WARNING! THIS ORIGINAL STORY IS THE SEQUEL TO STARS ABOVE! I HIGHLY SUGGEST READING STARS ABOVE FIRST! Link to Stars Above https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/51184904/
Ten years. It sounds impossible, like a story I made up as a child and told so many times it became real. I’m sixteen now, at least in years, though sometimes I feel a hundred, and sometimes I feel like I never grew up at all. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re reborn—when you die a mortal and wake up as something else. Not quite a goddess, not quite a girl. Just Laelynn. A decade since the fire, since the world shattered and then rebuilt itself around me. I remember the smoke, the pain, the way Ying’s arms felt around me—anchor, shield, promise. I remember dying. I remember waking again, not quite mortal, not quite goddess, but something new and trembling in between. Now I’m sixteen, or so the others say. Sometimes I still feel like the girl hiding in the roots of the old oak, clutching a tin box of treasures and secrets. Sometimes, when the sun rises over Vildora, I almost believe I belong here. The courtyard is alive with clashing swords and laughter, but I keep to the edge, working through drills until my arms ache and sweat slicks my skin. I like the ache. It reminds me I’m real, that being here isn’t just a dream. I move through it all, golden hair sticking to my cheeks, sparring with the wooden dummy until my arms ache and my heart pounds with something like hope. Ying calls to me—my name, her voice bright and clear—and I run to her without thinking. In her embrace, I am safe again. I’m not a lost child nor a queen yet. I’m just Laelynn—Goldy, as she calls me. I can breathe. For a moment, everything is simple. She holds me tight, and I remember that I’m safe, that I’m loved. Even if I’m different. Even if I sometimes wonder whether I belong here. Varýtita’s watching us, her eyes soft for once. Sometimes I wonder what she sees when she looks at me: a curiosity, a survivor, maybe even a daughter. Ying and Varýtita tease each other, and I roll my eyes, pretending I’m embarrassed, but really I’m grateful. Their love is something solid, something gravity-true. It’s the only thing in Vildora that never shifts or fades. But peace never lasts here. Not really. Yang bursts into the courtyard, breathless, panic shivering in his voice. My heart jumps. He tells us—something’s alive beneath Ebony Waterfall. Not something. Someone. Trapped in stone, not quite dead. The world tilts. I glance at Ying, and I see the same dread in her eyes. The same question. What did we miss? We run, the three of us, chasing after answers and dreading what we might find. I wonder if the others feel it too—the sense that we’re always on the edge of belonging, always one heartbeat away from losing everything again. I promise myself: whatever waits in the dark, I won’t let it take this life from me. Not again.
