Wander

references to memory loss and copious use of religious metaphor

Do you remember what it was like when we were still new? Before we became aching bone and tender muscle sculpted into a wretched parody of our original self? When we were just our centers, unwounded and untouched by earth-bound corporation? When it was just you and stardust and just a little bit of divine spark? No? Well, she does.

Or she think she does anyway. She dreams of it, at least. Not every night, but often enough. The warm love of grace spreading from core to her hands. The gentle curious humor woven into the connection she had forged with a something euphoric. Another one, little star? Not words, no, even less a question but she felt the meaning of the universe's laughter all the same. Playful. Soft. Loving. Proud. Like a parent.

She dreams of standing there, ghost-pale and touched by the sun, up in the ink painted sky; an artist before a blank canvas. A parent all her own, being welcomed back by distant, glinting children. For she had made them, she is sure of this in her dreams. And she Knows them all. Playful Sirius and proud Rasalhague. Brilliant Altair and soft, gentle Chara. They are all hers in the same way the beating of her heart is.

Making them is natural, almost holy, as holy at least as the power she draws from as she breathes life into them. She remembers what it feels like, a steady stream, like a drip that bloomed into an ocean as it trickled through her as it's tributary. It was slow but steady, waiting patiently for her to turn the tap on. To flow out from that place inside her soul and out into the world in colorful bursts of life sustaining elements. She remembers tempering that celestial power, bending white hot starstuff to her will to form whole galaxies from within her chest. It overwhelmed her, now more than she remembered, bursting from her before she had even fully realized she'd reached for it. Awe rushed through her, as close to holy as she dared get, as she stared at the newborn star that formed in her hands. Muscles, ever reliable, helped shaped it with long remembered instincts.

When she wakes the crash back to reality is hard. Like she's been turned inside out and left all exposed, raw nerve and confusion. It was hard every time. Too hard to not have been real. She'd even go so far as to call it cruel. Being earthbound made her feel trapped standing under their light, once warm and familiar but now nothing more than a cold echo on her skin that left her starbirthing hands frostbitten. To reach for that wellspring and finding nothing but a rotting ache like the moment before a fall. Reaching for divinity and feeling nothing.

She had known this would happen. She had known. She had always known and yet she still felt herself break a little further every time. Knowing that this, right here, standing beneath her distant children, was as close as she could ever get. The heavens were barred from her, truly and utterly, save for in dreams.

Once the crash fades she is less sure. Memories - were they even memories, or just imagination? - fade into a dull and confusing echo. Though she longs for the sky, she can't quite put it down why. Even when she can remember, down here she feels so ordinary it's hard to believe what her dreams are telling her. She's not even sure what they're telling her in the first place. Sometimes, on bad days, she wonders if she's crazy. On most days, she believes she's just got an overactive imagination or that she's perhaps read one too many stories. Then, there are some nights, where the memories linger and she walks beneath her stars that she wonders if she's remembering something very old and just outside the reach of her consciousness. That, maybe, one day, she'll be back up there among them again..