Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nageki wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he said goodbye to Miss Tosaka. He wasn’t sure if time had passed at all, really. He remembered fading away and he remembered a lifting feeling, as though he’d started flying despite remaining stationary, and then his vision went white until he opened his eyes as though waking up from a joyful dream. As far as how many seconds, minutes, or days went by before then, he couldn't say. It did not worry him all that much; his sense of time had been broken for longer than he could remember anyway.

When he became aware of the world around him, he found himself on a train. Glancing around revealed a few comfortable looking seats and windows filled with stars. There were birds who glanced at him briefly before resuming to stare at the passing galaxies- well, he assumed they’re all birds. One or two of them were unmistakably doves, but others were in various states of vagueness, blurred and blending in with the backdrop out the windows. Oddly enough, this didn’t worry him either.

After scanning the room, he returned his gaze down the aisle and was taken aback by the figure in front of him. A bird (though this was even less certain than the other birds in the train) in a conductor’s uniform stood over him. Though their form was shadowed, when Nageki focused on the bird’s face he could see that there were no feathers in their outline. In fact, there appeared to be no flesh at all.

Well, Nageki thought, I guess that explains where I am.

For some reason, a train hadn’t exactly been what he’d expected from the afterlife, despite how many times he’d reread his favorite book.

“Howdy there. Please show me your tickets,” the conductor said in a much more cheerful voice than one would normally contribute to Death.

“...” Nageki didn’t exactly get to choose what he brought with him in death, and even if he had he doubted there was any place that sold what is being asked for.

“Sir? Please show me your ticket.”

“... I don’t think I have one.”

“Sure you do! You have that Scorpion Flame right there.”

When Nageki looked around in confusion, there was a planisphere clutched in his talons. Raising it to be examined revealed constellations sparkling even brighter than the stars that surrounded the railroad.

“I don’t remember getting this.”

“Of course not. The Scorpion Flame is a treasure passed down only to the chosen ones. Space can be a dangerous place for someone without one of those. Never ever give it to anyone, no matter how they ask.”

The chosen ones?

“... all right.”

“Feel free to visit the other cars, but please remain boarded until we reach a station.”

As quickly as he came, the reaper was gone. Nageki stood alone in the center of the train car, unsure if he should sit down or not. The prospect of holding a conversation with any strangers felt unnatural, with Miss. Tosaka being the only person he'd talked to in the past five years. But this wasn't like the library; everybirdy here could see him, and it would be far stranger for him to just stand in the aisle.

Decision made, he sat down across from one of the birds who was actually recognizable as such. 

"Hello!" She said warmly, clearly less uncomfortable with the ordeal of being known than Nageki. 

"... Hi."

The older rock dove smiled, but her face fell as she looked at him. "Oh. You're so young. Are you… were you still in school?” Nageki nodded. “What year?”

“Freshman.” Nageki was somewhat regretting his choice to sit down. He didn't exactly want to discuss the details of his death with a stranger, even a seemingly nice one.

“That’s younger than my son… do you know him? His name is Ryouta.” Nageki shook his head much to the disappointment of the stranger, but she didn’t linger on the subject. “You’re really too young to be here. I’m so sorry.” 

After an uncomfortable internal debate, Nageki's need for information overcame his desire for silence.

“Do you know where the train is going?”

“No. I only realized I was dead yesterday. I thought I was just dreaming at first.” She laughed gently. “Maybe I am still dreaming. Dying makes you have the strangest dreams, you know? I’ve been having them for months in the hospital.”

“I see… do you have a planisphere too?”

“Of course. I think everyone here does.” 

She pulled out her planisphere to show him. It was far less ornate than his own; the design is simply printed on and there are no gemstones embedded in the surface.

“Do you know why mine is different?”

She just shrugged.

“Sometimes things come into our lives before we know why we’ll need them. To hurt, to help, to heal. All we can do is keep them close until we find the answers, or to pass it on to someone who can.”

“...”

The train slowly came to a halt.

“The train will be stopping for a few minutes to wait for signals,” a voice said over the announcer.

“Huh,” said the rock dove as she looked out the window. “There’s a station.”

Indeed there was. A beautiful station that glowed warmly.

“Are you going to get off?”

The stranger shook her head. “I’m going to ride the train as far as I can. I’m hoping I’ll find my husband so I can scold him for leaving us behind.” Her voice stayed lighthearted, though there was a slightly bitter edge to her joke. “What about you?”

He stared out towards the station. ‘What’s the right thing to do? ’ was too open-ended, and a puzzle that he had no clue how to solve.

What would Miss Tosaka want to do?  

That question was much easier to answer. Despite himself, Nageki smiled. She’d love the thought of adventures in outer space. 

Besides, he’d had enough of being unable to move around.

“I’ll go.”

“It was nice meeting you. Take care of yourself, okay? I don’t want to worry about some poor student being lost between stars.”

After saying goodbye to the dove, Nageki exited the train and flied to the station.

