There's something so beautiful about the stars.
They're these bright, fierce balls of fire. But they're forgiving. They're kind, and they help the moon light up our sky at night.
There's something so peaceful about the stars.
They lay and they rest high up for us to see. They befall love and warmth on the Earth below. They do what the sun can't and the moon struggles with. Every star is a Philokalist. Every star is a Raconteur. Every star has a beautiful story to tell. Every star is careful and gentle.
Every star is unique.
Every star has another star they watch. One they wish they were closer to.
If they're lucky, they'll be set on a collision path with the star in question.
Some stars fall in love with other things. It is said that one star fell in love with a human, whom he watched grow and die. It has been ten thousand years, and he is said to still be grieving. There is a star that fell in love with Earth's moon, only to find that the Moon too found an interest in him.
Nobody's heard of the system star that fell in love with a single star with planets, though.
The star Regulus is a four-star system. It is held together, and if it were to spin at any other speed, it wouldn't be able to hold itself together.
Regulus has no planets to accompany it, unlike the star it fell in love with. The star he fell in love with had 10 planets to orbit it, albeit two of them, Pluto and Charon, orbit each other. The star he fell in love with is 4.603 billion years old, which leaves it anywhere between 4.553 billion to 3.603 billion years older than Regulus.
The star Regulus fell in love with is a sun.
The humans call it "The Sun," and they say… well, they don't praise it at all.
Regulus thinks it deserves to be praised.
It brings so much warmth to everything and lights up so much.
It deserves so much love, yet gets none.
Regulus thinks he could love the Sun just right. Or maybe he's delusional.
Regulus thinks, if the Sun was a human, they'd have brown skin and freckles. They'd be one of the most loving people you've ever met. They'd be friendly and they'd be popular.
Regulus would give up eternity as a star if the Sun was a human.
Regulus has been a star for longer than humans, as a "species"— that's what they call it, has existed.
He's seen the dawn of man, he's seen every war that's ever happened, and he's seen the devastating hurricanes and the raging storms.
Regulus knows what year the humans think it is, Regulus knows how old most humans live to be — and it pales in comparison to the stars. To him.
Regulus has been hopelessly in love with the Sun since he first saw them.
He wishes so deeply to know the Sun's name, to know anything about the Sun. To know if they're really that friendly.
He hopes the Sun has yet to find a star or something else to fall in love with. Anything that isn't Regulus.
Humans don't think the stars have thoughts.
They think the stars are mindless fireballs. They think they're the only things out there with a conscience.
It's boring being alive for billions of years.
This is why most stars fall in love. It makes it more bearable.
Regulus wonders what happens if the stars in love say they want to be with each other.
They can't do the things humans do. Humans kiss, and humans do a lot of other things. The stars can only hope they one day collide. That's the closest they'll ever be—in death.
Regulus has never met a star with a love story. He's never met a star that has their own story. He wonders what that means, sometimes.
Regulus has been trying to reach out to the Sun. He doesn't know how.
✧ ೃ༄
James has tried learning everything about his planets and their moons. There's one that the humans call Venus, but her name is Marlene. The one the humans call Mars, her name is Lily. The one they call Mercury, her name is Mary. The one they call Earth, his name is Peter. His moon is named Remus, and he's in love with a star called Sirius. They've concluded together that he and Sirius are into each other.
The one they call Jupiter is named Barty, and Saturn is named Pandora. Neptune is named Evan, and Uranus is Dorcas.
When James was younger, he fell in love with a flower.
A species on Earth, the Lily. He had fallen in love with the flower, but he quickly found it would never love him back.
He had moved on, and since had found himself longing for a star.
He didn't know the star's name, he knew nothing about it, so he called it, "Star,"
Star was beautiful. James could watch them for hours. Star was younger than James by quite a bit, and sometimes it seemed to be getting closer by the day.
James thinks Star would look like a person with pale white skin and black hair if they were a human. They'd be kind, or sarcastic, James doesn't know.
He spends his free time wondering if Star thinks about him too.
He doesn't think the humans pay any attention to Star.
They barely recognize Star's existence.
James thinks Star should be praised. They should be loved. James knows Star has been around long enough to see the dawn of man. James has been around long enough to see the birth of what humans call a solar system. He saw when Earth looked a bit like the moon. He watched when Theia hit Earth. Peter tells him that hurt.
They're both glad it caused Remus, though. It caused the moon. Theia caused life.
When James first saw Star, he had just reached his 4 billion-year-old time. Star was so new, James was intrigued.
That intrigue turned to love as James couldn't look away.
James wants to talk to Star. He'd been considering asking Remus if it was worth talking to a star 79 light years away. Sirius, the star Remus is in love with, is only 8.6 light years away.
He's infinitely closer.
Remus told him to go for it. Shoot for the stars. It's a human saying. They say, "Shoot for the moon,” they say. “Maybe you'll land among the stars."
After a day, James reached out to Star. He kept it simple, just a "Hi,"
Star reached back. "Hello,"
And just like that, they were talking.
✧ ೃ༄
The Sun reached out to Regulus. He was surprised, but also slightly nervous at how smitten he was with this star.
