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Chapter Text

Venus was trying not to think. Every thought that rose into his mind was forcefully ejected, tossed away before he could properly examine it. Flung back into space with no care for its trajectory. From what little he remembered of Jupiter’s last attempt to teach him ‘mindfulness’, this was not the recommended method. But Venus didn’t care. He wanted some peace and quiet for once, and he was going to fight every twitch of his mind if he had to.

His orbit was steady, still as hot and uncomfortable as always, and none of the surrounding planets were moving around to piss him off. Pipsqueak was zooming around as usual, though he had been unusually quiet recently. Not that Venus cared. His other orbit neighbour, Earth, was right where he should be, spinning around in his special ‘goldilocks zone’, followed along by his moon. Mars was too far for Venus’ gravity to sense, but he would be in orbit too, unless he’d snuck off to speak to Jupiter again.

Venus tried not to ponder the recent tension in his area of the Solar System. It was half the reason he even considered meditating at all. The last few orbits had been nothing but awkward glances and stilted conversations, often with Venus stuck as an innocent bystander to the local ‘complicated situation’, as Mercury would put it. And that little hypocrite was just as bad, moaning and complaining about something or other every time Venus had the misfortune of running into him. Stars, this ‘not thinking’ thing is harder than Earth makes it look. Hah, I should remember that, for the next inevitable argument.

He could say he’d at least tried, he supposed. But he could say that about a lot of things he wasn’t super interested in revisiting, so it was a pointless platitude. Even his most recent ‘try’ at speaking to Earth had ended a bit anticlimactically. Venus had been expecting a good argument at least, but instead all he’d been greeted by was a mildly disinterested Earth, one who didn’t even rise to his easy bait. Maybe he’d be concerned, especially given recent ‘events’, but he knew that planet was being watched like a stray comet right now, by both his moon and Mars.

Mars was a whole ‘nother issue, one Venus had no interest in sticking his atmosphere out for. The red planet hadn’t quit his nervous imploding since the last abduction, constantly bothering Jupiter, Saturn, and even the Sun at any given opportunity. And this extended to Venus, unfortunately, rendering him witness to far too many sessions of Jupiter trying to convince the red rock to just talk to Earth. It hadn’t been going well. 

And Venus couldn’t even get too mad at the guy. He was basically doing the same thing, just a bit less obviously. Sure, he’d spoken to Earth a handful of times, but each attempt was only built on trying to rile the living planet up, not address the black hole in their orbit. That was the real issue here, Venus suspected. If that had never been revealed, the cloudy planet was sure he wouldn’t be half as stressed about that mud ball. Stupid Earth, making the one thing I’m supposed to do even more difficult, typical! He can't keep himself out of trouble for a few orbits?

Giving up the charade of trying to quiet his mind, Venus blinked his eyes back open, double checking that his gravity wasn’t lying to him about the movements of his neighbours. The pale blue dot of the living world was only slightly bigger than the tiny dash of red further out. And Mercury, despite the Sun’s light, was still easy to make out against the glare. In fact, he seemed to be getting larger. Oh bother.

“Venus.” The cloudy planet had turned away from the approaching celestial, but this did not seem to deter Mercury at all. The smallest rocky planet hung a few hundred kilometers from him, careful of his gravitational pull. His voice was hard, but not angry.

“Yes, Pipsqueak?” Venus sighed out, turning his gaze back to the Sun. “What are you doing here? Isn’t the Sun keeping us in orbit at the moment?”

“He gave me permission to leave.” The idea sounded wrong in Venus’ head, but it honestly sounded like Mercury had just lied to him, blatantly. And about the Sun’s orders of all things. He better not get me roasted again. I’ve had enough solar flares for a thousand orbits.

“Really? Right when we’re expecting another ‘abduction’?” Venus probed, curious as to how the Pipsqueak would react. Despite the Sun’s new interest in being ‘democratic’, as Earth put it, the star was still not someone you wanted to piss off. Running off right before another stressful removal from orbit was definitely an odd choice. “He’s going to blast you off the orbital plane, Pipsqueak.”

“Only if he notices. He’s been really distracted recently, so I’ve got time.” Mercury revealed with a dismissive tone, turning from Venus to gaze further across the system. “I want to speak with Mars, and maybe Earth, before we all end up stuck in the same room again.”

“Oh, a private conversation. Why ain't I invited?” Venus tested, fighting down the part of him that felt hurt. Why would they include me?

“This can be our private conversation, if you’re jealous.” Venus didn’t like how quickly Mercury pounced on that trailing edge in his voice. “How are you, then, Venus?”

“None of your business.” Venus bit back, feeling tense under Mercury’s searching gaze. “Why are you running off to bother the others anyway?”

“I just want to know where everyone stands. Has Mars spoken to Earth much?”

“You’d be better off asking if Mars has spoken to Earth at all? And the answer is no.” Venus was surprised Mercury had missed this, but maybe it was hard to catch gossip so close to the Sun.

“Oh? I would have thought they’d sort it out by now? Is it really taking them that long?” 

“Um, yeah? They had a fight, were forced to stew on it for hours, then Earth dropped a meteorite on us. I’m not surprised Mars is a bit hesitant.” Venus had already tried to call the red planet out on his cowardice, but Mars had shot back at him so quickly and thoroughly that Venus had decided to just drop it. Earth acting so distant definitely hadn’t been helping either, further convincing the rusty ball that the living planet was mad at him. “He’s scared of saying the wrong thing. You know what an overthinker he is.”

“I suppose? But it’s hardly a bigger deal than their previous arguments. They’ve blown up at each other before and been fine a few orbits later.” Mercury pointed out in confusion. “If they both apologise, I’m sure they’d be back to Solarcards before the ‘abduction’ even happens.”

“You really don’t see a difference this time?” Venus frowned at the smaller planet. “Dude, the Earth tried to throw himself into the Sun! And hid it. You hid it too! Are we supposed to just forget that?”

“It was fine, me and Luna stopped it.” Mercury dismissed, tilting his axis slightly. “Earth’s fine now, so Mars doesn’t need to dance around it. Things just need to get back to normal around here.”

“I think that’s a bit optimistic, but whatever.” Venus dropped the subject, not interested in trying to convince the planet in front of him that suicidal thoughts aren’t a ‘one and done’ kind of activity. Once that idea passes through your mind the first time, every subsequent time becomes far easier; a new option for every overwhelming issue. “Either way, they’ll have to talk during the next doc, won’t they?”

“I hope so. And that’s why I’m headed to Mars. I’ll convince him not to worry about talking to Earth.” Mercury moved to leave, his gravity tugging lightly at Venus’ own as he drew himself away. 

“You should do the same with Earth. I think he’s convinced himself that Mars is mad at him again. Or still? Whichever one they’re on now.” Venus couldn’t help but add, trying to recall his last interaction with the living planet more clearly. “Or just tell his moon, if you can. Luna’s been acting like such a guard dog recently. I doubt you’ll get very close.”

“Sure, sure, whatever.” Mercury left his orbit entirely, tossing his words through soundless space as he went. “I don’t even know what a ‘guard dog’ is, so that’s really awful advice, Venus.”

“Yeah, get lost then!” Venus shouted after him, almost reluctant to return to the silence of his orbit. The roar of the Sun was still present, but now he couldn’t even feel the pull of one of his neighbor planets. The clouds in his atmosphere were storming again, filling his mind with flashes of lightning against his will. Ugh, Mercury doesn’t know how lucky he is. Atmospheres are more trouble than they’re worth.

Lazily tracking the distant grey dot, Venus tried not to hope that the idiot’s plan would actually work. He’d never admit it under his own free-will, but he was beginning to miss the card games. And maybe the company as well. There wasn’t a whole lot else to do in his orbit, beyond the occasional solar flare, and it quickly grew tiring to tolerate. I can watch my surface continue to be completely uninhabitable, I suppose. Not a lot of fun, though.

Trying to settle down again, the planet felt an oddly strong pull against his own mind, drawing him into some sudden need for sleep. Sticking webs around his thoughts and drawing them down into his core. It made no sense, he’d been sleeping not even three rotations before this, he couldn’t be tired already. Yet he was, inexplicably, exhausted.

The feeling expanded, rolling over his surface and numbing his faint pressures and hotspots, dulling his awareness further. Venus tried to rile against it but was quickly convinced not to by the unending pull sapping all the fight from him. His sense of sight blinked away, the faint dot of Mercury completely lost from his vision. 

Memory was becoming disturbingly hard to grasp, but he was sure this reminded him of something. The weight of his atmosphere seemed to shrink, along with his core. The pull of the Sun faded from his sputtering senses. This happened before, didn’t it? When that feather-duster…

…

Suddenly, he was far more aware of every sense, even the ones he didn’t usually have. Pain radiated from one side, the one now being pressed down by an unfamiliar gravity. His skin smarted as he tried to lift his face from the floor, quickly reminding him of when he’d felt like this before. Ah, right on time, I suppose.

Forcing his strange humanoid body to cooperate, he pulled the gangly limbs towards himself stiffly, painfully aware of how hard that feather-duster seemed to like dropping them into this place. The poorly designed joints cracked and complained, but Venus just hissed at them, refusing to give this galaxy-cursed form any break. The spine was almost as bad, loudly proclaiming its dislike of his landing. Finally mastering some control of his legs, he stumbled upright, taking in the now-familiar room.

Same as always, the dark walls were a poor imitation of a star-filled sky, dimmed by the bright light emanating from the ceiling. The bean bags were arranged as always, though a new one seemed to have been placed between his and Earth’s. Bloody weirdo has lost count of us already.

Unlike the last two times, the celestials around him did not wake up irate and confused. They’d all known this was coming. Grumbles sounded, but the room was not jarred by the shouts of an angered star like so many times before. In fact, as Venus’ eyes found the Sun’s golden form, his star was almost meek-looking, making little effort to rise higher than necessary to remove his face from the ground. At his sides, the largest gas giants slowly pulled themselves up as well, turning to check for their moons. 

Further back, the ice giants had landed close to their seats, almost on top of each other. X quickly yanked himself from the pile and snatched up his own bean bag, dragging it to sit against the wall, far from his fellows. The remaining ice planets shared an awkward glance before setting about the task of settling their myriad of moons.

“Ugh, why can’t we just land on the bean bags? It would hurt less.” Venus’ attention was returned to his fellow rocky worlds by the groans from Earth. The living planet was up as well, rubbing his head in annoyance as he glared at the dark screen. 

“I don’t think they care too much about that sort of thing.” Luna shook himself off, stretching his limbs in some order Venus could not determine the purpose of. The moon was already scanning the room like Venus had, eyes resting on the other moon groups scattered about.

“At least they were on time, I suppose.” Mars’ voice pointed out with a mumble, the red planet sitting up to look around. “Phobos? Deimos? Where’d you guys land?”

“Here! Over here, Mars!” The loud, grating voices of Mars’ two pebbles rose over the low din of the room, coming closer as the small celestials clambered over Venus’ own bean bag to reach their planet. Venus reined in a huff, trying to keep himself calm for at least the first few minutes. If this is half as long as the last two, I’m just going to pretend to fall asleep. I'm not in the mood for this.

“Why do we have an extra bean bag?” Mercury voiced Venus’ observation from earlier, frowning at the new, untouched seat. The other rockies turned to glance at it too.

“Maybe they gave us another one so we’d stop moving around and sitting on the floor?” Earth offered, his own confusion clear in his tone. “Though, that would've been more useful last time.”

“Well, the ice giants didn’t get a new one, and they were moving around as well.” Luna tossed a hand towards the back where Caelus and Neptune were sitting surrounded by their moons, and Planet X was still moping in his corner. “I don’t think they added this to be helpful. That seems unlike them.”

“Didn’t the celestial mention bringing others along this time? Maybe this is for them?” Mars recalled with a doubtful, cautious look at the new bean bag. “Bit of a weird place to put them, though.”

“Yeah, why between me and Earth?” Venus frowned, not liking the idea of some randoms being right next to him. “As much as I don’t want to sit next to you for 5 more hours, I want to sit next to strangers even less.”

“Hey!”

“The being called them ‘old friends’ though?” Mercury pointed out quickly. “So it might not be strangers.”

“Either way.” Venus grumbled dismissively, not interested in speculating about such things. Mercury had already talked his ears off about this two orbits ago. There was a limited amount of ‘old friends’ in this system, and Venus would prefer to not be sat next to ghosts from a past he couldn’t face again.

“Attention! Is everyone here?” The Sun’s voice cut off whatever retort Mercury had for him, forcing the eyes of the room to turn to their star. A sea of nods and calls of confirmation greeted the Sun as he surveyed the room. “Good. We knew this was coming, so let’s try and get this over with without any fights or arguments this time!”

“Yes, Sun.” Venus repeated alongside the room, well aware of the Sun’s gaze falling on them. Between the ice giants and the rockies, half the room had been arguing or moving or fighting last time. The Sun won’t allow that again, at least not so loudly.

“OK.” The Sun seemed to steel himself before turning to the dark screen, speaking far more calmly than the last few times he’d addressed the mysterious being. “Show yourself. I won’t tolerate time-wasting if we’re going to do this so regularly.”

“Oh, oh, oh, you won’t tolerate it?” The creepy voice echoed back, the dark screen fading into the strange blinking eyes, fixed on a grey ‘face’, haloed by feathers of muted colors. Feather-duster. “You are certainly a funny little star, aren't you?”

“I merely hope that we can both come to an agreement to not waste each other's time.” The Sun said back, fighting to restrain his voice. Venus was mildly surprised his star was managing not to shout, given his track record. “I’m sure you have more important stuff to do as well, not watching a ‘little star’ and his system.”

“Not really!” The eyes blinked up in excitement. “Any ‘time’ I spend here means nothing to me. You are the ones wasting such a resource, not me.”

“Regardless, can we just get on with it?” Earth spoke up in exasperation, standing from the bean bag he had settled into. “I want to see what we’ll be watching! Is it Brian again?”

“Nope! I found a new Earthling! And a new topic!” The being seemed to turn slightly, ‘facing’ the living world. “I’m sure you’ll like her, though. She’s very verbose!” 

“Oh? What’s the new topic?” Jupiter asked this time, eyeing the celestial until its gaze strayed from Earth to himself. 

“You will see! All in good time!” Feather-duster crowed, the head-feathers swishing oddly to their movements. “First! I promised new friends! Or, in fact, old ones!”

The room tensed, their curiosity piquing as the celestial spoke, heads leaning forward to see the screen better. Venus tried not to entertain the nauseous, anxious feeling roiling in his core, and instead focused on keeping an uninterested stare on his face. Mercury’s ideas were fighting their way into his thoughts, but he beat them back harshly. Calm down, stop being pathetic!

“Now, before I drop them in, I have a simple rule. As entertaining as your little fights were last time, I really don’t want my efforts to bring them here to go to waste. So, no physical fighting.” The eyes rolled over the distant ice giant and, uncomfortably, Venus. “That applies to them as well. We don’t want to make a mess, now do we?”

“Is it enforced?” The question came from one of Caelus’ major moons, but their planet rushed to hush them so quickly Venus couldn’t see who it was. Titania cast a nervous glance at the being, as if expecting some kind of retribution. The celestial merely hummed in thought.

“Good question. No.” The answer caught Venus a bit off guard. Why impose a rule with no enforcement? Feather-duster added, “I’m not here to babysit you. If you really want to beat the rocks out of each other, go ahead. I just won’t bring any new friends for you.”

“We won’t fight.” The Sun proclaimed, throwing a stern glare over his shoulder at the whole system. “Now, who are you bringing here?”

“Oh, oh, oh, I’m sure you’ll be overjoyed to see them!” The being eye-grinned down at the star, forcing the Sun to back up slightly in trepidation. “Let me grab them!”

The screen momentarily flickered, then resumed showing the odd face, the grin still stuck to their eyes. An abrupt noise behind Venus had the cloudy planet spinning around, followed by the rest of the room. At first, he couldn’t make out what had even landed near his bean bag, but as he peered closer, his core stopped cold.

Laying side by side were two new celestials. Planets, going by their size and height, though certainly only rocky ones. The larger of the two was dark, scored by faint brown marks and cracks of a recently formed crust, seeming to twist into himself as he stirred. Against his side, the smaller moved as well, leaning onto her companion’s side as she attempted to shift her limbs. Her surface was as beautiful as it had been before, even in this humanoid form, soft browns mixed with pale hints of orange. No.

“Uh.” The groan came from the darker form, his head shaking in agitation as he finally mastered his arms and pushed himself up slightly, wavering in momentary confusion at the unusual gravity. Venus stood frozen in front of them, unable to stop himself from staring intensely at the planet, waiting. As one familiar, surprised, ocean blue eye blinked open, the cloudy planet was struck mute, his thoughts falling silent in his mind. 

“Proto?” Mars’ strangled question forced the second eye open, the confusion swirling within deepening. Before the larger planet could even take in the room, his gaze swung frantically to his side, locking onto the second planet as she began to push herself up as well.

“Theia! Are you OK?” At Proto’s panicked exclamation, the room seemed to flinch back, and even Venus found himself taking a stiff step away from the two. The only celestials who stayed rooted to their spots were Earth and Luna, both planet and moon staring wide-eyed at the two newcomers.

“Proto?” Venus might have thought hearing Proto’s voice again was hard, but hearing her’s felt like his atmosphere was burning away his water again, searing his surface and hardening his core with rusted, festering guilt. Theia blinked her eyes open as well, meeting Proto’s with an equally confused expression. “Wh-what happened? Where are we? Why are we still…?”

“I-I’m not sure.” Proto finally lifted his gaze from Theia, turning to the room with a cautious, searching gaze. Venus couldn’t bring himself to meet the planet’s eyes, turning his gaze down. Will they even recognise us? Where did they get pulled from? When? And how?

“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” The odd, lilting voice of the mysterious celestial crowed, drawing Proto and Theia’s attention. “I have graciously brought you here to watch an Earthling documentary! How exciting!”

“Um…what’s an Earthling? Or a documentary, for that matter?” Theia frowned at the strange face on the screen, sharing a look with Proto. Proto only shrugged in reply.

“All in good time! Now, you might be a bit unsettled, but that is perfectly normal for displaced celestials. I’ll be sure to return you to the right place once all this is over!” Feather-duster assured the two of them, though neither looked terribly sure of their words. “I’ll let you get settled, then we can start the show!”

“W-what? B-but-” Whatever Proto wanted to ask was cut off by the face removing itself from the screen, leaving only grey speckles. The two planets were left surrounded by a ring of cautious or curious celestials, hundreds of eyes fixed onto them. Proto grimaced uncomfortably, but Theia pushed herself further up, taking a few wary steps in the new form.

“Hello? Um…” Theia scanned the room, her eyes lighting on their star, who was trying unsuccessfully to hide behind Jupiter and Saturn. “Sun? Wait. Proto, I think this is the Solar System, just…different?”

 “Older.” Jupiter, after a fruitless attempt to push the Sun forward, stepped towards the newcomers himself, leaning down to speak to them. Theia’s eyes lit up upon hearing his voice. “It has been over 4.5 billion years since we last saw you two. It is good to see you again, both of you.”

“It’s good to see you too! Wow, you look so different!” Theia gazed up at him in amazement, quickly turning the same curiosity on the rest of the planets. “And you must be Saturn! And Uranus! And Neptune!”

“Hello again, my little friends!” Saturn smiled down at the two of them as Theia swung her gaze to him.

“Um, it’s Caelus now.” Caelus awkwardly muttered, but still tried for a smile at Theia’s excited expression. “But it’s nice to see you again, Theia.”

“Hi!” Neptune grinned, then pointed to the dark form still against the wall, seemingly trying to meld with it. “And that’s Planet X, he’s just being a bit grumpy right now! He’s new-old, kinda? It’s weird!”

“Oh, we must have missed a lot.” Theia turned from the last ice giant to gaze down at all the curious moons of the giants, returning their bright smiles. “Are these all your moons? There’s so many of you!”

“Hi! My name’s Proteus! I’m Neptune’s moon! Who are you?” Neptune’s second largest moon pushed forward to grin at Theia and Proto. 

“I’m Theia, and this is Proto-Earth!” Theia nudged Proto, who was trying very hard to follow the conversation despite the clear overwhelmed look in his eyes. “We used to be planets in the inner Solar System. I guess you guys must have woken up after…”

“‘Used to be’? Why? What happened?” Ariel butted in, her abrupt questions souring the mood of the room again. Venus’ core felt like it was being squeezed by a black hole. They know what happened? Did that feathery freak really pull them from the collision itself?

“Ariel! What did I just tell you!” Titania’s exhausted snap drew a bashful expression from the icy moon, and Ariel quickly ducked her head in apology. However, it seemed Theia and Proto were far too distracted to answer her question anyway. They had spotted the rocky planets.

“Mars? Is that you?” Proto sounded disbelieving, looking his old friend up and down, taking in the new colours. The red planet was making a valiant effort to smile back at Proto without crying, but Venus could see the faint telling shake in Mars’ form.

“Proto! It’s great to see you!” Mars moved forward, seemingly unable to stop himself any longer. As the red planet smiled tearfully at his friend, Venus was forced to turn his gaze away. “I missed you, buddy.”

“Y-yeah, I guess it’s been a while- for you guys, at least.” Proto spoke disbelievingly, a faint croaking in his voice which he swallowed back. “4.5 billion…has it really been that long?”

“Yeah, you’ve missed a lot.” Mercury confirmed, standing beside Mars with an awed look in his eyes. Venus tried very hard not to duck away from Theia’s gaze as it swung towards him. The momentary lack of recognition in her expression nearly ended him.

“Venus? What happened? Your atmosphere…” Thankfully, Theia trailed off before stating the obvious of his surface, the thick clouds and scorched rocks. “Venus?”

“H-hi Theia.” Venus forced out, cursing the weakness of his voice. Meeting her eyes, he felt a core-shaking tremor pass through him. Her gaze was as lovely as his faint memories, green and bright with thought. Only, her eyes shone now with worry, looking over his form with concern. As if I have any right to her worry, after what my gravity did. After what I did. “D-don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks. J-just a side-effect of trying to get Life.”

“Oh! You tried?” Theia’s worry was quickly drowned by curiosity, just as Venus had hoped. “What happened? Was it too hot? Or too much gas?”

“I-it’s not important.” Venus brushed off, the words he’d been denied the chance to say for so long forcing their way up from his core. “T-Theia, I-I’m so sorry, I shouldn't have pushed you like that- I’m-I regretted it every-”

“Venus. It’s alright.” Theia’s smile confused the cloudy planet. There was none of the anger he’d expected in her tone. “It wasn’t your fault! We-”

“Quit shoving me.” The barely hushed hiss from just beyond Mars interrupted Theia, who quickly turned towards the unfamiliar voice. Venus swallowed down his burning throat and stinging eyes, peering past her to see what Earth was doing now.

The living planet was, inexplicably, engaged in a shoving match with Mars, the red planet clearly trying to force Earth forward and out from behind him and Mercury. Luna wasn’t lending his planet any aid, merely staring at Proto and Theia with undisguised awe. Finally, Mars stopped trying to push back, letting Earth overbalance, only managing to catch himself at the last second and involuntarily stepping forward in the effort.

Now stuck front and centre before the two newcomers, Earth looked uncharacteristically shy, his eyes shifting between them both rapidly. Proto and Theia gazed at him just as silently, their eyes turning to each other with growing smiles, before facing the Earth again. Venus tracked their eyes as they seemed to search for something, the smiles only spreading as Luna carefully stepped up to his planet’s side. Theia’s hands rose to press over her mouth, eyes glistening with tears. Proto tried to wipe his own away, but Venus caught the movement easily. 

“It’s you two, isn’t it!” Theia exclaimed, her excitement reminding Venus of her old rants about Life. “Oh, Proto, just look at his surface! It’s Life! And the moon! They’re perfect!” 

Luna gave an uncertain smile at the compliment, casting shy looks at the two planets now peering down at him. Earth shrank back suddenly as Theia reached to touch his surface, his awkward expression turning downright nervous. Theia’s confused face almost caused Venus to snap at Earth to stand still; but he couldn’t interfere, not with this. Instead, he was stuck watching Theia and Proto gaze adoringly at the two celestials their deaths formed. How did they know? They were looking for Luna…

“It worked?” Proto’s awed voice caught, turning his soft smile to Theia in amazement. “It really worked! Theia, you’re amazing!”

“You too, Proto! It wouldn’t have worked without you!” Theia, momentarily abandoning her attempts to get a better look at Earth’s surface, raised her arms to seemingly hug Proto, only to pause in confusion. “Can we touch in this form? We never had anything like this before.”

“Let’s find out!” Proto didn’t wait, scooping Theia into a tight hug, his forehead pressing against her own. Theia laughed, quickly returning the embrace and turning her head up towards Proto’s, her eyes sparkling with excitement. Venus finally had to turn away, the painful memories resurfacing as the two planets kissed for the second time. This one was at least much less destructive.

“Um…I’m still very confused.” Earth’s voice broke the quiet that had fallen over the rest of the room as the two lovers reunited. Venus almost felt bad for the living world, stuck watching his ‘progenitors’ in a sense, kiss right in front of him. His moon shot him an incredulous look, rolling his eyes when the Earth gave him an uncomfortable expression. “What ‘worked’? Why do you seem to know us?” 

“It’s-it’s complicated. Earth, is it?” At the living planet’s nod, Proto smiled awkwardly. “Yeah, I guess that would make sense…good name and all.”

“This is really weird.” Earth apparently couldn’t help but add.

“Wait, what’s your name?” Theia added, turning to Earth’s moon with sudden curiosity. 

“My name is Luna.” The grey moon told her, his gaze still a little awestruck by the whole situation. Theia’s smile widened.

“Oh, that’s a beautiful name!” Theia then turned back to the confused living planet to add. “In answer to your question, it’s kind of a long story.”

“We can tell you! If we can even find a way to explain it-” Proto was cut off.

“Yes, yes, yes. All in good time!” The creepy voice was back, along with the face. “We really do need to start! You can all catch up while you watch!”

“Wait! What is this place? Who are you?” Venus had almost forgotten Theia’s seemingly endless willingness to question powerful beings, her voice barely cowed by the strange celestial turning their three-eyed gaze onto her alone. “You can’t just leave us to watch something without a reason!”

“I very much can, pebble.” The eyes narrowed momentarily, staring intensely at the little planet, waiting. But, stubborn as ever, Theia did not back down, returning the glare with one of her own. The feather-duster’s eyes softened, grinning instead. “Hmm, you are as bold as your little star! This will be interesting. What do you wish to know, little rock?”

“Who are you?” Theia repeated, her voice unwavering. “How have you brought us here? This shouldn’t be possible!”

“Ah, only if you have a limited field of vision, I assure you. It is trivial for me to do this, almost effortless! You would not understand the ‘how’ of it.” The being’s voice laughed, the feathers flickering in unpredictable patterns. “As for me? I am merely a curious soul, offering some entertainment in exchange for some of my own. It can get terribly boring, the vastness of the void.”

“Do we at least get a name?” Proto joined in, emboldened by Theia’s easy bravery. He shrunk back slightly as the celestial's gaze fell onto him, but kept his feet rooted. Proto turned an incredulous look back at Mars. “Do you even know their name?”

“Um, we never asked?” Mars’ reply was hesitant, with a hint of embarrassment at the realization. Venus wasn’t bothered with calling this weirdo by anything other than nicknames he could keep to himself. Feather-duster just about sums them up just fine.

“Ha, ha, ha! You are all very funny!” The being laughed like an Earthling being stepped on. “I do not have a name! And you would not be trusted with it if I did! However, I know your little Earthlings named me after some creature, a marksman? Or was it a bowman? You can refer to me as that, if you like!”

“Bowman? That’s a pretty lame name, no offence.” Earth seemed to have regained his voice in time to stick his foot in it. Venus tried not to sigh too obviously. “We could call you ‘Archer’? That’s much cooler.”

Going by the tilt of the being’s head, Venus suspected they weren’t terribly swayed by this argument. The feathers flickered a beat longer, then the eyes grinned again at the living world. “Very well! If you like that one better! It doesn’t matter in the end, I assure you.”

“OK then, Archer, why are we here?” Theia apparently wasn’t done, her face still turned to the screen. 

“Ah, I gave you one question! Do not test this, speck.” The eyes were narrow again, sending shivers over Venus’ core despite their distance from him. “I brought you here. It would be just as easy for me to send you back, to finish your pretty little synesthia. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

“Leave her alone.” The Sun, having finally emerged from behind his gas giants at last, now stood before the screen, blocking the being’s view of his planet. “We came here in peace. Let us do what we agreed. We are ready to watch.”

“Of course, of course, of course! I was merely reminding your wayward satellite of their position, that is all.” The narrowed eyes and focused voice had disappeared, replaced instantly by joyful eye-grins. “Let us begin! See you soon!”

As the screen winked to black, Venus was suddenly surrounded by the sound of planets, moons, and dwarf planets all scrambling back to their seats, small squabbles breaking out only to be quickly hushed by others. Theia hesitated only a moment, watching after their star as he hurried away without giving the undead planets even a glance, before following Proto to the spare place for them. The cloudy planet reluctantly fell into his own bean bag, trying to ignore the way Theia and Proto settled so easily against each other in the seat beside him. This…is going to be a long watch.

The darkness grew as the overhead lights faded, replaced by the light of the glowing screen. An Earthling was revealed, sitting in some kind of room with a shelf of strangely shaped white rocks behind her. A cosmic-looking picture seemed to be stuck to the wall, but it did not cover the whole screen. After so long with Brian, it was odd to hear and see another Earthling instead.

“Wooh, what is that?” Proto squinted his eyes at the light of the screen, gazing in bemusement at the Earthling. Venus supposed they were rather odd creatures to see for the first time, all fleshy and bug-eyed.

“She’s one of my life forms. Her kind is the current dominant species on my surface.” Earth was carefully keeping his eyes focused on the screen as he spoke, his voice only slightly nervous. “Most of the system call them Earthlings, but they call themselves humans. Aren’t they cool?”

“Definitely!” Proto smiled at the living planet before returning his gaze to the Earthling. “They are so similar to these forms? How…?”

“We think it was their gods. They named a lot of them after us, and started believing we were actually those gods.” Jupiter explained calmly, lifting one hand to show the similarities between his and the Earthling’s on screen. “It influenced our celestial forms. It is certainly an odd side-effect.”

“Unfortunate, more like.” Caelus’ eye-roll was ignored by the room, but Venus couldn’t help a nod of agreement. Why couldn’t it have been the dinosaurs? Those guys looked way cooler!

“My gentle and, of course, very modern apes, today I want to talk to you about the Deadliest Pattern in Nature…” 

“Oh? Is this going to be about your Life?” Luna turned to his planet, nudging him to get his gaze to remove itself from the screen. “That’ll be fun, won’t it?”

“Hm, it depends.” Earth hummed, eyes shooting back to the screen with a soft frown. At Luna’s mildly exasperated expression, Earth added. “But yeah, it’ll be good to see some more of my Earthlings themselves.”

“So…is ‘apes’ another name they call themselves?” Theia was intensely studying the life form on screen, her mind racing behind her eyes. “And what is ‘clickbait’? Why does she need to refute that it might be such a thing?”

“Apes is a pretty broad term for the superfamily they fall under, basically a way of grouping Earthlings based on relatedness. And clickbait is just an internet term, and I really don’t know how to explain all of that in less than, like, three hours.” Earth still seemed a little unsure of speaking to his predecessors, but if anything would smooth the interactions over, it would be talking about his little infestation. Venus tried very hard not to invite in the jealousy that was beating at his mind. Of course she wants to talk to them, she wanted Life more than anything.     

“What is she talking about then? What pattern is she referring to?” Titan had found a spot in front of his planet’s bean bag, sitting front and centre of the rest of the ringed giant’s moons, and worried his lip as he spoke. Earth shrugged stiffly.

“I’m sure she’ll explain.”

“Nature, that is to say, the natural world, has some really fantastic ways of warning us living things when something bad is about to happen…” The Earthling stated that organisms use biotic warnings to tell such things, and that they come in many different forms. “...you’re probably familiar with most of them.”

“I’m not!” Phobos pointed out loudly, forcing a bright blush of embarrassment onto his planet’s face as Proto turned to look at his old friend’s moons.

“You have moons? That’s awesome, dude.” Proto peered closer at the two little celestials, oblivious to Mars’ embarrassment. “How did you get them? Are they captured asteroids? No, they look too much like you.”

“It’s not important, dude.” Mars brushed off hurriedly, instead pointing to each one in turn. “That’s Phobos, and his brother Deimos. Don’t mind them, they can get pretty loud.”

“Yeah! Mars says we’re the LOUDEST moons!” Deimos exclaimed excitedly, unconcerned by the new planet inspecting them. Proto hid his grimace at the noise behind a small smile.

“I can see that. Very impressive.”

“Don’t encourage them.”

The Earthling listed a wide range of other features, from bared teeth to bright colours. The images of a few other Earthlings passed by the screen, both big and small. “...all serve to say, if you keep doing what you are doing, I will mess you up.”

“Wooh! Proto, look at all those forms! So much variety!” Theia was still enamoured by the screen, staring in wonder at every Earthling that crossed into view. Proto returned her excitement with a grin.

“You were right. All that variation…it has to be Entropy.” Proto spoke quietly, but Venus was too close to ignore them. His curiosity rose against his will. Not for the first time, he wished he’d been able to hear more about Theia’s theories about Life, instead of being so caught up in petty drama. She was right, this was bigger than I thought.

“In biological terms, this is called ‘Aposematism’...” She added that these warnings also exist in non-biological contexts. These are not evolved signals, but are still warnings that biological beings can understand and learn to react to. 

“Sounds useful.” Mercury noted, now sitting on Venus’ other side, and watching the screen between periodic glances at the newcomers. Venus really wasn’t sure what Mercury's previous relationships with the two of them was. He couldn’t recall any particular closeness with either, and maybe that was the origin of his curiosity. He never really got to know them, and then never saw them again.

“Does that mean this ‘pattern’ is non-biological as well?” Saturn pondered aloud, sharing a look with Jupiter. 

“It would certainly explain why she’s brought it up.”

“...if the tides suddenly recede, then there may be a tsunami, if the volcano is smoking then it may erupt soon…” She explained that understanding such patterns is vital for organisms to survive them, and due to natural selection this trait of pattern recognition is passed down. “...Knowledge is power after all, and we as Apes, more specifically as hominins and more specifically, specifically, as humans, wear the pattern-seeking crown.”

“Are humans the only ones like this? Being able to talk and all?” Proto asked Earth, his curious voice drawing Earth’s gaze from the screen to meet his own. 

“Um, pretty much. A few other species are smart, almost scarily so. Pattern-recognition included.” Earth noted carefully. “But none are as advanced as the humans. They’ve got a few other traits that really helped them go all in on intelligence.”

