She remembers that night. Her mother lying there quiet and still, Elena refusing to believe the truth, she had been the only one who had seen her mother perform that secret cartwheel at the edge of her grave, everyone else had already absolved that she was gone, but her blonde daughter refused to believe it so easily. She had no pulse, her body was cold and stiff, but Elena looked beyond the mere body, she could see her mother’s spirit was bright and beautiful, just as she had been in life. When they had lowered her body into the grave that Son’crae had dug for her with powers over earth, Elena had told her father she was still there.
That night her mind had erupted into nightmares, she was inside the earth, screaming and crying and gnashing her teeth. But you cant hear screams though earth and stone.
That night Elena died because she couldn't breathe.
She screamed and wailed in her slumber until her grandmother woke her up, stroking her golden forehead softly. ‘We buried her, we buried her,’ she cried in agony. ‘She cant breathe.’ Elena said in panic, wanting to rush to her mother’s grave site. By then her father had awoken and they steadied the child, assuring her that while her mother’s body rested in the ground still and silent, her soul and spirit had been free to travel. She had not suffered any once she took that final breath.
She feels that same way for a moment, as she moves away from the dancing, away from the monk, away from the excitement. It feels like there is dirt in her lungs and her eyes start to water. It is only then she realizes she is standing close to the bonfire and the smoke was clouding over her like a blanket placed over a child.
The golden sunshine girl feels hot, feverish, and she turns away from the festivities, craving something like quiet and darkness. Suddenly everything feels too bright and too loud.
She feels the dirt inside her lungs, building and building.
They buried her.
Who?
Her mother, her father, Valerio, Lilli, Lovelace Aerwir, Altair, Underworld, Caunion, Kensa, Tunnel…
All of them, they threw dirt onto her grave even as they didn't know, just handfuls of dirt onto her grave as she cried out. ‘I’m alive, I’m alive,’ and turned secret cartwheels to try to let them know. They never stopped.
This is when those blue eyes look up and a hand reaches out, pulling her from the grave. Those mountains that set out before her, they make her dizzy and excited all at once. They are not the same ones that built cathedrals in her heart, but there is a certain sense of familiarity with the landscape, and she goes, moving away from the party, though bonfires light the entire way. There is distant laughter and singular cheering that she moves past. She had seen them before. She’s tried to come here but never actually crossed into the mysterious land of Denocte. Dusk and Night are sisters in a way, but she had not ever truly thought about it until she thinks of ocean and mountains, two beautiful things, two beautiful book ends with the rest of world in between their great heights and deep trenches.
She leaves an imaginary trail of dirt behind her, shedding the grave she had once dug herself. It is the air of the mountain when she breaks above the tree line that she thinks ‘this, this must be what it is like to breathe.’
And she asks herself, with her lungs free of dirt and her head above the soil, she asks herself if they world has always truly been this beautiful, or has seven years underground just made her desperate for the starlight?
* e l e n a
in the dark I’ll pray for the return of the light the sunflower daughter of benjamin and beylani
medic of dusk.
“Take a breath – let the world fall away.” Azrael steps from the shadows toward the mare of frenzied spirit and golden hair. In the darkness, there are only the two of them, away – away from the clatter of the world. Far in the mountains, the shed-star can kiss the heavens. Far from the light, his stars can shine, brighter than any bonfire, warmer than any cider which passed the lips. This is not to say that the celestial beast disapproves of such celebration though, for the Night Court needed to heal and to open the gates once more. It was time. Still, he strays to the fringes, alone… save for now.
Her breath is labored, a sheen of sweat sparkling in the stardust, the scent of fear - pungent and spicy lingering near. Regarding her coolly, Azrael steps closer again, reaching toward her golden frame with a comforting sort of gesture. He knows it is fear that grips her, and he does not press with an urgent mannerism. Instead, the old-world beast is simply a quiet beacon beside her, his voice steadily rhythmic and soothing, like water lapping against the hull of a ship. “Why do you steal away?” He asks. “Surely this is a night for dancing, for drinking… for debauchery even.” There is laughter which meets his eyes, the irony not lost on him – for Azrael too stayed far from the uproarious festival. It simply wasn’t his style.
