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The first time Stolas took his betrothed to see the stars in the human realm, she didn’t give them a chance.
“Why would I want to look at these stupid lights?” Stella groaned, so obviously out of place in the middle of the remote forest he brought them to.
Stolas, on the verge of adulthood and quite proud of his work as the Watcher of the Stars for the Ars Goetia, had figured she simply misunderstood his intent.
Until recently, Stella had been more of a concept. Made aware of their role in each other’s lives years ago, they had spent surprisingly little time together. Tea time and dinners here and there, scattered gatherings with family, as well as their official engagement announcement came to mind. But with their quickly approaching nuptials, something had to change.
He did not love her; not now. How could he when he didn’t know her? But perhaps he could try for a romantic connection. Failing that, perhaps they could be friends! And while Stella did not seem interested in getting to know him beyond his name, he was determined to at least try.
“They’re quite beautiful to watch, especially on nights like this. I figured we could do so together,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “The view from the top of this hill is absolutely stunning but the way up is quite steep. I do not wish for you to fall.”
“Then do not take me at all! Walking up this dirty hill is not my idea of a good time.” Stella crossed her arms. “Bring me home, Stolas. This was a waste of time.”
Stolas felt his smile fall, but was determined to go through with the night’s plans. “Trust me, Stella. This will be worth the small trek.”
She rolled her eyes at him, purposely ignoring his still outstretched hand. “I said, take me home! How daft can you be?”
Stolas sighed, knowing that an argument was in no way a positive step towards beginning to build a connection with his bride-to-be. He took her home, making the excuse that perhaps this hadn’t been the right night; maybe she had a rough day or he should have given her more notice. He would try again another time.
***
The second time Stolas took his betrothed to see the stars in the human realm, she ignored him the entire time.
He brought her to a different location than last time, a rural plain with a seemingly endless horizon and so many stars. He described the Cassiopeia Constellation, bright and clear in the chilly winter night, thinking she’d enjoy the history of the beautiful queen it represented. He told her about meteor showers, how they streak across the sky, and promised to bring her back when one was happening to watch. He even said he would happily bring any of her friends to share in the experience.
She yawned as she focused on her phone, not a word in response.
Stolas took her home. Perhaps another day.
***
The third time Stolas took his betrothed to see the stars in the human realm was the night before their wedding.
Stolas was nervous and had been unable to sleep despite trying for hours now. He acknowledged the plummeting feeling in his stomach, as though he was falling from a great height without an end in sight. It was a familiar sensation by this point, one that accompanied him every time he thought of the upcoming ceremony.
So rather than toss around in bed for another few hours, he wandered the halls of his soon-to-be palace. The only sounds were his own talons on the tiled floors, no other soul awake in anticipation for the early start tomorrow. Or so he thought.
He came across Stella, also awake, alone on one of the many balconies. She was sipping from a glass of wine, an open bottle beside her. He didn’t need to use his exceptional eyesight to see that the bottle was mostly empty.
“Awake as well?” Stolas asked, voice quiet, as if speaking any louder would shatter the tentative peace garnered in the early hours.
Stella swirled the remaining wine in her glass before draining it and placed the empty glass on the railing. It tumbled down, and he heard it smash against the pavement. He’ll need to remember to tell one of the staff to clean that up in the morning.
“Obviously,” she snapped. “And you? Going to see your stars?”
“Why yes!” Stolas grinned, a light warmth spread in his chest. This was the first time she ever showed interest in his stars! “Would you like to accompany me?”
She shrugged and when he opened the portal, she followed. They were at his favorite spot, near the hill that gave him perfect access to the Northern Hemisphere. The same hill he intended for them the first time he brought Stella topside. He made sure to portal them straight to the top instead of walking up like he preferred.
“Now, this is a perfect night for star-watching,” Stolas explained as he began to pull magic from his grimoire to cast a better net over what he wanted to show her. “You see, the Cassiopeia Constellation is visible-”
Stella groaned and clapped her hands to draw his attention. “You cannot really think I was being serious!”
Stolas balked and let his magic fall away, the cruelty in her voice making him pause. She was obviously drunk, cheeks flushed from either anger or the wine. He was betting on the wine, considering she nearly fell as she took a step toward him. He tried to catch her, to offer support, but she pushed him away.
“You’ve been trying to show me your stupid stars for years, and I haven’t given a single shit then! Why would I care now?” Stella pointed to the night sky. “All of this is worthless! No one cares about the human stars, Stolas!”