“One of them even talks to us sometimes.” Luna added with a thoughtful expression. “I wonder where Astrodude has gotten to now? I saw him leave my surface a while back, but nothing since.”

“I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually.” Mars waved dismissively. “He’s still trying to terraform me, I’m pretty sure.”

“What! Your Life is able to travel interplanetary?” Theia leaned over Proto to face the living planet and his moon better. “That’s amazing! How long did that take?”

“Uh, quite a while? But also, not as long as I expected, honestly.” Earth awkwardly mumbled, “They’re not very good at it yet, but they get better every year, it seems.”

“Oh, I wish I could see them!” Her words harshly reminded Venus of the brevity of this meeting. Once this ended, they would never see the two planets again, and Theia wouldn’t be joining them in orbit, able to watch Earth’s little creatures spread around the cosmos. This isn’t fair. That celestial is taunting us..  

“We are so good at finding patterns, that we find them where they don’t even exist.”

“That sounds inconvenient.” Further back, the dwarf planet Eris’ mutter could be heard. “Running around after issues that don’t even exist.” 

“Like we’re much better?” Pluto retorted with a playful huff. The dwarf planets seemed to have moved their bean bag closer to the ice giants, now settled beside Neptune’s own. “You spent three games convinced that Makemake was going to kill off your character, just because he’d been looking at you funny before.”

“It made sense at the time, OK!” Eris hissed back.

“Now, the Deadliest Pattern in Nature has been at play for hundreds of millions of years…” The human stated that her own species is the only one that has ever understood this particular pattern. 

“Only one? Why did none of the others work it out?” Europa questioned, shuffling in her seat next to Ganymede and a pile of smaller moons. “They can’t all have been unintelligent.”

“It’s a very slow pattern, if I’m right about what she’s referring to, so most species never last long enough to see it play out fully. And even then, it takes lots of tools and maths and geology to track the pattern backwards in time.” Earth replied carefully, frowning slightly at the screen. “This might not be as fun as you think it’ll be, Luna.”

“We’ve barely started the video, Earth.”

“I would like to take you on a journey through time to visit the crime scenes of this pattern…” The human explained that this was vital for understanding how to spot and stop this pattern from killing again. 

“It kills?” Neptune’s surprised voice sounded from the ice giant corner. “That’s not very nice.”

“What exactly did you think ‘deadliest’ was referring to?” Caelus questioned, already fiddling with his usual notepad. Venus was tempted to ask where he kept getting it from.

“Well, I thought maybe the video wouldn’t be about something so sad! The last few were quite fun!” 

“The last few included a whole section on black holes and the end of the Universe, mate.”

“Exactly!”

“Life’s most enigmatic forms that tenure on Earth are generally divided into three eras…” She listed a long, confusing list of ‘eras’, ‘periods’, and ‘epics’. Venus’s brain just fizzled out. “...this is the part where I could put a nice mnemonic to help you remember them, but I feel as though you’ll remember them on their own out of your sheer passion for the subject. You’ll know them raw.”

“I’m not memorizing all that, raw or not.” Mars muttered, only to be shot an amused look by Earth. “What?”

“Nothing. And anyway, it’s not super important to remember them all. They all kind of blur together when you go far enough back.” Earth assured the red planet, and increasing Venus’ surety that those two literally needed to just be locked in a room to start talking again. Now we just gotta get them to do more than quip at each other.

“I suppose you have them memorized?” Venus tried to soften the usual edge to his sarcastic inquiry, not sure how Theia would react if he spoke as normal. I don’t even remember if I’m more sarcastic now, or just more bitter? I barely recall what I used to be like.

“It’d be a bit pathetic if I didn’t.” Earth huffed with a laugh. 

“...multicellular life actually begins a lot earlier than that…” She explained that Life first began in a period known as the Ediacaran. “...but there is actually a punchline hidden away in that far flung ocean, so I’m going to make you wait…”

“How soon did Life start, then? After…you know?” Proto awkwardly inquired, his uncomfortable expression mirrored by the living world. 

“Uh, at least 3.8 billion years ago, give or take. I’m not sure how long that was after…” Earth trailed off with growing unease. “Sorry, this is so weird. I didn’t even know about you guys until, like, a few orbits ago.”

“What? Why not?” Proto’s gaze turned from confusion to outright dismay. “No one told you?”

“Ha ha, nope.” The blue-green planet laughed awkwardly, probably trying not to sound as upset about that as he had been. We told him, and he’s been moping ever since. I can’t imagine why we didn’t want to.

Proto and Theia shared some look Venus could not untangle, but the way their eyes rose to meet his’ sent a wave of regret through his core. It was one thing to argue that Earth couldn’t handle being told; but it was another thing entirely to keep the existence of two friends a secret for so long. They didn’t deserve to be buried…at least not Theia. Proto’s up for debate.

“What’s a ‘punchline’?” Tethys, from the huddled group of Saturnian moons, spoke up. “Is she going to punch someone at the end? That would be so funny!”

“Um, let’s hope not.” Saturn sounded as unsure of the implications as Venus was. He was sure Earth had used that phrase before, but he couldn’t see how a ‘punchline’ could be hidden in an ocean of the past.

“We’re going to visit the first of the major crime scenes, that of the Ordovician…” The screen changed to an ocean view with text above it proclaiming this the ‘Ordovician Period, 445 million years ago’. 

“That’s quite a while after you said Life first started.” Theia observed, “Why did it take so long?”

“Life only really started getting interesting after it became multicellular. Before that, it was just little single-celled creatures with limited adaptations.” Earth, apparently never too awkward to spew information about Earthlings, explained. “The multicellular thing actually took so long, I think it was a bit of a freak accident. If it takes almost half my lifetime to happen, it definitely isn’t common.”

“Interesting…I never really considered the difficulties of Life having to make such jumps through chance alone.” Theia frowned in thought, then turned a more excited grin to her decedent. “But then, I never even dreamed of such complex life forms! And such intelligent ones as well!”

“...to set the stage, the period of time that precedes the Ordovician is that of the Cambrian…” She states that this is known under the ‘sexy but misleading’ title of Cambrian Explosion. This was when Life first started to get fossilized properly. Life existed before then, it just didn’t have the hard bodies necessary for good fossilization.

“I won’t describe any explosion as ‘sexy’, personally.” The Sun huffed at the screen, tilting his head at the little Earthling. 

“Please never describe anything as ‘sexy’ within earshot of me, Sun.” Mercury grumbled, shivering.

“W-why did t-the Life n-need hard b-bodies to b-be fossils?” Io asked with a stammer, glancing up at his planet. Jupiter gave a thoughtful hum.

“I’m unsure of the exact chemical process, but I suspect that soft creatures are not able to lay undisturbed in sediment long enough for fossilization to occur. I imagine they are quite quickly eaten.”  

“A-ah, that’s a-a shame.”

“The Cambrian is pretty experimental…” She explained that body plans varied wildly at this time and only a few would seem familiar to modern life. “...if you take that stance that there’s a guiding hand to evolution, this is the point in time where that guiding hand just dropped a shit-ton of acid.”

“Dropped what?” Caelus’ perplexed voice repeated, echoing Venus’ inner thoughts at that statement. 

“Oh no, this is going to be a long watch.” Luna sighed as his planet attempted to think of an appropriate answer. “This human definitely uses more…colourful language than Brian did.”

“Um, I’m assuming you guys don’t know what drugs are?” Earth began, receiving a room of head shakes. One of the dwarf planets tried to nod, but their friends shot them a look. “OK, then this is going to be hard to explain, but some Earthlings get affected by certain compounds when their body absorbs them. The humans made a bunch of these, ones that give them really weird feelings or sensations, or take away their reason entirely, and they call some of them ‘Acid’.”

“So she’s trying to say, if something was in charge of evolution, it was out of its mind at this time?” Saturn tried to summarise from the Earth’s explanation, sharing a bemused look with Jupiter. 

“Basically, yeah.”

“But nothing was in charge? At least, I don’t remember you mentioning anything like that at the time?” The Sun brought up, frowning at the screen. “I would have known if something was guiding your Life in MY OWN SYSTEM!”

“Yeah, of course not, Sun.” Earth quickly dispelled, waving a hand at the screen. “It’s just something some of the humans believe in. You remember that creation story from last time? It’s like that.”

“Oh, OK then.”

“Gorgeous and frightening animals roamed the seas…” A plethora of odd, wonderful creatures flooded the screen, swimming and hunting in the ancient oceans of Earth. “...as fascinating as these creatures were, they were not long for this world.”

“Ominous way to bring that up.” Venus grumbled, trying not to look too interested in the early life forms on the screen. Every time he thought he was over the desire to have Life, something brought it back as painfully as ever, even something as simple as watching Earth’s little creatures dance on the screen. Get a grip already. It can never happen.

“They look so weird! All squiggly and wiggly.” One of the Neptunian moons giggled, pointing up at the screen from their planet’s lap. “Does Life still look like that?”

“I’m sure some of it does! It would be a shame if not, they are very funny-looking.” Neptune agreed, tilting his head slightly at the odd creatures.

“485 million years ago, the Ordovician began, and it came bearing tentacles…” She explained that the world was warm and wet, most land covered by shallow oceans. Very little land was above the water level at this time, and plants had not yet come ashore properly. A map was shown with some familiar names on it.

“Wait, why did that map have my name on it?” Tethys asked, lifting his head to look over at another Saturnian moon. “It had yours too!”

“Probably for the same reason half their gods are named after us. They have a limited number of names to pick from.” Iapetus did not seem nearly as fascinated by this as his fellow moon. 

“It’s probably also ‘cause you two share names with old titans from the beginning of the Greek creation story, so using those names made sense to them.” Luna pointed out, then frowned in thought. “Well, Iapetus does. Your namesake is just the wife of a titan instead, Tethys.”

“Excuse me? I’m not Titan’s wife!” 

“That isn’t even close to what he said, Tethys.” Titan chuckled.

She used some Earth locations to highlight just how shallow this ocean was. It was known as ‘The Great American Carbonate Bank’.

“I don’t know what all those words mean, but she’s making it seem almost appealing.” Ganymede mused as the Earthling finished describing the experience of walking in such a world. “If I was a fleshy Earthling, that is.”

“Warm and wet does seem to be their preferred environment.” Callisto added with a dry tone. “I wonder how it all goes wrong?”

“I mean, it has to be something big, I suppose?” Europa speculated. “The only mass killing of Earthlings I’ve ever heard of was that meteor.”

“I think this is a bit too early for that. I don’t see anything that looks like a dinosaur.” Ganymede pointed out with an indication to the screen. “We probably just have to keep watching, same as always.”

“...in fact, this world was absolutely dominated by invertebrates. What few fish there were, were small and jawless…” The Earthling stated these little fish were called ‘Agnathans’ and that they were the ancestors of all modern ‘Chordates’. 

“What’s a ‘chordate’?” Makemake asked loudly from the back, his eyes finding Earth among the rocky planets, curiosity leaking into his voice. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about your Life, but they sound important!”

“It’s anything with a backbone, basically.” Earth was clearly trying to keep it simple, but the interested looks from the rest of the room was likely going to make that hard to keep up. This is going to quickly become Earth vs the rest of the Solar System, 20 questions addition. “And at this point, that’s most of my large fauna, including the humans. They pretty much dominate my surface after a certain point.”

“But at this time, they were tiny?”

“Yep! Evolution is wild sometimes.”

The human expressed her love of these early fish. “...they are just so almost unrealistically silly looking…” She showed a few pictures on the screen of strange little guys with tiny mouths and goofy eyes. “...a tapered head with a bulging, finless body…”

“You’re telling me that your most intelligent Earthlings…evolved from that?” Planet X’s doubtful expression drew Venus’ attention to the dark ice giant. After the fiasco last time, Venus hadn’t seen or heard much from the shunned planet. He’d overheard Saturn and Jupiter speak of visiting him occasionally, but given his current attitude, that must not be doing much to re-integrate him. Serves him right, prick.

“There was a substantial amount of time in between, I believe.” Jupiter was the one to reply to X, his voice friendly in a way Venus could never fake. “And it goes to show just how much things can change, if given a chance. Those Earthlings were clearly successful in some way, even if not in looks.”

“Whatever.”

“...They didn’t need to be fast, or agile, or handsome, or strong, or smart, or anything good…”

“And they definitely weren't.” Venus couldn’t help but add. 

They needed to be inconspicuous…” She explained that they must have been successful at this, as they would make it through the first ‘kill’ of the Pattern, and go on to produce all chordates. Another human voice overlaid a slowly zoomed in image of the fish. “...Incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular…”

“Very…interesting beasts.” Proto smiled at the little guys pictured in front of him. “Cute, almost.”

“What do you mean ‘almost’?” Theia laughed and pointed at the strange fish excitedly. “He’s definitely cute, just look at that thousand-yard-stare!”

“Ah, the pinnacle of cuteness, of course.” Proto agreed with a growing grin of amusement, leaning against the planet snuggled beside him. 

The cloudy planet tried very hard not to dislocate his own fingers in his clenched fist. Stars, you’re being beyond pathetic right now, Venus. Acting like a proto-planet all over again. You have no right to be feeling like this after what you did! 

“But while their day was coming, the Ordovician in the meantime belonged to the spineless…” She stated that these fish were being hunted by all sorts, especially the Eurypterids, who looked like massive scorpions from Earth’s surface today. She explained how truly massive these were, as well as a few more species.

“I bet the Earthlings nowadays are glad to not be dealing with those.” Mercury grimaced at the size comparison between one of the humans and a sea-scorpion. “If I was as small as them, I’d never step foot in the water!”

“If you think those are bad, I don’t think you’ll want to swim in my oceans at any point after this.” Earth grinned at the little planet. “The stuff in the deep seas is still really wild even at the moment. There’s these sharks with goblin faces and massive-”

“I get the point, Earth.” Mercury cut him off with a nervous expression. “I don’t wanna get nightmares about this, OK.”

“All of these animals, and indeed many more, were part of a phenomenon in Earth’s history known as ‘The Great Biodiversification Event’...” The Earthling explained that during that time, the number of species on the surface tripled in only 10 million years. This was speculated to have been triggered by the presence of coastlines and therefore, shallow seas for reefs to grow. She expressed a desire to see the warm beaches of this time period.

“So nothing was on land? How did you even know you had Life?” Titan asked curiously. 

“By that point, they had been impacting my atmosphere for a while. And it’s pretty noticeable when thousands of new species start crawling around on you, regardless of where.” Earth answered with a shrug. “I’m sure you’ll see what I mean at some point, when your Life gets that far.”

“I’m doubtful it ever will, if it took yours almost 4 billion years to become more than single cells.” Titan admitted reluctantly. Theia’s head whipped round as she overheard the conversion.

“You have Life too? That’s amazing! You’re a moon, aren’t you? I didn’t know moons could support Life!”

“It’s just the one…Astrodude only found a tiny cell. It’s nothing impressive.” Titan tried to downplay, taken aback by the enthusiasm of the newcomer. 

“Yet. It’ll evolve, I’m sure.” Earth seemed glad to dump some of the attention on someone else, which made a change from the living planet’s usual attitude. He seemed quite happy to leave Titan at Theia’s mercy.

“The Deadliest Pattern in Nature was triggered by the mega volcanoes…” The continents were moving rapidly at this time, causing volcanoes to form and erupt. “...when volcanoes erupt today, they release inordinate amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere in what is known as an ‘Outgassing Event’.”

“Continents? What are those?” Proto’s confusion seemed to surprise Earth, though Venus couldn’t understand why. Of course he doesn’t know about that stuff, he’s not exactly been around while your silly Earthlings named it.

“Landmasses? Like, the continental plates that shift around all the time? Most rocky planets have them, or at least they used to.” Earth offered, and Proto’s confusion cleared somewhat.

“Oh. But, those were slowing down even in our time. Why is yours still active 4 billion years later?”

“Um, I don’t know? My core is still pretty molten, at least in the outer layers, which pushes them around quite a bit. And my dynamo is still active mostly because of my spin and plate movement.” Earth mused, turning to his moon in confusion. “Do we know why? I can’t remember.”

“Don’t look at me!” Luna protested with a huff. “I only ever hear you complain about them, not why they even exist to begin with.”

“Either way, it doesn’t sound very comfortable.” Proto trailed off, glancing at the paused screen. “Especially if it’s causing eruptions all over the surface.”

“Maybe, but it has a pretty important purpose for Life.”

“This CO2 makes its way to the upper reaches, where it effectively acts as an insulator…” She explains that this heats up the planet, trapping warmth radiated from the ground. “...and to some degree, this is a really good and important thing. Life needs the Earth to be a decent liveable temperature in order to persist.”

“Yeah, a temperate range of a few degrees below and above 20°c.” The Sun complained, “So picky.”

“I mean, they can vary it a bit and be OK…ish.” Earth reluctantly added. “At the very least, it won’t kill all of them.”

“Well that’s alright then!” The star sang sarcastically, rolling his eyes at the planet. “I’m just saying, keeping a planet at such a specific temperature is stressful.”

“It’s not a lot better being the planet.”

“The problem is, when you pump too much CO2 into the atmosphere…” She explains that this can lead to a planet overheating. “It’s like the difference between wearing one coat on a cold day, or wearing 30000 coats, which will kill you…”

Yeah, that’s one way to put it. Venus tried not to give any indication of his distress at the direction this was taking. I don’t want to hear about the mistakes I made and all the ways Earth didn’t fuck up as badly.

“Would wearing that many coats kill an Earthling?” Ariel questioned, loud enough for the room to hear, much to her fellow moons’ dismay. “Could they even get that many coats?”

“I think she’s just exaggerating for effect.” Oberon hesitantly pointed out. “I don’t think she’s tested it.”

“Would be a funny experiment, though.” Ariel sighed, apparently letting her imagination fill in the gaps. “So many coats…”

“We don’t even know what a coat is!” Miranda snapped, rolling her eyes as Ariel stuck her tongue out at her. “Real mature.”

“Guys, please don’t argue too much.” Titania finally spoke up, her voice already sounding far too tired for this. “We’re supposed to be paying attention.”

“Sorry, Titania.”

“...imagine you’ve got a big volcano and this volcano erupts, spewing CO2…” The Earthling waved her hands as she explained that the CO2 would rise and combine with water vapour to produce acid rain. This acidic rain would then weather the rock faster, washing the minerals into the oceans, where it would collect in sedimentary rock or hard shells of organisms. “..this is the wickedly cool way that the Earth manages to kind of correct imbalances that occur.”

“That is an amazing use of chemistry.” Jupiter’s words invoked a stab of jealousy in Venus as he watched Earth smile at the praise. “I can see why messing such a system up may cause significant issues.”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty solid system, but stuff still takes a while to go back to normal.” Earth added. “It’s a bit slow, in Earthling years at least.”

“Slow but efficient!” Theia smiled, startling Earth with her sudden addition. He offered a hesitant smile back to her, which seemed to lighten her mood even further. 

“It effectively re-sequesters carbon that ends up in the atmosphere by pulling it back down to the Earth and locking it away…” The Earthling explains this is the ‘Carbon Silicate Cycle’. “...too much CO2? Just re-sequester it away with acid rain, dummy.”

Damn Earthling makes it sound so simple. Like I didn’t try everything to stop what happened. If I could've fixed it so easily, I wouldn't look like this.

“Why didn’t you do something like that? With all that CO2 you have?” Mercury’s irritatingly pitchy voice scratched at his ear, roiling his already bubbling core, and forcing Venus to turn to him with a hiss. 

“Shut your useless core, Pipsqueak.” Unfortunately, his words were heard by more than their intended audience. 

“Venus! Don’t be so mean, he was just asking a question.” Theia frowned at him in confusion, her worried expression turning into a thoughtful one. “What do you mean, Mercury? About CO2?”

“Oh yeah, that all happened after your time, didn’t it.” Mercury realised, then explained despite Venus’ deadly glare. “Venus clogged up his atmosphere with CO2 and basically ruined any chance of having Life.”

“What? How?” 

“It’s not important, OK? It’s old history.” Venus tried to keep his voice steady and firm, staring into Theia’s eyes for some confirmation that she would drop it. Instead, she nodded her head while her thoughts continued to race, and Venus was sure he would be hearing about this again.

“Too little CO2 is harder to fix…” She continued that the convection cycles in Earth’s mantle means that new volcanoes are always forming, thus providing CO2 regularly. 

“So, if your mantle cools…Life is kinda screwed?” Mimas asked, turning in his spot to see the Earth better. 

“I mean, yeah, but for far more immediate reasons than my CO2 cycle breaking.” Earth brushed off, his voice carefully level as he added. “That probably won’t happen for a while, though. I’ve still got a lot of heat left in my core.”

“...the ‘Carbon Silicate Cycle' really just depends on tectonic activity continuing to happen, chemistry continuing to happen, and weather patterns continuing to happen, in order to ensure we don’t end up with runway heating to the extent of Venus,”

“Runaway?” Theia repeated thoughtfully, her searching gaze burning a hole into Venus’ side. “Is that what happened, then? Your Carbon Silicate Cycle stopped?”

“I-I didn’t have much of one to begin with, honestly.” Venus tried to dismiss, but he knew it was near pointless to try and discourage Theia from a line of questioning. “My crust isn’t as shifty as Earth’s, and when I did have eruptions, they were pretty big. My water and weather couldn’t do anything about that.”

“Oh, Venus, I’m so sorry!” Theia sounded genuinely sad for him, which was confusing to fit with his expected reaction. Sure, his chances of Life literally evaporated in front of him, but he was still alive. Theia died before she could even try to host Life, and yet she seemed very calm about that. They came from the collision, or at least very soon before…yet they seem so accepting of it.

“It’s fine, Theia. It's been a long time, I’m over it.” His words came out harsher than he’d intended, and Theia’s expression cracked slightly as he gazed at her. The angry part of him, the part that never seemed to cool off, was rejoicing at the regret in her eyes. But, the larger part of him, the part he actually wanted to be, just felt tired. Here he was, in front of an old friend he had grieved for billions of years, and all he could do was upset her with his reality. I’m sorry, Theia.

“or runaway cooling to the extent of Pluto…at least not yet.”

“I don’t think I’m the best example of runway cooling, to be honest.” Pluto disagreed with the screen. “I mean, I didn’t really have a chance to be any kind of warm to begin with.”

“You did, though! Like all the rockies, you started with interior heat from your formation. We all did!” Makemake argued, pushing his glasses back into place to glance over at his friend. “We just lost it very fast, because of surface area to volume ratios and our spins.” 

“I guess that makes sense. Still feels a bit odd to compare me to the rocky planets though, I’m clearly not one.” Pluto sighed, shuffling his position slightly to get more comfortable.

“You’re not a planet?” Proto’s surprised question almost sent another sigh through the dwarf planet, but he refrained and instead smiled tightly back at the past rocky world.

“Nope. Got kicked out a while ago for being too small.” Venus was impressed by the calm voice Pluto managed to maintain. If I got kicked out, I’d be beyond pissed off every time some idiot brought it up.

“Oh.” Proto didn’t seem to know what to say to that, awkwardly offering a sympathetic frown. “That’s a shame?”

“It’s cool, dude. I’ve found a better club to be a part of!” Pluto nodded towards his little group of dwarf planets, who all waved back at Proto politely. “Turns out, there’s a lot of dwarf planets like me in the Kuiper Belt!”

“Dwarf planets, eh? Sounds awesome!”

“...because of its self-correcting nature, it’s a pretty difficult system to knock out of whack. However, if it does falter or break, you are fucked…” She explained that if the system is severely disturbed, it will be corrected, but it will take millions of years. “...I’m sure all of the life will be fine in the meantime…”

“How often does it falter, then?” Saturn inquired with a worried tone. “It can’t be too often, you still have Life after all! And she’s making it sound like they would all be eradicated.”

“Look, when I say Life is ridiculously resilient, I meant it.” Earth reiterated instead, avoiding most of the ringed giant’s actual question. “And if I’m right about what she’s going to talk about in this doc, you’ll see just how right I am.”

“Unrelated, but during the Ordovician, a new and enormous volcanic mountain range sprung to life in the worst possible location…” 

“That doesn’t sound good.” Venus heard Proto mutter to Theia, and when he glanced over, both planets were watching the screen with intense interest, hands held tight in each others’. His core felt stiflingly hot and raw.

The volcanoes formed on the equator of Earth, an area of severe rainfall, and would become the doom of Ordovician Life. Constant CO2 release, followed by acid rains that further weathered the volcanic mountains, caused severe carbon re-sequestering, leaching CO2 from the atmosphere.

“So, something as simple as a volcano in the wrong spot can mess it up? Doesn’t sound very reliable.” Triton’s muttering was quickly drowned out by the exclamations of his fellow moons.

“All the CO2 disappeared!” Nereid added in a slightly quieter tone, “Is that bad?”

“Um, pretty bad, yeah.” Charon confirmed, “They’re losing their nice planetary coat. These Earthlings are very delicate and they can’t get too cold.”

“Ha ah, always ends!” Ceres’ creepy voice echoed from beside her, where the dwarf planet was seemingly giggling to themselves. “Never forever! Ha aha ah!”

“...geochemical work on this rock shows an abrupt drop in temperature of 5°C…” The images of lava and rain that filled the screen were overlaid by the statement that this mess took 20 million years to accumulate. The screen abruptly froze over.

“I know it’s, like, super bad for the Earthlings, but hearing such a dramatic description of a 5°c drop is a bit funny.” Mercury commented as the screen froze over, showing various ice-covered locations on the living planet. 

“Really shows how specific the temperatures have to be.” Mars agreed mildly, side-eyeing the Earth from his seat. “How were you even able to slightly leave your orbit so many times? Even my orbit is way colder than yours. Is your Life just freezing over constantly, dude?”

“You know, I’m not entirely sure.” Earth frowned at the question, “Maybe my atmosphere traps enough heat to keep things steady? Or maybe physics takes a holiday? I mean, we move around all the time in ways we really shouldn’t be able to.”

“True. Best not to question it, then.”

“The cooling trend led to ice developing at the poles of the Earth…” She revealed that the shallow seas drained as the ice caps in the poles stored large amounts of Earth’s water, leaving the Life to suffocate. 

The brutal descriptions of the life forms’ ends chilled the room, and even Venus had to admit a pang of sympathy at the idea of so much Life struggling to survive in a home no longer habitable, shrinking and cooling by the days. They weren’t intelligent like these human Earthlings, but they must have felt something; the strain to breath despite the lack of water, the growing cold that froze their homes, and the pain as they failed to find any refuge on their own planet.

Even deep-sea creatures did not escape this, as the new temperature differences in the oceans led to currents of oxygenated water overwhelming the creatures not evolved for it.

“Stars, Life is delicate.” Caelus muttered in dismay as the Earthling explained. “If even slight differences kill them off, how does anything survive at all?”

“I have no idea, but those little fish guys must have!” Neptune brought up with a grin. “Those were so silly-looking! I hope we see more of them!”

“I guess they were fun to draw at least.” Caelus tapped his notepad on his lap, flicking to a page to show Neptune. While Neptune peered politely at the drawing, Caelus shot a second-long glance at Planet X in the corner, worrying his lip. The dark ice giant wasn’t even looking his way, gaze fixed on some point on the floor in front of his bean bag, form laid stiffly upon it.

“The food chain collapsed and with all of these dying organisms, the oceans took on a state of eutrophication in many places…” The Earthling explained that this caused massive growths of seaweed, adding to the oxygen problem.

“Wait, the seas were literally rotting? You didn’t tell me that at the time!” Luna’s incredulous tone drew a dismissive eye roll from the living planet beside him. 

“It’s not rot. Eutrophication just means a lot of nutrients were getting dumped into the water. It happens all the time.” Earth pointed out. His moon only shot him an irritated look. “Look, it’s not that bad. The most annoying thing was all the toxins and anoxia, and that wasn’t too bad.”

“I think your judgment is skewed.” 

“But the pattern was not done yet…” She revealed that rocks found in Africa dated to that time suggested anoxic conditions long after the ‘worst’ of this extinction event. There was a second round of deaths, likely caused by the planet ‘correcting’, leading to sea level rise and stratification, choking many survivors of the first round.

“So even when you fix it, stuff still dies?” Titan sounded taken aback by the seemingly endless list of catastrophic die-offs. “I don’t know if I even want my Life to get that numerous, this sounds stressful.”

“I’m sure it’s not all bad, right, Earth?” Saturn tried to assure his moon, turning to the living world. Earth’s shrugged response didn’t seem to be what the ringed giant was looking for.

“What? I’m not going to lie to him about it.” Earth huffed at Saturn’s expression. 

“When all was said and done, 85% of Life was wiped out. This was the first major victim of the pattern, and the first of five we will discuss in depth.”

“85%! FIVE?” The Sun’s exclamation turned into a glare, sent straight to the living world. “You never mentioned five! I thought the 75% you lost with that asteroid was the worst one?”

“I mean, it felt like the worst one at the time.” Earth deflected, his eyes straying anywhere but at the Sun or his watching progenitors. “But, yeah, there’s been a few, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you mention them to me when they happened?” If Venus wasn’t so used to the Sun’s control issues, he’d almost be tricked into thinking the star sounded hurt. While Venus himself couldn’t say for certain the Earth’s reasoning for silence, he could take a pretty good guess. 

“I-I don’t really remember, Sun. It was a while ago, you were probably busy or something?” Earth’s excuse wasn’t the worst Venus had heard, but it wasn’t the best. It was also very unlikely to be accepted without question by the Sun. 

“Well- well tell me next time, at least!” The Sun ended with a breath of exasperation. 

While the Earth muttered something lowly to his moon, Venus’ eyes were drawn to the watching parties. Theia and Proto had turned from the scene to whisper quietly to each other, both casting occasional glances at the star and the living planet. I wonder how weird it is, to suddenly be in the future, surrounded by familiar people who have changed so much. Though, maybe the Sun hasn’t changed much from their time.

“The Deadliest Pattern in Nature, as you have probably already guessed, is the rapid disruption of the Carbon Silicate Cycle. The speed is absolutely critical here…” The Earthling explained that slow climate change allowed organisms to adapt and evolve to suit the new conditions in time, but rapid change doesn’t allow this and often results in mass extinctions.

“I did not guess that at all.” Quaoar, a dwarf planet with a dark surface, noted to themselves. Eris rolled her eyes with a small smile.

“You weren’t paying attention, then.”

“True, but it’s sorta hard to concentrate on stuff I have literally no understanding of.” Quaoar complained with a half-hearted wave at the screen. “I barely knew about Life before this, and now it’s apparently more delicate than an ice asteroid in an unstable orbit.”

“Still worth listening to, though.” Haumea counter, his eyes still locked onto the screen. “I want to know how Life keeps coming back after all of this! If it’s happened five times already, it must be persistent!”

“All ends! Entropy will have them! Ha aha!” Venus scowled as the unnerving voice of Ceres broke into the conversation he was eavesdropping on. Give it a rest already, we get the point!  

“This is what happened during the Ordovician. Carbon was sequestered too quickly into the belly of the Earth, leading to a deep freeze that annihilated a massive portion of species on the planet.”

“All because of a badly placed volcano?” Ganymede sounded incredulous. “That whole system was messed up by a bit too much rain?”

“It was certainly more than just ‘a bit too much rain’, Ganymede.” Jupiter corrected calmly, gazing down at his largest moon. “And, clearly, the system was not completely destroyed. Life persists.” 

“Yeah, until the next mass dying, apparently.” Ganymede glared at the screen, as if that would remove the necessity of watching the rest of this highlight reel of Earth’s extinctions. “Are they all caused by volcanoes in bad spots then? Apart from the asteroid, obviously.”

“I’m sure she’ll explain in time.”

“The Devonian extinction would give the icebox of the Ordovician a run for its money just 60 million years later…” A time lapse of plants growing was shown as she explained that the next extinction event came from an unlikely source. “...land plants.”

"How dare they! Plants are the coolest ones! They use MY energy, they could never do anything wrong!" The Sun exclaimed his offence at this accusation.

“Wait, I thought there weren't any land plants yet?” Oberon piped up from his planet’s seat. “How did they go from not existing to causing a mass extinction in that amount of time?”

“It’s a pretty long stretch for Earthlings, even if it’s trivial for us.” Titania tried to explain. “Though, I’m not sure how they had such an impact?”

“I mean, they were a pretty big deal when they first evolved.” Luna recalled, and even Venus could remember back to Earth’s excited rambles about his new, visible mould. “Anything with that much success tends to rework the ecosystem a bit.”

“Yeah, but enough to cause a mass extinction?” Miranda voiced incredulously, turning to the Earth’s moon with a questioning head tilt. 

“We’ll see, I guess.” Luna deflected, facing back to the screen with only a quick pause on his planet, who was staring at the floor with an oddly thoughtful expression. 

“I know what you’re thinking, you’re saying Gutsick Gibbon, you just said mass extinctions are caused by the rapid disruption of the Carbon Silicate Cycle and now you’re saying it’s land plants…” 

“Her name is…Gutsick Gibbon?” Mercury muttered in disbelief, the judgment in his voice clear enough for Venus to hear. The smallest planet turned to Earth questioningly. “Is that a normal Earthling name?”

“Not really, but it might be a nickname.” Earth offered as explanation, his gaze forced to return to the screen by the question. “Humans use them sometimes, especially on their internet. And the fact that it rhymes makes me think it’s definitely made up.”

“Aren’t all Earthling names made up?” Mars rebuked, eyeing the Earthling on screen. “Either way, it’s not a name I’d have chosen.”

“Good thing she didn’t ask you, then.”

She explained that while the ultimate cause of every mass extinction was that disruption, other factors can be triggered that also cause death. “...you can kind of think of the land plants here as an accomplice.”

“So if one thing starts going wrong, a bunch of other things follow?” Enceladus muttered to himself. “Like a big orbit disruption? One thing moves and suddenly everyone's orbiting in a new area.”

“More like, a bunch of things happening to move at once, causing a massive crash!” Mimas ended his explanation by throwing his arms into the air with a shout. Venus failed to suppress a flinch.

Venus felt like kicking himself as his gaze automatically flickered to the seat next to him. She was already looking in his direction and caught his gaze immediately, returning one of her own. But, unlike Venus expected, she did not glare at him, nor look distressed at the mention of the exact cause of her own death. Instead, she looked more confused than anything, trying to puzzle him out like a test she hadn’t seen coming. Like his reaction was odd to her. This is confusing me as well! It’s like they don’t care that they died in a horrible accident and are technically on borrowed time right now. I’d be freaking out! 

“...you might be thinking, ‘wait a second, organisms can trigger mass extinctions?’ and I told you, there is a punchline coming…”

“What’s the joke? I feel like I’m missing some obvious hints or something?” The Sun frowned, his bright eyes turning to the Earth for the billionth time in the last few minutes. “Do you know?”

“Uh, maybe?” Even Venus could tell the Earth did not want to talk about this, and that was saying something because usually Venus didn’t care. Poking at peoples’ soft spots was kind of his thing. Yet this held the aura of something he should steer clear of. “It’ll probably get explained by the end…that’s how these things usually work?”