He could ask a thousand questions more, but instead, he simply stands beside the mare and looks to the heavens. The summer wind is uncharacteristically chilled as it stings against him, tangling in his locks like a lover. Above them, the stars twinkle like a thousand tiny diamonds, and he watches them while reciting their names like old friends in his mind. Altair. Deneb. Vega. The glow of his coat washes them both with an otherworldly light, bringing an almost iridescent luster to his appearance, interrupted only by the fall of his dark mane. Like others in the tribe, Azrael’s appearance is a testament to the night – for the shed-stars are said to have descended from the heavens themselves – blessed by Caligo and torn from the sky to walk among men.
“What brings you to Caligo’s gates, if not the bonfires and the festival arch?” Was it yearning? Azrael understood what it was to yearn, to wish for something greater than oneself. Perhaps still, it was the allure of the stars, a love he knew all too well. She was welcome here of course, to this land of dreamers and performers. Still, the shed-star is as curious about the sunkissed girl, as she about the mountains and the midnight sky.
take this burden away from me and bury it before it buries me
She had been lost for a long time.
She had wandered to places with no name or history, trying to lose herself there, another stupid wanderer, pretending the same.
There are times when she wishes she would have stayed lost. Stayed in those nameless places where nothing can be linked to memories, where it is white and quiet and nothing. But she is here now and the stars that glitter bring up memories that are like a hammer to the chest.
“Take a breath – let the world fall away.” She will remember these words months from now when she awakens from a nightmare and feels like her chest is caving in. She will remember these words, his voice, his presence, and only then will her breathing steady and her heart calm. It is in the same instance that he speaks that Elena realizes she is no longer alone. And it is a single beat after this that Elena realizes how beautiful he is. Starlight, bright and shining. “As long as you can see there are stars, there is hope,” someone had told her once, maybe Ori. She likes to tell herself that she has cast her hope aside, it makes her feel strong, not clinging to those bits and pieces, but the truth is that it is worn on her sleeve like a badge of naivety.
He moves closer, and she doesn't move away. He is a stranger, she should be more cautious, but she has never had the good sense to do such things. While she has been punished for this open heart of hers, this willingness to trust a stranger, she has also been gifted far too many times to simply let this mysterious man slip away from her. He reaches towards her and Elena does not flinch away, his gesture was not greedy, not possessive, but ethereal and comforting.
Despite herself, she smiles then, something sad, dark, and beautiful all at once, looking to him with eyes like glaciers in the south, blue and bright. “It has been a night for such,” she says, remembering the Denocte’s breath tangling with her own as their bodies moved to songs she had never heard before. “But I find no matter the excitement or the movement, the stillness of the night always wins out in the end.” The quietness, the solitude, the blindness, all things that had frightened Elena as a child when it came to the dark.
(“Darkness only exists to drawn attention to the light, Elena,” her mother had told her one day when she had been so weak from her illness that they all knew it was close, this ending. “That doesn't make any sense,” she had argued back, a little girl who was hurt, confused, angry. Beylani had looked astounded. “Well, of course it does. Why do you think we have the stars when it grows dark at night?” Elena looked at her with fire eyes. “To see,” she says, there is barb wire on her heart, she doesn't know why her chest hurts. She will come to know this emotion as grief. “To see,” her mother repeated, her voice saturated with all the strength she could muster for a little girl who needed her mother, her night light, her star.)
She feels vulnerable beside him, exposed, ironic as it is that Elena feels most bare when it is darkest. The sunshine had always allowed Elena to hide those fleeting looks of fear, of uncertainty and the blue of the skies that matches her eyes disguises any tears that may have tried to fall. She follows his own gaze up to the stars before it retreats back down, to linger over his sparkling his skin like constellations, his hair like galaxies. “Are you one of them?” She asks him, looking up from beneath long, dark lashes before diverting her gaze away, realizing how silly and girlish her question sounds.