☆★☆

The King stopped humming to himself when a few of the other Kings came flying towards him through the lighthouse’s window.

“Your Highness! Your Highness, there’s a new friend!” Two of the Kings spoke in a singsong voice, happily parading in their starry forms rather than their royal regalia.

The King fought back the anxiety of the sudden interruption (though the other Kings noticed his fear anyway, they always did. A few of them came closer through their mind and mumbled reassurances), and instead looked out of the lighthouse, trying to see the bird who’d only just arrived to their little paradise. The bird was too far away to see out of the small King’s eyes, but glancing through the minds of the others revealed a mourning dove with an unreadable expression.

“Do we know what brought him to the star?” the King asked.

“Not yet,” the Kings responded joyfully.

There was no need to force the bird’s mind to reveal its secrets. After all, as long as the bird wasn’t bad, they’d have all the time in the world to get to know him. If he was here, he could not have been happy, and if he wasn’t happy then surely he would want friends.

The Kings smiled as they turned their attention down on their bright little town. Some Kings went to the square to greet the dove, some rushed throughout their lovely landscapes to form new games and puzzles for their newest friend, and some settled into the palace where they'd think to each other on their throne while they waited.

The smallest King, the King who couldn't help but stay just a tiny bit separate from the rest of himself, split some attention to see all the others. 

The rest of his focus stayed in the lighthouse, where he cheerily started planning a new picture book.

Chapter Text

The town was beautiful, there was no denying that. Colors glowed despite the lack of the sun. Even the night sky above seemed brighter than it did from the train’s windows, royal blue rather than nearly black. The ground was a slight hill that beckoned invitingly to the center of the square where a glittering well sat. Plants surrounded the little plaza, leaves revealing a rainbow underneath the initial green. There even appeared to be crystals that grew out of the ground beside the bushes. There were several paths out of the main town; looking down one of them showed a forest that somehow shined even brighter than everything around it. In the distance, a peaceful castle overlooked the rest of the landscape, illuminated by a towering lighthouse- no doubt what lit up the station that drew him to this place.

The town was beautiful, but Nageki couldn’t help but feel unsettled as he looked around. The perspective of each building was ever so slightly off, curved and far too small to fit more than a single bird. Flowers towered above treetops and the well in the center of the square was simultaneously too small and too big. The sparkle of the world around him was jarring to look at in comparison to the matte of his own feathers. A ladybug crawled across one of the houses, its shell easily the size of his head. His eyes were drawn onto a clock hanging nearby, and there’s a strange pit in his stomach when he realized that half the numbers are missing. Nothing seemed inherently upsetting per se, but nothing seemed right. It was as if the world around him had turned into a fairytale, while he himself remained entirely the same.

“Welcome to the Holiday Star!”

Miss Tosaka would have jumped twelve feet in the air from such a sudden break of silence. All Nageki did to betray his shock is give a slight gasp as the square was suddenly filled with many identical birds. They looked like most of the birds on the train, vague and unidentifiable, but unlike those on the train, there was no trace of what they might have looked like before. The birds he’d seen before were strange, yes, with transparent bodies allowing starlight to shine through and their borders all blurred as though being seen through a foggy window pane, but at least they had clear forms. They had all been different sizes, all distinct if unrecognizable. The ones that stood in front of him now were different- made of stars rather than simply showing them, frames broken by fog that seemed to drift independent from the bodies themselves, and all completely the same. Same height, same figures, same voices. But they seemed happy as if this was what they were always meant to be.

Is this what those birds on the train will look like once more time has passed? Is this what I will look like once I’m more accustomed to death? Nageki bit back a wave of nausea. If this is what death was, he had already accepted it by the time he’d left the library, regardless of how uncomfortable it might make him.

The longer Nageki stewed in his thoughts, the happier the birds (which he supposed they must be) appeared to be, preening and fluttering with joy. None of the birds had eyes on their star-speckled faces, but he could feel them all staring at him anyway as he resisted the urge to back away. It would be no good being rude to the first people he met at this odd station.

“Excuse me?” Not the most eloquent greeting but the birds seemed overjoyed to hear his voice anyway.

“This is the Holiday Star,” they repeated, having seemingly read his confusion as directed towards their words rather than their mere presence.  "We celebrate our holiday that never ends. This is a happy star."

A holiday that never ends? Nageki wasn't too attached to any particular holiday to begin with, and an eternal one just sounded tiring. All the shadows seemed to have plenty of energy, but Nageki was sure that he would be exhausted in less than a week here. Thankfully, it should be far less than forever by the time the next train would come.

“Why not go pay your respects to the ruler of this planet, the Dreaming King, our lord?”

“Meet your king?” His hesitance must not have come across on his face or was being purposefully ignored by the figures who crowded even closer to him, chittering loudly. 