“Hm.” The star continued to study his living planet for a few more uncomfortable seconds, before turning away with a huff. “Very well. Continue.”

“...we must set the stage with the incredible cast of characters…” The screen changed to a mangrove, with ‘The Devonian Period, 365 million years ago’ overhead. “The Devonian is colloquially known as the Age of Fishes…”

“Fishes!” Deimos cheered, then added in a curious tone. “What’s a fishes?”

“Fish. And it’s those creatures from before, with those silly faces. They swim in the oceans, I think?” Mars reminded his moon, only to be corrected by Earth’s enthusiastic addition.

“Fish are actually really hard to classify, genetically speaking. Some are closely related to those chordate fish from before, but lots aren’t. And they all have very different adaptations which can make it kinda hard to define them by traits alone.” Earth rambled, his words mostly dripping straight back out of Venus’ head after he spoke them. “Some fish are more related to humans than other fish! And some things that act like fish aren’t fish at all!”

“Um…that’s fascinating?” Mars seemed just as unsure about what his friend had just said to him.

“...some of the coolest Gnathostomas are fish known as placoderms…” Gutsick explained that these fish were covered in armoured scales, which some even used as teeth. One was known as Dunkleosteus, a large super-predator with a ‘guillotine’ for a jaw. Who seemed to have gotten shrunk?

“Why did they shrink him? And how?” Caelus voiced his bemusement at the odd note at the top of the screen. 

“I believe they just re-evaluated their previous estimates for its size.” Jupiter theorized, looking to the living world for a nod. “It still seems very intimidating for the life forms at that time, regardless of length.”

“Yeah, size doesn’t matter when you have a guillotine for a mouth!” Earth added, smiling at the images on the screen. “Man, I miss those guys. They were such a wild group!”

“What’s a ‘guillotine’?” Neptune ventured curiously, tilting his smile at the living planet.

“It’s French. Not that that means anything to you.” Earth quickly explained. “It’s basically a big blade that can be dropped onto a target secured below. They mostly use it to …cut heads off.”

“...What?”

“Placoderms weren’t the only Gnathostomas taking advantage of the wide open spaces of the Devonian…” This time period was home to vast reefs, and hiding amongst these were the ancestors of all chordate life to come, lobe-finned fish. They explained that during this time, a good strategy to survive was either ‘get big, or get out of the water’, which these guys did.

“Sounds like two pretty difficult options for life forms.” Theia mused to Proto quietly. “Especially if they have to rely on random chance for new traits. I imagine breathing on land is a bit different than in water, and has a pretty narrow margin for error.”

Earth seemed to overhear this, his head turning so quickly Venus was almost startled, and his mouth was open before Proto even had a chance to reply to Theia.

“Not that different, actually!” Earth exclaimed. “In both situations, they are just trying to get oxygen out of the environment and into their bloodstream. And a few fish breathe air anyway, because not all water is as oxygenated as they need. All they really needed to do was modify their swim bladders and gills. And crawling onto land just means modified fins. Life is really good at reusing old bits for new traits. It kind of has to be!”

“So, it wasn’t that hard, then?” Proto sounded sceptical, and Venus had to reluctantly agree. Nothing to do with Life ever seemed that easy.

“No, it was hard. In fact, some of the human scientists think it was only really possible because of Luna!" The Earth grinned proudly, nudging his moon who suddenly looked very interested in the floor. "Luna's gravity pulls the oceans on my surface and creates high and low tides, which might have caused a few fish to become stranded in rockpools until it came back. The oxygen levels might have favoured fish who could gulp air, and any fish that could walk across the land back to the sea would also be selected by evolutionary pressures! I think a few studies even lined up historic extreme tidal areas with tiktaalik fossils! Which might even-"

"Earth, I think that's enough." Luna interrupted his planet with a strained voice, his face flushed with embarrassment. "They really don't need to hear about all that."

"Oh, but it's so fascinating!" Theia jumped to reassure the pair, her eyes lighting on the moon. "To see the extent that Life needed a moon to even progress this far is amazing! We knew they would be important, but this is way beyond that!"

"So, once that had lungs and could crawl, things were easier?" Proto asked again, "I feel like there would be other factors getting in the way?"

"Well, yeah, there always is. But the main issue was water loss. They evolved in salty water and really, really need it. They even need it for their young to develop to this day! Life is water-based, and basically impossible without it!” Earth added, "So they developed keratin skin, which is also just a recycled bit from a previous structure, and it helped them keep water in."  

“I guess you were right about that part as well!” Proto smiled at the planet beside him, and Theia seemed to glow with excitement.

“This is amazing! I suspected Life needed water, but it’s a whole different thing to actually see and hear about the adaptations that let Life crawl out of it!” Theia’s excitement infected Earth, who was grinning alongside the two predecessors with none of his previous nervous energy. Well, hopefully seeing that they’re just as nerdy about Life as he is will endear him to them. Stars knows I would've slapped some sense into him if he spent this whole time making Theia feel unwelcome. 

“...there is another reason however as to why animals like this may have dwelt on the coast and critters like tiktaalik may have made pilgrimages to this green new world…” She revealed that this may be due to arthropods being on land already, an amazing food source for any species that could get to them. And the arthropods were there because of the plants.

“Everyone was following the plants.” Haumea spoke aloud, frowning in thought. “Why?”

“Food. It was probably food.” Eris huffed beside him. “If the arthropods are food, the plants probably are too. Food all the way down.”

“Is that the sole motivator of Life?” Pluto sounded doubtful, but not completely sure that it wasn’t. Ceres’ reply didn’t help.

“Death! All consumed! Until nothing! Nothing at all! All chaos! Ah aha ha!”

“...yeah, totally.”

“The plants first began their trek onto land during the Ordovician, albeit in the form of small liverwort-like rows along the coastline…” She explained that the plants were restricted from venturing further inland due to lack of water. But, mid Devonian, the plants would explode in size and spread further than ever. This was due to the adaptation of root systems, allowing plants to access water from the ground.

“Again, more water-based adaptations.” Proto pointed out with a grin, his head now resting on Theia’s. The two planets appeared to be taking every advantage of the ability to touch without catastrophic consequences, leaning against each other like it was second nature. 

“And just one new trait suddenly exploded into hundreds of new radiation of Life!” Theia agreed, her eyes wide and curious as the Earthling explained how this new step would affect the living environment. “Random chance into specialized structures! Order from chaos!”

While Venus tried very hard not to do something embarrassing or irrational at the sight of the two planets, he caught the Earth’s gaze out of the corner of his eye. The living world was listening to them with a thoughtful, furrowed expression. I suppose this must be a pretty odd situation to be in. Stuck watching two planets you’ve never met and barely heard of act so close to each other. …We never mentioned that bit to Earth, did we?

“Now as a fascinating side thought, before the advent of root systems, rivers did not exist as we know them today…” She explained that rivers used to be more delta-like, and not as large or centred. The arrival of soil allowed for more differentiation and the creation of riverbanks. “...However, it was the eradication of the Placoderms.”

“Oh no! Why?” Proteus asked the screen, peering up at it with a frown. “They sounded so cool! Why did the plant roots get rid of them?”

“Yeah! I liked the one with massive, killer jaws!” Nereid joined in, bouncing up from her planet’s seat. “Is that one going as well? I hope not!”

“Look, kids, all the life forms we’ll be seeing are probably not still around today.” Triton sighed out, his voice trying to explain the concept as appropriately as possible for the other Neptuneian moons. The litany of frowns pointed his way served as decent motivation. “Try to remember that all of this is far in the past. I’m sure we can see some of Earth’s current Life later.”

“Yay!” 

“Today, dead zones are well understood…” Gutsick revealed that when nutrients are washed into the sea from rivers, it can sometimes over-feed the algae, causing an algal bloom. These blooms eventually die, but as they die, they suck the oxygen from the area, suffocating the marine life. “...this is precisely what happens each and every year in our own modern Gulf of Mexico. A problem that I’m sure will go away on its own…”

“Sounds pretty bad to me.” Mars eyed the Earth with a hesitant expression.

“Yeah, anything called a ‘deadzone’ doesn’t sound ‘not too bad’ to me.” Luna jumped in to agree with the red planet, and was quickly shot a glare by his planet. “And it’s happening still? Yearly?”

“It’s a natural thing. Not a pleasant one, sure, but a natural one.” Earth deflected, his tone falsely light in a way even Venus couldn’t miss. “And maybe it does a bit of damage to the ecosystem, and the environment, and the climate…but it’s fine.”

“Well, Gutsick sounds like she thinks it can’t go away on its own. And that it probably needs to go away.” Mars pointed out, re-aiming the glare towards himself instead. “That sounds bad, Earth.”

“It’s really not any of your business.” The blunt reply startled even the Earth himself, who could only gaze apologetically after Mars while the red planet swiftly turned away. Venus re-evaluated his plan to lock them in a room together. Maybe I’ll throw Pipsqueak in there too, just to keep an eye on things. 

“In the Devonian, new forests broke down rocks with their root systems, knocking nutrients such as phosphorus loose and washing them into rivers and oceans…” This caused plankton to bloom and die en masse, choking the Life. This is even seen at the geological level, with the re-appearance of black shale. 

“That’s kind of hardcore. A whole rock type that only appears in areas with little oxygen.” Callisto noted with an almost interested tone, her usual bored expression still fixed into place. 

“W-why don’t w-we get b-black s-shale, then? W-we don’t h-have oxygen!” Io questioned out loud, his head twisting to look behind at his planet. 

“I think that rock type requires more than just a lack of oxygen.” Jupiter offered to his volcanic moon. “Organic matter is an important component, and your surface is likely lacking in that.” 

“‘Likely lacking’? His surface is made of lava. ” Europa hissed incredulously, “No Life is surviving that.”

“Well, we’ve been surprised before.” Callisto argued back, her voice never rising beyond vague interest. “The Earthlings already suspected you of having an underground ocean. It can happen.”

“ My surface is very different from Io’s, if that has escaped your notice.” Europa snapped back, bristling. “If anyone's is similar to his, it’s yours. Pox-marked.”

“We all have craters, Europa. That’s hardly a dig at my surface.” Callisto’s unimpressed gaze ignited a glare from the Galilean moon. Ganymede intruded before Venus got to hear whatever comeback Europa’s mind was fighting to create.

“Let’s just leave it, Europa. Callisto’s winding you up.” He punctuated this statement with a glare of his own at the darker moon, who only twitched the corner of her mouth in response.

“Things got worse with the evolution of Archeopteris…” This was a proto-tree, equipped with bark and root systems unlike anything at that time. They churned the soil and dumped so much nutrients into the water ways, it created carbon burials. Additionally, the narrow rivers concentrated the blooms, causing more deaths at a much faster rate. “...anoxia was rampant, but at least the Carbon Silicate Cycle was still intact… right?”

“That sounds sarcastic. Is she being sarcastic?” Puck asked Titania, but the largest Caeluian moon wasn’t paying attention, her gaze elsewhere. Instead, Ariel piped up.

“Of course it’s sarcastic! This whole thing is going to be a long list of shit going wrong.” Ariel’s words finally caught Titania’s attention, and she snapped her head around to the smaller moon.

“Language, Ariel.” 

Ariel huffed and crossed her arms, but Titania was already looking away again. Behind them, Caleus watched with a worried, nervous expression. As the pale ice giant went to exchange a look with his fellow planet, he paused. His face twisted into a reluctant, conflicted emotion as Neptune quietly spoke to his moons and the dwarf planets, unaware of Caelus' gaze. Caelus shook his head and turned back to the screen, his eyes shining at the edges. 

“...those new forests had an additional trick up their sleeve, slurping up inordinate amounts of CO2…this of course triggers the pattern to kill once again.” 

“Stars, maybe they had a point about blaming the land plants?” Saturn muttered in dismay. “They certainly seem to be causing a lot of issues.”

“I’m sure the Carbon Silicate Cycle can fix it, in time.” Jupiter assured his friend, though his gaze was worried and his expression was tight.

“Trees sapped carbon dioxide from the skies at a breakneck speed…” Up to 90% of the atmosphere’s CO2 was likely drained away into this and some portion was sequestered into the newly churned soil. The temperature plummeted, creating the first mass extinction pulse called the ‘Kelwasser Event’. “...more like kill-wasser event, am I right ladies?”

“Ha, puns.” The Sun’s laugh was quickly followed by an outraged cry of, “Wait, I’m not a lady!”

“Yeah, we can see that, Sun.” Mercury’s quiet, sarcastic note was unmarked by the star. The Sun was far more interested in the Earthling’s words. 

“She said ‘first’. How many of these extinction pulses were there?” The Sun’s question had the Earth shifting in his seat uncomfortably.

“Um, the humans reckon it was two.” Earth tried, then added in an attempt at a lighter tone. “Two major ones, at least. But you know what the Earthlings are like, they’re always finding new information, and they might have mis-counted?”

“That doesn’t seem like something you miscount.” The star eyed the planet carefully, but the Earth kept his gaze forward.

“This was millions of years before their time. Accuracy is a bit of an ask.”

“Weren't you keeping count?” Venus wasn’t sure why Mercury felt the need to join in with this interrogation, but his words definitely got a reaction from the living planet.

“No? Why the heck would I be counting every massive wave of death while my atmosphere was being stripped and half my seas were anoxic? I had slightly more urgent issues to focus on.” Earth snapped, his tone forming a frown on Mercury's face.

“You don’t need to bite my head off, Earth. It was a question. Don’t be a jerk.” Mercury’s words hit the living planet like a physical blow, and the Earth’s quick scrambling to back-track surprised Venus. Damn, this new commitment to not being like his old self is going a bit far. If that’s Mercury's definition of a jerk, he must hate me…ah, that’s probably the case, actually. Anyways.

She explained that while it is still largely unknown what caused the pulse, plants are very likely to be highly involved. Some theories suggest volcanic eruptions may have had an impact, but not much evidence supports this. 

“Still hard to picture such tiny organisms causing so much damage to an entire planet’s atmosphere.” Titan’s hesitant muttering seemed to mix distress with a hint of awe. “Life is far more powerful than I’ve ever considered.”

“Reconsidering your hopes of having some parasites of your own?” Ganymede teased, but his tone wasn’t harsh enough to disguise his own alarm. 

“The second major pulse is known as the ‘Hangenburg Event’. More like killen-burg event?” 

“Is she going to keep doing that?” Planet X’s faint snark caught Venus’ ear, but he, along with the rest of the room, ignored it. Theia and Proto exchanged another one of their looks, eyeing the ice giant with curiosity rather than the disdain felt by most of the room. I’m not explaining all that, not willingly.

Gutsick, after her joke, said that this pulse took all the powerful placoderms and rendered the climate freezing. This cold caused glaciation, draining the ocean levels and all the while the plants continue to diversify and cause blooms, further reducing the CO2. “...large animals simply couldn’t survive in these frigid and anoxic seas…”

“Damn, everything is cold again.” Dione noted with a touch of apathy. “Does this happen with every mass extinction? Do any of them do the opposite?”

“What, like, get really warm?” Rhea asked in a confused voice. “I guess it must have happened sometime? This whole video will get a bit repetitive if not.”

“What’ll happen though? To cause that?” Hyperion joined in the speculation, sitting up from the laid-back position he’d been reclined in. “The last two have been too little CO2, one way or another.”

“Too much CO2, maybe?” Iapetus suggested with a frown of thought. “Though, I’m unsure how that would happen, given the Earth’s ability to re-sequester it.”

“I guess we’ll find out!” 

“The entire Devonian extinction takes place over the course of 20-25 million years. However, while the extinction event itself annihilated lots of life on Earth, for whatever reason recovery was also agonizingly slow.” She explained that usually mass extinctions are followed by massive radiations of new species as the survivors take advantage of open niches. But this didn’t happen after the Devonian extinction for some reason. 

“Why not? What slowed it down?” Theia asked her descendants, furrowing her brow in worry. “Did something else happen?”

“Not really? The humans think it was so slow because the whole event was pretty slow.” Earth tried to explain. “I mean, most of the other extinctions were much faster than that one. It took a while to happen, and a while to fix. Big disruptions often cause larger re-corrections to happen, so maybe that’s why? I honestly don’t really know. It was only my second mass extinction, so I wasn’t that focused on the speed at the time.”

“That makes sense, I suppose.” Theia nodded, then added in a light tone of frustration. “I wish they knew a bit more about it, though. It all sounds so fascinating! And knowing why Life reacted so slowly could help for the future.”

“I’m kind of hoping it won’t repeat itself, personally.” Earth commented mildly, his gaze watching her curiously. 

“Of course not. But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

Gutsick revealed that after this point, the only surviving tetrapods were five-fingered. They don’t know why only these ones survived, but “...the Devonian mass extinction is the reason we give high-fives and not high-eights, which is cool.”

“And why we have to do the same, I suppose.” Venus sneered, staring down at his hands in vague annoyance. “Not that I’m ‘high-fiving’ any of you guys.”

“Aw, that’s alright, Venus. We don’t want to high-five you either.” Mercury snarked back. The cloudy planet was too tired of this whole situation to even bother with a comeback, so he just passed him a deadpan stare. 

“There’s a passage in my primary source for this video, The Ends of the World by Peter Brannon, that is just very melancholic…” She repeats a portion of the book, a passage about the state of the world at this time. The seas were small and anoxic, the land dry and covered in rivers and canyons. The great mountains were capped by glaciers and the land closer to the poles was white and dead. The remains of the last placoderm, dead and frozen below the ice, despite their previous successes. Forests and reefs are dead or dying, and all the creatures that depended on them are gone as well. “...we are at the opening salvo of the longest Ice Age in the history of animal life, the 100 million year late Palaeozoic Ice Age.”

It was hard to picture such a cold, dead surface on the same living planet he could see from his own orbit, green and blue as always. He’d never paid more than a few moments of his attention to the Earth during those times, far too caught up in regrets and jealousy to track the progress of his life forms. If he’d ever noticed the cold, frozen surface, it hadn’t marked itself into his memory. It sounded more like how Earth looked during the orbit change, shivering and complaining endlessly. I’m surprised he didn’t complain as much back then. I’d have thought the whole system would’ve heard about it.

It felt odd to see what the reverse of his own atmospheric issues might have resulted in, Earth's special little Carbon Silicate Cycle screwing his Life over instead of an over-abundance of CO2. It felt like such a distant, almost enviable issue to Venus, despite the clear and painful downsides a swing in the other direction causes. I'm not sure which is preferable, a baked surface or a frozen one? Though, given how close I am to the Sun, it was never going to be any other fate for me.

“Ah, that sounds…not good?” Neptune’s confused question echoed from the back of the quiet room as the rest of the system struggled to marry the description with their own understanding of the living planet’s surface.

“Yeah, just a bit.” Saturn returned vaguely, his hands twisted together as he kept his gaze locked on the screen. 

“Around 75% of Life is annihilated by the Carbon Silicate Cycle’s rapid disruption…” She claimed this one had been blamed on the plants, but it was still essentially a disruption to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

“Well, that’s only about as bad as the dinosaurs. And they were just fish anyway.” The Sun dismissed forcefully, his gaze turning away from the screen. While Mercury looked after the star with concern, Venus didn’t even need to look to know that Earth was inflating with outrage.

“They weren’t ‘just’ anything! It was Life!” Surprisingly, it wasn’t the living world that spoke up first. Earth was still sitting in his seat, both him and his moon staring wide-eyed at the source of the noise. Theia was standing up, red-faced and glaring at the Sun. The star blanched, taken aback by the shout. “Wasn’t that your whole goal? The reason you even formed us? Life was the point ! Don’t brush it off as if you don’t care!”

“T-Theia, it’s not- I didn’t-” The star struggled to explain, his voice catching and uncharacteristically desperate and nervous as he stared at the irate planet he'd lost. 

“I don’t want to hear it, Sun!” Theia hissed, her anger almost nostalgic to see again. “I thought, after everything, this far in the future, you’d be better about this. Better at actually facing issues without just dismissing them and trying to down-play them. I hoped you’d changed.”

“T-Theia-” The heartbroken edge to the Sun’s voice brought Venus’ mind back to the aftermath of that horrible collision. The way the star struggled to find a point of blame, some way to deflect his own actions from any involvement in that end, interrogating everyone for someone to be angry at. And Venus also remembered the stubborn refusal to even try and hope the two planets had survived, blocking any word of Theia from ever being spoken aloud in his system. Venus suspected the following attempt at an apology was for something else entirely. “I-I’m sorry, T-Theia. I should’v-”

But Theia wasn’t listening. She had returned to her spot beside Proto, pressing against him to hide from the confused stares of the rest of the room. Jupiter and Saturn exchanged worried glances, while the ice giants blinked in bemusement. Mercury was offering a quiet word to the Sun, and Mars seemed as conflicted as Venus felt. Watching this all play out, Luna lent against his planet, trying to offer, and maybe find, some comfort. The living world silently slipped his arm around the moon, face turned down in deep thought.

“Life is a stubborn thing, however, and after the Devonian mass extinction, the critters that survived began to adapt, radiate, and diversify yet again.”

“Unstoppable little guys, aren’t they?” Jupiter’s comment didn’t remove the tense atmosphere, but it at least broke the uncomfortable silence. 

“Yeah. And all the coolest land creatures are to come!” Earth forced his voice into an excited one, shaking himself lightly to remove the thick confusion of the last few minutes. “I think you’ll like the next Earthlings, they get really wild after that ice age!”

“I’m looking forward to it.” Jupiter smiled at the rocky planet warmly, managing only to flicker his gaze towards the moping star a few times. The screen rolled on, irreverent of their conflicts.

Chapter Text

Ugh, now I’ve ruined the mood, Theia fumed to herself, that damn star is infuriating! I just- I can’t see why he tried to sound so unbothered by it. He’s avoiding shit still, he won’t even look at me! And apologies are way out of the question! He’s as afraid as before.

She could vaguely hear Jupiter and the living planet talking as the video continued on, but her internal argument was winning her attention. She’d been trying so hard since this whole thing started to keep everything calm. And she thought she’d been doing a pretty admirable job. Seeing the whole system again, billions of years after her death, was not a situation she had anticipated waking up to after her last moments. The searing heat, imploding crust, rupturing core, and rushing roar of the impact still rang in her mind, calling from the moment she’d opened her eyes again.

But, she also remembered the feeling of Proto, his lips touching hers finally, the rush of love at the idea that they would both unite in this way forever, destined to this end from the beginning. The juxtaposition warred in her core, keeping her on edge despite the excitement before her. The collision felt fresh, but only to her and Proto, and the results were sat right beside them. And it worked! 

She’d never felt as much core-stopping relief and joy in her short life, than at the sight of Earth and Luna. Two perfect celestials, both fulfilling every dream Theia had ever held. A large, rocky world full of water, orbited by a large moon, both pulling on each other enough to keep an orbit both steady and tilted, perfect for Life. And Life surged from the Earth’s very surface, almost glowing with it, and the green-blue mix was more beautiful than she’d ever imagined. The moon was just as stunning, a fascinating mix of dark and pale rock, with kind eyes that reminded her of Proto’s own. It was all worth it. We were right.

But, despite the clear success of their venture, she wasn’t naïve enough to imagine everyone was happy with them. She vividly recalled the Sun’s screeches, the way his violent gravity had separated her from her other half for years, and the desperation she had felt when the only option open to them staying together was a collision. I can’t even picture how angry he must have been, in the aftermath…I hope he didn’t hurt anyone.

And she didn’t even want to think of how her friends had felt. Venus’ wreaked surface and choked atmosphere had startled her enough, but the absolute devastation and grief in his voice had harshly reminded her that she’d broken her commitment to be a better friend to him, to share her issues and not just assume he won’t care. Because despite how he’d acted in the past, she was his friend. Her mind had barely let her consider the ramification of her own death, her every thought being only of the Life she might create with it. She’d let him throw her, still under the impression she was only going to talk to Proto. Venus had blamed himself for 4 billion years, and Theia didn’t even know if being honest would fix this anymore. Telling him it was OK, that she actually meant to do that, and that she’d forgotten to tell him, wasn’t exactly reassuring. So, she was still trying to find a better fix, all while Venus kept looking at her with such heartbreak it wounded her. 

Proto had whispered a similar confession of guilt to her, his eyes glued to Mars. She knew her love had been close to the red planet, and that his goodbye had been briefer than he’d wanted. Proto had asked her for advice, but she was just as stuck as him. Both of them had left scars in their friends without a second thought, and now they needed to at least attempt to sooth them. It had to happen…but dying hurt more than just us. In fact, it probably hurt us the least.

Trying to get out of her messy thoughts, Theia shook her head irritably, startling Proto’s own head from its resting place on top of her’s. “Sorry, Proto.”

“Is everything OK? I mean, as OK as it can be?” His soft voice asked, almost whispering it as the quiet of the room around them felt more threatening by the second. She offered him a smile at his question, pushing her head back up to rest under his own.

“Of course, just thinking too much. I’m as OK as I can be.” She whispered back, her core swelling with affection as he smiled back, his weight pushing lightly against her, soothing in a way she’d never even dreamed of. 

The Earthling (intelligent Life!) was talking again, the screen showing a new period in the history of their creation. She tried to let her worries fade, to stay in the moment and relish in this gift of knowledge she never expected to be blessed with. Proto’s own breaths calmed with hers, both planets turning all their focus to the screen.

‘The Permian Period, ~280 million years ago’ appeared on screen while funky music played and pictures flew by. “Oh, tetrapods are back baby and flourishing in the mid-carboniferous, laying eggs and getting big…”

“So it bounced back, eventually?” Saturn looked to the living world for confirmation, but Theia was far too focused on the strange new forms appearing on the screen to note Earth’s reply.

“How much of your Life from those times is still here?” Theia asked, curiosity rising at the seemingly endless variety of beasts from his past. 

“Only a little bit. Sharks are still around, but they’ve been around since the Ordovician. Insects are smaller now but still around. Tetrapods are basically the ancestors of most modern Life, but tend to look very different nowadays.” Earth ended the reply with a more cautious tone. “Most of the radiations didn’t survive the next few extinctions.”

“Oh.” Theia didn’t know how to approach this unforeseen but apparently common result of Life. When she’d dreamed of Life, her mind had pictured a pretty steady progression after Life got going. She’d thought nothing of the ways Life could stumble or falter, nor the ways simple bad luck could almost wreak everything. But, if this experience had taught her anything so far, it was that Life was far more complicated and temperamental than she knew. More powerful as well; able to influence a planet’s whole atmosphere through simply living. Yet, her descendant seemed endlessly proud of his Life’s resilience and that at least assured her that Life would find a balance, even if for only a few million years. 

“The Carboniferous is a humid and jungly playground for Life to experiment in…” She explained that evolution was leading to weird forms of Life, and synapsids had started to dominate the planet. 

“Does one group always end up dominating?” Jupiter mused carefully, watching the fin-backed creatures on the screen. “It seemed to be those arthropods at first, then the armoured fish. And now these synapsids?”

“Well, those are quite broad groups, but yeah, most epochs have a dominant clade or group. It’s mammals at the moment!” Earth grinned happily, his heterochromic green-blue eyes catching Theia’s attention for the hundredth time. It had been truly bizarre to meet two celestials who felt like such random mixes of herself and her partner. Even the way they acted seemed both foreign and yet deeply familiar, like melting pots of both of them. I suppose it was literally that, in a rather brutal way. I don’t think either of us were solid after those first few seconds.

“But just as Life recovers and adapts, troubles roil on the horizon, churring in the deep seas and humming in the mantle of the Earth, the Deadliest Pattern bides its time.” 

“Again! How many more are there?” One of Neptune’s little moons complained, throwing herself over her planet’s knee in some attempt to punctuate her point. 

“At least three, I should think.” Makemake shoved his glasses up to look over at the little moon. “They did mention five of these earlier on.”

“Listening would've helped with that, Larissa.” Triton pointed out from his spot beside them, already pinned into a huddle by the rest of the moon group.

“Well, I was trying to! Nereid kept trying to scare me!” The little moon’s excuse didn’t seem to sway the older celestials around her. Triton gave her a frowning look, which seemed to do little for her attitude. Theia found herself almost jealous of the interaction. She’d never really had the chance to interact with younger or smaller celestials, since her group had been the little guys back then. What would it have been like? To have little moons like Neptune and Mars do?

“The Permian Mass extinction…” Gutsick explained that this took place roughly 252 million years ago, and is colloquially known as the ‘Great Dying’.

“Cool name.” Caelus noted, then looked up from his sketchpad long enough to notice the glares Earth and Luna were sending his way. The pale ice giant quickly amended his statement. “Not a cool name?”

“What do you think?” Luna’s sarcastic mutter caught Theia off-guard. Up to this point, the moon had seemed the calmer and quieter one of the two. I suppose he must have at least some attitude, to have defended his planet for so long as the sole moon. And to keep up with said planet’s lively personality.

“Told you this wasn’t going to be as fun as you thought.” Earth’s half-hearted sigh to his moon left Theia with a creeping worry spreading through her mind. The last two extinctions had been bad enough, but apparently this one merited a far more defensive moon and sullen planet. 

Just as Theia was getting ready to question the two, to get to the bottom of this change in attitude, Proto’s hand eclipsed hers, drawing it down from the ready position it had been in. His eyes were worried too, but the subtle headshake gave her pause. She could question them, sure, but what would that achieve in the long run? The living world was already wary of them, despite her best efforts, and interrogating him about a clearly serious issue would only drive him further away. Fine, you’re right this time, Proto. I’ll wait…for a bit at least.

“And it absolutely deserves that name. This is the closest that Life on Earth has come to complete eradication. We are talking about the near-sterilisation of the entire planet Earth…” 

The hand over her own was shaking now, and Proto’s head upon hers felt heavier. She pressed back, trying to communicate her own dismay and anxiety at the Earthling’s words. Sterilisation…

“Oh, is this when-” Mars cut himself off, his gaze darting to the living planet for only a blink before refocusing on the screen, stubbornly quiet again. Theia was half tempted to try asking the red planet instead, but her own uncertainty about the relationship between the two held her back. They seemed close, like Proto had once been, but there was an over-current of tension and unease to every interaction. 

The nearly-recovered atmosphere of the room was soured again, all eyes unsure whether to look at the Earth, the screen, or nowhere at all. Mercury shuffled in his seat uncomfortably while Venus’ face was forcing a disinterested frown. The moons of the various planets were exchanging confused expressions and worried looks, a few even trying to catch Luna’s eye. The moon wasn’t paying them any mind, though. His gaze was trained squarely on the planet at his side, watching his face as the other remained locked onto the screen.

She revealed that this was a perfect storm of geochemical and geological events that nearly killed all Life on Earth. “...This is the big one…”

“I thought the dinosaur extinction was the big one?” Mercury hesitantly questioned, the quiet of his voice suggesting he did not expect an answer.

Theia couldn’t help the curiosity that stirred in her core at another mention of these ‘dinosaurs’. The vague way they were spoken of only made her infinitely more determined to learn what they were. Were they another intelligent life form? Ones from a by-gone era? 

“Things were going pretty well after the Devonian extinction…” Gutsick showed some organisms that had been evolving, ones that would go on to create mammals and reptiles. Insects had also gotten quite large. 

“A-all these new Earthlings in only a few million years? I’d lose count of them so fast!” Haumea gulped, trying to keep up with all the new names. “I’ve already forgotten the last bunch! Was it those scary fish or the goofy-looking ones?”

“Which is which?” Eris snarked with a laugh, “They both looked goofy by my estimate.”

“Very goofy-but still-cute!” The red dwarf planet piped up, her speech oddly arranged. Theia had tried to pick up as many of the new names as possible, mostly through whispered questions towards Luna, but there were a few even he had not been fully confident of. So many new celestials…and I only have a little bit of time to meet them.

“In order to fully appreciate the extinction of the Permian itself, we must first pay homage to this strange cast of characters that ruled the ancient world before the more photogenic dinosaurs had ever begun their reign…” She explained how evolution had led to two main groups, the Synapsids and the Sauropsids, ancestors to mammals and reptiles/birds respectively.

“I suppose some of each must make it through the next extinction, then.” Iapetus mused in a deep voice. “To propagate those future groups.”

“Yeah, but how many? Given how rapidly they seem to replicate, maybe only one or two have to survive?” Dione speculated, glancing at the living world for any input. But the Earth didn’t seem all that focused on anything beyond the screen, and his moon remained quiet at his side.

“I think they’d run into some issues, Dione.” Titan piped up instead, his voice unsure at first but growing in confidence. “Earth told me his Life uses sexual reproduction to mix genes for adaptations; but if not enough individuals exist to breed, they can end up with a genetic bottleneck.”

“Why is that bad? What happens?” Tethys asked curiously, turning to the larger moon. 

“Inbreeding depression, loss of diversity, and even an increase in genetic issues. It all kind of piles up and makes it harder for a species to keep going and adapt to new changes in the future.” Titan summarized with the occasional glance at the living planet, his eyes uncertain. “Some species fare better than others, though. And bottlenecks don't always cause them to go extinct.” 

“So, more than just a few need to survive, ideally.” Dione frowned at the confusing explanation, picking out the bit she hoped she’d heard right. “Life really is picky.”

She began to explain a few more details about the early mammal relatives, about how they resemble reptiles more than anything, with dragging tails and a lack of fur. “...technically they are the ancestors of furries, but at the time they looked more like scalies…”

“What? What is she even talking about now?” Venus’ low whisper of confusion stuck Theia with the urge to laugh. She suppressed it down to a smile, trying to hide it even as the cloudy planet turned a surprised look to her. I’ll miss this, after we’re sent back. Though, not for long, I suppose. It should be pretty instantaneous…maybe it already happened and we’re just re-animated corpses?

Her smile must have dropped, because Venus was now gazing at her with a worried air, his brow furrowed in thought. She tried to pick up the grin again and reassure him, but he only seemed more concerned. It was a very odd thing, to be studied by an old friend who you saw only moments ago, but who has himself lived an entire life in the in-between. You know me, but I don’t really know you, not anymore.

“In the world of winners and losers, the Permian fauna are winners…” She explained that this time period was home to wild looking creatures like Dimetrodon, the mammal ancestor often mistaken for a dinosaur. Gorgonops, a massive predator with huge jaws that was likely an apex hunter of the time. Gutsick showed a few more odd beasts on the screen. 

“I honestly can’t tell if these are particularly weird or not, considering all your Life seems mad to me.” Caelus was still fiddling with the notepad, holding his pencil at a tilt while his eyes studied the beasts flashing past the screen. 

“I suppose they all have four legs and a tail, which is what most of my modern large animals have.” Earth agreed with a thoughtful expression. “But, yeah, a lot of these creatures would be considered very odd by human standards. Though, by planet standards, maybe not?”