Stolas shook his head. “That isn’t true. They hold prophecies-”
“It. Is. Worthless!” she jeered. “The Goetia gave you the most tedious, pointless job to keep you out of their feathers because they knew you’d have nothing else to do otherwise. It’s so embarrassing to take a husband without a real position of power. A prince only in title and with no social standing to speak of! Tomorrow is already going to literally be the worst, so just portal me back! Now!”
He felt his eyes burn like they had been hit with the salty ocean breeze despite being on a hill in the middle of a landlocked country with not a body of water in sight. He reopened the portal and watched as Stella stepped through with a scoff. He did not follow her, and knew in that moment that he never really could.
Hours later, they were married in front of their royal colleagues and families, and Stolas never took her to see the stars ever again.
***
Via arrived into their lives nearly a year later, and any moment of silence was happily consumed with her presence. Stella was less enthused than Stolas with child rearing and left most of the difficult parts to him. He did not mind changing nappies or rocking her to a peaceful sleep. She seldom cried in his arms, and he took up resting in a rocking chair in her nursery to not wake her. He slept far better there than in his own marital bed.
In those early years, the days went by rather quickly. Stolas taught Via how to roll over, walk, to say ‘Daddy’ and ‘Toy.’ He also showed her his plants, some of which had mighty teeth and others that smelled pleasant. Some days, he brought her out to the yard so she could chase butterflies and frolic in the grass.
While he had his responsibilities to the stars on Earth, he took his responsibilities as a father much more seriously, rarely if ever using nannies or help with his daughter. He had managed to condense his work to a single night, the night of the full moon, when all the stars were aligned in harmony, and he could conduct his studies. This meant Stella only needed to be responsible for Via for one evening.
Stella managed this for the first few years, but finally, the night came when her desires took precedence over her responsibilities as a mother.
“I cannot miss this gala to play babysitter!” Stella screamed at him as she dressed.
Stolas did his best to avoid the items she took to throwing at him. “It is not babysitting when she is your child, Stella. This is the one night I have to do my duties. If you could even just stay until midnight-”
“You are so selfish,” She hissed, her face turned downwards into a scowl. “You just want a night off of caring for your daughter!”
“No, of course not!” Stolas argued as softly as he could. “I wish I did not have to leave her on these nights, but-”
“Just take her with you.”
Stolas felt an old, yet familiar plummeting feeling again. Via had never been topside before, and if Stolas had anything to do with it, she wouldn’t need to. At least not with him. Not for his stars.
“I cannot-”
“You are going to have to,” Stella said, “because I’m sick of having to put her to bed once a month. You have no idea how exhausting that is.”
There was nothing left he could say to her. She pushed past him, leaving him alone in their bedroom, the one he did his best to avoid most nights. He would have to bring Via, and his fears began to bubble and boil inside him.
Via was already in her room with her pajamas when he sought her out. Her little room had small drawings of stars, but she never asked him about them. She never once wanted to know what these pointed things scattered on the design of her blanket were. She asked about animals, plants, treats, and colors, but never about the stars he carefully painted along the border of her room.
Stella hadn’t cared. Why should Via?
“Daddy?” Via called to him when she realized he was in the doorway. “Daddy play with Via?”
“No, my Starfire, not tonight,” Stolas told her. “Tonight, you need to come with Daddy to work.”
Via’s big eyes blinked, and her little head turned to the side in curiosity. Stolas realized she knew little about his work. Perhaps nothing at all.
“Via come now?” she asked, shifting off her bed on her chubby little legs to toddle to Stolas.
“Yes, you are coming with me now.”
Stolas dressed her warmly, for it was winter where they were going topside. He put her in a
knitted hat, a purple jacket, and wrapped her in a blanket. They would not be there long, an hour at most, but he worried about her little hands being chilled or her beak chattering from the snow in the air. He cradled her to him as he opened the portal.
“If you are too cold, you must tell me,” Stolas said. “Let's practice; what will you tell Daddy if you are cold?”
Via thought for a moment before she answered. “Via cold?”
“Good, and what will you say if you want to come home?”
“Via go home?”
“Splendid, my little love.”
Pulling her tighter to his chest, he stepped through the portal and into the crunch of the frozen winter ground. Although the world around them was covered in a blanket of white snow, Stolas could see the splattering of stardust amongst the treetops. He saw perhaps more than others, but he also took the time to find it, to really look.
He glanced down at Via, still cradled in his arms, and found her blowing her breath out like smoke.She giggled at the chilled puffs of air. The innocence of it warmed his heart in the dark of the night. He hoped her own breath would distract her long enough for him to do what he had to do and get them home without her noticing.
