star
A philosopher once asked, “Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?”
Pointless, really.
“Do the stars gaze back?” Now, that’s a question.
For once in his life, James desperately hoped the answer was no, because he was thoroughly embarrassing himself in front of the love of his life, and he’d rather not have an audience to his humiliation.
“James, you’re a sweet boy. You’re going to make someone very happy one day. I just don’t know if I’m that person,” said Lily. Her words hit him like a punch to the stomach.
“Give me one chance, Lily. One date. That is all I ask for,” said James, pleading with her. When Lily had agreed to let James walk her home, this is not how he envisioned the night going.
“And what if I said I liked someone else?” asked Lily.
“Are you together then?” he questioned, dreading the answer.
“No,” she said, with a slight frown. Then after a pause added, “I don’t know if they feel the same.”
James tried to think of who his mysterious competitor could be. Lily Evans was the smartest, bravest, and most beautiful young woman in the town of Wall, perhaps even all of the British Isles, and if you asked James, perhaps even the world. Practically the whole village was in love with her - all of the boys and many of the girls as well. Yet, Lily had not shown interest in anyone before.
But if they were not yet a couple, then there was still an opportunity to change her mind. James turned to his surroundings for inspiration, floundering for anything he could say to turn this around. They were almost to the crest of the hill, atop which sat Lily’s house. All James could see was the village of Wall spread out behind them and the high granite wall that served as its eastern boundary, for which the town was named. After a moment, the answer arrived from the sky.
In the constellation of Leo, low on the horizon, a star flashed and glittered and fell.
“Lily, look! Did you see that?” exclaimed James, pointing out towards the east.
“A shooting star,” said Lily, with wonder in her voice.
There were two things James desired desperately: to be with his true love and to go on a great adventure. Perhaps that is what prompted him to say,
“Would you consider going on a date with me if I crossed the wall and brought you back that fallen star?”
“You can’t cross the wall. Nobody crosses the wall,” she stated, and she wasn’t exactly wrong. For as long as James could remember, there had been two guards stationed at the wall’s singular gap to prevent anyone from going through. Considering the other side only seemed to contain an overgrown field that gave way to a forest, he did not know why they bothered to guard it. But he would find a way to convince them to let him pass. It was a matter of the heart, after all.
“I’d do it. For you, I’d do anything. Give me a week's time, and it can be your birthday present. If I don’t have the star by then, I will never bother you again,” declared James.
“Okay then,” said Lily, smiling, and on the receiving end of one of Lily’s smiles, James felt like the luckiest man alive.
--
On the other side of the wall, in the land of Fairie, a great manner of beasts and monsters and peoples of this or that place watched transfixed as a blinding light tore through the sky. The light coalesced into a single luminous sphere that grew in its brilliance as it was pulled towards the Earth. Upon their fateful meeting, the tremors were felt for miles, and just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The only remaining evidence that it happened at all was a crater in the center of the woods.
And in that crater laid a young man, his hair as black as the night sky falling in soft ringlets over luminescent, pale skin.
The trees held their breath as the man awoke with a gentle flutter of dark eyelashes, revealing gleaming grey eyes. He whispered a single word like a prayer into the quiet of the night: “Sirius.”