“Mystery?” She questions even her own answer to this. “I’ve never liked the dark,” she admits and it stings her tongue. Too many things hid within it, and though she had always loved the Hyaline night sky, it had only been when the crimson form of her cousin was beside her to chase away the shadows. “My name is Elena,” she gives up that much. Her own name feeling strange in her mouth as she speaks her name of the sun to a man of the night.
so take away this apathy bury it before it buries me
It pleased him to see the girl relaxing now, her heart beating more quietly as warmth returned to her face. While he couldn’t claim to know what plagued her, he knew enough to assess her fear, and to wonder. No one was without their demons.
Azrael’s upbringing had been one which would be foreign by most standards. While Elena was born into a warm and loving family, Azrael’s rearing was wholly as one of the Tribe. He had a mother, of course – a father too… but when a shed-star was born, the child was raised in a communal manner. He had never known his mother, only that she was one of the Tribe, and that the Tribe cared for their own.
Still, there were happy times in his youth. He’d learned to read the stars, to listen to the whisper of the wind, to follow the cards, to worship the midnight moon. Then, the stars had blinked out one by one – as it had been foretold – and the People had come to this place, where they could watch the heavens once more. Here, the Stars were flung to the wind. Some stayed, some went. Some sold their stardust trinkets or whispered fortunes in silken tents. But all continued to delight in the night.
“There is great power in the darkness, it’s true… but you need not shy from the night. For only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
The scent of her is different now, with the fear subsiding. Now, he catches a lingering air of healing herbs and summer rain. His unusual turquoise eyes find hers of sky blue, holding for a moment before he turns away, back to his stars once more. “They say the People are descended from the stars themselves,” he offers easily, clearly not finding the question a silly one. “but I know my mother’s blood ran red, just as her mother’s before.” It was a beautifully poetic thing to wonder though, for he would have quite enjoyed being a star.
“And you, Elena… you are not from this place.” It was clear she was a creature born for the golden light of day – a contrast he would not fault her for. “The stardust suits you though… more than you know.” It was as close to flattery as the peculiar stallion could offer, never fitting well into social convention.
He stepped away from her, taking one step toward the mountains, then a second. “Come with me,” he offered matter-of-factly, an easy smile resting on his lips. While the question in his voice could be alarming coming from a stranger, there is a warmth to the way he watches her – protective and gentle. “Let me show you my Dark – you’ll see there’s nothing to fear of it.”
take this burden away from me and bury it before it buries me
Maybe in the end, everyone is a star.
And so they all must fall like one.
A moment of glory along the dark night sky before descended, lost within the moment. Tears blinding, hearts breaking, skin burned, bones snapped. All broken until the very end, and only then do they beg to be fixed, to be glued together like some broken china doll. So that maybe they may burn bright again, just before the fall.
Elena has not known love beyond the deep infatuation she has felt for so many and it is so easy to let the admiration and intrigue take root—so easy to let it consume her greedy heart and eager eyes. For a moment, the ghosts break through the veil, and she can feel their sickly fingers pressing into the base of her throat, the pain rising like a wave inside of her—threatening to pull her down. She rolls her shoulders, doing her best to shake them and focus on the man in front of her instead.
There is a strange otherness to the moment that Elena cannot quite name. It is something that slips under the surface and wraps around the base of it; she feels it like a current in her pulse and a jackhammer to her heart. It is an uncomfortable feeling and yet she feels completely comfortable relishing it. It is easy for Elena to get caught up in the other worldliness of this moment. “That sounds like something my mom would say,” her voice is honey and summer, lyrical and lifting on the edges—the only truly beautiful thing about her.
He seems harmless, and she relaxes in his presence. She had almost forgotten what it was like to have a casual conversation with someone kind and easy, letting herself slip into the warm water of company. For so long, she has found herself drawn into the tsunami of emotions—letting the darkness of others rise above her and drag her down. She reveled in it, which was a strange reaction from someone like her, but she couldn’t pretend like she wasn’t drawn to it, the gravity of them pulling her down.
He looks at her, and she thinks in that moment that if gravity were not holding her down she would fall into the stars with the beauty of his eyes. He turns away and her stomach flips inside her with longing to see them again. Just like him, her parents blood ran red, she had seen the red of her father’s against his coat of obsidian. Red shines different when it comes from another than it does against the backdrop of a sunset. “And your father?” She asks him because the memory though so long ago feels fresh, and though she does not choke back tears, there is a pinch in her heart that tells her she still grieves, even if she pretends not to.