“Wait, they all have four legs? Why not more? Wouldn’t that be better?” Neptune asked, his wide eyes aimed at the living world. Theia had never really spoken to the ice giants before her…end, but from what she had seen, Neptune was definitely a bit different from what she recalled. He seemed less aware, or at least a bit messy, like his mind was jumping from one fragment to another. It only furthered her curiosity about the parts of the Solar System’s history she would be missing. So much has clearly happened, yet I don’t even know how to start asking about it!

“Not necessarily. Four is a pretty good number, and gaining new legs is actually quite hard through evolution. Losing or changing your legs is easier, since it requires less gene changes and tends not to completely disable the animal from reproducing. Adding an extra leg would make life really hard.” 

“Wow, I wish we could lose or change our legs. These ones are kind of badly designed.” Neptune moved one of his legs to demonstrate, though Theia couldn’t work out what he was trying to show. “So achy and fuzzy-feeling.”

“I think that’s just because your entire moon system is lying on that leg, mate.” Caelus pointed out.

“Oh! Well, that solves that mystery then!”

“We have ariops, a massive head seated on top of a teeny tiny body. This guy belongs on, like, the joke reel for a Spore run.” She showed an odd critter that appeared to be 50% head, then another animal with an unreasonably tiny head. “And on the exact opposite end of the spectrum, we have truly my beloved, peak physical perfection, the best animal to ever live in this time period, which is Cotylorhynchus…”

“She might have a point. That beast is certainly eye-catching.” Jupiter considered, ignoring the disbelieving look Saturn sent his way. “Very interesting display of evolution, Earth.”

“I’m not taking credit for either of those. They did that all by themselves.” Earth laughed, caught off guard by the largest planet’s comment. Jupiter smiled back happily. 

At her side, Proto was watching with a grin of his own. It was reassuring to see that Jupiter was as affectionate with the rocky planets as he had been in their time. Not that Theia had had doubts. While distant, the largest planet had always been someone she knew she could go to for help or information, and it warmed her core to know their deaths had not discouraged that. 

“These animals, and indeed far more, ruled the ancient supercontinent of Pangea…” Gutsick began describing what the land was like at the time. Arid desert and lush jungles, reefs full of life and huge mountain ranges. “...meanwhile, Panthalassa, the super-ocean at this time period, stretched across the remainder of the globe.”

“All your landmass was in one place?” Proto queried in bemusement, indicating to the Earth’s surface. “But, it doesn’t look like that now?” 

“I told you, shifty tectonic plates. Always moving around, making me look different.” 

The living planet sounded quite happy with this side-effect, but Theia couldn’t help but think it sounded a bit painful and irritating. The few movements she’d had in her own crust had been sharp and hard to ignore, often ruining her day before it even began. Of course, she knew the tectonics was important for the atmosphere, but it hadn’t crossed her mind just how many effects an active, molten core would have on a planet. That might be our fault as well, maybe? He said he’s the only rocky planet with a molten outer core, so did our collision contribute to that or just his size? I’d have to find out why Venus doesn’t have as active a core.

“Just as a quick side note, I wonder if it’s even possible that there was an island chain out there somewhere in Panthalassa…” She began to speculate on how this may have been possible, and that such a land would have creatures who never knew of the Pangea mainland full of strange beasts they’d never get to meet. And similarly, if such a land existed, the humans wouldn’t know of them either. “...because their fossils are underneath the ocean...”

“Damn, this stuff is really easy to lose.” Miranda curled an eyebrow at the screen. “Just being on the wrong island gets your bones buried forever, never to be seen again.” 

“Not sure why they’d want to get dug up again and stared at by other Earthlings.” Ariel joined in with a huff. “All she’s done is make fun of the ones they did find. Like the one with the big head!”

“I don’t think she was being mean, Ariel.” Oberon pointed out hesitantly. “It was just facts. They had a really big head.”

“Ah, so as long as it’s technically true, I can say anything and it only counts as a fact?” Oberon seemed to realise his mistake a few seconds too late as Ariel’s grin grew. Thankfully, Umbriel shoved the smaller moon back into her seat before she could start, giving her a firm glare. 

“Now, normally these mass extinctions start off a little bit subtle. The pattern uses a gentle hand, at least in the beginning, before things ramp up and become unfixably bad. This is at least what we saw with the Ordovician and with the Devonian.”

“G-gentle? T-the f-first one w-was a m-massive volcano c-chain!” Io cried out indignantly. 

“Yeah, not exactly subtle.” Callisto agreed, her voice still the same bored tone Theia had heard this whole time. She wondered if that moon ever smiled.

“I think the problem with that one was the weathering and sequestering, not the volcano itself." Makemake tried to suggest, only to be sent an eye-roll by Eris. 

“Even if the main issue was that, the volcano still caused it to happen.” 

“Yes, but the fallout from that was subtle, not sudden.” Pluto pointed out. 

“Exactly! Though, that does make me wonder what could cause an ‘unsubtle’ extinction event.” Makemake mused to himself, hand pressed below his mouth. 

“Big distribution…” Neptune joined him in consideration. “Maybe that asteroid everyone keeps mentioning? It would be pretty sudden.”

“I don’t think so, my friend.” Makemake added. “I believe that one happened to a different group of beasts. I have not heard her introduce these ones as ‘dinosaurs’.”

“Oh! Yeah. I have no idea what those are.”

“But, the Permian Mass Extinction is the Deadliest Pattern in Nature’s magnum opus, and so for this mass extinction, it simply blew up Russia.” 

“...what?” 

“How?

“What’s Russia?”

The sudden questions drowned each other out over the eruption of confusion filling the room. Theia tried to catch the living planet's eye, but the Earth had ducked his head at the wave of stares and questions, his form tense and reluctant. His moon seemed equally unsure, sending wary glances at the Sun. 

“Ok, I know what I said, but this is actually not an exaggeration. We don’t really have a way of conceptualizing just how insane the Peruvian Mass Extinction and the volcanism that went along with it would have been…” Gutsick explained that they don’t see that kind of volcanism present at that time during the modern day. Sure, a volcano or two might impact a city, but it would be almost offensive to describe the Permian eruption in such terms.

“Sounds pretty big.” Proto muttered to her, his eyes also flickering towards the stiff planet and moon beside them. “And pretty bad. How would that even happen?”

Theia couldn’t find an easy answer to that question. Sure, the odd volcano was expected, good even, for a living planet. But this…this sounded much worse than anything she’d predicted in the past. And clearly, the Earthlings were just as shocked by the scale. “Gutsick will explain, I’m sure. She’s explained everything else so far.”

“Yeah, except the ‘furries’ comment.” Proto tried to joke, but his tone fell flat as the human on screen continued to speak.

“252 million years ago, what is now Russia simply turned inside out…” Two million square miles of rock was turned into Continental flood basalt, all dated to this time. This kind of rock is formed when lava bubbles to the surface. “...It’s a lava flood.”

“I guess no Earthlings were surviving that.” Caelus muttered through his teeth, his notepad now lying discarded on his lap as he stared at the lava on screen. “Bloody horrible place to be a living critter, then?”

“I imagine so, Caelus.” Jupiter’s own voice was similarly strained, his gaze finding its way back to the living world despite his conversation elsewhere. “A very unfortunate time and place.”

“How does that even happen? Was it another asteroid?” Ganymede frowned, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. “Why would a lava flood suddenly appear?”

“W-well, on m-my surface, l-lava f-floods are u-usually started b-by a b-big eruption!” Io offered, also frowning in confusion. “B-but I d-don’t k-know how o-one so b-big would h-happen w-without J-Jupiter’s gravity?”

“Yeah, Jupiter definitely didn’t cause this one, at least.” Europa’s loaded mutter caught Theia’s ear, adding a new mystery to her seemingly ever-growing list. ‘This one’? 

“This is an insane notion! So like, mechanically speaking, how exactly does something like this happen…” She explained that, according to the rocks, the whole area was submerged in lava 1.5-2.5 miles deep. 

“That’s not an explanation of why, though?” Mars hissed in frustration. “I get that they only have the rocks to go off of, but they must have at least an idea as to why that area was just, suddenly lava.”

“They have to start with the facts. Wild speculation won’t help them without some proof to back it up.” Luna responded in a careful voice, his head remaining fixed ahead without so much as a glance at the red planet. 

“Why can’t we just ask you two? I can’t imagine you don’t know why part of your crust suddenly imploded into lava.” Venus’ tone was hard and sarcastic, his words harsher than she’d heard directed at herself before, and yet another reminder that the planet she used to know was someone new. He didn’t seem the same, changed by events she’d never witness, and bittered by losses she hadn’t considered. The worry that Venus had taken out his grief and anger at her death on the two results from it struck her as painfully plausible. If she’d been asked such a thing just one orbit ago, the idea would sound ridiculous. Sure, Venus could be a bit jealous and unthinking, but cruel? Out of the question. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions from only a few words. Maybe he’s just having a hard day. Aren’t we all?

“I’m sure Gutsick will tell us all about it.” Earth rolled his eyes half-heartedly, the bright energy from earlier almost completely smothered by a cloud of apathy. Theia’s surface prickled with unease.

“So, to summarise so far, you have an area of land that is approximately the size of Russia, that just kind of explodes…” She added that this then led to an area similar in size to continental USA being submerged in lava. “...That is just mind-boggling.”

“United States? Isn’t that the area on the right side of your planetary form?” Hyperion only waited long enough to receive a nod from Earth before adding. “That must have looked pretty messed up. A whole patch of just straight up lava.”

“Hyperion, don’t be rude.” Saturn chastised the moon nervously, his voice far too squeaky to sound terribly commanding. “I’m sure Earth doesn’t want to be reminded of that.”

“I didn’t mean it in a rude way, sorry. I was thinking that it would look kind of badass, like Iapetus’ half-and-half surface. One side lava, the other…whatever's left I suppose?” Hyperion backtracked with an abashed look.

“You think my surface is ‘badass’?” Iapetus’ doubtful mutter followed Hyperion’s ramble, the dark-light moon’s mouth twitching up at one corner as he observed his fellow moon’s embarrassed, flustered expression. 

“So how exactly, and why exactly, did something like this happen? What could have triggered this?”

“YOU TELL ME!” The Sun hissed loud enough to make Proto jump, startling Theia in turn. “Why do these videos always show me how much you all hide from me? Is there no honest celestial in MY SYSTEM?”

“Sun. I don’t know why we weren’t made aware of this at the time, but getting angry about it will not encourage future honesty.” Jupiter tried, his voice so carefully steady that Theia couldn’t tell how honest his words were. It stuck her as unlikely that Jupiter, the gas giant most invested in the rockies' wellbeing, would miss such an event. “We are trying to be better, remember."

The Sun stared at the gas giant dumbfoundedly for a breath, and she half expected the star to turn him into space dust. Theia was sure if she’d said such a thing in her time, the Sun would have exiled her to Pluto’s orbit. Instead, the star surprised her by huffing out a breath and simmering down, cooling the steam that had begun to rise from his head. 

“Yes. I remember.” The Sun gave one last look to the living planet, who was watching this all go down with a cautious eye, and sighed. “We will talk later, Earth.”

“So it goes down a little something like this. The continental plates are always on the move thanks to convection cycles in the mantle of the Earth…” She revealed that this can lead to different parts of the crust being exposed to different parts of the mantle during different geologic ages. “...And well, some portions of the crust are a little bit spicier than others. They’re just a touch more flammable, one might say.”

“Flammable crust!” Mercury shivered at the thought. “Oh no, no thank you. That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”

“The disaster already happened, Pipsqueak.” Venus sneered, waving vaguely at the screen. “That’s what we're currently being forced to hear all about.”

“How’d those bits become ‘spicy’ anyway? Can it happen to other rocky planets?” Pluto asked in concern, his hands twisted in nervous knots.

“I wouldn’t know. It was caused by Life, technically, but there are other compounds that are flammable which don’t require Life to form.” Earth stiffly ground out. Pluto made another sound of confusion, but the living world didn’t elaborate, just gestured to the screen.

“In Permian Russia, we have an area known as The Tunguska Basin, a series of rock strata formed by shale carbonate coal and other very flammable substances that result from millions of years of decomposing forest.”

“So, once again, it’s the plants' fault?” Planet X hummed in mild surprise, absentmindedly fiddling with a stray string from his bean bag. “Seems like they cause more issues than they’re worth.”

“I think not! Plants are the best Earthlings! And they don’t eat other Earthlings! Unlike those gross animals." The Sun pointed out with a hint of pride, grinning manically. 

“Um, well…” The Earth hummed, side-eyeing the star with a stifled expression of amusement, as if he was trying to hold back his own words. The Sun trained his gaze on him instantly.

“Yes, Earth? What do you have to say about my favourite Earthlings ever!”

“Nothing at all, Sun!”

“In fact, this is one of the largest deposits we have found of coals, spanning 12 kilometres of Earth’s crust.” She explained, showing a map of the given area. “So the tectonic plates are moving and shaking, and one portion of one tectonic plate has a 12 kilometre thick seam of very flammable coal in it. So what happens when you inject roiling hot magma into a coal seam that is as wide as America and a dozen kilometres thick?”

“An explosion! BOOM!” Phobos’ excited exclamation contrasted the horror Theia was beginning to feel at just imagining such a thing. Her crust had barely moved in her lifetime, and had certainly never ruptured to such an extent, but the few cracks she had experienced were solidly stored in her memory as painful and impossible to ignore. I can’t even picture it. I don’t think I want to.

“Phobos! What did I say about not shouting?” Mars’ rhetorical question didn’t inspire much thoughtful reflection in the little moon, who was still waiting eagerly for the next part.

“But look! She’s going to say it was an explosion!”

“Yeah, we know. The whole room knows, especially after that.” Mars sounded resigned and reluctant to keep fighting with the moon, flopping back in his seat when Phobos showed no signs of having heard him. 

“Well, you get the largest detonation in the history of the planet.” Gutsick threw her arms up at this statement, the wide grin on her face conflicting harshly with the subject matter. “The very ground these ancient fauna stood on just exploded.”

“...ouch. Did it hurt?” Theia couldn’t help but ask, her voice breaking the silence of the room, “No, that’s a silly question, of course it did-”

“It’s fine, I-I basically passed out after, like, 5 seconds, so I d-didn’t r-really feel anything at all!” The Earth’s grin unsettled Theia further, the cracks in it showing a bit too obviously. The easy way he dismissed the event after being strung tighter than a black hole for half-an-hour called any validity in his statement into question. She didn’t know what to take from that statement as truth. 

“Earth, that doesn’t sound ‘fine’ to me.” Mars interjected with a doubtful voice of his own, worried eyes locked on the living world. “If anything, that makes it worse. Why are you trying to downplay it?”

“I-it’s not that important.” Earth scrambled to explain. “My Life got the worst of it, not me. I-it was kind of my fault anyway, so it’s just reaping what I sow, you know?”

“No, Earth, I don’t know.” Mars frowned, his expression pinched. “Why do you think it’s your fault? From the sounds of it, it was the trees’ fault.”

Theia got the feeling Mars wasn’t as confused as she was by that statement, given his response. ‘Reaping’? ‘Sow’? What are they talking about? Ugh, why didn’t this start with a run down of sayings I missed the context of? 

“Only because they got buried in so much peat!” The Earth argued, his voice harder now that he could explain. “My tectonic movements, in the Carboniferous and before, caused a lot of areas of de-oxygenated wet sediment to sink, burying the trees before they could decay. That’s where most of my coal even comes from! I didn’t even think about it at the time! I thought they would just decay anyway. I never even thought to consider that they’d turn into something else! And then it almost destroyed all my Life!”

“Okay, so, from the sounds of it, you didn’t know that would happen, and couldn’t have reasonably been expected to predict it.” Proto joined in at Theia’s side. Earth glared at his words, but Proto was unfazed. “Seems like simple bad luck to me. No need to throw any blame around.”

“Proto is right, Earth.” Mars nodded to his old friend before refocusing on the living planet, who was looking more subdued by the second. “I really don’t think you can blame something like that on yourself. That would be like me blaming myself for my dynamo cooling.”

“But-but that-. I-I, I could’ve-” The Earth tried to argue again, but his voice fell into a thoughtful frown instead, his brow furrowed in confusion. 

Mars continued to watch the living planet for a few more seconds, the same worried lines still creasing his surface, before turning back to the screen, leaving the Earth to consider his words. Proto cast her a wide-eyed look, one she returned with a frown of her own. She didn’t know if trying to talk to the Earth themselves would help or hinder the situation. They barely knew him, and his nervousness around them had not gone unnoticed. But, we might be able to help in some way, even if I can’t see it yet. And, if we can, we should. Earth, and his moon, Luna, are our responsibility. The least we can do with this time is help them.

“But, this apocalyptic misfortune, this insane, horrible, no good, very bad streak of luck was just the first domino in the worst Mass Extinction in the history of planet Earth. The extinction to end all extinctions. No, really, we’re just getting started.”

“How does it get worse than the literal ground exploding?” Enceladus muttered in frank dismay, shivering at the idea of more destruction. “Did another area blow up? Did another organism start slurping up all the CO2 again?”

“I think anything ‘slurping up CO2’ would be an aid in this situation, not a hindrance." Iapetus pointed out. 

“How does it get worse than blowing up Russia?” Gutsick asked the screen rhetorically. “Well, the pattern is already on the move…” She repeated the previous information about how outgassing events from volcanic eruptions are usually mitigated by weathering of the rocks by storms. However, there is no storm on Earth big enough for an eruption of this scale. The disruption this caused to the Carbon Silicate Cycle would not be fixing itself anytime soon, and nothing was putting all that gas back into the mantle. 

“Yikes! That seems like a bit of an unfortunate limitation.” Neptune commented from the back of the room, head tilted and eyes curious. “Will it still fix itself? In time?”

“Let’s hope so.” Triton mumbled beside him, trying to sooth two small upset moons in his own lap. “Seems like a difficult thing to fix, though. Even with a system for it.”

“What does that much CO2 even do?” Proteus asked to no answer. Earth was still lost in his head, his moon pressing against his side reassuringly, while Venus quickly ducked away from Theia’s gaze. Neither of the remaining rocky planets seemed able or willing to answer.

“Consulting ‘The ends of the world’ Peter Brennan notes that if we were to burn up every single fossil fuel we could get our hands on today, we would release around 5,000 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere all at once…” Gutsick explained that this would raise the sea level by 200 feet and scorch areas of the planet. 

“Maybe don’t do that, then.” Luna’s mutter seemed to amuse his planet enough to coax a smile from him. 

“...the estimates for the end Permian double that at 10,000 gigatons.”

“...not good.” Mercury winced, casting an unreadable look towards the living world. “Bit hot, then?”

“Just a tad.” Earth tried to force a light-hearted tone, but the crack in it gave him away pretty thoroughly.

“How many coats is that, again?” Ariel whispered to her fellow moon, who shot her a glare. Ariel rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll be quiet.”

“What does that mean exactly? To quote from his book…” She read a passage describing how the temperature would jump up by 16 degrees celsius, spreading mass death across the planet as rivers dried and the air burned. The seas would have reached 40 degrees celsius, turning the oceans into ‘hot tubs’. “...or, as the end Permian expert Paul Wignall put it, ‘that of a very hot soup’.”

“Soup? What is soup?” Saturn questioned, passing his worried eyes from the screen to Jupiter. The larger gas giant hesitated to answer.

“I admit I’m not completely sure, but I believe it is a food the humans eat.” Jupiter continued when the Earth didn’t jump in to correct him. “I think it consists of cooking plants and animal parts in a hot liquid.”

“So…the oceans cooked everything in it.” Saturn’s face paled, gulping back nausea at the idea. “Oh stars, that’s awful!”

Theia wasn’t feeling much better, her core rolling at the idea of so much Life being ended in such a horrific way. The very world they lived in, the very environment they breathed, boiled them alive. No escape, not even on land, where the sky was now trapping every ray of heat against the planet’s surface, raising the temperatures to unbearable levels. Her gaze stopped itself before she could look towards Venus. Too much CO2…did this happen to him as well?

“Multicellular life simply cannot exist in this sort of globe-spanning jacuzzi.” She explained. “The complex proteins of Life begin to denature…” Gutsick emphasized that this meant they were being cooked alive. Even the most measured literature on this time paints it as the worst mass extinction to ever occur and the time after as, “...a post-apocalyptic greenhouse’.”

“Reminds me of you, Venus.” Mercury’s side-eye was ignored by the cloudy planet, much to the smallest’s confusion. Venus was instead transfixed by the screen, his thoughts racing behind his eyes as he watched the Earthling describe the conditions of her planet at this time. 

“In addition to the rapid CO2 outgassing, volcanic eruptions today also disperse highly toxic chemicals. Fortunately, these chemicals tend to disperse and they’re only mildly problematic to non-local areas. The problem is when you blow up a huge chunk of the planet, these toxic chemicals tend to be dispersed at a slightly higher concentration…” She explained that the atmosphere was flooded with a series of chemicals that could, “...sear the ozone layer right out of existence…”

“That sounds bad.” Proto hissed through his teeth, looking to her for confirmation. “Is that bad?”

Theia tried to work out what the human was even referring to. She’d never heard of an Ozone layer before. She moved to ask the Earth, but hesitated at his expression, and instead aimed the question at Luna. “What is it? The Ozone layer?”

“Um, I’m probably not the one to ask-” Luna glanced up at his planet hopefully, only to sigh and turn back to Theia with a resigned expression. “I’m pretty sure it’s a layer of O3 sitting along Earth’s stratosphere. O3 is an unstable molecule. It reacts with ultraviolet light from the Sun and splits into O2 and an Oxygen molecule, which then recombines with another O2 molecule to make another O3. It basically absorbs most of the Sun’s harmful radiation so Life doesn’t get irradiated by it.”

“Oh! That’s fascinating!" Theia couldn’t help exclaiming, her mind already examining this process at every angle. “How did you make it? Did it just happen because of Oxygen being present? Does it self-maintain? What happens if other molecules interfere and take the O3 or Oxygen molecule out of the loop? Is that what happened with those chemicals she mentioned?”

“Uh, I don’t know that much, sorry.” Luna dipped his head apologetically, frowning thoughtfully while one hand tried to surreptitiously poke his unresponsive planet. “Earth would be the better one to ask. I think the humans actually made a hole in it recently, though I’m not sure how? Maybe it was another molecule, like you said?”

Theia tried one last time to catch Earth’s eye, but the living planet seemed to shrink even more after Luna spoke, wincing at the mention of the humans. Reluctant to push, she backed off, feeling Proto move her back into a soft hug in an attempt at comfort. She appreciated the effort, but it didn’t quiet her mind any.

Gutsick continued to state that this removed the protection Life usually has against the UV rays of the Sun, irradiating the remaining Life on Earth’s surface. “...The Sun truly is a deadly laser.”

“Yes! I am a laser!” The Sun grinned madly, only to drop it a second later. “Wait, deadly?” 

“Yes, to Life at least!” Makemake boldly mused out loud, speaking so casually to the Sun that Theia was kind of impressed. She’d have thought dwarf planets would be more cautious of the gas ball. “Especially short wave-length radiation like UV. They tend to start stripping elections and causing all kinds of messes. I’m sure Life would prefer not having to worry about that.”

“Well, then I guess it’s a good thing Earth has that zone shield thing.” The Sun waved off dismissively, not terribly impressed by the suggestion that his radiation could be damaging. “If they can’t handle it, that’s not my fault.”

“Maybe, but according to the Earthling, that shield just got stripped away.” Jupiter worried his bottom lip at the thought, turning back to the screen.

“This idea is further supported by the UC Berkeley palaeobotanist Cynthia Lewis, who has shown that spores and pollen grains found at the end Permian are abnormally misshapen. This mutative effect may or may not have obliterated the majority of plants outright, but it honestly doesn’t matter.”

“Um, I think it matters a little bit.” Mercury mumbled his disagreement with Gutsick’s statement.

“Why were they misshapen? Why does radiation do that?” Tethys asked, intrigued and a bit disturbed at the same time. 

“I’m not sure, Tethys.” Titan looked nauseated by the mutated cells on the screen. “Earth’s Life uses DNA to replicate and repair itself, so I imagine the radiation does something to damage that DNA. Maybe it destroys the molecules it’s made of?”

“It can do that, or ionize the water around it to make free radicals that do the damage for them.” Earth mumbled, his eyes now on the floor instead of the screen, talking fast enough to prevent Titan from interrupting with more questions. “Either way, DNA gets mis-read or broken, and the cells either die or mutate, sometimes replicating so badly and quickly that the whole organism dies. Mutated plant spores are the least horrifying thing it can cause, trust me.”

Titan only swallowed, his eyes lingering on the living world for a beat more before shifting away, turning a concerned look to his fellow moons.

“So the pattern has already turned Earth into a hot-house, but believe it or not, turning the oven to broil actually has consequences beyond a mere massive temperature shift. You might want to remember that for the punchline that’s coming down the line.” She whispered the last sentence conspiratorially to the camera.

“Why does she keep doing that?” Theia was getting a bit tired of this joke Gutsick was hinting at, making it seem like the room was missing something obvious to the human. “Is it a joke the humans know about?”

“In a sense?” Earth awkwardly revealed, tense and keeping his head towards the screen, preventing her from analysing his expression. “She’ll explain by the end. I’m pretty sure of that.”

“Hm.” Theia huffed, crossing her arms in mild irritation at the lack of a solid answer. They had no idea how long this would take, so how long was she going to be kept in the dark about this? 

“All of that CO2 actually impacted the acidity of the oceans as well, upping the pH of the seas by 30% and utterly destroying the ability of organisms to utilize calcium carbonate properly…” She explained that this is bad for any creature with a shell, including plankton, who are vital for the ecosystems of the oceans.

“Wait, isn’t that one of the methods of carbon sequestration? The carbon was being put in the shells?” Callisto recalled, her voice more on the side of dismay than the sarcasm from earlier. “Sounds like the start of a bad domino effect.” 

“Yeah, pretty much.” Earth sighed, a painful sarcasm infecting his voice. “More CO2 in the ocean means more hydrogen ions and a lower pH, thus more acidity and less carbonate ions for Life. And without the Life to sequester it away, the seas quickly slow down their ability to sequester the carbon from the atmosphere, grinding the whole system to a crawl. And, to top it all off, if the acidity gets bad enough it straight up dissolves the poor Earthlings’ shells right off of their bodies. A lovely way to go, I’m sure.”

No one seemed to know how to respond to that, least of all Callsito, who mostly just looked sorry she asked. Earth tried to offer her a smile, but it really wasn’t working. 

“Stanford University’s Jonathan Payne in an interview with Peter Brennan remarks that CO2 in our atmosphere today has jumped from 300 PPM to around 412 PPM in a very short amount of time. The climate scientists are of course concerned as the typical range for CO2 in our world had been around 200-280 PPM.”

Theia wanted to question this. She wanted to understand why the CO2 has jumped so recently, but the slumped shoulders of the living world gave her pause. He didn’t appear to be enjoying much of this questioning, not about this topic, and she was reluctant to increase his poor mood. But her curiosity was still beating hard at her core. Keep your mouth shut for once, Theia. Patience might actually work this time.

Her internal struggle to squash the questions down must have shown on her face, as a warm pair of arms enveloped her from behind. The warmth was soothing, but her mind wasn’t letting this go. Her sigh only tightened the hug, Proto moving his head to whisper near her ear. 

“This is a lot, isn’t it?” He breathed, resting his head on her shoulder with a sigh of his own. “I-I never really considered how much could truly go wrong with Life, or how it might impact the celestial holding it.”

Theia nodded silently, ashamed to admit out loud that her thoughts had been far more selfish before Proto brought that up. Beyond all her questions about this amazing living world, was the question of their own part in this. Their own responsibility. Was it right of us to create a being we knew would want Life? Was it our influence that even caused such a want? We set him on that path, both him and his moon, without considering their own desires. If it had been any other collision, would Earth have wanted a different existence? One not dedicated to caring for Life? And Luna, would he have preferred to orbit a planet that didn’t depend on him so heavily? Or not orbit a planet at all and instead be a planet in his own right?

“Payne has investigated the Permian and gives us some truly jaw-dropping numbers. He suggests that the CO2 reached a range of 3000 to 30000 PPM, about 10 to 100 times the range we see today…” Gutsick revealed that the scientist leans towards the higher end in some areas of the planet. “...Earth would have looked more like Venus.”

“Not a good look.” Mercury’s second attempt at a rise from Venus only gave him a one-way trip to the floor, Venus zipping back to his seat so fast Theia barely caught the act. It felt so weird to be trying to smother a laugh after the track her thoughts had fallen down.

“Now, of course, the Carbon Silicate Cycle is self-correcting, eventually. And in the meantime, well, all of these events are simply wreaking havoc…” 

“It was still correcting itself? After all that disruption?” Ganymede said in a low voice, sounding almost amazed. 

“I-If Earth l-looked like V-Venus, how c-come Venus c-can’t look l-like Earth?” Io stammered out in confusion, twisting to look at his planet. Jupiter cast an uncomfortable look towards the rocky worlds in question. 

“I’m afraid Venus’ Carbon Silicate Cycle likely did not have enough time to be established before the CO2 overwhelmed it. Earth had many life forms adapted to the task, and is in a much cooler orbit. While Earth may have looked briefly like Venus, the situation was not as unsalvageable." Jupiter hesitated at the end of his explanation, adding, “But, such a thing would need more investigating. Other factors may have been at play in either planet’s atmosphere.”  

She explains that the rocks from that time suggest that highly toxic conditions were present. Evidence suggests that the seas were full of hydrogen sulphide, suffocating sea Life and possibly choking coastal Life as well.

“So much death.” The quiet whisper echoed from Neptune’s moons, who were huddled against their planet’s side, flanked by a reluctant-acting Triton. The blue ice giant leaned down to whisper to the moon who spoke, his voice too low to hear over the muttered conversations around the room.

“You know what, I can’t even call Life delicate for this. This seems like a perfectly reasonable situation to be killed by.” Caelus cringed at the descriptions of lethal gas rising from the seas to end anything standing too close. 

“On top of all of this, lethal acid rain resulting from all of that CO2 in the atmosphere may have decimated forests in tandem with mercury toxicity and the numerous volcanic gases still seeping from the crust of the Earth.”

“Mercury did what?” Phobos titled his head in bemusement, earning a look from the planet in question. 

“I didn’t do anything. She’s talking about the element.” Mercury corrected with a huff, ignoring the laughing moon. 

“How come you get an element named after you?” Deimos inquired with a tone of outrage. “How come there’s no Deimoium?”

“Because that sounds stupid.” Venus hissed.

“Well, a few other planets do have elements named after them.” Luna pointed out, listing them as he counted on his fingers. “There’s Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, and even a few moons, Titanium and Europium. Not sure who else…”

“That’s more than enough, I think.” Venus rolled his eyes. “Why did we let the Earthlings name the elements again?”

“I don’t think we let them, they just did.”

“I can’t believe they named an element after me, that’s so cool!” Neptune grinned at his friend, who was frowning at the floor. “Yours is cool too!”

“It’s not my name, so it’s not my element, Neptune.” Caelus snapped, then shrank back with a regretful sigh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. Just a bit annoyed for no reason, mate.”

“That’s OK! I don’t mind!” 

“Mate, that’s- whatever.” 

“Honestly, the problem with the Permian is that there are so many deadly signatures, one right next to the other, right next to the other, all throughout the rocks…” She reveals that each signature seems to suggest a new, horrifying event that was helping this mass extinction become even more deadly. “...acid rain, toxic fumes, air that’s effectively still on fire, each of these is going to catastrophically impact local and global ecosystems.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Planet X grumbled from the back. He’d been so quiet, Theia had been forgetting he was even there. She honestly wasn’t even sure where the ice giant had come from. She remembered Neptune calling him ‘new-old’, but what exactly that meant was lost on her.

“But the role of each one in comparison and relative to one another is still under investigation…” She explained that research is being done into the weather patterns that were impacted by this detonation. “...the computers have been generating hypercanes…” Gutsick revealed at these are huge hurricanes, often the size of ‘Texas’ or even larger. On bath salts.

“T-those poor Earthlings.” Haumea stammered miserably, his shoulders slumped. “T-they can’t catch a-a break anywhere!”

“Ha aha ha! All ending. Entropy takes in the end!” Ceres’ cackles rankled Theia, unable to keep a frown of annoyance from her face. She wasn’t sure why the little planet she’d met all those years ago was acting so odd, but their repetition of those old arguments against her fight for Life were pissing her off. I was right! Life can exist! And even after this horrible, terrible event, I know it prevails! So shh.

“I suppose ‘bath salts’ is another ‘acid’ situation?” Pluto, far more politely than Theia would have, ignored the dark giggling celestial to ask the Earth a question. Earth only gave a stiff nod, far more focused on the floor than the area around him.

“These disasters are thought to have been caused by the ungodly conditions found only at the end Permian. There is a reason we don’t see them today, but weather simulations that incorporate the ridiculous temperature seen in the oceans and in the air generates insane, comically large storms…” These storms likely have 500 mph winds, which is 200 mph faster than any hurricane or tornado measured by humans. They had the power to cross continents without weakening, crossing Pangea easily.

“Um, isn’t that faster than your red spot, Jupiter?” Saturn asked with a frown of dismay. “I didn’t even know rockies could get storms that fast!”

“Or that long lasting.” Jupiter agreed, adopting Saturn’s worried expression. 

“Okay, that’s nuts, you’re saying, that’s just beyond bad. But get this, the water that the hurricanes are pulling up into their storm systems is that same CO2 hydrogen sulphide water from before…” She emphasized that this meant the water in these storms was acidic and poisonous, raining down in massive, powerful storms that could cross a continent. The music swelled as an image of a storm-covered planet was shown. 

“Okay, this is getting a bit ridiculous.” Enceladus’ mumble echoed into the silence left by the human’s words. “How did anything survive this?”

“Earth said Life is resilient.” Iapetus recalled to his fellow moon. “I suppose this is the ultimate example of that sentiment.”

“One hell of an example.”

“I’m gonna let that settle while I read a passage from Brandon’s book again, which I think very well characterises the obscene nature of the worst Mass Extinction of all time…” The passage went on to explain the acidic oceans of warm water, the massive algae blooms choking the air, and the huge mess of lava left over from the explosion. The gases from this were further poisoning the air, destroying the ozone layer, and creating acid rain. The land was barren, stripped of Life by the radiation, heat, storms, or choking air. The rivers had dried, the globe was so warm that even insects could not survive it. And, to top it off, massive acidic hurricanes were passing by and raining destruction. “...All of this triggered by a single massive outgassing. One super, mega, hyper disruption to the Carbon Silicate Cycle.”

The intense music accompanying the harsh visuals and even harsher words all served to cower the room into a reflective silence, no one brave enough to break it, whether with comment or comedy. There wasn’t much one could say after that.

With her form already as pressed against Proto’s as they could be, Theia struggled to take in the massive amount of damage one simple misstep of luck had led to. It didn’t seem possible that the bright, green, living world she could see on Earth’s surface was the same one being described only a few million years before. It was disorientating. 

