Starship pilot who whispers to the stars. Sometimes, they even whisper back.
It's simple; any alchemist could tell you. The stars are voidborne mountains of pure fire, and substances are also meanings.
Fire is also yearning.
We sing to the stars, those dreaming pyre-intelligences, those hot hearts of the cold sky. We sing to them, and stir in them a thrill of love for us, and so they pluck us from across the impassable distance of the cosmos to keep them company for a while in their burning slumber.
The art of spacefaring comes in being a coquette, but not too serious, for if they wake too far they become fiery sirens, singing back: and in their regard we become one mirror of two, reflecting the other's conflagration of feeling endlessly back and forth until we — we, inevitably, not them — are destroyed.
Love the stars, pilot; you have to. But do not love the stars too much. Do not rouse them to call back to you, and do not answer if they sing. Stuff your ears, take sleeping draughts, have your crew lash you to a spar to keep you from the controls. The sundive is not a love you can survive.
Do not doom your crew to the siren's aria of conflagrante delicto.