“I am not,” she admits. And had she been able to blush, her cheeks would have grown flush, always a weakness, greedy for the kind words of others. He says the stardust suits her, but how cam she even begin to agree when she sees the beauty that is him?
At his request, she inhales quickly, holding her breath in her lungs for a moment before she releases it, letting it blow out into the summer air and between them. “You wont disappear in the dark?” She asks him, she is so used to them going. “I just found you, I wouldn't want to lose you that quickly.” She whispers, Elena, as always wearing her heart on her sleeve for others to easily destroy at their whim. She wonders for a moment, what it is like to fall into the darkness. She wonders if it is like falling into the deep, deep blue of the ocean—weightless. She takes another sharp inhale, letting it go and nodding her head. She is Wendy ready to take Peter’s hand and follow him into the night.
so take away this apathy bury it before it buries me
“Your mother sounds very wise.” For a moment, he paused, wondering if his own mother had been wise. It was a strange thing, not knowing the woman who gave you life. There were days he longed for the idea of a mother, but then, Azrael had never known the comfort of a mother’s touch, the love in her embrace, the warmth in her gaze. It wasn’t possible for him to know how much he had missed out on, but Azrael liked to think she would have been as kind as she was beautiful.
When she asks about his father, Azrael explains, “My people are called the Shed-Stars, and we come from a place far beyond these mountains. I know no father, and no mother. We know only the Tribe – and the tribe takes care of their own.” It was an overly simplistic way to explain his communal upbringing. While he didn’t have familial bonds to fill his childhood with laughter, there were different memories to warm his dreams.
He wonders where she came from – but she does not offer, and so Azrael does not pry. It was not in the stallion’s nature to steal away one’s secrets. To be honest, it wasn’t in his nature to even offer so much of his own story. Normally, Azrael was far from the others, lost to his mountains and his stars. But tonight, something had called him to this place, to her company. Call it intuition, or maybe an intervention of Caligo herself… but whatever the reason, Azrael was grateful. Despite his best intentions, he found the girl a rousing sort of company. He knew that beyond tonight, she would still be in his dreamscape. A vivid dreamer, it never failed to surprise Azrael when powerful events in his wakeful times assaulted his dreams. Elena, at least, would be a welcome addition.
When she nods to his suggestion, Azrael lets out of breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding – a breath of anticipation. “You cannot lose me, for the Caligo’s light will never leave me,”“Here…” he leans forward, slipping his glowing amulet from his neck and offering it to her. “To help you see, and to chase away the darkness.” As it nestles against her, there is a soft turquoise light which splays ahead, just bright enough to illuminate her path. “Be careful,” his voice is a hush against the wind, “for the path is crude and uneven.” It is not so dangerous to climb the mountains, but requires at least some dexterity and attention to one’s footing.
He led her through the Eventide Arch – stopping to gaze at its stained-glass windows, facing westward toward the setting sun. It is a beautiful symbol of hope, he muses – as Denocte’s gates opened to the world once more. Moving past it, they begin to climb together, leaving the festival behind. Upward they climb, toward the heavens, and through the fog layers which kissed the mountains. As the misty haze cleared, it became evident why Azrael loved the peaks so much.
Above them was nothing but heaven and indigo skies. Stars burst through the darkness like shining diamonds, several blazing across the sky, begging for wishes to be made. Azrael could count the constellations now, his own breath in his throat as he is taken once more by the beauty of it all. Every time he watched the night sky, it never failed to leave him breathless. “Look, just there…” he motions Elena toward a cluster of stars. “It is Aquila, the eagle… and there beside it, the Milky Way. On a night like tonight, the hazy band of stardust is brilliant and bright, like a great swath of silver painted across black. There is enough light now from the stars alone, that they need not rely on his glow for guidance. Now, it is Caligo who leads them – Caligo and their stars.
He turns to watch Elena, wishing to see the wonder through her eyes, and wishing to reach out and brush the strands of wind-tossed hair from her cheek. This touch was reserved for lovers, he knew, and so the man of aurora stardust resists… but Azrael offers her a quiet smile as she turns toward him as well.