Her love appeared to be similarly struggling to comprehend the disasters that covered the screen, his head dipping behind her head to hide his gaze and she felt his grip on her tighten minutely. She returned the pressure, increasing it until he did the same. Both of them trying desperately to communicate some comfort to the other.

“Life would sputter and nearly flatline. The pattern of the Permian took 96% percent of Life on the planet, decimating biodiversity and sanitizing entire land masses. Death struggled to choke the air, finding competition in stifling volcanic gases that still hung in fitful wind and cooked the planet.”

“... 96% ...” The Sun’s whisper almost missed Theia’s ears, surprising her with its timid delivery and disbelieving tone. The star was fixated on the screen, his golden glow dimmed.

“Just 4% survived? H-how does Life even bounce back from that?” Proto mumbled against her shoulder, his voice catching. 

“It has to.” Theia whispered back as reassuringly as she could muster, “The humans exist, so there is Life after this.”

“I know. It just seems so- so hopeless?” Proto tried to explain, his tired sigh brushing her neck. “One thing went wrong, and then all of this.”

Theia couldn’t find anything else to say to that. Her only assurance that Life did not end here was the living world sitting beside them. Glancing his way, her eyes caught on the slumped shoulders and downturned gaze, the planet trying very hard not to even glance at the screen. His moon was trying to offer some comfort, but nothing looked like it was getting through, Earth had closed himself off from the room entirely. 

“The organisms that did survive this Mass Extinction did so not by wit or strength, but by sheer luck and perhaps a propensity to adapt…” She explained that those that did survive would see the end of the Pelozonic, greeting the Mesozoic as they emerged from the wreckage.

“Lucky indeed.” Planet X mused into the silence. “Though, it seems their luck ran out pretty quick. Not an ideal world to live in.”

 “It’s still amazing that they did, isn’t it?” Neptune smiled despite the clear tear tracks on his surface and the huddle of moons held against his chest. Planet X didn’t seem to know how to respond to that, his gaze quickly dipping back to the floor in front of his bean bag.

“Don’t bother, mate. No one else has managed.” Caelus’ low mutter to Neptune intrigued Theia, and her nosy nature screamed to know more. I’ve missed so much, and I’ll probably end up leaving without knowing a bunch of things still! Ugh, not fair.

“But remember, the Carbon Silicate Cycle is self-correcting, even if it takes 30 odd million years in the case of the end Permian. The air was cooling, and seas were recovering and Life was still around, ready to radiate and adapt.”

“Stars, that’s a resilient system you’ve got there, Earth.” Makemake complemented the living world. But Earth didn’t seem to hear him, still avoiding the glare of the screen and the noise of the room.

“Well, if that didn’t wipe them out, I don’t think much will.” Charon agreed, turning to the dark dwarf planet at her side. “See, Ceres? It’s fine, the Life is OK.”

“Ha ah ha!”

“Against all odds, Life had managed to limp its way through the end Permian Mass Extinction. However, the synapsids had been thoroughly booted from their pedestal, and so their descendants, the mammals, would find themselves skittering under thundering footsteps of the new rulers of the Triassic.” The screen showed huge creatures walking before the camera, marching loudly through a forest. 

“Look, Earth, dinosaurs!” Luna forced an excited tone as he tried again to snap his planet out of the hole he’d crawled into. Theia leaned forward in sudden excitement. Finally! Let’s see what these dinosaurs are!

“Wooh! Those guys are huge!” Ariel gasped, wiggling from the moon group she’d fallen into during the last few minutes. “Dinos!”

‘The Triassic Period~240 million years ago’ faded over the walking titans. “The Triassic has begun and there is a new game in town baby. It’s the dinosaurs!”

“Come on, Earth. You don’t want to miss telling us some dinosaur facts.” Mars tried this time, a soft, teasing tone injected into his voice. The living planet stiffened at his words, his head raising a few inches at the tempting offer.

“Yeah! I wanna hear all about these lifeforms, they sound awesome!” Theia joined in, hoping maybe some additional enthusiasm for this might lift the planet’s mood. Earth’s fractional flinch at her words nearly buried that hope entirely.

“Mars will get everything wrong if I don’t correct him, I suppose.” Earth joked, his smile slipping and uncertain as he finally lifted his head to look at the screen. Theia beamed.

“They’d have a long and prosperous rule of around 165 million years, but they were nearly shut down right out of the gate…” Gutsick revealed that the pattern would strike again just at the end of the Triassic, right after the end Permian. 

“Okay, bad timing. Sorry, Earth.” Mars winced at the Earthling’s words, glancing at the living planet warily.

“It didn’t kill them. Not the dinosaurs, at least.” Earth muttered, shaking himself in some attempt to re-set his slumped shoulders and cracked voice. “I-I barely remember the next one. It was kind of overshadowed by the other two.”

“Oh yeah. I always forget that one.” Luna agreed with a low mumbled, leaning against his planet with a determined expression. “It’ll be alright, we’re over half-way through now!”

“Three down, two to go.” Mars counted aloud. Earth opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it, staying silent even when Theia eyed him curiously.

“Now, the planet was in the middle of the comeback of the eon, albeit a slow and placid one…” She explained that after losing almost all Life, the planet was slowly being reclaimed by generalists that survived the extinction due to previous adaptations for such an environment. A small clam thing was shown, then an odd four-legged creature that apparently dominated the land, lystrosaurus.

“Goofy little guys!” Neptune grinned at the new creature on the screen. 

 “Why do only the goofy ones survive mass extinctions?" Proteus asked, peering curiously at the stocky synapsid. 

“Must be a beneficial survival trait.” Triton muttered only half-jokingly. “Less likely to boil alive if you look like you already have been.”

“This fat little dude is thought to have been able to exploit the land to a degree not seen by a single species ever before and not since, until Homo sapiens…” 

“Exploit? That’s kind of a harsh way to describe it, isn’t it?” Proto frowned at the word, glancing at the living planet and his moon for some agreement or elaboration. To the dismay of both of them, Earth and Luna only offered a half-hearted shrug. 

Gutsick revealed that it is still not really known how lystrosaurus was able to do this. Some suggested that they were burrowing creatures with broad chests to help them breath despite the air, while others suggested a semi-aquatic lifestyle that would have led to a high level of adaptability. 

“Well, they lucked out with those traits.” Saturn commented to the screen. “A very extreme version of that selection thing. Right, Jupiter?"

“Certainly, my friend.” The largest gas giant agreed with a nod. “I suppose this is why diversification in your Earthling species is important, Earth?”

“Yes. Life has a better chance of making to through changes like this if the population has variation, from an individual species level to a whole ecosystem.” Earth confirmed, looking up at the survivor species on screen. “I doubt I would have noticed them before, but after the extinction they were hard to miss. Very special Earthlings!”

“It should be noted that a few other animals made it through the Permian which were capable of feeding on lystrosaurus…” She listed a few weird and wild looking beasts, but explained that this was not many in the grand scheme of things. “...it really could be said that there was simply nothing to curb the explosive growth of lystrosaurus, with nothing to compete with it and few to eat it up.”

“Infested with lystrosaurus.” Caelus mused, then added, “Would it be lystrosaurus or lystrosuria? For plural?” 

“I really don’t think it matters.” Titania muttered to her planet, sitting on the edge of their bean bag with one eye on the other moons and another on the front of the room. Theia assumed she was watching the screen, but closer inspection revealed her eyes were resting on the Saturnian moons. One in particular. Aw, that’s so cute! Um…I hope it goes better for them? And their planets don’t throw a fit like the Sun did.

“Nothing was eating these guys? Doesn’t that usually cause more issues with the ecosystem and stuff?” Luna asked his planet, who’s deadpan look to that question almost forced a smile out.

“Luna, I really don’t think the predator-prey balance was the main issue with the ecosystem at that time.” Earth struggled to keep his voice free of the amusement gleaming through.

“Yeah, sorry, stupid question.” Luna smiled back hopefully.

“Either way, lystrosaurus would enjoy a long rule essentially all by its lonesome. It would take 30 million years for the planet’s biodiversity to catch up. Let’s contextualize this, humans have been around for 300,000 years as Homo sapiens, it took 100 times longer than the entire existence of our species for biodiversity to recover from the Permian Mass Extinction.”

“I can’t blame it, that was quite the hit.” Mercury breathed, shuffling in his seat to try and stretch a bit. “I’m kinda surprised it was even that fast, all things considered. Isn’t the Carbon Cycle thing all out of whack now?”

“Pretty much. It was still there, just very, very slow.” Earth confirmed, trying to stretch his own legs a bit now that the heavier part seemed to be dying down. “The heat was the real issue, and that could only go away once the CO2 was reduced.”

“So the system that reduces the CO2…needed the CO2 to go down before it could start?” Mercury tried to understand. “Sounds like a bit of a dead-end, no pun intended.”

“Yeah, well, it got there in the end.” Earth huffed lightly, adding. “It wasn’t enough to completely devolve into runaway global warming. That shit takes…” Earth cast an almost nervous glance at Venus, who was glaring so coldly Theia nearly didn’t recognise him. “...well it takes more than that.” 

“If you were to visit this vast swath of time, you would think you were bearing witness to the end of Life on Earth…” Gutsick explained that the seas were still very hot at this point, and the inner landmasses were scorched and uninhabitable by large animals. The sea was choked of oxygen and recovery was slow. “...potentially contributing to a final aftershock mini extinction pulse around 2 million years after the Great Dying.”

“Are you kidding me? Again!” The Sun exclaimed in exasperation, whirling around to stare at the living planet suspiciously. “You kept this REAL quiet at the time. And those other times! Why?”

“Sun-”

“NO! I don’t want to hear any more LIES from MY SYSTEM!” The Sun barked furiously, drowning out whatever the Earth was going to say. The living planet closed his mouth with a gulp, side-eyeing Jupiter for help.

“Sol.” Jupiter began, moving to say more before being interrupted by a hand. 

“I know, Jupiter, I know. I’ll shut up now, water under the plank and all that.” The Sun hissed sarcastically, flopping back into his seat. “We’ll just let everyone lie and hide things and sneak around; that’ll be all OK because, hey, everyone else wants to!”

“Sol, that’s not-” Jupiter tried again, but the star raised his hand again for silence. The giant frowned for a beat, conflicted on whether to obey, then sat down as well. Theia, who had been getting ready for a shouting match, deflated in a mix of relief and annoyance. Ugh, I’m almost glad we won’t be dealing with this afterwards.

“Life simply couldn’t recover as well or as quickly as it had in the past, because, well, it was just simply too hot…” The centre of Pangea was dry of all water, and thus Life. Similarly, the lack of rain in the interior was slowing weathering, so Carbon sequestering was reduced, and the atmosphere was hot and dry.

“How do you even fix that?” Pluto’s question raised a similar one in Theia’s own mind. It did seem like an impossible situation to even begin to fix. 

“Water.” Venus’ soft grumble caught her ear, and her old friend looked so wretched as he stared at the floor, her core nearly split in two. The full story of his choked atmosphere still felt incomplete to her, a mystery her mind could not unravel without Venus’ help. But, if even the mention of similar conditions or more favourable outcomes was hurting her friend so distinctly, she would have to hold her curiosity back. Even if it pained her to see such expressions on her friend and not understand their origin. Oh Venus, what happened to you?

“In this barren wasteland few animals, if any, lived. At the poles, lystrosaurus and their few predators lumbered across a landscape that didn’t fare too much better than the equatorial regions.” She explained. “But, 20 million years after the Permian Extinction, something incredible happened. It finally began to rain.”

“Oh, that must have felt good.” Neptune sighed out with relief. “Those poor creatures finally got to feel the rain again. Non-acid rain, at least”

“Probably for the first time in their whole lives.” Charon agreed, a soft smile crossing her face at the thought. “Maybe even the first time in generations!”

“They must have been so confused!” Proteus giggled. “Wondering why the sky was suddenly making everything wet!”

Theia tried to imagine what such a thing would feel like. In her physical form, she’d never felt water on her surface, let alone rainfall. Proto had often described the small amount of water on his surface as soothing, like ice had been pressed against his surface and slowly spread over it, cooling everything it touched. After 30 million years of scorched land and boiled seas, that first  rain must have been beyond relieving. 

“And not only did the rain fall, but it didn’t stop. It was raining for 2 million years in a bizarre moment in time Geologists call the Carnian Pluvial Episode ....” The title appeared on the screen as she emphasised that this era was wet. The planet had changed from an arid one to a wet one. Evidence of this was found in geochemistry, where everywhere in the world suggests a wet environment in its rocks. 

“I suppose that made all the difference, in the end.” Mars mused in a lowered voice, his eyes straying from Earth to Venus. “Water, and being in an orbit cool enough to allow it to fall again.”

“It was cooling down already, that’s why the rain even fell.” Earth elaborated. “The plants and plankton and algae were producing oxygen and storing CO2, despite everything else. It just…took a while.”

“Worth the wait, thought?” Luna nudged his planet with a knowing smile. Earth smiled back. 

“Definitely.”

“In this cooling and watery landscape, at long last the survivors of the end Permian Mass Extinction could move from their place at the poles and at long last, diversify…” She explained that this time period saw a massive amount of returning survivors, lungfish, early mammals, pterosaurs and many more, all adapting into new forms and niches. 

“I love how, after every extinction, the Life just goes crazy with the adaptations!” Theia smiled, excited to see even more life forms from the past. Even the overhanging knowledge that they’ll likely be gone after the next extinction couldn’t dampen her joy at this miracle of an opportunity to witness the results of their final attempt at a living world.

“Totally! How does Life even come up with half of these things? That gliding creature looked so impractical, but it must have worked!” Proto pointed out, gazing adoringly at the life forms on the screen.

“...The dinosaurs too, are on the move, the Triassic is home to early theropods like coelophysis, but they aren’t dominating just yet. Dinosaurs are still relatively small and they strut about in the shadow of the real rules of the Triassic, the beasts that preceded the dinosaurs, the pseudosuchians.”

“You never told me you had pre-dinosaur dinosaurs! They look awesome, dude.” Mars exclaimed at the sight of the new creatures. 

“They’re not dinosaurs. Pseudosuchians, it means ‘false crocodilian’ but they aren’t, not really. Modern crocs are descended from the ones that didn’t bite it during the next extinction.” Earth corrected the red planet, his enthusiastic explanation helping to close out the tension from the Permian extinction. “I probably didn’t mention them because they weren’t really around for terribly long, but they were wildly adapted while they did exist.” 

“If the Triassic is characterized by any one kind of fauna, it would be the pseudosuchians…” She revealed that these were a type of crocodile, but far more diverse than that suggested. Ranging from herbivores to carnivores, these beasts took a variety of forms that seemed weirder than the last. 

“You know, when I thought about the living world we would create, I never pictured massive running jaws on legs.” Proto joked, and his grin only widened when Theia shot him an unimpressed look.

“They don’t look like that, Proto.” Theia considered the beasts before her, “More like those tiny lizards from a few minutes ago, only big and scaly and equipped with too many teeth.”

“That’s basically what I said, though.” Proto laughed, even more so when she shoved him. Theia was surprised to find herself also laughing, caught up in the sudden levity after such a long span of anxiety. And even beyond those last few minutes, her last time getting to play and joke around with Proto had been, Stars, it had been years ago! Oh, I wish this could last forever, or at least long enough to spend a lifetime with him. We had so little time-

“Theia.” Proto’s soft voice drew her out of the growing shroud over her thoughts, drawing her eyes to his bright ones, shining with the same deep blue as always. “I love you. And I love what we created. This was all worth it, even if we may never have seen it. You were right, this was destiny.”

“Oh, Proto, I love you too! And I’m so happy you think so. I-I was worried that, after seeing all the things that went wrong, you’d regret it.” Theia confessed breathlessly, trying to communicate the bubble of anxiety that had been bobbing in her mantle every time a new disaster hurt the living world, and whether it was something Proto would want to take back if he could. 

“Are you kidding me? Theia, I would do it again a million times if there was even a fraction of a chance our deaths could create Life. This is our dream, and I’m so glad it worked, just as we hoped.” Proto gently pressed his forehead against hers, pulling her into a hug. Theia relaxed into him, keeping her eyes fixed onto his as she leaned forward. 

But, before they could do anything, a loud, smouldering voice interrupted them.

“Excuse me! Theia, Proto, we need to have a talk.” Theia whipped her head around, and in a rush was harshly reminded that they weren’t alone. The entire room was staring at them. And the Sun looked furious. Ah Stars, what did we say? We didn’t even kiss, why is he so mad? We only said…Oh, oops.

She could take a pretty good guess as to why half the room was looking at them like that. The pure confusion on the ice giants. The painful understanding of Jupiter as he held one of Saturn’s hands, the ringed giant trying very hard not to crush his friend’s hand as he stared at the two of them. She didn’t even want to look at the rockies, far too reluctant to turn her head the few degrees needed to witness Venus’ angry, furiously betrayed expression. 

Unfortunately for Proto, Mars was already in their line of sight, the red planet clearly trying to puzzle together what they’d accidentally confirmed. Theia knew they hadn’t been super careful about it, not at first. But once it had become painfully clear that the true nature of their crash wasn’t widely known, she’d tried to avoid mentioning it. The suspicion had been there, she was well aware of the Earth’s searching looks, but they had intended to explain it to him and Luna alone, letting them decide how far this went. Instead, Mars was glaring at Proto now, a frustrated mix of confusion, grief, and even a hint of relief swimming in his eyes. 

“Y-you…You-” Mars stammered out, blinking back tears and quickly turning away. Proto tried to move forward, Theia following, before being halted by an approaching wave of heat. 

“You two are coming with me.” The Sun had now marched over to the rocky planets’ seats, and in one movement grabbed Theia and Proto’s hands, pulling them apart to either side of him, dragging them to one corner of the room. Once there, the star released them abruptly, forcing Theia to find her feet again before she met the floor  for a close up.

“Sun, it’s not-” Proto tried, though Theia wasn’t completely sure what he was going to try and say that would even begin to appease the star. And Theia wasn’t looking to appease him, not when they had little to lose and only a few others to protect. He’d never take out any anger on them, surely. He may be mad, but he has limits.

“Go on then, Sun. Lecture us again about why you’re right and we’re wrong, just like last time.” Theia summoned her courage, facing the star boldly and suddenly enough to make him start slightly. “It won’t matter, and just like last time, we were right! You have a perfect living planet and the perfect moon to accompany it. Just like you wanted.”

“Theia.” The Sun started with a growl, his eyes narrowed at the two of them. “You know why I disapproved of your old idea, it would have ended the same way. I’M NOT IN THE BUSINESS OF TRADING LIVES! Certainly not the lives of two young planets. You can’t blame this on me, not completely.”

“I’m not! I’m stating my facts. My plan worked, whether a collision was necessary or not. A planet needs a large moon.” Theia argued back, trying to keep her voice as steady as she could. Proto stood as close to her as possible, glaring at the star as she spoke. “We created Life, Sun! Life! In a Universe of darkness, something so delicate and complex was able to take form! Is that not our dream?”

“B-but, at the cost of your lives? Theia, that is not a price I wanted to pay.” The Sun’s rage was simmering now, smothered by a deep grief that surprised the planet. “You-you didn’t need to do that. Life-Life could have happened anyway! We don’t know what really did it, not even the Earthlings know! And Mars and Venus, they had water and an atmosphere, for a bit at least. It could have worked, and you could have lived!”

“You think I wanted to live? In that system? Where you forced me and Proto apart and forbid us from ever seeing each other again? You think I was happy? That either of us were?” Theia felt frustrated as traitorous tears escaped her eyes, her throat already burning and painful to talk through. “Maybe you’re right, and Life would have sprung up anyway, but I would have been miserable! Those few years were torture, Sun. I can’t even imagine suffering like that for 4 billion more. You gave us no choice!” 

“Theia, we can’t- we can’t put all of it on him.” Proto’s words turned her gaze to him, his tearful eyes meeting hers with an agonizing reflection of her own core. “We made the choice, and I was not forced. I hope you were not, either?”

“Of course not, Proto. I-I wasn’t trying to- I’m sorry, Sun.” Theia forced her core to cool, feeling almost lightheaded from the words that anger had pulled from her. Wow, I was angrier about that than I thought. “It wasn’t just you.”

“W-what else was it, then?” The star was fully crouched down now, meeting their eyes at the same level. Theia’s attention was drawn to the faint wisps of steam that seemed to be rising from the corners of the Sun’s eyes as he questioned them in a broken tone. “I-it can’t- Was it really for a living world? Life?”

“Yes, Sun, of course it was.” Proto sighed out, his gaze falling surprisingly softly onto the star before them. “It was what we wanted. And we knew it would work.”

“How? If that collision had been even a bit off, you could have completely destroyed both of your forms. There was no guarantee that a planet and moon large enough would even reform from your parts.” The Sun was staring at them like completely new planets now, his brow furrowing in confusion. 

“W-we- You can’t call us mad for this, OK?” Theia eyed the Sun as she spoke, trying to see how far he would believe them about this. “We- Before we crashed, back in our orbits, we both started to get…visions? I’m not sure how else to describe it. And in them, we saw a blue-green planet and a grey moon.”

“You-you saw Earth and Luna? Before they even existed?” The Sun at least seemed to be considering the idea, if not completely sold on their sanity. “H-how? WHY? What does that- I can’t deal with this, Theia. Why are you two always SO STRESSFUL?” The Sun punctuated his frustrated exclamation by reaching up to grab his hair, pulling it in some attempt to dissipate his energy. “Ugh, planets are NOT easy, I’m telling Proxima all of this next time they get close! DON’T THINK I WON’T!”

“Sun, we’re sorry. We didn’t want to hurt you. We just wanted to do what the Universe needed us to do.” Proto implored to the distressed star, sharing a dismayed look with Theia at the Sun’s ranting. “I was proud to be one of your planets, and if things had been different, I would have gladly stayed. It had to happen this way, but I’m still sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, Sun.” Theia breathed out, trying to ignore the still-simmering heat of anger in her core. This was not the time. She had no idea how long this blessing would last, and she didn’t want to leave her star with the regret of never saying what she needed to. Her life was over, but she could still soothe the wounds she’d clawed into her family. “I didn’t do it to hurt you, or Venus, or anyone. We had to do it and I am glad we did. Your living planet is amazing, and the Life on his surface is more than I could have hoped for. So, thank you, Sol, for watching over Earth and Luna all these years.”

“Y-yeah, they-the Earthlings-” The Sun struggled to speak, the tears falling faster than his heat could evaporate them, trailing down his face as he gazed at the two rocky worlds no longer in his system. “I-I’m sorry. I wish- Y-you two would have loved to watch them grow up. T-they’re so much like you, b-both of you.”

Theia felt a painful lump rise in her throat at the star’s words, her own eyes spilling over again. Proto pressed his hand to hers, holding it tightly as he fought to swallow back his own reaction. She leaned against him, and felt him do the same. Both planets keeping each other up against the storm of emotions. 

“I-I suspected, or Mercury did, that you didn’t do this by accident." The Sun softly revealed, his voice shot and form slumped in exhaustion. “But, I couldn't accept it. I-I couldn’t understand why you would do something like that. You were right, Theia. I-I can’t face these things, not properly.”

“I hid your existence from him, from both of them. And even when we slipped up, we kept hiding it. I-it felt like the right thing at the time, but… you didn’t deserve to be forgotten, neither of you. A-and they d-deserved to know. I-I’m sorry it t-took so l-long.” He finished, turning his face to the ground.

“It’s okay, Sun. We understand.” Proto muttered, reaching out to press his other hand against the star’s arm. Theia wasn’t completely sure she understood, but bringing that up wouldn’t help the star’s mood any. He was apologizing at least, which is certainly more than she’d ever believed him capable of. If this is our last chance, I want to leave without anger. I want to leave with love.

“I forgive you, Sol. And I hope you can forgive me, one day.” Theia slowly reached out her own spare hand to the Sun, taking one of his hands instead. “You have changed, I can see that much. You might feel like you can’t face these things, but I know you can. I mean, you’re talking to us right now, literal ghosts!”

“P-please don’t call yourselves that.” The Sun croaked out, lifting his head to find Theia’s gaze. “I-I wish this wasn’t such a short thing. I wish you could come back with us.”

“We are going back with you, in the same sense that we’ve never left your system, Sun.” Proto smiled at the star, whose frown softened in sad understanding. “And, until then, we have some more video to watch, I believe? We still have time.”

“O-of course.” The star nodded, hastily trying to wipe away the lingering tears and crumpled expression. “W-we should get back to the others. I can’t imagine Jupiter is terribly impressed with me at the moment.”

“Or us.” Theia realised with a sinking feeling. “Oh no, the whole system is going to be so pissed.”

“I’ll tell them to shush. It sometimes works.” The Sun joked, leading the way back to their seats. Theia held Proto’s hand tighter as they walked back, trying to look braver than she felt and calmer than she was. We can do this. Together.

Chapter Text

Earth was sure he had never been this confused before. It had been going on for while now, and it was getting a bit concerning; he’d been thoroughly confused for the last hour, not at all helped by the recent mess of questions in his mind. Now, he just had more questions. He had kinda been hoping for the opposite, to tell the truth.

He watched as the Sun man-handled and dragged away his…predecessors? Parents? Form donors? The star was steaming with rage, and going by the immediate cloud that rose over their spot in the corner, that wasn’t changing anytime soon. Those two were lucky the Sun would never be able to solar flare them. And who’s fault is that?

Earth wasn’t even trying to be rhetorical about that question, it was genuinely taking up space in his already crowded mind. One moment, he was being told the crash was some tragic accident, something unfortunate but not preventable. Then, after his mind decided to throw unknown voices and visions into his head of two planets who wanted Life , that picture had become far more blurry. And now, despite the absolute absurdity of it, he was watching those very planets talk and interact in front of him. Saying things that threw everything into question. He- he hadn’t really felt like he had the whole picture, not for a while. Not since Theia had first been mentioned, triggering a string of demanding flashes and specks of memory, and now he barely felt like he’d learnt anything, despite the very planet he wanted to speak to being right there.  

But it wasn’t that easy. Because nothing ever is, it seemed. He wanted to ask them, to integrate them for the answers he’d been scavenging for since that first documentary, but his own fear was keeping him back. It felt like every chance to ask them was interrupted, either by others or himself. And, to make things worse, he couldn’t even place where the nauseous rolling in his core even came from every time he looked at them for too long. It just felt…wrong. Like two poles of a magnet being forced together. As if his own form knew, deep down, this was impossible. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid and rude again, who knows?

Trying to keep his head in the room, Earth blinked to reset his vision. The system was humming with low-level noise, celestials having taken to using this pause as an opportunity for quiet gossip. Earth tried not to get angry at them. It wasn’t their fault his ‘parents’ decided to tick the Sun off. And it wasn’t like they couldn’t have already guessed anyway. Those two knew too much about us. They knew Luna was my moon, and they clearly have some understanding of how Life works. It wasn’t an accident.

It was almost funny how much that realization seemed to be hurting him. On his surface, most humans would wish for such an outcome, to find out their progenitors had planned for them and hoped for them. But, this wasn’t a thing for celestials, not really. They didn’t have mums or dads or caregivers. They had stars, and stars had galaxies, and even moons had planets. But the relationships between those beings were not comparable to the Earthlings’, not really. Sure, the odd planet might care for their moons like a parent, or a star may nurture his planets with an interest in their future, but it wasn’t the same deep, frantic bond he’d seen in so many of his Earthlings. The kind of bond that made a lioness leap at the new male with no thought for her own safety, her only goal the survival of her cubs. The love that forced a blue whale to travel miles into barren waters, just to give her calf a sliver of a chance. The kind of chemical drive that kept an octopus still and hungry as her brood grows, only to fade as they finally hatch, having guarded them with her life. Celestials. Don’t. Do. That!

So why? For Life? An experiment? An egotistical ‘I told you so’? Some kind of crazy art piece for the Universe? Why kill two perfectly good planets to create a fucked up one and a moon forever bound to it, doomed to watch everything he does explode in front of him! Earth could vaguely feel his breathing getting a bit worrying, but he didn’t really have the energy to care. Trying to focus on the room wasn’t going very well, it seemed

“Earth?” Mars’ concerned voice wasn’t any help. If anything, it made everything feel far more present and real, and very demanding of his attention. “Can I help? Your breathing…oddly, are you okay?”

“You knew?” Earth asked bluntly, staring his friend in the face and trying to find some truth for once. The red planet looked wrecked, his sides still heaving from the tears that trailed down his face, and nothing about his stance looked like a planet who knew anything anymore. But, Earth wasn’t sure what to think anymore, so the question hung in the air un-recalled. 

“No! No, I didn’t bloody know, Earth!” It was kind of refreshing to hear the red planet’s anger again. His friend had barely spoken to him in their orbits since the last abduction, and the few times they'd spoken since this one began had been surface-level and friendly. It had been pleasant, but the specter of their rift had been hanging around in every conversation, painfully reminding Earth that he’d screwed up their friendship, again. At least now he might get some actual flack for it. “I-I would have told you, if I knew they’d- that they’d done that.”

“Really? You never told me about them, though? Or am I supposed to believe their relationship was also ‘dangerous’ for me to know about?” Earth didn’t want to fight. He really didn’t. But opening his mouth was quickly becoming the only way to release the pressure in his mind, damn the words themselves. “Anything else you might be hiding, Mars?”

“Earth, you need to calm down.” Mars ground out, his shoulders rising at his words. “I don’t want to argue with you, not now. We can talk this out, without you assuming shit and throwing it at me.”

“Fine. I’ll shut up.” Earth scowled, forcing his eyes to stay on the red planet as the silence lengthened between them. It at least gave him a minute to calm his breathing and attempt to still his core. As his sudden flush of anger ebbed, he was harshly reminded of just how much he didn’t want to do this. He just wanted to smile and laugh, and play cards with his friend again, and have all the mountains forming between them eroded away into nothing. He was tired of this. 

The silence stretched on, the planet across from him still struggling to cool his own head, and Earth was notoriously terrible at silences. The mumbled words were out before he could think better of it. “This kind of feels like the opposite of talking it out.”

Mars lifted his head to throw a deadpan look at the living world, but his façade of frustration was ruined by the smile fighting its way onto his face. “Stop saying stupid shit. It’s making it really hard to stay mad at everyone right now.”

“Maybe that’s a sign?” Earth snarked back rhetorically, using his own smile to try and encourage Mars’. “Who are we mad at, anyway?”

“I don’t know, dude.” Mars sighed heavily, “You seem pretty mad at me.”

“I don’t want to be.” Earth admitted, hoping Mercury was right and all this could blow over if he just tried being honest for once. “You seem pretty mad at me, too.”

“I don’t want to be.” Mars echoed, his voice catching. “I just- You scared me, Earth. And I know I was in the wrong, keeping stuff from you like that. But, you make it hard to trust you, sometimes.”

Earth fought down the initial feeling of insult and indignation. He wanted honesty, here it goes. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to try anything, not like that first time. I was caught up in my questions and I think Luna jumped to a few too many conclusions. It’s not his fault, I wasn’t talking to him like I promised to. And I wasn’t talking to you, not properly.”

“I’m sorry too, Earth. I-I didn’t mean to hurt you by hiding stuff, and I wish I could tell you everything, but I don’t even know half of most of it.” Mars admitted with a pained expression. “I would only be giving you puzzle pieces, not the whole thing.”

“What if I still want those pieces?” Earth probed, trying to squash his irritation at Mars’ continued secrecy. “Mars, you’re my best friend, and I want to keep being your friend, but this constant secret-keeping isn’t fair. To either of us.”

“I’m sorry.” Mars was crying now, which wasn’t improving Earth’s hopes for some miracle outcome from this. But Mars surprised him by straightening his shoulders with a forceful huff, wiping his eyes to hastily meet Earth’s own. “I want to fix this. You’re my best friend too, and this can’t keep happening."

“So you’ll tell me, then? What you know?” Earth asked hopefully, watching his fellow planet’s eyes for any hint to his thoughts. “I just want some clarity. Anything you know.”

“It’s, um, it’s a lot. And clearly I don’t know some pretty important parts.” Mars tossed a look at the corner where the Sun was still shielding the two un-dead planets from view as they spoke. “What do you want to know?”

“How much did you know? About them and the plan?” Earth asked in a rush, hoping that if he avoided the question that had started this fight, he might actually get an answer. I’ll have to try again later for that one.

“I told you, I didn’t-”

“Yeah, I know you didn’t know that bit. I meant before that, when they were just talking about creating Life.”

“How do you know about that?” Mars frowned, forcing Earth to remember that most sane planets don’t actually get post-mortem flashbacks to their predecessors. Lucky me.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I mean, they both talk about it so much! And while I have the situational awareness of a plank of wood, as Luna likes to remind me, I’m not blind.” Earth tilted his head, trying to turn his slip up into a joke instead. “The PDA was kinda giving it away, man.”

“Ah, yeah, that.” Mars grimaced, shaking himself. “You are actually kind of lucky to have skipped that era of the system. I swear that love-triangle was giving me stress fractures.”

“Triangle?” But Mars didn’t elaborate, just ploughed on.

“They were close, yeah. And really interested in Life, to like, an obsessive degree. Constantly talking about theories and requirements.” Mars rolled his eyes, smiling at the memory. “Proto used to be so distracted during our asteroid dodgeball games, just thinking about her all the time. It was pretty sickening.”

“But they were happy? Why did they do…that, then?” Earth pushed, trying to find some string that might let him unravel the truth. 

“Earth, the system was still really new. And the Sun was very protective of us.” The tone shift from Mars caught Earth’s interest immediately. “Theia and Proto, they had a plan. They knew Life needed a moon, so they asked the Sun if she could become Proto’s moon.”

“What? That’s…that wouldn’t have worked, though? She’s too big, the orbit would never stay stable.” 

“Yeah, and maybe the Sun could have explained that to them, but instead he flipped out and banned them from talking or seeing each other. I think the idea of losing more rocky planets was driving him crazy.”

“Crazier.” Earth muttered, not as surprised by that answer. He knew the Sun had a bad habit of letting his emotions act before his thoughts. It made for quite a difficult environment to feel safe admitting to things, like, for instance, getting most of your Earthlings killed…four times. “So, how’d they go from that to deciding to crash?”

“I don’t know, Earth.” Mars sighed, his frown more of a melancholic mask now. “Proto was a wreck. He couldn’t do anything without thinking of her. I’m sure she was the same. I-I don’t want to consider it, but a crash might have just looked like the better option.”

“No.” Earth rejected firmly. “They spoke about it like they knew Luna and I would be the result. It wasn’t that.”

“Then I don’t know, Earth. I-I told Proto to go to her, and he did.” Mars seemed to curl into himself at the recollection, weighed down by something Earth could not see. “N-next thing I see is- is the collision. I don’t know any more than that.”

“I’m sorry, Mars.” Earth muttered, watching his friend’s pained recollection with a regretful sting in his core. He’d wanted answers, but this felt cruel. Mars opened his mouth in confusion but Earth pushed on. “I’m sorry that happened, and that you guys had to see it. It-it must have been awful.” 

