Son of the Stars
by Emily Regan
Maître Esprit, long before he was known by that name, was born from the stars. The first of all men, Esprit was still partly star — he was formed by stardust and the night and he lived among the ancient constellations of the heavens long before time began to be measured. His parent stars called him fondly, “Little Light, Little Light” in their soft, twinkling voices.
“Little Light,” one said to him, just before the world was, “Little Light, you seem troubled.”
“I am,” He replied. “I look into the sky and I see you, my dear family. And I see the darkness in between. But I see something else.”
At this the stars twittered. “Something else?” They asked.
“Yes.”
“But there is nothing else. We are all that is. There is nothing but our everlasting sky. And you, Little Light. There is you.”
“Yes.” And he said no more about it for a time. But he could still see it. It wasn’t with his eyes that he saw, but he was sure it was there — beyond the stars, beyond the black, there was something. There it stood, beyond all that could be, and it tugged at him. It tugged and tugged and pulled until he felt an aching pain in his chest. And then he could ignore it no more.
He gathered long planks of darkness and tied them together with rays of starlight, until he had made a boat. It was a beautiful boat, made of nothing, and light bent away from its black edges. The stars hesitated as they looked down at the first man-made creation.
“That is a bad thing,” the stars said. “Why did you make it?”
“To take me away.”
The stars wailed in their quiet voices. “You must not go! It is a sad thing! It will only bring you pain.”
He smiled. “You must not worry, dear ones. I will come back.”
“You won’t!” They cried. “If you go you will not come back! It is a sad thing you seek!”
“I am sorry,” He said to them. “But I must go. It is calling to me. I must go, but I will come back.”
The stars twinkled and twittered and mourned but they could not stop him. At last they hushed and watched as he worked on his boat of nothing. Unable to do anything but wish him well, they poured all the power and light they could into it:
“We wish you safety.”
“We wish you quick return.”
“We wish you good rest.”
“We wish you speedy travel.”
“We wish you protection.”
“We wish you would not go.”
“I must,” He said.
“We wish to go with you.”
“I know you cannot,” He said.
“We wish you will remember us.”
“Always,” He said.
“Then take this, Little Light.” And they gave him a sail made of stardust.
At last he climbed inside the boat and hoisted the sail. Then away he went, across the sky, and sailed towards what he saw but could not see.
On he went until he passed the last of the stars in the night. In front of him there was blackness. The only light was the small wake of stardust left by his sail. It became cold. For the first time, he was afraid of the dark.
After what seemed like an eternity of sailing he saw something besides the dark. It was long and flat and as his boat drew alongside it, he reached out to touch it. It was hard. He climbed out and stepped upon what was called land for the first time. After tying his boat with a strip of starlight he set out across the vast, empty land.
Large rocks sprung up in the distance and as he looked at them he felt the fear of the darkness creep over him again. He stopped at their base but dared go no further. He wished his stars were there.
“Ah!”
The voice startled him and he turned, only to be more astonished still. It was a woman. She had stopped a ways away, just as surprised to see him. She was like him, but not — she was formed from black night and land. She was dark, and in her eyes there was a void that extended further than one could ever travel.
“You are here!” She said. “I wished you would come.”
“You were the one who called me?”
She smiled. “Yes. Will you come with me?”
“Yes.”
She led him back towards the edge of the land where a stony hut had been built. It had three walls and the fourth was open, facing the direction he had sailed his boat from. They sat in the doorway and she looked up into the sky.
“Is that where you came from?” She pointed to a smudge of gray out in the blackness.
He looked and it gave him warmth to see that the gray light was from his distant stars. “Yes.”
“How?”
“I built a boat out of nothing and starlight.”
“May I see it?”
“If you’d like.”
She nodded. She looked past the edge of her land into the empty sky all around them and he watched her. He wondered why she hadn’t looked directly at him since she had first seen him.
“Why won’t you look at me?” He asked.
“You are too bright. It hurts my eyes.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
“No, do not be. That is why I called you.”
And then she didn’t speak to him again. After a while of sitting in silence and darkness she laid herself on the ground and slept.
Esprit leaned against the wall and watched her sleep. He dozed for a while, but he found sleep uncomfortable in the starless night. He left the woman and walked along the edge of the land until he found his boat. He untied it and led it back along the edge towards the hut. When he was nearly there he saw the woman standing outside, searching the land. She ran to him with wide eyes.
“What’s the matter?” He asked.
“I was afraid you had left.”
