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Who: Cyrus, Voile, and Rhys
What: Stargazing!
Where: A field away from town
When: Sunday night

He had already delivered the invitations, slipping them under the doors of those he wished to attend. There were only two, Voile and Rhys, and those were all that were needed.

Arriving just before dusk, Cyrus set up the telescopes--two, along with a binocular and some lineless notebooks, and some hot water in a lined bottle.

He could wait all night, though he hoped he wouldn't have to.

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The atmosphere may have been dusky, but Rhys spotted Cyrus out in the field with his standing instruments and a wave of relief settled in. All along the walk the hope that he had followed directions to the right place grew bigger. It was a longer trek than he anticipated it would be, and as such, he felt a little bushed. He didn't mind too much. He figured some exercise would be a a bonus while he was feeling well enough to do so anyway, and journey there under a clear May sunset had been inspiring.

"Whew... I made it!" he announced to the other man. His hands went to his knees as he paused to catch some breath. "I was getting worried I'd wandered... a little too far."

There was an invitation and with it, a degree of unease concerning who the invitation was from. If Phoenix had still been around, Voile was remarkably certain he'd tell her to stay away from Cyrus and for the most part, that had been her intention. However, she also realised a part of her felt guilty for the way she repeatedly turned him away.

There was a difference between being avoidant and rude. She'd wanted to be the former and not the latter. Actions over words. Actions over words.

Seeing Rhys was something of a relief, though, and it didn't take her long to take shelter at his back, feeling far less certain of herself than she was accustomed to. "Oh... I'm glad to see you," she greeted him politely, for she earnestly was.

Cyrus had waited to address Rhys until the slighter man caught his breath, and during that time Voile had arrived. "Greetings," he said flatly. "Tonight we will be observing the night sky. We on this planet far too often forget that we are part of a whole, that our world is...limited. We cannot afford to forget that."

He paused before turning around, gesturing to one of the telescopes. "This is the weaker of the two. It will permit viewing of the local system, still a magnificent feat."

The other one was his next subject. "This is the more powerful, permitting a view beyond our solar system. It is a triumph of engineering to have come this far, to be able to see the universe without leaving our tiny planet."

Staring somewhere between them at some distant point, he concluded. "We are but a speck of dust suspended in a beam of light. Everything that has ever happened, every war scrapping for some piece of land, every triumph, every tragedy, everything we have ever known or learned of, every bit of history, has taken place on this microscopic speck. We would all do well to remember that."

Rhys directed his attention to the same point, not sure what Cyrus was intent on but not even considering he was intent on anything specific; it was the darkening sky all the same, intrinsically beautiful. "It really does make even our biggest problems seem small," he added. Afterwards, he drew in one last big breath. "Maybe that's why looking up at the stars brings a certain peace of mind."

Cyrus sounded like a professor and when he spoke, she heard a professor's voice. It was like watching a documentary and listening to the narrator, which was naturally enlightening, but it took the fun out of the visit in her opinion. The invitation she had already been plenty hesitant to accept and though Rhys was accompanying her (through no deliberate action on his part), she got the impression he wasn't going to be enough to keep her awake if Cyrus wasn't more entertaining about presentation.

She nodded in agreement to Rhys's response, unable initially to contribute anything that she thought would have been of use. "I have heard some say that space makes them feel insignificant, and there's truth in that. There's much more than us." Cyrus was right, after all. A lot of people forgot there were other worlds than the one they lived on and it was an easy thing to forget.

"Perhaps it does. Perhaps we are, just a dot screaming against the darkness...yet even in our smallness, we persist."

He turned towards the telescopes. "It is a thing of beauty. The universe, laid out before us, at present beyond our grasp...yet less than fifty years ago, the moon was beyond our grasp as well. Perhaps someday, in an ideal world, we will reach even the most distant of stars. Perhaps the edge of the created universe..."

His voice trailed, and he bowed his head, lowered towards the first telescope. "From here, we are able to see infinity. I believe we should get started."

Rhys thought quietly to himself, but not for too long, as Cyrus directed the attention of their gathering to the telescopes. It sounded like some kind of conquest, as though it was mankind's prerogative to leave no span of existence without its influence. It was a sure benefit to be illuminated with knowledge about the world, but sometimes, that knowledge robbed it of its mystery. And there had always been something enchanting about the mystery of the starry sky, wondering just what those lights were and why they moved as the night wore on. Never knowing, the imagination had no boundaries. That imagination had been suffocated by the concepts of rotation and gravity. Knowing was nice, but Rhys wasn't sure if he truly wanted to know everything. Cyrus seemed bent on the opposite, preferring to lean toward omniscience.

He watched as Cyrus moved to peer into the telescope, and turned to look at Voile. "Would you like to give it a try?" he offered out of courtesy.

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