The Origin of the Stars

“Monika, come out!” Christophe yelled gleefully from outside her window, waiting for the youngest Villan daughter to come out. He caught a flash of brunette hair against a mint-green wall and rolled his eyes good-naturedly, the night sky and the glittering stars providing him all the light he needed. He picked up a small pebble to throw and aimed carefully, but a sharp voice coming outside stopped him before he could throw (and cause potential wreckage).

“Christophe, don’t! You’ll break her window,” Lucillia Villan scolded, frowning at him deeply with her crystal-blue eyes. Christophe laughed, quite embarrassed, and dropped the pebble, letting it hit the ground and turning to the older sister with a mischievous gleam in his own blue eyes. “What are you doing here, anyway? Are you waiting for Monika?”

“She promised she’d come out and play,” he replied with an air of mystery. Lucillia shook her head and gave a tsk. “What about you, Lucillia? Did Liam come for you today?” she glanced away momentarily, yet he could see the tinge of red that appeared on her cheeks for a few seconds.

“Of course he did, but that isn’t the point,” she changed the subject quickly and cleared her throat. “Monika will come down in a moment. Don’t shatter her windows, or father will…” she didn’t finish the sentence and gave a grimace, rushing back into the manor, most likely to call Monika down.

“Monika! Christophe is waiting for you.”

“Tell him to come up.”

“What the – what would father say?!”

“He’s out! I can handle Christophe by myself and he can climb down a tree.”

The Frenchman couldn’t help but smirk.

“You…you’re going to get in trouble for this, Monika Thea.”

“It’s Christmas, Lucillia! He’ll let this pass. I hope.”

And Lucillia found him waiting patiently.

“Alright, you can come in. She’s waiting by the balcony,” giving a shake of her head, Lucillia sighed quietly and darted back inside, Christophe following and closing the door. The laughter of a male resounded from the main room, and he could hear the eldest sister rebuke Liam Edevane, and another male ask his brother to stop with a bored tone. As he climbed up the stairs, he caught a flash of lighter brown hair run from one room to another, and he stopped to blink before shaking his head and continuing to make his way further up.

The sight of two doors greeted him and he pushed both open, finding Monika there alone. Her dress seemed to radiate silver and emerald at the same time, her hair down and quite wavy, having spent some time up in curls and whatnot. He cleared his throat.

Her eyes met his and they seemed to light up like a bolt of lightning striking the sky.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t go down,” she apologized as he walked closer, “I don’t like the cold…it’s too troublesome for my taste,” she explained. Christophe could only chuckle as he moved next to her, both of them gazing down at the view at this point. “I’m surprised Lucillia let you in, though.”

“I managed.” He threw a wink and she rolled her eyes, but a smile remained.

“You flirt.”

“Moving onto finer topics, your father is out?”

“For a few more hours, yes. But he knows of the Edevane’s presence,” she replied gloomily. “He only expected them, and no one else. Which is why you have to leave before he comes back.”

“Through the tree?”

“Through the tree.”

He eyed the large wood and nodded. “I can do that.”

“Of course you can.” From the view of the town, he looked at her. She was still looking away and he could see the night’s stars dancing in her eyes, and the wind blew, rustling her skirt and blowing through their hair. He ran his hand through his own, but she didn’t seem to mind and kept looking down.

“I love the stars.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “They’re beautiful. They’re like glowing lights in the sky – that’s what they are – they twinkle, and you can see them form shapes if you’re lucky and if you have a good eye. I like to believe that a higher being took portions of our souls and scattered them in the sky…” she mused this quietly, more to herself but he could hear. “And that our souls are like fragments of past lives collected since the very beginning. In total, we’re staring at past lives of people we know – you and me – and people we don’t know, like those from other places here in Europe.”

He was amazed at all of this.

“But it’s just a silly belief of mine,” she looked at him and laughed sheepishly; “Don’t believe in any of it unless you want to.”

“Go on.”

She blinked.

“You want me to continue…?”

“Why not? Your ideas have always been fascinating to me,” he said with an obvious sincerity, and she blinked once more, blushing slightly under the illumination of his smile. 

“I have this other belief. We’re all stories,” she started. “And when we die, our stories are collected, condensed. They’re so condensed that everything that occurred just burns on and on and on, never fading away because we really are eternal,” Monika went on. “So…our stories, the burning flames of our whole being, they rise to the sky like souls how ascend to heaven. And those flames become stars. Never dying, just living on.”

The lady went quiet, her words coming to an end.

Both of them reveled in the silence, and Christophe didn’t quite know what to say.

“I hope I’ll be a story worth telling,” the ginger finally says.

And she looks at him, her eyes burning.

Her hand finds itself next to his, and after a moment’s worth of contemplation, she takes his hand into hers slowly, turning away and now looking at the sky. He felt his heart thud more and his breathing nearly stuttered, all of this driving his emotions into a frenzy while she could only blush and keep her raw emotions in.

“You will be.”