Say, little star... Do you wish for freedom?

When the question arose, he was kneeled in ravels of flowers, their petals wide and happy, ashine like moonlight. These flowers— moon lilies— were the supposed tears of a lunar spirit, disenchanted with the world after she was forced to separate from her lover: a god of the sun— or so the legends claim.

… Their snow-white blossoms detested the brightness of the day and cowered away until the eclipsing of the night, to which they would creep out and disclose all of their elusive, shimmery splendor. When he was younger, he had stolen one from the garden, bewitched by its magical incandescence. However, it had shriveled up the instant he invited it into his living quarters, and it has since been abandoned in some forgotten pot somewhere— left a withered husk of their natural luminance. 

For the sun and the moon were hopelessly codependent when it came to the other. They subsisted on the warmth the other supplied and occupied their orbit perpetually— like sunlight that feeds the fluorescence of the earth and moonlight that facilitates the tides and calls rain, they cannot hope to live otherwise, entrapped in an endless twilit tango. Together, they formulate a stable axis. Together, they brighten, nurture, and mediate our world. 

However, that rueful idol had naught but her blooms and naught but the luminescent tears to which they were fertilized alongside the frigidities of the ever-night— a dawn that would never break as she wept and wept for a love forsaken. 

He settled the half-assembled wreath in his lap, looking toward his companion with eyes of broad, innocent curiosity. Among the poignant luster, long wavy strands glimmered an argent silver— his eyes a lambent, brocaded shade of gold— harkening fine jewelry— and his complexion as clear as glass and pale as moonshine. 

Celestial mist pooled around them, weaving dusty stars and swirling constellations. It enshrouded this man— nay, this being— in an empyreal veil. He was truly unlike the other inhabitants of this desolate world— unlike those stardust-woven children, unburdened by their hardwired, inorganic cheer. This man was an anomaly— a hidden sublimity among the dirt and soot— a true diamond in the rough. A neoteric amongst the ennui and their merry servitude— for he was wholly— enviously— human-like. 

Momentarily distracted, his unworldly companion raised his forefinger toward the small school of fish that were paddling around leisurely in the air about them. Their translucent, opalescent fins were aglow in the permeation of the plenilune— unnaturally large, amethystine, and vigilant— a silent and deathless guardian. Like disturbed water, ripples of shock shot through its pellucid body where it had been poked on its theoretical nose, and it thus retreated in a whirlwind of scattering, damp particles. Laughing to himself, the older man retreated and lifted a knee instead to hug as he squished his cheek against it, and fixed his gilded gaze upon the eternal moon, palpably musing.  

“... Little star, this freedom I speak of... I’ve told you before, haven’t I?” He continued, his voice was wispy— both distant and near— an ethereal echo. 

"... Beneath this boundless sea of stars would opportunity and wonder await you. Boundless hills of land... vast oceans and towering mountain peaks... Art and music... Connection and love... As you are no more than just a cog to destiny’s ever-revolving wheel, a thrall to its ruthless gyrations... You do not know what it means to be human... Not truly.”  

Indeed, he was no more than a constituent. A fragment of a star molded into the shape of a boy. When Their erosion inevitably came— Their supernova— he, a mere proxy— would assume Their position at the apex of the cosmos— loftier than the sun— and brighter than the moon.  

He cannot disobey his function.  

Hoping for more— no, yearning for even the most innocuous of indulgences was utter blasphemy. He was nothing but a replacement, a substitute, a stopgap for a piece of dying machinery. He did not have the liberty to dream.

 He... could not disobey his function.  

“But there is a way,” his friend, this mysterious and meteoritic force that sidled into his world with the furtiveness of a snake and the might of a crashing wave. In that honeyed poet’s voice of his, he beckoned the boy closer— even without the elegant hums of his lyre, deposited onto the adjacent ground untouched, he was like an enticing siren’s song— and he couldn’t turn away. He shuffled closer, crown forgotten, mouth slightly ajar as he listened with rapt. The man plucked one of the delicate blooms and tucked it behind the boy’s ear.  

“Oh, my sweet boy— beloved of the stars, their small and ignorant prince... You long for this freedom, don’t you? The freedom to laugh, to smile, to redden with anger, to cry tears of sorrow... to wish, to want... to have... what they have, is that right?”  

His hand was as cold as ice, almost wraithlike— and the boy involuntarily shuddered when he came to palm his small, powerless cheek.  

“... You needn’t be ashamed— there is nothing wrong with coveting that which we do not have.” 

Perhaps... yes, perhaps this is when it started— that first delectable bite of the apple, ensnared by eyes of gold and a smile of gentle deception.  

