She suddenly wondered what he was doing now. Was he above the dormitory, stretching his arm up as he often did, reaching for the stars that always seemed to have a pull on him?
“Ah,” Hana said. “You had to get out from under the trees to see.”
Sora nodded.
Her sister walked up to the crest of the hill and stood beside her.
“Do you remember the myth you used to tell me when I was little?” Hana pointed at a rabbit constellation.
“The one about the god of night’s children?”
“Yeah.”
“That was your favorite.”
Hana continued looking at the stars. Next to the rabbit, there was a giraffe, and at the top of the giraffe’s head sat a monkey. There was a whole menagerie of animals. “Do you think . . .” she hesitated. Then she fiddled with her hair and said, “Do you think you could tell the story to me now?”
The smile that spread across Sora’s face was so bright, it outshone the moon. “I’d love to.”
They found a patch of moss, as thick and soft as a blanket, and lay beside each other. As their breaths slowed and their chests rose and fell in sync, Sora called to the ryuu particles around them, asking them to illustrate the story she was about to tell. They swirled around her eagerly, then floated above Hana’s head, mimicking the nightscape of stars.
Sora started the fable as their mother had written it, still pristine in her memory as if she had recited it to her little sister only yesterday.
Millions of miles in the sky, the gods look upon us from the heavens. To mortals, Celestae is perfect, a paradise no soul would ever want to leave.
But gods, like humans, sometimes grow tired of what they already have. The god of night, in particular, loved descending from the sky. He was very handsome. His face was composed of sharp angles, like the lines of constellations. His eyes smoldered like nebulas, mysterious and multicolored. And light followed wherever he went, like a comet trailing its king. One look from him sent mortal women tumbling head over heels, irretrievably in love.
Over the millennia, he fathered many children. But being a god, he was not accustomed to sharing. Instead, he took all his offspring from his mortal lovers so that his children could live with him in Celestae.
One day, a woman named Tomi refused the god of the night his child. She held their son close to her breast and would not relinquish him to live in the sky.
“Why do you do this?” the god of night had asked. “Our son is a demigod. He belongs in Celestae, where he can drink of sweet nectar and frolic in fields made of dreams. He will live a good life. He will live forever. This is the way it has always been for my children.”
Tears ran down Tomi’s face as she stroked her baby’s fat cheek. “I love you, my lord. But I love my baby even more. Half of him comes from you, but the other half comes from me. If you take him and I never see him again, I shall die.”
The god of the night frowned. He had never thought of it from his lovers’ point of view. Yet their boy belonged in Celestae, with others like him. He would be unhappy, relegated to earth.
“My beautiful Tomi,” the god said, kissing away the stream of her tears. Each touch of his lips left glimmers of starlight on her skin. “Tell me. What is your favorite animal?”
She looked up at the god, confused, her eyes rimmed in red. “A lion. But I don’t understand.”
“I must take our son with me. You know this to be true. But you will see him again.” The god of night held out his arms for the baby.
Tomi hugged their son tightly. “How? When?”
“Every night. You need only look up to Celestae, and you will see him, a lion in the sky.”
“What if he does not like Celestae?”
“He will,” the god of night promised. “But if he ever wishes to leave, I will not stop him. That, I can promise you.”
With that, the god gently took their boy from his mother. As they faded away, returning to the realm of the divine, Tomi felt a heavy sadness in her heart. And yet she did not cry.
When the sun set that evening, she did as she was told. She walked out into the chilly air and looked up toward Celestae.
Where there had been nothing before, now there was a constellation, a lion, bright against the night. The stars glimmered, as if her son were winking at her, and a small smile graced Tomi’s face.
And from then on, all of the god of night’s children appeared in the night sky, a parade of constellations bidding “good eve” to their mothers and assuring the mortal world that all was well in the universe.
At the end of the story, Sora’s ryuu particles faded away, like a constellation at dawn.
Hana clapped softly. “It’s just like I remember it. After we’d left Kichona, I used to tell the story to myself when I couldn’t sleep, but I never got it right. It’s because the fable was missing you.”
Sora’s eyes prickled with tears, thinking of little Hana, shivering and scared after the Blood Rift, clinging to the one story that had been theirs.
“I’m here now,” Sora said.
Hana nodded. “I know.”
Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed Hana on the tip of her nose like she used to do when they were little.
Hana drew away, face contorted in horror. She quickly looked around, as if worried someone had seen.
“I’m sorry,” Sora said. “I’m not sure what came over me. I just . . . I’m happy to have you back in my life.”
Hana still looked horrified. But then her expression mellowed into a conflicted mixture of pleasure and disdain, as if her two halves—the little sister half and Virtuoso half—couldn’t decide who was in charge. “I’m . . . happy to have you back too,” she said. “But don’t kiss me like that again. At least, um, when others can see.”
“Okay, stinkbug.”
Hana laughed despite herself. “Stinkbug. I haven’t heard that nickname in a very long time.”
They lay quietly in the moss for a little while. But the ryuu were going to march to the Imperial City at sunrise, and Sora had to leave tonight to beat them back to the Citadel. If she was going to take Hana with her, she’d have to test the waters now.
The temperature seemed to drop several degrees. Sora shivered. But it was time. “That story made me think about the gods,” she said slowly. “They’re all-powerful. They can make women fall in love with them, give up their children. What’s to stop them from making humans their playthings?”
Hana frowned. “You mean, they’d toy with us like dolls?”
“Something like that.”
“That’s a horrible thought.”
“Why?” Sora asked.
“Because what if I didn’t want to do what the god wanted? If we were toys, he could make us do anything. Kiss someone you find revolting. Smack yourself in the face. Jump off a cliff.”
“You’re right,” Sora said.
“I’d fight back if they did that,” Hana said.
“And if you couldn’t? What if you couldn’t fight back against the gods?”
“Then . . .” Hana thought about it. “Then I’d rather not live. What would be the point of having a life, if I didn’t have free will? At least a doll doesn’t actually have a mind of its own.”