“Yes, yes I’m sure he’d love to meet you!” It was a different bird who spoke up this time, to his left rather than directly in front of him, but the voice was identical to the last speaker and no bird’s beak had opened as they spoke.

“Wouldn’t I need to make an appointment? A king must be very busy.”

“Not at all! This is when the train was scheduled to arrive, after all! Of course he is just waiting to meet our new visitor,” one of the ones from his right called out.

The birds pressed closer to him once again, offering up wings to lead him on his way, their chatter amongst themselves and the incessant chatter directed at him growing louder and more joyful. The whole square was far too bright and far, far too full. Nageki squeezed his eyes shut, heart pounding quickly in beat with the cacophony around him. That at least led to a brief lessening of the deafening world except for a few new concerned murmurs as the birds finally seemed to get the message and gave him some space. That is, they gave him some space until he took a few steps back, quickly bumping into more figures that he hadn’t noticed had gathered behind him. 

“I’m sorry, guest from away. We didn’t mean to bother you, but we simply hope that you will-”

“I’ll go see your king,” he said in the hopes that it would make the birds stop speaking. “Can I just go somewhere else for a minute? Please?”

“Of course!” Multiple figures chorused at once. “The Holiday Star is such a beautiful place! Take as much time as you need to look around before meeting with His Majesty.”

The birds in front of him cleared the way to the paths, though the ones behind him stayed completely still. He flew as fast as he could down the path nearest to him. Once he caught his breath- and isn’t that strange, the practice of breathing when there’s no need to?- he found himself in the forest he had noticed from his initial glance at the square.

The forest was less unnerving than the town had been. The crystals that formed constellations in the trees were strange, but at least they weren’t pressing in on him like the buildings seemed to.

He walked for a while because staying in place made him feel like the shining stones would turn into eyes, staring at him with questions that he would be unable to answer. It was not an especially threatening feeling, nor a realistic one, and it disappeared after a single step, but Nageki did not want to stop to check if he would feel it again.

The path branched several times as he wandered deeper but he never stepped off of the middlemost one and none of the scenery surrounding him shifted. He would move for a few minutes only to see the same exact designs of nature repeat- that diamond there, that tree with the elaborate nest, that small circle of mushrooms. When he looked back he saw that he had indeed stepped further into the forest but if he only looked forward it seemed he was going in circles. After about ten minutes wandering through the forest, he stopped at the sight of one of the civilians laying at the base of a tree. The bird did not turn towards him, but Nageki knew his presence was known.

“Hello?” Nageki said a few seconds of uncertain silence. As soon as the words left his mouth, a nearly imperceptible tension left the other bird’s figure and they gently inclined their faceless head towards him.

“Hello. You can keep walking, if you want to.”

Their voice was the same as all the other birds he came across. Nageki was torn between being unsettled by that or relieved that at least this one seemed less intent on crowding him. He settled for the latter and remained in place.

“Can you tell me about this place?”

“Not anymore than you’ve already been told. This is the Holiday Star.” Their expression did not change but Nageki could hear them smiling. “It’s nice here.”

“Right. But what about here? These woods.”

“This is the Crystal Forest. It’s calming here. It’s pretty. Some of us like it the most.”

Nageki could feel the bird looking him over curiously, as though he was some priceless doll. He wondered about all the birds he’d seen thus far. If their vagueness was an indicator of how long they’d been dead, as it had seemed to be with the birds on the train, why were all the townsfolk identical? Did they die at the same time? When was the last time a visitor had come here? 

His thoughts were interrupted as the bird stopped staring and simply asked, “What made you come here?”

“Huh?”

“To the Holiday Star. We can’t tell.”

“I saw it from the train.”

He got the sense that that wasn’t what the bird was asking, but he had no clue what answer they actually wanted. They did not clarify, and the next time they spoke their curiosity was forgotten.

“It is nice here. But I don’t know if the forest is the right place for you. It’s far too open here.”

As soon as the bird said it, Nageki knew that it was true. The trees were closely packed together, and Nageki is sure that if he went off the path it wouldn’t be long before he got lost in the repeating patterns. He could fly out but that would leave nothing but the open void above his head, and he knew he wouldn’t want to stay there for long either; there was a reason he’d never stayed on the roof. Flying straight up into open air with no real destination always just left him feeling more trapped than actually being stuck did.

The other bird was waiting for a response. Or perhaps they weren’t. It was hard to tell, when your interlocutor had no face. Nageki gave them a response anyway, if only for the lack of anything else to do.

“You’re not going to tell me to stay and meet your king?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, you’ll do that anyway. I just don’t think you’ll stay in the forest. We’ll get a better place for you. We’ll give you as much time as you need.”

Nageki found that he was no longer enjoying this conversation any more than the one in the square.

“Why shouldn’t I just leave now?”

The bird shrugged, without the rustling of feathers that such an action would usually cause.

“Because it’s the right thing to do. Good birds always choose to stay.” 

Nageki didn’t hear them fly away, but when he blinked they were gone.