Ciri

Unlike Islas, Ciri hadn’t known she was star born for the majority of her childhood and early teenage years. It wasn’t until she had fallen into the Underneath, had used the power of Equus Astrea to save herself from the siren that had raked its claws across her body and tried to steal her very soul that the truth of her had been revealed. She had been a star turned mortal, a gift to the world below them, birthed to an ordinary mare (although her mysterious father wasn’t quite so normal and those in the Falls always commented on what an unusual child she seemed to be) and living an ordinary life until the Underneath had awoken her powers and memories. The purpose of her birth, her connection to the stars, the secret knowledge of worlds and previous lives she had lived. Having been ignorant so long to where she had come from had made her mortality take the upper hand over her older ties, being able to connect to other equines and understand her feelings better than one like Islas could. It had been overwhelming to say the least but not as overwhelming as when she had popped through the portal back in Hyaline to a dark world that stole her access to the ancestors and the powers they provided to her.

Although she had obtained the Astrea power in the Underneath (the only way she was able to realize what she was), she had left that otherworldly plane with a muted version of what she was. Perhaps it should have bothered her but it didn’t, figuring her years being kept in the dark and living as a normal mortal had something to do with it. Plus, once she had been exposed to those truths it had left her with an unshaken confidence in exactly what and who she was. She had accepted her fate and trusted in the power of the celestial beings that their was a reason for everything happening the way it did. If she didn’t…. Well… If she didn’t then she probably would fall apart.

It had been some time since the Eclipse had ended, had been a few months since she had regained her powers with the additional bonus of the stars that hovered and caressed her body, the companions to remind her that even in total darkness she wasn’t ever truly alone. She spends most of her nights in the Meadow, where the sky always seems the clearest and she can easily access her shield and practice. She’s doing so now, pulling from the starlight to bring the gaseous balls of stardust and fire to spiral around her in a protective covering and then dismissing it quickly before calling it back again. She drills herself over and over, trying to be faster than before. Living the life of a wandering nomad, a sell-sword for hire, meant that danger was always lurking and she never wanted to be caught off her guard again. The thousands of scars that cover her dark skin, the jagged claw mark that runs from eye to cheek, all are mementos for her failure of vigilance.

Taking a break, the swirling silver strands of her iris’s land on the glowing white mare that stands a little ways from her. The strangers eyes are turned up to the stars and she follows her gaze to the sky, a small smile on her lips as she finds her old friends twinkling in their stationary positions. The ones that shine brightly from her head to her backside seem to twinkle back as if saying hello, shaking stardust along the curve of her spine and glittering through her raven tresses. As she searches them, something tugs at the back of her mind and makes her look back to the illuminated mare. Ciri had never met another star-kissed like herself. There had been Basilica who had been gifted with stars (only to lose them during the Eclipse) but it had been merely an illusionary gift with no connection to the celestial beings themselves.

There’s a sudden desire to go talk to her and so she follows the thread of feeling, walking slowly over to her. As she gets closer, she can make out the shocking violet of her eyes and the starlight flowers that weave and entwine in her snowy locks and her breath catches as she suddenly realizes exactly what and who stands before her. Her voice is gentle and soft as she exhales the words slowly. “You’re a star, aren’t you?”

all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was

Ciri

“I used to be.” Ciri nods slightly, whatever minuscule doubt extinguished by the endless dark purple of the mare’s eyes. “Me too.” She responds softly as she takes a few steps closer to her. Her voice was unlike any she had ever heard before, bringing her back to dreams and memories from lifetimes that were long forgotten. There’s a moment of epiphany when she gets the sense that the moon-white mare may have burned in the sky for a very long time, much longer than she ever had.

Islas gives a whisper of a smile as she offers her name and the dark mare smiles back, unable to keep the spark of excitement from the silver strands of her swirling eyes. Ciri had always wondered if she had been the only one, if there were others like her that had been hand plucked from the galaxy and tossed into mortal bodies. As if mirroring her thoughts, the glowing mare pulls down the starlight and starts spinning intricate webs of beautiful handwoven stars. “I’m Ciri.” She breathes softly and then pulls from the sky herself, displaying the brilliant shield of nebulas and galaxies that float protectively around her, tiny balls of celestial plasma streaking stardust amongst the orbiting threads of blue and purple.