This time, he doesn’t look away. “Have you found your mystery yet? His voice is a hushed whisper, almost stolen away on the summer wind, a whisper for only her to hear.
take this burden away from me and bury it before it buries me
Would he think lesser of her if knew what a scarred thing she truly was?
Would he think of her as a broken, used toy to know about the way she had been hollowed out? She had been so small when she had been swept away by the dark like an ocean of shadows, tossing and turning until she was inside out and utterly alone. She had handed her heart away so easily, so eager to lose herself into something that had felt epic only to find it rotten from the inside out. It had left her scarred and alone—shattered. It has taken time, and leaving them all behind to pull herself back together, to begin to bring the semblance of wholeness back to herself.
Would he think less of her to know her scars?
“She was, for what little I knew of her,” she says with a lonely smile. They are more alike than they would think, standing there thinking things about mothers they never really knew. Azrael as a star and Elena as an orphan. “We used to wait outside by the lake for the first star to appear each night,” she says, a family tradition, when the dark, with her family beside her, had not been frightening, but inviting. “I don't know much about my parents either,” she admits. “They died when I was young.” She says, quickly moving forward, she has dwelled within her thoughts far too long in regards to her mother and father, she knows there is only sorrow and grief when she lingers in that corner of her heart. “Do you wish you knew them?”
She does not know that she will appear in his dreams.
Maybe, if she did, she would tell him he shouldn’t waste such precious slumbers on thoughts of her.
You cannot lose me. She wants to tell him not to make promises he isn't sure he can keep. If there was one thing Elena could do splendidly, it was lose somebody. But as he places the amulet on her neck, Elena cannot help the way she lights up. She arches that golden neck to look down at it, following with glacial blue eyes the light it creates. She leans close to him, to walk the same steps he does. She only moves her eyes from the path to the star-horse when she speaks to him. “I’ll follow you,” she says for not the first time this evening.
Elena has always been so willing to let another guide her, praying that this time they would not lead her astray.
He guides her through the arch, her eyes taken in the awe and beauty of the decorative pieces that she had not noticed on her way into Denocte. She remains close as they climb, higher and higher, and higher. It is only when the footing begins to even out that she dares to glance upwards. The stars are overwhelming tonight in their beauty, and she feels breathless in their presence, her golden head flings back to take them in—soak in the impossible infinity of their existence. Her pulse is pounding and it is enough to make her breathless. How had she not taken the time to stare up at the constellations and revel in them? How had she lived so wordlessly beneath the heaven’s reign? Forgetting to stare up in awe at the swirling chasms above her.
Is when she looks up as she stands beside him on the mountain top. It almost causes the breath in her throat to catch, all of the ghosts crawling out and into her flesh, but his voice banishes them, opening the windows wide and letting the light pour in. She tilts her chin up to him, watching the starlight cross his features, shimmering beneath it. He is beautiful, she thinks, but it feels foolish to tell him this. It feels foolish to tell him, a stranger she has just met that in his presence, with him beside her, she feels braver than she has in a long time.
It feels foolish to admit this aloud.
Instead she follows him to the constellations that have unfurled before them like secrets told. “There is a crown too, right?” She asks, and she feels childhood stories bubbling in her chest as something similar to hope. “Although, I am not sure where,” she says, scanning those blue eyes across the heavens. Corona Borealis – The Northern Crown, a favorite story from her childhood. Who would have known she would come to live so similar a story.
His question brightens Elena’s sunshine face. She touches his shoulder with all the delicacy and gentleness of butterfly wings and dewdrops on spring leaves and leaves the crinkle of a smile there before pulling away. “I don’t think so,” she says, a thought shared. “But, I think I may like it that way,” she says. “I am beginning to find that the mystery is not fearsome as I may have once believed.”
so take away this apathy bury it before it buries me
When she talks of her family, Azrael can feel the warmth and the love which emanated from her memories. Though her parents were gone, Elena could quite clearly recall them, even with the haze of grief of loss. Through her words, he can almost picture the girl of sunshine beside her mother, scrying for Venus with hope in her wide blue eyes. “Sometimes…” he admitted to her question, “Sometimes I wonder what they were like. I wonder if they saw me and knew me as theirs – if they see me still… For all I know, they may well be alive and among us. It’s a strange thing, not knowing…”
They walk alone in comfortable silence for a time, with only the stars and Azrael’s light to guide their way. There is a relaxed peace between them which is effortless and light, and the boy of stardust and light is lost to her charm. He watches her as she climbs adeptly skyward, ears flicking as they stop and she begins to count the stars with him.
