Stand face to face with your god
There is much to learn, even still.
But she is a fast learner, Altar. Diligent.
She does not lend herself to the folly of youth.
Instead, she learns. And she practices.
And she begins to understand that enormous power.
By the time she emerges in the forest again, this time without her siblings, she has learned how to summon the stardust in her chest. It comes in fits and bursts still, but she is young. Just as there is much learning left to do, there is much growing to do, as well. Someday she will make them burn, but for now she merely learns how to manipulate the flame.
She had discovered something else, too. Quite by accident when she left her body one night, hovered in the canopy overhead, and then woke to think it all a fever dream. This is a power she will not understand until she is much older.
She ventures to the forest because she likes the way the darkness sets her stars ablaze. How fiercely they burn in the relative darkness. Sometimes she wonders if one day they will set her ablaze, too. If her youth is the only thing stopping them. As she ages, will the stars also age? Will they burn even brighter until they singe her skin? Torch her thick hair?
There is some dark part of her that hopes that they will.
Some dark part of her that wants to know what it is to burn.
For now, though, she merely moves through the darkness. Untouched. Nebulous wings tucked against her sides, useless still in the most practical sense. Useful only to cast her in some heavenly glow. She is a light source all her own as she lurks there in the shadows, waiting for nothing in particular.
