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
@[Islas]