was like the first. Only reapers, it seemed, worried over what had not yet come.
So though I knew it would come, and sooner every day, we still made every day the best one it could be.
We saw so much in those ten seasons. Things you don't appreciate flying fast and high. Even in his slowing down, we found new perspective. Less so we wandered far and wide to find. Now more often we waited for what showed itself to us. Things we might otherwise have missed.
I would have taken care of him forever, carried him if it came to it.
But I knew he didn't want that.
When there were no easy fixes left, and my friend could no longer travel, I brought beautiful things to him instead. They were small comforts, I thought. To take his mind off the inevitable. I didn't know how he would die, only that he would.
But star creatures didn't fear the end of their journey like worldly creatures. When his body failed him, Fellstar stayed for two days. I believe he did so for me. I brought him all the flowers in the field, and colorful feathers, and each one he examined with his inexhaustible curiosity that was the same as so many seasons ago.
But on the third day, he didn't. He pushed away my gifts, and he gestured for me to sit beside him, and we looked in one another's eyes for some time. His capacity to speak was reduced now with the loss of so many parts and growing weakness in those left. His once silent movements now produced buzzing sounds, which sometimes gave way to piercing screeches as if the parts inside no longer moved together as they should and became stuck. But through his strained gestures, a new language we had made together over his lifetime, I still understood.
Star creatures could do something worldly creatures cannot, at least not easily. They can decide when they're ready. And they can go on their own time.
So with me by his side, that's what he did.
~~~
Day 47343
Probe 2
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Unable to stand. Legs 1-6 missing. Left visual spectrum lens compromised.
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Another beautiful flower. It is my favorite one yet!
Another beautiful flower. It is my favorite one yet!
Another beautiful flower. It is my favorite one yet!
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Another beautiful flower. It is my favorite one yet!
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Weather changes detected: fog, rain, dropping atmospheric pressure. Storms likely.
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Unable to stand. Legs 1-6 missing. Left visual spectrum lens compromised.
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Unable to stand. Legs 1-6 missing. Left visual spectrum lens compromised. Time since last successful self-assisted movement: 59 hours, 28 minutes, 19 seconds.
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Self-recovery now considered unlikely.
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Damage levels to myself are now incompatible with further exploration of world with [unknown lifeform > documented lifeform > benevolent lifeform > companion > "Friend"]
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"Friend" remains in working condition and will continue to transmit as I prepare to log off from mission.
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The mission has been a success.
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"Friend" will mourn. Its behavior pattern as a social organism is highly altruistic.
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My behavior pattern through prolonged social osmosis with "Friend" is now highly altruistic, too.
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"Friend" is present.
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It is my favorite one yet.
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I just hope it understands.
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Will I mourn it, too?
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What comes next?
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Is there another mission? Will the alliance of three, who now swim the widest of seas, send another probe this way one day?
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A hundred of us sent across the cosmos. Can not just one more land here too, to find me again after all? Let them know I made it after all, and let me do it all again.
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There doesn't have to be another mission. I don't want one, not if it was by myself, not if I was to forget. It was good to do even just one time.
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It was all very good.
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Logging off.
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Autonomous adaptive behavioral learning (AABL) pattern has shut down.
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Contact with satellite remains lost. Please retrieve data backup manually.
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Generator has been shut down. Use caution collecting data cell from Probe 2; harmful levels of environmental radiation may become present if damage occurs to generator or battery cells after auto-termination and cessation of self-maintenance.
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Probe 2 has auto-terminated due to catastrophic sustained damage rendering further study on this mission impossible.
~~~
When the spark that was my friend finally burned out in the rain, all that was left was a cold shell. I don't know where he went at the end of his story - I don't yet know where any of us go, and when I do, it probably won't matter to me. But I knew when it happened, felt it leave him, and afterwards what remained was not him any longer.
I didn't know what would happen to his body after he left it. A thing from another place, animals wouldn't eat it. Plants wouldn't grow up from where he fell. Would it stay there, where it lay, until bit by bit it fell apart into fragments, but never truly vanished?
I didn't want to watch it happen.
So I did all I could do.
I moved on.
Most of my life had been spent alone. It should have been natural - our people embraced our independence. I thought it would be easy to fall back into the way it used to be.
But I saw now that to be alone was not the same as to be lonely.
So I first tried to turn off my mind and let my instincts alone guide me, lest the darkness hang above me like the storm on the horizon. Reduced to my basest instincts, I sought only to find food and to survive. Rinse and repeat, day after day. Try to block out the thoughts.
But when the thoughts overcame me anyway, I realized that this is not what he would have wanted for me.
He would want me to keep exploring... wouldn't he? To see what else was still out there... beyond the world we walked together.
So now, with my story told, I will keep the adventure alive in memory of my friend, Fellstar...
...and I will continue the journey, because there will always be more to see.
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