"I take time to learn things about all my planets," the Sun tells him. "The Earth, Peter, is friendly and timid. His moon, Remus, is strong and kind. Remus' lover is a star, just like you and I," the Sun tells him. "Remus tells me his name is Sirius. He's dramatic and funny."
The Sun pauses. "What about you, Star, who are you?"
Regulus answers. "I'm Regulus, I'm a system of stars, really, but we all share one conscience."
The Sun makes a noise. "I've never spoken to a system before,"
Regulus thinks, if he had lips like a human, he would be smiling.
"I've never spoken to a star before, I've never spoken to anything,"
Regulus thinks, if they had lips like a human, they would be frowning.
"That's a shame. I'm James, by the way. I've been talking to my planets since they were stable enough to talk. So, Regulus, do you have a star you watch?"
Regulus is taken aback. "I—yes, don't we all?" He asks.
He's sure James would be nodding if he was a human.
"Yeah, most of us do. Which star do you watch?"
Regulus pauses and thinks over what he's going to say.
"You,"
James doesn't respond for so long Regulus starts to worry.
"Sorry it took me so long, I was freaking out," James says. "I've been watching you for 603 million years, Regulus. Ever since I saw you."
Regulus wasn't expecting that. "I've watched you since I could see,"
They talk for days, for months, for years.
Getting to know each other.
James introduces Regulus to his friends, too.
Regulus is less lonely than he ever has been in his whole life.
He befriends Barty, Pandora, Evan, and Dorcas the easiest. The rest are an acquired taste.
James says Peter is getting sick.
He can't talk for long without coughing. They think it's the humans.
Regulus notices something James doesn't.
They're getting closer.
And closer.
And closer.
✧ ೃ༄
James and Regulus collided.
It all went black on impact.
When Regulus could see again, he could've fainted.
He was human.
Regulus is human.
When he looks up, he sees someone staring back at him.
A boy with brown skin, brown hair, and freckles. "I—" Regulus says.
"Regulus," James whispers. "You're just how I imagined you'd look,"
Regulus finds himself grinning from ear to ear. "You look just how I imagined you, too, it's so weird being this small," he says. "I'm so used to taking up loads of space,"
James looks breathless.
Like all the air is gone from the universe.
"You're beautiful," James whispers. "You're so beautiful,"
Regulus notices their clothes.
They're not in regular people's clothes. They're in the middle of a field in silk sheets.
James is looking at him. Awestruck. Lovestruck.
James crosses the distance between them in seconds, grabs Regulus' face, pulls him close and kisses the hell out of him.
Regulus is this close to just dying again.
This feeling—feeling this loved, beats living as one star.
It beats anything Regulus has ever felt.
Regulus feels like he's flying.
Like he's on top of the world.
They felt more eternal in that moment than they ever had as stars.
As stars, they had more space; more capacity to love. They didn’t just fall in love; they became it. They were so full of love that all they could do was let it consume every aspect of their being.
All they wanted to do was watch their love forever. Watch the being they love blossom and spread with the movement of ivy through whatever soul they had. To let the spirit and soul of their love clutch onto them.
To become love was to be so consumed by it that it was all you could think about.
As a human, love is much more complex. There are much more bumps and dips, and instead of a pure infatuation, love as a human took the form of a hedge maze with a golden trophy in the middle.
But when you reached the golden trophy in the middle, it turned everything into your favourite jewels. Green grass turned into jade. Red roses turned to ruby. Everything shone so brightly that most people held on to that trophy for dear life.
The only ones who kept it were the ones who held it in a loose grip by their hip.
Regulus remembers the feeling of James latching onto his heart, sinking his teeth into Regulus’ soul.
James remembers the feeling of Regulus taking his heart and putting it in a cage, securing his soul with a lock and key.
Life as a human is different. They knew what to do since both of them had been watching the world for some time—but it was weird hearing people say the names of the planets. It was weird knowing the planet they were walking on was sentient.
Regulus thinks James is the most beautiful person he has ever seen.
James thinks the same of him.
James finds he has a last name—Potter. Something he never knew.
Regulus thinks he looks like he was carved out of stars, with his sculptures being the gods. James Potter looks like he was made by the gods.
Humans had so many more emotions than stars. They could feel so many more things—and while the stars were mostly content, humans only want more. They get and they get, and all they want is more.
It starts to creep into their lives, and by the time life begins its course they realize that they took how long they lived for granted. But at the same time, they’d rather live a short life together than a long life apart.
James would throw himself on a blade if he thought Regulus to be dead.
They find a new emotion neither of them had felt either—lust.
It’s a feeling of need, almost, and it’s something that the stars never feel because the stars cannot touch—and the pure bliss of a collision is enough to fulfil a single star through its human life.
But he and James were so in love it hurt to keep it all in them, and eventually as the human emotions began to creep up on them, they found themselves in a position where the only thing they wanted to do was be as physically connected as possible.
Neither of them realised how intimate it would feel. To be that close to another person. They hadn’t thought it would feel the way it did.
For the time, they were one. Their bodies moved to complement the other, they moved as one.
They had the feeling of bliss, of white, hit them with so much intensity that they both were all sensations.
All feeling.
It was wondrous.
James felt on top of the world, he felt magnificent. Regulus felt as if it was his life’s purpose to be held gently on James’ hip. Like it was his purpose to love James.
Because it was.