Chapter Text
“Uncle, I know what stars look like.”
Dictatious pauses mid-lecture, unsure if he has heard correctly. “Do you?”
“Yes.” Andromeda rocks back and forth on the stone shelf, their longer pair of hands hooked under their feet. They’re a shy, quiet child, but he can see that they’re practically vibrating with excitement, their eyes bright and their cheeks dimpling with the grin they can’t quite hold in. “Alkind sent me–photographs? That’s what he called them.”
“Don’t touch your feet,” Dictatious reminds out of habit, still a little off-balance, “goodness knows where they’ve been.”
Andromeda does as he says, unbothered. “They’re so pretty, Uncle.” Their voice is quiet and shining. “There’s so many.”
He doesn’t answer for a moment. It’s not until their smile begins to fade that the words come unstuck from his throat. “I remember, yes. It’s been a very long time since I saw them last, child.”
Andromeda stares at him. It’s their turn to be silent for a little too long, as if they’re gauging his reaction. “Do you want to look at them?”
The interrupted lecture is put out of his head entirely. He stares at them, lost for words. He knows what photographs are; the goblins return with them every now and then, intel sent back by impures. Pictures of the stars, though, never. Unimportant to the Janus Order. Frivolous.
Four centuries, he thinks. Four centuries since he saw them last.
“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” he says airily, folding his four hands behind his back as if his chest doesn’t feel a little strange. “As long as they don’t prove to be a distraction from your lessons.”
Andy beams.