Moonlit Destiny: Opalaset’s Journey

By Marley T.

Summary

Many years ago, back in 2013, there was the god of the moon, Khonsu. He was hopelessly in love with a world-class astronomer named Sage. Theirs was an otherworldly connection—a string of destiny that was invisible but tied them in a knot in the sky. It was not love; it was as if the universe had itself conspired against them to be together.

Sage was a heavenly creature. She had light umber skin, sea-greenish eyes that sparkled like the ocean at night, and dark brown curly hair in the shape of a high ponytail. But other than her looks, Sage had a mind as quick as a comet streaking across the horizon. She was a scientist through and through, someone who could calculate the orbital mechanics of distant exoplanets during a cup of morning coffee. She breathed and lived the space secrets, giving her life to exposing the universe's mysteries.

She met Khonsu on a night that the moon was full—a night that would change everything. She was in a remote mountain, far away from city lights, mapping lunar anomalies when a shadow passed over her telescope. She glanced up, and beheld him—a see-through form at the rim of her watchtower, standing in the silvery moonlight. She would have been winging. But she merely shot him a quizzical tilt of the head, wrapped her arms tight against her body, and cried out,

"You're standing before me, you know."

Khonsu laughed.
"I didn't realize mortals could so clearly see me."

"Oh, I can see you," replied Sage, raising her brow.
"And I'd say I've got approximately a hundred questions to ask."

That was the beginning. Nights turned into conversations, conversations turned into love, and love turned into something even the gods rarely experienced—a perfect equilibrium of god and man.

And then, on June 23rd, 2013, at the supermoon of the century, their daughter was born. They battled for two days deciding on a name. Sage wouldn't settle on something straightforward—her daughter was the daughter of the moon, after all. She needed a name that meant something.

On the third night, Sage walked outside, sleep evading her. She was drawn to a small body of water that mirrored the sky above. In its calm surface, she saw a beautiful opal stone resting at the bottom, shining softly under the moonbeam. She reached out her hand into the pool, picked it up, and breathed gently, saying, "Opalaset."

It was lovely.

For a while, all was well. Opalaset thrived, showing an uncanny intelligence from an early age. But the weight of her legacy was heavy, and Sage was mindful of it. She knew what happened to demigods—the wars, the trials, the inevitable suffering. She cared for Opalaset too much to let her grow up amidst the strife of the gods' world.

So she made a choice.

She convinced Khonsu that their daughter needed a normal life, one in which she would not be hunted, worshiped, or burdened with abilities she was not prepared to possess. It had been the hardest thing she had ever done, but she left Opalaset in an orphanage with the prayer that she would grow up unfettered.

Sage never stopped watching over her. She would appear and disappear unnoticed, hiding in the shadows when Opalaset accompanied the other children to play. She hid books under her bed, small sacrifices that would educate her mind and spirit. She wanted her daughter to possess the best of two worlds—the scholarship of a sage, the soul of a warrior, and the freedom of a mortal.

But fate had other ideas.

As Opalaset grew, Sage toiled in her laboratory, struggling to find a way of meeting between their worlds without putting her daughter at risk. She researched celestial energy, bending time itself, looking for a way to remake destiny. As she sought answers, she found something old, something evil. A theory of time so complex that the gods themselves had abandoned it.

She built a machine—a crossing between the past, the present, and the future. It would never be switched on.

But when she did, the stars folded and time unfolded. The machine fell in on itself, pulling her in whole. Sage vanished, swallowed up in the stuff of time.

Khonsu could never forgive himself for not stopping her.

Opalaset never knew the full tale—just that her mother had vanished, leaving a trail of glory and self-sacrifice in her wake.

But the stars do recall.
And someday they might tell her the truth.

Opalaset had an outstanding IQ of 21 at three, 42 at 6, and an IQ of 126 at 9. Since Opalaset was the child of Khonsu a god, and Sage a human, they didn't want her to have the life, responsibilities, dangers, and the pressure of raising a demigod and so, they sent her to an orphanage where they thought she would have a normal life.