Sila

i can feel the thunder that’s breaking in your heart

She hasn't been able to stop thinking of Asariel for some time and the lack of closure from having visited her family does little to aid in what she had hoped would become recovery. Instead, she is reminded of the girl every time she glances up to the see stars and each time she visits her mother in the new den she had requested she take refuge in. It did not do her well, Sila thought, she dwell in the den in which she had shared with Pan. Sila did the same, after all. When her father was given back to the earth, Sila had relocated herslf to the opposite side of the mountain, forcing herself into a new change of pace in order to distract herself. Still, she cannot avoid the stars at night.

But come this night, there is something strange the begins to haunt her peripherals for some time. The stars, she thinks, have come down to visit the forests; never has she watched the forests so keenly at night and yet, with her den now overlooking them, she sees their beauty in the fading light. Their shadows are long and deep and yet, stars twinkle and dart about their trunks and leaves. The trees speak and shuffle in the quiet breeze, the cicadas singing their shrill songs in the distance. For a while, she can only watch from the recluse of her shadows, unsure as to whether she ought to be concerned about the stars of if they are...inviting her forward. For a moment, she cannot help but smile just a little. Is Asariel trying to tell her something?

Eventually she cannot deny them any longer and she slips down the mountain and into the forest; as if drawn towards its heart, she follows the fireflies with an unusuak keenness. She finds herself jogging as they flicker about above her, dancing away and disappearing into the night sky only to reappear yards ahead. Her brows furrow, almost a little playfully, until she is chasing them, a paw lashing out to swat at them as they burst upwards in a flurry. She giggles, almost feeling guilty about it, and yet her laughter is quickly replaced with the more brazen laughter of another. Instantly, her ears flicker up, her mouth opening a little in surprise that she is not alone and it is then that she notices the dark girl sprawled out in the grass.

For a moment, she teeters on the edge of leaving or staying but then, she watches as one of the stars sinks down, seemingly intending to land on the stranger's nose as she gazes up. It is that alone that makes Sila take several tentative steps forward. "They seem to like you," she notes with a timid voice, glancing up as the fireflies seem to buzz around them now, the forest's calmness finally settling back into place.