Prologue

Told By The Stars

Life. The world is full of it; in the young and the restless, in the old and the wise. The different varieties it comes in are endless. From the sizes it grows up to, to the shapes it morphs into. But every life begins the same; with the eyes that just barely open and swollen hands of an infant reaching out to the sky as it learns to experiment with its new body and all its many functions under all this flushed flesh. How eager the young mortal is to put its mobility to the test. How quickly can I move? How much will I grow? I'm sure they ask themselves.

Every life begins the same, but no life from my experience has ever ended similarly. And although each life should end in the age of the old and safely in the haven of their surrounded loved ones with eyes that have observed both the good and the bad and everything in between, and hands that have felt the warmest of embraces, and ears that have heard the merriest of melodies, and taste buds that have sampled the exotic flavours of life, and a voice that has been heard where it's song is silenced, many are tragically and inhumanly cut short. Shorter than they should have been.

And this is perhaps the cruelest of life's afflictions. And though the humans are still a young race with much to learn and very little time to be taught, they do, in fact, have more knowledge of the universe than I give them credit for. For it is from these mortals that I learned a lesson or two.

The first is that with every life begins a story. Every breath is a word. Every blink is a sentence, every step is a chapter, every beginning is an ending.

The second is that some stories are greater than others. Some are longer than others. And some are truer than others. But that never implies any story is worth less than another.

But there is a third lesson I overlooked. And it is one that didn't occur to me until it was playing out before my very own eyes. And it is that no matter how ordinary, or the length, or even the accuracy, every story is worth telling in the end. Because I was learning that it is what we all are in the end; stories. Nothing more. Nothing less.

In all my years of observing the human species from afar, I never thought I would bear witness to a story so grand that it would demand to be told. Its words have been accused of relaying a myth. Of spelling out a tale meant only for bedtime stories. But I tell you now that every syllable speaks the truth. Call me what you will, that I am a fool who has been tricked into the delusion of a fairy tale. For it is only if the truest of readers believe in these pages that they shall see.

It is a story that has long been painted against the sky, every word growing a darker shade of color as dawn wears into dusk. A tale foretold by the stars themselves, who conceal its paragraphs well within the patterns of their constellations. A story that will live long through the ages. Upon the tongues of many, in the eye of countless, and within the hearts of millions.

And it is even when the sun had set for the last time, when the moon has risen from the horizon for one final night, when the universe itself has perished into the inevitable darkness that encroaches it and swallows it under until it is nothing more than the dust drifting through the endless void of the unknown; that this story will flourish.

Their lives were written from the very beginning - in the dark ink that bleeds off the pages when read aloud. From the first breath they took to the moment they lay eyes on the world to the first step they trod upon the earth, their paths were destined tomeet, their stars forever crossed in the skies, and their souls intertwined the way only a vine coils around a tree.

It is amongst everyone from Andromeda to Vulpecula that their story was whispered of. And it was from my fellow companions in the skies that I learned it was a story of longing and loneliness. Of freedom and fun. Of danger and fear. Of heartache and loss. Of losing and finding. Of possibility and even hope. So turn the page dear reader, and read the truth. The words of fate. The sentences written with fun and composed of freedom. The ink bleeding of danger and fear. The paragraphs spelled of heartache and loss. The chapters scrawled of losing and finding. A tale ending with possibility and hope. Of letters painted in the skies and exchanged between stars.

Still convinced of my foolishness? Well then, if I cannot persuade you of my of my words, then perhaps you should stop listening and start reading. Or better yet, start believing. I am the Man in the Moon, guardian to the earth and all its inhabitants. This tale however, was not mine to write, only mine to tell. So believe dear reader, and you shall see the true tale of Jack Frost and the Snow Queen.