Threads of Starlight

The soft hum of an expensive engine came to a stop outside the sleek apartment building. Cyra parked the car smoothly, turning to Gaela with a knowing look.

“They’ll be talking about this all night,” Cyra murmured.

Gaela chuckled, unbuckling her seatbelt. “That’s the plan.”

Inside the building, they took the private elevator to their penthouse. The moment they stepped in, the familiar stillness of their home greeted them, modern yet warm, filled with the subtle scent of coffee and aged books. A few unfinished sketches rested on Gaela’s desk by the window, while Cyra’s grand piano stood untouched in the corner.

Gaela set down her bag. “How long before the rest get here?”

Cyra checked her watch. “Janus and Mirael should be close. Maia and Stellaire… let’s just hope they don’t get sidetracked.”

Almost on cue, the sound of another car pulling up echoed from outside. Moments later, a knock came at the door.

Gaela opened it to find Janus and Mirael standing there. Janus was holding two coffee cups, which she handed over without a word.

“Peace offering,” she muttered.

Gaela smirked. “Didn’t know we were at war.”

Janus sighed, stepping inside. “You know what I mean.”

Mirael followed, rubbing the back of her neck. “We all felt it. The other night was… different.”

Before anyone could respond, the elevator chimed again. A loud, dramatic voice rang out even before the doors fully opened. “Ohhh, look at this! A secret meeting in the celestial council’s headquarters!” Stellaire stepped inside with a smirk, arms spread wide. “How ominous.”

Maia trailed behind her, carrying a small pastry box. “Relax, we brought food.”

Janus shot Stellaire a glare. “Can you be serious for once?”

Stellaire threw herself onto the couch, stretching her arms over the backrest. “Seriousness is your job. Mine is to make sure we don’t all die from overthinking.”

Cyra cleared her throat, shutting the door once everyone was inside. “Alright, now that we’re all here, let’s talk.”

The room shifted into silence as they settled into their usual spots. Janus and Mirael by the window, Maia and Stellaire on the couch, Cyra leaning against the piano, and Gaela beside her.

Janus exhaled sharply. “We need to talk about them.”

Everyone knew exactly who she meant.

Maia’s gaze darkened slightly. “Aster and Selene.”

Mirael frowned. “They’re remembering too fast.”

“They haven’t remembered yet,” Maia countered. “They’re feeling things. That’s not the same.”

“It’s close enough,” Janus argued. “And if they realize too much before they’re ready—”

“What?” Stellaire cut in, tilting her head. “They combust? They vanish? What’s the worst that could happen, Janus?”

Janus clenched her jaw. “You know the risks.”

“They have to want to find their way back,” Mirael added. “If we interfere too much—”

“Oh, please.” Maia scoffed, crossing her arms. “Like we haven’t already.”

A brief, tense silence. Janus looked away. Mirael shifted, her fingers tightening against her arm. Even Cyra tapped a slow rhythm against the piano’s surface.

Then Cyra spoke, calm and even. “She’s right.”

The room felt heavier with those words.

Cyra leaned forward slightly, voice unwavering. “We’ve all played a part in this. We’ve been nudging them from the very beginning.” Her gaze shifted to Gaela. “You recommended Aster as Selene’s supplier.”

Gaela didn’t deny it. “Because she was the best fit.”

“And Janus, Mirael—you pushed Aster to attend the gala.”

Janus didn’t look away. “She wouldn’t have gone otherwise.”

“And let’s not forget,” Gaela added, glancing at Maia and Stellaire, “who put the idea of a sustainable collection in Selene’s head in the first place.”

Maia only smiled. “Well, someone had to.”

Mirael sighed. “That’s exactly the problem. We’ve already influenced their choices. How can we be sure they’re really falling for each other on their own?”

Stellaire leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands. “You want to believe love is a choice.” Her voice softened slightly. “But what if it’s just them finding their way home?”

The words hung in the air for a long moment.

Then Gaela, quiet until now, finally spoke. “We don’t have to interfere anymore.” Her tone was firm, but there was no anger, only certainty. “We’ve done enough.”

Another silence.

Janus exhaled sharply, rubbing her temple. “So we leave it to fate?”

Cyra nodded. “We let them take over.”

The discussion wasn’t fully settled, not yet. But as the night stretched on, there was one unspoken truth they all understood..

The stars had already begun aligning.

Mornings had begun to follow a quiet rhythm, one that neither of them acknowledged out loud but had undeniably settled into.

Aster arrived at Selene’s studio early, carrying freshly harvested cotton samples and a quiet sense of familiarity she couldn’t explain. She knocked lightly before stepping in, greeted by the scent of fabric, coffee, and something distinctly Selene.

Selene barely glanced up from her sketches. "Took you long enough."

