Kaion had already started to leave after he agreed to aid Lorix. He honestly didn’t know if the dull eyed lupinus could see him walk away or not but he could not find it within him to care as he deftly avoided the mess of papers and other implements on the ground. He let out a small huff when he was far enough away from the other lupinus and shook his head, ‘Lucky to see the stars and nothing else? What kind of luck is that?’
He shook the thought from his head as he headed further away from Lorix. He looked around him and decided that the lupinus who had told him about this event had been correct; this place had a clear, unobstructed view of the night’s sky and all the stars that it held in its infinite blackness.
Truly, ‘twas a good night for stargazing. Clear, unclouded skies. Bright, shining stars. Kaion could find nothing wrong with this night.
He chanced a glance back at the host of the event – who was still messing around with the mess that was his equipment - and felt a familiar tug at his heart. With a low rumble in his chest, he stalked further away as the lonely feeling blossomed again. ‘Don’t try to make friends,’ he told himself as he put distance between him and the other lupinus, ‘You’ll only end up getting hurt.’
He stopped only when he felt he was far enough away so that he could look upon the stars alone and unbothered by others. ‘Its better this way,’ he said in an attempt to convince himself, ‘Better to be alone.’
As his gaze lifted heavens ward, his mind asked why he had even come. Unfocused eyes stared at the stars as a small part of him knew the answer. The rest of him vehemently denied the accusation and forced that nagging voice down so that he could focus on his task. After all, his purpose for being there wasn’t to sulk and weep and moan at how few friends he had. He was there to learn about the heavens and maybe even find some of the constellations he had read about as a child.
With a clear goal in mind, he lifted his gaze from the ground and once again looked to the darkened heavens. He let his eyes bounce around, trying to find familiar stars until he found Equellan. From there, his search was less frenetic and more controlled. He started in one quadrant – divided in his mind – and searched through it thoroughly, leaving nary a figurative stone unturned. Although methodical, his method was slow, and it took him nearly an hour before he found the first star of the Eternal Flame; Aurum, the brightest star in the constellation.
Kaion’s mind flooded with the stories Monochrome had told him when he was younger – tales of the dual destructive and nurturing nature of flame and tales of its deity. He never really liked Infernus. It made him wonder how fire could be good for the earth when Infernus was always such an asshole to everything.
Kaion huffed and returned his mind to the present and continued with his task. He found many familiar star formations – though he forgot the names of most of them. He even called one the Mandala. Towards the end of the night, however, he noted something peculiar. It was a ring of stars in the sky. And the amazing part was that he had never seen any like it. Previously, there were no stars in that location, so that meant that Astra had indeed created new stars like Lorix had stated.
Kaion felt giddy with excitement. He had found something! A new set of stars! One that Lorix and his colleagues had probably already found the pessimistic part of his brain added. He wouldn’t let that bother him and noted down the location of the stars in the sky and how they formed a circle. In his notes, he called it the Sky Circle. A formal name could even be Circulus Caelorum! He jotted the name down, circled it, and placed question marks around the circle.
By the time morning came, Kaion’s journal was filled with his observations but the only three that stood out were the Eternal Flame, the Mandala, and the Sky Circle. He walked back to where he had left Lorix and pondered the night in its whole. Despite his angst in the beginning – he cringed when he called it that – he thoroughly enjoyed stargazing. It was peaceful and calming.
As he quietly dropped his notes off with Lorix – making sure that he had signed the notebook so that it was known that they were his musings – Kaion pondered what his night would have been like had he not come to this event. ‘Boring.’ His mind supplied. He huffed in amusement before he left Lorix behind and began his walk home.
‘Thank you Lorix. I can’t say how much I appreciated the chance to do this.’
Word Count: 838
