[EP] I am made of stars - OTA

[st_arkcrowblack]

It was night and everything smelled like the sea.

Snow White lay spread-eagle in middle of the parking lot, staring up at the stars. Her hair fanned around her head, inky black and, seeing as she hadn’t bothered to cut it since her arrival, growing almost absurdly long.

The sun had set over an hour ago and the sky was full into the black. The moon, not quite full but still nearly so, shone down silver and cool like a single huge, impassive eye. The sight of so much sky and so little horizon left her feeling dizzy, as though if she could forget the feeling of pavement under her back she might float upward and be lost in that eternity up there. It reminded her distantly of Mrs. H’s mirror and how it had caught the moon in its glass. But not enough to spoil the view. Not enough to make her afraid.

She’d had the nightmare again last night, the one where she was caught in the room full of fire. In the beginning it came every night. Then slowly but surely, it became less frequent. She hadn’t burned through the night in months. Logically, it would be months again before the fire, but she still couldn’t quite face going in, lying down, and closing her eyes.

She thought of Sansa and--because she had never asked--wondered if the stars in Westeros were different from the ones above her now. She wondered if that velvet black had a texture, and then if it was stupid to wonder that. She named all the constellations and stars she knew, some from her childhood observations, some from books she’d read in the library. Her gaze fixed for a time on Polaris.

She didn’t think anybody was around to hear her. “It’s so far away that no matter where we are, that’s still north.” It was a wild thought.

Comments

[st_oryinsilence]

They had never talked, in words anyway. But Maya knew the girl was called Snow and she worked in the stables, more comfortable with the horses than people. That the awkwardness she showed when Maya was near seemed different from that she showed around others sometimes. A hint of fascination maybe, but a reticence to approach. So Maya had given her her space.

She didn't expect to find her stargazing in the middle of the empty parking lot. She was trying to decide if she should pass on by when the girl said something. It was dark enough, though, and Maya hadn't been paying close enough attention to have seen what it was she said. "Sorry. What was that?" she asked quietly, watching this time.

Snow & Maya

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow had of course noticed when another Indian showed up at the inn, but she had largely been shy around this woman. She was shy around many people, of course, but this was different. She had no identity as an Indian. She didn't know what that meant, or even what she was missing, only that she was missing it.

Among other things, that was what had made her so unfair to Dani. Snow wondered if she could manage to apologize, if she met Dani again.

And maybe that was why she simply repeated herself. She'd watched Maya enough to realize the woman was deaf, though she didn't fully understand how Naya could do everything she did in that case. But she accepted it. She pointed to the north star. "It’s so far away that no matter where we are, that’s still north."

Re: Snow & Maya

[st_oryinsilence]

After seeing what Snow said, Maya knew what she would find when she followed the direction of that finger. The North Star, Polaris. It had other names as well, from other people.

"So far away it seems to stand still." She sat down cross-legged beside Snow, easier to read her lips than if they were both lying on their backs, looking up at the stars. "At home, when I was growing up, it was only the brightest starts we could see. Too much light pollution in the city. Polaris was easy to find." Lying on a roof in Hell's Kitchen when the apartment was like an oven well into the night and at least outside you could maybe get a breeze if you were lucky.

"But sometimes we'd 'get away for awhile' and the sky seemed to come to life, there were so many stars."

Re: Snow & Maya

[st_arkcrowblack]

"I was raised in the middle of nowhere," Snow murmured. "And it still seemed like that." Not because the sky was actually clearer to see, but because all of her senses just seemed to be more alive once she had gotten clear of that fucking house. Riding felt all the sweeter no matter how long or far, son-of-a-bitch stew had tasted better than anything she'd eaten at her father's table, and there seemed to be more stars than black sky.

Re: Snow & Maya

[st_oryinsilence]

There were lots of reasons not to really see the sky. Light pollution of the city, not bothering to look up, not being allowed out, more Maya could list if she wasn't more interested in what Snow was choosing to say.

"Now we really are in the middle of nowhere. But the sky seems just as big." It was an invitation, if Snow wanted to accept it. Or just an acknowledgement, maybe an understanding, why you might want to lie down in the middle of an empty parking lot under the stars. Even if Maya would almost always pick a roof over the ground.

[st_illsinging]

Somewhere not so far away, there is the sound of a lute that begins and then a song softly singing.

It's just another night
And I'm staring at the moon
I saw a shooting star
And thought of you
I sang a lullaby
By the waterside and knew
If you were here,
I'd sing to you
You're on the other side
As the skyline splits in two
I'm miles away from seeing you
I can see the stars
From Marquet
I wonder, do you see them, too?
So open your eyes and see
The way our horizons meet
And all of the lights will lead
Into the night with me
And I know these scars will bleed
But both of our hearts believe
All of these stars will guide us home

I can hear your heart
In my memory beat
It's okay our old song
And I thought of us
Back to the time,
You were lying next to me
I looked across and fell in love
So I took your hand
Back through moon lit streets I knew
Everything led back to you
So can you see the stars?
Over Tal'Dorei

You're the song my heart is
Beating to
So open your eyes and see
The way our horizons meet
And all of the lights will lead
Into the night with me
And I know these scars will bleed
But both of our hearts believe
All of these stars will guide us home
And, oh, I know
And oh, I know, oh
I can see the stars
From Marquet.

The Gnome is sitting on a small bench looking up at the stars.

