126. The Orchard
The Orchard
At the top of the sky, beyond the clouds, just before the azure meets the midnight of Chaos, there lies an orchard.
This is not an orchard like the ones mortals know.
The trees are not quite trees, and the fruit is not quite fruit.
Instead, it is an orchard where the trees are stardust and the fruit is the stars that we have come to know so well.
It is said that the father of these stars, the maker, is the great gardener of the light.
He sits in the middle of this strange orchard, his large loving hands gently picking up star after star to examine it, halfway between the heavens and Chaos, in this liminal nowhere place where he plants stardust tree after stardust tree.
This orchard is one of many, but it is his favourite, because it is the first. His name is Atlas.
Father of constellations and stars, the great gardener of the universe.