“... And there is a way, my dear boy. There is always a way... “  

Suddenly, his surroundings shifted. He was kowtowed before an extravagant altar. At the crux of the platform stood Them— Their snow-white hair and diaphanous garbs irradiated in the efflux of heavenly light that poured in through the stained glass, assorted in images of winged warriors and fragile maidens— faceless, but watching. They were haloed in a radiant, prismatic luminescence; the concentrated grandeur of the universe, curling around them in an eddying haze of stardust. They did not regard him with Their eyes of cosmic opaline— They never did, for he was a parasite, gradually siphoning Their lifeforce; Their stature strong and broad-shouldered, but simultaneously phantasmal, pale, and dejected. 

And to Them, he was the personification of all that They loathed about Themself—

Even now, They will refuse to look his way. Even now, They will scorn him like one would a buzzing insect, craving attention. Incomplete. Useless—

“You are a cog, Prince of the Stars. And you cannot disobey your function,” is what They would tell him, time and time again, drilling those words into his skull like a jabbing knife, until he had no more blood left to bleed. Ensuring that he comprehended his own worthlessness. 

But is that all that he truly was, then? A mere function? He hadn’t the right to his own dictation, fixed to destiny’s script? He would continue performing for the entertainment of callous gods until his last drawn breath, his future predetermined? Then for what purpose did the stars breathe life into him in the first place? Was his existence so inherently null? 

Could he... never be human?  

“There is a way.”  

A way? There was a way? 

Was there truly a way to escape this suffocating euthymia? 

To realize the dreams he could only entertain in his sleep? 

… Once again, his environment warped in a blur of color, darkness overtaking the sanctum and its holy refulgence, his other half and Their disgusted stare. Puzzled, he surveyed the tenebrosity— it possessed neither a beginning nor cessation, it seemed. There was no breeze, nor the slightest hint of movement; it was still, eerily so, and agonizingly frigid. Boundless nothingness— bereft of life like the empty horror of Chaos.  

But among the darkness, there was a single splash of something— wet, coating his hands, a sword of ceremonial filigree locked in his trembling hands. He let out a gasp of astonishment; it dropped, clanking with a ghastly echo. He stared at his palms, so tiny, so innocent at the time— painted gold with the ichor of the heavens— the death of a dynasty. His heart jackrabbited, his throat constricted; the unbearable cold metamorphosed into blazing heat, and he couldn’t breathe, like the walls of the world were closing in— and he hid his face away, a choked sob ringing out—  

The distance howled; a cacophony of desperate prayers and the destructive crackle of flames. Their voices, shrill and anguished, broken and deafening wails— they wormed into his flesh like voracious maggots, setting his veins afire. Hands came over his ears, but the distortions only intensified, demonical in nature. He felt the bile rise, overcome with gut-churning guilt and fear— fingernails ranked downward, leaving dark streaks of blood as he toppled onto his knees. Globs of tears cataracted down his cheeks as flashes of devastation flitted by his vision— marble towers upended, hellish flames tearing through the streets, mutilated corpses abounded. Shouts and cries for mercy ignored by the compassion of the stars— but enjoyed thoroughly by the malevolent light of the scarlet moon. 

It was the end of paradise, reduced to a tomb of regret and despair. His people but rubble beneath the ash of blissful ignorance. And he— 

He was alone.  

Alone to shoulder the weight of their remorse and his own, portentous sin. Because he was the nexus of the storm— the harbinger itself who foolishly disobeyed his function and shamelessly reached for impossible ideals. 

Within the endless dark, he could not stain another soul with his evil. Torturesome as its tortuous unending-ness was albeit, it was better this way. These hands would not harm anyone else. This lonesomeness would infest him like a plague but at least his clumsiness and his insolence would be contained— at least he would not be selfish. 

Then, he detected a faint light. Sparkling somewhere afar, like waning candlelight. And, as usual, curiosity compelled him to act, inhibitions notwithstanding. He approached the phenomenon with the hesitancy of a frightened fawn, his eyes squinted reflexively— for the closer and closer he drew to it, what was originally a fragile, flickering fireball transformed into a burning sun, purifying the long night. 

And from the blinding whiteness, a gloved hand outstretched. Veiled in luster, he could not make out the person’s expression; however, something was warming about it— like basking under the summer sky. Distantly, he could hear the hiss of waves as they lapped against the shore, the subtlest tickle of sand beneath his barren toes, and the acute squealing of the gulls. The tempest of his heartbeat seemed to calm, and he was transfixed, like a lost ship to the luminosity of a lighthouse. 

 The darkness was comfortable, the darkness was safe— 

… but ever the fool, he could not help but chase the radiance of dawn.