Aster raised a brow. "I’m five minutes early."

Selene hummed in response, gesturing for Aster to come closer. "Here," she said, tapping the papers spread across her desk. "I adjusted the fabric compositions for the final pieces. The blend needs to feel like air but move like water."

Aster leaned over to look, her arm brushing against Selene’s without meaning to. For a second, she forgot how to breathe.

She had seen this before. Not the papers, not the designs, but her. The angle of Selene’s face as she focused. The way her fingers traced invisible lines over the sketches. The warmth of her presence, as if she had always been there.

Aster blinked hard, shaking the thought away.

She must have been staring too long because Selene turned to her, brows slightly furrowed. "What?"

"Nothing." Aster straightened, clearing her throat. "The samples match what you need. I’ll bring the rest by next week."

Selene nodded, but there was something unreadable in her gaze, something that lingered.

Later that day, it was Aster’s turn to be caught off guard.

Selene showed up at Aster’s farm unexpectedly, dressed far too elegantly for the rustic setting.

"You didn’t tell me you’d visit," Aster said, surprised.

Selene lifted a brow. "Do I need an invitation?"

"No, but…" Aster scratched the back of her head. "You’re wearing white."

Selene looked down at her pristine outfit. "So?"

Aster gestured vaguely. "So, this is a farm."

Selene only smirked. "Then I’ll consider it a challenge."

Aster didn’t argue, but she found herself watching Selene more than usual. The way the sunlight tangled in her hair, the way she moved through the fields like she belonged there.

And for a brief, inexplicable moment, Aster thought, she does.

Selene, however, was having thoughts of her own.

Watching Aster interact with the workers, speaking in easy, grounded tones, made something clench in her chest. It wasn’t just admiration. It wasn’t just fondness. It was something more—something sharp and possessive, something that made her want to pull Aster away from the world and keep her to herself.

She didn’t understand it, and that frustrated her.

"I want to see the dyeing process," Selene said, more of a demand than a request.

Aster blinked at her, then shrugged. "Alright."

She led Selene deeper into the farm, explaining the intricate process of naturally dyeing fabrics. But even as she spoke, her mind wandered back to that nagging familiarity.

Selene, too, felt it. A pull she didn’t have a name for.

The next time Aster saw Selene, it wasn’t at the farm or the studio; it was inside a fitting room.

She hadn’t planned to be there. She had only stopped by to drop off more fabric samples when Maia, with her usual mischievous grin, shoved her inside.

"You're here, might as well help," Maia had said, all but slamming the door shut behind her.

Aster exhaled sharply and turned around, only to freeze.

Selene stood in front of a mirror, adjusting the delicate fabric draped over her frame. It was an unfinished piece, the seams still raw, but it hugged her like it was made for her.

Aster should have looked away. Should have focused on the fabric, the fit, anything but the woman wearing it.

But she didn’t.

Because for a second—just a fleeting second—she saw her in something else.

Not this soft, flowing material, but layers of celestial silk. Not this boutique fitting room, but a sky filled with endless stars.

The vision was gone before she could grasp it, slipping through her mind like sand through her fingers.

Selene turned, catching Aster’s gaze in the mirror. "Well?"

Aster swallowed. "It… fits."

Selene’s lips curved, but her eyes lingered on Aster’s reflection.

Something about the way Aster had looked at her made her feel like she had been seen before.

Aster didn’t notice the way Selene’s mood shifted whenever they were in public.

She had no idea why, but something unsettled Selene every time she saw Aster talking to someone else. It was irrational. It was ridiculous. And yet, when they stopped by a coffee shop one afternoon, Selene to take a break and Aster to grab something before heading back to the farm, Selene found herself watching.

Aster was just chatting with the barista, smiling politely, nodding at something he said. Nothing unusual. But something sharp and unfamiliar twisted in Selene’s chest.

The feeling stayed as they took a seat by the window, and Selene, suddenly restless, leaned forward.

"Are you always this friendly?"

Aster blinked. "What?"

Selene stirred her coffee absentmindedly. "You talk to people too easily."

Aster raised a brow. "That’s… not a bad thing?"

Selene clicked her tongue but didn’t say anything else. She didn’t know how to explain it, this strange, unspoken desire to keep Aster’s attention on her.

She wanted Aster to look at her the way she had looked at that barista. No—the way Aster sometimes looked at her when she thought no one was watching.

And that thought startled her more than she cared to admit.

Somewhere, under the same sky...

Aster lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Selene sat in her studio, unable to focus.

Neither of them knew why they felt so unsettled.

Neither of them knew that, in just a few hours, they would dream.

And that the dreams would start to feel real.

The first thing Aster felt was wind.

It rushed past her, warm and familiar, carrying the scent of something she should have recognized but didn’t.

