[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."

[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 & 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 & 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?"

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow White looked a little bewildered by the question. She understood--though she couldn't for the life of her understand why--people asked each other 'how are you?' as a pleasantry. She hated that question. It was a lie. Most of the time, they didn't actually want to know.

He did. Though she didn't really grasp why. "I'm fine," she said. She paused a long beat before asking, "Are you a gnome?"

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_illsinging]

He assumed this was because everyone knew Pike was a Gnome.

"Yeah. I am." All three feet of him.

Scanlan pretended to take off his imaginary hat and bow while he sat in a flourish and affected his voice a bit, "How do you do, M'lady?"

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow stiffened reflexively. "I ain't a lady." Even when she'd been the only, indulged daughter of the big house, she had never been a lady. Her father had paid the staff well not out of the goodness of his heart but so they would keep quiet about her. She was a secret. A shame. Because somewhere along the way before he'd married her stepmother, he'd realized how badly he must have lost his damn mind to marry an Indian.

She took a breath and made herself loosen, if not quite relax. "I'm Snow White."

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_illsinging]

"That's alright, neither am I." A lady, that is. But Scanlan took note of how she said that and filed it away.

"I'm Scanlan. Friends with Vex and Percy." No one had really told him about anything about Snow and her relationship with Vox Machina, but he had seen the woman with Zahra at the spring dance and she had been at the wedding reception and hung around Trinket which meant Vex trusted her.

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow nodded. "Gathered, from your musical number." Only a friend could get away with singing something that stupid and not get beaten with sticks. Though even friends got punched. To tell the truth, Snow was still figuring out exactly how friends actually worked.

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: Snow & Scanlan

[st_illsinging]

"Did you like it?" Because Vax had enjoyed it, at the very least, and a few others found it amusing. Scanlan thought the song was fantastic and was now in his usual repertoire.

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow's exposure to music was... limited. One of her governesses had played the flute, and she'd learned some rudimentary piano once upon a time as part of the things a marriageable young girl should know (though the marriageable part got scrapped eventually). Her stepmother could play piano and sing, and Snow had drunk her songs up like milk, eager as she was for a mother's voice. But most of what she knew about music and musicians came from watching countless girls in countless shitty saloons, playing for men who didn't appreciate it. Effort that went unrecognized, that she was expert at.

But right now what she had to say was, "I don't really know. I think so."

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_illsinging]

He'd never had someone answer like that. A yes or No were standard, but a maybe was new. How did you not know if you liked something?

"Not a big fan of music?"

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_arkcrowblack]

"I haven't heard very much," Snow corrected. "Not until I left home."

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_illsinging]

"That's easily fixed." Like it was a problem not to be exposed to enough music or something. "Want me to play you another tune? I've picked up a lot over the years."

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_arkcrowblack]

Regina hummed to her sometimes when she woke from a nightmare, but Snow could not recall any other time someone actually offered to play or sing for her. Miss Bornay's flute had been her private enjoyment. Mrs. H's piano had been for her father.

She hesitated. Not because she didn't want it, but because she had to give it a moment. "... Okay."

Re: Snow & Scanlan

[st_illsinging]

Scanlan took a moment to think of a song. Maybe not one of his more risque songs right now in the darkness of night. "Alright... I'll see you a song a wrote about a man I knew."

He started to strum the lute in a slight upbeat song. It's a song he hasn't sang in a while, but he knew it well.

" The palace guards are all sleeping Their fires burn into the night There's a threat of rain on the dark horizon And all that's left is a quarter moon of light He climbs up through the darkness No weapon but his surprise The greatest thief in the high Sahara Enters the room where a sleeping princess lies All your money, your pretty necklace This is my work on such a night There's a storm coming over the mountain I'll be gone long before the morning After the rain has fallen After the tears have washed your eyes You find that I've taken nothing, that Love can't replace in the blink of an eye He was as gentle as the night wind As no lover had been before And the rings she wore for her bride groom Slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor Take me with you, take me with you"

He continued to sing until the song was done.

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.

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."