#celestial excerpt

[juls-writes]

June was about to leave, but she paused before she stepped outside, distracted. It was Theo, and the sight of him stopped her in her tracks. It wasn’t just him; it was him standing at the cliff precipice, looking out at the ocean and the angry rain clouds sweeping over it. It was him with his hair tossed wildly in the wind, his shirt rippling in the sea air, his hands rested against the barrier. The truth was that she had always seen him like this; unreachable, torrential, wild. Yet even here, so far away from the snowy peaks and endless forests- even with the raging waters behind him- he still looked like home.

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[juls-writes-archive]

“Find Aquarius. She’ll fight, if she knows I’m gonna. She’s on Sumi.”

June looked at Theo, wondering if he knew where it was, but he simply looked back at her with the same confused look. They exchanged shrugs. Sagittarius, meanwhile, looked suddenly deflated. June was about to ask where Sumi was when Pia stepped forward, her footsteps crunching up the rocky path behind them.

“Not that I was eavesdropping or nothin’, but did you just say Sumi?” she asked, pushing her head forward and resting her hands on her hips. “You know that’s days of sailing away, right? Aries barely made it the two nights here. And far as I was told, I’m only being paid for one return trip from here.” 

“Make it a multi-stop itinerary, then,” Capricorn suggested, smiling cheekily at Pia. “Libra will pay up. Better to ask for forgiveness, right?”

“I need payment now, because sailing fucking costs,” Pia argued. “Don’t s’pose you’ve got a deposit you can give me for my trouble?” 

Capricorn only looked back at Pia with a blank stare. She spread her arms out, gesturing to the outstretched mountaintops all around them.

“Does this look like a place where I need any sort of currency? I have zip.” 

“Then why is it, exactly, that I should be taking this ragtag group all the way to Sumi, just to meet another one of you that lives on some godforsaken island with no civilization, and therefore, does not carry any fucking currency on their fucking person?”

With each word, Pia took a step forward, until her and Capricorn were only inches apart. Pia was taller by at least half a foot, but Capricorn lifted her chin, a smile curving into her cheek, like she knew something Pia didn’t. 

“Because Sagittarius has money.”

All of them turned immediately to look at Sagittarius. He took a hesitant step backwards. 

“Now, that’s not entirely-”

Pia rounded on him, and Sagittarius immediately began backing up.

“You told me-”

“it’s not really mine to give away-” 

“-that you had nothing!” 

Pia caught up with him when his foot hit a ledge, and a couple pieces of shale went tumbling down the steep drop behind. Sagittarius froze. June couldn’t help but feel beyond entertained with all of this, considering how rare it was to see him cornered. She could see his mind racing as if he was trying to come up with a way out of it, but after only a moment, a smile broke across his face and he laughed.

“Of course,” he gave in, sidestepping carefully around Pia, away from the ledge. “Yeah. Sure. You can have it. June and Theo and I will just fucking woof it all the way back to Aveline. We don’t need food or a place to sleep, right guys?” 

Sagittarius and Pia both turned to them, looking mostly at June, who stared back wordlessly. To be fair, they didn’t need those things; they had spent much of their early days adventuring in the wilderness, sleeping under the stars, and finding wild food to eat. They could do it again. If June was being completely honest with herself, she missed sleeping between the two of them, anyways.

Pia must have noticed June’s lack of resolution, because she looked at Sagittarius with a smug smirk. She held her hand out, palm facing up. 

“Glad that’s all sorted, then. Hand it over.” 

[juls-writes]

An arm slowly moving from below her neck woke June the next morning. Her head fell back into a pillow, and she peeked her eyes open just enough to see Theo carefully pulling himself upright, removing Sagittarius’ arm from over his lap as he did so. June’s breath caught. This was becoming more and more of a habit for them lately, more than she cared to admit- staying up until they were too tired to care, then waking up a mess, tangled together or beside each other for warmth despite the nice weather. She watched, waiting to allow Theo the chance to leave seemingly unnoticed, but he paused at the edge of the bed. His shoulders tensed, his hands gripped the mattress, and he sat still like that as June held her breath. 

Just as she was about to pretend to tiredly turn over, Theo turned his head to the right, looking past his shoulder at Sagittarius. June could just make out his lashes and the slight movement in his eyes; saw the small sigh in his shoulders as they fell a bit, and the loosening of his grip on the mattress; and then he was up, releasing the bed slowly so as to not wake them. He crossed the room in a manner that June was sure he thought was quiet, and as he left, softly shut the door behind him.

