Chapter Text
"So don't forget me, okay...?"
As your body finishes fading away,
feel Universe you
You in
the closing on
☆☆☆
You regain consciousness accompanied by sounds of waves meeting the shore. Opening your eyes you are met with ash-black sand and little bright sparkling shells.
You think of the night sky.
Black?
The sand is... black?
Not lightless?
Yes! It's black! How could you forget?!
It's a color! Even little babies know that!
...
Don't they?
...
You didn't...
Just now, it all came back to you.
The sky, the ocean... They're covered in this luminous hue. What was it called again?
Golden.
Those tender glimmering rays of the sun are disappearing behind the horizon of the ocean.
It's so blindingly beautiful.
The whole world is covered in this ethereal haze.
You turn around to see patches of green marram gras swaying patiently in the breeze winding through the dunes. In the distance you see mountains leading the way up into the sky. They're already casting heavy and dark shadows, contrasting the golden spots still touched by the sunlight.
The feeling of subtle warmth on your back gently pushes you to keep exploring your surroundings.
You sink your hand into the soft sand and watch it rinse through your fingers like time in an hourglass. It has the same color as the mask acting as your skin, you realize.
So you're still a star.
But how?
How are you able to see?
See this?
When you have forgotten.
When your Stardust has forgotten.
When the whole world has forgotten.
How to see.
But not the Universe.
The Universe remembers everything.
Right now, you are one with the Universe.
A sudden strike of pain runs through your body. It reminds you of the time when your Stardust found out about the quicker way to loop back. When the control over your own body was ripped away by the puppeteering hands of the Universe. Making you recite those awful lines you had no chance but to speak into existence.
As hour-long seconds pass by, the pain gradually transforms into a feeling of infinity.
What does infinity feel like? It's hard to put in words, you realize.
Like you've crossed the borders of possibility, ending up in a place that contradicts rationality and everything you have ever come to known before.
Stars and galaxies surround you.
You are one with the Universe.
You are sound and you are silence.
Light and dark.
Beginning and end.
Change and stagnation.
You are everything and at the same time nothing at all
At this moment, you feel... at peace.
Like you belong here.
Home.
Like the warm embrace your mother gave you as you wept over the small paper cut you got while folding cranes. How she told you to take deep breaths in and out and assured you that the red stain on the paper didn't mean that your belief in the Universe was tainted.
It would still guide and watch over you until the day you return the body you borrowed from it.
So it leads.
And you follow.
You regain control over yourself after fully breaking the bonds of reality. And you remember.
You remember it all.
Your name.
Your family.
Your home.
Your country.
Your belief.
The Universe brought you here, led you back to your home.
The black sand still feels familiar in your hand although you aren't the same person anymore as you have been back then. You're closer to the Universe than you ever were.
You watch as the shadows grow longer and the vivid sky fades from orange to pink into a dark blue. Your gaze catches onto a path in the distance that leads up a cliff, harboring home to that tall lighthouse.
The one you always loved to climb in order to get a taste of the stars' view when they look down on your village.
You remember vividly how you rushed up those 347 stairs, counting every single step as fast as you could and starting again from the bottom if you missed one.
This might have just been the reason for your enhanced speed and endurance!
You still feel the lighthouse calling out to you.
Eventually, you decide to take the other familiar path that leads through dunes and fields of dandelions towards civilization.
Or... not?
As you arrive at the main road leading up the hill that your village was built around, you find it nothing like you remember.
Dark and empty.
The streets used to be decorated with crafted lanterns and glowing chains that would illuminate street in a warm light, even in the coldest of nights. Never too bright though, to not steal the nightsky's show.
It seems like they have all burned out by now. Only the soft flickering from your head gives you some sight ahead.
It's strange, the village is deserted but still...
You don't feel lonely.
It's as if your family and neighbors are around you, looking up into the sky while teaching you about the endless miracles the Universe provides you with.
Like the times the sky erupted in green, pink and even red hues, dancing along the stars on cloudless winter nights. Something about solar winds and magnetic fields. Living in a country located so far up north really had its perks!
All these beautiful things were lost to time though. Lost to a wish, more precisely.
No one remembers the waves of the sky anymore and you don't think you've ever seen them again on any of your travels. Even then, it's not like you would have been able to fully enjoy their true beauty in that monotone gray scale.
You look up to the stars and thank the Universe for returning those memories to you.
Maybe if this is the reward for losing your mind going through the same two days over and over again until you give up, only to watch some other you achieve what you always wanted to have... Maybe then, you could be at peace with that chapter of your life and look forward and hope for a future. View it as a sacrifice that had to be made.
Perhaps this is your own personal happy ending.
The Universe isn't as cruel as you cursed it to be. It lays rocks in your way and makes you suffer. But at the same time it guides you through these unbearable times and helps you grow. It wasn't laughing when you were at your lowest. It was giving you perspective, the means appreciate the world around you.
Isn't that wonderful? You're so irrelevant and small in the presence of the Universe's unfathomable space. Not more than a tiny ant on the ground. But still, it answers to every single one of your actions.
You close your eyes and breathe in... and out.
Again.
And again.
And again.
You open your eyes and decide to venture further up the street. Every now and then, you get hit by another déjà-vu-like memory of the childhood you spent here.
Passing by every house you take in the architecture that was so unlike everything you saw in Vauguarde, Poteria or any other place you've ever been to. All of them had sky-related patterns, symbols and figures painted and carved into the wooden fronts. Some of them would even light up in the dark as a special kind of creative craft was worked into it. Every home is an art piece that their inhabitants polish over the course of their lives.
