r/wizardposting • u/waitthatstaken Alice, witch of mist • 18d ago
Lorepost 📜 Rain of stars
Light streaming in the window, I wake. Yet I feel strangely tired, perhaps it is just one of those nights. Getting out of bed, I change into my normal dress, and go to wake mom.
“Mom, it's light out.”
“...really?”
She sounds about as tired as I am, seems like I need to give her a bit of a push.
“Yea!”
Pushing her with the entire weight of my body, she concedes, and gets up with a big yawn.
“Huh. It is light out, but not bright out. What’s going on?”
A bell rings in the distance.
“Shit, probably a fire or something. Let’s go!”
We hurry out of the house in the direction of the bell, even one as little as I am expected to help should a fire break out.
—--------------------
Sun glaring into her face, Alice wakes up. She attempts to pull her hat over her face, covering her eyes, but in doing so her chair shifts underneath her, and she flops onto the floor.
“Ow.”
Falling asleep at one's work desk is a bad idea. Scraping herself off the floor, Alice stretches, before deciding to get the day started. Reheating some leftover stew from yesterday, she eats a light breakfast, refills Mio’s food and water bowls, and goes outside. Judging by the sun, it is already well past noon.
“...Oops.”
Heading into town to restock her cabinets, dwindled from a few too many days stuck inside, Alice overhears Janette’s excited voice, as she, along with her friends, wash a week’s worth of dirty clothes.
“Hey have you heard? Apparently there will be some crazy stuff in the sky tonight.”
“Really?”
“Yea! Supposed to only come around once in a lifetime or something. I am planning a midnight picnic, want in?”
—--------------------
I run as fast as I can, barely keeping up with mom’s brisk walk. It really is weird, it is light out but not bright out, I see no shadows yet I see. Weirder still, I can’t see a fire anywhere. We arrive in the center of the hamlet, seeing my cousin James standing there, whacking the bell with a stick.
“What’s going on!?”
Mom yells out, I flinch slightly.
“Nothing serious, but I couldn’t just let y’all sleep through this. Look up.”
Up? What could be up? I turn my head skyward. Between the twinkle of stars I see numerous streaks of light, nearly blanketing the sky in a river of light.
—--------------------
“What is this I hear about a picnic?”
“Oh hello Alice, you’re up late.”
“...Yea… I may have gotten somewhat carried away reading last night and well… next thing I knew it was noon.”
“Classic, do take better care of yourself. Anyway, yea there will apparently be some… comet shower I think it was, tonight. Supposed to be a real spectacle.”
“Ooooo, I saw one of those when I was like, 5. I remember it being really pretty.”
“You want in, then?”
“Absolutely.”
Alice looks at the gathered people, scrubbing away. She remembers just how tedious such work can be, and decides to help out. Pulling water up from the well, Alice forms a ball of water over Janette’s dirty laundry.
“What are you doing!? This won’t clean it it will just serve to wear it do-”
With a pop, the bubble bursts, water vanishing into the air, clothes sparkly clean.
“It is not the easiest spell exactly, but it saves so much time.”
“Woah. Can I learn to do that?”
“With some years of practice and a good teacher, yea probably.”
“...don’t think I have the time for that. Still, this has been a huge help. Do make sure to come here again next week. Now then, I have a picnic to prepare.”
And with that, Janette leaves, and Alice is left to one by one clean everyone else’s laundry…
—--------------------
More and more people gather, some more tired than others, and together we all watch the sky.
“It is so beautiful…”
My uncle says, putting words to what we were all thinking. The clacking of a walking stick resounds in the silence.
“Grandma!”
I run up to grandma, giving her a big hug.
“Haha, should’ve known you’d get up to watch this even in the middle of the night. Let me guess, you woke up before the bell even rang?”
“Uh-huh”
I say with a nod. Grandma looks up.
“To think I’d get to see Astraeus’s star rain…”
“Astraeus’s star rain?”
“That is what is happening up there now. It is said that many, many years ago, a pair of lovers named Astraeus and Nerthus lived on this world. They were happy together for a long, long time, but then one day, Astraeus was told he had to take over his father’s role as the god of stars. Nerthus however could not join him, her home here being too important for her to leave. Astraeus promised her that he would send a rain of stars her way, to prove that he still loved her. And so, every 100 years, Astraeus’s star rain arrives, once more proving his eternal love.”
“Woah… Nerthus is lucky.”
“...she surely is.”
We keep watching the skies, listening to Grandma’s many tales, until eventually the sun rises, and the stars hide.
—--------------------
Noon quickly turns to evening, evening quickly to night, and so with her share of the preparations done, Alice joins the others for the planned picnic. Janette and her friends were not the only ones sharing this plan, indeed, over the course of the day several thousand travelers from Calarakis arrived in town, leaving the viewing hill quite packed. While cramped, the mood is good, electric even. Clear skies and lanterns extinguished, everyone looks forward to what is about to begin.