Snow & Scanlan

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow White turned her head toward the sound of the music, away from the dizzy view overhead, staring at Scanlan with wide, dark eyes. She blinked slowly, as though trying to come back into focus.

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_illsinging]

He hadn't noticed her at first - he was not very perceptive sometimes, but when she moved, he finally noticed her against the dark ground. He slowly stopped his lute playing. "...Was I disturbing you?"

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow blinked at him slowly, not unlike an owl. Except perhaps without the air of 'well, he's sort of like a mouse, I could give it a shot.' "You weren't."

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_illsinging]

Well, that was good at least... though she was a little unsettling.

"Alright....... are you, okay?"

Kitty & Snow

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty wasn't looking for company that evening when she came upon Snow White in the parking lot. Truth was, she'd been avoiding company all together, using her abilities to blend with shadow and be invisible to the eye. She'd also been walking several feet off the ground so she didn't make noise.

She didn't want to attract attention. She just wanted to be outside. To feel the air move and hear the animals--and all the things that Kitty Pryde had never been interested in before Lara Croft made her imagine adventures that crew out of curiosity and passion instead of evil megalomaniacs who wanted to control the world.

Which made it a complete mystery to Kitty herself, and almost certainly to Snow White, why Kitty 'decloaked', slowly allowing herself to be seen and then lowering herself to the ground. It was the first time that she'd used her powers when it seemed likely Snow White would notice, and she had no idea why she'd done it, except maybe that Lara had been distrustful and nearly hostile at first, too.

"Triple star system with a variable main star," Kitty offered quietly, not assuming Snow didn't know, just sharing the space.

Re: Kitty & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat, but she didn't tense or bristle or otherwise adversely react to Kitty's presence. For all that they'd been skirting each other so much that it had become a force of habit... now that they were she wasn't exactly thrilled to have the woman's company but she wasn't tossing it off, either. "Read something like that in the library."

Re: Kitty & Snow

[st_alksthroughwalls]

It would've taken outright disappearing every time Snow White showed up not to know that the young woman liked to read. But she also didn't like Kitty or react well to being questioned, so that seemed to exhaust that conversational direction. "My best friend was from out there. Not Polaris, specifically. Even farther."

Re: Kitty & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

"Didn't know there were people out there," Snow murmured. She vaguely understood the idea that there were people living on other planets, but it wasn't something that had really cemented itself in her mind as a reality she grasped.

Re: Kitty & Snow

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"A few living at the Inn are from other planets." She didn't know whether they'd mind Kitty telling, but some wouldn't. "If you met Johnny when he was still here, he was an engineer on a ship. And Xavin's from another planet," she offered, and then, "But my friend was a cat-sized psychic purple dragon, who went by the name Lockheed."

Jag & Snow

[st_artandstoke]

Shoes crunched slightly on the ground as Jag came to a stop, and a small flame burst in his hand, illuminating the area enough for him to spot Snow on the ground. He wandered closer, but not too close, and sat down, holding one folded leg to his chest, the flame going out as he settled into the moment. Nobody laid on the ground like that if they weren't watching the stars, and the light of the fire would have made that more difficult.

"Does north and south matter?" he asked, quietly, ready to go if she wanted him to, looking up at the stars himself.

Re: Jag & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Jag's presence was easier for Snow than most people, and aside from a flicker of her eyes in his direction before turning her attention back upward she didn't react much at all. "Not at such," she admitted. "Just interesting. You got your winter and summer constellations, but all year that's fixed. Regardless of where Earth is in orbit. Though I don't know if we even do that here. Still got seasons."

Re: Jag & Snow

[st_artandstoke]

"I don't understand much about this place," Jag admitted, "so I mostly don't think about it." It didn't seem, to him, as if science had much of a say what went on here, so he wasn't going to waste energy on a problem he was very likely very unequipped to solve. Smarter people could think about it. He'd just tend to the horses.

Re: Jag & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

"Nobody does," Snow murmured. "So yeah. North and south don't matter here, but... fuck that. If I add that layer to it, it just hurts my head. World was weird enough before."

Re: Jag & Snow

[st_artandstoke]

"I don't think I mind the weirdness much," Jag stated, after a moment's thought. "Just the... frustration." He'd had to take a lot of things in stride, even before coming here, and with some notable exceptions, he'd managed.

Regina & Snow

[st_oriedqueen]

Regina followed the trail of magic from Snow's necklace to the parking lot. She wasn't worried or checking up on her. Dyson had simply gone for a run and she had rare quiet time in the evening.

"So it is, my love," Regina said as she settled on the parking lot beside her daughter. "May I join you?"

Re: Regina & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow didn't quite smile, but her face brightened when she answered, "Sure. Hi, Mama."

Re: Regina & Snow

[st_oriedqueen]

"Hi, yourself," Regina replied, her voice warm with affection. It was so easy now, sometimes she forgot how hard they'd worked to find this trust and comfort. She lay back and smiled up at the stars. "Pretty night for stargazing." Pretty daughter for it, too, but Snow didn't care for being beautiful, so Regina declined to mention it.

Re: Regina & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

"Boyfriend busy?" Snow asked in answer to that. It wasn't sarcastic or jealous or anything like that, just a question.

Re: Regina & Snow

[st_oriedqueen]

"Out for a run," she confirmed. "With Aesop." Regina slid her an amused, fond smile. "I'm not sure which of them needed it more."