Then, she felt the grass beneath her hands. Tall, swaying stalks, glowing faintly under a star-drenched sky.

The meadow where she sat stretched endlessly, bathed in celestial light, the air thick with something unnameable. Nostalgia. Longing. An ache too deep to place.

And in front of her,

A woman stood with her back turned.

Her robes shimmered like woven starlight, the fabric shifting with the breeze, catching the glow of constellations above.

Aster’s breath stilled. She knew this woman.

Her pulse quickened, fingers curling into the grass. She had seen her before. Held her before.

But when? Where?

The woman turned, just slightly—just enough for the faintest glint of silver to catch the light. A bracelet, delicate and familiar, hanging loosely around her wrist. The charms swayed, whispering secrets Aster couldn’t quite hear.

Aster reached out.

She had to see her face. She had to know. But the wind roared, howling like a warning.

The world dissolved into white.

Aster woke with a sharp inhale, chest rising and falling in uneven breaths.

The remnants of the dream clung to her like mist, fading, but not gone.

Her fingers were curled, still reaching for something—or someone. And as she sat up, shaking off the weight of sleep, a strange pressure lingered on her wrist.

Cold. Light. Like phantom metal pressing against her skin.

Her gaze dropped, half expecting to find something there.

But there was nothing.

And yet… it felt like something should have been.

Selene found herself seated at a loom.

Before her stretched an endless expanse of fabric, threads of gold shimmering under the flickering glow of candlelight. They wove together like constellations stitched into the night—delicate, intricate, and eternal.

Her hands moved instinctively, as if she had done this for centuries. The motions were familiar, effortless.

Until they weren’t.

The threads slipped.

Again. And again.

Each time she tried to weave them into place, they unraveled beneath her fingertips, dissolving into nothingness.

A shadow fell across her work.

Selene looked up, and her breath caught.

A figure stood at the edge of the light, their form blurred by distance, veiled in something deeper than darkness. Yet their presence sent a warmth flooding through her, a heat that curled in her chest and settled in her bones.

"Don’t stop."

The voice was deep. Steady. Achingly familiar.

Selene’s hands trembled. “Why won’t the threads stay?”

The figure stepped closer, their outline sharpening though still just beyond reach. “Because you haven’t found the right one yet.”

Something inside her ached.

She reached forward. And the loom vanished. The golden threads slipped through her fingers like falling stars, disappearing into the void.

For a single, fleeting second, just before the dream shattered, she felt something.

Not fabric. Not thread.

A hand.

Selene jolted awake, breathless.

Her hands clenched the sheets, fingers curled around an absence she couldn’t explain.

The warmth against her palm lingered. A ghost of something real.

She slowly uncurled her fingers, trying to grasp the sensation again, but it was already slipping away.

Only the phantom warmth remained.

The morning after, Aster and Selene found themselves restless.

Selene’s fingers twitched whenever she touched fabric that day, as if searching for a texture she couldn’t name.

Aster found herself absentmindedly tracing her wrist, pressing into the skin, expecting, hoping, to feel something cool and metallic beneath her fingertips.

Neither of them knew why.

But their friends noticed.

At Maia and Stellaire’s condo, the usual hum of energy felt subdued.

The place was as vibrant as ever, warm, sleek, and effortlessly curated for the camera. A ring light stood in one corner, a microphone set up on the marble kitchen counter. Shelves were lined with carefully arranged books, aesthetic decor, and an assortment of brand PR packages waiting to be unboxed. The neon sign near the lounge area glowed softly: "Stay Cosmic."

But tonight, no one was filming. No one was talking into a mic.

Because tonight, something bigger was happening.

Mirael let out a slow breath, running a hand down her face. “They’re dreaming.”

A pause.

Then, Janus, seated on the edge of the couch, exhaled sharply. “I knew it was coming, but this is too soon.”

“Too soon?” Maia echoed, leaning against the counter. She lifted a brow, lips curling slightly. “It’s already happening.”

“They don’t understand what they’re seeing yet,” Gaela said, her voice measured. She sat near the window, fingers tracing absent patterns on the rim of her mug. “They’re remembering in fragments, not as a whole.”

Cyra, ever quiet, finally spoke. “Then the question is… do we let them keep remembering?”

A beat of silence.

Stellaire, sprawled across the couch, flipped through her phone before tossing it aside. “Funny how we’re still pretending we have a say in this,” she mused. “They’re slipping into it whether we want them to or not.”

No one disagreed.

Janus leaned forward, fingers steepled. “We might not have a choice.”

Because somewhere in the city, under the same sky, Aster and Selene were already starting to look at each other differently.

The city pulsed with life, but Aster and Selene had found their own quiet rhythm.

