Brazenface the Sun hurled His gift of light into the Deep; across a hundred and fifty megakilometers of space that solar wind soared, eight and a half light-minutes, to caress the airy skin of Earth, His queen. She took the light, then, parting it, scattering it in color whose arms spread in a growing embrace about the curve of Her person. Selective as ever, Earth flicked some of that light back into the Deep and into the eyes, watching, of human beings and other creatures born and borne in the Deep forever

But most of that color she kept; it was the gift jewelry of Her Husband, token of His everlasting affection. She played with the color, reveling in it, adorning Herself with it as fancy dictated.

--from The Helix and the Sword, John McLoughlun's brilliant and unjustly neglected novel