Chapter Text
This is how skykids are born: they crash to the ground one day, children of starlight, small and weak. They shake off the umbilical stardust from their bodies and honk, turning their faces towards Eden like flowers towards the sun, and spread their brown cloaks and learn to fly.
And sometimes, somewhere along the line, they become dissatisfied. Not quite a moth, but not a veteran yet, they start to wonder what’s next.
Case in point: Aine was bored.
They liked sitting here, above the changing alcoves at home, to feel tall. All six of the gates were open to them now, and they had seven whole stars on their cape! Not like Ner; she had eleven, something Aine remained jealous of even now. But someday, hopefully.
“What are you thinking, mothling?” Ner asked, swooping down on her broad-patterned cape like a sky manta.
“I’m not a mothling anymore; look!” Aine honked indignantly, spreading their new orange cape. They’d saved up wax and connection-hearts forever to buy it, and thought it looked very pretty. “I’ve outgrown my moth cape, thank you very much!”
Ner laughed, a sound like a crackling darkness creature. “That you have. And you’ve gotten much better at flying.”
“Yeah, I barely crash into things ever !” They pouted, an expression they’d learned from the porter spirit in the prairie. “And I know all the spirits, and I even went to Grandma’s house for dinner, and the acolyte in the vault showed me a cool new way to do my hair!”
“You’re quite the accomplished moth; you’re on your way to being a veteran.”
“But when will I be a veteran like you ?” Aine complained, kicking their legs. “I don’t get it. You’ve shown me all the good places to strengthen my cape, and… To bring the fallen stars home. That’s why I was born, right? So, what now?”
The wind shifted, slightly. A stack of three skykids emerged from the gate to the wasteland, giggling about krill, but they seemed far away.
“Aine,” Ner said, voice low and crackling. “Do you remember when I told you about the Prince of Eden?”
Aine frowned. “Yeah…why?”
“I think it’s time i introduced you.” Ner stood and stretched, black cape fluttering, and then looked back at Aine with something like sadness in her gaze. “You’re growing up fast, and I’m proud of you. But… you’re always going to be one of my moths, to me.”
“But why? ” Aine asked, standing up as well. “I’ve met your other moths and they’re all older than me and have fancy clothes like you. Why do you have so many moths? Why did you pick me and help me through the forest when it was rainy and I only had two stars on my cape?”
“Because that’s what skykids do, Aine. We continue the cycle.”
Meeting the prince of Eden seemed… strange. Aine only knew of one prince, the friend of the rose, and he had been cheerful and thoughtful and polite.
But Ner took Aine’s hand in their own, and approached the seventh door. The door that sometimes chimed, the one that everyone said Aine should never enter unless…something. It was a big, imposing thing, sealed by a spirit-gate that would need the gratitude-light of at least twenty spirits just to push through the membrane.
“We’re going here?” Aine asked, opening and closing their free hand. It seemed off, like a fundamental shift to their world somehow. This door wasn’t even a door, in a sense; it didn’t open, didn’t lead to a realm, and it may well have been purely decorative for all that it faded into the background.
“We are. Come on, let’s see your silliest expression!” Ner did a little handstand, then danced like a crab. “Come on, it’s traditional!”
“Veterans are very strange,” Aine concluded, echoing the little prince, and blew some bubbles.
Ner gave one of their crackling laughs, then reached into themself to pull out a pair of spells. “Hold my hand,” they instructed.
Aine did, gladly. They had been born with fused fingers, leaving them unable to play instruments despite their love of music, but they were forever grateful that they could still hold hands. And honk! Honking was very important.
Ner crushed both spells in their hands, then allowed the light to waft over both of them. A glow spell and a cloak spell, an awfully fancy cloak that must have been from a season before Aine was born.
They gave a little twirl, admiring the seven stars on their new cloak, and honked happily. “You never use spells!”
“This is a special occasion. Besides, now we match.” Ner was tall and elegant as ever, and somehow managed to look more like a veteran than Aine despite having the same outfit. “Stay close to me when you can, but at some point we’re going to have to go our separate ways. When that happens, just…remember that you’re not alone, okay? Remember why you were born.”
Aine blinked in confusion. “O…kay?”
“All right then. Let’s go.” Ner manifested their soul-candle, holding it to the spirit gate and letting it burn a gap in the membrane. No one really understood how or why spirit gates formed, only that you needed the wisdom and gratitude of local spirits within your soul to give you strength to burn through them. Maybe they had formed naturally after the Fall; maybe they had once served a purpose for the ancestors. Maybe the Elders put them into place, to keep things in, to keep things out.
…actually, Aine realized, it wasn’t that no one knew at all. It was simply that Aine had never bothered to ask.
“Hey, why are spirit gates a…” The words died on their throat. The great stone slabs suddenly, far too suddenly, slid closed behind them, sealing them in. Not decorative, but functional. They were doors. They were doors, and that was…terrifying.
Ner squeezed their hand. “I’m right here.”
“I know.”
“We can turn back if you want.”
“I know that.” Aine pouted and marched forward. They weren’t a scared little brown-cloaked moth anymore!
It was windy, unexpectedly so, and pieces of dark ash blew through the air. It looked a bit like the Vault, if it had been neglected severely. The spirits no longer had much power over the physical world, but they liked to add their own little touches, using magic and light once they’d been helped by enough skykids. A few tattered pennants hung on the walls, helpless in the strong gusts.
“This place is dirty. Someone should do a better job cleaning it,” they declared, pulling their spell-cloak tighter around them.
