Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Stars burn.

That is fact, as the Universe dictates. Stars burn, and they burn with grace and with poise; they ignite the dark sky beyond the clouds in hand with the Moon, as is their sole purpose.

You contemplate this as the night stares unto you, as you stare unto it. Perhaps there is a reason you were Changed into this . Perhaps there are one too many similarities between you and the stars.

Your very body fissures in temporary openings of starlight, joining hand in hand to stare toward its familiar above it. It pulses in need, alien and separate from the body it inhabits- it longs again for the sky.

The tree leaves frame the Moon and its stars, small slits of light poking through the branches, conjoining with the glow of its witness. It is a holy sight, to any onlooker who would pass, were there ever any.

(If you ever allowed there to be any. Your stardust is your only tether of existence.)

But stars surely burn hot enough to erupt this nature into flame and ash, hot enough to corrode the soil and rock to molten nothingness. And yet, there is naught a spark to be found.

Is it a gift from the Universe to avoid this bonfire? Is it a curse, to the starlight they swallowed, to make it so foreign from its home?

You clutch the grass between your fingers, curl your claws into the dirt. Maybe you want this tree to burn, for the town to burn, for the blinding House to burn . Your face, encased in light, flashes, curling around itself and spiking outward, daring the leaves to catch flame.

They do not.

You wish so desperately that they would.

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Chapter Text

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After the end of all you’ve known and remembered, you orbit your other half; your better, luckier half, from afar. You are a pair as much as you are one.

But you are phaseable- he is very much… not.

He slowly, bit by bit, reaches out for touch you can never have. They learn to smile outside of their cues. They have all that you never can again.

And still, still, they want you. Selfish, greedy, lucky Stardust.

He whispers your name to the sky and stars, hoping you may hear him and join upon their journey- that you may join with their family.

(Theirs, no longer yours.)

They know not of this, but you can feel their words before he even inhales.

You feel their fingers trace a silver coin, and if you focus very hard, if you feel like ripping out what is left of your heart entangled in the stars, you can see through them. You are nebulae in his breaths, body heat in his limbs. They feel the burn of your star, and you feel all his coldness that accompanies human flesh.

Intangible is the black hole of your mangled self, sifted in through the wind and flown away from your eternal prison- and yet you long for it as much as you loathe it.

You wish your Stardust stayed as broken and entrapped as you are. It felt good, for a moment, to have a mirror that could speak back to you with the same fears.

You glow in the sky, burning in anger, loneliness, and melancholy. Your stardust burns the fire of their camp brighter, the glow warming his face- and for a moment, you feel it upon your skin.

For a moment, you can hear the laughter of your family, the touch of your Housemaiden’s hands.

…

You are pulled back to reality, and all that spans beyond you is the eternal darkness of space.

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