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Deep in the blue night, one small light was left on in the house overlooking the water. The house was silent bar the man of the house who had only ever visited at night, once a year at best and was now stirred at the sight. He had heard the hearsay from the mother, enough of a report to warrant a rare appearance. The kid was a night owl, the kid was a weirdo, the kid’s eyes were broken. Medical bills sprawled across the table inter twined with the odd note book or toy. A family in disarray, well a mother and son in disarray. The stairs did not squeak, the towels were dried by his presence, toys and shows littered the carpet were straightened as he walked by.
Beyond the door, in the middle of the only lit room sat a young child. Dressed in a thick cow print pyjama set, delicately sorting out pieces of a space themed jigsaw. Above him hung mobiles of rockets and glow in the dark stickers of ships and starfields, surrounded the room with a feeling of adventure. Airplanes, astronauts, the odd knight, some taken apart into their pieces with make shift screwdrivers and hair pins. His blank part hair slightly mattered from the removed pin that was jammed half in a electric car toy taken apart. Even the coldness that his father had brought into the room did not disturb the child whose sole attention was on placing the pieces in with a soft delicacy, much more than he had shown his other toys.
“Rykiel…”
Unsure what exactly to say, frankly if it weren’t for the strange reports from his mother then he would not have retuned. Yet the reports were right, he was destructive, and his eyes barely opened. The kid sat as if he had done an office job for 40 years already but he lacked the coldness, there was still warmth from the child. The small cracks of the eyes met his father’s deep red and the kid gave a smile back, as wary as his father was of both their presence. It was no different from every 6 months of so where his mother would declare another man father, yet only this one seemed to have a reoccurrence.
“Your Mother…Can you talk to me, Rykiel?”
Dio curled his legs in and sat down opposite the son who had returned to his puzzle. Dio watched the hands moved and tried to recount the age of the child. 6…perhaps? He had lost track of most of his brood, but the speed of sorting and aura the kid had given away. There was a weight inside him and a type of presence that only few of his kids had even remotely shown. Dio had thought that perhaps the weight inside him could have been a stand, but with The World behind him, the kid did not stir. It was too early, but regardless, the chill was peculiar no doubt about it and it was beyond any noticeable medical aliment he could feel.
“What would you like to be?”
A silly unimportant question, something to try gauge the child. The reply was simply and frank. Turning over a piece of the jigsaw with an astronaut’s helmet on, it was just that – an astronaut. Rykiel placed the puzzle piece down and sat up, pointing out the window, and out to the moon. He explained that his Mother had said it was a silly thing to wish for. Finishing off the last center pieces of the puzzle and abandoning it on the floor, Dio questioned him some more. Rykiel wandered over to a small bookshelf with collapsed books and a brave knight in armour figure guarding some treasure. He plucked out a small guide book he could barely lift and a tin from behind the knight. He showed his father that he and been harvesting parts from toys to build something for the moon, or to reach it even if he couldn’t, he wished to fly through the air. To control little rockets so working on building them to try prove to the other children and most importantly his mother of his ambition. Dio was rather taken back, it had seemed between the small boy with the blonde and black striped hair and this child, there was hope slowly on the horizon. He questioned the young boy about his plans, he had little, he had withdrawn from other kids and was set wholly on being some sort of brave astronaut on the frontier of science. He used broken words that barely chained together and words Dio had come to that he had picked up from magazines rather than his mother. Standing up, he asked Rykiel to follow suit and Dio helped straighten his back, to stand up “like a knight”. His eyes opened a fraction at the talking and interaction. Every mention of growth, of being something, of a star himself he opened a fraction more.
There it was, Dio had seen the cause of this fascination. At the base of his neck sat the Joestar birthmark, there in his eyes showed a small child with stars as his entire being. Picking up a small toy and fixing the insides of it with his strength, clicking the small chunks of rocks back in. He passed it back to Rykiel and told him that the stars were something he could tackle and to seek others who sought the stars. Rykiel grabbed the golden wrist bracers of his father and dragged him to the door. Hurriedly taking the rocket in his hand. Unlocking the double balcony doors for him, young Rykiel in the moonlight placed the small rocket toy on the table. Asking his father to sit and watch the fruits of his labour take off. Dio smiled at the ambition and checking mall small insides of it, he had it nearly complete. The boy simply didn’t understand yet the full capacity of fuel. Squatting down to Rykiel’s height The child counted down, under his breath Dio brought The World from him and waiting for the count of one, let the World fling the toy rocket into the horizon as hard as possible. Rykiel’s face lit up and he managed to stand straight and tall like his father in that soft moment.
Following the rocket up, Rykiel clambered onto the balconey’s marble railings, Rykiel had his arm stretched to sky as the rocket vanished into the horizon. Standing under the moonlight, the child’s arm reached out for the moon itself. Standing up straight with wide shoulders and soft joestar birthmark gleaming in the moonlight, stood the son of the vampire. Cocking one eye up impressed, Dio moved joined his son and looked at him stretching up, trying to grasp the stars themselves.
“I want to touch the moon! I want to go sky high! Father, I want to follow the rocket!”
Dio other eye met both, and a hand swept across his chin at the child who kept his balance with a hand up in the air. The excited little Rykiel stopped, and turned to his father, poking the small heart on the front of the hair band before trying to yank to it off. Interesting to see where the little prodigy was heading with this, Dio removed the band and crowned the son. Stretching up to the moon with all his might little Rykiel in his bright white cow suit adorned with an emerald head piece grabbed for the moon. His bright pink eyes opened fully in the moonlight, his skin shimmered with soft whiteness. Around his left wrist was the soft outline of something forming.
“I want to go higher, high than the moon! I want to make sure nobody leaves! I want to grow bigger than the stars!”
His foot had nearly tripped and Dio lent a hand out in preparation to catch, but he could see that his child’s eyes had opened up fully and regained balance. The cow print wearing child had not a single notion in his body of the silver beings that curled across the sky for him, ready and waiting for the age he could control them. For the day he could ride with his father into battle against those with star on their shoulders, for the day where he would sail across the sea of stars. The shimmering had faded, but now his eyes looked at Dio, opened up to reflect the moon’s silver with a deep red stained pink. Dio leaned forward and pulled the child back slightly and whispered in his ear.
“Sky High...Can you remember that for me? You will be the sky-high child to crush the stars themselves.”
A hunger and thirst stretched through Rykiel’s arms into the deep nights sky. Much like his father who had shied away during the day, was bright and alive at night. There with a hand trying to the crush the stars, an ambition, a growth the strength to move heaven and earth all wrapped up in the child’s wide eye.