Removing one arm from beneath her head she lifted it straight up and pointed at the first pattern her father had shown her almost two decades ago. “That one right there is the bow of Andruil, the Goddess of the Hunt, strung and ready to ward off evil. Andruil was my father’s patron and she was the one who created the code by which we were meant to live. Not entirely sure I follow it all that well but she is my favorite constellation.” Shifting her arm over to the left she eagerly pointed to another constellation.
“That there is the graceful Halla, our most noble companion.” Waving her hand around she traced the lines to paint a picture of the creature hidden midst the stars. “You can make out the horns there and then down the back and flank. And there you have the Halla.” Against her will a smirk spread across her lips and she peered over at Pavak. “I bet you can’t become one of those, can you?” Laughing lightly she turned away from him and put all of her attention on finding the next constellation to show him.
Enraptured in the night sky her voice became no more than a whisper and her body finally relaxed fully as she continued to point out the patterns her father had taught her. Lost in her memories of the distant past she lay there as if in trance. When her voice started to grow hoarse she rolled over to face Pavak, eyes gentle and face smiling. “My father told me that the whole of our past was hanging up there, that if we knew how we to read the skies we could know all there was to know about our people. He never finished teaching me but I kept trying to read the them and on some nights I can see bits of home above me that I never noticed before.”
Breath catching she swallowed down the lump in her throat and struggled to continue. “Sometimes -- even when we are far from home, even when we can’t return -- sometimes our home follows us. It appears before us when we least expect it, never really gone, no matter how far away. Funny the things you can never truly leave behind.” Voice fading away in the darkness she lay peacefully, Pavak on one side of her and the ghost of her father and the memories of the past on the other, the silence and the presence of the man next to her no longer awkward or entirely unwelcome.
Feeling sleep weighing down her lashes she struggled to keep her eyes open longer. She wasn’t ready to sleep yet; she wanted this feeling of peace to last just a little bit longer. It had been such a long time since she had felt this relaxed, this content and she wasn’t ready for it to end, she wasn’t ready for daylight to come and take it all away. Biting back a yawn she curled into a small ball, one hand tucked underneath her head, and focused her bleary eyes on the man next to her. “You might not have stories for the stars but I am sure you need to know some. Tell me one. Tell me your favorite story. Please?”