“They can’t, mothling. Not here.”
“Well, why does the prince of Eden live in a place like this?”
“It’s his way of atoning for his actions.” Ner led them up the stairs, to another door, this one firmly shut. “I’ve taken you to cleanse the realms of darkness shards, haven’t I? So you’ve seen….fragments, of the Fall.”
“Oh.” Aine… wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “Well, why doesn’t he clean this place?”
“He’s…doing the best he can. There’s not much left of him. But it’s enough.” Ner removed the soul-candle from their chest cavity, and turned solemnly to face Aine. “Unless I specifically tell you, do not let go of my hand while there are still krill in the sky. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Aine removed their own soul-candle, tapping it against Ner’s. The warmth was comforting, even if it was a little redundant.
“If their eye turns red, I will lure the krill away for you. You just get to safety. But… hopefully we’ll be able to avoid them entirely.” Her voice crackled and broke. “Please stay safe.”
“Of course I’ll be safe! Look, I’ve got a pretty veteran cape like you!” They chirped, hopping in place.
Ner ruffled their hair, but they didn’t let go. This was important, important enough to tolerate it. “C’mon. Use your light to warm the keystones, one at a time. Afterwards…. It’s hard to describe what happens. But remember why you were born. You’re a creature of hope, mothling.”
Eden, Aine decided, was brutal. Violent. Maybe it was hard to imagine a place as having those emotions towards you, for some, but Aine definitely felt that the realms were alive. The meadows cradled you gently, the forest warned you that the world was dangerous, the valley celebrated all that you had accomplished. If the ancestors left behind spirits, then their realms had something left behind too.
Eden wanted to crush the life out of you. The ash was everywhere, choking. The wind blew their capes, battered them around when Aine made the mistake of flapping. Ner led them through a gauntlet of flying rocks, struggling against the wind and darting from one piece of cover to the next.
“Ner?” Aine asked fearfully, but the wind stole the words away.
“I can’t hear you!” Ner shouted over the wind, their voice more distorted than ever. “Just don’t let go of my hand!”
This would all be so much easier if they could fly! Aine let out a frustrated chirp, and Ner gave a crackly honk in response. Their capes acted like sails, tugging them to and fro, and it was all Aine could do to keep walking anyways.
“Almost there,” Ner huffed, dragging them up another set of stairs, irregular and crumbling in places. There was light ahead, and a couple of skykids that Aine didn’t recognize. They ran off, and Ner sighed, pulling Aine into a small alcove with a lit firepit. “There. We can rest.”
Aine slumped against the wall, pulling their cloak tight. They were shielded from the wind on one side, by the remains of some sort of building, but it wasn’t much protection. Even the flame within the firepit was flickering. Aine sympathized with it.
“You all right?” Ner asked, her voice low.
“Mm. It’s windy.” Aine shuddered, pulling a particularly large flake of ash from their tunic. “Bleagh.”
“The journey ahead will be even more dangerous. Are you up for it? Be true, mothling. There is no shame in turning back,” Ner said solemnly.
“I…” Aine almost wanted to say yes. But this… this was what skykids were made for. What Aine was made for. Wasn’t it? It felt familiar, in a hollow sort of way. “I want to keep going, and meet the prince of Eden.”
“Then let’s go. Watch out for krill,” Ner said, and dragged them back into the violent winds and the flying stones that sought to batter the light from their bodies.
There were no krill yet, but Eden was an odd place, like there had once been ancestors living here, but no longer. But you couldn’t see the paths they had walked, not like you could in the forest or the meadow. And unlike the village of dreams, it didn’t seem like a place where spirits still lived.
Eden, the realm of violence and teeth that wanted to gnash you and crush you, was a hostile place that drove out even the spirits. So that left the question— what sort of Prince ruled over it?
“Come on, mothling,” Ner said, as they entered an actual building. The wind howled outside, robbed of its prey, but it was almost quiet here. And there was an imprint— a piece of light, a place that still shone so brightly that you could touch it and gain a fraction of that strength.
Not that it would do much good, when it was too windy to fly, but…. Aine and Ner both reached out, took in the light. Aine sighed, feeling the warmth settle on their cape. Every piece of light made them stronger, able to fly farther, withstand the pouring rain for longer.
They entered a room, half collapsed and the door crooked, and Ner pointed to the wall. “See that? Light the candles; it needs your light to fuel it.”
It was another story-mural, the kind where your soul-candle provided enough light for it to show for a little while. Aine duly tapped their soul-candle against the white ones on the floor, and the light flowed upwards onto the wall.
“They’re… worshiping it,” they said, confused. “And the stars…”
Bring our fallen stars home.
“That is the prince,” Ner told them. There was a sudden rumble, and both of them winced. “We should get going. The rock storms are unpredictable.”
And they were— ahead were krill patrolling the sky, red shards of darkness that made you feel cold and drained just to be near them, more storms of rocks and fewer areas of shelter. Ner was skilled in dodging them, moving from one brazier to the next, but even they couldn’t dodge everything.
“Just— crawl,” they gasped, after both of them had been knocked flat by an unexpected chunk of crystal that came flying out of nowhere. There was a brazier up ahead, but crawling was so, so achingly slow. “Light. Relight your flame.”
“Thank you,” Aine said, and didn’t know why they felt like crying. This is what you were born for. “For being here. Holding my hand.”
“Always, mothling,” Ner said, voice breaking. “Always.”