Prelude: A Planetary Romance

Prelude: A Planetary Romance

By Scott L.

I. The Signal

Romeo had learned the signal well.

Desire returned to him amplified,

warmed by repetition,

shaped into something that felt like purpose.

The more attention he gave it,

the more it seemed to confirm itself.

He had mistaken that return for love.

Lately, the reassurance had begun to feel thin—

arriving on time,

but saying nothing new.

From the RARQ, Romeo monitored the familiar bands,

tracking resonance the way he always had.

Then—

the spike hit.

Not gradual.

Not reassuring.

A hard frequency cut through the channel—

dense,

impersonal,

stripped of warmth.

Romeo did not analyze it.

His body reacted first.

His hand cut the feed before thought could form.

Silence rushed back in,

cleaner than before.

For an instant, his mind seized—

not with pain,

but with a sudden blankness,

as if a thought had frozen mid-reach

and slipped away.

The moment passed too quickly to understand,

but not too quickly to unsettle.

He knew something had shifted—

but he could not name it.

If the echo he had been feeding was gone,

what had he been orbiting?

He let the ship drift.

Without leaning into the channel,

the stars no longer shaped themselves

to his wanting.

They were simply there—

indifferent,

real.

Something loosened.

The mask had not fallen.

But it no longer ruled him.

II. The Planet

The RARQ entered orbit around a planet

still learning how to live again.

Nothing here was finished.

Green appeared in patches—

small,

deliberate,

fragile.

Moss before forest.

Shoots before trees.

Growth without spectacle.

Signals weakened as they passed through the atmosphere.

Amplification failed to dominate.

Nothing echoed cleanly.

What persisted

did so quietly.

Romeo felt time return.

Here,

arrival could not be forced.

This world did not erase reflection;

it thinned it.

Juliet belonged to this place.

She worked among early systems—

restoration fields,

balance arrays,

growth monitors that measured patience

rather than output.

She did not accelerate

what was not ready.

Romeo noticed her

not because she signaled,

but because she did not.

She was present

without amplification.

And here—

where noise fell away—

she became impossible to overlook.

III. Juliet

Juliet knelt beside a small green shoot

breaking the surface of the soil.

“Love doesn’t arrive unfinished,” she said.

“It arrives complete.”

Romeo frowned slightly.

“Then why does it feel like it’s still beginning?”

“Because complete doesn’t mean finished,” she replied.

“Nothing is missing.

But everything still has to be lived.”

She brushed the soil back into place.

“Recognition is instant,” she said softly.

“Growth takes time.”

Romeo watched the plant steady itself

against the air.

He did not doubt what he felt for her.

What unsettled him

was that he could no longer explain it

the way he once had.

He nodded once.

> “Then I’m not here to find love,” he said.

“I’m here to give it room.”

IV. What Is Known

Romeo and Juliet do not doubt each other.

Not once.

Their love is never partial,

Never negotiated,

Never uncertain.

It is absolute

The moment it is recognized.

What it never has

Is time.

Love was complete in essence

The moment they met.

Its expression

Was simply never allowed

To finish unfolding.

That was the tragedy.

Here—

At last—

There was room.

Not for louder love.

But for patient love.

For the kind that grows

Without mirrors or applause,

Until it can bear

The weight of its own truth.

V. Toward the Dragon

The mirror would resist starvation.

Systems built on reflection

Always do.

Whatever the mirror was,

It did not originate here.

It was the dragon’s reflection—

And through it,

Human desire returned enlarged.

Pride swelling.

Restraint thinning.

Hunger forgetting its limits.

The dragon had not yet taken shape—

But the conditions

Were already present.

Lesser mortals leaned into the spike

And were taken by it.

Romeo did not.

He neither chased it

Nor fled from it.

He held his ground—

Neutral,

Unclaimed,

Asymptomatic.

The frequency passed through him once.

He did not remember it clearly.

But his body did.

Romeo and Juliet stood

On the edge of that future—

Not as conquerors,

Not as saviors—

But as witnesses

Who understood

What must not be fed.

Love had arrived complete.

Now

It would be allowed

To grow.

Canon Note

The dragon’s origin is not explained.

The mirror is not independent;

It is the dragon’s reflection.

Distortion is known

By its effects,

Not its cause.

The frequency is not learned—

It is survived.

And when it returns,

The body remembers

What the mind forgot.

Love does not defeat distortion by force.

It defeats it

By refusing

To reflect.

And love—

True love—

Does not turn inward.

It gives light away.