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It has lingered long in this place. Since a time long before memory. It has never known how it came to be, but it is. And it will be, for longer than anyone can comprehend.
Eons pass in silence. It is barely aware of time, its passage, its ravages. It simply watches. A nebula builds around it all the while, and it finds some activity in shaping it to its will. There are rules, it knows, laws of the universe it cannot break, but is able to bend. It is silent again.
Then the first arrive. They traverse its veins in vessels of steel and sails, see past its veil, walk upon it. They dub it Lightbringer and themselves its singers. It becomes Advar, they Advari. Their worlds are absorbed into its home, its Sanctum, they choose to dub it. It cares little for this. All it asks is that they keep themselves scarce, and lets them depart. It observes them as they cast down their cities and advances, put their worlds to the sword, build a mighty barricade with which to imprison what is left. It lets them. Their affairs are their own; It cares not for the lives sacrificed, has hardly the comprehension of them to care about. But it tries to provide, granting hearth and bounty in exchange for their acquiescence to its requests.
Thousands more years pass in occasional visitations, pilgrimage by those who hide it from the masses, conceal reality for their truth. It does not make attempt to correct the matter. They could not comprehend its words to begin with; it sees no point in trying again.
Then the second arrive. The Outsiders, so the Advari name them. They speak of them in fearful and angry tones, condemn them as an affront to their faith, a threat to their safety, fearing its intervention. It does not try to understand their fears. The newcomers, what they bring and do, are beneath true concern for it. It merely provides, as it has always done, sees their needs and acts accordingly, as best it can. The ice field that marks the edge of its domain becomes a fountain, a refuge as they regroup. A sphere of gas, unremarkable and desolate, becomes a fuel dump, a hiding place, as its first hunt them.
One comes close to it. A small vessel, sleek and fast. It leaves two of their number upon the planet of glass that orbits it, vitrified ages before by the sheath of spinning rays that surround it. It finds itself…curious of them, and it watches those who remain aboard the vessel as they stray close, not reaching out yet, but keeping them in its attention.
It tracks the others upon the surface, observes as they fall beneath the cracks, discover an oasis. Their beings are nearly cut short and it worries, for just a fleeting moment, but then they are gone again before it can take action.
They return again in due time, in far greater number. Their migration allows it to cease its influence upon the ice field, and in time, upon the gas giant as well. But it is quiet only for a fleeting time before conflict resumes. Twice near the great minefield, and then again as its very doorstep becomes a battlefield. The Outsiders flee its being; it cannot see their realm but it hopes they reach it.
The old man and the young ruler draw its attention as well. It reaches out, allows them in, listens as the old one rambles, reveals truth, true truth, to the empress, who burns inside, challenges his words with every point she learns. It finds itself impressed.
She chooses to face it, heart full of fire and defiance. It knows the outcome of her folly, but obliges anyway; she would accept nothing less. Even its whisper is too far beyond her knowledge, and she shatters, like glass. It feels almost empathy for her.