“Your crown is here, nestled between the Serpent and the Herdsman.” he gestures to a small arc of seven stars in the northern sky. “It is said that crown was given to Ariadne for her marriage to Dionysus, and that he placed it in the heavens so all the world would know of their union.” He smiles fondly at the thought – for there could be no mark of love more powerful than painting it across the canvas of the night sky for all to see. “There are seven stars, the brightest one being Alphecca.” Although the conversation could be almost clinical, there is a fondness as Azrael speaks of his stars – as if they were almost friends instead of distant astronomical objects. He had spent a lifetime memorizing their trails and names, listening to the myths spun by priestesses around the burning fire.
“There are eighty-eight star families in total, but not all are here during the summer months. The sky is ever changing with the seasons.” It was a beautiful and poetic thing – a perfect metaphor for life itself. For the sun would always rise to a new day, the world always turning despite what befell the men who walked upon it. Through the chaos and the uncertainty, Azrael could always find the stars, and count them to soothe his weariness.
“It is good,” he decides, “to want for something more. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mystery of things.” He sighs, turning into the warmth of her touch, meeting it with one of his own, feather-light against her nape. “Take the stars for instance – time moves the world forward, stealing away each fragile life in due time - and yet the same stars which shined a thousand years ago still watch the world today. What tales they could tell... what things they must have seen.” Azrael’s voice is a reverent whisper, as he delights in the thought of it. “The People say that when you die, your spirit becomes a star. I quite like the idea.”
And so, there is a note of hope for Elena and all which she had lost. Perhaps she would find her answers and her solace in the darkness she so feared. Then, she need not fear the night, but instead, embrace its wonder.
take this burden away from me and bury it before it buries me
Perhaps this night air could bring her some serenity. After the wildness of the party and the thrill of dancing with a stranger.
They walk, and it is silent, but Elena cannot help the smile that finds her face as she peers towards the stallion with blue eyes from underneath long, dark lashes, and the happiness that flutters in her chest like fireflies in a jar. She tucks away the joy in the pit of her stomach, but it burns still, like the embers to a smoldering fire. Her heart is a soft, fragile thing, that hides in her brambles and vines within her ribcage, so afraid to come out again.
She looks at him walking with those blue eyes, and she finds herself wanting him to look back at her, to smile at her. She isn't quite sure while she feels so disappointed when he doesn’t. Elena never has been good at hiding her emotions, they swim clear as day across her golden face, only ever illuminated bright by the sunshine that finds her. The masks she has tried to wear, has tried to cover over her face have never stuck. The shadow of her dismay holds on only for a moment before lighting up once more as she comes to stand beside him.
Sometimes, when it’s dark and no one can see her, she likes to pretend to be nothing, nobody.
In those moments it isn't sad, but neither is it peaceful. It is vacant and hollow and some how, that is the most comforting feeling of all.
A crown to show his love, Elena can only imagine such an act. She relates so much more to the beginning of that story. Theseus and his abandonment, leaving her stranded on an island to perish. Elena knows abandonment all too well, and the ache it leaves in your bones. She thinks she might like to know what it is like to be rescued by someone other than herself.
It hurts, staring up at the stars. It’s a different kind of hurt though, it starts at the base of her heart, leaking its way towards the rest of her body. She has to brush it away, she yearns for the fire she felt at the festival, but the cool night air makes her shiver instead. “Do you miss them when they go?” She asks. “Even if they come back?” She asks, her voice reaching out to him with the hushed tones of evening and starlight.
He turns into the touch she offers him and it takes all within Elena not curl into him and let herself sink into the shining beauty that is the shed star. She misses it, physical touch, she misses the way her and Lilli had fit together, and would sleep beside each other beneath Hyaline open skies, or the pattering rain of Taiga. His single touch against her, like a paintbrush against a canvas is not enough, and she finds herself suddenly all to aware of how cold she is without the bonfire to warm her back down the mountain.