“It’s not your fault, Earth. But, thank you.” Mars sighed out a breath, pulling a new one in and raising his shoulders to face Earth with a soft smile. “I’m sorry we kept this from you, all of it. I’m so glad you’re getting to meet them. You are so alike.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Earth tried to joke, smirking at his friend like the weight of the last few orbits had been cast from their backs. There might still be some bumps ahead, but he was happy enough to enjoy this return to normality. “They’re out-competing me for nerdiness. I need to up my ‘info-dump’ game a bit.”

“Please no.” Mars laughed, stepping forward to place a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t even imagine how many questions they’ll ask you about the dinos. We’re going to be here till the Sun snuffs it.” 

“True! And speaking of the Sun,” Earth cast a look past Mars’ shoulder, “I think he’s done reaming them out.”

The star was making his way back to the seats, followed by the two planets. Earth had been half-expecting to see scorch marks on the two, but they only seemed a bit ruffled, drying tears the only evidence of any upset. Instead, they looked determined, staring at the planets as if daring them to speak up. The Sun himself looked calmer, at least, his own tear-tracks an odd sight for the living planet. What happened? What did they talk about?

“Let’s continue then!” The star injected levity into his voice, sitting quickly down at his seat and turning to face the screen. Jupiter made to open his mouth, but the Sun held a hand up to his face. “Nope! Later! We have watching to do.”

Jupiter scowled at the hand, shaking his head with an exasperated sigh, but backed off from the star. The rest of the room seemed reluctant to try their luck, exchanging nervous and frustrated glances. Earth watched Theia and Proto settle into their bean bag, his core burning with questions and conflictions. I need to talk to them before this ends.

At his side, he felt Luna resettling into the seat. His moon had dashed off to have a quick word with the other moons, but Earth wasn’t curious enough to ask about it. He trusted his moon to tell him anything important. And, right now, he doubted they'd manage to have a conversation about anything but the last few minutes. Earth was tired of talking about it already.

The screen, which had been patiently waiting at a pause, resumed. Earth tried to focus on the knowledge that he only had two more extinctions to relive and not on the restless anxiety roiling in his core.

“The extinction that caps off the Triassic reveals that some 75% of Life is snuffed out, but what on Earth happened?” She asked rhetorically to the screen before continuing. “This mass extinction event is somewhat mysterious, but here’s what we know.”

“Why don’t they know what happened?” Tethys asked, his question quieted by the general stillness of the room, no one terribly happy with the Sun’s ruling that they simply move on from this. 

“Lack of evidence, I expect.” Iapetus said, helping his fellow moon to break the silence stifling the rest of the system. “The last few have had pretty obvious causes, but maybe they can’t find a solid answer for this one?”

“It’ll be the same answer as the last bunch.” Enceladus muttered, “Something will screw up the carbon cycle, probably a volcano, and then everything will die.”

“Not everything.” Tethys pointed out with some relief. “75% is way less than the last three!”

Earth really didn’t feel like correcting or confirming any of this. He knew what caused this one, of course he did. It was the same thing as always. And, same as always, his Earthlings had paid the price. 

“If you visit the USA, Europe, North Africa, or the Amazon, you will find a type of geochemically united volcanic rock that can be dated to an unbelievably precise 201.56 million years ago…” She explained that this is continental flood basalt, formed from lava similarly to the Siberian Traps. This suggested a similar event happened called CAMP. “...over the course of 600,000 years. Fast in geology terms.”

“A-another l-lava l-lake?” Io cried in dismay, frowning at the screen before turning to Ganymede. “This i-is getting a-a b-bit r-ridiculous!”

“It’s definitely not helping.” Ganymede agreed passively, his expression almost bored. At his side, a smaller moon popped her head up.

“Why doesn’t he just not make lava lakes?” Amalthea criticized, staring at the older moons. “If I was a living planet, I wouldn't blow up so much. It might help!”

“Amalthea, that’s really not how it works.” Europa sighed, nudging the moon back.

Yeah, that’s not how it works. Earth was well aware of that, now at least. But, back in those first few crises, he’d not been so sure. A few million years ago, he would’ve tried everything in his power to reduce or subdue, or even just track his volcanic eruptions, convinced that he could have any impact at all on the fate of his Life. However, a handful of mass extinctions and half your crust blowing up tended to remove such determination. 

“But paleontologist Paul Olsen managed to narrow down the timing of the deadliest pulse even further by using the wobble of Earth on its axes…” Gutsick explained that as the Earth’s tilt changed, lakes went through periods of droughts and monsoons, which left marks in the rock layers. “...Olsen was capable of narrowing down the precise layer corroborated across numerous ancient lakes, that the primary and most deadly pulse of the CAMP occurred in and it is indeed in a geologic instant of simply 20,000 years.”

“Sounds a bit slower than the last one, at least?” Mercury tilted his head, voice a touch relieved. “Less explosive.”

“What caused this one? If it wasn’t an explosion?” Phobos asked, probably trying not to sound too disappointed.

“Plate movements, most likely. Pangea was starting to break up.” He grumbled, trying to think back to that time. He’d still been trying to wrap his head around the Permian, and the idea of another catastrophe so soon hadn’t even crossed his mind. It wasn’t until the CO2 had started to choke his atmosphere that he’d even realised the damage his volcanism had done. Again.

After the Permian, it had become a lot harder to ignore the guilt he’d been amassing from the growing list of climate disasters. Those first two had felt embarrassing, sure, but Life had bounced back and he’d tried his best to accept it as just a fact of the Universe. The Permian though, that had felt more like a consequence of his own lack of vigilance. His own lack of control. 

“When mapped out, CAMP flood basalt covers a total of around 4 million square miles, and the majority of this expansion occurred during a single 20,000 year period…” She described the state of this area as vast spills of lava and rising magma, unsurvivable by most life. “...this would include plants.”

“It’s always the plants.” Saturn mumbled to himself. Unfortunately for him, the Sun heard him.

“This isn’t their fault!" The star argued. “The last two times weren’t either! They can’t help being so numerous and important to the climate!”

“I don’t believe Saturn was assigning blame, Sun.” Jupiter corrected, sharing a look with Saturn. “Only that the plants are once again playing a major part in the pattern, even if this time they are only victims of too much CO2.”

“Yes! Because they are the best Earthlings!” The Sun nodded at Jupiter’s words, while the gas giants just turned back to the screen. 

The question of blame really hadn’t crossed Earth’s mind at that time, at least not the idea that it could be placed on any shoulders but his own. The plants had not known what they were doing in the Devonian, and they certainly did not deliberately decay into coal. No, the blame for all that fell on Earth alone, as it had been for all previous extinctions. His newest Earthlings, however, were throwing that into question. 

“As is hopefully well understood by now, when mass volcanism occurs, CO2 is unceremoniously dumped into the atmosphere where it exacerbates global heating. The pattern continues its deadly dance…” She showed a diagram and began to explain that plants use CO2 for respiration. This is done using pores in the leaves, called stoma, which are under intense selection pressures due to the importance of their number on the plant’s adaptations. This changing number can be used to track CO2 in historic atmospheres. 

“Ew, those little holes on the leaves look weird.” Ariel complained, throwing a hand in front of her face to block her view. 

“They breathe through those?” Oberon questioned curiously. “I guess they don’t have mouths, but I never really thought about how they actually did it.”

“Most of my Life doesn’t actually breathe through their mouths, or noses in most cases. Most gills are internal nowadays, but a few species still use external ones. And many amphibians absorb oxygen through their skin instead. Insects have a whole different system going on. And the less said about fungus, the better.” Earth was glad to have a nugget of information he could offer that didn’t include anything embarrassing or uncomfortable. The various methods his Life has developed for this one task was always astounding to look back on.

“Palaeobotanist Jennifer McElwyn notes that pore counts of the leaves at the end Triassic plummet, suggesting a doubling or even tripling of atmospheric carbon in step with the volcanism we see…” Gutsick explained that as this extinction event took place, the fossil record shows less specialist species and more generalists taking over, including a few species of plants.

“So, more CO2, more heating, more issues.” Caelus listed with a sigh. “Does it ever end? How long does it stay stable for?”

“It can stay stable for at least 100 million years on average, as far as I remember.” Luna decided to speak up this time, probably hoping he’d give a briefer expansion than his planet. Or maybe he just wanted to talk and Earth was being self-centred and stupid again. “This extinction was kinda close to the last one, but the next one took 160 million years to end.”

“Yeah, and that one was kind of unpredictable, compared to the last few.” Mars added, throwing Earth a reassuring smile. The living planet really wasn’t looking forward to the KPG extinction, especially with the whole system here to watch. Time to watch my best efforts get unceremoniously obliterated by bad luck. Yay!

“The ocean fared little better than the land. Bivalve diversity is halved and the eolite codadonts at long last fall into extinction…” She showed a few pictures of odd creatures with strange jaw structures. They are often found near oil deposits now. 

“Creepy-looking things.” Earth heard the muttering of two of Saturn’s moons from across the room. 

“Kinda cool they even lasted this long, to be honest.”

“Lucky, more like.”

“...Reef systems once again collapse as anoxic acidic conditions strip the coral of their zooxanthellae and thus their symbiotic relationship. 

“Symbiotic relationship? What does that involve?” Theia’s voice caught Earth off guard, having been avoiding glancing in their direction for a while now. Her eyes were back on him, the odd mix of fascination and love making Earth feel even worse for being so conflicted about them.

“Lots of life forms partner up between species to improve their survival chances. It usually starts as a mutually beneficial relationship, often involving some exchange of shelter for cleaning or defence. Or sometimes it involves reproduction and food. It can be for a wide variety of reasons, but when the two species evolve alongside each other in this way, they tend to become very dependent on each other.”

“So, if one dies out, the other will too?” Theia asked curiously as a follow up.

“Most of the time, yes. Reef-building corals and zooxanthellae are examples of one providing shelter while the other provides food. Without each other, they can’t survive.” Earth finished, trying not to think of the current issue the collapse of this very same relationship was causing in his seas. “The reef-building corals will eject the zooxanthellae if they get stressed, and then they’ll starve if things don’t improve.”

“Sounds like a rather unfortunate reaction.” Venus muttered, his voice slightly raw and cracked, his face still oddly red. Earth really didn’t want to get punched off of his seat like Mercury, so he tried to ignore it. “Throwing the help away at the slightest sign of stress.”

“They aren’t helpers at that point. The stressors cause the zooxanthellae to produce harmful by-products instead of the ones the coral needs. They can also damage the coral. So, the corals reject them to protect themselves.” Earth added with a tone he hoped wasn’t too high-strung. Venus at least didn’t seem annoyed by the extra information. The cloudy planet even looked contemplative.

“As the seas heated, some proposed massive frozen methane stores, much like we see today, were also jostled loose…” She explained that if this is true, no more than 10% would need to be freed in order to disrupt the climate and amplify the catastrophic effects by 10 times over. “...it has additionally been suggested that the massive volcanism would have triggered brief cold shocks, not unlike the volcanic winters we experience today in the event of massive eruptions.”

“Hot and cold. What a fun time to be an Earthling.” Eris droned, her eyes straying from the screen to look over at her fellow dwarf planets. “Is there ever a fun time to be an Earthling? Seems like something is going wrong every few million years.”

“Well, the Earthlings definitely don’t live that long, so it’s probably quite nice to be an Earthling in the in-between times.” Pluto offered. Haumea turned a doubtful eye to him.

“I don’t know, most parts of Earthling life look awful. Fighting for food, shelter, and even water! They never seem to catch a break!” Haumea’s exclamation was punctuated by him waving a hand at the screen. “Not to mention all the weather!”

“True. At least as celestials, we don’t have to deal with any of that.” Charon shivered at the thought.

“Olson has briefly posited that these cold periods would have selected for thermoregulatory structures, perhaps resulting in the feathered dinosaurs that would continue to dominate the Jurassic.” A snow-white feathered dino was shown. 

“Aw!” Saturn smiled at the fluffy dinosaur shown on the screen. “Your Life is much cuter with the feathers, Earth.” 

“Hey! The fur is cute too!” Earth defended, not looking for mammal slander in this system. “We just haven't seen much of them yet, they’re kind of low on the food chain at that time.”

“Of course! I was merely comparing it to the last few beasts, who, I must say, were a bit bald. The newer ones are very pretty!” Saturn apologized in his usual way of ‘not at all a proper apology.’

“Thanks, Saturn.” 

“With the pseudosuchians deposed by this climatic catastrophe, the survivors would have free reign to radiate out into their open niches. The forms they would take and the time they would rule would set the stage for the most famous Mass Extinction Event of all time, the KPG Impact Event.”

“Impact?” Proto’s faint question was ignored in favour of the Sun’s loud voice.

“Ah, FINALLY, one I actually heard about!” The star’s eyes trailed towards Earth and Jupiter, both of whom avoided his gaze.

“Only ‘cause you were actually looking at me.” Earth lowered his voice to a level only his moon would even hear, trying to let a bit of frustration out without getting more shouts directed his way. His first two extinctions had been easy to hide from the star, so easy it was almost an accident he hadn’t found out. Earth had thought about telling him many times, but each one was warned off by some new fear or worry of the star’s reaction. And, by the Permian, he was pretty sure the Sun would not be pleased to hear that his own crust was causing mass death for his little living experiment. 

He’d only really been able to hide it at the time because of Jupiter. The gas planet had tried to convince Earth that the Sun would be understanding, but the younger planet had begged him until he agreed to keep the star distracted. It wasn’t as easy to hide from the other rockies, and Mars had obviously found out pretty quickly, but Earth was still glad he’d hidden it. If the Sun had shouted at him after all that, with the mindset he’d been in, he’d have probably given up trying to host Life then and there. Not to mention the devastation a solar flare would have wrought on his depleted Ozone layer. I can deal with him being angry about it. At least now I know my Life can survive much more than I ever thought before.

“But for the next roughly 160 million years, the world would experience the rule of the most charismatic animals perhaps of all time, the dinosaurs.” 

“Yay!” Proteus cheered, sitting up from his planet’s lap to gaze wide-eyed at the creatures on screen. “Dinosaurs!”

“They lasted a while, at least.” Triton mused, “160 million years is pretty impressive, given how long the last few lasted.”

So long I almost thought I’d fixed whatever went wrong those other times. Earth recalled the naïve hopes of his past-self, who had by the 100 million mark, begun to believe he’d finally found a way to keep Life steady over the long term. And it had been steady, so steady some of his favourite Earthlings had evolved in that time, reaching new heights the living planet had only dreamed of. 

“We know so little about the details of the end Triassic Mass Extinction and yet the one thing we do know is that the Carbon Silicate Cycle was rapidly disrupted yet again…” She explained that this was evidenced in the rocks and fossil records from that time.

“Always that pattern.” Makemake hummed, squinting his eyes in thought. “I wonder if this pattern would be experienced on other living worlds? I mean, I know the Earthlings haven’t found any evidence of any, but they must exist somewhere.”

“I-” Earth moved to speak, but paused at the realization he didn’t really know the answer to that question. Sure, his Carbon Silicate Cycle was just a consequence of his volcanism, and presumably any world with liquid water should be able to sequester it. But, Venus hadn’t been able to, and maybe some other chemical process could take its place. And, if that happened, would it still be messed up as easily as Earth’s? If a sequestration technique was separated from the water cycle, would that be better or worse? Too much sequestration was as bad as too little. Maybe his way was the only balance, as precarious as it was. “I-I have no idea. That’s entirely too complicated for me, sorry.”

“Ah, that’s okay! I was merely proposing a hypothetical, an interesting thought experiment, if you will.” Makemake smiled assuringly at the living world, but Earth was too distracted to offer one back. Experiment. I’m really starting to hate that word.

“Of course, the very next Mass Extinction, the KPG, involves a bolide impact. A big meteor slapping into the Earth and annihilating the dinosaurs all on its own without the help of a Carbon Silicate Cycle disruption.” Her voice held a hint of sarcasm and she stared hard at the camera. “Right?”

“Well, I can’t imagine such an event would have no effect on the cycle.” Planet X muttered from the back, his head still turned away from the screen itself. 

“A meteor hit you? How?” Theia’s question caught Earth’s ear and he turned to see the two newcomers looking at him with the all-too familiar concern. Oh yeah, they don’t know about that. Unlike the rest of this system.

“Um, well, we all get hit by a lot of meteors? It’s pretty common.” Earth really wasn’t sure how to explain this. And he really didn’t feel like throwing Jupiter under the bus, as the humans would say. “That one was a lot bigger, though. And quite fast.”

“Where did it come from? Most big ones aren’t in the inner system, are they?” Proto looked to Mars, who shrugged as casually as he could manage. “I thought a moon would protect against most meteors? Did Luna not see it?”

“Hey! It wasn’t Luna’s fault.” Earth snapped, not interested in hearing anything about this from the two who had dipped out and left him and Luna with all this. Earth reached one arm out to curl around his moon, feeling the tension already stiffening his shoulders, and tried to offer some comfort. Though he’d never gotten the full story from his moon, he knew enough to be certain his moon hadn’t missed the asteroid through some laps of judgment or cowardice, and the sheer upset it caused Luna had been proof enough for Earth. He knew his moon would not have let that happen if there had been any way to stop it.

“I-I wasn’t implying it was. I apologise, Luna." Proto corrected, his eyes seeking the moon at Earth’s side. The living planet turned to his moon as well, ready to keep arguing if Luna didn’t like that apology. Lucky for Proto, Luna raised his head and gave his planet a nod before turning to the predecessor, his form relaxing slightly under Earth’s arm.

“It’s alright. It’s a fair question. The whole thing was kind of a mess, wasn’t it?” Luna seemed to be trying to inject some humour into this, likely to keep things relatively calm around here. Earth had to agree with this angle, as he really wasn’t in the mood for more shouting from the Sun or apologies from Jupiter. 

“The extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs represents perhaps the most well-known extinction of all time, due to the charisma of both the annihilated animals and the space rock that killed them.” Images of dinosaurs walking past the screen drew the attention of the room. 

“The rock had charisma? Interesting way to describe an asteroid.” Ganymede mumbled to his fellow moons, eyeing the beasts on screen. “The Earthlings definitely look charismatic, though. Much cooler than the current lot.”

“I don’t know. A lot of the current Earthlings are really cool as well. The largest ones only appeared after the dinosaurs had already left.” Titan pointed out. Earth was glad the moon had remembered their chats over the last few orbits, where Luna and Earth would answer any questions he had about Life, and sometimes just hang out. It was nice to make friends outside of the inner system, even if their relationship had started a little destructively. 

“After all, is there anything more metal than a gigantic exterrestrial rock ending the 200 million year reign of some of the biggest and most successful animals the world has ever seen, particularly since we as humans have not been around for even a 200th of that time period.” 

“They haven’t?” Mercury asked with a bemused tone. “Feels like they’ve been around for ages, honestly.”

“Nope, only a few hundreds of years ago, 3 million at most depending on how you count ‘human’.” Earth rattled off, happy enough to avoid dwelling on the huge success the dinosaurs had objectively been. Only to be undone by a stupid asteroid.

More types of the great beasts crossed the screen, from land to water. “But the story of this mass extinction is far more complicated than a single impact event. Perhaps it had to be in order to reset a global ecologic order 160 million years running.”

I’d really have preferred if it didn’t. Earth was well aware of the fact his current Earthlings would not have evolved if not for the loss of the dinosaurs, but that didn’t change the way he missed them. He wanted to know what they could have been, eventually. Even if it was never their destiny to evolve intelligence, that was not the be-all-end-all of evolution’s trick box. He loved the mammals and the current reign they held but he would always wonder, just as he did for the victims of the Triassic, Permian, Devonian, and Ordovician.  

“More than the impact? What does she mean?” Caelus asked, but Earth really didn’t feel like explaining things Gutsick was most likely going to go over anyway. If the ice giant couldn’t work out why throwing a massive rock at a planet with shifty tectonics was a bad idea, he wasn’t about to break it down for him. 

“But before we can get into their final curtain call, we must first appreciate the actors on the stage…” Gutsick proclaimed a series of dinosaurs, each more fascinating to look at than the last. Huge herbivores towering into the sky, where massive pterosaurs flew above them. Lizards like Mosasaurs in the oceans and dinosaurs like tyrannosaurus ruling the land. And smaller species as well, finding niches below the footsteps of the giants. She listed a few more herbivore species of note, as well as the iconic raptors that scuttled about. 

“WOW! They look so cool! The best was the one with the big teeth!” Deimos exclaimed, and was quickly shoved by his brother.

“No! That water one was the best! It was HUGE!” Phobos countered, grinning triumphantly at Mars. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I don’t know…” Mars paused with a sly smirk, his eyes trailing to Earth far too meaningfully. “Why don’t you ask Earth? He would know the ‘best’ one!”

“Earth!” The two little moons bounded over, forcing Earth to sit up quickly and avoid their attempts to clamber up his seat. Luna huffed in annoyance at his side. “Who's the BEST dino? It’s the big-teeth one, isn’t it?”

“Um, well, that’s kinda a difficult question. Everyone has a different favourite.” Earth looked over at Mars with a glare, then pleasingly at Luna. “Like, for example, Luna’s favourite is…?”

“Don’t get me involved in this.” Luna clearly wasn’t in the mood to save his planet. Ugh, why.

“Nevermind! Um…” Earth turned to see if anyone else would help. “I can’t really pick a favourite, can I? That wouldn’t be fair?”

“Why not?” Deimos questioned, staring Earth dead in the eye. Shit.

“All my Earthlings are my favourites? They’d get jealous, overwise.” Earth settled on, trying not to mention that only one of their own picks had actually been a dinosaur, and even more reluctant to reveal his favourite was probably the ‘big-teeth one’, if he had to pick. I can’t give that gremlin such power.

“I doubt that, considering they’re not really around to complain.” Venus’ unhelpful comment earned him a roasting glare from Earth, who was really starting to get tired of Mars’ pebbles.

“If we need a tie-breaker, I think my favourite is the sea one as well, Phobos.” Proto decided to add, for reasons Earth could not place. At least his words drew the attention from the living world and instead started a whole new argument for Proto to deal with. Well, if he wants to deal with them, I ain’t complaining. 

Oddly, Proto and Theia actually seemed to be enjoying their time with the little moons, talking to them with smiles as the two energetic moons jumped all over their bean bag. Mars was watching too, his eyes shining. Earth tried not to feel anything about it.

“...Life was good in the Mesozoic. The climate is considered to be quite habitable and mild, allowing the dinosaurs to survive, thrive, and diversity across the planet along with small animals, arthropods, and a litany of sealife.” 

“How’d it stay so mild for so long?” Oberon questioned, his voice barely catching Earth’s attention from half a room away. 

“Luck? Maybe?” Miranda offered. “The last few extinctions seemed like bad luck, and I suppose this one is as well. They just got a long break.”

“Well, I’m glad they did! These Earthlings look way cooler than the last bunch!” Ariel crowed, “Way bigger too! Did you see that one with the neck? Wild!”

“I liked the flying one.” Oberon smiled, his hands fiddling with one of Caelus’ mis-placed pencils. “I want to try drawing one, maybe?”

“You do?” Caelus peered at his moon in surprise, then clumsily tore a page from his notepad. “Here. It’s not the best paper, but it’s decent enough for sketches.”

“Thank you, Caelus!” 

The screen changed to dark rocks, floating in space. “But somewhere in the depths of space, and indeed under the very feet of some of these animals, trouble was brewing. Because while the largest asteroid in the past half-billion years slamming into the crust of the Earth is bad, it’s worse when combined with Continental Volcanism! Yes, again.”

“Geez, it really is always the volcanos, isn’t it?” Luna squirmed uncomfortably beside him, drawing his eyes down to the grey moon. “Kinda mad how much Life depends on it but also suffers from it.”

“Yeah.” Earth agreed absentmindedly, his gaze turning surreptitiously to the planets they came from. “Seems to be some rule of Life. Every good thing has to have a bad thing.”

“I don’t think that’s necessarily true, Earth.” Luna sighed, following his planet’s eyes. “Bad stuff doesn’t have to happen for good stuff, and it would be kind of messed up if it did. Things just…happen.”

“Maybe. Or sometimes, things happen deliberately and we’re left with the mess.” Earth ground out, his voice lowered. Luna shot him a look, and Earth realised he was being a bit too unfair about this. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. We’re not a mess. I’m just feeling a bit conflicted about the whole thing.”

Earth expected some passive response, maybe a shrug or nod of agreement. Luna was hard to get talking sometimes, especially about important things. Not that Earth was a lot better. What a pair we make.

“Me too.” Luna whispered, and Earth was surprised to see his moon’s face scrunch up and tears prick at the corners of his eyes. Earth opened his mouth to speak, but Luna beat him to it. “I mean, it explains a lot. But, at the same time, I’m still really confused. Why did they do it?”

“I don’t know.” Earth breathed, his core swirling with all the conflicted thoughts he’d been having. “It’s hard to picture two planets choosing to do something so reckless. And for what? Life? An experiment?"

“I don’t think we’re an experiment, Earth.” Luna muttered, shuffling closer to his planet. “At least, they don’t seem to see us as one. They seem really nice, actually. Why do they make you uncomfortable?”

“T-they don’t.” Earth tried to deny, but his moon’s glare quickly convinced him this was a useless route to go down. “I-I don’t know…it’s just really weird to meet two planets that seem to know so much about you, yet nothing at all. And we didn’t know anything about them before this. It’s all been a bit sudden.”

“I suppose I can see that angle to it, but, Earth, I really don’t think we should waste this opportunity to talk to them.” Luna added with a look past his planet to the seat beside them. “I want to know why they did it. What reasons did they have?”

“Mars says the Sun was keeping them apart.” Earth admitted softly, pulling his moon closer in a clumsy attempt to comfort Luna, and himself. “He thinks that maybe it was- that it was to get away from that. A-a last resort kinda thing.”

“I-I don’t-” Luna began to protest, but Earth interpreted.

“Yeah, I don’t think he’s right either, but our only option to know the truth will be to ask them, like you said. We need to catch them before this ‘Archer’ guy takes them away.” Earth whispered, hoping his moon would agree. Luna didn’t disappoint, nodding enthusiastically back to the living world.

“We consider the role of the asteroid in the KPG extinction to be common knowledge today, but its role in the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs has not always been so obvious…” Gutsick revealed that before a meteorite was proposed as the cause, many humans had suggested other causes, such as parasites, disease, mammals eating eggs, psychosis, tiny brains, and hormonal imbalances. These ideas were also joined by weirder ideas, like space AIDS and constipation.

“I-I’m not even going to ask.” The Sun muttered, shaking his head in disappointment. “Half the words this Earthling says are nonsense.”

“Not really, but I’m not going to explain every single one either.” Earth grumbled, amused to hear some of the older theories the humans had come up with. Sure, it had been a bit frustrating for something so memorable in his past to be treated like a mystery, but some of the ideas had been quite funny. “I don’t think you want me to explain what constipation is.”

“Not at all! But thank you for the offer, Earth.” The Sun smiled brightly, his intense gaze daring Earth to contradict him. Earth, however, was not in the mood to even mildly irritate the Sun, feeling a little bit like he’d be trying his luck. He hadn’t forgotten the star’s promise of a talk, and he was sure one was waiting for him back in orbit.

“The first clue that an asteroid was at least partly to blame, came not from the asteroid or the crater it left, but from a little element known as iridium.” She explained that iridium is rare on Earth, but very common on most asteroids. Using this information, three humans were able to independently deduce that if an asteroid was to blame, then small traces of iridium should be present in the rocks from that time. This is caused by the common occurrence of asteroids getting vaporized after impact, left to scatter the world’s surface. 

“The asteroid was vaporised ?” Nereid gasped in amazement, turning to her planet with an excited tone. “Planets can do that? Why don’t you vaporise asteroids?”

“Ah, I-I’m sure I do, occasionally, Nereid.” Neptune awkwardly explained. “It’s not really an activity, though. More of a side-effect of a planet’s mass.”

“Oh. Is that why we can’t vaporise anything? ‘Cause we’re too small?” Nereid’s voice dropped in disappointment, her head dipping in a surprisingly convincing act of upset. Earth almost felt a bit bad for Neptune having to deal with the little moon and her siblings. “That’s not fair!”

“Nereid.” Triton’s hard voice held a warning in it, but Nereid was only looking at her planet. Neptune gulped.

“Don’t be silly! I’m sure we can find an asteroid small enough to vaporise. Um, maybe we can break up a larger one?” Neptune scrambled, turning his tilted head to Triton, who rolled his eyes and sighed. “We’ll work it out. I’m sure you can have a go!”

“Yay!”

Earth tried to exchange a look with Luna, but his moon’s gaze was on the seat next to them. Turning, the living planet saw why. Theia and Proto were laughing softly to each other, watching the little moons terrorize their planet. They look so happy together. I can’t understand why they threw all that away, even if the Sun was getting in the way. Why did they believe Life would be worth it? 

“The Alvarez duo beat Smit to the punch and sent their samples off to be tested, finding that these samples of the last Cretaceous layer contained iridium level 100 times the trace levels expected. Whatever had hit the Earth was big, chocked full of iridium, and was likely responsible for at least in part for one of the biggest mass extinctions events of all time…” Gutsick explained that this was suggested by the Alvarez due, but it was not immediately accepted by the scientific community, mainly due to a lack of crater. 

“How else did they want to explain a fine layer of iridium all over their planet, then?” Venus sneered, his voice still gravelly and stilted. “What else could even cause that, other than a vaporised asteroid?”

“I’m not sure, Venus.” Jupiter agreed, but added in a thoughtful tone. “However, it is still good practice for them to seek out more evidence before settling on one theory. A crater would be invaluable proof.” 

“This crater was actually unwittingly discovered 30 years earlier…” She revealed that oil drillers had accidentally drawn up melted rock while working, not aware of what they had stumbled upon. It was still ignored after being identified as a crater, not until a decade later. “...at long last Chicxulub Crater was pinned for the demise at the end of the Mesozoic.”

“The fact that they can actually find the crater is pretty amazing.” Pluto put in, staring at the diagram on screen. “It hit so long ago, and I’m sure tons of stuff is covering it now, but they still found it. They really are all over you, aren’t they?”

“Ha, yeah.” Earth tried to offer a grin or something cool back, but his voice trailed off and betrayed him. Swinging his head back to the front, he tried to ignore the looks he was getting, just hoping he wasn’t going to see anything too graphic. I can do this. I don’t have to keep averting my gaze.

“The impactor was travelling fast, perhaps 40 kilometres a second and left the crater 177 kilometers wide. This means that a space rock larger than Mount Everest hit the Earth going 20 times faster than the speed of a bullet and releasing one 500 million megatons worth of energy.”

“Ah, well, I can see why it was vaporized, then.” Makemake awkwardly mused, the quiet of the room doing nothing to hide his words. “Massive energy transfer. I can’t imagine that was pleasant to feel."

“Yah think?” Eris muttered at his side, side-eyeing the rest of the room, her gaze resting on Earth. “I reckon the Earthlings got the worst of it, knowing how small they are.”

Earth really did not want to dwell on that aspect, but, considering the last few descriptions of the disasters, that’s exactly what Gutsick was going to do. A nice little damage report for his most recent, and maybe most abrupt and unpredictable, mass extinction event. This can’t get any more humiliating. 

“If you were a Central American critter, you may have looked up to see a strange object in the sky, and then less than a second later, you would have been vaporized. If you were an Alabama native, you would bear witness to a blinding light before you and your world were roasted alive.” Bright light filled the screen.

No one seemed terribly inspired to speak up, the room of celestials simply watching the images and re-created videos of various Earthlings becoming engulfed in the explosion. The urge to turn away from the screen was growing stronger.

“At least it was fast?” The quiet murmur echoed from somewhere to Earth’s right, but he wasn’t interested in following the sound. It hardly mattered how fast it was for those few, when the rest would be dying far more drawn out deaths. 

“Further away, you would escape the immediate fireball, but would instead experience a peppering of ejecta, whose global impact would heat the world to the temperature of a broiling oven for around 20 minutes…” She explained that the explosion would have deafened animals for miles around, worse than the Krakatoa eruption. 

“They must have been so confused.” Proteus’ soft words travelled through the darkened room, the bright lights of the explosion fading slightly. 

“Yeah. One moment they're plodding about, then the next they're blasted by an explosion.” Larissa agreed, her form pressed against her planet. “They didn’t see it coming.”

“Were they aware enough? To understand what was happening?” Triton asked the living world, forcing Earth to break his staring contest with the screen. 

“I-I don’t know. They likely didn’t have the pattern recognition skills to understand that the bright dot they saw had hit them. They wouldn’t have known why.” Earth paused for a breath. “W-what they did know, was that everything suddenly hurt. The ones that died instantly knew very little, but the ones who felt it for a few seconds before were definitely scared. They knew they were dying, at the very least.”

“Groaning under the conditions they could never impose on one another, the tectonic plates would have broken the Richter scale, generating magnitude 12 earthquakes at the site and magnitude 9 earthquakes everywhere else…”

“They have a scale for earthquakes?” Caelus muttered in bemusement. “How often are they getting earthquakes?”

“Almost constantly. Like I said, shifty plates.” Earth shrugged, trying not to picture the ones from that hit. A full-planet earthquake was not something he was looking to experience ever again. “They use a logarithmic scale, so each number releases roughly 30 times the energy of the one below. Most are not at that scale, though. Most are only 1 or 2, while they usually get one or two bigger ones a year, nearer 5 or 6. The largest they’ve ever recorded is 9.5, and that was an outlier.”

“Do these cause problems for the Earthlings?” Jupiter asked curiously, his voice surprisingly calm despite the guilt swallowing his eyes. “I can’t imagine all the shaking is fun.”

“No, it’s not. They often have to deal with buildings, trees, and even landslides falling from earthquakes. Not to mention the tsunamis.” Earth huffed. “But they’ve gotten a bit better at building stuff that stays up, and most animals instinctively know to get to high ground if one is coming. It’s one of the non-biological patterns Gutsick mentioned at the start.” 

“I suppose they have to adapt to such things, if they happen so often.” Saturn frowned at the idea, sharing a glance with Jupiter, his hands twisted together as he turned back to the screen.

 She revealed that these earthquakes would in turn cause massive tsunamis, 330 feet tall. “...this is actually less extreme than it could have been had the asteroid hit the deep ocean rather than the shallow seas. In the deep water, the tsunamis would have reached nearly three miles high.”

“...um, good thing it didn’t hit the deep ocean, then?” Neptune tried, his voice receiving no reply from the surrounding system. Caelus moved as if to speak, only to fall just as silent as the room, leaving the blue ice giant’s words to fade.

