Nebulacat!

Looking at @Balaa's incredible images, and then listening to the gorgeous music written for this collab of hers: https://www.weasyl.com/submission/86327/in-dreams-we-belong

(SERIOUSLY go check it out, it is amazing!) I was suddenly absolutely overcome with inspiration.
My mind started spinning with thoughts of how we are all made from material that was formed in stars. I thought (as I often find myself doing) of ancient species long extinct, forever lost to us, many never seen by human eyes, how they were made of stardust too, how they have returned to dust. I thought of how strangely sad and beautiful it all is.
The time these creatures had to walk the earth has passed, yet I desperately want them to be alive. Yes, part of it is curiosity- what fur patterns did Dinictis have to offer? What color were Smilodon populator's eyes? Yet even if there were some amazing fossil discoveries that answered these questions (similar to how they have found ways to decipher some dinosaur colorations), they could not entirely quench my thirst. I long for some part of these beasts to live on in some way. It is hard to describe how much I desire this.
The silent stars do not answer me, at least not outright. No ancient purr rumbles from the soil beneath my feet. Wind sighs through the trees, swirling around this planet as it always has.

This cosmos, all bound together by cycles, continues to exist, and time seems to lose its significance. The same matter that made up the blood and flesh of nimravids, of mastodons, of dinosaurs even... it is all here, somewhere, still existing. We of course know of them because we find fossils of their bones in the earth. They are long gone, yet disassembled they remain. And they are not forgotten.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

So here's to life, miraculous life. We are momentarily heirs to this earth, and how will we leave it to the generations who will come after? Give or take a hundred years, everyone alive now will probably be about as alive as a trilobite. But it is a rich heritage. We are made of the same stuff as they were, after all. All formed of stars.