“I once knew a girl who could speak to the stars,” she says, the cerulean girl with eyes made from stardust. “She said they speak of things that have been done, of what is happening, and things yet to come. The stars are the very essence of time themselves,” she says. It is only when he speaks his next words that she turns her head from the dark sky and looks at him with some sort of semblance of awe, hope, and grief. “Do you believe that’s true?” She asks him, another question, another prayer. And she realizes in that moment that she doesn't want to hear the answer if it were to sway a particular way, she scans the planes of his face before speaking again. “Tell me it’s true,” she says, her heart pounding in her chest because she thinks of all the souls her family has lost and should they be gone without a trace, she would be better off pretending otherwise.
so take away this apathy bury it before it buries me
There is such hope in the golden girl’s eyes – wide and blue as the sea. If the eyes were windows to the soul, then her being was as pure as the summer sky, Azrael decided, even as he swallowed down the feeling of butterflies leaping within his chest as her gaze finds his once more. The pull of attraction was fierce, and yet the shed-star was a creature of restraint and calm, pushing away his own baser instincts as he focused instead on her questions. It was refreshing to hear such interest in his stars, for there was nothing the stallion loved more.
“I cannot miss the stars, for they are with me always. Even when I cannot see them, whether they are drowned by the sun or hidden by clouds, I know them. All I have to do is close my eyes, and dream of the starry night.” She could not know how true this statement was, for more than just a shed-star, Azrael was a magician. He was called a Dream Walker by the People – one who manipulates dreams. In his own, Azrael could take an active role, changing the circumstances and outcome through his decisions and whims.
“But I cannot help but wonder what they see – when they shine on places far from here. What curiosities the world might hold, beyond our plane of understanding”. It was something he thought of often, the marvel of what lies beyond. Beyond the mountains, Caligo’s lands, and even Novus itself. He shivers at the wonder of it all, noting for the first time the chill that came from the mountain air. His own breath was sheer now against the cold, and he steps closer still to Elena, warm to the touch as his light spreads to wash over her too. For the light which shines upon him is one borne of the stars, blessed by Caligo herself. It is the glow of a fallen star which possesses him, building in strength as the night wears on.
There is a peace to the easy quiet between them, as his turquoise eyes filter over the constellations one by one, then back to her again. As she mentions the gift of star-speaking, he offers a smile once more. “There are those who can talk with the stars – the priestesses of Caligo. They can read the messages, transcribe them to the People, foretell what is to come. He stops, something akin to sorrow flashing briefly in his eyes, as he remembers the fateful words of the star-speakers.
“It is true,” he whispers sadly, “But not everyone understands or even believes.” Pacing slowly from side to side, the vision of his homeland plays out in his memories. “The shed-stars came to Denocte when our land was destroyed by dragon fire. The stars knew, of course, that our end was inevitable. The star-speakers even told the People what would come… but not everyone believed their words.” Those who hadn’t – those who had defied the caravan as it moved down the mountain, had perished in that place – faces trained skyward as they blinked their last look at the very sky which had tried to warn them.
“We would do well to heed when they speak,” he offers, “to be receptive to their message. Perhaps their secrets are around us all the time, if only we were to listen.”
“But nevermind that now, dear Elena…” his voice is quieter now, gentle and warm once more as the warning fades away. “Tonight, the stars speak of brighter things – of hope, of warmth, of new beginnings.” What else would Denocte’s festival be for, if not for a symbol of rebirth. “Where will you go, when the stars fade to morning?”
![[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/8026a53b-dc57-41ab-b574-9f8a8fe57ce4/ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db0780.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzgwMjZhNTNiLWRjNTctNDFhYi1iNTc0LTlmOGE4ZmU1N2NlNFwvZGR2b3R3ZS01OTMwMmJhNi02YTgxLTQ3YmYtOTg0Ni0zMGM1YTVkYjA3ODAucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.ujCJH7FAbsQhfZlQniMmEd_vw-VmvaTDn0iFb4PvyXE)