You arrive at the end of the street, the highest point of the village. In front of you stands a palace-like building with a glimmering dome in the center of it.
The Observatory.
The most meaningful place of the community.
The place where you could witness the depths of the Universe and the billions of stars and galaxies inside of it. A building that holds knowledge about this world and so far beyond.
You decide to approach the big doors and ponder how you would ask the Universe to let you enter. It is basic etiquette to ask for permission before you enter anyone's house, especially an important place like this!
Your thoughts land on the one physical thing that always stuck with you, even as a star. The change you received in combination with one of those famous Vaugardian croissants. There is no reason to despise them anymore, now that you remember. There really wasn't even a reason to begin with. That poor boulanger must have been just as overwhelmed and confused as you were.
The silver coin you're carrying with you isn't actually that same one anymore though. This is your Stardust's. The one you still need to return...
Heads to enter.
Tails to stay outside.
You lay the coin on your thumb and snap it into the air with a satisfying sound. A moment later you catch it and cover it on the top of your hand. You slowly remove your hand to view the Universe's answer.
Heads.
You nod and give your thanks.
Carefully, you place one hand on the handle and gently pull it open. Although the doors seem so big and heavy, they open lightly as if they were made of paper.
The entrance hall was fully covered in darkness until the moment you step inside. As if on cue, the depiction of the night sky and its constellations on the ceiling illuminates just enough to cover the interior in a dim light. Same goes with a replica of the sun in the center of the room and it's many planets slowly orbiting around it in their predetermined paths.
You continue re-exploring the Observatory, passing by several rooms, each one of then triggering a memory you wouldn't have been able to access without returning.
You spend some time in the library filled with thousands of books. Some of them so old, you fear they would fall apart just by looking at them. They are all written in your language, the one you ultimately learned to understand again. Your eyes glide over several ones about traditions, rituals, wish craft and even some describing the several secret hand positions aside from the generally known rock, paper, scissors...
Somehow you remembered the right sign to communicate with your Stardust in their loops. It was a common practice that made life so much easier around here so it was very helpful that the Universe let you remember at least that one. There are some more here, like the well, the fox, the heart or the binoculars.
Rumors went around that there was a strictly forbidden hand position which starts in a fist but requires your index and middle finger to point forwards and your thumb up. You tried to find out how to activate it (because you were a kid and forbidden things are always much more fun than everything you were allowed to do!!) but you never learned anything useful on it, only how dangerous it's supposed to be.
Booooring.
Of course, you also passed by the watching room where massive telescopes are kept that allow you to view inside the depths of the Universe itself, billions of light years away from you. Into foreign galaxies that nobody would ever be able to reach, keeping the secrets the Universe holds.
You don't dare to touch any of the machinery, you remember how the adults used them but you have never done it yourself. Either way, being right here at this point in time, you already feel closer to the Universe than you ever have.
Lastly, you end up in one of the crafting rooms of the Observatory that were mostly used to prepare rituals and festivals.
Right... you were here on the day it happened. The day you ran away from home because you didn't want to eat your vegetables. You never liked broccoli as a kid because of its weird texture but you guess it's okay now. After all, you ate it every time Bonbon... served it.
...
You try not to think about it too much.
...
On that day's morning... you were here finishing your floating lantern for the winter solstice festival, weren't you? It should still be somewhere around here.
You pass by the working tables over to the storage room where everyone kept their works safe.
There are several finished and unfinished ones in here as well but you easily spot the one that you spent so many hours of work on.
It's kind of ugly.
As a piercing craft user, working with the fragile paper while not poking any holes into it took a lot out of you. But you did it and were still proud of it, even now!
You carefully pick it up.
It would be a tragedy to leave it here when it was always meant to float up to the stars.
You leave the observatory to find yourself under a perfectly clear sky. It's not even windy so you had the optimal conditions to add another light to its collection.
Making your way to a more open area, further away from any buildings or trees, you plan on how you would light the lantern on your own. Usually, everyone would help each other so it might be a little tricky to safely start it.
But where there's a will, there's a way. A lesson you learned the hard way.
Luckily you also found one of those fire-makers in the crafting room! You hold the lantern up, making sure the paper balloon wouldn't catch on fire as you light up the waxy cloth at the open bottom of it.
Warm air slowly starts gathering in the fiery orange glimmering ballon.
This is a meaningful wish craft ritual...
Should you...?
Would it be okay to...?
What would you even ask for?
Wishing something that was erased from the world's minds back to existence would be too much to demand. As much as you want this country to be known or to see your family, neighbors or even them again... They are gone. This island... It's not supposed to exist anymore. Who are you to undo the Universe's decision?
But maybe... it could be just you? Could you... keep these memories? So there would still be a trace of this country, its culture, its believe and what could have been in a different reality. Just one person keeping this knowledge safe?
The Universe led you here to this exact moment...
So...
As you let go of the floating lantern, you wish to take these once forgotten memories with you to wherever the Universe may lead you next.
Your eyes follow as it floats up into the sky.
Soon, you can't tell it apart from the stars anymore.
Looking up into the sky like this, you feel... lighthearted.
Genuinely happy.
With your eyes fixated on the stars you don't miss the shower of shooting stars racing across the sky, leaving a trail of glowing dust behind them. Naturally, you close your eyes upon witnessing this.
You think of your Stardust.
You want him to be happy as well. To feel a warm embrace from their family similar to the one the Universe is gifting you right now.
Without actively thinking about it, you wish for them to heal.