You knew it was coming. Down to the second.
It was never realistically going to be a problem. Earth C wasn't evacuated so much as it was gradually migrated away from. There was some debate on what to do with the dozen or so apocalypse cults who'd survived long enough to start straining the planet's resources, but Rose had personally handled the largest of them and the rest folded soon after.
They were all safe in the light of distant stars.
So now here you all were, nearly five billion years after the fact.
Or at least most of you. Karkat was gone. Kanaya, too. You never actually did see Terezi again. Or Vriska, for that matter. You suppose it was still possible, the Furthest Ring being what it was. You don't think you'd recognize either of their faces if you saw them.
Or maybe you would. Humans didn't look like humans and trolls didn't look like trolls anymore. Neither of those were words with much weight, actually. Your constituents all have new names, and appearances, and languages, and cultures. Hundreds clades of both races had developed over time, and despite how connected the worlds all were, speciation was inevitable.
You'd always received odd looks. Even as a fledgling god the people would stare at your ears. Now a statistically significant percentage of the galaxy's population have snouts. Half of them aren't even your descendants.
No, you get odd looks for other reasons. Nothing in the world looks like you anymore. Two arms and two plantigrade legs, brown skin, four ears, tail, no horns, no snout, no mandibles, no EM receptors beyond the "visible spectrum", a phrase that means next to nothing anymore with the variety of ranges and edge cases and blind spots. You could find any of these traits within at least one modern species of sentient life, but all-together there are only eight remaining homo-sapiens.
Everyone looks at you like a living relic. Those who don't look at you like a god, that is.
Rose has wondered if the Horrorterrors really were all that monstrous. Did they look so odd in their day? Did they morph into the form she saw, or did the world they created morph in ways they could not follow?
Most of the new humanoid species don't have mammaries anymore. Apparently one species can see pretty deep into the ultraviolet but not a specific shade of blue. Entire conspiracy theories have been drawn up over the fact that that shade of blue is a perfect match for the hue of Vriska's blood.
Maybe you would recognize her. If for no other reason than because you can still recognize a troll.
Calliope managed to stick around.
Right now it's just the nine of you. Jane took come convincing, and Jaye would have forgotten if Dove hadn't been there to drag her by the arm. But you all made it. Most of you are captivated by the Earth itself. You glance over and see that, like you, Rose and Dove are fixated on the Sun.
You can't actually watch it happen; you can calculate the moment the equilibrium gets disrupted, but the change into a red giant will take millions of years. A minor project of yours has been maintaining camera footage on a single star in the same process so you can watch it happen on a shorter time-scale. But that moment of disruption has passed now. You can officially say that you've watched the star you were born under die.
"Not as exciting as you'd hoped, is it?"
You turn around and see Aradia. Or at least you assume it's Aradia. You never met her. Curled horns. Big, shit-eating grin. Deep red robe. At some point you'd stopped expecting to ever see her. At some other point the things you didn't expect stopped surprising you.
You look into her eyes. You can't tell how old she is. From what you recall, to a being like her, it doesn't matter. You don't really know how to respond to her question. You don't actually know if you'd particularly hoped for anything.
"He's still down there, you know," she says, pointing down to the husk of Earth C.
"Yeah, I figured. I think Dove found him around when the last shuttles were leaving. He said no, that he still had a job to do."
"I know. Honestly I'm just glad I don't have to be around to see it. Maybe I keep an eye on this place, see if I spot the Cherub making its nest. If I keep extra close watch I might finally get to see the shitclown get shot."
"You hate him that much?"
"It's a phenomenal effect he has on people. I only ever got in the one conversation."
"I'd also like to see that. It sounds hilarious."
"Why do you only show up now?"
"Because I like to watch things die!"
"And you knew when it would happen?"
"I know when everything I'll ever see dies."
It's a question that's been lingering in your mind for a long time. Or at least it was lingering a few thousand years ago. Or was it a few hundred? A million? You don't forget as easily as you expected to. Facts, details, events, those slip through the cracks at the normal rate, but feelings stick with you.
You remember your sister's 100th birthday but you don't remember if she was your sister then or not. You remember the first time you hooked up with Rose but you don't remember if Kanaya was still alive at the time.
You remember the smell of Becquerel's fur but you don't remember the color of his eyes.
You don't remember the name of Jaye's father.
You don't remember what the clouds of Skaia showed you.
You don't even remember the time Dove grew a beard.
There's a feeling like lost memories at the edge of your mind at basically every moment, each and every thing you look at reminding you of a million others. It's a gentle, constant tug on your attention, but it's stronger than it used to be. Sometimes it strikes you with force. For the first couple billion years you chalked it up to deja vu.
Now you never have any idea whether the thing that caused it had happened before. You almost never know what even caused it.
And it's this feeling that strikes you as she meets your gaze, grin widening. That rush of haunting familiarity. You've been able to fly for so long you can't remember otherwise, but you suddenly feel like you've been dropped in the sea, kicking to stay afloat, unable to see the bottom. The water is warm, and your legs are strong, but the waves are high and you can't see the bottom.
You feel like you have the whole of your life in your hands for the first time since you were a child, and it's falling through your fingers faster than you can figure out what's gone.
She laughs, just a little, holding your gaze. And she answers.
