Lore Interlude — The First Starborn
1262 Words
Before kingdoms rose.
Before the Hollow Throne was carved.
Before mortals learned to look up and name the stars.
There was the shattering.
A moment when the universe tore itself open.
A moment when light and darkness were forced to choose between being separate…or being one.
From that rift came the Queen.
Not yet a queen.
Not yet a tyrant.
Not yet wearing a crown woven from collapsed suns.
She emerged from the Shattering as something the cosmos had no name for:
A being of pure resonance.
Half-light.
Half-night.
A creature shaped by the first breath of creation itself.
The universe trembled beneath her steps.
She was not born.
She arrived.
And with her arrival came imbalance.
Her power was vast, limitless in theory, catastrophic in practice. Wherever she walked, stars brightened or died. Wherever she gazed, space rippled. Wherever she raised her hand, galaxies bent.
She was creation’s flaw, its brilliance, its rebellion.
And she was alone.
For aeons, she wandered the cosmic tapestry, searching for another like her. A counterpart. A mirror. A place where her power could rest.
But the universe had no equal to give her.
So she forged one.
The Forging of the Starborn
It happened in a forgotten corner of the cosmos, a young star cluster brimming with raw potential, not yet molded into form.
The Queen shaped the space around her, pulling threads of starlight from the void, weaving them through her own essence. She poured into them the parts of herself she feared:
Her hope.
Her empathy.
Her capacity for connection.
Her dormant humanity, if such a thing existed in her at all.
She split herself not physically, but spiritually.
In doing so, she weakened.
But what emerged from that sacrificial act was something extraordinary:
The First Starborn.
They were neither god nor mortal.
Neither infinite nor finite.
They were a balance she had carved from her own soul.
Their light was softer than hers—gentler, more attuned to harmony than destruction. They looked upon the universe with curiosity, not hunger. They reached for creation, not conquest.
The Queen watched them with wonder.
And for the first time since the Shattering, she felt something unfamiliar:
Belonging.
The Starborn was everything she was not, and everything she secretly longed to be.
Together, they wandered the cosmos, shaping worlds, nurturing newborn constellations, breathing life into the void’s forgotten places.
The universe thrived under their dual influence.
Light and shadow working in tandem.
Creation and destruction dancing in perfect counterbalance.
The Queen had never known peace until that era.
But peace cannot hold a being born from the fracture of creation.
Her nature, her other half, could not be denied.
The Fracture of Harmony
The First Starborn grew stronger.
Too strong.
As the Queen watched them shape galaxies and soothe dying suns, a realization dawned:
She had forged not a companion, but a successor.
A being fashioned from the parts of herself she had cast away.
The Starborn’s power resonated with universal harmony. Where she tore, they healed. Where she conquered, they cultivated. Where she instilled fear, they inspired awe.
The universe began to revere them.
Stars bowed to them.
Mortals prayed to them.
The cosmos whispered their name with affection, not dread.
And the Queen, who had once walked alone, feared and revered in equal measure
now felt something she had never known before:
Jealousy.
Not the petty jealousy of mortals.
But cosmic jealousy
the kind that reshapes worlds.
The kind that turns admiration into obsession.
The kind that wants to claim, consume, become.
She told the Starborn they were hers.
Hers to protect.
Hers to shape.
Hers to command.
But the Starborn, made from her discarded light, did not understand bondage.
They believed in choice.
Freedom.
Balance.
And when they defied her, it broke something fundamental inside her.
The Queen realized the truth she could never endure:
There was no room in the cosmos for both of them.
And so she did the unthinkable.
The Unmaking
The Queen confronted the Starborn at the peak of a dying star, a place where reality thinned and energy spiraled like a vortex.
Her rage was not loud.
It was quiet.
Cold.
Unyielding.
She accused the Starborn of betrayal.
Of stealing what was hers.
Of threatening the balance, she alone had the right to dictate.
The Starborn pleaded with her.
They loved her.
They revered her.
They did not wish to replace her.
But the Queen’s mind had already fractured.
Her darker nature, her hunger, her pride devoured the gentler pieces she had once willingly surrendered.
In a single cataclysmic moment, she struck.
Light refuting light.
Shadow devouring shadow.
Creation and destruction igniting into cosmic war.
The star beneath them collapsed.
The universe screamed.
And the First Starborn fell.
Their essence shattered into fragments scattered across space. Some burned out instantly. Some became stardust. Some streaked across galaxies like dying comets.
And one, only one, condensed into a single blazing ember of their power.
The last piece of the First Starborn’s soul.
The Queen took that ember and sealed it within a throne forged from the remains of the shattered star, the Hollow Throne.
She kept it close.
Cherished it.
Feared it.
And she swore never again to create something stronger than herself.
Never again to divide her essence.
Never again to be vulnerable.
But the universe is cruel.
And destiny is cyclical.
The Lost Ember
For countless ages, the Queen guarded the ember.
It was her reminder of what she had lost.
And what she had destroyed.
But even she could not guard it forever.
When her influence waned,
When her power dimmed,
When her attention flickered,
The ember slipped from her grasp.
She did not notice its absence until centuries later, when a mortal girl touched the Hollow Throne and awakened something ancient within herself.
A glow.
A resonance.
A memory.
Eirena.
She was not the First Starborn.
But she was the ember’s new vessel, the only vessel the universe had allowed.
The Queen felt her awaken.
Felt the ember stir in her chest.
Felt the ancient light she thought destroyed begin to pulse again.
It was impossible.
Unthinkable.
Unforgivable.
Because if Eirena unlocked the full nature of the ember,
If she rediscovered what the First Starborn once knew,
If she learned to harmonize creation and destruction.
She would become what the Queen feared most.
A true successor.
A true equal.
A mirror of what the Queen could have been.
And so the Queen now hunts her.
Not to destroy her.
But to reclaim her.
To fuse with her.
To become whole again.
To erase the last trace of the Starborn who once dared to love her.
The Luminous Sanctum
The First Starborn built the Sanctum during their brief era of harmony with the Queen.
It served as:
A library.
A forge.
A cradle of creation.
A reflection chamber.
A training ground for shaping starlight.
A cathedral of resonance.
It remembers the First Starborn.
It remembers the Queen’s betrayal.
It remembers the ember.
And now, as Eirena approaches its crystalline halls, the Sanctum awakens.
Recognizing her.
Welcoming her.
Testing her.
It knows what she carries.
It knows what she may become.
And it knows what the Queen is coming for.
The First Starborn’s legacy is not gone.
It is reborn.
In Eirena.
Thus, the lore is written:
The Queen created the First Starborn.
Then destroyed them.
But the cosmos did not forget.
It hid their last ember in mortal form.
And now their successor walks toward destiny.
While the Queen descends to reclaim what she lost.
- Writer
