MATADOR: The Eternally Magnificent

FYI: The below story was NOT generated in any part by ai. This story was accused of such on this site and removed from a contest. I have NEVER, and never will, used ai to write. The thought is anathema.

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Millions of eons ago, in a universe not yet born, there was Matador. He was adorned with a cape woven from star shine, pants stitched from the very fabric of reality. A beret composed of flowing noble gases. For a few millennia, Matador was content to explore the new stars, planets, galaxies aborning. Still, after countless eons, he was bored. He flitted across vast reaches of the cosmos visiting planets, stars, moons, black holes. Everywhere was beauty, but nothing new to do. Alone, Matador mourned,

There should be life, Matador thought. I have my cape of stars, my beret of nightshade to cover my hydrogen laced fibrous hair, my pants of darkest empty vacuum, but nothing else. So Matador stopped for a while. “What can I do to relieve this universal tedium?” Then he had a thought. He envisioned a magnificent beast with which he could do battle. A beast of fierce temper with unbreakable horns of irresistible strength able to penetrate even Matador himself. The beast’s hooves would be of flaming cosmic fire. A tail of comets with which he could sweep the vastness of space aside.

Matador gathered material from across the galaxies. Fire from the heart of a giant star would light the beasts eyes. The hardest metals from the core of a dense giant planet would shod the hooves. Comets and asteroids were captured and laced to create a magnificent plumed tail shining with starlight. At last Matador, satisfied with the beauty, power, and sheer magnificence of his creation, gathered oxygen, hydrogen, water, and other essentials with which to fill his creation’s body.

After a few millennia of labor, Matador was ready. Taking in a vast lungful, he breathed life into the beast. Bloood red eyes the size of planets opened. Hooves that could reduce titanic planetary systems to scattered atoms raised, stomped. The universe trembled. The fires of a thousand suns belched from the beast’s nostrils, lighting countless new stars. His tail swept aside asteroids as it flicked back and forth. Matador smiled. “You shall be called Taurus the Bull,” he said.

Taurus stomped, huffed, belched fire, and charged. Laughing, Matador swept off his cape. Waving it in Taurus’ face he sidestepped. Flitting across the cosmos, jumping from star to planet to moon, Matador danced with Death…, his laughter bringing forth life wherever he went. Taurus’s hooves cracked the fabric of reality, bringing forth new galaxies.

As Matador and Taurus entered a quiet system on the fringes of the Milky Way, Matador raked his spear across Taurus’ hide. A small blue planet was birthed from Matador’s sweat and spittle. Oceans formed. Taurus’ ripped skin bled and fell, bringing forth land masses and… life.

The new planet, now 3rd in a tiny single star system, flourished in bounty. It’s inhabitants, calling themselves human beings, watched the sky in wonder as the titanic battle continued. When at last Matador and Taurus had left, humanity searched the night sky until they located the pair - Matador and Taurus. They named the pattern they saw the constellation of Taurus.

Still to this day the people of Earth celebrate the creation of their planet with recreations of the Matador and his fierce battle with the Bull, Taurus. Festivals, parties, and joyous celebrations praise the progenitor of human life and his fierce creation. We envision and portray our creation in the arena where matadors fight El Toro; swinging their capes in the beast’s face as they launch small, barbed spears into the beast - laughing, dancing, loving, Making. So, look up my friend, see the star strewn night sky. There, in the distance dancing with Death - Each falling star a streaking spear -you can still see Matador and Taurus chasing across the universe.