With an almost sheepish grin she banishes her star shield, searching the angular planes of Islas’s face. “Why are you here?” It’s what she’s always longed to know and wonders if maybe this wiser version of herself might have uncovered the secret that’s long been hidden from her. “I’ve never met another one. Another star I mean.” Giving an explanation to her eagerness almost like an apology because she has so many questions but has no idea if Islas even has the kind of answers that she seeks. There’s a familiar pain as an unbidden memory of Amet comes to mind, when he had watched her call her astral aura around her for the first time. He would have been excited, she thinks, that the world was watched by fallen stars. The pang of sadness lingers, not necessarily because it’s the golden scaled stallion that she misses but the fact that she really doesn’t have anyone to share this exciting news with. Perhaps Gale would care, he who had inspected her shield and twinkling companions with the intensity of a scholar. Maybe he could share her delight.

all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was

Ciri

The unavoidable question, the one they asked themselves every day. How to get back to where they had fallen from. That was the goal wasn’t it? She’s not sure anymore. There is always this insatiable hunger, to find her way back to her place in the heavens. It fights against the mortality in her, the need to feel things and survive in this body for as long as possible. She knows somewhere deep inside of her that she has to find her way back, that when this body fails she will rise back to where she belongs. Still, she resists. There’s something else that must keep her here, something else that brought her into this symphony of flesh and bone and blood. That’s what gnaws at her most of all. Not the how of becoming one with the sky again but the why. Why were they here to begin with?

It seems Islas is kept in the dark as much as she is. As disappointing as it is to still be left wondering to the purpose of their “why” it's also comforting to know that she’s not the only one without answers. Her swirling gaze watches the orbs of starlight spiral back up to their home, considering what the other had said while analyzing the details of her own life. “No.” She exhales softly, giving a slight shake of her scarred visage. “I don’t think my mother was even aware of what I was. She knew I was different but I didn’t even understand what I was till after the Underneath.” She thinks aloud, remembering the gentle white mare that she had been born to. Her sire was still a mystery to her, Soliel’s only words about the stallion was that he had been handsome and could prowl in the form of a dark cat. Even his name had been hidden until she had risen from the Underneath, learning the truth of what she was. She had dreamed about him once, Atrox, in the height of her fever. She’s still curious about the man, if perhaps he was the missing key to all this.

“Do you live here in the Meadow?” She finds herself asking, wondering how she could have missed her presence after roaming here for so long. This was the best spot for star gazing which was why she hadn’t minded being a nomad, her true home being the expansive stratosphere above them. She figures that’s why Islas may be here too. There’s much she wishes to learn about the mysterious moonlit mare and she can’t help but wonder if perhaps Islas had succeeded in her mortal life with far more grace than she had.

all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was

Ciri

When the hurt and fear still lingered, when it had still been such a fresh wound, she would have balked at speaking about the Underneath. Of the terrors she had faced and the truths that had been forced into the open. It had been one of the key events of her life, the one that had shaped her the most into what she was today regardless if she liked it or not. These days she can speak of the trials and tribulations in that dark world with just a slight quiver of her skin, that instinctive reflex to shake off the oily threads of the past that still lingered just below her skin. Talking about it helped more than she had realized. When she had recounted her near death experience with Gale, it had eased a little more of that weight from her scarred chest.

Islas had seemed as dreamy as the twinkling threads in the sky until she had mentioned the Below. Now she seemed hyper focused, the dark purple eyes penetrating deep within the swirling silver of her own. Some might become subdued under such a gaze but she simply holds it with curiosity. Of course the natural hesitation makes her pause as it always does when it comes to bringing up the past and Islas is quick with an apology but Ciri merely shakes her head. “I don’t mind talking about it.” She responds honestly.

Had it been an Underworld? Were they the same thing? She didn’t know, such a question had many complex answers regarding time and space. Still she tries to explain to the Fallen Star in the best way she knows how. “There was a portal, it just… sucked me up.” She had only been three, a young slip of a shadow that kept to herself. She had fallen asleep only to wake in the Underneath. The first but not the last time a portal had stolen her away.

The swirls of silver seem to go sluggish in their movement, liquid mercury as she thinks back to a darkness that would put the Eclipse to shame. “ It looked exactly like here, like the Beqanna we know, but it wasn’t.” She goes on to explain the absence of color, the suffocating blackness but how her vision had adjusted to read heat signatures only. How the putrid fumes made it hard to breathe. How the silence was more suffocating than the thickness in the air. She pauses, unsure if Islas really wanted to know the horrible truth of what lurked in the Underneath. “It’s not a pleasant place by any means. I looked a lot better going in then coming out.” She gives a soft laugh but it lacks humor, shrugging a shoulder littered with some of the many scars she had carried once spit back out on the shores of Hyaline. Violent memories that she would wear for the rest of her life.

all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was