Page 84 of She Who Devours the Stars (The Astral Mess #1)

(COMPILED ABOARD VIRELETH THE CLOSURE. INCOMPLETE. PROBABLY CURSED. WRITTEN IN SHIFTS BY PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO NAME OR DEFINE THINGS.)

FOREWORD (By Fern F. Trivane)

I didn’t set out to rewrite the myth. I was trying to survive it with cheekbones intact. But apparently, if you survive long enough, people start naming things after you, and if you kiss hot enough, they stop asking for citations.

Anyway. This is the glossary. It won’t help, not really. But it might keep you from licking something that bites back.

You’re welcome. —Fern Trivane

A.C.E. (ACCORD COMMON ERA) (Timeline Summary by Velline Meldin, because no one else would do it right)

The Accord Common Era is the primary galactic timestamp system used across all surviving systems post-Earth. It begins at the founding of the Accord by Lioren Trivane, which historians agree was either an act of diplomacy, madness, or extremely dramatic grief. Possibly all three.

This is how we count the slow, mythprint-stained march of time:

Pre-Accord Events

- 1500 A.C.E. – The Exodus. Humanity flees a dying Earth.

Refugees scatter across the stars in half-stable generation arks, sleep-barges, and one particularly persistent ice cream truck.

- 1400 A.C.E. – The First Astral Resonance Events.

Survivors report inexplicable cosmic harmonies, hallucinations of light, spontaneous poetry, and at least one instance of a child yelling a star into existence.

Earth’s terrified survivors don’t know what to do.

No one does, as people spontaneously manifest superpowers for absolutely no reason.

- 500 A.C.E. – The Mythic Awakening. Individuals begin displaying narrative-dominant traits.

Reality bends. Prophecy gets loud. Systems fail upward.

Humans (some) become Gods (bad ones). Someone weaponizes a love confession. It works.

The Accord Era Begins

0 A.C.E. – Lioren Trivane founds the Accord.

After unifying all the spiral arms of the Milky Way, intimidating a hundred splinter factions, and impregnating a moon, Lioren Trivane draws up the first interstellar Accord Constitution…

on the back of a burned treaty, in blood, glitter ink, and quantum code. He calls it a “vibe.” It works.

The Mythic Cycle

1250 A.C.E. – Lioren Trivane dies. Canonically.

Dramatically. Shirtless. His final act seals the fate of the Universe and breaks at least one mythship’s heart.

Mourning periods last anywhere from 3 days to 16 centuries.

Fern later wears his coats. 2200 A.C.E. – House Trivane vanishes.

The family gathers around Old Earth, which disappears.

The Sol System becomes a mythic quarantine zone.

Accord documentation on both is marked Tier Omega Black, known only to deepnet weirdos and Fern’s mother (Liar! --Fern).

The Current Age

2847 A.C.E. – Fern Meldin is born. Unreasonably. Painfully. 2866 A.C.E. – At 19, she’s reality’s favorite mistake. The rest, unfortunately, is legend.

Fern: Also, I’m hot. Alyx: She’s not wrong.

It is distracting. Very distracting. Dyris: The day Fern’s not hot is the day the stars go out.

Aenna: …Confirmed. Empirically. Perc: I am a machine, and even I think you’re hot.

My processors overheated twice this year.

Zevelune: Mortals and their vanity. And yet…

in this case, justified. Vireleth: AFFIRMATIVE.

Aenna’s Addendum: This timeline is abridged and sanitized (I tried). The actual causal tangle is more complicated and exists in at least four contradictory states simultaneously, and there’s the Great Houses, Black Helix, Zevelune, the Concord… never mind.

ACCORD CALENDAR (Explanation by Alyx, who used to run ops in a video game before the myth broke her sleep schedule)

The Accord’s timestamp system is based on the Galactic Standard Time, or GST, which has 360 days per year, split into 12 Quanta of 30 days each. Think of them as months, but moodier. Why do we follow Old Earth 24-hour days? Blame Lioren.

Velline (correcting): Each Quanta is thematically aligned to narrative currents, not astronomy. This is literature with consequences, babe.

The Twelve Quanta (Translated for Normal People):

Quanta of Embers – Endings disguised as beginnings.

Very Fern-coded. Quanta of Horizon – You pack a bag and tell no one.

You don’t come back. Quanta of Resonance – Your mythprint spikes.

The coffee starts tasting like truth. Quanta of Voidlight – You look at the stars and feel wrong.

Nothing answers. Quanta of Bloom – Alliances form.

Betrayals grow pretty. Everyone’s in love or about to be.

Quanta of Flux – Don’t trust your ex or your own reflection.