At his side, Luna was pressing harder against him, and Earth had to admit the reminder of his moon’s presence was comforting. As he slowly increased his own hold around the moon’s shoulders, he felt the tell-tale shaking of an upset Luna. His core clenched. The death of his dinosaurs had hit both of them hard, harder than previous ones despite the relative loss of Life. Maybe, as Gutsick had said, it was because of the charisma of the beasts, the sheer variety and size of them. Or, maybe, it had felt far more like a punch in the core from the Universe; a harsh reminder that no matter how perfect you get it, Life will always end.

“In the immediate hours that followed, the Earth would shudder under its own quaking crust, triggering submarine landslides as the atmosphere baked the surface, potentially triggering mass wildfires.” Fires raged across the screen, forcing Earth to look away.

Earth didn’t want to see anymore of this. He liked to think he’d had a pretty good tolerance of this video so far, given the topic being his greatest fuck-ups combined with the mildly traumatising visuals. He was reaching the end of his rope, if he even had any more rope left at all. He wasn’t ready to hear about every subsequent thing that went wrong for Life in the aftermath of the asteroid. 

“E-Earth, I am immensely sorry for-” 

“It’s fine, Jupiter! I get it, you don’t have to keep apologising every time this shit gets mentioned.” Earth hissed, his wavering patience fraying and threatening to snap entirely. The interrupted planet just dipped his head at Earth’s words, the expression on his face triggering a bubble of shame to rise from Earth’s mantle. That was mean. I need to apologize. 

“J-Jupiter, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t snap at you like that. I-” Earth trailed off, his core struggling to find words to explain without involuntarily making things worse. He knew Jupiter felt guilty, even more so after that documentary from before had pinned his gravity as the likely cause, but hearing an apology from the gas giant every time it resurfaced was beginning to feel like another asteroid hit. Another person he’d have to tiptoe around the topic with, lest they get upset by it. And he knew it was hypocritical of him, given the way he tended to get whenever the dinosaurs were mentioned, but he still hoped to one day be able to talk about them more openly. That probably wouldn’t happen if Jupiter keeps apologising and Luna keeps staring at the floor like that. Maybe I should talk to them about it, properly. Clear the air a bit better than I have been. Stars’ knows I’ve been terrible about this for millennia now. 

“It’s alright, Earth. I understand.” Jupiter’s eyes were searching for his own, so Earth turned his head up to meet them. The concern and care in the largest planet’s eyes only made Earth’s core twist harder. There goes my goal of not worrying the rest of my friends. Ah, who am I kidding, that goal blew up with the Permian. This is going great.

Turning back to the screen, Earth caught sight of his predecessors out of the corner of his eye, both of them engaged in a whispered conversation. Their eyes darted to both him and Jupiter, the confusion clear on their faces. I suppose it must be weird, stuck in a room where everyone knows everything about each other and you know next to nothing. I’m kind of surprised they don’t ask more questions.

“But the subsequent cooldown may have caused more harm than good. The asteroid hit the sulphate-rich carbonate deposits of the ancient Yucatan, which make great sunblockers, leaving the Earth dim and cold for the following months…” She explained that this would have starved the ocean and land plants of sunlight, leading to a chain reaction of ecosystem collapse. Anything that ate plant life would starve, and soon the predators that relied on them for food would die in turn. 

“Ecosystem collapse? Plants are that important?” Hyperion tilted his head to the screen at the sight of a planet blanketed by clouds of dust. 

“Yes, of course they are!” The Sun exclaimed, “Where else are they going to get their all-important energy from? None of those other Earthlings know how to use my wonderful radiation!”

“Doesn’t the Earth still have some internal heat? Why can’t they use that?” Enceladus brought up. “They used it at the start, didn’t they?”

“They can, and some bacteria still do, but multicellular organisms require too much energy to be powered by something like chemosynthesis.” Earth threw in, trying to distract himself from the screen by pondering the question. “Also, nothing on the land was adapted for using that kind of energy. The whole ecosystem would collapse either way.”

“Why didn’t it, then? If the plants couldn’t do their thing? Clearly some survived.” Mimas asked curiously, his single eye fixed on the living planet. 

“The blackout may have killed a good proportion of the plants, but not all of them.” Earth explained, “For one thing, plant seeds are incredibly resistant and can stay dormant for years if needed. And some plants were better equipped for harsh and sudden cold, mostly polyploids, so they were able to diversify afterwards and quickly spread out again. The impact winter definitely caused a loss of diversity, but they still survived, just with new dominant species."

“Life is resilient, as you said.” Iapetus nodded, his interested gaze almost tempting Earth to keep rambling about plants and how they approach diversification differently from animals. Shh! I’m sure Luna will tolerate it later, but the whole room is definitely getting tired of this.

“This may not have been the end for the non-avian dinosaurs, were it not for the fact that the asteroid had triggered the Pattern.”

“Again? This pattern really is deadly, isn’t it!” Deimos grinned at his attempt at a joke, but not even Phobos tried to join him. The little moon frowned.

“It’s going to kill that cool water one.” Phobos complained, huffing out a breath of frustration. “Every time we pick a favourite animal, it dies!”

“Well, the title did warn you.” Venus’ sneer held no real weight to it, the cloudy planet seemingly just talking for an excuse to turn away from the screen. Earth couldn’t help a slight feeling of surprise that Venus appeared so affected by this whole thing. Sure, he’d reacted weirdly to Theia and Proto, but Earth thought he was just being awkward. Nothing about his attitude had improved or even gone back to the ‘Venus-usual’ of snarky quips. I hope he’s okay, after all of this. We may not be super great friends, but I don’t think I’d want to see anyone, even Venus, look that miserable.

“Those earthquakes had stirred up the subcontinent of India, triggering volcanism that would rival the Siberian Traps of the Permian…” Another lake of lava would form, covering a large area of land in magma, and subsequently, releasing gases. One thing leads to another, and the atmosphere is once again thickened and warm and the seas are acidified. “…The second pulse of the KPG was the double tap for the dinos and unfortunately nearly all of the large ocean fauna.”

“All of these extinctions have been so driven by bad luck. One thing leading into another disaster.” Mercury mused, turning a curious eye to Earth. “Is that why these five are the ‘big’ ones? ‘Cause so much went wrong so fast?”

“Yeah, basically.” Earth sighed, glad that Gutsick seemed to be wrapping up the explanation of the KPG extinction. He did wonder what she would talk about next, given the ‘punch-line’ she’d been hinting at for a while. “There’s been other extinction events, but none as massive as those five. The asteroid alone likely would not have caused so much death, had it not triggered the Deccan Traps.”

“Damn, Earth, how many explosive bits of crust do you have? One already seemed like too many.” Pluto shuffled uncomfortably in his seat at the idea of more detonations. 

“Um…hopefully not a lot? Most of the coal was made during a very short period of time, so there shouldn’t be too much left, at least not all in one area like that.” Earth tried not to think too much about the potential bombs scattered around his crust, waiting for a bad turn of events to knock him out again. Ah, hosting Life is so much fun.

“Who or what could survive these conditions, leaving them to dominate the Cenozoic?” Gutsick asked the camera. “It was the burrowers who inherited the Earth!”

“Again with the inheritance.” Luna tried to tease, his voice a bit too croaky to sell it, and he trailed off with an awkward glance at Earth. “I guess we’re getting to the humans now?”

“I expect so.” Earth hummed, though he was sure it would not be immediate. Many more Earthlings had come and gone before the humans had risen from the mammal line, and he was looking forward to seeing a few again. 

“Didn’t those last survivors, from the Permian, also escape it by burrowing?” Mars asked, “At least, I think that was one of the theories?”

“Yeah, burrowing is a surprisingly good survival strategy for these things.” Earth smiled, remembering a few of his more recent burrowing species. “There’s burrowing animals in all kinds of lines. Spiders, birds, fish, wasps, so many mammals, and even a few marsupials!"

“Burrowing mammals managed to avoid the instant broiling and deluge of rock and ash that followed and their primary food source, burrowing insects, survived with them…” She revealed that a lineage of small burrowing, feathered dino also survived, leading to all future birds.

“Aw! They look so soft! Like tiny dinosaurs.” Ariel grinned at the small survivors, her enthusiasm infecting the moons around her. 

“I like the furry one. That tail was so long!” Oberon pointed out, then asked, “Why can’t we have tails? If the other mammals have them, why don't the humans?”

“They probably lost them.” Miranda muttered, likely sarcastically, but close enough to the truth that Earth felt no real need to interrupt with his usual information dumps. The other Caeluian moons at least seemed to find the idea funny.

“Fur and feathers emerge from their dens to witness the fallen world devoid of giants. But these animals, along with the deciduous trees who outlasted the evergreen, would explode in diversity and come to dominate the planet…” She explained how this was a second chance for the mammals, a chance to rise up after the Permian. “...the Cenozoic was their domain.”

“Damn, a comeback story.” Quaoar raised an eyebrow at the screen. “Fallen from grace only to play the long game and beat the dinosaurs. With the help of an asteroid, I suppose.”

“It certainly makes for an engaging tale!” Makemake agreed with enthusiasm. “Very impressive to have kept a lineage going for so long, in the face of such adversity.”

“I guess being small and fluffy is the winning strategy.” Haumea pulled his knees up to his chest to rest his chin on. “What are we going to see now? Wasn’t that the last of the five?”

“Hm, I’m not sure.” Pluto frowned at the question. “Maybe she just wants to introduce the mammals a bit more?”

“The Cenozoic was our domain.” She spread her hands as she spoke purposefully to the audience. “We rank among the mammals, and the class Mammalia is classified by some very fascinating characteristics that make us some of the most interesting animals to ever walk the Earth.”

“Very self-confident, aren’t they?” Planet X’s deep voice rumbled, his eyes watching the screen under his lowered brows. “I liked the sound of those crocodiles from before more, personally.”

“I liked it when you were being quiet, personally.” Venus scowled, but received no expected response from the haughty ice giant, causing the cloudy planet to look over in mild confusion. 

X had merely turned away again, his form stiff and tense. Earth caught Saturn watching the exchange with a worried frown, his eyes resting on the disengaged ice giant. 

“Among other things…”She listed a few adaptations, such as three inner ear bones, fur, being endothermic, and producing milk. “Most mammals today fall into three large orders, Rodentia, the rodents. Chiroptera, the bats. And the third largest is primates, that’s our order.”

“OK, the first two were cute, but that last one just looks like a very hairy human." Europa criticized, eyeing the chimps on the screen warily.

“Probably because they’re related?” Callisto muttered with a sarcastic air, turning a deadpan gaze to her fellow moon. “It would be weirder if they didn’t look like them.”

“OK, but why lose the fur?” Europa rolled her eyes at the speckled moon. “I thought fur was useful?” 

“Maybe they stopped needing it?” Ganymede added, his gaze tightly fixed onto the screen with a thoughtful expression. “None of the animals we’ve seen are wearing those sheets of fabric, only the humans. Maybe they just replaced their fur?”

“What, and left the bit on top of their heads?” Europa frowned disbelievingly. “Not a choice I would have made, personally.”

“But there are many groups of highly diverse mammals…” She showed a few on screen, artiodactyls such as sable antelope, diprotodontia like koalas, lagomorphs like rabbits, and so on and so on. “...you know all of these guys, but what about the mammals of a bygone age?”

“Half those animals looked like the same body-plan dressed in a different skin.” Caelus pointed out. “Narrow face, hunched little body, and tiny feet with a tail.”

“It’s very efficient, clearly.” Jupiter mused, turning a smile to the living planet. “Those Earthlings are all very lovely-looking, Earth.”

“Thanks!” Earth tried not to dismiss the words as some attempt from Jupiter to improve his mood or something. He wanted to see the complement as honest, even if his core was trying to twist Jupiter’s intentions into something else. 

“Some very strange mammals once shared the world with our ancestors and some went extinct by our lineage’s hands…” More animals were shown, ones Earth had not thought of for a while now. The huge pigs of Mongolia. The Kalikithiers, one of the odder radiations of that time, massive herbivores that so recently walked his surface. More and more were whizzing past the screen. 

“The tiny humans made some of these creatures extinct ?” Mars muttered in disbelief, eyeing the massive tusks of the mammoths shown on the screen. “They’re huge!”

“Yeah, and those bony protrusions of theirs look like they’d hurt.” Mercury agreed with the red planet. “The humans are only a few metres tall, aren’t they?”

“Yes.” Earth answered, trying to find a way to convey the fact that, despite their size, humans were by far one of his deadliest species. Their weapon was just a little different from the others. “They used their intelligence. And tool-making abilities. Anything can be taken down with the right plan, I guess.”

“In the heart of east Africa, nearly 2.8 million years ago, an ape was learning.” Images of older hominid species appeared on the screen. “It walked on two feet, just as its ancestors had two, three, four million years before it. But this ape could manipulate its environment using tools…” She explained that while this had evolved before, these apes took it further. Later on, another ape began to use fire for cooking and protection, living in groups and traveling beyond Africa. “...where it hunted and ate just about anything it could.”

“This is making the humans seem kind of scary.” Proteus shuffled uncomfortably, his mumbled words igniting a hesitant spread of nods from the rest of the room. Earth really wasn’t liking where Gutsick was leading this, his previous worries about her occasional hints rising into his mind anew. 

“Is the tool-use more important than the intelligence, then? Or the other way around?” Theia spoke up with her usual unexpected questions, her eyes trailing over the odd bodies of the apes on the screen.

“I’m not sure one is more important than the other. Other lineages have one or the other, and are nowhere near sapiens levels of dominance.” Earth let a bit of pride bleed into his words. Despite everything, he was still endlessly impressed by the humans and their rise, even if it had soured a bit. “It’s probably a combination of the two, along with social living. Many species fail to fully utilize intellect and tool-use because they live alone and can’t pass the knowledge on.”

“Oh, that’s fascinating! So, it was a good mix of very specific traits? I suppose that does bring up the question of if it can happen again? Another animal, maybe in the future, getting those traits too?” Theia seemed to be half talking to him, half talking to herself. “I have no idea what selection pressures might have even caused such a mix in the first place, so maybe the conditions have to be very specific?”

“I-I have no idea.” Earth struggled to follow which question she was even asking, but the line of questioning definitely sounded familiar. He’d also often, much to Luna’s dismay, tried to backtrack and work out exactly why those apes in particular had gotten so strange. Strange enough to learn the tricks of fire and rock, able to survive in places they did not necessarily evolve for. It had been crazy to watch it happen in real time.

“This ape diversified inside and outside of the African continent into a myriad of other tool-using apes. Eventually, around 70 thousand years ago, one of its descendants would leave Africa again.”

“Wait, how many types of humans are there?” Caelus frowned in confusion. “I thought we were just talking about the type she is?” 

“There’s only one species on my surface at the moment, Homo sapiens, but others did live before.” Earth explained, trying to avoid the topic of why exactly only one remained. “They were related, but not the same species. Modern Earthlings probably would not refer to them as humans.”

“I suppose it was like those other radiations, where a bunch of similar species began to spread, only for one or two to remain in the present day.” Titania brought up with a thoughtful frown. “Though, that seemed to usually happen after a mass extinction.” 

“This ape, Homo sapiens, was different. Where Homo sapiens went, death followed…” 

“OK, definitely trying to make humans seem very scary, then.” Titan turned a surprised eye to the living planet. “I thought the humans were nice? Or at least, Astrodude seemed nice.”

“Astrodude is nice.” Earth corrected, but wasn’t sure what else he could say to counteract Gutsick’s words. Trying to deny it would certainly get him some funny looks, especially if she proceeded to elaborate on her words. Guess I’ll just sit here awkwardly. I can defend the humans from a lot, but straight up lying is probably not the move here.  

She began to list various continents, from Australia to Europe to Asia, and showed a few of the many megafauna that fell into extinction in the wake of these new hominids. She even showed the other walking ape species, who had already lived on this land for hundreds of years, and revealed that they too were eradicated. “...existing today in our stories and in our DNA.”

“They killed their own relatives! Why?” Saturn gasped in shock, his hands raising to his chest and hovering there, glancing incredulously at Jupiter.

“They did other stuff too, from the sounds of it.” Jupiter’s lowered tone of dismay was likely not intended to reach anyone but Saturn. Earth was momentarily worried he’d have to explain the gas giant’s comment to the whole room. Please no, haven’t I suffered enough?

“Yeah, like kill all those pretty animals!” Ariel, in a stroke of luck, didn’t seem to have understood Jupiter’s implication and was instead distracting the room with her voice. Earth had never been so relieved to hear the talkative moon. “Did you see that massive long-legged thing with those mad bones on its head? Why’d they kill such a cool thing!”

“I mean, moose still exist, and they're not the same thing but they look pretty similar.” Luna offered, glancing at Earth before adding. “I’m sure Earth can show you one later.”

While Earth tried to work out what part of his expression had led Luna to believe that was something he’d agree to, Ariel was already excitedly trying to convince Umbriel and Miranda to come along for this chance to see a ‘bone-head’. The living planet just added it to the list.

“In the Americas, where more proboscideans lived alongside American cheetahs and lions, humans arrived some 12 thousand years ago…” Gutsick listed another lineup of megafauna that disappeared off the fossil record soon after, wiped out as the humans spread. “...humans ravaged the megafauna of the planet. Everywhere and anywhere we expanded. And when we encountered vestiges of these large bygone organisms, we eradicated them there too.” 

“Brutal.” Triton hissed through his teeth quietly, side-eyeing the little moons beside him for any upset. The rest of the Neptunian moons shared looks of dismay and confusion at the ever growing list of fallen Earthlings.

“They’re starting to sound like a mass extinction event all on their own.” Callisto pointed out boldly, her voice still devoid of anything other than mild interest. 

“I-I wouldn’t say it was that bad…” Yet, the more pessimistic part of him added, his instincts to defend the Earthlings warring with his inability to deny the effect they had had.

“Two thousand years ago the gorilla-sized lemurs and 10-foot tall elephant birds of Madagascar disappeared. 500 years ago, the Moa and Haast’s eagles of New Zealand were wiped out. In 1741 fur traders killed off the last group of Steller's sea cow, a twelve ton manatee.”

“Um, that’s pretty recent, isn’t it?” Mars looked to Earth for a correction or confirmation, his expression bordering on dismay. “I thought they’d have calmed down by that point? Weren’t they already making civilization then?”

“Civilization was around way before that.” Earth huffed, fighting to keep his voice upbeat and unbothered. “12-10 thousand years ago, if I remember correctly.”

“And they still killed all those animals? Why? Didn’t they have farming?” Luna asked, joining in with Mars’ curious stare. Earth tried not to sigh.

“It wasn’t always for food.” He added, “Sometimes it was by accident, but a lot of the times they just didn’t want to share the land with them, or they wanted a trophy.”

“That’s rude of them!” Deimos piped up with a scrunched up expression of indignation. Earth huffed out a breath of mild amusement at the sight.

“Today humans have figured out that unabated hunting drives organisms to extinction. This revelation has come too late for the Northern White Rhino, the Bajau River Dolphin, and the Tasmanian Tigers.” Depressingly recent losses passed the screen, stifling Earth’s core with emotion. “The Vaquita, the Heinen Gibbon, and the Javan Rhinoceros may join them soon.”

Earth fought down the swell of emotion that rose upon seeing those animals on the screen, so recently lost and yet he feared they would soon be forgotten in a sea of countless more. It stung every time he realised only a few individuals of a species were left, clinging on in wilder corners or under the well-meaning and frantic care of the humans. The Endlings always hurt to watch, as they grew up in a hopeless situation with little chance of finding a mate or even creatures that looked like them, caged and prodded by the desperate attempts to save their kind. 

“...at least they realised what they were doing?” Proto hesitantly offered, his arms once again wrapped around Theia. The smaller planet was looking at the screen with open confusion, her eyes shifting around to take in the creatures as Gutsick listed them.  

“But hold the phone. We’ve figured it out, right? Humans are no longer relentlessly hunting organisms to extinction.” Gutsick’s tone held a hit of sarcasm, before dipping back into seriousness. “Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.”

“Oh? Why not?” The Sun sneered, his fiery hair swishing as he shook his head at the screen. “If they worked out what was going wrong, they should just stop doing it.”

“It’s not that simple.” Earth echoed Gutsick’s words, unsure how else to phrase it. He really, really didn’t like where this was headed. 

“Because humans, from the very beginning, have been master environmental manipulators, and we made a deal with the Deadliest Pattern in Nature the moment we discovered coal. And perhaps the sixth Mass Extinction was triggered by an overzealous primate.”

Ah shit, it can get more humiliating. Earth had still been half-hoping, foolishly, that Gutsick was just going to mention the rise of the humans, and not link it back to everything else. A silly thought, honestly, but he couldn’t help his reluctance for the entire Solar System to find out all the juicy details of the effect humans were having on him. He hid his real atmosphere for a reason, along with the countless satellites and trash infesting his orbit. 

“They’re triggering the pattern?” Theia exclaimed in disbelief, sitting up straighter to look over at him for some other answer. He didn’t have one, so stayed silent. As her expression crumbled into dismay, Earth tried very hard to ignore the shame boiling in his core.

“I’ve heard it said before that a single organism cannot cause a Mass Extinction. One critter simply cannot have that much of an impact.” The screen was filled with stars, reminding Earth of the last few documentaries they had watched. “Let’s travel back one more time, past the human-felled beasts of the Cenozoic and through the dinosaurs' killers. We can watch the Triassic, the Permian, and the Devonian wink by until we land in the alien world of the Cambrian, with just a bit more to go.”

“Oh, we’re going backwards?” Neptune raised his head in surprise, an almost uncertain look on his face. “Or did I miss something? We were talking about humans, I think?”

“Yes, we were. I think Gutsick is finally revealing the ‘punchline’” Triton muttered easily, his eyes never straying from the screen as the starry sky dipped into an ocean. “Whatever that means.”

“Yay! I hope she punches someone!” Nereid, the little moon that was honestly starting to scare Earth, jumped up to shout. Neptune caught her just before her overzealous swinging at the air tumbled her right off the seat.

“Yes, the ‘punchline’...when was that mentioned?” Neptune absentmindedly asked, his focus seemingly entirely on the little moon he was attempting to set back on the bean bag. Triton didn’t react to this beyond giving the forgetful planet a quick summary.

“She’s been dropping hints about a single species having an impact on the planet, so this is her finally explaining it, I hope.” Neptune appeared to at least be listening to his moon’s recap, though from what little Earth knew of the ice giant, he suspected it wouldn’t be retained very long. Lucky him. I’d quite like to forget the last hour as well.

“In the depths of time, before the Cambrian Life exploded out into its many forms, we can find the Ediacaran.” The title faded onto a scene of blue water. “This world exists at the very end of the broad Pre-Cambrian, at a mind-numbingly long time span that lasts from 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian roughly 540 million years ago.”

“This is the era before the one from the start?” Proto asked, then recalled, “So, before multicellular Life?”

“Not quite. Multicellular Life existed before the Cambrian, but it was very small and squishy. But, yeah, most of that era was entirely single-celled Life. It only got interesting at the end.” Earth was glad to take advantage of an easy topic to explain, and hopefully get his mind out of the slump Gutsick’s words had shoved it down. 

“The world had Life for billions of years, although it was single-cellular and likely limited to pockets of metabolism-friendly water. In the Ediacaran, multicellular Life appears, fleshy fronds and discs alongside things that look a little bit like jellyfish…” 

“Why do I bother?” Earth muttered jokingly to his moon as Gutsick proceeded to explain exactly what Earth had just said, only with pretty visuals. Luna chuckled softly, which at least let Earth know his moon wasn’t completely checked out yet. The moon had been staring off into space for a while now, snapping back at random to refocus on the screen. Earth really wasn’t one to hover, but it was getting a bit worrying.

She explained that these first lifeforms fed on slime from the ocean floor, but a new organism had recently evolved that could burrow for nutrients as well, manipulating the environment. “...and the simple act of burrowing inadvertently wiped out Ediacaran Life and spurred the Cambrian explosion.”

“OK, that feels like a bit much to load onto the back of such an unfortunately-named creature.” Pluto frowned, his moon nodding along beside him. “Just burrowing can’t have had that much of an effect.”

“Why not?” Eris challenged mildly, her eyebrow raised at the dwarf planet near her. “We already saw what the trees did. Those burrowing roots messed the whole planet up.”

“Ah, you have a point there!” Makemake laughed, turning a grin onto his friend. “Every little change can have big consequences, even with Penis worms!”

“Please don’t ever say that again.”

“The burrowing of these animals stirred up microbial mats in what scientists call bioturbation…” She revealed that most Life at that time could not easily filter food from sea water, but the burrowing helped animals that used oxygen evolve, leading to moving and sensing creatures for the first time. The previous animals of this age are lost to the fossil record after this point, out-competed by the new Life.

“Evil worms!” Janus, one of Saturn’s minor moons, exclaimed over the hum of the room. Saturn was entirely too late in trying to cover his mouth, so the ringed giant just settled for staring at the moon with some approximation of exhaustion and embarrassment. “But they are! They killed everything!"

“Not everything. Only the creatures who could not adapt to the changes they made.” Jupiter tried to explain to the little outraged moon. “Like the other five times we have watched. Stuff always survives.”

“So? Does that still mean the deaths don’t mean anything?” Dione butted in, her words catching Jupiter off guard with their seriousness. “That worm still caused tons of deaths.”

“I really don’t think we can blame the worm for this.” Titan argued, tilting his head at the screen. “It didn’t know what it was doing. Neither did the trees. And either way, it’s all in the past.”

“We are modern Penis Worms.” Gutsick said. “Except worse, because we know what we’re doing.”

Titan’s mildly dismayed expression as Gutsick’s words followed his own, almost let Earth completely ignore the actual statement itself. Unfortunately, no one else was as amused as he was by the orange-green moon. Great, here we go.

“What are they doing?” Theia’s voice sounded far more uncertain now, her hands clasping one of Proto’s tightly as they watched. “How are they disrupting the cycle?”

Earth didn’t really want to answer. He didn’t know where to start, nor how much he’d have to explain to really get the scale of the issues across. And, the cowardly part of his core really didn’t want to sit here in front of two celestials who had been nothing but impressed by his Life up to this point, and try to explain that the most intelligent animals he’d ever hosted were actively and knowingly screwing everything up again. If the dinosaurs' extinction felt like a kick to the core, this was starting to feel like the punchline to a joke from the Universe. Oh, you think Life was done finding new ways to end after that asteroid? After all your efforts to keep everything steady? Sike, now your super-intelligent monkeys are fucking shit up for imaginary currency. Ha ha, very funny, Universe.

“The climate is changing and it’s doing so too quickly.” She implored to the camera. “There’s a scale that’s sometimes thrown around, the stages of climate change denial, and it goes something like this.”

“Denial?” Mars whispered from the seat nearby, his voice pitching up in disbelief. “They deny it?”

“Some of them. And it’s not as bad as it was. The denial bit, that is.” Earth shuffled his legs to try and get rid of the anxious swell that had bubbled up from his core to knock at his crust, demanding attention after over an hour of pushing it back down. 

“First, people say the climate isn’t changing. Then they say OK, maybe it’s changing but not a lot.”

“Sounds like textbook denial to me.” Mercury huffed, his expression twisted into an uncharacteristic scowl. “How can they deny it, if it’s happening to their own planet?”

“They can’t always feel it, not back when the scientists were first noticing it.” Earth explained, hoping his voice sounded less pathetic than he felt. He knew Mercury had heard him complain about this before, but he had a bad feeling Gutsick wasn’t going to leave it at a few angry words like he had. “It’s harder for them to deny it now.”

“And then they say OK, it’s changing a lot, but it isn’t human-caused.” The words were backed by an image of red fire, setting a low glow over everything in the room. “And then they say OK, it’s changing a lot and it’s human-caused, but we can’t do anything about it.”

“How long is this scale?” Ganymede questioned, his voice hard and frustrated. “How many more excuses are they going to try?”

“Well, that last excuse sounded more like giving up, so maybe they ran out of ideas?” Europa sneered at the screen. “Typical Earthlings, I suppose.”

“Europa.” Jupiter’s voice held a tone of reprimand, and the pale moon dipped her head in apology. Earth really wasn’t bothered about whether or not she was being sincere. It would be harder and harder to watch this if he also got mad at every celestial with a snarky quip, so Earth chose to save his energy. At least until Venus opens his mouth, I gotta keep up the tradition.

“And finally they say OK, it’s changing, it’s changing a lot, it’s human-caused, and we could have done something about it, but now it’s too late, so why bother?”

“‘Cause it’s your planet ?” Luna hissed suddenly, forcing Earth to quickly re-adjust his seat to avoid falling off of it. “What else are they going to do?”

“Run off to Mars.” Earth muttered, letting some bitterness bleed out and infect the blank face he’d been attempting to maintain. “Not that that’s a good idea either, but they seem to like it more at the moment.”

“I can’t see why.” Mars scowled as well, a breath leaving him in a rush as he spoke. “I’m not even 1/100th as habitable as Earth. They’d never have on me what they have on you.”

“I know.” Earth sighed, feeling the anger simmering under his skin. “And I think they know it too. Maybe they just find it easier to imagine making a new world, rather than fixing an old one they messed up?”

“Well, they should snap out of it.” Luna growled lowly, glaring at the screen. Earth vaguely wondered when Luna got so angry about this.

“People who genuinely doubted climate change was even happening in the 80s now accept that we need to do something. In the west, the public sentiment supports the idea that most people accept climate change is happening and that it's human-caused, they just disagree on the best course of action.” Images of burning homes, trees, and whole areas of land covered the screen.  

“Well, it’s good that they are starting to realise it’s really happening.” The Sun awkwardly commented, warily watching the burning swaths of trees on the screen. “Better than nothing.” He finished lamely, voice quiet.

“Standing around arguing doesn’t seem anymore productive.” Saturn muttered off-handily, glancing at Jupiter when the largest gas giant offered his hand. The ringed giant grabbed it with an almost angry expression, and going by Jupiter’s face, he wasn’t delicate about it.

“And this is despite the concentrated efforts by corporations, some politicians, and some media outlets to keep people in the dark.” A lady was shown on the screen, saving a small animal, a koala, from a rapidly burning forest. 

“Some humans are hiding it? How? Why?” Proto’s voice grew more confused as he spoke. Earth’s gaze lingered on the screen, and the koala that was being forced from its home by a climate disaster, trying not to cry in front of the entire Solar System. Stars, I’m never going to complain about my nice boring orbit again. At least there I only have to worry about Luna and a nosy Mars. 

“I-I don’t even know how to begin explaining propaganda to you.” Earth huffed out, hoping it sounded more like a joke than a sigh of defeat. “And why? Money, mostly.”

“Money? What’s that?”

“Ugh, that’s even more complicated.” Earth frowned in thought, his head feeling far too muddled for all this. “Imaginary tokens that represent value? Don’t ask me where the value comes from, I’m not even sure I understand it.”

Proto turned his bewildered expression to Theia, who looked almost as out-of-it as Earth felt. Her shoulders were hunched up and her eyes remained on the koala, locked on the fire and smoke.

The scene changed to a starved, thin polar bear weakly walking up some ice. “I suspect this is because people everywhere are seeing the impact in their own backyards and they are worried. They should be.”

“What’s wrong with that Earthling?” Oberon hesitantly asked, his wide-eyes lingering with concern on the thin animal.

“They’re starving.” Earth replied bluntly, disturbed by the sight of one of his great predators brought so low.

“Why does that happen?” Oberon followed up curiously, his question initially igniting annoyance in Earth. He already didn’t want to see the fate of that Earthling, he definitely didn’t want to explain it.

“No food. Polar bears rely on sea ice to hunt seals, and the ice is melting. If they can't eat, their bodies can't keep going for long.” Earth tried to keep it as straight to the point as possible, no wasted words that might allow his careful mask of confidence to crack.

“Oh…” Oberon looked at the polar bear again, frowning. “So…it’s going extinct too? Like all the other ones?”

“Maybe.” Earth settled on, trying not to let his expectations fall one way or the other. The humans had time to fix it, but the effort needed was more than he dared to hope for from them. They’re better than this. I know they are.

“Today, we annually emit more greenhouse gases than volcanoes by 100 times over. This warms the globe and impacts every conceivable ecosystem. Our artificial fertilizers run into the ocean, causing dead zones via local anoxia. We acidify the seas, annihilating reefs globally and we ‘slash and burn’ forests to make way for our agriculture.” 

The images of his surface made Earth want to childishly curl up in shame, stick his fingers in his ears and ignore everything he tried so hard to push from his mind recently. It had been easy enough recently, given the choke-hold the questions about Theia had had on his mind, but even before that he’d been trying to avoid it. Touching the subject felt almost dangerous, like he was risking a nose-dive into a mindset he couldn’t afford to give room to. It was silly, but he couldn’t help the fear all the same, even as he knew more than just this issue had caused that spiral. It felt easier to lock all of it away and hope the chains could take the strain. Mercury would probably tell me off for that, but it’s fine.

“It’s like they’ve managed to imitate every other disaster from before, but deliberately this time." Luna muttered angrily, his hands clenched into fists. 

His moon had rarely shown such frustration at the Earthlings’ activities before, but Earth supposed that was due to his own filtering of the information. He’d been kind of forced to admit a lot of the issues to Luna after the ‘attempt’, but the details had been vague. The concern and stress of his moon had already been overwhelming him with guilt at that point, so he’d edited a nicer picture. One that didn’t hurt as much to say.

“I-it’s not always deliberate. They didn’t know what it was doing, and most of the humans are just trying to survive themselves.” Earth knew his words weren’t going to help calm the moon, or the room it seemed, but he wasn’t willing to sit and let all the humans take blanket blame for this. Maybe that made him foolish, but he didn’t care. He loved the Earthlings, every single one, and he knew they could be great if given the chance, either by him or themselves.

“Today, only 3% of land mammals are wildlife. Many apex predators from lions to tuna have seen their populations drop by 95% or more since the time of Christ.” The laundry list of harms was punctuated by the harsh sights of felled forests, dead swaths of fish, and a few lonely orangutans walking in the wreckage of their home while humans chased them.

“What did they do to that Earthling?” The distressed call from Thalassa drew a cringe of reluctance from Earth. The clip had been short and blurry, but that orangutan had definitely been chased by those humans and proceeded to fall from that log without getting up again. It was hard to say what had really happened, but Earth didn’t like his first guess. 

“I’m sure it just fell down.” Triton tried, his voice a forced calm. The little moon seemed to accept this, but the rest of the room shared nervous glances.

“They’ve damaged so much…” Theia muttered, turning a confused glance to Earth. “Can you not stop them? You said one of the humans can speak to you?”

“He can, but he isn’t high enough in the human hierarchy to make any changes. He would just be called mad.” Earth sighed. It had been a brief hope of his that talking to a human might be a way to get his messages to them, but they would not listen to one guy stuck in space if he came down talking of speaking with their planet. Or they’d make a religion out of it. “I can’t really do anything that wouldn’t just make things worse.”

“B-But, if they’re intelligent, and they understand this is bad, why aren’t they doing anything?” Theia seemed to struggle with the idea, her face crumpled and dismayed. 

