’Do you remember the names of the stars, my child?’

The memory comes back to her now, gentle questions from the faraway voice of her Sire. That voice was his only tether, while his eyes forever strayed to the accumulation of silver-spangled night once the sun set beneath the horizon. His own far-off place, his own remnants of memory bleeding through each careful collection of mythos.

Fade lifts her eyes to the narrow strips of sky caught between spindly oaken branches, a canopy like clutching fingers that dare not let the first clusters of starlight spill too far from the heavens. Though few have emerged, she searches the soft beginnings of night for the ones he taught her to name. A shooting star blinks across the bough above her, a breath of breeze sending a dry leaf spinning into her pale mane. She pauses beneath the rustle, dark wings settling against her sides, and allows a curious tension to unfold beneath the oak.

’Fade,’ the voice comes again, firmer this time, if not impatient in its own right.

‘Stay with me, little star.’

The words grow dim, leaving as whispered as they had come, and her hooves guide her further towards the break of the treeline. A clear view, an expanse to gaze upon, and a stretch of sky she can nearly name.

Beyond the trees, the sky opens wide enough to make her stop, the cloy of nightsong mirroring her now scattered thoughts. Fade searches the indigo night for a familiar shape, tracing one star to the next as her Father once taught her. A name nearly rises to her tongue, flaring brightly before it slips away with the quickness of a snuffed candle; a flame that burns too brightly for tired eyes. She draws a quiet breath, folds her wings close, and begins again.

Fade takes a quiet breath, folding her plum-colored wings close, and focusing on her memories. Lessons of the night sky passed down from the only compass she’s ever needed.

The pause helps her reorient herself, allowing that calm breath to fill her lungs and her mind to take comfort in the moment without bullying herself into giving up just yet. Her Father wouldn’t approve, and truthfully, she wouldn’t accept surrender so easily either. Especially when the stakes were her own, and she set the price for herself.

’Hello there.’

A single ear finds the tune, flicking towards the careful greeting before the stargazer looks away from the constellations. Tugging her head reluctantly away from the chart to look at the muted gray unicorn. Splashes of silvered hues patchworked against her form, and lengths of pallid hair flowing about her body like gossamer fabric. Two pale eyes that competed with the glisten from above, and were remarkably different from her own cocoa stare.A pretty thing, she mused, not stopping her chocolate gaze from shamelessly taking the other woman in.

”Hello,” the word finally slips past her mulberry lips, nostrils flared to coax scent, a ripple of her muscle flowing over her shoulders as she adjusts her stance.

”Who are you?” There is a notable tilt of her head, ears pulling forward and entrusting the other with her full attention now. If there had been any danger, it was lost on the daughter of the stars, and thus there was simply connection between two curious souls that keened for fellowship.

Danger doesn’t often find her, she knows little of it, but rarer still does the very thing she’s been searching for find her on the ground. Fade adjusts her wings, fluffing the plum colored feathers until they cushion her backside with a softness all their own. A neat array of deep mauve and succulent tints of berry blooms. Fade doesn’t know what it is to be bashful, the word of course, but the feeling is lost to her. It never stuck, and why would it?

The world was much bigger than their forms, these tiny vessels that encapsulated so much more than shame or timidity.

Just Rainy, this stirs a tilt, an unspoken question but the thought begs all the same. Twisting against her mind, until it settles on the how could you of it. What did she mean by, just Rainy? Yet the answer, or the consolation doesn’t leave her, because Rainy lifts her own head to the skies and Fade, with glittered-chocolate eyes, follows in turn. Using the spiral of a horn as the beacon until, maybe, they’re seeking the same set of certainty from the midnight lights.

”Monoceros,” the answer comes gently, finding its way much easier than it had been made out to be. There was a place for it among the stars, somewhere between the brighter shapes that threatened to swallow it whole. Her Father had shown her once, drawing a unicorn from lights that seemed determined not to resemble one.

With that, the pegasus drops her gaze once more, eyes alighting on the pale form that found her before she could trace the stars. Blinking slowly with eyes that glittered against depths of warm hickory, until she notes the uncertainty turning into joy. A floodgate of elation bursting forward, and with it enough sensation to have the quiet pull back in on itself, Fade gives the excitement room, stepping back beneath the force of it with an easy amusement.

”Some of them, yes,” an answer for both questions. Yes it was just like the constellations in the skies, and yes, she was looking for them as well. The Corona Borealis marked her right shoulder. Twinkling back at them in much the same way as it did from above, the Northern crown it was said to be.

“Corona Borealis,” she offers, turning her sangria stained shoulder enough that the little crown catches against the night. “The Northern Crown.”

Her gaze returns to Rainy.”And I’m Fade.”