Definitely don’t time-travel. Quanta of Mirrors – You see yourself.

You don’t blink. Mistake. Quanta of Pulse – You fight.

You kiss. You explode. Order optional. Quanta of Silence – You try not to remember.

It doesn’t work. Quanta of Ruin – You do something irreversible.

History takes notes. Quanta of Spindle – Multiversal headaches.

Your fate braids itself around strangers.

Quanta of Echoes – Everything comes back. Especially the things you buried.

Sample Timestamp: Resonance Report 2866 A.C.E. | Q10.23 = 23rd Day of the Quanta of Ruin, 2866 A.C.E. Usually a bad day to have feelings. Or birthdays. Or mythic awakenings.

Fern: I was born Q1.30. Go figure.

ASTRAL RESONANCE (Definition by Aenna Caith, under duress)

Magic doesn’t come from within. It comes from astral bodies—planets, moons, stars, comets, black holes, storm giants made of plasma and regret. When someone resonates with one of these bodies, they gain access to that body’s magic, metaphor, and meaning.

Simple, right?

Until it’s not.

Convergence When a person resonates with more than one astral source, we call that a Convergence. Note: This is not additive. It’s explosive narrative math. Resonances don’t stack—they interact. They amplify. They interfere. They contradict. They do not ask permission.

Important Notes (in increasing order of concern):

Astral resonance is spontaneous, deeply personal, and entirely unreproducible.

Leading theory: resonance reflects a soul’s internal metaphor—not what you are, but what the universe thinks you might become.

Most people get one resonance. Some, after a century or more of stable identity, might develop a second.

Under-20 Convergents are considered medical emergencies.

Fern: Are you suggesting I’m a medical danger to all of you?

Alyx: Yes. Dyris: No. You’re a narrative danger, which is worse.

Aenna: …Statistically, yes. Also, an emotional hazard.

Perc: I have seen her destabilize both orbit and morale on the same day.

Zevelune: Darling, you’re a hazard to causality itself. And I admire that. Vireleth: CONFIRMED.

Known Risks of Unstable Convergence:

Symbolic Displacement (you start metaphor-ing the wrong self) Internal Resonance Conflict (think emotional sabotage, but spatial) Spontaneous Mythic Bleed (narrative events escaping containment) Reality responding to your emotional state with weather patterns, fire, or flash mobs Collapse into dream-logic loops Sudden gravitational metaphor fields ("gravity wells of grief") Mirror reversals of fate

Manifestation Aspects: Each resonance affects a person through three primary expressions:

Symbolic: Your metaphors fight each other. Your dreams get crowded. Emotional: Mood swings can become plot twists. Physical: Your body stops obeying reality and starts obeying theme.

Academic Restrictions:

Only one Convergent per school cohort. Must undergo synchrony training or containment until stabilized. Institutions are deeply afraid of “narrative resonance escalation events.” (Translation: they don’t want your love triangle to become a literal war.)

Social Status: Convergents are: Feared. Worshipped. Gossiped about. Never, ever understood.

Their status depends on context. Sometimes sacred. Sometimes a scandal. Always newsworthy.

Fern: I didn’t ask to be a convergence point for cosmic metaphor. I was trying to survive my feelings. The universe mistook that for prophecy.

But Wait—Yes. You Get Powers. (Aenna, rolling her eyes): Yes, Astral Resonance grants powers. Not “you learn a new spell” powers—planetary-scale, metaphor-as-physics, reality-rattling powers.

A Solarion resonance might give you flame manipulation, radiance fields, or charisma that bends weak minds. A Lunar binding could let you walk dreams, erase memories, or become emotionally untouchable.

Fern’s black hole resonance lets her control gravity. (Actual gravity. As in: crush a building, collapse a corridor, rewrite the pull of space around her.)

Also, time-dilation reflexes. (She dodged a bullet once by falling out of linearity. We saw it on the replay. It’s… a lot.)

Fern’s Comment: Technically, I don’t “control gravity.” I just…

lean into it hard enough that it flinches.

Dyris: She once kissed me with the gravitational weight of a dying star.

I needed three days and a saline drip to recover.

Worth it. Perc (from the espresso altar): For the record, that level of gravitational force would collapse a planetary crust, destabilize regional orbitals, and probably liquefy atmo within a 700 km radius.

Dyris (with a grin like a closing trap): And yet here I am—uncrushed, unsinged, and begging for round two. Tell your math to try harder.

Final Clarification (Alyx): Every Astral resonance grants abilities that match the metaphor of its source, combined with the shape of how you met it. That’s why it’s called resonance. You don’t just use the power. You become its narrative.

ATHENAEUM (Definition by Alyx, Current Narrative Arsonist)