“They are doing things. Some of them. But humans are not a homologous species, they are constantly arguing and fighting with each other, and all of them coming together to fix something is very, very, very rare.” Earth reiterated, hoping this was enough and she didn’t also want a breakdown of the current political climate. We’d be here till the Universe goes dark.

“This may seem gut-wrenchingly, heart-stoppingly bad and it is.” Gutsick told the camera. “But what you need to know, what you need to understand, is that we are not in a Mass Extinction Event on the scale of the other five, yet.”

“That ‘yet’ is sounding a bit optimistic.” Caelus commented, his expression disturbed by the last few images on the screen. His notepad was now resting on his lap, closed. 

“But it’s true.” Earth pointed out as stubbornly as he could, refusing to leave this room with the whole Solar System under the impression he was about to explode or something. “It’s not gotten nearly as bad as those other five. They have time and the tools to fix it. It just might take a while.”

“How long do they have?” Caelus asked with a tone of doubt. “How much ‘arguing time’ do they really have left?”

Earth didn’t dignify that with an answer. I should really just stay quiet, avoid these awkward questions all together, but that’s probably not going to happen.

“Certainly, we are experiencing just a massive extinction event, but biodiversity can still recover, and think about the amazing menagerie of organisms that we still share the world with…” She listed just a handful of the wonderful Earthlings he’d watched evolve in the recent few million years. “...these animals are still here. They are not gone. Yet.”

“I suppose this is supposed to be inspirational for the humans to hear?” Haumea inquired, watching the animals flash across the screen. “I hope it worked, those Earthlings look so cool!”

“Yes! I really hope they don’t go extinct too.” Charon joined in, her voice dipping as she added, “I don’t want them to be lost when I’ve only just learnt about them, that would suck.”

“Ha ah ha!” Ceres laughed at her side, apparently uproariously amused by the idea. Earth tried not to look into it too hard. 

“Think of all the incredible places that we can still visit…” She again listed a few areas, each beautiful in their own way. “..freaks of nature like Florida.”

“Damn, what goes down in Florida?" Mars questioned, a slight smile inching onto his face. “She said ‘freaks’ so seriously.”

“I’m not sure. I have not heard it mentioned much in anything I’ve read from the Earthlings.” Jupiter’s serious reply to that question was threatening Earth’s commitment to stony-faced staring. “But I will keep a look out. It must be quite odd to earn such a title.”

“These places are still here. They are not gone. Yet.”

 “How will they lose the places?” Ariel tilted his head in confusion. “Can places go extinct too?”

“No, I wouldn’t think so.” Titania thought for a second. “I imagine the sea level is rising and that might drown those areas?”

“Yeah, that’s mostly it.” Earth said, then added. “But some environments can also be lost entirely due to the loss of certain species, like mangroves, which is basically like a type of extinction for places. Losing keystone species can have knock on effects beyond just the local food web.”

“And the people we still share the world with.” More images of a busy town centre passed by as she spoke. “7.753 billion people, all with dreams and stories and ideas. These people are still here. They are not gone. Yet.”

“That’s a lot of people.” Tethys muttered with awe. “And they’re all as sentient as us? Wow, that’s a weird thing to think about.”

“Makes our old Moon Revolution plan seem a lot worse.” Dione lowly added, her eyes trailing to the main moons from that mess. “Good thing it didn’t work out.”

“Look, we already apologized for that, and yeah, it definitely would’ve been messed up.” Ganymede turned in frustration to the Saturnian moon, who only returned his flustered expression with a surprised smirk.

“Wow, I never thought I’d hear that from you, Ganymede.” Dione grinned, but her words seemed friendly despite the teasing tone. Ganymede picked up on this and calmed his angered expression. 

“If this gives you a sense of urgency, that’s because it should.” Gutsick emphasized to the camera. “This is a big deal. It’s scary. So what can we do? How can we abate the existential dread that each and everyone of us feels when we read about climate change?”

“What can you do, I think you mean.” Venus rolled his eyes at the screen. “This isn’t our problem.”

As much as Earth wanted to shoot back at the cloudy planet for that comment, he was struggling to find a counter-point to his words. It wasn’t their problem, and he sort-a definitely didn’t want them to make it their problem either. What were they going to do, force the humans to listen? Not likely. More likely, they would just treat him even more like a delicate little vessel for the pride of the Solar System. He’d never hear the end of comments telling him to ‘get back to your orbit!’ or ‘should you really be doing that?’ or ‘Think of your Life!’. He’d already had his fill of that crap, and it was only going to get worse after this. I can hear it now. Every greeting will include ‘how’s the climate change going? Lost any more of the super-special Life you're supposed to be keeping safe, you irresponsible planet?’ Ugh.

“I don’t like not being able to do anything about this, dude.” Mars complained, snapping Earth out of his bitter thought spiral long enough to realize the others had actually been debating their options. “Do you have any ideas? We just wanna help a bit, if we can?”

“You can’t.” Earth ground out stubbornly, trying to keep his voice from reflecting the frustration he was already anticipating. “Like Venus said, it’s not your problem.”

“Hey, I only meant that- that was aimed at the Earthlings.” Venus tried to backtrack for some reason, which drew Earth’s attention more than anything else about his statement. “We’re not just going to ignore it.”

“Why not?” Earth frowned in genuine bemusement at Venus. He knew the planet wasn’t as hard-surfaced as he looked, and when he calmed down he was quite fun to hang out with, but actually showing concern for Earth of all planets was new. The living planet had always had the distinct impression that Venus resented him for some reason or another, either because of his Life or some other source. It was one of his main dependable traits. “It’s really not anyone's issue but mine, and there’s not much anyone else can really do.”

“Maybe not directly, but we can look out for you.” Mars tried, his words instantly sinking Earth’s core. Ah, here we go.

“I don’t need you guys hovering around me and being even more nervous about everything I do, thanks.” Earth was really trying not to sound angry, aiming for sarcastic at most. Going by Mars’ expression, it was a miss. “I can deal with it on my own. I already have been.”

“Earth…” Mars met his eyes with a painfully regretful expression, his words trailing off in dismay as he studied the planet in front of him. “We’re your friends, of course we’re going to want to help. You can’t honestly expect us to ignore it?”

“Pretty please?” Earth joked, running out of ways to push this off without resorting to mean words. He really, really didn’t want to rip a brand new rift between himself and Mars, not over something as petty as his pride. 

“Earth.” Mars gave him an unamused look for his troubles, continuing in a serious voice. “Why are you getting so defensive about this? We just want to help. That’s what friends are supposed to do.”

“It’s not the idea of helping, it’s how you're gonna go about it.” Earth huffed, casting a quick glance at the screen in some foolish hope that it might unpause randomly and end this conversation so he wouldn’t have to. “I’ll think about it, OK?”

Mars still looked like he wanted more of an answer than that, but Venus nodded with a surprisingly accepting expression, the cloudy planet once again turning to the screen. Mars watched him unnervingly for a few more seconds while Earth tried very hard to pretend he couldn’t tell, until he too turned back to the screen. Well, I’ve brought some time, I suppose. Though, probably not for very long.

“I feel it all the time. I felt it making this video. So how do we fix it? What can we do? That’s the inevitable follow-up question. Personally, you can do small things to reduce your consumption…” She offered a few examples from her own life. “...these acts seem small and insignificant when one person is doing it, especially in the light of the damage that just the top 10 companies globally do.”

“Companies? What are companies? Can we destroy them? Would that fix things?” As funny as the mental image of the Sun coming down and lasering the headquarters and assets of the biggest polluters on his surface was, it would probably only result in more CO2 release. 

“I’m not sure that’s the kind of solution we should be aiming for, Sun.” Jupiter countered with a worried look to the screen. “It is good to hear that individual humans are trying to do their part to help, even if the impact is small.”

“Any impact is better than them doing nothing.” Saturn agreed, having finally released Jupiter’s poor hand in exchange for a few of his little moons, who were now wrapped in a tight hug as they watched the disturbing sights on the screen. “For as small as they are, they do seem to manage a lot of things I’d have never thought they were capable of. Maybe they can fix things in time?”

“Let us hope so.”

“But, if everyone is doing it, if most people are doing it, it can actually make a pretty big difference. But the biggest thing we can all do is vote.”

“Vote? What, like we did before?” Enceladus questioned, “How do they do that? It was bad enough with just our system, I can’t picture trying to count 7 billion votes.”

“Individual countries hold elections, where their citizens vote.” Earth explained, then added, “Or, at least some countries do. Not all of them really care what their citizens want, and some only do elections for show.”

“So what’s the point then?” Ganymede frowned at Earth's words. “What will voting do?”

“Well, in the countries that actually hold fair-ish elections, voters can decide who is in charge of the whole country, and thus they decide who makes the decisions about things like green energy and carbon emission reduction.” Earth wasn’t interested in getting any more specific than that. It had been hard enough to explain the concept to the Sun after he’d requested more information about voting systems last orbit. I don’t care enough about this stuff to be the Solar System’s only information source for this.

“Sounds a bit idealistic.” Europa muttered doubtfully, “Does it work? Are they voting on those things?”

“Ah, well…um, sometimes?” Earth finished awkwardly, ignoring the looks from the moons as he faced the front again. 

“Vote for politicians who care about climate change and are acting now. Vote for politicians who want to invest in renewables and in nuclear energy. Vote in politicians who are concerned about the extreme weather events impacting every part of the globe.”

“There are politicians who aren’t?” Pluto’s confused question crossed from the back of the room. “If I lived on the only habitable planet, I’d be worried about those things all the time!”

“Why don’t some of them care?” Haumea echoed, his hands wrapped together with nervous energy. “They’ll all die too, won’t they? If things get bad?”

“Humans don’t live very long, and the ones in charge are usually closer to the end than any major climate disaster in their area. I guess that gives them a bit of apathy.” Earth wasn’t sure why he was still explaining everything. He’d wanted to shut up a while ago, but it wasn’t like anyone else was going to give his Earthlings a voice in here. “Some of them just don’t understand the issue enough, or are more focused on other things.”

“Other things more important than their planet dying?” Eris scowled indignantly at the idea.

“It’s really not that bad.” Earth protested, disliking both the dwarf planet’s words and the way they caused half the room to look at him like something breakable. He’d had more than enough of that recently. 

Eris either didn’t catch the warning glare he sent her way, or didn’t care, because she added to the end of his statement. “Yet.”

“Ultimately, we humans are just as much a part of nature as everything else on this planet. But we can change the course of history, because we know what’s happening and we know how to change it. We are familiar with the Deadliest Pattern in Nature.”

“If any species can change the pattern, it’ll be the only ones who’ve managed to recognise it.” Proto had apparently settled for optimism about this issue, while Theia was still glaring at the ground. He nudged her in an attempt to snap her out of it. “I’m sure they’ll work it out. It sounds like they already have the tools for it.”

“But what if they don’t?” Theia’s brow was furrowed and her face was lined with stress. “What if this is just like all those other times? What if Life is always like this, ending over and over again?”

“If it is, then it’s also always coming back over and over again.” Proto offered the other side of the coin, his eyes trying to meet hers. “Does that not make it worth it?”

“Of course. But…” Theia’s eyes shifted as she trailed off, falling on to the living planet. Earth froze and quickly turned away, embarrassed to be caught eaves-dropping on the two. When he risked a glance back, the planets were whispering to each other with their eyes resting on him. Great, now I’m being gossiped about by my own predecessors.

“And if we all work together as a unit, we can fix things.” She smiled at the camera. “A long shot, I know, so allow me to offer a bit of morose comfort.”

“Morose comfort? That doesn’t sound good.” Mercury worried his bottom lip. “Is the idea of humans all working together really such an unlikely thing?”

The living planet was beyond tired of repeating the same things over and over again by now. Sure, he could reiterate that human society was complicated and fractured and messy, but no one in the room would care. It was all distant for them, something they only heard about second-hand if at all, and they didn’t have the means to help even if they did want to. No, it was Earth’s job to worry about this. It’s his job to keep Life going and try not to lose his mind in the process. And it’s his job to pick up the pieces after every inevitable extinction event. Over and over and over again.

No, Earth, snap out of it! He hissed to himself, shaking his head to try and toss that line of thought away. He couldn’t afford to be slipping like that, not when everyone was already stressing about his last tumble. Putting Luna through that again might ruin all the progress they’d made in repairing the damage Earth had done to their relationship over the centuries. And Mars would blow his dormant volcanos if Earth did something that stupid again. Venus probably wouldn’t let him past his orbit, and Mercury would tell the Sun immediately. He’d definitely get trapped in his orbit then, permanently. All the trust he’d clawed back would be thrown into the void of space and his limited freedoms would shrink. That probably wouldn’t help the issue, if anything it would- Stop it. If you keep thinking like this Luna is going to notice. Get it together.

“We humans cannot destroy the Earth. If the Permian couldn’t do it, we can’t do it either.”

Morose comfort indeed, Earth sighed to himself, hoping his face was frozen enough to hide the twisting of his core. The Permian didn’t end him, and it miraculously didn’t end his Life either, but it had still hurt. And the asteroid hurt. And the fracking hurts. And the pollution hurts. And the drilling hurts. Maybe they can’t destroy me physically, but this stuff is taking a toll. I’m tired…why am I so tired?

He knew he loved his Life. It was all he’d worked for over his whole lifetime. From the moment he woke up, all he’d known was a desire for Life. And that had been enough for him. It didn’t matter what the other planets thought or did, not when he had Life. No one could ever say anything to hurt his feelings or put him down, because he had Life and that made him so special and perfect and amazing. He would never be looked down on as long as he had Life. Nothing else mattered except keeping his Life. No one else mattered above keeping his Life safe. Not even himself.

And maybe that was a problem, Mercury would probably say it was, and Earth was trying to fix it. He knew now that he needed to try harder to see things beyond his Life and the shield of immunity he seemed to have believed it gave him. He talked to Luna more, let him have more time away from him to meet friends, and even opened up more. He’d tried to get closer to the other rocky planets, but various issues had been getting in the way recently and he hoped there was still an opportunity there. But, that still left one more major weight on his mind, the ever present one that had fallen on him all those years ago. My Life.

He loved his Life, till the ends of the Universe he would love them, until his form crumpled into atoms he would love them. But it still hurt. It still felt more like a burden some days, when he couldn’t leave his orbit too long, or play asteroid dodgeball properly, or even just exist without being in pain. And maybe that’s why he’d clung so hard to the question of why he even wanted Life in the first place, to find some reason behind the driving force of his existence. When he’d heard of Theia and begun to hear her voice, he thought maybe Life had just been the hopeful dream of an unfortunate victim, one who’d died too young to fulfil her goals. That was at least something he could understand, and he could have taken comfort in the fact that he still helped her dream come true. Instead, he was a deliberate result of a calculated effort by two planets to make a living world, with both of them fully in the know about it. They’d deliberately placed that urge in him. And Earth wasn’t sure if that was wrong or not. It felt…cruel wasn’t the word, but he couldn’t find a better one. This is all so confusing. I kinda wanna shout at someone, or cry.

“We can knock it down, and take ourselves out in the process, but give it 30 million years and the planet will recover.”

Gutsick’s words were hopeful, and Earth tried to take some of that sentiment into his muddled core. He did always recover, eventually. It took a while sometimes, and often involved far too many temperature swings, but it was always worth it. Life was always worth it. 

“I would prefer it if they didn’t knock Earth out and kill themselves off, personally.” The Sun mumbled sarcastically. “Re-setting the ecosystem every few million years is a waste of our time. And it takes forever to get interesting!”

“I would certainly miss the current Earthlings. Humans have written so many fascinating things, and I would be sad to see them go.” Jupiter sighed solemnly beside the star. “I hope we have many more centuries with them in our system.”

“If they can get their act together.” Caelus muttered under his breath, warily eyeing the Earthling on the screen. “They better not come to my system and try that shit here.”

“And if in some far-flung future, another organism reaches the heights that humans currently inhabit, we can imagine that they might investigate the past just as we have. Something else splendorous and strange will take the stage, and we humans and our era of the Anthropocene will become another fascinating but bygone chapter in the history of Life on Earth.”

“Do you think there’ll ever be anything like humans again?” Luna asked softly, the anger in the moon having cooled now that the images on the screen were rolling fields of mist rather than scorched earth. 

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so, but I didn’t think I’d ever have Life as amazing as the dinosaurs after they died.” Earth replied, his voice dry and worn out, which was an odd sensation for the talkative planet. As painful as the idea of losing his humans was, he knew he'd endured similar loses before and Life had only came back stronger, adapting in the endless, goalless pattern. “Life is always full of surprises.”

“Well, I hope we don’t have to find out for a while yet.” Luna leaned against his planet, the warmth from his moon removing some of the stiffness that had settled over him.

“Eventually it is our destiny to join the ranks of the trilobites and the dinosaurs and the mammoths and the Tasmanian tigers. In a chapel in Rome, where the dead are laid to rest, there is a plaque that reads, ‘As you are, we once were. As we are, so you shall be’.” The haunting quote was joined by the last footage of that extinct beast, the Tasmanian tiger, pacing in a cage. The screen faded to black once again.

“That's morbid.” Venus curled his lip at the closing statement. 

“Poetic, though. I like it.” Theia’s words triggered a strange reaction on Venus’ face. 

The cloudy planet hurried to add, “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe it can be both? Poetically morbid, with a bit of ominous thrown in.” Earth had never heard Venus speak so awkwardly yet enthusiastically, though his tone did have the vibe of someone holding a solar flare to his surface. Theia smiled sadly at the planet.

“Venus, we should talk a-”

“Is it over?” The loud voices of Mars’ moons interrupted the planet, both little celestials bouncing up from their seat. “WOW! Look Mars, we actually stayed awake the WHOLE time this time!”

“I can see that.” Mars grimaced while Proto grinned at the display. “It was a lot shorter this time, though.”

“Probably for the best.” Earth tried to clear his throat as he spoke, attempting to shake off the heaviness that had fallen over his core during this whole experience. He couldn’t waste any time. He needed to speak to them before the mysterious celestial who brought them here whisked them away again. He nodded to his moon as Luna gave him a questioning look.

The gathered celestials must have been feeling restless, because it felt like the entire room had decided to get up and start walking around to talk and stretch their legs. The Sun, rather than shouting at the screen or talking with his gas giants, was merely watching the rocky planets as they began to get up, his gaze lingering on Earth and his moon in a strangely warm way. He’s so going to shout at us later. 

Taking advantage of Mars’ moons’ distraction, Earth crossed the few steps between himself and the two celestials he needed to talk to quite urgently. Luna followed quickly along, smiling at Theia and Proto as they saw them coming. Venus seemed to be trying to talk to Theia too, but she was distracted by Earth’s approach. The living planet felt a twinge of odd guilt at seeing the cloudy planet’s expression freeze over from the more open one he’d shared with Theia.

“Um, we can wait a bit. If you wanna go first?” Earth tried to say, glancing at the screen to make sure Archer hadn’t sprung up yet. Venus shook his head though, turning away before any of the others could say anything.

“See you in orbit, Earth, Luna.” As the cloudy planet departed, Theia stared after him for a breath before turning a new smile onto the two of them.

“Well, that was an experience, wasn’t it!” Her forced energy was leaking through a bit too obviously, but Earth smiled back anyway. Proto eyed the two of them with a knowing look. 

“You’re here for answers.” It wasn’t a question, but Earth and Luna spoke their reply at the same time anyway.

“Yes.”

“Where do you want to start?” Theia inquired, her excited smile already starting to slip into a worried one. Luna’s gaze met his with a pointed look, and he knew which question they wanted the answer to first.

“Why did you do it?” Earth didn’t know how else to phrase it. “I mean, I know you said you wanted Life, but why that way? It seems a little…dramatic?”

“Maybe dramatic is our style?” At Earth and Luna’s unimpressed look, Proto continued more seriously. “It had to be that way. Life needed a planet with the perfect orbit and size, and a moon large enough to help it. We couldn’t do that ourselves.”

“That’s awfully calculated." Luna muttered in a low voice, eyeing the two doubtfully. “Deliberately crashing to make the planet-moon system you wanted.”

“It’s what Life needed.” Theia reiterated. Earth felt Luna shake his head in dismay. Earth just had more questions.

“Okay, I get that, I guess, whatever." Earth huffed, frustrated that he couldn’t find a way to get the answers he really wanted. “I mean, why sacrifice your own lives? Why was Life more important than…than everything else?”

“The Universe needs Life, Earth.” Theia’s voice filled with conviction, as if she’d rehearsed these words before. “The Universe was made for Life! It’s the most complex system to ever emerge from Entropy! It gives meaning to the Universe, to our existence. As brief and small as it is, it defies so much of the darkness of our Universe. The Solar System needed Life!”

“Bad enough to die for it?” Luna stiffened, his words tense and bordering on angry.

"Of course! What else are we supposed to do? Wait for the heat-death of the Universe? Why do nothing while we live, when we can create a miracle when we die?” Theia implored, her words forcing Earth’s mind to play catch-up as he attempted to memorize them. “If we didn’t try to create Life, to oppose the endless decay of the Universe, we’d have been giving darkness a win. Life is light! Light in the void! Can you imagine anything more important?”

“I-I guess not, but- but…” Earth didn’t know what to say. She’d answered his question, technically. Life was meaning in a meaningless void. The Earthlings themselves said so all the time. And he truly did believe that the loss of Life would remove something fundamental from the Universe. He still felt lost, however, and maybe it was less about Life and more about the bodies they’d chosen to bear it. “N-not to sound like a whiny child, but, did you think about it beforehand? The fact that you were deliberately making celestials for a ‘means to an end’?”

“It wasn’t- Earth, we didn’t-” Theia cut herself off, suddenly at a loss for words after her earlier speech. The worried, nervous expression that started on her face and spread to Proto’s didn’t help Earth’s own nerves. The living planet tried to clarify, as if that would increase his chances of a satisfying answer.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my Life, they’re the best thing about me.” Earth felt the tell-tale elbow of his moon digging into his leg at that comment, but he ignored it for now. Luna could ream him out later. “But, I mean, you saw. It’s not all fluffy animals and green pastures. At minimum, I’m stuck in my orbital zone most of the time, unless I want my water to freeze or evaporate away. At worst, the very Life I’m trying to keep safe is harvesting me for parts. Not to mention all the explosive crust and mass deaths.”

“E-Earth, we didn’t intend-”

“Look, it’s all worth it, because I also want Life, as badly as you guys seem to have. And maybe that’s the problem? Like, would I have this urge without your influence? Would I tolerate it if I wasn’t specifically designed for it? Was it ever my choice?” Earth knew he was asking impossible questions now, ones they had no reasonable way to answer for him. His mind was racing and his core was following suit, forcing him to pause for a breath before asking, “Did you think about it? Even just a little bit?”

“Earth. They couldn’t have known any of that would happen.” Luna broke the silence that had fallen as the only reply to his question. Both of their predecessors were staring wide-eyed at the living planet, blanking on a way to address his question. That was answer enough for Earth, but Luna seemed to have a different opinion. “You can’t blame them for something that detached from them. It’s like blaming the Sun for trying so hard to form rocky planets. Or blaming planets for the way their moons formed.”

“Why aren’t you frustrated about this too?” Earth asked, his voice shot and croaky as he tried to understand his moon. “You’re stuck as my moon because of them. Stuck orbiting me forever when you could do literally anything else!”

“I wouldn’t exist without them!” Luna snapped back, his façade of calm breaking to glare at his planet. “Neither would you! And I can’t be angry about that. Sure, maybe it would be nice to be a different celestial, one with none of our current problems, but we would just have different problems then! No celestial has a perfect life with no issues! Does that mean they shouldn’t exist too? That their stars should be blamed for it?” 

“I-I wasn’t-” Earth froze at Luna’s anger, ashamed that his words had upset the moon so badly. But, while he could see some of Luna’s points, he still felt like the moon was ignoring his last few points. “I’m not blaming them. I’m asking them if they thought about it. I just want to know if, in any of their planning and hopes, they realized what they were doing. Really realized.”  

“Why do you want to know so bad?” The question was painfully familiar, his moon had complained for orbits about his endless unanswerable questions and now they were back to square one. “What will it change? It won’t fix anything!”

“I know! OK, I know.” Earth ground out, shaking his head in frustration at his own mind. Why can’t I let this go? I don’t even know why this matters! Why does it feel like something is missing? “I just- It doesn't make sense.”

“Luna, Earth. We are so sorry.” Theia began, her eyes shining with unshed tears as she watched them argue. Earth turned to them at her words, even more confused now. Luna faced them as well, still tense and ready for another verbal fight. “We need to tell you something. It might not clear all this up, but it may help you understand why we did this.”

“What? What might help?” Earth asked, his curiosity strangling his anger into submission long enough for her words to catch his ear. 

“Before we- before we crashed, we saw you. Both of you.” Proto spoke up softly, gazing at them like he was seeing them anew. “I don’t know if it was a vision or some kind of hallucination, but we saw two celestials, a green and blue planet with a grey moon. We knew you would be the result.” 

“What?” Luna stared dumbfoundedly at the two of them, while Earth was honestly starting to fear madness was some kind of inherited trait. “I-I guess that explains why you knew so much about us. But, what does it mean?”

“We believe it was destiny.” Theia added, her tone more sure now. “The Universe was created for Life, so of course it would want the perfect celestials for the task. It wanted you two to exist, and I don’t think that can be a bad thing. There was never any other option.”

“Oh Stars, our parents are hippies.” Earth whispered to Luna, gratified to see a smile finally poke through. Beyond the joke though, Earth was seriously starting to feel like this was the best he was going to get. Short of asking the Universe itself. They don’t know much more than we do, do they? They were just hopelessly optimistic planets with a desire deeper than logic. Maybe we are all just pieces in the cogs of the Universe?

“M-maybe we didn’t think about it enough, like Earth said, but-” Luna had opened his mouth to protest only to stop at a look from Theia. “-but we would never have chosen differently. I’m sorry, and if you need to blame someone I’m fine with it being me, but please, don’t think we only care about the Life.”

“From the moment we first saw you, we loved you. We gave up our existence to give you two a chance to do something amazing, that’s all we wanted. We knew you would succeed and bring Life to the Universe, but we’re also proud of the celestials you became.” Proto continued, his smile fully on display now. “I’m sorry if that doesn’t help, you clearly have a lot to deal with, and maybe that is our fault. But we love you and that won’t change.”

“I wish we had more time.” Theia sighed, her tearful, soft smile warming Earth’s surface despite his conflicted core. “I want to know all about you, both of you. But this time has been more than enough for us to see we made the right choice in creating you. The Universe is a better place with you in it.”

“...um, thanks?” Earth didn’t know how to respond, and that was probably a sign to shut up, but he was never very good at that. “I-I’m sorry if I sounded ungrateful. I do love being a living planet, even if it gets hard sometimes. And I’m sorry for trying to blame you for all that shit. It’s been great to meet you, even if it’s been a bit hectic as well.”

“M-me too.” Luna hesitantly added, pausing as if he was going to say something else before thinking better of it. “It’s been crazy, in a good way, I think. And don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on this idiot.”

“Hey!”

While Earth attempted to wrap Luna in a headlock, the two of them were swept up by Proto and Theia, and crushed into a tight hug. Caught off guard, Earth had to suppress a squeak of surprise and fight the urge to push away. He wasn’t a huge fan of unexpected physical contact, for hopefully obvious reasons, but he tried to tell himself this was worth it. He was getting a chance to hug two celestials who loved him and died for him, two beings who would never have had the chance to hug him under normal circumstances. And the hug was very soft, cocooning him in a wrapping of warmth he found little desire to escape from just now. This is kinda nice, actually.

The four of them stayed like that for what felt like minutes, but was probably only half of one. Earth was very aware of the rest of the room all of a sudden, hiding his gaze in Luna’s hair to try and delay the inevitable embarrassment. When Theia and Proto finally released them, Earth focused on not looking like he’d been seconds away from crying. I’m so close to making it out of here without crying, let's not fail at the final hurdle.

“Are you done?” The voice startled all four celestials, and Earth twisted around to see Archer’s face was on the screen now, peering down at them curiously. The rest of the Solar System were gathered in a loose circle around them, trying very hard not to look like they’d been watching. As Earth’s gaze fell over Mars, his friend gave him a frankly pathetic thumbs up, while Venus was scowling at the floor like it had offended him.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so?” Proto answered awkwardly, staring up at the odd three-eyed face. The faux-feathers twitched minutely. 

“Good, good, good! Well, we’d best get you back then!” As the face seemed to flicker slightly, Theia and Proto tensed, turning to look at the rest of the system. A few others opened their mouths to speak, to say some goodbye or ask for their own answers, but none came. 

“Wait, but-” Theia’s words were cut off abruptly as the two of them vanished, leaving behind only the faint movement of air as they were displaced from the room. 

“Theia…” Venus’ heartbroken whisper followed after them, the cloudy planet staring at the empty space with a painfully blank expression. His shoulders hunched up, a soft noise echoing from him, and Earth had to turn away for fear of witnessing something very private. Venus didn’t need an audience for his grief. 

“And bye bye!” The voice crowed, upbeat and calm in harsh contrast to the room they were peering into. It wasn’t only Venus who seemed shaken by the abrupt exit of their guests. Jupiter and Saturn were holding hands again, both urging back tears of shock. Mars had gathered his moons for a hug, though it appeared to be for the benefit of the red planet and not the two squirming moons. Mercury was staring around at the room, as if the mysterious celestial had just pulled a prank and teleported them to a different area. The Sun, though, was angry. 

“HOW DARE YOU! What use was that? You taunt us with our dead friends! MY PLANETS!" 

“Why are you so shouty? I told you, I only brought them over for this video! And I did promise to have them back in their own timeline just as quickly as I extracted them.” Archer reasoned, ignoring the growing cloud of steam on the ceiling of the room. “I can’t exactly let you keep them. They’re dead, gone, atomised and reformed as your new satellites. If I gave them back, do you know how many rules of physics I’d have to break? I don’t even know!”

“You could have given us more time.” Jupiter ground out, his voice frustrated and edged by regret. “We had more to say to them.”

“What good would that do? They’re dead now, and you’ve all been fine without them for billions of years.” Archer tilted his head at the gas giant in bemusement. “And, regardless, I make the rules. You had your gifted time with them. Don’t be greedy asking for more.”

“You taunt us.” The Sun hissed, the fury still burning in his eyes. “Even after we agreed to this deal, you are still playing with us.”

“No, no, no. I gave you a gift! You saw them again, despite all your understanding of time being against the very idea.” Archer smiled condescendingly at the star, who puffed up in outrage. “Our deal was that you get to watch these things every two Earth orbits, not that I bring back your dead planets and let you use them as therapy tools.”

“I don’t know what you are, Archer. But I do know that, whatever kind of celestial you are, you have no core. No soul. And definitely no purpose in this Universe.” The Sun spat his insults at the screen, where the face remained unmoved by the words. Earth drew back in dismay, lest the star be incinerated on the spot. 

“Hm, you are very rude for a star, especially one so small.” Archer’s feathers twitched as he smiled. “You are funny, though. So I’ll let that slide.”

“I’ll-” Whatever the Sun was going to follow up with was squashed by Jupiter boldly placing his hand on the star’s mouth, only to retract it a second later as the Sun sunk his teeth into it. “Back off, Jupiter!”

“Sol, we need to go home. Everyone is tired and destressed, we can’t waste time on petty fights, not ones we can’t win.” Jupiter reasoned, keeping his voice carefully calm in the face of the angry star. “Let’s cool down in our orbits, and address this another day.”

“Fine!” The Sun hissed, throwing his head away from the gas giant and stalking off to one corner. “Go one then, Zeus, get us out of here in your superior and perfect way. I’m done.”

“Please ignore him.” Saturn muttered to Archer, glancing at Jupiter for help. “He’s just stressed. Can we go home now? Please?”

“Well, well, well, of course! You are far more polite than your star, ringed one.” Archer grinned happily. “I will send you back as promised, and you will return in two orbits.”

“Thank you.” Jupiter breathed, the tension in his shoulders releasing. The rest of the room began to stand, anticipating their return to the Solar System. 

“See you all next time! And, since you were so good with your guests this time, I’ll bring another one next time! Though, I will have to find him first!” With those passing words, the room faded from Earth’s view.

The falling sensation was trivial at this point, as expected as the sudden wave of discomfort and strain that immediately wrapped around his body, mixed with his surface so fundamentally it felt almost comforting. Gravity returned to its usual state, a sense rather than an all consuming weight. The faint warmth of his atmosphere touched his surface, which was once again blanked by oceans of cooling water. The layers of his crust, mantle, inner, and outer core resorted themselves, the constant shifts and slides bringing Earth's attention to each pinpoint of pain.

His mantle roiled and spun, generating his shield against the Sun’s radiation, while his crust shifted under the movements, lifted and pushed by the rises. Lava plumes and subduction zones continued their slow dance with destruction and creation, while dormant volcanos cooled and new crust rose from his ocean ridges. The pull of his gravity expanded, latching onto his lone satellite comfortably, feeling Luna's physical form pull at his own. As his core settled into the right size, he extended his focus to the Life crawling about his crust, going about their lives under his care. 

He could feel wildebeest moving across the savannah on their endless march. He saw the breach of a new-born orca, taking in its first breath of many, as a myriad of bacteria tried their luck on a new immune system. A flock of birds startled at a twig-snap, pursued by a frustrated predator with kits to feed. Two crocodiles fought for a scrap of meat, ripping limbs in the process, while the unfortunate victim's herd watched. Wind whistled harshly over a moorland, broken only by the thick grasses and stubborn trees, peppered with fungus and lichen colonises.

He felt the myriad of burrowers, eking out a living in his hard-made mud, creating deep structures and complex tunnel systems. He could hear the crackle of trees as they grew, thick cell walls interlocked, and he could hear the crash and roar of the waves, eroding his shorelines as Luna’s own gravity pulled his oceans into a bulge. The air hummed with insects and birds, all desperately chasing after enough sustenance to power through another day. The repeated loop of survival, playing out in a billion billion different forms and ways, all powered by the simple ability of cells to replicate and pass on information in a meaningless, beautiful defiance against nothingness.

The humans were as active as ever, drilling, burning, arguing, talking, laughing, sharing, and loving. Their buildings and lights covered his surface, glistening in the dark in a beautiful pattern of intelligence. The objects, telescopes, and spacecraft in orbit around him reminded him of their achievements, and of how far they could still go. The Earth smiled, happy to be back with his Life, and now he had more answers to his questions. Not all the answers, of course, but some of them. As well as a new view of his past, a clearer picture of his history and situation he’d been created from. It wasn't the pretty, perfect picture he'd hoped for, but it gave him something to draw on, something to try and understand when his mind couldn't find peace with the fundamental complexity of his Life. Maybe the real answers to Life were found elsewhere, or maybe they were unknowable; but at least now he knew more about why he existed, at least. It’s not everything, but it’s something. And maybe that has to be enough.