He smiled. “No, I went to get my boat. You see it?”
She looked at the shape of nothing that rested alongside the land. She reached out to touch the sail of stardust but it shrank away from her fingers. She turned away and walked with him back toward the hut, setting him between her and the rocks in the distance.
After that she stayed close to him. If he walked along the land, or worked on his boat, or sat on the edge and let his feet swing over, she was there. Soon she began to say “Soleil” when she called to him. “Soleil!”
“Why do you call me that?” He asked. “You know that it is not my name.”
“I call you Soleil because you shine like the brightest of lights. You are the brightest of stars.”
He smiled. “You haven’t seen any stars.”
“I don’t have to. I know you are the brightest.”
He wished he had something to call her, but no matter how he thought, nothing seemed to do her justice.
He did not know how long he had been on the land with her — it could have been forever, it could have been a moment — when he felt a chilling wind blow through him. He turned to where the wind urged him to look and saw the woman was already looking toward the dark rocks in the distance. She was tense and completely still.
He looked back to the rocks and felt the chill of the blackness creeping closer. “What is it?”
She turned to him and reached out to grasp his sleeve made of light. It eluded her touch and she pulled her hand back. “Will you stay, Soleil?”
“What?”
“I have to go. Will you stay?” Her face was hard and he could see his bright reflection disappear into the void that was her eyes. He wondered what her reflection looked like in his eyes.
“Will you come back?” He asked her.
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“Then I will stay.”
She nodded and walked away from him toward the looming rocks.
The hut no longer brought him comfort. He sat in its doorway for a time and waited for its mistress. When he couldn’t do that anymore, he worked on his boat, smoothing away little cracks from the edges of nothing. It was needless, but it was something to do. He paced the land and sent wishes across the black, back to his stars, “Please, send her back to me.”
He couldn’t tell how long he had waited, but he decided that it was long enough. He set out toward the rocks, ignoring the chill on his skin that told him to turn around. He was halfway there when he saw the woman coming towards him. She looked tired and her hair was ruffled. The void in her eyes was deeper and emptier. He quickly led her back to the hut and sat her down. She shivered and he wished he had something to wrap her in. He took his sail made of stardust down but he knew that it couldn’t touch her. He thought for a moment before he pulled some of the night out of the sky and carefully wove it through the sail. When he finished, he had a shimmer of sparkling night that he wrapped around her.
“It’s beautiful,” She said gratefully, her voice a bit hoarse.
He sat across from her and firmly said, “Tell me where you went.”
She was slow to respond. “I went into the dark.”
“The dark?”
“Yes.”
“But this is the dark.” He gestured toward the space of night that the land existed in.
She shook her head. “It is dark, but it is not the dark.”
“The dark is by those rocks?”
She nodded.
“What is it?”
“I do not know.”
“Why did you have to go?”
“I go when it calls me.”
He looked into her face and saw that it was difficult for her to talk. Terror clung to her and she stared at the ground, unblinking. She had been hurt and it made him angry. He had never been angry before.
“Did you call me here because of it?” He asked.
She nodded. “I was afraid.”
“Of the dark?”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“You are bright. You shine. The dark is afraid of the light.”
He thought of how the sail of stardust and his robe of light had shrunk from her touch. “I cannot help.”
“Yes!” She assured him. “You have! You do! Since you have come, I have not dreamed of the darkness. I do not feel it reaching for me when you are here.”
“But you go when it calls.”
“Yes.”
“Next time, don’t go.”
She looked at him in bewilderment. “What?”
“You called me here to help you. So do not go. I’ll keep the dark away.”
“I must go,” Her voice was choked. “I cannot get away from it.”
He stood. “Then I cannot help.” He turned from her and walked toward his boat, clenching his jaw, confused at his own anger.
“Soleil, where are you going?”
He did not answer, but began to untie the starlight that held the boat of nothing in place. She stood and stumbled after him.
“Soleil, you cannot go! Please, you mustn’t go! You cannot go!” She was beginning to cry, and tears from the void in her eyes burned down her cheek.
He hesitated, but jumped into the boat. “I cannot help you, and that is all you brought me here for. Now I will go.”
“No, please! You cannot leave me here! You cannot go! Please, Soleil, stay with me!” Her hands extended toward him, as if to stop him, but she couldn’t touch him. He looked into her face as she pleaded with him. He looked toward the gray smudge of his stars high in the night sky. When he looked at it, it no longer felt like home. He turned back to the woman, who kept her hands extended to him.