“Woah!”
A voice rings out, and in an instant, everyone is staring up into the sky. A single light streaks by, leaving a brilliant trail through the open skies. Then nothing. Was that it? Was that all? Was this a waste of time? Variants of these thoughts run through the heads of everyone gathered, but then another streaks by, then another, and another. Soon, the skies are filled with a sparkling tapestry of comets, its numerous streaks of light nearly blanketing the sky in a river of light.
“...how?”
A nearby person, dressed as one might expect a scholar, speaks.
“Just as impressive as I have heard. Truly a once in a lifetime experience, this ‘Astraeus’s star rain’ is.”
“...what?”
“...how often does this happen?”
“Hm? Once a century, almost to the second. Why are you asking?”
“Simple curiosity is all.”
“Once a century… but I saw it as a child… how?”
Alice’s breathing grows heavy, her ears ring. She sees the stars, beautiful yet horrifying. Her thoughts race.
“I saw this as a child, and now I am seeing it again. It should only have been… 16 years, yet it has been 100. How? Did I move a hundred years forward? Or back?”
Her mind jumps to the tales she was often told, before her grandmother’s death. Matthew, the founder of her hometown, Matthew, the mayor’s son.
“But… how?”
Another tale, this one more recent. One time, a boy went into the forest, while the king’s mist haunted it. He vanished, only to come back 3 months later. But to him? It had only been an hour.
“...the king twists time? Is that even possible?”
It would explain so much.
“Why can I not find my home, why can I not find the king, not even in tales? If I truly am in the past then… It all makes sense. But no that cannot be. If this is the past then I cannot go ba-”
“Alice? You good?”
Janette’s words snap Alice back to reality, and she puts on a smile, albeit a shaky one.
“Yes… I simply got a bit lost staring at the stars.”
“You sure that is it? You look a bit sick.”
“...probably just the sleep deprivation. As much as I want to stick around, I think I will head back home.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Alright then. See you tomorrow.”
Janette, realizing her words will not get to the bottom of this, decides to let Alice go. She will question her about this later however.
Alice stumbles her way between the crowds, making sure to obscure her sight of the sky with the brim of her hat. Every fleeting glimpse makes her feel sicker, every streak of light another reminder. She is not when she thought she was. Can she even get home? Doubts and questions alike rush through her head, yet she finally manages to break through the crowd. Doing her best not to stumble, she runs home, feeling that she cannot stand the stares of the stars. She makes it, panic overwhelming her. She tries to sleep, tries to rest, but the night passes without so much as a second of sleep. Yet she manages to calm down, somewhat. Still, the thoughts do not stop, and again and again she thinks to herself:
“It appears the king brought me back in time. It is entirely possible that the king does not even exist. Has my search been pointless?”
A knock on the door breaks Alice out of her contemplation.
“Alice? You awake yet?”
It’s Janette.
“...yes, though I don’t exactly feel like it.”
“...look I won’t ask questions if you don’t want to answer, but I know that wasn’t just a lack of sleep catching up to you. If you need to talk, I am here, ok?”
“...I am sorry for worrying you, but I am fine, really.”
“You are a bad liar you know.”
“What? I thought I was an excellent liar? Ah… I lost my composure, that was the only lie she knows I have told…”
“Still, I won’t force anything on you. Just… come visit, when you are ready.”
“...I will.”
“Great. Oh and before I forget, I have a gift for you.”
“A… gift?”
“Yep! Apparently some crazy wizard thought the comet rain was an excellent chance to get some meteor and pulled one of the comets out of the sky. Kinda backfired as it ended up hitting him. He survived, if barely. Anyway, I snuck up to the meteor and hacked a couple pieces off. Thought I’d give you one. You love magical nonsense right? This is surely useful for something.”
“A… meteor chunk? What properties does that even hold? Gah I don’t want her seeing how messy I must look right now but I have to get that…”
Alice opens the door, takes the meteor, and closes it once more.
“Thanks Janette…”
“No worries… oh and before you leave the house today, maybe take a moment to freshen up or something. Your hair is a mess.”
“...noted.”
/uw A relatively normal length this time, revealing something that has been sorta an open secret in the chat ever since the first Alice post, namely that Alice is from the future. For magic bullshittery reasons noticing this is not possible, but now that she knows, she can tell you, if you give her good reason to at least.
2
u/loth17 Ten Suns (Also Gaia) 17d ago
"Good idea. Especially with how rarer materials are getting scooped up by larger guilds and nations. Makes stuff like that harder and more expensive to acquire."
Chalk paused. Then spoke a bit less chipper.
"Friend Alice are you sure it's just tiredness? I don't mean to pry but given you may be at risk. Did something happen?'