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Another great tear fell from the titan’s face to the puddle below, sending ripples across the pristine surface. One among millions, billions perhaps, filling the crater, the grave, bringing an eerie sort of peace to a scene Aaravos could only associate with carnage. Never would this place, this world, be something joyful again. They had ruined it. Tainted it with their cruelty and arrogance. Those monsters, those vile mistakes of nature that made him want to retch and writhe, to claw at his skin and rip himself apart the whey they did to Leola, sweet, dearest, darling Leola, his unicorn, his-
Aaravos had to lie down, his head throbbing more than usual. He leaned back gently, or as gently as he could manage at his size, too dejected to put any sort of force into it, and simply lay down in his puddle, his sea, his tears. There were none on his face at the moment; they were all dried up for the time being. No doubt they would return soon, however, if he dared to think of her smile, or her drawings, or the way she would kick her feet as Aaravos braided her shining white hair, humming the melodies of humans and tapping along with her dear little hands.
Sure enough, a few stray drops spilled from his eyes as he sobbed again, the image of the heavens above blurring. He longed for the hours to pass swiftly, for the sun to rise so he didn’t have to stare at the smug faces of those barbarians, those thieves, those wastes of eternal life. What could a human do with eternal life? Certainly more than the stars would ever even dare to attempt, as lacking in imagination as they all were.
He was near certain he would get what he wished for, given how quickly time seemed to pass here. He hadn’t kept count of how long he had wept for, but it felt like no time at all. Time had no meaning when he had no one to share it with, and nothing new to celebrate or enjoy. He wondered if this was what death felt like. Eternity in a blink, no desire, no drive, just…nothing.
Except…that wasn’t quite right. In death he would not feel such sorrow. He would not feel as if all his limbs were weighted, as if he were chained to his daughter’s grave, unable to think of anything beyond the warmth of her tears, the weight of her held against his chest, her final cry as she was torn away forever.
Daddy, I’m so scared!
And again, Aaravos tensed, his entire body engulfed in flaming revulsion. He curled his arms around himself, digging fingers into his robes as he hiccupped on his own desperate sobs. She was scared, and he was her daddy - not “sir,” not “father,” but “daddy” - and he could do nothing to help. He hoped, through all his grief and vitriol, and through every other horrible feeling forcing endless tears from his burning eyes, that she had felt some peace. That she had heard his words of comfort and felt them within her young heart, and when that horrid piercing light began to burst from her fragile little form, she had felt the warmth of his love.
He hoped, even though it would do nothing to remedy his own situation. Not when he would never feel her warmth again.
In the vast cold emptiness of the heavens, there was nothing so warm as Leola. It was the first thing he ever noticed about her, even before the single horn that protruded from her forehead. Vega had not been so enamored. A single horn was a bad omen, a sign of an abnormal child, and there was no room in the heavens for the abnormal. They might as well do away with her. Their kind had no laws against such things, and this was not their only chance to have a child.
Aaravos had no qualms with leaving Vega after that. He had not chosen Vega, but he had wanted Leola, and from the moment he felt her warmth, he vowed he would choose her above all else for as long as they coexisted in those vast, empty cosmos that surrounded them.
Every subsequent choice was made with Leola in mind, no matter how rash or misguided. He brought her to Xadia, because unlike the heavens, Xadia was meant to be a land of oddities. A flawed land created for no reason other than to elevate the stars’ egos, a land of lower beings to worship them, praise them, envy their perfection.
But by the time Leola was born, Xadia had long since taken on a life all its own, and Aaravos sensed it would welcome a one-horned child far more easily than he could ever expect from the heavens.
He was right about that at least. The human children adored Leola just as she adored them. They were enthralled by her power, but even more than that, they saw her kindness, her cheer, and all the ways in which her spirit was not unlike their own. And they adored her.
Aaravos had always loved Xadia. He had lived there millennia ago, and he was fond of how wild it was, despite being created by beings so rigid as the stars. Its rules were not so easily defined as the grand cosmic order of the heavens, which meant there was much to study and discover. And for one already well versed in the magic of the stars, Xadia’s magic offered a challenge all its own.
They were happy there, Aaravos and Leola, working, and playing, and basking in the warmth of each other’s love, day in and day out, until-
Aaravos let out a shuddering breath, lifting a hand to his face to wipe away a few tears.
As much as he loathed them, those so-called cosmic judges who did away with anything that threatened their universal dominion, who would kill a girl, a child, for daring to see herself in the “lesser beings” of the terrestrial world, he could not help but blame himself as well.
If he had kept better track of her, if he had taught her to bury her beautiful idiosyncrasies the way he had done since childhood, if he had...oh, if he had just kept her in the heavens, where she would never have met the humans, where her youthful innocence would have never gotten the best of her and led her to betray her kind…
…No.
As horribly as their life in Xadia had ended, it would have been far too tragic to watch Leola fade away into a perfect star child in a cold, empty world, stifled and constrained, forced to fit the stars’ order.
He could not blame her for having an imagination.
And he could not blame himself for allowing her to indulge it.
If he had his way, it would not have mattered if Leola shared her magic with mortals.
They killed her. Those animals killed her.
Suddenly he could not bear the sight of them even a moment longer.
He lifted himself to his knees again, staring into the water. He could see the stars’ reflections still and he swiped at the water again and again, growling as a new stream of tears poured from his eyes.
He wasn’t sure how long he continued like that, but he was snapped out of his fury when something slammed into his back and pinned him facedown in the water.
Aaravos thrashed, but whatever held him down was stronger. The water couldn’t kill him, of course, but he was still more than capable of feeling drowned. After too many long, desperate moments, he felt fingers fist in his hair, pulling him up and out of the sea. He tried to pull away but the figure had a tight grip around his wrists, and he was exhausted from his years of mourning.
“A bit melodramatic, are we Aaravos?” said a deep voice, one Aaravos recognized from many encounters.
Aaravos only growled, trying vainly to struggle away. He did not want to see The Stern One. Not without making him suffer.
“You…” he hissed. “You bastard. You killed her!”
He was plunged back into the water, and this time The Stern One did not pull Aaravos up until he was shaking with the force of his sobs. Without thinking, Aaravos gasped for air, only to begin drowning in his own tears. The water filled him, but it would not kill him. He could only lie there and suffer at the hands of a star who had taken everything.
When the hand in his hair finally pulled up again, Aaravos retched up the tears he had ingested, sobbing wildly, furiously, unable to get out the words he had been saving since the day he lost his unicorn.
“Broken already?” cooed The Stern One.
Aaravos did not answer. He wanted, more than anything, to run the monster through with a dragon’s tooth, to watch him meet the same fate as Leola, to let him taste his own “justice.”
But he did not have it in him. Not in this state.
“Good,” The Stern One continued with an unfamiliar smirk on his normally expressionless face. “I like you better this way.” He leaned down to whisper in Aaravos’ ear, the revolting feel of his breath nearly enough to make Aaravos retch again. “You’re not like us, Aaravos. You never were. This is where you belong. In this disgusting world of lowlifes, suffering just as they do.” He plunged Aaravos into the water one final time, and then let go. By the time Aaravos pulled himself out of the water, The Stern One was gone.
Aaravos coughed once, twice, then screamed in rage.
And he vowed, then, that someday he would show The Stern One just how un-star-like he truly was.