Mission: Fallen Star (pt. 3) (last)
First part: >>> here. Previous part: >>>here A Christmas / New Year's Story, and as part of @inklings-challenge Christmas 2023 event Last time: the kiddos found a hungry monster, which was definitely not a fallen star.
They found several bright things over the next few hours. Most of those were bioluminescent plants, rocks, and creatures--perhaps they weren't exactly bright, but they were at least glowing and colorful. Ashley shoved a few of the things they found into her backpack, just in case one of them would work as a backup gift.
Peter finally gave into his impulses and chased down one of the creatures (something between a squirrel, a rabbit, and a hedgehog, with glowing quills), at which point they had another debate.
Mommy loves animals, Peter argued.
This animal stuck you with pins and also we never keep the animals, Ashley argued back.
Finally, it wriggled out of Peter's hands, pricking him and scuttling away, and Ashley managed to persuade him not to kidnap it again.
Eventually, they made it to the edge of the forest.
The ground sloped away from the knobbled forest, a plain covered in thick, waving grass that stretched to the edge of a river. Far beyond, they could see hills rising up into mountains.
And in the sky, so, so many brilliant stars, painting the vividly blue and purple sky with blazing speckles of glory. Like ice, cold and clear, like fire, burning and bright. They outlined the mountains in stark contrast of light and dark, though gleams of it caught on the peaks and trickled down into the fireflies that blinked in the sighing field.
It was... "pretty" felt like too weak of a word.
"Maybe one will fall," Peter said. He sat down in between two huge gnarled tree roots, and rubbed at his arms where the mud was peeling off.
Ashley stayed standing.
"Beautiful" felt too normal. Amazing, gorgeous, breathtaking--breathtaking came the closest, but no word she could find in her head matched the feeling of standing there, small, young, beneath these old, hoary trees, in front of this plain, looking up at this expanse of sky. Maybe it needed a whole new word altogether, one that didn't exist yet.
And underneath that, not fully masked by this strange feeling of bigness, of being there, of beauty she hadn't been looking for, there was something much easier to name.
Frustration. It was taunting her. There were so many stars. So many stars, so high up, so out of reach. And she and Peter were very, very small, and very lost. And very tired.
Ashley sat down beside Peter, half-curling up and resting her chin and arms on one of the roots, gazing out at the field. Something was building in her throat, uncomfortably like tears.
As soon as she sat down, the walking and running and excitement and fear from earlier all caught up with her and seeped into her with the murmuring of the trees.
Mommy and Daddy were going to have to find them in the morning, and they would be so far away, and so worried about them being lost and gone. Peter was muddy and had lost his finder, the one he and Daddy had built and that he loved so much--and it was all her fault.
"I'm sorry," Ashley whispered. "I... thought this would work out better, and be like... a second Christmas. I'm sorry we failed and it was my fault because I should have known better."
When she looked back, however, Peter was already asleep.
"I'm sorry," she whispered again, deliberately saying it out loud. If she thought it at him, it would wake him up. Or mess up his dream.
She curled up tighter against the root, clutching at her arms and letting ice build up under her finger-tips. Her tears didn't freeze, though. They started pooling out of her eyes, and dripping down her face with uncomfortable heat.
Ashley intended to sit up and figure out a solution, stop the tears, or else properly think about the crimes she had committed. But instead, almost as soon as the tears had started, she was asleep.
When Ashley woke up, the air was very still, an odd sort of quiet that felt normal for the world, like it was gathering itself for a deep breath.
The stars were fading slowly out, less stark than they had been a couple hours ago. Their brilliance stood against a paler background, now, and far off over the mountains a thin ribbon of paler blue was turning into gold and pink.
Somehow it soothed her, the quietness as birds started their song and the earth prepared to be awake. It felt big and endless, ever-moving, unshakeable. In the grand scheme of things, she was small, and so were her troubles--and for a reason she couldn't name, that was comforting. The worlds all continued to move. Her world would, too, and it would be set right.
Still, she didn't know why she was awake now. She'd gone to sleep in enough odd places that she wasn't disoriented--but she hugged her knees and wished either Mommy or Daddy were here. That was normally why it was fine to go to sleep anywhere. Mommy and Daddy would take care of anything that needed taking care of. But now, she and Peter needed taking care of, and they were far away from Home. Such thoughts didn't prick at her as painfully as last night, though. It was a simple matter of fact.
Something shining, something brilliantly bright, caught her eye, and in a flash of wonder the distant, lovely thing wiped every other thought and worry away.
Embedded in the ground, not ten meters away, something radiated with silver and white and gold.
Ashley gasped and rubbed at her eyes.
It was still there. And it was so obvious, so truly right, that she wondered why she had ever imagined anything else had been, could possibly have been it.
A fallen star.
