Work Text:
Scott ignores the way he flinches when Techno makes the comment.
”Tryna’ rebrand like ‘I’m a starborn’ no you’re a creeper.”
It’s hard, people don’t understand, but when your race sounds like a badly made anime protagonist, he guesses he deserves it.
He’s not a creeper. Creepers tend to be mindless, their hybrids aggressive.
They haven’t lived as long as he has, don’t know as much as he does.
They aren’t built of the universe, and the far stretches of the ether.
He’s an infinite, he holds planets inside of his arms and his legs. He contains stars, burning and dying below the confines that he keeps this nebulae in. Entire solar systems inside of him, below his shirt, threaded through his hair.
-
Scott pretends he isn’t dumbing down his power.
”Can we get a skylight? I get sad when I can’t see the stars.”
It’s not a lie, all things considered, but he gets a little more than “sad.” In the day, he can always see the stars, they’re there, just hidden by the shine of the sun. His strength grows at night, but when he can’t see the sky there’s a disconnection. His form begins to dissappate, it’s harder to hold himself together. He literally falls apart. The “weakness” is an inability to actually hold things, as his hands become clouds and not ‘hands.’ The “slowness” is the human parts of him becoming heavier, as his astral parts struggle to hold the weight, as they try to return to the stars.
It’s a bit more than being ‘sad.’ It’s feeling yourself fall apart.
-
Scott hides that death is a release.
”Tubbo! Tubbo no don’t he’ll destroy the pube!”
It’s not meant to be destructive, it’s not meant to be a problem. He doesn’t decide when these stars and suns burn out. His deaths are supernovas, history and life exploding out of him, built up and burning. It hurts, to keep that power in, the only other release through lightning, that of which he can’t control. The slightest touch, the slightest release, the slightest connection of the stars he holds with the electricity thrumming through a human’s veins and the power erupts.
It was never meant to destroy, but destroy it does.
-
Scott never says how much it burns.
”Woah! Scott what was that? You went flying man!”
It doesn’t hurt in the traditional sense, releasing these meteors that send you soaring through the sky. He doesn’t loose health, but his toes feel aflame and his fingers split open, tiny rocks and dust and pure energy releasing and thrumming through the gas he has for veins, fire and light and heat and movement condensing into one that sends him shooting.
There’s enough to return him home, to his people in the stars, to the place his ancestors lived, but he will never be able to live there, forever trapped to the earth below his feet, due to the humanity that he still has. The heart that beats and lungs that expand trap him, curse him to never live in the clouds. He finds it cruel that Phil will come closer to Scott’s home, to Scott’s birthplace than he ever will.
-
Scott will not tell them how much he’s afraid.
”Scott you have like NO nerfs dude! Someone’s gotta fix that.”
He won’t say a word of the pain, won’t say how trapped he feels. Jack can go to the nether, Ranboo can go to the end. Oceans are merely minutes away for Niki.
Scott will never touch the stars. He can be them, can feel them twist and fight the confines he tries to hold them in, can feel them implode and burn and set him aflame.
One day, he knows these universes he traps in strands of hair and light fingers and toes to feel the sand with will escape him. One day he’ll become like the supernovas that spin beneath the confines of his ‘skin’ and he’ll implode and he’ll take everyone and everything he loves with him.
One day Phil will fly, the friends Scott loves so dearly in his arms as they try to escape the inevitable, as light becomes everything and skin and flesh burn to something less than ash.
One day, Scott will not respawn, and his death will take this universe with him.
But for now, he’ll pretend that he’s an all powerful being with no downsides.
He’ll play his role and his part and allow himself to feel loved.
He’ll pretend he can still dream of touching the stars.
Scott Smajor is a Starborn, and he carries the weight of worlds.