armageddon was a lot older than seventeen.

he had watched as the sumerians built man's first civilisation.

as the egyptians built their pyramids at giza.

as the romans built their coliseum.

as the greeks built the parthenon.

as the, so called, 'red indians' at the time, went to war on the dusty plains. paint streaking their faces, feathers flailing in their hair, horse hooves smashing on the ground beneath them.

armie watched as the aztecs built their city of gold.

the incas, their paradise in the mountains.

he witnessed the colossal construction of the great wall of china, hadrian's wall in britain and the berlin wall during the second world war- humans were so desperate to segregate themselves from others.

armie watched as the last pharaoh of egypt took her own life with the poison of a snake.

as the conquistadors stormed the shores of the new world.

as shiva and parvati waited for brahma to return with a new head for their son, ganesha.

as pandora opened the infamous jar and unleashed the horrors of man onto the world.

as goorillia, the great rainbow serpent, descended from the sky and created the hills and the forests and the twisting waterways of australia.

as joan of arc was chained to the stake and burned.

as babylon fell to the persians.

as the hawaiian god, māui, caught the sun with his might hook and slowed it into orbit.

when cupid disobeyed his mother's orders, stabbed himself with an arrow and fell in love with the princesses psyche.

as hundreds of rich-skinned panthers gathered in the streets of america. and, later, as thousands of them raised clenched fists to the sky-- demanding a voice.

as heinrich schliemann discovered the lost city of troy in the 1870s.

when elizabeth the first was locked in the tower of london by her half-sister, mary in 1554.

as the northern and southern people of the USA went to war with each other during the 1860s.

as the natives of africa were ripped from their homes, bound in chains and taken away.

as the english convicts took the first steps on their new jail cell, australia.

as darwin first noted his findings on the finches at the galapagos.

it was funny, armie often thought, that all of the wars, betrayals, discoveries, deaths, births and legends occurred on that single, tiny s p e c k in the distance.

here, the stars were spread everywhere.

all to their own nurseries, with their own families. their own humans to watch over.

here, there was armie, who held his burning torch high to create his light. his skin white, his hair white, his face marked with charcoals lines that encircled his eyes and ran down his cheeks and jawline like war paint. the two giant wings on his back were bright with pure, white light, making him one of the largest stars in the nursery.

his mother, nyx, empress of the stars, whose long blue-black hair spread wide and far, wafted into the dust to create the larger, mauve cloud in their nursery. and within who's crown the light of the stars were embedded like precious stones.

then there were armie's sisters - six of them - the pleiades. they clustered together to the right of him, their long hair and billowing gowns formed to create the brilliant golden haze in the nursery. like mother, their spiked crowns held the twinkling golden light that humans had associated for so long with the stars.

eos floated next to his mother. her long pink hair and red gown formed a rosy cloud after the purple of nyx. from here eos could control the sunrises of the earth, often painting them with shades of rose and gold.

on armie's other side sat eos' sister, selene in her blue chariot. her ebony skin contrasted with the navy of her flowing dress. her hair blue-black and wooly. the headdress in her hair accompanied by a starry veil that trailed behind her in a blue cloud as she rode across the sky.

beside his sisters was helios, the brother of selene and eos. he was the largest in the nursery, his domain of the large cloud was streaked with brilliant orange and yellow, signifying his sun-like light. his caramel skin and his amber eyes glittering with campagne-coloured glitter.

then there was nephele and chione, sisters, whose powers could control the clouds and snow on the humans' earth. they filled the top of the nursery with a pale blue light, their long white hair and icy-coloured dresses wafting through the cloud like a cold breath. small, icicle-like jewels sparkled on their gowns, forming clusters and ribbons of constellations.

finally, in the centre of them all, connecting each colour to the next, was iris. whose power kept the rainbows following maë on her birthday each year.

and so here was a n u r s e r y.

where a family of stars sat and watched.

here was armie with his many millennia of memories. with his wings and his torch and his love for a girl he could never have.

here was armie, a l o n e l y star.

soon would come the armageddon.

info:
• nyx - goddess of the night
• the pleiades - aka 'the seven sisters', daughters of titan atlas and close friends of artemis
• selene - goddess of the moon who rode across the sky on a chariot every night
• helios - god of the sun
• chione - goddess of snow