“If I stay, will you stay?”
“I cannot.”
“And I cannot share you with the dark. Will you stay with me?”
The woman glanced back to the rocks, then to him, then to the rocks. Then to him, “Yes, yes, I will try!”
He nodded and stepped out of the boat. He reached out and grabbed her hand. It burned him, and he could tell by her face that it burned her too, but she didn’t pull away. “Then I will stay.”
She continued to cry. “Thank you, Soleil.”
He dropped her hand. They returned to the hut and sat across from each other while she cried. Then they slept.
In the time following, the woman gradually regained her energy. He even thought her eyes were not quite as dark and deep as they had been before. And the next time the cold wind blew, she did not go. They ignored it together as it became stronger and stronger. They sat at the very back of the hut, close, but not touching, for warmth.
“Soleil.”
“Yes?”
“That time,” and she didn’t need to explain which time, “Would you really have left?”
He raised his eyebrows at her. They had not talked about it since then, but he could see the fear rise in her again as she mentioned it.
He smiled at her fondly. “I could not have.”
She looked confused. Then she fingered the shimmer of night that she kept draped around her. She slid it off her shoulders and held it out to him.
He shook his head. “No. It is yours.”
“I do not want to keep you here against your will.”
“You aren’t. I knew the moment I gave it to you that it was yours. I couldn’t have left.”
She watched him a moment. “You tricked me.”
“You did not trust me.”
She looked at the ground.
He smiled. “You are angry.”
She looked down at herself. “Yes. I am.” And she smiled back at him.
Abruptly, the cold wind ceased to blow. She cried out in happiness and leapt to her feet. He followed suit and they stepped out of the hut.
No sooner had they done so than the wind picked up again, blowing not from the rocks but toward them, knocking them both over. Behind the hut, creeping up from the land to tower over them, was the dark.
Esprit did not move. He stared into its center and felt himself becoming lost. His soul did not belong to him. It had never belonged to him. He could not think of the stars or their light. There was only the dark.
He was frozen with terror and as he lay on the ground he felt a great, chilling hand reach into his chest and rip and tear at it. It would take his heart. He could not stop it.
He heard a scream. It could have been his own, and he was quite sure it was, but with the fleeting thought that it may have been the woman’s, he jumped back to his senses. The grip around his heart disappeared and he sprung to his feet. The dark leaned heavily over the woman, and she held her chest tightly. She could do nothing but look up as the dark dug at the void in her eyes, making it deeper and deeper.
“Enough!” He shouted. But despite his efforts to step forward, he could not reach the shapeless, consuming blackness. At last it shrank back, not out of fear, but because it was finished. It slunk and slid back across the land until it had disappeared between the rocks once again.
Esprit rushed to the woman. She was still. She did not even cry. When he leaned over her, she flinched, covering her eyes. Then she pulled the shimmer of night cloth over her face and was still again.
He stayed beside her, all the while keeping a careful eye on the rocks in the distance. At last she moved, her worn eyes turning carefully towards him. The deepness of the void in them caused his heart to hurt.
“What happened?” He asked.
“What always happens.”
“It hurt you?”
“It hurts, yes. But then it is only dark. I am glad you are safe. I am glad it did not scare you away.”
“I told you I would stay.”
She stood on shaky feet, but he did not dare touch her to help. She pulled the shimmer of night around herself to protect her from his brightness.
“Next time,” She said, walking back to the hut, “I will go when it calls.”
He did not argue. But he did not agree.
For a while, he feared she might never return to normal. But over time, the void did not seem so deep again and she was able to smile and look at him. He returned all her smiles and looks, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
And he began to rip apart his boat.
“What are you doing?” She asked.
“It is old. I will make a new one. A bigger one.”
“I cannot ride in it.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you need a bigger one?”
He did not answer. He simply pulled planks of nothing from the sky and ropes of strong earth from the land, and built a mightier boat. She watched, and over time she came closer. The void in her eyes shallowed and she ventured to reach out and touch him now and then. Then, the dark sent a chilling wind to call her. She held his hand as long as she could and then she walked across the land toward the rocks.
Esprit stepped into his large boat and pushed away from the land.
He did not need the sail. From the land he had created oars and he rowed himself swiftly across the night sky toward the gray. Soon the gray became white, and before long he was close enough to see distinct stars.
“Little Light!” They cheered. “Little Light is returned!”
