The Star Party
The stage had been set for a lovely evening. Low tables set out ringed with comfy pillows to lounge on. Plenty of food and drink for people to pick at. Telescopes set up to watch the night sky. Kyrian was over-the-moon when the first couple of people showed up. In total there were maybe a dozen" More with the kids that one woman had brought—he couldn't remember her name. He couldn't remember quite a few of the names thrown his way.
It had been fun getting to chat a little with folks in between some education about the stars themselves. He thought it had been a brilliant idea to print up star maps to explain some of the constellations and their meanings. That had been Lucas's idea and hard work. Kyrian had been too preoccupied that the party would be a complete bust.
His concerns were ill founded. One boy, Des, had seemed particularly interested in the observatory. Others had seemed at least politely interested. It had been a success! For the most part. Up until the latter part of the night when the big event was to occur. The large meteor was going to pass by and then there showers should have gone on a little longer, then early morning taper to nothing.
One woman—he couldn't remember her name, either—had seemed a little concerned all night. Kyrian had attributed it to superstitious fear. Not that he'd said as much. As the night progressed she had seemed a little jumpier—and a couple others had muttered about something to do with magic. The astronomer had scoffed internally.
It certainly seemed like magic, though. As soon as midnight had arrived it began. It wasn't subtle, either. What had been a few shooting stars turned into a flood that just about lit up the night sky there were so many. As before they were a rainbow of colors, this time ten times as bright. Kyrian looked up in surprise to see such activity, utterly surprised.
And then another shift. The rainbow's colors bled into pure red like the sky was on fire.
Lucas, seeing that people were putting up shields, was trying to drag Kyrian under one as well. His cousin may not be paranoid, but he sure was! But Kyrian was being his usual stubborn self and warded off Lucas's insistent tugging on his sleeve. He took a few more steps away from the little group, head craned back. Just as suddenly as the shower had begun, suddenly the sky went black.
The sky flared again with a singular light as the flaming watermelon, which had grown into a flaming Cadillac, struck the atmosphere. The brilliance was like Kyrian had predicted, it had mostly burned up on impact. Only there was a second flare shortly after and the watchers would really see something like the explosion of a firework as tiny shards of meteorite shower across the sky. So high up those pieces would scatter far across the continent, most not larger than pebbles. But the core of the meteor hadn't burned up as expected, but has shrunk significantly. Only the size of an apple now, but a fireball is a fireball and it was sure as heck screaming towards the glen.
Much of the party had been shielded or too far out of the path of the meteor to have been affected. It was probably pure luck that the meteorite had headed right for the lake where it plunked with a loud splash and a hiss as it cooled rapidly on impact. In it's wake, though, it had cast off more flecks and shards, one of which had struck Kyrian in the head, just above his left eyebrow.
The man had yelled in surprised pain. By the time the gathering was out of danger, though, the pain had faded to a dull ebb. He was left with a memento—a dime sized fleck of metal fused to his skin. It was odd how little it hurt. He knew it should have been pure agony. After all....that fleck had been literally molten when it hit him. Perhaps it had just been too much for his poor brain to handle"
Whatever the case was, the others at the party had urged Lucas to take him to the ER right away, which is precisely what his younger cousin had done. A slice of a scalpel later and he was bandaged up, no worse for the wear. The metal hadn't penetrated very far, though he was warned he was likely going to have a scar.
Lucas thought that was hilarious! "Now people are really going to think you're Harry Potter."
Less than an hour later they headed home, Kyrian with his star party favor in a little glass jar.
——
Elsewhere across the continent the pebble-sized shards and dust that had splintered on impact would fall harmlessly to the earth, cool enough by that time that they could be easily handled.
Most of the stones found would be an iridescent coppery color*
A few would be dark, greenish, and contained pieces of unintelligible gibberish.**
And then fewer still looked like pieces of glass containing whole galaxies.***
*The copper stones are overall harmless. Magical characters encountering them may get a "zap" and find their abilities/powers briefly blocked. Non-magical characters will be entirely unaffected.
**The rune covered stones use a mix of Egyptian-like hieroglyphics, pictographs, etc. They make little or no sense. Unless you want to have a piece to the puzzle, then drop me a line!
***If you want to find a galaxy stone, contact me. They may be getting a visit from the Sky Watchers.