It glowed and pulsed, sending out little spikes of light in concentric circles, whirling like gears around a heart of pure, burning white--wrapped, in turn, around a tiny, tiny seed of brilliant, blackish blue.
Ashley elbowed Peter awake.
At some point in the night, he must have gotten the blanket out of his bag, since now it enveloped his flailing limbs as he jolted awake. He also must have been half-awake by whatever had disturbed Ashley, because he was up and on his feet before she was.
Before she could say anything, he disappeared in a flurry of speed.
"It is it!" He yelled, waving at her. "We found it! And"-- he cut off, stooping to pick something up--"it's magic!" In his upraised fist he swung his finder.
Picking up the star proved troublesome. It was quite hot to touch--the ground around it was scorched and the mud baked hard--and the outside of the star wasn't quite solid.
They tried to dig under ground with ice and lift a whole bit of the clay into the air with ice that Ashley could hold onto. But then they couldn't quite put it all in a backpack--it was having trouble fitting through the opening--and the ice kept melting.
Ashley wanted to laugh. Such a magical, beautiful thing, a piece of the night kindling the day, and they were trying to shove it in a backpack. Some small part of her that she didn't know about yet almost wanted them to fail, now, as much as she wanted them to succeed.
Finally, Peter pulled gloves out of his backpack, thick ones for "making things," and he reached out and picked it up, cupping it awkwardly into his hand. He shivered from head to toe, like an attack of goosebumps.
"Not much different from lightning," he said, "at least not with protective gloves. I can put it in a glove and wrap it up in my sweater and hold it."
He pulled out his sweater, which he had gotten for Christmas. It was part of the outfit that went with the gloves, and Mommy had made for when he and Daddy did fire things together. Ashley helped him pull a glove off while he balanced the star in the other hand--shivering occasionally goosebumpily--and held it very carefully while he slowly tipped the star into the glove. It slid in, the outer spikings catching at Ashley's hands and almost making her drop the glove in an explosion of an intensity that was something like electricity, something like warmth, something like being stabbed, something like a cat licking you. Wonderful and terrible. She wanted to throw it as far as she could, or else hug it tightly to her chest.
Peter took it from her and swaddled it in his sweater. The whole thing wriggled and pulsed fascinatingly as he made a cradle for it around his chest.
"It might fit in a backpack," he said, "but I don't know what that will do to the rest of the contents. And I don't know if it would squish it at all to get it through the opening, and I don't know what squishing a star would do."
Ashley nodded her agreement.
He looked back towards the tree. "Oh, also, don't forget your blanket."
Ashley blinked. "That's your blanket. It was on you."
He blinked back at her. "I didn't get my blanket out. I thought you got yours out."
Ashley shook her head.
Peter sped back up to the tree and came back with it in his hand. "Huh. It is mine."
"Maybe you were too sleepy to remember."
"I guess."
They stood there for a moment, before Peter started stuffing the blanket back into his backpack.
Ashley should have felt triumphant.
They found a star.
They did what they meant to.
But... she couldn't be happy right now. Not yet. There was something icky latched under her ribs.
"Peter," she said softly, "I'm sorry. For last night. And I'm really glad you got the finder back." That wasn't all she wanted to say, but, even through her mind, it was all she knew how to say right now.
He looked down at where he'd slung the finder around his neck, as shiny as if someone had cleaned it off, then back up to her. "I'm glad too," he said. "And... I'm sorry, too. I had a chance to see more of it first, and I should have realized it was weird. But... I was kind of mad at you for being bossy, so even though I knew it was some kind of creature, I let us follow it. I didn't know it was a *mean* creature," he added hastily.
"Oh." Somehow, that didn't make her feel better. She kicked at the grass around them. "I'm... I'm sorry for being bossy."
"It's okay. You were being a good mission leader." He cradled the odd bundle on his chest and grinned up at her. "Besides, we found it. I couldn't have done it by myself, because I would have slept all night. So I needed you to be bossy. And you needed me to carry it. And we needed each other to be brave. And now we can get back and make Mommy and Daddy happy."
She found herself grinning back. "Yeah, you're right. You're pretty cool sometimes." She stepped forward and hugged him overtop of the star. It tingled oddly against her chest, but not unpleasantly--it felt like brightness should.
He hugged her back.
The icky feeling melted.
In the end, they weren't far away from the tree where the Door was. They must have gotten lost after the creature had attacked them, and wandered around almost in a circle.
Peter's finder pointed the way back to it, and between Ashley creating a slippery icepath for herself and Peter running her along it (at about a quarter of his normal speed), they were back before the sun had finished fully lifting itself over the horizon.
Ashley hoped that they might be able to slip in unnoticed, maybe even get Peter in the shower before Mommy and Daddy were moving around. But a problem presented itself immediately, in the form of Mommy standing at the door.