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[juls-writes]

Nothing felt right, not the pillow, not the light, not the silence. It was too cold without the blankets and far too hot with, but being underneath the covers was the only way June felt safe enough to fall asleep. Back home, she rarely ever slept without a duvet; a handful of summer nights in the mountains would be cloudless and hot and quiet with hardly even a breeze, and it was those nights that June always found herself staying up late because they never felt right. The day went too long, the sky remained turquoise ‘til close to midnight, and the rumbling of faraway thunderstorms would keep her mind racing until she was finally too tired to stay awake any longer. Those nights felt like somewhere else, somewhere faraway. Except this time, she was somewhere else and faraway, and though she had been for weeks, homesickness had finally caught up. She was plagued with thoughts of reuniting with her mother, of seeing the garden again, of sleeping in her own bed.

She thought briefly about how scared she’d been- how scared she was- and how it made sense to miss home. But the beginning of her own self-analysis was always a surefire way of falling asleep. Everything seemed to scream better not to think of it, as if understanding herself was a trap. So sleep finally came, albeit begrudgingly, until someone rapped on the door only a few hours later.

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[juls-writes]

June followed Theo onto the deck. The sky was rapidly darkening above them, and she could already see the distance they’d made from Rokke. Now, the cliffs were small and distant, and the flickering lights of the town faded through the twilight fog. From where they came, the moon was slowly rising; and where they were headed, the last rays of sunlight sunk into the sea.

All along the along the deck, lanterns were lit, some hanging from the masts and illuminating the whole ship in dim warm light. June leaned against the railing and looked out at the sea, her eyes stuck on the waves as Theo came to stand beside her.

“Does it ever feel like a dream to you?” she asked, mesmerized by the churning of the waves below. “All of it.” 

“A little,” Theo replied thoughtfully, following her gaze out for a moment. He turned to look at her, and she met his eyes steadily. “But I wouldn’t want it to be.” 

“Me neither,” she agreed, despite everything. She returned her attention to the waves, which were less demanding than the swirling gold in Theo’s eyes. She let herself sink into it, as if she was falling asleep. “I can’t imagine still just sitting around in Avoln. I don’t know what I was waiting for, but it feels like I must have been waiting for this.”

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[juls-writes]

“I don’t like the secrets,” Aries said, following directly behind Meris as they all entered a tunnel of stairs heading up. “You know who we are and we cannot know you? If I’m going to fight for someone, I like to know.” 

June bit her lip. Meris only breathed out a laugh.

“I understand completely,” he agreed, “and I promise to one day reveal myself to you.” 

“I can wait until you die and see then,” Aries spat back. “Not trusting the humans, I understand. But to hide your face from the gods means you must be scared of something worse than me.” 

Meris paused mid-step, reaching up to hold his hood as a draft wafted through the tunnel. His cloak was swept to the side, revealing for a moment a frailer body than June expected. As it fell back to his ankles, his head lifted a bit straighter and he continued to walk.

“I’m afraid to say that’s precisely what it is.”

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[juls-writes]

“I should have known coming into this that it wouldn’t be the most efficient trip, not under your watch,” Piek said, glaring at Sagittarius. “I do not care if you want to have fun from time to time. But it cannot be that bad, not while you’re still learning the basics.” 

Now he was speaking to June, despite his attention still being focused on Sagittarius. She frowned into her tea. She’d never heard Piek speak with so much emotion, so in a way it was sort of relieving to know he was more than just a cryptic raven; still, she felt guilty. Sagittarius leaned in and glanced back and forth between June and Theo as if he was about to tell them a secret.

“Piek says no fun,” he whispered, and both of them stifled a laugh before they could help it. Piek’s feathers ruffled impatiently, but as Sagittarius leaned back with a chuckle, he shook his head. “I know, I know. We’ll be good.”

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[juls-writes]

Only an hour or so after sunrise, Piek bit June’s nose until she snapped awake.

“There had to have been better ways to wake us up,” Theo complained over breakfast, where all three of them sat with little red marks on the tips of their noses. Piek stole another piece of bacon off of June’s plate while she savored the taste of her tea.

“I could have gone for your ear instead,” Piek said, holding the bacon down with one talon while ripping the rest off with his beak. “Do you know how loud ravens can get?” 

“You say that like you aren’t one,” Theo grumbled, taking a bite of his eggs and looking at Piek suspiciously.

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