For Zohariel, the changing of the world was exciting. She had not known the before for long enough to care about the disappearance of lands she had not even heard of and the appearance of others had been exciting for a time. Until she discovered that she could not hold her breath and could not visit the one in the ocean.

Her first failure hadn’t discouraged her enough so this evening, as the stars begin to stand out in the darkening sky overhead, she tries again.

Only to emerge from the river a few moments later, wet and disgruntled. A frown is deep on her star-speckled face and in her frustration, she accidentally borrows some light from those early evening stars. The silver of it shimmers around her but it does nothing, of course, to alleviate the dampness of her hair and coat. Normally at this time of night she wanders back into the mostly-comforting embrace of her obnoxiously perfect family, but not tonight.

She is intent on drying out first, not wanting either her parents or her sister to know she had tried again after they’d witnessed her first attempt.

It had seemed pretty logical to her that she might be able to do it at night when she couldn’t during the day - like the starlight she can’t quite control yet, there are many things she can do in the darkness that she cannot beneath the sun.

Once she’s completely out of the river, she gives her body a thorough shake and sighs theatrically while the starlight twists and eddies around her in a mimic of the very water she had just emerged from.

Sometimes, she thinks, the stars are trying to be funny but they really aren’t.