Crossing her arms, she tapped her fingers along the sleeve of her jacket.
"You guys woke up early," she said.
In her voice lurked that tone adults use when they already know something that you're supposed to also know--but more confusingly, and more prominently, her tone was a smile. Even though Ashley couldn't read Mommy's mind, she could tell Mommy was most definitely amused.
In some ways that was reassuring. In others, it was an unknown, and therefore unsettling. Ashley let go of Peter and ice was already in her palm. "We... um... we wanted to get something for you," Ashley said. "For Christmas. And New Year. So we were looking for it."
Peter had already hid the bundle behind his back. "But. It's a secret. Daddy has to be here too."
Thankfully, Mommy didn't seem to see the bundle. Otherwise she would have looked at it or said something. Right?
"Oh, alright," she said. "I'll be curious to see what you found so close to Home that could be also be so secret."
"Good, she doesn't know," Peter thought at Ashley in relief.
"You'll have to tell me about where you got the mud, though," Mommy said, holding Home's door open for them. "After a shower. Or two," she added as Peter shuffled past, trying to keep the bundle away from her view.
Daddy was up now, too. His eyes were still full of sleep, and he hadn't put his jacket on yet. "Home has been telling me some... interesting things," he said, looking over his two children and his wife with narrowed eyes.
"Oh. Oh no." Ashley frantically tried to figure out how they were going to explain this. Daddy could always tell when you were making something up.
"I can't believe Home ratted us out," Peter agreed.
"Um... it's... a surprise," Ashley stammered.
"I don't suppose..." Daddy looked up at Mommy.
They did that thing where they talked to each other. Somehow. It frustrated Ashley to no end. She was convinced it wasn't telepathy, she knew it wasn't, but it was something like it, something that she didn't know. They just looked at each other and understood, and no one else had any idea what there was to be understood.
They stood like that for a long moment, Daddy tilting his head, looking, and then Mommy gave a very, very slight nod.
"Our kids got up early to get us a present of some kind," Mommy said, patting Ashley's head soothingly. "And I don't believe it was just the mud."
Peter blushed. "Um, no. We, um...." he looked frantically to Ashley.
"We wanted to get you guys something special," Ashley said, looking earnestly at Daddy. Suddenly, she didn't know how to act. She clasped her hands in front of her and let her fingertips get icy. "We... um... because you got us such nice Christmas presents, even though all the stuff is happening with work, and um..."
"We know the job on this world isn't going so well," Peter prompted, glancing from Mommy to Daddy. "And Mommy wanted to go to a place with stars. And we wanted to get something bright and white to start the New Year off with. So. Um..."
He trailed off and shoved the bundle in front of him.
Daddy raised an eyebrow, and accepted it, smiling. Carefully, he unwrapped it, leaving just the glove left. Raising an eyebrow even further, he slid the star out of the glove and into open air and held it with his magnetization, catching the star in a shifting prism of red. The star caught the vibrant richness of the patterns in the magnetization and amplified them, drawing the lines into itself and lining them with shimmering gold, casting the whole room into a blaze of light and shadow.
Daddy blinked.
"It's gorgeous," Mommy whispered.
"Is... is this a star?" Daddy asked, looking up at them sharply.
For a second, Ashley thought they had made a mistake. Peter, with no such inklings, grinned and nodded.
"That's... that's an incredible gift," he said, softly. "I'm not sure how you managed, but, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you guys teaming up made something impossible happen."
Ashley exchanged a glance with Peter and they both straightened up a little, pleased.
"This is also very thoughtful." He smiled, and that felt better than even seeing the star--by a tiny bit. "Thank you, guys."
"That was very brave of you guys to go after such a thing," Mommy said, hugging Ashley. "It was a big task, but you guys faced it and stuck through it even if it got hard. I'm proud of you both."
For once, warmth felt better to Ashley than the cold. She turned and clasped onto Mommy tightly, burying her head in Mommy's stomach. Not long later, Daddy pulled them and Peter towards him, and that warmth felt good, too.
Three days later, as Home's clock struck midnight, Mommy hung the star over the Doorway. It glowed, pulsing and sparking, and then settled into the fixture Daddy had built for it. Home practically purred in response, and the star slid into its place as if it has always belonged there, lighting up the whole living room in soft silvers and golds.
Somehow, it looked just as amazing and magical here as it had in the sky.
Mommy hugged them again. "Thank you, sweetheart."
Ashley smiled into Mommy's shirt, basking in how the air of the house felt clearer, lighter than it had in weeks.
"We did it," she thought, satisfied, towards Peter. She could feel him smiling back. And she could feel Mommy still hugging her, and hear Daddy clapping Peter on the back.
It was a good end to Christmas, and a hopeful start to the new year.