Chapter Text
One evening, when he had been a very young child looking out at the vast expanse of space, he had seen a shooting star for the first time. He had been alone, having snuck from his chambers out to the balcony so as to catch a glimpse of the marvelous spectacle he’d been told about that morning at lessons. The same night, as he witnessed the trailing light arc across the sky, he decided that the blaze was one of the most beautiful sights a person could see, that it was magic in its purest form. More beautiful, he decided, than any spell working he had seen, more beautiful than the glistening gold of the palace, and more beautiful than the most pristine flower. He’d been young, so young that he did not yet understand that seiðr was woven into his soul. He felt deep within him a kinship with that star. He felt a kinship, one which grew and grew as he did, into an ardor to chase that very star in which he had seen himself. He longed to chase after some yet-to-be-discovered sliver of his soul.
That had been Before.
Before he burned far too brightly and found himself twisting and turning in a descent through the sky. Before the light swirled around him, before he reached out to the stars for help, before they too faded away from him. Before the auroras gave way to impenetrable darkness. Before he landed in a place far, far away from stars – the distance making the barely visible pinpricks of light cold and inhospitable. Before he found himself in a land where darkness enshrouded him like a murderer smothering a victim with a cloak. Before he fled from the darkness to try his chances with the stars once more. Before he learned that the freedom he had long admired in those stars was an entirely different form of drowning. Before he finally concluded that the stars had no compassion for a fugitive who could only run away, who didn’t care for the journey.
Before he begged for shelter once more.
Before two welcomed him home.
Before that mysterious guiding hand he later recognized as Hope gently tapped him on the shoulder, and led him back towards himself. Before his gaze lifted from the subservient deference in which he had found safety, and settled itself upon the next quest, the next matter to attend to. Before he stumbled, and was forced to confront the question of who he was, of his history, and of his future. Before he clasped the helping arm of another, and began to step forward. Before he realized that he enjoyed walking again, and before he began to run. Before his running became a pursuit instead of a flight. Before he finally decided that letting go was antithetical to living, and embraced it all.
Before he looked at the stars, centuries later, and smiled.
He smiled, because after all his lasting love of the journey, all his desire for kinship with those stars, he had finally joined their ranks. Because after the poor imitation of a star he had made before – that broken blaze which had sparked his plummet – he understood the difference between a falling star, and a shooting star. He glowed as he streaked across the sky – his light was unabashedly radiant and triumphant, honed over years of slowly warming the people for whom he cared. After attempting to reconstruct who he once was, to at first forget his past and then to remember it, he had finally embraced tightly an identity which was a little old, a little new, and entirely him.
He smiled, and there was a twinkle of mischief in his eye.
He smiled, and awaited the hand wrapped tightly around his throat to finally snuff his life out.