“As I said I would. Dear ones, I need help. There is a darkness that threatens my heart and soul, and I must find a way to be rid of it.”
They flickered with worry. “Danger. Pain. We said it was a bad thing. But you are returned. You are safe here. It cannot reach your heart and soul.”
He shook his head. “I have left my heart and soul behind. I cannot stay — this is not my home. Tell me, what can I do?”
“Not your home? We are your home.”
“We said it was a sad thing. Do not go back.”
“We are safe. We keep you safe.”
“You do,” he agreed, “But it is not my own safety that I wish for.”
Their twinkling was confused. They did not understand and he had no way to make them understand. He felt many things differently than he had before, and he did not know if would ever truly be like them again.
“Please,” he said earnestly. “There is a darkness that hurts my heart and soul, and all I wish is to chase it away. Far away.”
“We hear your wish, Little Light. We can help you.”
And they gave him stardust. So much stardust that he filled his boat and rowed back across the sky, glowing brighter than he ever had before. He found his flat bit of land with the abandoned hut. Not bothering to tie his boat, he wrapped the stardust around himself and set out for the towering rocks. The land was cold and black near the rocks, and he picked his way through them carefully. He could feel the darkness was close, but with so much light and stardust around him, the dark did not frighten him.
At last he came to the center, where a hole in the land harbored the great darkness. He stared down into it, angry that it had wormed its way deep into the land he had come to call home. He looked and found the woman near the edge. She was blacker and stiller than he had ever seen her.
“I have come to fetch you back,” He told her.
She looked up at him, but instead of turning from his brightness, she reached out for it. “I went back. But you were gone. I was afraid. You promised you would stay.”
“I will stay. And you will stay. But it will not stay.”
She slowly shook her head, carefully touching his light with her black fingers. They singed. “It will stay. And when it has taken the last bit of light it can find in me, it will want yours. I am sorry I ever called you. Now you must go and leave me here. I will keep it from following you.”
“No, the dark will not take my light, for it is made of stardust and wishes. This darkness has gotten greedy, but I will remind it that the stars created the sky. It wishes to devour light, but light will chase it to the farthest reaches of the night.” He took the shimmer of night cloth from her and wrapped her again and again in stardust, until she glowed as brilliantly as he did. She burned, but the pain in her eyes faded and the void disappeared in a flash of fire and starlight.
Immediately, the darkness stirred. It rose up from the hole in the land, towering over them. The cold of despair dug again at Esprit’s heart and soul, but it did not overpower him, because he had wrapped his heart and soul in stardust, and she shone so brightly that when the darkness tried to devour her, it screamed in fear and pain. The woman stepped toward the dark, calling out to it with an unshakable voice. It writhed and cried in the fierce light, unable to escape, and Esprit carefully tied it up in the sail of shimmering night. They dragged it back across the land, untied the sail, and tossed the darkness over the edge. It fell into the empty night sky, it’s silent screams echoing back at them, until it was far out of sight.
“There,” said Esprit to the woman. “Now you shine too brightly for any darkness to reach you.”
She smiled, her face blazing with happiness and warmth. “I wish I had called you sooner,” she said.
“I wish so, too.”
Without the darkness at its center, continuously eating up the light, the land began to grow. It grew and grew and became full, beauty springing up along its surface in many new forms. Over time, more men came from the stars, filling boats of nothing that moved with sails of stardust. They traveled the length of the night sky to find the shining man and woman who chased away the darkness. Even the stars moved closer to marvel at Esprit’s new home. The people grew with the land, and the stars twinkled down on them, calling after each one, “Little Light, Little Light”.
The darkness was not gone — sometimes they could see it lurking at the edges of the sky, behind the stars, eating up bits of forgotten light. But the woman was vigilant, watching over the land and the people in a fiery blaze of glory. When she wandered to the far reaches of the great world, Esprit stayed and kept careful watch, ruling the stars and commanding the night in her absence. Time began to be reckoned by them. The people called him Maître Esprit, the Master Spirit, and his lady was called Lucidium Cael, the Brightest Sky. Their time on the land was long and full of stories, and when that time ended they turned towards the stars and wished. And the stars heard their wish and sent them a boat made of nothing. They climbed inside and rode the boat into the sky, where they even now sit among the stars and the wishes and watch carefully over their land and their people, always being sure to chase the dark away when it might come too close.
“Soleil,” she still calls him. “My bright star.”
“Soleil,” he calls her back. “For you are the brightest of all the stars.”
