“Time for dinner!” Came a mother’s call into a vast, black landscape. A pair of eyes reflected in the darkness, the eyes of a child. The child ran into the light, a little girl who was carrying a bucket behind her. Her mother stepped in front of her and blocked the doorway. With a look of disdain, the little girl set down the bucket and slunk inside. Her mother tipped the bucket over and let the frogs hop free. She let out a yelp of surprise as a particularly large toad let out a resounding croak. She looked back into the darkness and spotted her eldest daughter’s dark silhouette sitting on the edge of the canyon cliff. She sighed and went back inside, by the time she would get to her daughter undoubtedly dinner would go cold. Besides, her daughter would’ve asked for another hour gazing at the stars anyways.

“Mommy! Why did you cook minestrone!? You know I hate minestrone!” Complained the little girl inside. The mother sighed and headed in, blocking with her foot a toad who had decided the same. The door shut behind her, the light of the little farmhouse alone in a vast sagebrush plain.

The eldest daughter reached up to the stars and clenched her fist, staring with longing and sorrow at the stars. A shooting star flew past. It wouldn’t’ve caught her attention if it hadn’t curved north, and it wouldn’t have been noticed for long if it hadn’t continued to leave a streak in the sky. She stood up and watched it crash through the atmosphere, clearly it wasn’t very big, it couldn't be what she was hoping it was. It streaked into the ground ahead, probably landing past the pond. She ran towards it anyways, however. Who knows, maybe it was a message? She tried not to get her hopes up, the last message capsule to come through hadn’t protected its contents.

“If you’re out there, you better come back!” She panted under her breath as she ran, a hopeful tear dripping from the corner of her eye. She reached the pond bank, scrambling up it for ten or so feet before sliding down. She headed around it in frustration, jumping over tumbleweeds, goatheads, and the occasional section of barb wire protruding from the ground in days of cattle farming. Eventually she was level with the top of the pond bank again, and scrambled up to the other side to look over the alfalfa field. A small, smoking crater was visible in the now bright moonlight. Her tears flowed stronger in her hope to find a message capsule.

“Gwyn!” She heard her mother call. She knew she had to be on the pondbank too now that the moon was out and she could see. Gwyn didn't stop to turn around, knowing full well her mother would probably check and destroy the capsule first. She didn't notice her tears never fell as she ran. She needed to hear from him, she needed to know why he left his daughter behind! She was close to the crater now, not ten feet away. Her mother’s calls echoed behind her.

Sound seemed to warp as she pushed towards the crater. Was this capsule guarded? It didn't matter to her, she had to get to it and see what was inside, if it even wasn’t capsule. She slid down into the crater, hopes dashed. There was no capsule. She sifted through the glass dirt in desperation and denial, the newly formed debris cutting her hands mercilessly. She stopped and looked in surprise at a beautifully made crystal heart. She picked it up and cradled it in her bloody hands and let out a few tears of dismay, still heartbroken at it not being a message capsule, but less so by it being whatever the heck this was. When she didn't feel these tears run down her cheek, she stopped and panicked, keeping her bloody hands from her face.

“Did dad send you to me?” She asked it with mild confusion, almost expecting it to give her an answer. It seemed to vibrate and pulse softly. It would be a pretty big coincidence for something random to land where other message capsules had been aimed in the past. She stuck inside pocket quickly as she heard her mother’s calls echoing behind her. Her mother appeared moments later on the edge of the crater.

“You’re grounded!” She panted, sliding down into the crater without even pausing to worry about her lack of shoes. Gwyn ran up to her and hugged her, crying steadily. The mother immediately noted that her tears weren’t falling and pulled her out of the crater, running back home to deal with her own bloodied feet and her daughter’s bloodied hands. Of course, for most people this would be unbearable, but for people whose sole job is to receive message capsules, this tends to be an easy thing. Especially since, as a bloodline, they have been modified genetically to lack the need for shoes. Gwyn did not inherit this trait, and so she alone wore shoes in the family.

A few hours later, they were both nice and tidy. Gwyn’s share of the minestrone had gone cold, but she didn't care. She never really liked it anyways. They sat in silence for quite a while. Gwyn’s hands were bandaged thoroughly, and her tears had continued to float about her, which surprised her mother more than you could imagine.

“I thought it was just the crater, did you take something from it?” She asked with a solemn face. Gwyn shook her head no. “Maybe we missed a few shards… A meteor fragment or two…” She continued to puzzle. She sighed heavily, hearing cries of a needy six year old who couldn't be more scared of the dark. She got up and started to head downstairs. “Go to bed, I’ll think about ungrounding you in the morning.” She admitted, not really blaming her for going after every single thing to fall out of the sky. Strange things like meteor fragments happened all the time in these last ten years, usually they had some strange property that disappeared after a couple days.

Gwyn headed to her room, shutting and locking the door once inside. She winced as she pulled out the heart from her pocket with her newly bandaged hands. The tears that had been floating drifted towards it, coming together in a quite dazzling display. A small layer of tears engulfed the heart. It began to pump, faintly but surely. Her cheeks felt prickly, and she watched as some of the older tears reformed and disconnected from her face and drifted towards the heart. It built up to the point of an inch thick at the end that pumped it out, but remained incredibly thin at any other point. She put it in a box, scared for what it might do, but not wanting it taken from her. It just had to be something from dad.

“Cry me a river,” She whispered to herself as she locked the box and went to bed. That box contained all her previous valuables, confiscated by her mother who sold them in hard times. Of course, Gwyn understood. Any bits of message capsules could go for hundreds of dollars, and the government had no right to take them if they were destroyed on impact. One of the main reasons mom kept destroying them was that she didn't want anything to do with her husband, and she didn't want to lose a thousand dollars from a capsule that survived. She’d rather break it up into pieces and make the most money she could, of course that meant she’d never le Gwyn read a single message. Thoughts like these drifted through her head for quite a while before she finally drifted off to sleep, right as the sun rose.