Asteroid Q87dT
“Pew pew!”
Asteroid Q87dT laughed as she shot little skittle rocks at XOR, a remote planet near Galaxy 23. She’d been here before — many times, actually — and she always did this. It was a game. Sometimes XOR caught the rocks in its gravity, adding them to its mass. Other times, it let them drift into its growing ring.
XOR never spoke, but Q87dT liked to think they were friends.
She shot XOR one last skittle. See you next orbit.
Next up: XOR’s sun.
Obscenely bright. Gaudy.
“Ugh, fuck your liiiiiight!”
She veered extra hard, trying to avoid squinting.
And then — darkness. Finally.
Sweet relief.
She stretched into it, relishing the vast, endless quiet. This was her favorite part. No interruptions. No planets with their orbits and their schedules. No expectations.
For a long time, she didn’t notice time at all.
Jupiter
Jupiter observed things.
Some external — like the way Mars favored action, while Saturn preferred stability.
Some internal — like his storm.
Ah. His shrinking storm.
Once, he had tried to hide it, ashamed of its chaos. But over the centuries, he had embraced it. The storm was him. And yet… he wondered if he still needed it.
Jupiter spent a lot of time thinking, but he had no one to talk to. His moons listened, sure, but moons don’t talk back.
He had tried with Mars.
“Do you ever think about the way light bends — “
“Watch this PUNCH!” Mars slammed into an incoming comet, sending it careening.
“Oh, nice!”
“Sorry, what were you saying? Ah, tell me next time, can’t hear you now!” Mars was already gone.
He tried Saturn.
“Hey Saturn, you’re pretty massy like me. Do you ever feel like you can see light bend when it gets close?”
“No, and I’m sure you don’t either. It’s a physical impossibility that you could observe the difference.”
“Maybe I’m just more sensitive than you.”
“I am very sensitive.” Saturn pulled its rings closer. “Let’s not talk.”
Jupiter sighed quietly. Well. At least the moons were there to listen.
New World
Asteroid Q87dT awoke to light creeping back in.
Something felt… off.
She squinted. That planet didn’t look right.
“Hey, planet!” She shot a skittle. “What’s your name?”
The planet gave her an icy glare. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“What? I’m just asking!”
But she was already flying past.
Ughh. I knew I shouldn’t have cursed at the sun. It threw me off track.
The next few planets were too far to talk to. Then, a massive ringed planet came into view.
“Whoa, you look cool. Where am I?”
The planet eyed her disapprovingly.
“You’re not scheduled to be here. There is an order, you know.”
“Ah. No, I do not know.” She shot a few skittles toward its rings. “Here, a gift!”
“Unbe-LIEV-able. You come into my neighborhood and throw rocks at me? Get. Out.”
“Sheesh, I’m going!”
She turned toward the vastness ahead —
And froze.
Whoa.
She had never seen something so big.
Her trajectory had been the same for billions of years. She knew her orbit. And she had never left Galaxy 23. But now —
She was headed straight for him.
She knew what happened to asteroids that got this close to something that massive.
They crashed.
Or —
They became moons.
She didn’t know which scared her more.
Jupiter turned, observing the approaching asteroid.
Something new.
Exciting.
It had been ages since anything interesting entered his orbit. And this one was close.
Closer.
And — pew pew pew!
Tiny rocks pelted him.
She was… shooting at him?
“I… don’t… want… to be… your moon!” she shouted, hurling more rocks.
Jupiter barely felt them, but he felt her panic.
“You don’t have to be!”
“Well, I don’t want to die either!”
More rocks.
“I bet we can figure out a third option.”
Silence. The rocks stopped.
“Hadn’t… occurred to me there might be another option.”
“We’ve got time to think. You’re not on a collision course. You’re just in my orbit. How about you stay for a bit while we figure it out?”
A pause.
“…yeah. That sounds nice, actually.”
“By the way, I’m Jupiter. You?”
“Q87dT.”
“That’s a unique name. Can I call you dT?”
“I like that. No one’s called me that before.”
Jupiter radiated a soft glow. dT thought… maybe this wasn’t so bad.
Eons
They spent a micro-eon talking. At first, about how dT could leave his orbit, but soon, about everything else.
Lightspeed. The shrinking storm. dT’s theory that Jupiter had become the storm, so he didn’t need it anymore.
And then one day —
“Are you developing a new storm? There’s something… swirling in you.”
Jupiter hesitated.
“No. It’s just… I never wanted to trap you here. You came wanting to leave, and I promised I’d help. But I haven’t. And I think… it’s because I don’t want you to go.”
His storms darkened.
dT stared.
She had never stayed anywhere long enough to have these kinds of conversations. She didn’t know how to say what she felt. But —
She’d been in Jupiter’s orbit for thousands of his years.
And maybe… maybe this was different.
She took a breath.
“I think… I don’t want to go either.”
She panicked immediately.
“I mean — not right now. We can always figure it out later. But you don’t have to feel guilty anymore. I like being with you. And I’m choosing to stay.”
Phew. Feelings with caution. Self high-five.
Jupiter’s storms lightened.
“Thanks for saying that. I like being with you too. I never get tired of talking to you.”
Maybe it was because she was near his sunlit side, but dT glowed.
They spent eons in conversation. And somehow, dT never felt like it was the right time to leave.
And at the heat death of the universe —
They embraced.
Not physically, of course. That wasn’t how asteroids and planets worked. But in the way celestial bodies knew best — Jupiter let his storms still, his gravity steady and gentle, his entire being open to her presence. And dT, who had spent eternity flinging herself through the cosmos, finally let herself settle.
The stars dimmed. The last particles of light stretched thinner and thinner, until there was nothing left but the deep, familiar dark.
Jupiter exhaled stardust. dT nestled into the quiet.
“Still with me?” she whispered.
“Always.”
The universe went quiet.
And they remained.