This is a collaboration piece with The Red Parade for the Scifi Contest.

When Strawberry Sunrise was eight years old, she watched as the sun blinked. It vanished for exactly four seconds, and Strawberry knew she had just seen the end of the world. Years pass, and the blinks get longer. Strawberry loses ponies to the blinks – loses ponies she loves. And she knows she cannot let it go on any longer.

Laotyn is tasked with watching the planet down below the great gas-ship Taelo. The primitive lifeforms are unevolved, bestial. But when Laotyn looks closer, when he strains his senses to really listen, he begins to think he can hear something that sounds almost like speech.