Stolas carefully raised his free hand to collect what he needed from the stars, but a small gasp took his attention.
“What is it?” He asked as he looked down, startled by the look on his daughter's face.
She was staring up into the speckled darkness of the sky, her beak slightly open and her pupils huge. Stolas braced himself for the dismissal from the one he cared for the most, knowing it would have been well deserved. The stars were meaningless, his prophecies and work simply a distraction and a way to keep him in line. Stella had been clear in expressing her thoughts on the matter, so it would only be right for his darling Via to be the final confirmation.
“Look, Daddy!” She pointed her little finger towards the sky. “Pretty lights!”
Stolas followed her finger up to the stars; the Orion Constellation, to be precise. Just as quickly as his eyes darted to the cluster, they raced to meet her face. She was not ashamed or embarrassed. She was laughing. A sweet giggle of joy. Nothing like the callused scoff of his wife.
“Via count!” She laughed. “One, three, two, four, three… so many lights!”
Stolas felt the laughter rise in his chest as Via’s little face scrunched up in concentration. He could see in her expressions that her mind was racing trying to understand what was before her.
“Those are called stars, Dearest,” Stolas whispered. “Can you say star?”
“Star,” she repeated. “Daddy counts them?”
Stolas smiled. “Yes, Via, Daddy counts them.”
She clapped her hands. “How many?”
“So many. More than I could ever count,” He said, then added while tickling her cheek. “Even with all your help.”
Via hooted as her feathers fluffed in delight. “Daddy, dancing colors! Purple, green, blue, purple, purple, lots of green.”
Stolas followed her line of vision across the white banks of snow to the starling, dancing hues of the Aurora Borealis. He had encountered them before, but he had not seen them through his daughter’s eyes. What might have only been a collision of solar energy to him was a series of dancing colors to her.
“Stars in colors?” Via whispered in a shaky voice. “Daddy and Via see stars in the colors?”
“Do you want me to show you?” He asked, no longer hiding the excitement in his voice.
Via clapped and squealed, nearly wiggling from his hold of her. How could Stolas possibly deny her with a reaction like that? His duties would just have to wait. Holding her close, they raced to the top of a hill. Via asked him questions as his legs carried them swiftly through the crunching snow.
“What is that star's name? And that one? That one?”
“Why so many stars?”
“Daddy know all of them?”
“Via hold one?”
One after the other, her questions painted his thoughts brighter than the night sky ever could. A part of himself he had hidden deep in his chest reemerged, and he answered every one of Via’s questions the best he could.
“That star is ‘Rigel’ and that one is ‘Betelgeuse’ and the other is ‘Alnitak.’
“There are so many stars because the galaxies are ever-shifting, ever-growing, ever-evolving.”
“Daddy doesn’t know all of them, but he is learning.”
“Via cannot hold one, for they are too hot for her little hands.”
They reached the top of the hill, and Stolas shifted Via to sit on his shoulders. High into the night air, Via giggled as she desperately tried to grab a star.
Via was still too young to understand how the night sky came to be, why stars could not be held, or why Stolas felt his heart both breaking and healing simultaneously with every question she asked him..
They stayed up on the hill, and Stolas answered Via's every burning inquiry until she started to shiver and yawn. They stayed far longer than Stolas had expected, and he got none of his duties done, but he didn’t care. He knew his priorities.
“Time to go home, Starfire,” Stolas told her.
“Via and Daddy stay with the stars.”
Stolas took in a breath of the cold night air as his daughter's honesty clenched at his heart. They could not stay, but he promised they would return each full moon, to which Via made him a pinky promise. It was the easiest promise he’d ever get to keep.
Stolas moved Via back into his arms and opened the portal to her bedroom. Once back in the warmth of her room, he changed her out of the bulky clothing and put her into new pajamas. He then tucked the nearly asleep owlet into her bed.
With her last bit of energy, Via pointed to her blanket. “Via has stars like Daddy.”
Stolas nodded. “Just like Daddy.”
Via sleepily smiled. “Good night, Daddy. Good night, stars.”
Stolas kissed her forehead, turned on her nightlight, and gave her a parting ‘good night’ one last time before he returned to his room.
To no surprise, the room was empty. Stella was likely occupied with her party, and she would be gone until the early morning hours. He changed from his own heavy winter cloak, a lingering chill in his chest that had nothing to do with his return from topside. He wrapped himself in his robe and crawled into his lonely marital bed, seldom slept in and more Stella’s than his own.
Tucking his head into his hands, he let out the first sob of relief. Then the next, and he found he couldn’t stop.
Via wanted to see his stars, and he would show her every single one.