Days passed in a blur of work, scattered between fittings, fabric sourcing, and late afternoon meetings. What started as mere business interactions had turned into something else, something neither of them could quite explain.

Aster caught herself lingering. Watching.

Why do I feel like I’ve loved her before?

It wasn’t just attraction. It wasn’t just admiration. It was something deeper, something buried beneath the surface of her own understanding.

She found herself memorizing the way Selene pushed her hair behind her ear when she was deep in thought. The way she traced invisible patterns on her notebook when distracted. The way her voice softened, almost unconsciously, whenever she spoke to Aster.

Meanwhile, Selene was restless.

The more time she spent with Aster, the harder it became to ignore the feeling growing in her chest. She didn’t just want to be near Aster—she needed to be.

And it was terrifying.

One evening, alone in her studio, Selene sat at her drafting table, sketching absentmindedly. She wasn’t designing, not really. Just letting the pencil glide across the page, following instinct rather than intention.

When she pulled back to look, her breath caught.

She had drawn a figure, a silhouette formed from constellations, the delicate strokes resembling a person standing beneath a starry sky.

And somehow, without meaning to… she had drawn Aster.

Selene stared at the page, her heart hammering in her chest.

Why did it feel like she had drawn this before? Like she had seen this before? Like she had known Aster before?

Somewhere across the city, under the same sky, Aster stood by her window, looking up at the stars.

And wondering why they felt like a promise.

The rooftop air was crisp, a quiet contrast to the lively hum of the city below.

Selene had been talking about her upcoming designs, about the way constellations had been creeping into her sketches without her realizing.

Aster had listened. She always did.

But tonight, something felt different.

It wasn’t just Selene’s words that held her in place. It was the way her lips curled around them, the way her eyes flickered in the dim rooftop lights. It was the way something inside Aster shifted—like recognition, like déjà vu, like something waking up.

Selene must have felt it too. Because she had gone quiet. Her gaze, warm and searching, lingered just a second too long.

Aster’s breath caught. The space between them grew smaller, not because they moved, but because the pull between them had.

Selene took a step closer. So did Aster. Her fingers twitched at her side, aching to reach.

Then—

Blackout.

The rooftop lights flickered once, twice then nothing.

Silence swallowed the world, but it wasn’t just the absence of electricity. It was deeper. Like the city itself had held its breath.

Aster’s chest tightened, the darkness pressing against her senses. Then, a single pulse of light.

Fast. Blinding. Otherworldly.

And in that flicker, Selene saw. Not just herself, but something else.

Someone else.

A woman draped in celestial robes, golden embroidery laced with the night itself. Her hands reaching—reaching for Aster.

And Aster, not as she was now, but as something greater.

Armor kissed with the glow of distant galaxies. Eyes burning with familiarity. A presence that unraveled something inside her.

Then—darkness again.

And the world snapped back. The rooftop. The city below. The distant hum of car horns.

The blackout had lasted no more than five seconds. But Selene felt it in her bones, a lingering ache, an afterimage of something too vast to grasp.

Aster’s voice broke the silence, steady yet unsure.

“...Selene?”

Selene was still staring, her lips slightly parted.

She saw her.

She saw Aster.

But not as they were.

The rooftop lights hummed back to life, as if nothing had happened.

Selene exhaled, slow and measured, willing herself to speak, to say something, anything.

But instead, she stepped back. Just an inch. Just enough.

Aster blinked, confused at first, then understanding.

Whatever that had been—it wasn’t meant to happen. Not yet.

Neither of them spoke about it.

And as they left the rooftop, the stars, steady and eternal, flickered once more.

Elsewhere, their friends felt it too.

Janus looked up from her desk, fingers hovering over her keyboard as her screen glitched. AI-generated crop reports flickered—the wrong constellations flashing in place of numbers before resetting.

Mirael blinked at her laptop, her travel documentary momentarily freezing, but the image on the screen wasn’t from Earth. A sky she had never seen before. A sky she had almost forgotten.

Cyra’s fingers stilled on the piano keys. A sudden hush settled over the studio as if the air itself was listening. The last note she played lingered longer than it should have, stretching into something unearthly.

Gaela turned toward a painting in her gallery, her pulse skipping. For a fraction of a second, a shadow flickered against the canvas. Not just a trick of the light. A presence. A memory.

Maia frowned at her phone, her live blog stream cut out. Exactly five seconds of silence. Five seconds of nothingness.

Stellaire cursed as the audio on her podcast feed glitched. A sharp, static hum distorted her voice, warping into something that almost sounded like a whisper before clearing up.

Different places. Different moments.

But all of them felt it.

A shift.

Something waking up.

Something inevitable.

Somewhere beyond human reach, the stars flickered.

And then—aligned.