The oddest thing about being planet-side is you can’t help but notice all the ways it isn’t like Earth. The gravity’s a little heavier, the air a little thicker, the local flora’s scents have an acidic tang that stings the back of your throat. And the moon, or lack thereof, just sits wrong in your subconscious.
When it’s night, it’s night. You can’t see the hand in front of your face, or the vines in front of your boots, and there tends to be a lot of cursing and stumbling, but then you look up… and it’s like looking into eternity. Take every clear winter’s night you can remember, when you were miles from the city’s masking glow and the stars seemed endless, and blend them all together and you have a fraction of the view.
And all those stars– those millions of stars blazing away in the darkness, are just another reminder of how far from home you really are.
But at least they don’t stink.
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