The Vol'novan Whale - A DiscoPrincess Nature Document

Spoken

"In the deep waters of Vol'nova...

there lives a creature older than memory.

Older, perhaps... than the planet itself.

We call it... the Vol'novan Whale.

Though it has no name for itself.

It has never needed one.

It does not swim so much as... drift.

As if the ocean itself... is simply borrowing its body... for a while.

From above the surface... you would not know it was there.

Only a slow darkening of the water.

A shadow with no edges.

Moving like a thought... you almost had.

Its skin is not quite skin.

In daylight — what little reaches these depths — it appears almost transparent.

You can see through it... faintly...

the way you can see through old glass.

Shapes moving inside.

Lights.

Slow. Rhythmic. Like breathing... but not breathing.

Scientists from seven systems have studied this phenomenon.

None of them agree on what it is.

One of them... stopped studying altogether.

She said she felt... watched.

She was probably right.

The Vol'novan Whale does not hunt.

It does not chase.

It opens... and the ocean fills it.

Microscopic creatures — billions of them —

drawn not by current... but by something else.

Something closer to... invitation.

They enter willingly.

This too... has no explanation.

Its song travels further than sound should.

Through water. Through rock.

Through the dark spaces between stars.

There are listening stations on three moons of Vol'nova...

placed there specifically to record it.

They have been recording for sixty years.

The same researchers who built them... are long gone.

But the recording continues.

Because the song... has not repeated itself once.

Not one phrase. Not one note.

Sixty years of music...

and not a single moment... twice.

When two Vol'novan Whales find each other across an entire ocean...

they do not rush toward one another.

They sing first.

For days... sometimes.

As if to say...

I know you are there.

There is no hurry.

We have time.

And then... slowly...

over the course of what might be a week...

they move closer.

Not in a straight line.

In a spiral.

Always... a spiral.

As if circling something invisible between them.

Something only they can see.

When they finally meet...

they are silent.

For exactly as long as they were singing.

Balance... in everything.

They live... we believe... for thousands of years.

Though belief is perhaps the wrong word.

We have never seen one die.

We have found what we think are their bones...

on the ocean floor of Vol'nova.

Structures so large...

that the first explorers thought they were ruins.

Ancient cities... swallowed by the sea.

They were not cities.

They were... someone's life.

Left behind... gently...

the way you leave a room...

when you no longer need it.

The Vol'novan Whale does not know it is extraordinary.

It does not know it is being watched.

It does not know that beings across the galaxy...

sit in darkened rooms...

and listen to recordings of its voice...

and feel... for a moment...

less alone.

It simply... moves through the world...

and the world... rearranges itself... quietly... around it.

In a universe that never stops moving...

it has learned...

the art...

of stillness."

Spoken

This experience was created by DiscoPrincess — Royalty of the Night.