09-19-2026, 05:39 PM
’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