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Stolas Week 2022

Space/Constellations

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My Friends, the Stars

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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Stolas took a long drag of the cigarette, playing with the portal that broke through the reality of Hell to the living world, swirling around the edges with rich, blue magic. That it was set with sparkling stars was a personal touch of his, though perhaps something of a vain one, considering that it took more energy, especially without his Grimoire. He was far from powerless without it, of course, but a fight without his Grimoire would most certainly render him incapacitated once he'd stopped drawing on his energy reserves. Stolas, the Goetian prince, however, would not fall.

Except for one. That was where the cigarette held delicately within his long fingers. He had fallen, for the very one who had given him that pack of cigarettes. They were cheap and left a bitter charr to the back of his mouth, yet he smoked them anyway. They made him feel closer...to him.

His back stiffened.

No.

No. Best not to think about that. Best to just look at the stars, to map their patterns, their progress across the night sky.

It was amazing, even to him, that he could see into other worlds, other dimensions, even though it had practically become an everyday occurrence for him. As the only denizen in Hell with such knowledge, he was often called upon by royalty to read their futures, to predict them, following the path of their stars. That kind of reading the stars was rather silly to Stolas, though he opened the portal wider, hand swirling across the magic, sending a little fluttering ripple through it. He hadn't even looked into his own future. It was not as if knowing would change anything, so he'd rather experience everything as it was.

He tracked the constellations, mentally naming them, the names dropping into his mind one after the other.

Ursa Major.

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Cassiopeia.

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Canis Major.

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Orion.

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Crux.

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Ursa Minor.

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Circinus.

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Aquarius.

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And many more, more even that had not been named in a human language or tongue. A demon like him had eternity, after all, to map them, to name them, to chart them. They told the history of the worlds more aptly than they did the future and he traced the pattern of the stars with his fingertip, as if he was depicting them to someone. Someone who was not as familiar with the stars as he was, though that could have ranged from Octavia to Stella, to merely a friend, or even to someone more...

Stolas sighed. He didn't even know if he would get that luxury again. Maybe he wouldn't. Who was to say?

The stars, however, remained constant, however they moved, however they changed. That was something, at the very least out on his balcony, that he could take comfort in. The mansion to his back was empty, yawning, a hole that he was not due to return into.

No...

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It yawned, a gaping hole, a memory of what had been, what could have been. Stolas' heart twisted, the stars calling him on.

But he could not stay where he was, not when the lure of the stars called him so, widening the portal, catching his breath, in the air with his robe flapping around his legs before his mind had even caught up with what he was doing. Out there, amongst the stars in the night sky, twisting and turning with the spinning of fates, he was home. Out there, nothing bad could ever reach him, not even the angels of the extermination, the light of the stars shielding him from all harm.

He flew without wings, lighter than ever, taking a full, deep breath, the stars reflected in his eyes. Oh, the constellations never changed, not like the wandering stars, his wandering star, the wandering stars that had taken no time at all in dipping in and out of his life.

But they were meant to do that. They were wanderers. They moved. That was why they told stories, histories, futures - sometimes all three bundled up into one. He didn't have to read them to be at home amongst them, his tail feathers spinning around him like a skirt, bare in his feathers but for his old, favourite, comfortable robe. The red of it had faded more than he should have been pleased to wear, but it made him feel right, as if he was really at home again.

The stars were his home and he exhaled a long, deep sigh that faded out everything that had held him back - at least, for a time. He could let the cosmos take care of that, if only for a time, though maybe it could lighten the load on his shoulders for longer, if he took care to not let it return.

So many years... So many souls... So much pretence. Day in, day out, pretending to be someone that he was not, for Stella, for other nobles, for Hell. And what did it all mean when the stars looked down solemnly, recording even his history in their patient tracks?

He spread his arms wide, not needing to breathe, though the cool air seemed to lick at his feathers, preening and plucking faintly at them, without tugging. It was a good feeling, one that he could relax into, even up there, the stars the greatest, kindest company that he had ever had the grace to keep.

"Thank you, my friends."

They may never have spoken to him with words and yet they had told him so much, the owl reaching out before him as if he could scoop up and cup every last one of the stars in his hands and keep them for his own. Yet they were not his, not ever, only there to be with him, as he was a bystander to their eternal path.

Well, until the death of a star. But that was a grand even in itself that signified something far more powerful than either him or the stars.

Stolas smiled faintly, a little more at peace. The stars helped. The stars always helped.

Maybe that was all he could ask for.